The Things We Bury

by Kaleb Schad

  “Think on it. We can talk about it more tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Daveon said.

  “At the Stop.”

  “Might be mighty quiet tonight. Most folk I talked to said they were leaving after Market.”

  “Hell, there’s another Market Day tomorrow,” Malic said, chuckling. “And I been telling folk to swing through the Stop before they do anything rash. I’m giving out free drinks tonight to anyone stops by. Going to need my bartender in a little earlier tonight, if you don’t mind.”

  Alysha looked at Daveon, waiting to see what he’d say. He couldn’t tell Malic that they were also running that night, abandoning the king’s orders and his debt. Anyway, that’d be a lie, too. Maybe that’s all he could do. The truth be damned. Push forward through lies.

  A crashing sound and shouting exploded across the square. He looked in time to see a small man—maybe an elf?—running toward Anaz. Was that Lady Isabell and Sunell there? Around them everyone turned toward the noise. Three soldiers in chainmail chased the man and it looked like Anaz might stop the elf, but at the last moment the elf leapt over them. It was a mighty jump, unlike anything Daveon had ever seen. It must have made the lady faint because Anaz had to catch her. And a good thing as the elf would have hit them. Then the crowd was running and Daveon couldn’t see anything.

  Two Fingers shuffled off, his hand on the greatsword strapped across his back.

  After a moment, Malic turned back to them. “That’s the danger, you know. I’ve seen it before. Put a little pressure—even an imagined threat like this wall—to people and they stop caring about their neighbors, start thinking only of themselves.” He looked at all the gloves and satchels laying on the blankets next to them. Across the square, shouting continued as the guards chased the elf between houses and disappeared.

  “Tell you what,” Malic said. “You folk look to be a little slow this morning and I know how you could use the coin. Maybe I could buy these and give them out at the inn over the next year. Gifts and such.”

  Alysha looked from Malic to Daveon, a half grin creeping across her face. “Buy them.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Malic,” Daveon said. “That wall is coming. There won’t be an inn.”

  Malic smirked. “I try not to panic about things like that until I see ‘em with my own eyes.”

  “You’d buy all of them?” Alysha asked, her voice gentle as if she might scare off this tender animal.

  “Sure, why not,” he said, shrugging. He smiled at Alysha, his eyes briefly dropping to her chest, then back to her eyes. “For you good folk.”

  “That would be ama—”

  “No,” Daveon said.

  They both turned to him.

  “I haven’t even made my offer,” Malic said, staring at Daveon. “Two-hundred senits.”

  “Two…” Alysha whispered, covering her mouth with her hands.

  Daveon’s own mouth went dry. Two hundred senits. He’d be halfway to paying off Malic’s loan. Would have a full purse after meeting the king’s contract. Would be able to set up in a new town in comfort.

  He tried to swallow, but couldn’t.

  His wife’s work. Her hard work. Going to Evan Fucking Malic.

  “No,” he whispered.

  Alysha looked at him for a long time, her eyes welling. Without glancing at Malic or saying anything, she walked away, out of the square, towards the river.

  She could be angry at him. He wasn’t going to have his family “saved” by this snake. Not again. He was done running and begging and giving in to everyone everywhere around him on everything all the gods-damned time.

  Malic watched her walk away, then turned back to Daveon and shook his head, grinning. “See you tonight, I guess,” he said.

  He started to walk away, then stopped and turned.

  “I ever tell you about the time I seen a guy gouge out his own eyes? Part of my squad, back in the day. We’d watched a city of three-thousand gnomes burn. Women and children and all. Said he’d rather be blind than ever see something like that again, so he took a nail and hammered it into one eye. Passed out and when he woke did the other one. Damnedest thing I ever did see.”

  He looked at the gloves and satchels laying on the blankets, a slight coating of dust on them, then back to Daveon.

  “You remind me of him,” he said.

