by Kaleb Schad
The baron watched his daughter and the stranger as they tore into his men and he knew, as surely as his men did, there was no hope. This was something beyond fighting. Marcen had seen men at war, had led men at war, at that very bone wall itself all those decades ago. There were two things that happenned to a man when his life was on the line. It was in their eyes. Some, found a new fire inside themselves that they had never known was there, found new strength and new endurance and they tore their way through anything before them.
Others, the ones Marcen had always despised, they would see their life hanging there, on the scales and they would decide it wasn’t worth it. They would decide the fight wasn’t worth it and they’d yield. Not at first. They may even continue to fight, but they were slower, weaker. Already dead.
What he saw before in his daughter and this man was larger than any of that, though. There was no fire in their eyes. What he saw in them was more solid than that. Permanent. Utterly unyielding.
Certainty.
Marcen’s heart ached with jealousy.
And so, when the last of his soldiers died, his daughter cutting the man in half so that when he fell he fell unhinged, one part toppling south, the other north, and she locked eyes with him and straightened, Marcen knew there was only one thing left to do.
Anaz pulled the baron’s sword from the last soldier and caught the body and gently laid it on the stone bridge. He crouched and closed the man’s eyes. When he stood he had to close his own eyes and breathe slowly, waiting, wondering if this would be the final dizziness that never left.
Isabell took his hand. He opened his eyes. They were alone on the bridge, the baron in front of them, Sunell back in the baron’s chambers watching everything.
Isabell’s hand trembled and he didn’t think it was from exhaustion. She watched her father.
“I’ve seen men kill men before,” the baron said, his expression claylike, sapped.
“It’s over, Father.”
“But I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said. “You were my finest achievement.”
His eyes were wet and bloodshot and the corners of his mouth twitched. Rain pressed his white hair flat against his skull like a cowl. He bent and picked up a sword and when he stood, blood seeped from the cuts along his neck and chest. He stepped towards them.
“Don’t,” she pleaded.
Below, Anaz heard the sounds of the bonewall moving backwards, retreating from the village. The king’s men cheered.
“I am the keeper of the Blackhand name,” the baron said.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Your grandfather demands his name be restored.” He took another step towards them.
Three barons approached and Anaz tried to cipher which to focus on. He shook his head, but that made things worse, the barons now quivering in violent pause. He tasted bile.
The sound of doors crashing open. Armored men running on stone, shouting to one another. Behind him and ahead, soldiers poured onto the bridge.
“You were my greatest achievement,” the baron whispered.
He raised his sword over his head, more like an axe than a sword and Anaz knew Isabell wouldn’t stay his hand, couldn’t bring herself to kill her father. Like dragging a badger from its burrow, he wrested his legs into movement. He caught the baron’s slash in Seven Claws’s barbed crossguard, twisted and ripped the sword from the baron’s grip, then smashed his forehead into the baron’s face. The bones in his nose snapped. The baron crashed backward, giving out a mighty splash and lay still, unconscious. Anaz fell on top of him.
He looked at the soldiers coming onto the bridge.
He couldn’t do more. There was no “more” left within him to do, to give, but neither would he give them Isabell. Not now. Not after all of this.
He levered Seven Claws under him, used it as a crutch to stand.
The soldiers stopped their approach. Raised their blades.
“No,” Isabell hissed at Anaz. She grabbed his arm. “These are the king’s men. We’re done.”
He felt his legs swoon. His knees were going to buckle.
Lightning flared its divine seizure overhead, a violent hiss, and when it left, stealing its light back into itself, it took with it Anaz’s world.
76
“Can you ride?” Alysha asked Daveon as he sat the piebald’s saddle. She held one of his legs in the stirrup, the other balancing him. He put a hand over hers and felt her fingers still sticky with Malic’s blood. They looked at each other for a long time and Daveon thought it was as if he’d been born anew, with eyes untested by the world, for what he saw there standing beside him was more than a wife or a woman. It was Airim made body, grafted into his life through a will he’d never understood, nor tried to understand, but could never again not know. He felt her steadiness in her grip on him and he wondered how he had ever seen her as “other,” as a stone holding him back. She hadn’t been holding him back. She’d been anchoring him, holding him, standing solid against every squall his fickle soul summoned.
“I love you,” he said. When was the last time he’d even said those words? When had the majesty of what those words mean between a husband and a wife been lost to him?
Alysha didn’t smile and she didn’t say anything for a long time, until said, “That’s a start.”
“We’re survivors,” Daveon said. “We’ve been through a lot. We’ll get through this.”
“Haven’t you heard the stories?” Alysha said. “We’re Therentells. Bet your ass we will.”
