The Things We Bury

by Kaleb Schad

  His punch sent Anaz’s world to black.

  Anaz reached the top of the first foothill and bounced the pack higher on his shoulders. The motion jolted a sparking pain through him.

  When he’d woken, he was laying in the street, his empty pack and jerkin in a pile next to him, the cool mud pillowing his already swollen face. Somebody had taken his hides. There had been no sign of Isabell. Maybe that was best. He’d have to find a new way survive this winter, but at that moment, feeling the way he did, he thought that might be the easier task.

  He looked down on the village. A sea of twinkling lights and then a swath of black where the Blood Song River cut through it. The baron’s keep lined with lanterns along its walls. From here, it looked peaceful, the kind of view where you could imagine families in bed after a hard day of work, drained and full at once. You could imagine that tomorrow they’d all wake and do it again. Fathers would kiss wives. Mothers would feed children, then push them out the door to work or play.

  From here you could imagine living that life. You could imagine finding a woman to love, a woman who might love you, a woman with beautiful brown hair and a splash of spunk—with a heart—like Lady Isabell’s. You could imagine yourself ending every day both empty and full. Together.

  And it was all a lie.

  In a week, maybe two, it would all be over for them.

  Every one of those torch-lit homes, if the stories were true, would be a smoldering pile of memories. Was this what it would feel like for the rest of his life? Was this the sacrifice the hsing-li asked him to make? To stand by and allow his heart to be hollowed out with a spoon as friends, neighbors, the beautiful and the innocent, run for their lives?

  Was this the sacrifice?

  Anaz climbed. The moonlight cast purple shadows through the pines. He was grateful for something to hide in. But where could he go to hide from himself?

  16

  Laughter followed Daveon. Every step, every splash of the lingering puddles, each took on a different voice, but they all did the same thing. Laughed.

  And why not laugh? Who wasn’t? The gods certainly were.

  This is going to be a one-sided pounding and I’m swinging the hammer.

  He could still smell Two Fingers’s breath. Or was that the fucking stew stuck up his nose?

  He crested Zeb’s Gnoll, the first ridge he could see his house from, still a twenty minute hike away, and the site of the ranch filled him with a black rage.

  His whole fucking life. Given to that house, to dreams his grandfather had and had forced on his son and his son’s son. They tried to pretty it up. Tried to make it sound a noble calling. We give speed to Airim’s vengeance, his father would say. But what he meant was, We hide like fucking cowards.

  Well, not all of them hid. His brothers had gotten away, earned their chance, but when it had come Daveon’s turn, then it was all, Slow down. Remember your family. Your obligations.

  Family. Obligations. How could I not remember them? A wife. Two kids. Every day waking knowing he’s failing them. Every day knowing everything they know—think they know—about him is a lie. The way Nikolai and Elnis would play soldiers and zombies and they’d fight over who got to be their dad and who had to be the zombie.

  But what would happen to them if he did leave? Not if. When. If he didn’t come back, didn’t survive the trip, what would happen to them? Would it be so bad? Alysha was beautiful and smart and brave. There wasn’t a rock yet life had thrown at her she couldn’t split. She came at problems like she were built for them.

  I sure wasn’t built for this. There was a feeling a man had when he was doing the thing he was meant for, like a bell humming in his soul. Daveon felt it often, but never when he was home skinning a dead horse or listening to his kids scream. At those moments his bell sounded more like a lamb at slaughter. No. His bell rang when he was holding his sword, practicing his forms, sparring with his brothers back in the day—yes, even when he fought that Wallwraith in the cellar.

  That had to mean something. He was meant to listen to that song.

  She’d have to understand. They had to make the hard choices. The right choices. He would never again lie to his children. Or to her. He was finally going to be the man they thought he was.

  Even if it hurt. And Airim-be-damned to anyone holding him back.

  He hadn’t calmed when he’d finished walking home. He’d had miles to let his heart settle, but it hadn’t. What had started as humiliation had whipped around like a forest fire caught in a crosswind and there was nothing, nothing, that could stand against that heat.