  12

  Maybe it was the hypnotizing circle of the stairs as she climbed the tower to her father’s study or maybe it was the long day of fresh air and sunlight, but whatever it was, Isabell couldn’t stop whispering “Abek-cia.” Anaz. Her mind couldn’t leave the strange—cute, but strange—man. Those almond shaped eyes. The almost sculpted shoulders she’d peeked through his tunic. The shaved head. So alien. Exotic. She couldn’t tell for sure how old he was, he looked older than her, but not by much. The way he really looked at her, not afraid or intimidated in any way. Not accusatory or jealous or seeing her father or her title, but just her. Just seeing her. The way those eyes caught everything.

  Caught. Like how he caught her.

  And that strange magic! How had he done that without incantation or gesture? Everyone else might think the elf jumped, but she knew what she saw. That ground had thrust itself upwards like a hand, then smoothed back down. He had done it. She was sure of it.

  You fool! What are you doing? He’s the last thing you need to be thinking about. Some stupid infatuation with some mountain hermit was the last thing she had time for.

  Her father hadn’t yet called the evacuation. All those people, all day, had been waiting for it. She could see the way everyone kept looking south, to the horizon, dreading seeing the wall creeping over it. She had promised they would be out of Fisher Pass by now, so why was her father making a liar out of her? She was

  She felt guilty thinking it, but the bone wall moving was going to help her situation. Her father would be forced to worry about his people and his kingdom, would have to drop this silly notion of marriage. This was her chance. She would ask to be put in charge of the evacuation. She would prove to him why she belonged with the Airim’s Lances, what kind of a leader she could be.

  Yes, it was terrifying to think of the wall coming, but out of every darkness some light could be found. Her mother had told her that.

  But those eyes…and that magic…

  She knocked and eased into her father’s study. He sat at his mahogany desk writing. Two banners of house Blackhand hung on either side, the stag heads larger than a man. It had been a long time since she’d been in here. Something was missing. The circular rug that had been in here for as long as they’d been at this keep.

  Watching him there, she remembered coming in as a child and climbing on his lap. He would let her draw, wasting expensive paper with scribbles, telling stories of dragonkin eating wiblins by the dozens. She thought he even hugged her once.

  That was before her mother died.

  “Isabell,” he said when he finally looked up.

  “Father. You were displeased with the rug?”

  He stared at her, not answering.

  So he was in that kind of a mood. Great. Be gentle. Ease into it. Don’t make it seem like you’re telling him what to do, but let him think it’s his idea. What a great idea, Father! Why, yes, I should lead the evacuation of Fisher Pass. I’d be honored.

  “The sun has set,” she said.

  “Come to tell me what I can see with my own eyes?”

  Gods, I suck at this.

  “I was at market today.”

  “Can’t seem to keep you away from that rabble.”

  “Some call them people.” Stop!

  “That’s the thing with being baron. I get to call them whatever I want.” He folded the paper he’d been writing on and looked at her. “I heard there was some trouble?”

  Why did everything always go sideways when she spoke with her father? He had a knack for knowing where she wanted to take a conversation and making sure she couldn’t get there.
<
br />   “An elven thief stole Mrs. Naima’s purse,” she said.

  “I told Nattic to leave that goat thief hanging. That’s what I get for listening to someone else over myself. Also heard you were in the thick of it.”

  Now, this certainly wasn’t what Isabell had wanted to talk about.

  “No,” she said, as casually as she could. “Not really.”

  “I heard he came straight at you. Somehow jumped over you and some little fella’ selling hides.”

  She walked to his bookshelf. Examined the spines, hiding her face. Act bored. He’ll move on. “Oh. Yeah, I guess he did do that.”

  “Heard the little fellow maybe put his hands on you.”

  Isabell swallowed. She heard a breeze stir the papers on his desk, then silence. Her pulse hammered in her throat. If her father knew Anaz touched her…Anaz’s face flashed before her eyes only it was purple, as if strangled to death. As if hanging in the yard.