They had loaded the saddle bags with several sacks of Malic’s gold, then led the piebald and Red back into the courtyard. Nikolai unhitched Elliot’s bay. He brought it over to them.
“I’ll ride Elliot’s,” Alysha said, taking the reins from Nikolai.
Fisher Pass burned. A greasy orange haze hung around the houses and shops in the town square and Daveon smelled burning buildings and burning people, but also something else. Burning undead. Everywhere men in purple surcoats bearing the emblem of the king waged war against the Wretched. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of soldiers cried out as they pushed back against the monsters.
Daveon led his family as their horses galloped out onto the street. He gave the piebald its head knowing it would set a hard pace for Red and Elliot’s bay to keep up with, but knowing it would also inspire the older horses to a new youth.
As they reached the far side of town, about to cross the river for the second time that night, Daveon saw a white beast tearing into a pack of Fletchers. He recognized the ursinine instantly and looked around.
There. An explosion of flame, an orb of fire growing to the size of a house, then popping and rippling out in burning rings. Four Fletchers rolled backwards from the center, blazing torches stumbling around for several steps before falling. Standing in their center was the Daughter of Airim, Ella. She looked up as Daveon rode past and her eyes tracked the horses behind him, with his wife and three children.
She held out her hand to him, palm up and a small ball of fire formed in her grip and she nodded at Daveon. He nodded back, then slapped the piebald’s reins once more.
77
The color red. Sounds of coughing, whimpering, urgent, yet calm voices, but also sounds of fighting, far away. A warm breeze drifting across his face and the press of bandages when he breathed and around his left hand.
Each sensation slowly surfaced within Anaz and even when they had coalesced into something resembling consciousness, he still wasn’t sure he believed it.
He opened his eyes, had to shut them again against the stabbing light.
“Easy.” It was Sunell’s voice.
Anaz opened his eyes again, squinting hard against the glare and he saw the page girl leaning over him. They were under a tent.
“Where…” His voice was drifting sand.
“The square. Don’t try to move.”
Sunell still wore her clothes from the night before. He lifted his head and looked around. They were in the
town square, though there were almost no buildings remaining to make a square out of. The gallows had burned to the ground along with every building near it. Animal hides and blankets had been stretched out in rows and the wounded and dying lay under the tent with him, giving forth their mournful moans.
Outside he could see people loading wagons, pulling from the rubble whatever they could salvage. Trains of horses and mules and sheep lumbered past, mounted men and women with heads hung low, chins on their chests, small children clutched to them in unshakeable grips.
“Isabell,” he whispered. He levered an elbow under himself and lifted his head.
“Don’t.”
The world twisted as if being seen through a campfire and he had to pause to slow his breathing.
Sitting, he could see further. Across the square a young man, maybe of an age with himself, sat atop a majestic black destrier. He wore a purple cape and a purple surcoat over glistening steel plate armor. A gold crown perched on his head.
All around him sat mounted knights in similar purple capes and silver armor. Several flew banners with an eagle emblem and Anaz could see the fabric curl and unfurl in the gentle breeze.
And then he saw her.
She sat atop Domino, her hands bound in front of her. She’d been fitted with a steel collar and a long chain draped from it to the next person ahead of her. Her father. Another chain draped from behind Isabell to a man Anaz didn’t recognize and then on to another. Fourteen people, all told, sat atop their horses, strung together, hands tied to their saddles.
“The king,” Sunell said. “They pushed back the wall, but it won’t stay. They’re evacuating the village.”
Anaz reached for the hsing-li, but even opening himself to it felt like stepping into the fires of hell themselves. He quickly let it go.
“Why chained?” he croaked.
“They’re being exiled.”
“Exiled.”
“To Anathest.”
He closed his eyes and he didn’t know if he should laugh or cry at the irony.
“But Isabell…”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“She fought.”
“She’s his daughter. Everything his, his children, servants, captains at arms, they all have to go with him into exile. I got lucky. Lady Isabell never asked me to take the stag tattoo like her father did. They don’t know.”
“But she fought.”
“It’s our way,” Sunell said. “It’s the King’s Law.”
He pulled in a deep breath and held it, counted, let it out slowly. He coughed, but he could feel the rattle in his lungs much diminished already. Maybe he’d saved enough hsing-li after all. Maybe the Rot wouldn’t have him.
As if she had heard his cough, Isabell turned in her saddle and looked across the square at him. It was hard to see her, but he thought she may have smiled at him. She never looked away while the king spoke and, for his part, Anaz refused to surrender her eyes.
Sunell let out a sob, covering her mouth.
“It’s not fair,” she said.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t justice. It was all still happening. The things he cared about, torn from him by men nobody stood against. His entire life—a killing field of injustice. He’d let them hurt him, let them kill the first woman who’d ever cared for him and when he’d had his chance at getting justice, he’d run. He’d run like he’d always run before. And now it was happening again.