  The inferno was in full bloom when he stepped inside.

  “What happened?” Alysha stood in the doorway between their sleeping room and the main room. Daveon looked at the dirty dishes still on the table from supper, three bowls smeared with a barley porridge. The best food he could offer her and Alysha probably grateful for that. Daveon had better food stuck in his fucking hair. He couldn’t even provide a decent meal for his wife and children. He couldn’t understand why she had ever said yes to him.

  Because she believed your lies. Believes them still.

  “Why are you home?” Alysha asked. “What happened?”

  In the bedroom, Nikolai laughed at something and Elnis cried out in that irritating whine of his.

  “Malic…” Even saying the name roiled Daveon’s stomach.

  “Is that food in your hair?”

  “I’m leaving,” he said and he knew she knew he didn’t mean for the evening.

  Saying the words, a trench cut its way through his heart and what filled it didn’t belong in a human. It wasn’t of a human heart.

  “Everything I’ve ever done has been a mistake,” he said.

  “Everything,” she said.

  “Every. Thing.”

  Behind her, Nikolai whined at Elnis, “Give it back!”

  “The wall—” Alysha started.

  “There’s supposed to be more, Alysha. I was supposed to be more. I let fear and guilt ride me hard and put me away wet.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” she said. “This isn’t one of your stories.”

  Elnis whimpered. Daveon heard the words “I’m telling” and had to close his eyes, but it didn’t help, the sight of her and his shit home and his fighting kids were tattooed to the inside of his eyes. They morphed into laughing faces. All those laughing faces.

  “I’m not. I’ve been a fool for years. Not anymore.”

  “What are you saying?” A slight tremor. The candles brighter in her wet eyes.

  “I have to try. I’m too old. This will be my last chance at doing something that matters.”

  “The wall is coming, Daveon. Here!” Alysha’s voice climbed. “Try what?”

  “I’m going south. I’m getting our horses back. I’m getting our horses and I’m waiting for the king’s men to arrive. And I’m going to warn the families that the baron refuses to. By all that is holy, Alysha, I am fulfilling that contract and I am paying Malic off. And then I’m going to beat the living shit out of him.”

  His breath blew in and out through his nose and he could feel his anger warping his face and he couldn’t hold it back.

  “The wall…”

  They were the only words she seemed to have. Her fear tore at him, leaving a gash through his love for her. How could he be doing this to her?

  “The messenger said it’s two weeks out,” he said, trying to make his voice softer, struggling against the edge that kept creeping into it. “Maybe even longer. We’ve all heard the stories. Sometimes it moves slower than it seems to.”

  “And sometimes faster.” She wiped away a tear before it could fall down her cheek. “And you’ll be gone.”

  “There will be people around. Soldiers. Guys who’ve spent months at the wall. They’ll get you out if it comes to that.”

  “I don’t want others around,” Alysha whispered. “I want you. I want my husband, the only man in Fisher Pass to kill two Wallwraiths and close
a gap.”

  Her echoing the lie, it was like dry grass thrown on a dying fire. He heard the laughter in the Sunflower Stop again. Felt the hollowness of his deceptions.

  Elnis stumbled into the kitchen, his frustrated face boiling with snot and tears. He pulled at Alysha’s dress and tried to tell some tragic story of Nikolai and the Great Harm he had caused, but the words were smeared with screams and mostly just hung like a curtain between Daveon and his wife.

  “I can’t believe this,” she said.

  “I’ll be back in a few days and we’ll be long gone before the wall gets here.”

  “Fennel a week from birthing that foal and on death’s door with the Rot.”

  “Mommy,” Elnis called.

  “Nothing I can do for her.”

  “And you want to leave us.”

  “Nobody is warning the Evensons or Barlin Sket’s family or Taness Monsole. Somebody has to save them.”

  “Mommy!”