  What had her father been told? Who had told him? Sunell wouldn’t have…

  Gods, she wished she’d never met that man. It would have been better…safer…for both of them.

  She had to protect him. “No, father. He didn’t.”

  “I heard wrong?”

  “It all happened so fast.”

  “Easy to get confused, you’re saying?”

  “Easy to get confused.”

  “Because, now more than ever, we must guard ourselves, my daughter. Your honor carries the weight of a kingdom.” He shuffled the papers on his desk, stacking them and setting them to the side. “What do you need? I’m busy.”

  Everything inside of her said to run, to turn and leave and say nothing about the wall or leading the evacuation—certainly not about her marriage or the Airim’s Lances. If he was willing to let the Anaz thing lie, what kind of an idiot would she have to be to stir his wrath on anything else?

  “Everyone has been waiting for you to call the evacuation today.” That kind of idiot, apparently.

  “Everyone…”

  “I guess the king’s messenger stopped at the Sunflower Stop before coming here.”

  “The king thinks me a fool,” her father said. “We’ll need to stay for a little while yet, but will be leaving before the wall arrives.”

  “Wait. Kingdom?” she said.

  “What?”

  “Before. You said my honor carries the weight of the kingdom.”

  “Your marriage to Earl Olisal. You’ll be queen someday soon.”

  “But he’s an earl.”

  “Yes.”

  “That would—if I were to marry him, which I’m not, but if I were, that would make me a countess. Not a queen.”

  “When you marry him, you’ll be countess. And when Fisher Pass is lost to the Wretched and the nobles realize that King Felnis cannot save this kingdom, he will be deposed. Earl Olisal is the clear successor.”

  There are occasionally ideas too big, too bitter, for the mind to swallow in one bite. It took Isabell several seconds before she could speak. When Fisher Pass is lost to the Wretched…He had no intention of calling an evacuation, of saving anyone. He was going to let every man, woman and child in this beautiful little village die. She’d never seen a Wretched, but she’d heard enough stories, been to enough war council meetings with her father and brothers. The things they did, the way they didn’t just kill you, but dissolved your soul completely from Airim’s grasp, there could be no worse way to die. Those who died from the Rot, their bodies falling into pieces, had found mercy by comparison.

  Her father was going to willingly do this to his very own people. And his entire plan hinged on her marrying Earl Olisal.

  She thought she might vomit, bile working its way into her mouth.

  Her father came around the desk and stood in front of her. She barely reached his chin, had to look up at him.

  “You’ve always been the weakest of my children. Maybe it’s because you’re a girl. Your brothers are better at hard choices, but, for whatever reason, Airim has given me you and so I work with what I have. Isabell, listen close. This nation, this family, cannot survive another King Felnis. His father was bad enough, but this fucking whelp will drag us all to hell.”

  “You’re ignoring the order.”

  “Fisher Pass is a small village. A thousand people all told. Maybe less.”

  “You’re going to let the wall take it. Let the Wretched eat everyone here.”

  “The sacrifices we make will save thousands of lives.”

  “But the king’s orders. He’ll tell everyone you disobeyed his messenger.”

  “What messenger?”

  “The one last night.”

  “Do you see a messenger? Nobody here has seen a messenger.”

  “But he…”

  Talking to him was like talking to a waterfall, a constant noise washing away everything you say, impossible to keep up with.

  “Airim’s breath, you killed him,” Isabell whispered.

  “My daughter.” The words clasped around her throat like a slave collar. He rested a hand on her shoulder, guiding her to the door. “Consider this your first lesson on ruling. When you’re queen, you’ll realize that often the choices we have to make are between killing a few and killing many with no way to keep your hands clean either way. If it were easy, Airim wouldn’t choose the strongest of us to lead.”

  He opened his door and stood expectantly.

  “You’re insane,” Isabell said.

