A Haven in Ash

by Robert J. Crane

  “Well, how often do you go?”

  Shilara groaned again. Developing into an exclamation, it was louder and longer than the last.

  In the pre-dawn light, Alixa’s lips quirked up just for a moment.

  Oh. So this was it. It had become a game. One did something to irritate the other—being snooty over the idea of socializing with an outcast, for example—so the scorned person retaliated, perhaps by laughing as the other vomited after covering themselves in blood and guts. So then the first party retaliated when they saw an opening—in this case, bombarding Shilara with questions and taking joy in her mounting frustration.

  Four days of this? Dread settled in Jasen’s belly and a sigh worked loose from lips glued together by animal gore.

  When Alixa began her next query, Shilara cut across. “Would you just shut your mouth?”

  “I’m only asking—”

  “I don’t care. I’ve had enough of it. Scourge have ears, don’t forget. They won’t be drawn to us by scent, but if they hear enough noise, they will come looking. Shutting up is for your sake as well as mine.”

  This also quieted Alixa, for a time.

  Then she whispered, “What did Wayforth do?”

  Shilara snapped back, forgetting her own advice entirely, “What do you mean, what did Wayforth do? What does Terreas do? It was a village, not a person.”

  “But what did—”

  Jasen roused, climbing to his feet and pushing to the front of the cart.

  “What—?” Alixa began. Shilara shot him a dirty look.

  “Is that ...?” he began, staring, wide-eyed.

  Then Alixa saw it too. She let out a sharp gasp. Pushing to her feet too, she bowed forward, clutching the edge of the wagon.

  A stretch of water had come into view around the mountainside. Jasen hadn’t noticed it at first, easing from the left around Alixa. Now it had passed Shilara, and the light of a distant sun had cast hair-thin bars of light across its surface, so it no longer blended into the sky.

  That was water out there.

  That was …

  “Ocean,” he murmured.

  “Is that it?” Alixa asked. “The sea?”

  “Yes,” said Shilara shortly. “And sit down, would you? If either of you topples over the side, I won’t stop to get you.”

  Jasen lowered himself unwillingly. Still, he watched, transfixed on the ocean.

  It was so far away—much farther than Wayforth, certainly. He could not see its edge: the land rose and fell many times between. Distant rises were a dark, dull green, possibly devoured by yet more woodland. Yet they were so distant that Jasen could not make out any of the texture like the one they’d passed. And that sea, that grand ocean, separating Luukessia from the continent to the west, was even farther away.

  The enormity of it was not lost to Jasen, not now he’d seen it, nor as it came more and more into view as they ambled around the mountainside. And though he squinted, trying to pick the barest hints out from the horizon, he saw no sign of the distant continent—and west was that way, he was certain of it.

  So much water. It stretched so far.

  And it was glorious.

  “It’s only the sea,” Shilara griped. She took another drink of alcohol; a long one this time, more than her usual nips.

  Yet Jasen and Alixa continued to watch, staring at it with wide eyes as the sun rose, casting more lines of bright light across the surface, short-lived glints that were birthed and died before Jasen’s very eyes.

  He breathed in, deep, hoping to catch its scent. What would it smell of?

  For now, he could not taste it. But he would dream of it, he was sure, his mind conjuring answers.

  Perhaps, if this jaunt for seed went well … perhaps he might venture out again.

  Perhaps he might breathe it in himself.

  He grinned and devoured that endless expanse of purest blue.

  19

  It was mid-morning when Shilara pulled up to a sudden stop.

  Jasen had been dozing again, Alixa next to him. Though most of the way down the mountainside, the sun hadn’t quite managed to reach them. The long shadow draping them was chilled, and though not as frigid as the night had been, it wasn’t much warmer. Combined with their bloody covering, which had mostly dried on their skin but not their clothes, Jasen and Alixa both had come close to shivering. A woolen blanket pulled over them didn’t seem to help a great deal, but the body heat from sitting side by side at the wagon’s edge was a benefit.

  The stop jarred Jasen awake.