  “Someone has to save your wife and two children!” It was hard to know if she shouted out of anger or because of Elnis’s screams.

  It’s not her fault. Of course she thinks you can save them. With your lies, how could she think otherwise?

  “Two Fingers’ll be around. He’s the strongest in Fisher Pass, isn’t he? Malic won’t let anything happen to you.” Even as he said it, the spite like syrup on his words, he knew he was being cruel. This is who I’ve become. He hated himself at that moment.

  “He ‘tole it,” Elnis called.

  “Malic…,” Alysha said.

  He felt sick at the words, sick at the idea he’d be leaving her to deal with those two bastards herself, but they wouldn’t hurt her. They didn’t care about Alysha. It was Daveon they loved tormenting.

  “I did not!” Nikolai cried from the room.

  “Is that what this is?” she asked. “Jealousy?”

  Nikolai stood in the doorway holding something metal. A horse’s bit. That was what they were fighting over. Not even something they should be playing with. It infuriated Daveon when they played with his tools and then lost them.

  “I had it first,” Nikolai said.

  “Jealousy?” Daveon said.

  “Mom.”

  “Nooooo,” Elnis wailed.

  “Did you think that I was going to jump into that bastard’s arms the second he offered his protection today? That somehow they were going to win me over with their promises of safety?”

  “Mom!”

  “Stop talking about them. I shouldn’t have brought them up. This isn’t about fucking Evan Malic,” Daveon said. “This is about helping when nobody else is going to. About keeping my promises and doing something that matters for once.”

  “Fucking Evan Malic,” Alysha said. “There’s an idea.”

  The words cut deeper than the table had.

  “Mom!” Nikolai yelled.

  “Enough!” Two steps and Daveon was on Nikolai, tearing the bit from his hands, a metal bur slicing the boy’s finger. Daveon threw the bit across the room, no arc, straight as a spear. It chimed off the stone chimney.

  Nikolai screamed.

  Blood so quick.

  Swollen silence settled over the house. Not a home. Not anymore.

  Daveon looked at Nikolai. His son held his hand as a fist, his other wrapped around it, but the blood still seeped between his fingers. He was crying silently, sucking back his sobs.

  Alysha pulled Nikolai to her, held his crying face to her belly.

  Elnis watched Daveon, the weight of the moment clear even to him.

  “What you see. The difference between us,” Alysha said. “When you look at me, at our children, you see the reasons for your failed dreams, don’t you? And when I look at them, I see the reasons for even dreaming at all. Someday,” tears rolled along her cheeks, her nose, “I hope you realize that everything you do—everything you’ve done—matters.”

  Red whinnied and twisted his head away as Daveon slipped the bit between the old horse’s teeth.

  Daveon wiped at his eyes. When would the tears stop?

  Everything you’ve done matters.

  He wanted so badly to go back in there, to grab her into a hug and beg her forgiveness, but he knew if he did he would never come back out. He’d done the hard part. Yes, he’d done it badly, but it was done. Now he needed to stick through it and show her—his sons—who he really could be.

  “We’ll be back,” he said to Red. “A couple days out and a couple days back, at most. And then, you old bastard, you’ll get to see what it feels like to ride into town a hero.” He had to wait for the sumpter horse to exhale before he finished cinching tight the saddle bags. He was a good old horse, but ornery as a mule with a mouthful of bees. Always playing tricks on you, taking a deep breath when you were saddling him or strapping on the sumpter bags so that his ribs would expand and you couldn’t properly tighten things. More than once Daveon had found himself riding sideways on the old guy before falling out of the saddle entirely. Horses didn’t laugh, or at least not with their mouths, but their eyes sure could.

  “Alysha’ll be okay,” Daveon said. “She’ll get over it and when she sees our horses and those families brought up safe and those little kids, she’ll know it was the right thing to do.”

  He hadn’t been able to stop talking to the horses, as if building around himself armor made of words. Or was it a cage?

