Blood of Wonderland

by Colleen Oakes

  Dinah wiped her tears away and worked at keeping her voice steady. “The Iron Gates? Did we break them?” She vaguely remembered the sides of the gates clipping Morte’s shoulder before they were thrust open. The Spade laughed.

  “Well, the king doesn’t feel that the Iron Gates were enough to keep his traitorous daughter in, so he is strengthening them to make sure they keep her and everyone else out.”

  Dinah gave a wry laugh. “To keep me out? What an idea. I have no intention of ever going back there. I’ll be killed the moment I appear in Wonderland proper! I will never see the palace again.” Or Harris. Or the beautiful stained-glass heart that sits outside my mother’s room, the one that shades the world in red.

  The Spade took a last inhale of his pipe before dumping its contents into the fire. “Perhaps. But I think the king fears more than just the return of the princess.”

  “The Yurkei?”

  “This is the end of your answers for tonight.”

  “There is nothing more to tell me of Wardley?”

  “No. His shoulder’s still healing. He spends his days in the stables, wiping the dung off his face that is thrown at him by orphans.”

  But he is alive, thought Dinah. His heart beats.

  She had begun to ask of his family when the Spade turned slightly, his ears pointed at the sky. “Be silent!” he whispered. Dinah froze in place. Without making a sound, the Spade ran over to his pack and withdrew a bow and arrow. Her heart thudded in her ears, and she looked at the dark wood around them as a shiver of dread made its way up her spine. She took in the moss-covered rocks and the thin white trees that ringed their nightfire. There are worse places to be laid to rest, she thought. At least I’m here under the stars.

  The Spade lifted the bow, his muscled arms quivering as he tracked something across the dark sky that Dinah couldn’t see. Finally, he exhaled and released the arrow. Dinah heard a thwap, followed by the sound of something falling through dried leaves. The Spade darted into the wood. She was alone. The day I find out what he wants,she told herself, is the day I will leave this Spade behind. There was a rustling from the trees, and something landed with a sickening crack at her feet. It was the hawk, the tracking hawk, its beautiful deep red feathers mottled with black blood, an arrow through its neck. Dinah looked up at the Spade—and the admiration written across her face betrayed her.

  He gave a laugh at her surprise. “Chicken, Princess?”

  Five

  For the first time in weeks, Dinah slept long and deep, without dreams of bloody Heart Cards or anything else that woke her in terror. It was late morning when she rose to a loud clanging. She shielded her eyes as she sat up. The Spade was clanging his swords together and watching how the blades ran over each other. Dinah was understandably unnerved by this.

  “Morning, Princess.” The Spade tossed a small loaf of bread in her direction, and Dinah tore into it with ravenous bites. “Not very delicate, are yeh?”

  She made a face in his direction.

  “Now, get yerself up so I can begin yer training. I’ve seen eight-year-old girls that can wield a sword better than yeh.”

  “I highly doubt that,” replied Dinah, brushing the crumbs off her cheeks. She handed a small piece of her bread to Morte, who almost bit her fingers off.

  “On the contrary, I was raised in a village where every child could defend themselves.”

  Dinah was curious about this man. “Where was your village? And what makes you think your children could defend themselves? Spades can’t even have chil—”

  She didn’t have a chance to finish. The Spade swept both her feet out from under her, and Dinah landed hard on the small of her back. All the air rushed from her lungs. She barely had time to react before the tip of his sword drew a line across her cheek. He bowed before her. “Now we have matching scars.”

  Dinah leaped up and flung herself against him, and they both tumbled to the ground. The Spade easily flipped her facedown into the dirt and then proceeded to keep her down with his boot, standing on top of her. Though his actions were quick and rough, his tone remained calm. “Yeh’ll not say one word about my family, understand? Now, are yeh ready to learn?”

  Dinah writhed under his foot before shouting at him, “Get off me. I command it!”

  The Spade’s gruff laugh echoed off the rock faces around them as he continued to balance on top of her. “Ah, Princess. Before yeh can learn to fight, yeh must let go of the idea that anyone in Wonderland gives a care about yer fate. Yer no longer a royal playing sticks with the stable boy. Yer no longer a princess—or anyone, for that matter. Yer a wretch, a wanderer in the forest. Think about it. Are yeh her? Are yeh that girl, the girl who would be queen?”