  “Lesson two. To do great things, you must be willing to do what others lack the courage for. You are a Blackhand. It’s time you act like it.”

  You’re doing it again, Reyn’s voice said.

  “I know,” Anaz said out loud.

  He sat in a patch of shade under a birch tree at the town square’s edge. He’d rolled up his hides and strapped them to his backpack and now he watched the last of the day’s sellers finish packing their booths and tents up for the night. Some of them would be back tomorrow, he knew. The few not terrified and fleeing this wall, at least.

  He couldn’t decide if he would be one of them.

  If you go, you won’t have any way to make wood for the winter. No salt to preserve your meat, your vegetables.

  “I know,” Anaz said.

  A woman with red hair, in the midst of rolling up her rugs, glanced at him, wondering who he was talking to. Her son, barely six summers old, was helping push the roll.

  “But, if I stay, I might see her again,” he whispered.

  Is that bad?

  Anaz scoffed. Bad? It was the exact thing he had spent seven years running from. Exactly the thing that had dragged him into hell in the first place.

  What was he going to do? He didn’t want to struggle through winter without those supplies, but, gods, he didn’t want to get sucked into these people’s war. Didn’t want to think about the Lady Isabell ever again. Could he be strong just one more day?

  She’s pretty, Reyn’s voice said. Is she prettier than I was?

  He knew that wasn’t something she would have said, that it was something he would have asked…or at least that his old self would have asked. The fact that he imagined her saying it scared him. Was he already slipping back into his old ways? After only one day? A chance meeting with a pretty woman and he’s forgotten everything? Next thing he knew, he’d be killing folk again and drinking himself to oblivion.

  Did you see the way she looked at you? I think she liked you.

  “That’s it. I can’t stay,” he said.

  The red headed woman looked at Anaz again, told her son to get in the wagon and stay there.

  You’re scaring them, the voice laughed. You could also help them, you know. All of them.

  “Don’t. It’s not my place. You showed me that.”

  Anaz… He tried to imagine what she would say, what wisdom she might have offered if she were actually here. You’ve missed the point entirely.

  “What is it, then? Tell me!”

  The woman heaved the last of
her rugs onto her back and dragged it to the cart, looking over her shoulder at Anaz the entire way. She flopped it into the cart bed, then hurried up into the driver’s seat and took the reins and slapped them against the horse’s rump. The cart lurched forward.

  There are some things that cannot be taught to us. Rather, we must discover them ourselves.

  He thought maybe he was cheating, making her oblique because he didn’t know what she would say, but it also sounded right to him.

  One thing was certain. If he left now, he’d die this winter.

  But if he stayed, would something worse happen?

  Would he fall for a woman again?

  Fennel reared her head, pulling Nikolai off his feet by several inches. Daveon was impressed with the way his son held the halter tight, soothing the horse even while being yanked into the air.

  They stood in the turnout field next to the stable. Fennel’s eyes had been crusted shut with Rot by the time they’d returned home. Daveon had warmed a bucket of water and asked Nikolai to help wash her eyes.

  Now, the sun sat well behind the mountains, a rose wash across the clouds. He hadn’t gone into the house yet since returning. Alysha hadn’t looked at him the entire ride home.

  She’d just have to get over it. He was heading into the Stop and he was going to see if anyone else who was evacuating tonight that his wife and sons could ride with. It was the only way he could see to give them both what they needed. He hated the idea of his family being out there alone without him, but he hated the idea of running from debt collectors and the king’s law even more.

  “Ma is really angry,” Nikolai said.

  “I know.”

  “What are arrogance?” Nikolai asked.

  “What?”

  “Ma said, ‘If your pa could eat his arrogance, he’d weigh a hundred stones.’”

  “She said that?”

  Daveon scooped another cup of water out of the bucket and slowly drizzled it over Fennel’s eye. She snorted, a black glop of snot dribbling out of her nostril.

  “Why is she so mad? Is it because the Fletchers are going to eat us?”