The Things We Bury

by Kaleb Schad

  It was hard to tell if the sun was driving knives into his eyes from the front or his brains were driving knives into his eyes from behind, but either way, his fucking head hurt. Fucking sun. Fucking sun-god Airim and his fucking sun.

  He didn’t even feel bad about the blasphemy. Let the mector suck on that one.

  What had Airim or any of his bitch kids done for Nattic lately? Every morning, there were only two things Nattic could be sure of: one, some fucking shepherd had probably run off with his entire family, right from under his militia’s nose and two, the baron was going to give Nattic another ass whooping.

  He looked at the back of the Sunflower Stop and wondered if it was too early for a drink.

  That’s when, three buildings down, he saw Lady Isabell’s page girl storm her way up out of the butcher’s cellar. She slammed the door and started running north towards the keep.

  Two minutes later, the door opened again and this time it was that outsider, the one that’d brought the Lady Isabell back—or so she claimed. He was holding his head in one hand and didn’t seem to even have his eyes open as he walked around the corner of the butcher shop out towards the street.

  Nattic tried to think through the sopping wool in his head. He couldn’t imagine any good reason for the two of them to be hiding in the Henley’s cellar. Come to think of it, hadn’t he seen the two of them together talking to Finnikell two days ago? And wasn’t it that night Finnikell and his entire family of six went missing? Just like that, Nattic could feel the slurried hangover slipping away to crystal clarity.

  He drew his sword and slowly pushed open the cellar door. He listened. Nothing. His heart was thundering.

  It took several moments for his eyes to adjust to the dark cellar. The cool air kissed the sweat that had already drenched his shirt from laying in the sun and he struggled to keep the smell of raw meat from emptying his guts.

  Once he had control of himself, he looked around. Under the hanging animals were several satchels and backpacks. A bedroll. He opened one of the satchels and was punched by the smell of fresh bread and salted meats. Traveling fares. A knife.

  Nattic sat on the steps. How could he have been so stupid to not look at the outsider right from the beginning? But Sunell? Litlle Sunell? Wait until the Lady Isabell learned this…

  Then another thought occurred to him. What if Sunell was only following orders? But that would mean the baron’s own daughter…

  Nattic slowly walked up the steps out of Henley’s shop, his hangover entirely forgotten.

  53

  “The king’s contract was for no less than twenty horses,” Sir Calner said. He was not a young knight, his age carved into his face as much in scars as wrinkles. He had a beard swinging more to grey than black and his eyes, narrowed as they were, were almost entirely black.

  But, if Daveon was being honest, it was the girl that made him more uneasy than anything. Calner had introduced her as Ella, but she hadn’t said anything yet, only stared, unmercifully and shamelessly.

  Daveon swallowed. “And there are twenty horses, sir.”

  “A colt and a filly and a nursing mare do not make for useful animals.”

  Daveon was glad Alysha had taken the children inside. She said she would find something for them all to drink. He hoped it took her a good long while.

  “That filly’ll be strong if you give her a few years. Her mare, Fennel, was our strongest horse for many years.”

  He watched as the two armored knights looked at Fennel’s corpse already warming in the sun, her guts and scarlet life sprayed across the pasture. The smell of the still smoldering barn haunted them. Ella never took her eyes from Daveon. Gods, those eyes. He really wished she’d look away.

  “I don’t know what kind of a horse breeder burns down two barns and kills half his brood,” Calner said.

  “The kind that tries to sneak three useless horses into a king’s contract,” said the other knight, Sir Vently. He was shorter and younger than Calner. He hadn’t taken his hand off of his sword hilt the entire time they’d been speaking and his eyes constantly scanned the horizon.

  Daveon stared at Vently. His heart was pounding so far up his throat he thought he could taste it. “Sir,” he said, “I’ve had some rough times of it of late. The Rot has done a number on Therentell ranch, it’s true, but I’d appreciate not being accused of stealing from our lord king.