  Dinah considered for a moment, her face bleeding into the dirt. He was right. She was no longer the princess who loved to watch pink snowflakes swirling down from the cloudy sky, one who could command the bowed knee of every person in the room. She was here, in the middle of the wilderness. She was starving, she was broken and bleeding, and there was a Spade literally standing on her back. All this and yet Dinah felt more in control of her fate than she had the past few months at the palace. There was a freedom in having nothing to lose.

  “Let me stand. I said, let me stand!” She rolled over quickly, which caused him to lose his balance. Then she grabbed hold of the Spade’s leg and dug her teeth into his calf.

  He let out a yell and hopped away. “Yeh bit me! Who bites someone?”

  Dinah shuffled to her feet, unsteady, bleeding from the lip and covered with dirt. She spat on the ground. “C’mon, you dirty Spade—teach me to fight.”

  He rubbed his beard. “Ah, there’s the girl who slapped me for a toy, I knew yeh were there somewhere.” He tossed Wardley’s sword at her, and Dinah managed to catch it without slicing her hand open. This, however, was to be the highlight of her day. The rest of that morning was spent getting bruised, hit, and cut open by the blunt end of Sir Gorrann’s sword. Every strike was deflected and every move of her body was analyzed in an effort to find her weaknesses, which turned out to be everything.

  As he flew around her, his voice never stopped lecturing. “Any move off balance and yeh belong to the enemy. A good swordsman can tell when his opponent is off balance and will use it to his advantage.”

  Dinah tried to maintain perfect balance while wielding the sword but it never worked—she was always tipped slightly to one side or the other. The Spade continued to knock her to the ground with ease, but after a few times she leaped up quickly, at the ready to fight again.

  “That was good. Work on getting back in the fight. Yeh must learn to respond quickly when yer down. It can make the difference between victory and defeat. Now, give me back yer sword. We’ll try again tomorrow to correct yer balance, but until then yeh do not deserve it.”

  Dinah clutched Wardley’s blade close to her chest. I have earned the right to this blade, she thought, I will not give it up so easily. She felt bold. “Come and take it!” she declared.

  He did, and left her lying on a rocky ledge, out of breath, with a bloody nose.

  Once the morning ended, Sir Gorrann erased all traces of them at the campsite and they continued to weave their way deeper into the Yurkei Mountains. The terrain was ever changing. The ground rose and fell in rocky slopes, like waves of rock that crested and broke, spilling their huge boulders upon gorgeous green valleys before rising again. It was a physically exhausting climb, and Dinah periodically looked longingly at Morte, but he ignored her completely. Only once, when Dinah slipped on a rock and tore her shin open from top to bottom did Morte pause and lift his leg. Dinah wearily climbed onto his massive back while Sir Gorrann watched with fascination.

  “Thank you,” she breathed to him, letting her hand run over his smooth neck before he nipped at her. He climbed easily through the jagged peaks that were increasingly a struggle for Sir Gorrann’s brown mare, Cyndy. The air became thinner and cleaner, and Dinah relished the sharp, cold breaths that cle
ared her mind.

  They stopped to camp for the night, and Dinah was allowed her one question as the Spade stoked his nightfire. She asked about Harris, and learned that he had been imprisoned in the Black Towers. He was part of a group being forced into slave labor, helping to reinforce the Iron Gates, and so Sir Gorrann said that Harris was outside for a few hours most days. He confessed that the old man looked broken, weary, and sad. He was often covered with bruises and cuts inflicted by the Clubs. This news broke Dinah’s heart, and afterward there wasn’t a day that she didn’t think of Harris’s kind face and soft hands. He had delivered her from her mother’s womb, loved her the way her father should have, taught her everything she knew, and now he was in pain. It was unforgivable, and the white-hot rage she felt toward her father could have burned the Twisted Wood to the ground. To her devastation, she learned that Emily had been beheaded for treason in a public execution, based on the shabby testimony of Nanda and Palma, Vittiore’s ladies-in-waiting. The Spade didn’t talk to her for the rest of that evening, and Dinah was grateful. She stared out at the Wonderland stars, bunched together in small clusters, and didn’t bother to wipe the tears that dripped down her face. Her life was like nightfire—a place that once burned with bright hope, now nothing more than a flickering blackness, her suffering invisible to the naked eye.