  “Ssh,” Shilara hissed immediately. Her voice was no longer frustrated, as when she had told Alixa to shut up, but tense.

  Something was happening. And it made the lingering fog of his fatigue evaporate in a moment.

  Alixa perked up beside him. She looked out with round eyes, pupils darting this way and that.

  More trees surrounded them now. This was not a woods; barely was it a copse. But there were enough to either side of the bumpy trail, and more spread out beyond, that they were shielded from much of the view up the mountain as well as down it.

  What they did not shield, however …

  Jasen’s breath caught.

  Skulking out from between two trees came a scourge.

  It was hard to believe it had been … how long since seeing one? A fortnight? That, like the destruction of his home, seemed like a lifetime ago.

  The beasts hadn’t changed—and of course they hadn’t. This was like any other: too long, too grey, too wrinkled, too bare of down except a few stray, over-long and wiry hairs, and black pits for eyes.

  Its mouth hung open. Spittle damped its lips, or the place where its lips would have been if it had any.

  It crossed the trail—

  Jasen watched it move. Though he’d seen several up close recently, most had been in the rye just beyond Terreas’s boundary. Only a thin strip of land permitted him to take note of their loping movements.

  This one was the first he’d seen move throughout any reasonably-sized stretch of open space. He watched it pick its way across the trail. Its paws, tipped with claws that would run Jasen through in a heartbeat, trod almost carefully—yet it was graceless too, all its movements were. Its body curved upward, rather than running perpendicular to the ground like a dog or cat or fox. And so its back legs came in strange, shuffling sort of movements. The things could put on a burst of speed well enough, that Jasen knew first-hand. But for a sedate pace, they were designed all wrong.

  It paused two-thirds of the way across the trail. Its head twisted this way and that.

  Jasen felt Alixa tense beside him as its dark gaze fell upon the cart.

  But it did not look at it long. A mere glance, the opening of the holes that were its nostrils to scent the air, and then it prowled the remaining distance to the opposite embankment, which was demarcated from the trail itself only by the fact the soil lifted in a small rise. The cessation of this trail’s use had otherwise blurred it into the surrounding terrain.

  The scourge disappeared in a gap between the trees.

  Jasen released the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding.

  Still they were silent. Waiting. Shilara would want to let the scourge put ample distance between itself and the cart before moving off.

  He was just about to lean forward and tug on Shilara’s sleeve, to ask if they were going to move yet, when Alixa tensed again at his side. She loosed the lowest gasp he had ever heard.

  He turned to her—and then followed her wide-eyed stare of terror.

  Another scourge had broken loose from between the trees, the same side the first had come from. It prowled out, level with the cart.

  Jasen’s stomach plummeted. It was right beside them, in almost a straight line from where he and Alixa sat. Ten feet of space, plus the cart’s wooden edge, was all that separated children and beast.

  With unnatural movements, it padded out onto the trail, and paused.

  Its head lifted. Its mout
h fell open, revealing a maw of teeth, the tongue and fleshy mouth the color of a fading bruise on diseased skin.

  And the smell …

  The first had been just far enough ahead that the gentle breeze, snaking around the mountain, blew its deathly scent away. The smell of this one, though, could only waft over the horse and cart. It was the smell of rot, of death, musty and rancid, bitter yet sweet. It cloyed, sticking in the back of the throat. One whiff was enough for Jasen to clamp his mouth closed, to tug his smock over his face, trying to bury it with the smell of his own sweat, come on suddenly strong as a wave of fear spilled over him, mingled with the blood from the dead animal guts he’d swathed himself in last night. Yet though that salty, coppery tang was strong, it could not dislodge the scent of the scourge. That had sunk right to the bottom of his lungs and would not be displaced, as though it were oil and he was trying to remove it with water.

  Another slipped out—and then another, and another.

  Behind, Jasen heard the low, strangled sound of a scourge breathing, and the soft padding of its footfalls as it meandered out of the trees.

  They were surrounded.

  The smell grew stronger.