  Syla snorted, impatient. Daveon chuckled. She was his favorite for a reason. A mare with a head like a stallion. She charged every ridge eager for the next. She never balked, never complained, only asked that Daveon not waste her time.

  “Almost ready, girl.”

  He catalogued his supplies one last time. Red would carry Daveon’s life for the four or five days. Everything he needed to survive out there, blankets and tent, his father’s bow and a quiver of six arrows, his trapline, cooking pan and dishes. Daveon would carry his sword and knife.

  Across Red’s withers, Daveon watched Fennell, their pregnant mare. Her belly hung low. So close now. Her eyes seeped the yellow crust of the Rot and she had coughed a handful of times already tonight.

  “Hang in there, girl,” he said. “Just hang in there. They’re coming to get you. You and that foal of yours and then everything will be okay.”

  Everything would be okay.

  At the top of that first hill, the one straight south from the stable, Daveon pulled up Syla and turned her sideways. Red stopped behind them. His house stood only a couple hundred yards away. Warm light danced from the window, cutting into the blue moonlight on the porch. Three figures stood there watching him, her shape unmistakable. A shape that had stolen his eye and his heart since childhood had given way to womanhood. She was there. Watching him.

  They all were.

  He’d tell her he was sorry when he got back. He’d tell her he loved her and he’d hug Nikolai and he’d tell him he was sorry and they’d be a family again. They’d be healed and ready to run and nothing would take them apart again.

  They knew this was important. It was good. It was good for the boys to see their father do something important like this.

  It was good for them to watch him leave like this.

  To come outside and offer a hero’s sendoff.

  OF BONES AND LIES

  BOOK TWO

  17

  “I missed you,” Reyn says.

  She hangs suspended in the Pit. She is going to die. He will try—he will—but she will die anyway.

  The taste of tears and sand and blood. Grit pelts his skin. A god’s scream in his ears, wind so strong he can’t breathe.

  She looks as she did that first time he saw her, that tempting long brown hair held back by a white headband, her tattoos wrapping proudly around her shoulders.

  And then he sees himself. He is on the platform, facing himself, only he isn’t himself. He is the sandfury. His will is naught. Existence a crime, an insult, a stain on nothingness.

  When he looks again, it isn’t himself o
n the platform holding the sword, about to plunge it through his face. It’s her. By the hsing-li it’s her and she is beautiful.

  “I miss you,” she says. Close now. Her breath against his stone face. His blind, awful, meaningless stone face.

  The sword over her head.

  A gentle, loving smile as she fills the blade with white hot hsing-li.

  She buries it to the hilt into his forehead.

  Anaz jerked awake, the pat pattapat of raindrops against the leaves above him, against his forehead…where she’d stabbed him.

  He wiped the water away and stared into the leaf canopy. It had only been a couple of hours and already everything hurt. He was no stranger to this kind of pain, but years of relative safety had softened any calluses he’d had.

  It was his own damn fault. He never should have gone into town. Or he should have stolen that axe when he’d had the chance this afternoon and run away then.

  Still no sign of Isabell. He’d figured as much. The girl had probably realized how foolish her plan had been and decided to stay with her father where it was safe. Whatever was going to happen to Fisher Pass, Anaz was certain it wouldn’t be happening to her and her father.

  He was surprised at the black feelings he had at the idea of never seeing her again. Wasn’t that what he’d wanted? Gods, could he be so fickle so soon?

  Clover Hollow, she’d said. Another Market Day. To the west, she’d said. He didn’t have anything to trade, but maybe he could offer a couple days labor in exchange for some basics.

  And if that didn’t work, well…he wasn’t going to let himself freeze to death this winter, no matter what the hsing-li said.

  Something moved in the woods. He sat up. A wolf jogged into the clearing several paces from Anaz, oatgrass tickling its belly. It stopped. Watched him. It was black all through except for shoots of grey under it’s chin and belly and in the black void of a starless, drenching night, Anaz could barely make out its yellow eyes. A dead rabbit dangled from its jaws.