  Six

  In the weeks that followed, she woke sore but rested. Together, they gulped down a quick breakfast of stale bread and game before her training began. After days of working on balance, Dinah finally got her sword back, and with it her pride. She was covered in bruises, but each one had taught her a painful lesson, one that she would not soon forget. Pain cemented things in the brain the way reading did not.

  After sparring, they continued to make their way east, going painfully slowly as they navigated their way over pebbly ground and fields of strewn boulders. The Yurkei Mountains were upon them now, and the farther they got from the Twisted Wood, the less she feared her father finding them. The rocky outcroppings and grooves in the earth provided minimal protection once they reached the tree line, but there was no one around. The Spade had delivered them from the king’s hands, as promised.

  In the evenings, Sir Gorrann would tell her of the politics and rumors swirling around Wonderland. Some she knew and some she did not know. He told her dark stories of the Spades, stories that entertained while making her blood curdle. He never spoke of his own past, which made Dinah even more curious about where he had come from and why he was here. When she pressed him for answers, he simply walked away, leaving her in uncomfortable silence.

  After one morning’s lesson—which consisted of repeatedly striking targets that Sir Gorrann had marked with charred wood—they started their hike early due to the abundance of ominous clouds in the west, and continued to make their way toward the mountains. The weather had turned in the last few days. Cheerful and glossy spring had changed into sopping warm rains and foggy nights. As she was almost constantly damp, drenched, or drying, Dinah had never known that being wet could be so miserable.

  The pair circled their way around boulders that resembled hulking granite giants, ones that even seemed to dwarf Morte. That day had proved the most challenging climb so far, and both were exhausted from leading their steeds over the rocky switchbacks that led up a nearly sheer cliff face. Dinah felt a question alight on her tongue. The Spade had shared so little about himself, and her curiosity grew more potent every day.

  Hoping that the discomfort and distraction of the climb would ease his fury, Dinah dared to speak the question: “Sir Gorrann, what happened to your family?”

  The Spade flinched as he nicked his arm on a sharp rock outcropping. “Damn! Look what yeh made me do. Been dying to ask, have yeh?”

  Dinah shrugged, the motion giving Morte’s new leather reins a shake, a gift from the Spade. Morte regarded them humorously, seeing how he could break them on a moment’s notice. Most of the day, they were rarely anything other than decorative.

  “Perhaps. It’s either that or tell me exactly where we’re going in the Yurkei Mountains.”

  The Spade took a deep breath and stared aimlessly at the sky with his dark gold eyes. “Fine. I’ll tell yeh about my family. What I’m about to share cannot be repeated, understand? And once I tell it, yeh may not ask any questions about it. I’ll not have you pestering me for feelings that I’ve long buried.”

  Dinah nodded. “I won’t. Promise.”

  “Fine, then.” He turned slightly back to look at her, his long gray hair blowing in the breeze. “Cling to the wall, Princess, or this coming wind will rip yeh right off.”

  Dinah pressed herself against the stony slate and continued to watch him silently. The Spade stared off into the distance, his eyes focused on something she couldn’t see.

  “I grew up in the Twisted Wood, farther north from where we’ve been. That’s why I have a bit of an accent, yeh see? A small village called Dianquill. Yeh’ve probably never heard of it.” Dinah shook her head, her eyes trained on the hundred foot drop before her.

  “I was just fifteen years old when I met Amabel. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, this tiny red-haired girl, obviously hungry and dressed in filthy rags. I gave her some Julla fruit that I had in my bag, and she scampered off into the trees. ’Twas weeks later when she found me out hunting. In return for food, she taught me how to track. Though I might seem skilled to yeh now, I am nothing compared to Amabel. She could track a deer for a hundred miles and at the same time follow the path of a man who had walked that land twenty days prior.”