  Alixa grabbed for Jasen’s wrist. Her nails dug in, hard. He let them, sinking his own into his palms the way she did.

  If Shilara were fazed, he did not know; he did not dare look. All he could do was stare at the pack that had crossed paths with them, four to one side of the cart, at least one to the other. Five scourge, three people. Poor odds.

  He huffed a breath. Oh, it was so rancid! His own smell made it worse, terror on top of rot, on top of death.

  He was sweating through the blood. Shilara’s camouflage would be rendered useless by the sheer potency of his own body betraying him with preemptive sweat to cool him for the moment he burst off of the cart and broke into a frenzied run from the threat—

  No running here though. Running would only get him killed. Get all of them killed.

  The scourge nearest traipsed forward, gait awkward.

  It came to the edge of the cart …

  Jasen stared, eyes bugged and wild. The beast was right beside it. If he and Alixa had sat on the opposite side, it would be able to lean forward right now, and press its nose to them, inhaling …

  Its nostrils widened. It sucked in a breath. Exhaled.

  Ancestors, the smell …

  Alixa felt it too, Jasen was certain. She had drawn blood, he thought, so fierce was her grip.

  If it stopped her from spilling the bile in her stomach, let her, damn it. Let her.

  The scourge lifted its head. It sniffed again.

  Wants to find us, thought Jasen. It can tell. Shilara’s cover isn’t good enough.

  And whose fault was that? His own! His body had rapidly slicked.

  He would give them away. He would betray them—he, who had wanted this mission in the first place.

  The scourge tilted its head. Its eyes, so black and seemingly unseeing, considered the cart’s bulk.

  What was it thinking? Wondering what this obstruction was? Perhaps it recognized it as a man-made thing, an object that its meals—or at least its ancestors’—had occasionally accompanied.

  Just how long did they live? How long were their memories?

  Not important, he thought.

  But it could be. For if this one had stumbled upon a cart decades ago, when the scourge had come to infest Luukessia and bring the people inhabiting it almost to extinction, it might well know that carts came with dinner. Lo and behold, a new cart here, where there had not been a cart before … something must’ve put it there. Something worth hunting.

  It let out a noise from its throat. Like air escaping a confined space, it was more of a sigh than anything. Yet it signaled another, and this scourge wandered over, picking its way across the loose rock scattered across this grassy trail, its walk lumbering and awkward.

  People, Jasen suddenly thought. The way they walk—it’s like a person, bent funny.

  And now he couldn’t un-see it. For his whole life, he’d thought them like dogs, canines stretched into unnatural, disproportioned bodies. Yet now he saw men, malformed, from some cruel nightmare. They’d been twisted forward, their bodies curved, held in place as if they had been skewered upon a hook.

  He felt sick. He was going to be sick.

  Don’t, he begged himself. Please. Whatever you do. Do not be sick.

  The new scourge came from the front end of the cart. Jasen turned just a fraction to see it.

  It approached the horse.

  The horse whinnied softly.

  “Hush,” Shilara whispered. The word was barely audible, the faintest breath—yet in the stark quiet filled with the breaths and footsteps and awful, strangled noises of the scourge, Jasen picked it up like a klaxon.

  The scourge stopped. It twisted its head.

  Dark eyes considered the horse.

  Milo brayed again.

  The scourge began forward—

  “Ancestors,” Shilara muttered. Gripping her spear, she slipped off the cart’s front as lightly as was possible and joined Milo’s side. One hand rested upon his flank, trailing along his body as she approached to stand alongside his neck.

  Milo shifted, throwing his head to one side. The reins shook, a pair of metal links clicking—

  Shilara gripped him. She was not as tall as the horse, but tiptoed so she might whisper in his ear.

  “Easy,” Jasen picked out. “Easy.” She repeated it over and over, slow, and getting slower each time.

  Easy, Jasen willed Milo with her. Easy.

  The scourge that had stopped came nearer … nearer …

  It was close enough that it could reach out now—

  The horse shifted uneasily—

  Jasen clenched his fist tighter. Probably drawn blood himself now too.