“They go to Anathest?”
“The desert nation. It’s a prison. West of here.”
“Yes. I know of it.”
Anathest. She would be sold as a slave. They would do to her what they’d done to him. A woman like her? Worse.
“It’s a death sentence,” Sunell said. “It’s the king’s way of killing them without having to explain it to the nobles. Nobody can survive the trip.”
“No,” Anaz said. “It can be done.”
Sunell watched him as he fully sat up. He stretched his left hand, feeling the bandages around his missing finger. Every movement flared pain anew, but that was okay. Pain meant he was alive. And that meant the hsing-li still had use for him, use for others.
Justice. That was the word ringing around his heart. True, final justice. Something he should have had a long time ago. Something Reyn and Calas and Isabell deserved. Something he deserved.
He heard the horses start to move and the band of armored knights led the baron and his chain of prisoners out of the square, towards the west.
He couldn’t stand, knew he didn’t have the strength for that. Not yet, at least. But he would. Days, maybe a week—hopefully not more—he would. And then he’d need to find an escort. Someone whose magic was stronger than his. Someone willing to go into the sands of Anathest. Again.
“What are you going to do?” Sunell asked.
“I’m going to follow her,” he said. “I’m going to show her my home.”
78
Somewhere behind them, out there, in the black, a whippoorwill sang its lilting trill, the notes fast and rolling upwards, lifting, and crickets and grasshoppers chirped their steady chant, accompanying the whippoorwill. Daveon laid on his back and watched the billions of tiny lights draped across the sky’s ceiling and he thought about nothing, felt no need to think about anything.
They had stopped at their house on the way out of Fisher Pass and loaded their wagon and hitched it to Red and then spent the rest of that night and all of this day climbing north through the mountains. They were past Tear Gully Pass and into the fingers on the far side that would drop into Earl Ventner’s fields in the next day’s travel. But for tonight, they were only them. Five creatures borne on the night’s swaying descent.
Out there the horses nibbled on what grasses they could find, cleaned and brushed and finally without saddle.
He didn’t know where they were going to go, but he didn’t feel worried about it either. Maybe they’d stop at Earl Ventner’s, but maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d keep on riding. Elnis had said bye bye to their house as they rode away and Daveon knew they would probably never see it again and had thought that was probably okay.
It was warm and they’d let their cook fire dwindle and the children had rolled out blankets and the three were huddled side by side, Alysha on one end, Daveon on the other. They watched the heavens, searching for stories in the points of light or maybe in the spaces between, sensing a whole vastness made purely of individual pieces.
“Pa,” Nikolai whispered.
“Yeah?”
Alysha rolled on her side to look at Nikolai and Daveon did the same and their eyes met, bridging across their children’s faces.
“Could I…”
“Go on.”
“Could I maybe say it again?”
Daveon smiled at his wife. “I wish you would.”
He was quiet a long time and Daveon thought maybe he wasn’t going to say it and he was surprised at the sadness that stirred in him.
Then, Nikolai said, “I don’t want any Wraiths or Fletchers to come. I want to stay in my home, always want to stay in my home. I want to wake up.”
Daveon rested a hand across his son’s head.
“No Wraiths or Fletchers are going to come. Stay in your home. Always stay in your home. You will wake up.”
THANK YOU AND A SMALL REQUEST
FIRST THE THANK YOU!
This book is the second of a trilogy set within Fallow. Inspired by Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories and the illustrations that brought that world to life, I set out to create illustrated stories with complicated and gut-wrenching characters written for adults.
NOW, THE REQUEST.
If you like this idea and were at all moved by this story, I’d be incredibly humbled if you would leave a review for it on Amazon or wherever you bought it. Customer reviews are the lifeblood of a young author’s career. You don’t know how grateful I’d be for your support. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And, as always, stay awesome.
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Also By Kaleb Schad
With six days to live, sometimes all you want is something worth dying for.
Twitcher is a gut-wrenching, military scifi tale set in a dystopian future. With over twenty full-page illustrations from the author, Twitcher offers an unflinching look at what it means to live and die for something—or someone—greater than yourself.
Buy it today at:
amazon.com/dp/B07N67KG93
About the Author
Kaleb Schad lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, working as a creative director by day and writes and illustrates fantasy and science fiction stories by night (mornings, too). He spent his early childhood years in the heart of God’s country—called northwestern Montana by some—then, moved to Wisconsin in his early teens. Nobody calls Wisconsin God’s country. He did have a boss call it the armpit of the country once. He laughed. Then cried. But it is where he met the most amazing woman basically on the face of the planet and she gave him the two most amazing sons on the face of the planet. So there is that.
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