  Vently met his eyes and held them. After what felt like a slow eternity he cracked a grin and slapped Daveon on the shoulder. “Always did like you Therentells,” he said. “Came here a couple years back when your old man ran the place. He had a bite to him just like you.”

  Calner looked around the fields. “These twenty are all you have?”

  “That’s it,” Daveon said. Every last one of them. Including Syla. When these Airim’s Lances rode out of here with his animals, he and his family would be left behind with two choices. Try to hike their way north and run from the Wretched on foot. Or head into Fisher Pass and throw the dice that Baron Blackhand has a genuine plan to keep the wall from overtaking the village. Daveon was pretty certain the right term for that was “no choice at all.”

  The girl, Ella, had yet to look away from him. Daveon wasn’t even sure she’d blinked. The orange in those eyes, the way they shifted like holding flames in her irises, he almost begged her to stop looking at him.

  A crow cawed and settled on Fennel’s gut pile.

  Calner looked at Ventley, then at Ella. Ventley shrugged.

  “Hard times for all, I guess,” Calner said. He pulled out a scroll and held it to Daveon.

  “What’s that?” Daveon said.

  “King’s writ,” Calner said.

  “Paper isn’t coin.” Daveon wasn’t sure what Malic would do if he showed up with a writ instead of gold.

  “We didn’t have time to get the coins and deliver a chest of senits your way. Take this north with you. You’ll find a place to cash it. The king’s word is as good as gold.”

  Daveon fingered the write. There it was. In his hands. Freedom. Months of working the Stop at night, of struggling to save every horse he could from the Rot, of fear. Months of anxiety and feeling like he was failing his family and it was all over. He thought he might laugh.

  And then Calner spoke. “Gonna’ need you to help us get these animals to Nove, though,” he said.

  Ice wrapped around Daveon’s lungs. “Ride with you? I…my wife and kids, sir. That wall is going to reach us any minute. I need to get them out of here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Calner said, “but they’ll have to go with the rest of the villagers. I need to get these animals to the port city by tomorrow, or there won’t be a port left. I can’t have my men wrangling horses. They need to be out ranging for Wretched while we move. Consider yourself conscripted to the Airim’s Lances for the time being.”

  Like two rapid punches, both pride and dread beat into him. The Airim’s Lances wanted him. Even his brother, Rayen had never made it that far, though he’d hoped to some day. Sure, they only wanted him to guide the damn horses, but still, the Airim’s Lances!

  But it meant leaving his family. Again. And now with only a couple days, at most, until the wall came. He looked past Calner to the house. He wouldn’t do it. He’d already left them once. He wouldn’t abandon them now. If they were going to die, they would be together until the end.

  Unless, there’s a way…

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “I’m not giving—”

  Daveon held up his hand. “I could take you to Dove’s Landing,” he said, “a couple hours from here. Didn’t you say General Horen is there? He’ll have someone who can help you get the horses to Nove from there.”

  Calner worked his jaw and the creases around his eyes deepened as he squinted.

  Daveon waited and prayed Calner agreed. He hadn’t even made the real ask yet…

  “Fine,” Calner said. He turned to Ventley, about to give his next orders.

  “But
,” Daveon said. Calner turned back. “Only if I can keep one of my horses. Syla.” He grabbed his belt with both hands to hide their trembling.

  Calner laughed.

  “A horse,” Ventley said, “in exchange for you escorting the herd four or five hours down the road? You must have been kicked in the head by one of the animals.”

  “My family,” Daveon said. “We need a mount to get out of here. We’ll die if you leave us on foot. Please.” He didn’t try to hide the shaking in his voice. For once, he was being honest. He wouldn’t let his pride, his lies, kill his family. Let the world see the great and mighty Daveon Therentell beg for his family’s life. It was the only thing he had left worth begging for.

  Calner looked at the writ crumpled in Daveon’s hand. “You got your pay—”

  Ella stepped forward and put a hand to Calner’s arm. He looked at her, closed his mouth. “Therentell?” she said. “The same Therentells that were at Lindisfarne?”