  The horse could kick, he thought suddenly. It might rear back, thrusting its legs out. Would a direct impact to the scourge’s head kill it? Horses were powerful things, Jasen knew; he’d heard stories of boys kicked in the head whilst bothering horses, boys who had never been able to bother them again. But a boy’s skull and a scourge skull was not the same.

  Could be, he thought. Almost. If they were men, once.

  He closed his eyes.

  If Milo kicked out, there was a chance it would daze the one scourge, maybe even kill it, though it was a long shot. But four more of the creatures—plus maybe a fifth, if the one to their rear was the not the first they’d seen cross—the odds were still too thin. No, he had to hope the scourge passed, and he and his party could continue their passage to Wayforth.

  Something was grinding.

  Jasen creaked an eye open. He looked on in confusion—

  “It’s eating the tree,” Alixa whispered—or did she mouth those words? No, it was a whisper, deathly quiet; Jasen had not been looking at her and so could not have read her lips.

  He turned very carefully in the direction of the noise.

  The one that had peered into the cart had gone back to the edge of the trail. There, it gnawed the trunk of a tree. Its head moved up and down, teeth gnashing, as if it were trying to find purchase and failing over and over. The bark must have been hardy, for it withstood the assault without dislodging—but then the scourge pulled away, chewing on thin air for five long seconds, and Jasen saw the wounds it had drawn upon the tree’s surface. The gouges were pale yellow. Wood had splintered along the grain, and stuck out. Amber sap trailed down exposed innards.

  The scourge resumed its gnawing, lower down now.

  The one testing Milo’s scent seemed to have given up. It lingered for a long time, staring, now and again cocking its head from one side to the next. Then it whined—like a dog, Jasen thought, just a dog—and departed across the way, stopping on the right side of the trail. There, it stilled, not moving again except for the turn of its head as it stared, unblinking, at the trees along the bank.

  Those, Jasen saw now, had gouge marks o
f their own.

  What were they doing? Was food that scarce for scourge now that they had taken to eating bark?

  Just how much of Luukessia’s wildlife had these beasts decimated?

  Jasen did not know. Nor did he care. All he wanted now was to be free of these monsters and the stink of decay that hung around them. Whether that was Wayforth, or back in Terreas, he did not care.

  Just let us be free of them.

  Yet they did not go. Though Shilara continued to wait, softly patting Milo’s neck and whispering on her tiptoes, the scourge had taken up position here and did not intend to move off. They chewed on trees, they staggered back and forth along the trail, slipping in and out of the trunks … but they did not move on.

  “When is this going to end?” Alixa whispered.

  Jasen shook his head.

  The seconds piled up slowly, turning into minutes that went on much, much too long.

  The sun had not caught them here. But as it slipped behind a growing puff of cotton white cloud, the temperature seemed to drop yet further. Goosebumps rose on Jasen’s skin, the hairs sticking up.

  And still they remained.

  “Blasted vermin,” Jasen finally heard Shilara whisper.

  She turned to them. Catching their gaze, she touched a finger to her lips, and made a slicing motion: shut up, at all costs.

  He nodded once.

  Slowly, very slowly, Shilara began to walk. She gripped Milo’s rein, and gently tugged. He threw his head to one side again, shuffling his feet—and the noise was like thunder in the quiet, so terribly loud, so obvious. The scourge would come to investigate again, they would, and that would be the end—

  Yet for now they did not. Two turned their heads, peering, and Jasen held his breath the way they seemed to, the shallow noises ceasing as they listened and watched with those blank eyes …

  Milo was eased into motion.

  It was slow. Every step was tentative—but loud.

  The cart was worse. It did not creak; no rust on this, like the gate leading out of Terreas. But it carried weight, and the turning of the wheels beneath was constant. It was not a noise Jasen had ever really noticed before, or at least paid much attention to; it became background sound, reaching the ears but filtered out when it reached the brain. This morning though, as it droned, the wheels twisting, metal turning, carrying so much weight …