  Sir Gorrann paused to take a long drink from his waterskin. “We married when I was nineteen, and I tell yeh, I have never loved another woman. Every morning when my eyes open, I can see her face—her long red hair, her bright eyes, wild as the sea. Hunting became almost too easy with Amabel’s tracking skills. We had a bounty, and life was sweet and easy. After our third year of marriage, we welcomed a daughter, Ioney. She looked like her mother. I bet Amabel that I could never love anything more than her, but I lost that wager the moment I first laid eyes on our little Ioney. Our family was complete, and I wanted for nothing. I was a happy young man. Then they came. It was a damp spring day, not unlike this one . . .”

  His voice sputtered out. The Spade had stopped moving, and Dinah held her position on the rock. Tears were gathering in his eyes, and she saw his weathered hands clenching with emotion. Though she was utterly fascinated, winding tendrils of guilt began to snake through her for asking him to recount these details. “You don’t have to . . .”

  “Quiet, girl!” he snapped. “Yeh asked, and yeh’ll hear it. It’s been a spell since I’ve spoken of them.” His mouth distorted with pain as he continued his story.

  “As I was saying, it was spring, and the warm rains had come and gone. I was out hunting a white bear, the same kind you told me almost took yer limbs, when I saw smoke rising from the village. I ran back, but it was too late. The entire village was smoldering; no building was left untouched. Several of my friends had been slaughtered defending their homes. Most of the women and children had been left alive, but the majority of the men had been cut to pieces. My father was hanging from a burning log that had once been my childhood home. All the villagers’ food and livestock had been taken, their homes gone forever. An entire village, wiped out in less than an hour by a few cruel Cards.”

  Dinah’s eyes narrowed. “Cards? From Wonderland Palace? Not the Yurkei?”

  “I thought it was the Yurkei at first as well, but no. A friend who was dying in my arms told me that while some of the riders had been painted to look like Yurkei, they were undoubtedly Cards. The arrow buried in his stomach was topped with a red glass heart, so there was little doubt. Indeed, it had been Heart Cards, on their way to fight with Yurkei. Their provisions had run low, so they had taken what they wanted from my village. I gave my friend a quick end and climbed upon my horse and galloped for my home, faster than I had ever ridden in my life.”

 
Dinah longed to stop his story, to put her hands over his mouth to save her the horror of what was coming.

  A tear made its way down his face. “I was too late for my darling girls. The Cards had come across Amabel while she was tending our herb garden. She lay motionless on the ground, her red hair wet with the blood that flowed from her chest, my brave love. Her hand clutched a bow and arrow, and I can only imagine that she intended to use it to defend our child. For this she had been shot clean through the heart. I longed to hold her there forever, her body still warm, but I had to find my daughter.”

  Dinah closed her eyes and pressed against the cool rock face, desperate to hear no more.

  “Ioney was inside the house, although there wasn’t a house anymore, just a charred pile of smoking wood and fallen timber. There was only bones left of my little girl, my Ioney.”

  Her eyes blurring with tears, Dinah looked away from Sir Gorrann, out into the open air before them, a vast view of honey-colored valleys and gray rock. Up until now, she had mistakenly believed that she was the only one who had suffered, the only one who had reason to grieve. Her childishness convicted her and she felt her face flush with shame.

  The Spade continued. “Feeling sad that yeh asked, are yeh? ’Twas a dark night with dark thoughts when I lay beside my love. The next day, I buried Amabel and Ioney under their favorite berry bush in the woods, an unmarked grave. I planted Amabel’s treasured orchids in a circle around their grave, sang them their favorite song and departed with my horse as evening fell. I took nothing with me aside from some food, a blanket, and every weapon I could find.”

  A vengeful smile played over his face, and Dinah feared she might be sick. “I rode my horse so hard he died after two days. I left him in the woods, barely stopping to put him out of his misery. From there, I tracked the Cards to the edge of the Yurkei Mountains, where they were attempting to find their way into Hu-Yuhar, the hidden Yurkei city, and failing miserably. It was a small group of only six men.”