  Daveon’s stomach felt like it might turn over on itself. Was that why she’d been staring at him? Did she know him? Was she a soldier there? Did she know what he’d done? Was she about to call him out as a criminal for running? For leaving his brother to die? That had to be it.

  Daveon had to spit. He coughed trying to settle his nerves.

  It wasn’t possible. She would have been too young, in her early teens at best. And Daveon couldn’t remember any women soldiers in Rayen’s squad. She couldn’t know…

  He only nodded, unable to do anything else.

  “You were at Lindisfarne,” she said.

  “Yes.” His voice croaked.

  “I thought so,” she said. She turned and started walking away, calling over her shoulder as she went, “Give him his horse, Calner. He’s earned it.”

  The way she said it, Daveon felt she meant he’d earned something more than just a horse. Like maybe a noose.

  Calner wasn’t happy. He scowled at Daveon, then at Ventley, who only shrugged again.

  “Be ready,” Calner said in clipped words. “We ride in two hours once the others have their supplies from town.”

  Daveon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was going to happen. He was going to pay off Malic, get a horse and get his family out of here alive.

  He looked at his house.

  All he had to do was tell Alysha he was leaving her.

  Again.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s my freedom,” Daveon said.

  Malic held the king’s note between two fingers and flapped it in front of his nose as if testing its smell, its makeup.

  “Doesn’t feel like money to me.”

  “You doubt the king’s word?”

  Malic set the paper on the bar and looked at Daveon. He was standing behind the stool Elliot usually took. It was empty in the hall, Two Fingers gone, the smell of last night’s supper and smoke still stewing in the rushes and damp sunflower seed husks.

  Daveon didn’t like the look on Malic’s face. He didn’t look beaten, nor angry, nor satisfied. He looked…smug. As if the real treasure didn’t lay in that sheet of paper between them, but in the spaces between them. In the silence between known and unknown.

  “So this is it,” Malic said.

  “I’m done.”

  “Honestly, I didn’t think you’d have the horses to meet the contract. Figured you’d lose a couple more before you could sell ‘em.”

  “You’ve always underestimated me.” Daveon wanted to get back home. He hadn’t told Alysha what the Lances had offered, yet, but he couldn’t help but have a little go at Malic first. As far as he was concerned, the two of them would never see each other again once he walked out that door. Man, Airim had a way of blessing even the darkest days.

  “And just like that, he’s a self-made man again,” Malic said.

  “We’ll be seeing you, Evan. Or not.” Daveon turned to leave.

  “Heard about your barn,” Malic called.

  Daveon turned back. “You—”

  “Of all the Therentells in all the history of Humay, you have got to be the most unlucky bastard of them all.”

  A shard of ice wedged itself into Daveon’s chest.

  “I haven’t told…” Daveon’s hands curled in on themselves forming fists harder than stone.

  “I pay attention to things. My investments, for example.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Daveon whispered. “You—”

  Malic smiled. Cut him off. “Know what else I pay attention to?”

  Daveon held himself back. It didn’t matter now. He’d won and Malic had lost. If he gave in, if he beat the living shit out of this guy, he’d only draw the militia, make life complicated for everyone.

  “Counting horses,” Malic said. “Somehow last night there weren’t that many out there, I guess. Lucky for you. Might not have been able to settle up with the king if more had been in the barn when that unfortunate blaze started. But that got me thinking.” Malic shoved his hands into the front pockets of his apron, rocked back on his heels. “Where in the world could seventeen, eighteen horses be in the middle of the night?”

  A humming sound started in Daveon’s ears. He knew where Malic was going, refused to take the bait. It is too late, he told himself. It’s too late.

  “Blackhand, he’s not fond of the folks running,” Malic said. “In fact, I heard somebody might have been helping those traitors get across the mountains. He asked me about you, you know. I told him I couldn’t imagine the Therentells being involved, that Daveon Therentell would never dare put his family at risk like that. To do something so foolish. So…brave. Told him, that’s not the Therentell I know.”

  The world narrowed in and all Daveon could see was Malic’s smug face, as if campfires burned to either side of the man, the air shimmering and doubling. And in that face, in that overlay of eyes and noses and mouths, Daveon thought he could see the face of every man who’d ever mocked him. Mocked him in their polite silence whenever the war stories started. Mocked him in their patronizing kindness, asking to hear another story of his time at the wall, or of Rayen or of his father. He saw Two Fingers, his tusks jutting from Malic’s chin, the words this is going to be a one-sided pounding and I’m swinging the hammer sliding out of his mouth.

  Never again.

  He’d won. Against all odds, he’d won.

  This was the day he would become an Airim’s Lance for a couple of hours and nobody would ever again look at Daveon Therentell as a horse rancher who had a brave pa and a heroic brother. They’d see Daveon Therentell, the Airim’s Lance, who managed to save his wife and kids from the Wretched.

  The door opened and Cassius Finian walked through wearing a tunic of the baron’s militia.

  “Therentell,” he said when he saw Daveon, “you see those Airim’s Lances come through here? Suppose they’ll be heading out to your place soon. You may want to bugger home.”

  “Thanks, Cassius,” Daveon said. He gave Malic a last look, then walked to the door.

  “Therentell,” Malic called, “You should thank me. About the baron. I might have saved your life.”

  The last thing Daveon heard was Malic’s single laugh.

  54

  It was late afternoon when Isabell climbed the steps into the Sunflower Stop. The inn was scattered with a handful of people, though nobody seemed to be talking, that same deathly pall hanging over the place that had settled over the entire village this last week. The innkeeper looked at her as she crossed the room, moved to the stairs for the rooms above. Where Anaz was.

  “My lady?” he said.

  “Don’t say a word, Innkeeper,” she said as she walked past. “Far as you’re concerned I was never here.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. She could feel his eyes on her as she climbed the steps.

  The entire walk over, she’d thought about how she’d ask him. There was no way he would refuse her. Not after the orchard. Not after she told him what her father had done. He couldn’t refuse her…
could he?

  She knocked on his room’s door. Anaz’s voice was weaker than she’d expected when he called for her to enter.

  He lay on the floor next to his mattress, his cloak and boots on. At first she worried he might have passed out or fallen and been unable to get up, but he opened one eye and looked at her, then closed it again and lay still. In the corner sat his backpack, his sword tied to it for hiking. Everything ready to go.

  Sunell was right.

  “Anaz?” she said.

  He leveraged himself upright and winced and put a hand to his belly. After a moment he finished sitting up and crossed his legs and rested his head in his palms. He gave her a half-hearted smile.

  She knelt next to him and touched his forehead. It was blazing hot, damp with sweat. “Is there nothing you can do to stop it?”

  “I try,” he said. “It will stop soon, I think.”

  “Can I help?”

  “You cannot.”

  He was worse than she’d thought. When Sunell had told her that he was sick and wasn’t willing to help, she’d thought he must be about the same as he’d been the night before, but this was worse. She chewed at her cheek. It wasn’t fair to ask what she was going to ask, but what choice did she have? They were out of time.

  “Sunell said you’re leaving tonight. That you’re too weak to do more.”

  He nodded.

  “I want you to know it’s okay. We’ve done what we can.”

  He lifted his head and looked at her, wary hope in his eyes.

  “Except one thing,” she said. She took his hand in hers, slid close so her knees were touching his. “My father leaves in the morning. He’s going to take me with him.”

  Anaz nodded.

  “To marry Earl Olisal,” she said.

  He closed his eyes and turned his head away from her.

  “I had hoped…” She trailed off. Courage was a frail thing in moments like this. “You and me…we’ve saved so many others, I mean, I’d thought maybe, would it be wrong to save ourselves? Together, I mean?”