A Haven in Ash

by Robert J. Crane

  Shilara followed his gaze into the decimated woods. “There must have been,” she agreed. “But they’re not here now. It’s strange. Very strange indeed.”

  She said no more of it. Jasen was not sure what to think. That the scourge were not present was a good thing; they’d not greatly impacted their journey thus far, and if the same held true as they returned to Terreas, it was only to their good fortune.

  But that begged the question: for an island so utterly overrun by the beasts, its inhabitants run almost to extinction, left to eke out existence in remote safe havens—if there were any others beyond Terreas—then …

  Where had the scourge gone these past days?

  25

  They’d ridden well past dark. Shilara had refused torchlight, picking out their route by eye. Jasen followed, squinting into the darkness. The moon was out, casting enough light that he could see some of the way. Whatever landmarks she was using to navigate, though, he could not make head or tail of. It all looked the same in the milky darkness.

  Shilara had directed them a different way home. It had involved crossing the river again, but downstream, where it been both slower and much shallower. The land there was open too; no fear of scourge lurking. Scourgey had crossed the waters nervously, whining softly—but the flow was barely more than three inches deep; not the drowning hazard for her that Shilara no doubt wished it were.

  They had ended up in a stretch of woods again just after night fell. Another cart trail, or the wide ghost of it, was carved through, brush growing across it as nature worked on reclaiming it. The cart’s wheels pushed it flat, and Milo and Scourgey stamped it down further, but Jasen knew their imprints wouldn’t last long. Unless the scourge were beaten back, these trails would not stay wide and clear, the way they once had woven throughout the landscape. Even if the scourge were somehow defeated, it would take untold generations to rebuild Luukessia. Less time if people from the continent to the west came—but what if that too had been swallowed by scourge?

  What if Terreas’s people, and Baraghosa, were all that remained?

  Jasen wondered it again, the way he often did, turning over and over. But he did his best to force it away. Why should he fixate on depressing things? They were heading home, with seed that would allow them to carry on without Baraghosa’s trade. Terreas would not regret their choice, the way he had said they would.

  They did not need him anymore.

  That thought alone should have filled Jasen with joy.

  Yet for some reason he couldn’t quite focus on that. Other thoughts crowded his mind. The strangely ominous lack of scourge. His sudden fatigue. The rumble of the earth underfoot this afternoon. He didn’t know what to make of any of them, save his exhaustion. But even that was strange. It had come on while shifting the barrels, an all-encompassing sort of fatigue that refused to leave, settling in his bones.

  Maybe he’d caught something out here, some pox that the mountains shielded Terreas from.

  Never mind. Not long and he’d be home. He could rest.

  The trail widened in places, passing points where, way back in time, carts could slip into so that another rider and his horse could trundle past. Now they were just as overgrown as the rest of the world had become without people to tame it.

  Shilara stopped at one of these. “It’s not ideal,” she said, “but we’ll smell scourge before we see them, and mount up again if we need.”

  “Couldn’t we just ride on?” Alixa asked. She shot furtive glances about the woods. These trees did not bear any of the gouge marks the scourge had dug in others—a good sign, Shilara said. Jasen wanted to believe her, but with dark descended upon them, every little noise in the darkness—a vole scurrying through the undergrowth, an owl striking out at its unlucky victim as the rustle it created gave it away—made him jerk his head around and squint into the murk.

  “Could,” said Shilara. “Would like to, in fact. Milo needs a rest, though. And I need to sleep for at least a couple of hours.”

  “What about after that?”

  Shilara groaned. “Fine.” She tugged out a blanket and one of the empty sacks. Dry at last, they made a decent place to lay now the cart’s interior was piled high with barrels. Chucking them down roughly beside a wheel, and stowing her spear to her side, she landed heavily and pulled one of the thin blankets over her. “Keep watch. Wake me if you hear scourge. Otherwise, don’t disturb me.” And she rolled over, back to them: conversation finished. If that weren’t message enough, her snoring was; it started less than a minute later.

  Jasen and Alixa couldn’t build a fire; light out here would only draw unwanted attention. A shame; Jasen needed energy, and what he craved was a hunk of meat cooked over flames, oils sweated out, thick enough to coat his mouth and throat with. A good crisp edge—he’d kill for it.

  He swallowed, wishing he weren’t salivating so much.

  “Go to sleep, Alixa,” he told her.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I’ll keep watch.”

  “I can sit up. We can sleep once Shilara is awake again, in the back of the cart.”

  “It’s a bit awkward with all those barrels. And the motion.”

  “It’s only a night.”

  Shilara loosed a particularly loud snore. She seemed to half wake herself, and jolted slightly. A few steadying breaths later, she was slumbering easily again.

  “Go on,” Jasen whispered. “I’ve got Scourgey for company.”

  Alixa shook her head. “I’ll stay up.”

  She did. For hours they sat there—or perhaps it felt like it—listening to the noises of the dark. Only a little conversation passed between them. Alixa tamped down yawns, and Jasen felt a stab of regret that she had not listened to him. It had been a difficult day for all of them. They deserved the respite. Maybe Alixa most. She had come this way, risking herself being shunned by the village for daring to endanger their lives—that was how Hanrey had put it, back when this whole thing started, wasn’t it? To cross was to endanger their lives. It was terribly improper, and doing it that first time had driven a wedge of anger between them.

  Yet here she was, in spite of all that.

  “Why are you here?” Jasen whispered.

  Alixa stirred. She’d been still for—fifteen minutes? Twenty? She didn’t seem to have fallen asleep; her breathing had not slowed in that telltale way. She had simply quieted, and now his question roused her.

  “What do you mean?” she whispered back.

  “Why have you come out here? Past the boundary. Only days ago you would have rather died than cross it.”

  “To help save Terreas.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  Alixa frowned in the dark. “I don’t …”

  Jasen twisted toward her. She was fuzzy in the darkness, and so too was he, he supposed. But maybe if she saw his face better he could convey exactly what had occupied a corner of his mind for this whole trip.

  And before, really.

  “I know that you’ve come to save Terreas,” Jasen said. “But why? You’re so worried about being proper, in everything you do. Something like this—they’d shun you.” Lower, he added, “You’d be like Shilara. An outcast, on the edges.”

  “They won’t do that,” Alixa said. “Not when they see what we’ve done.”

  “They might.” He didn’t believe that, but he didn’t see how Alixa couldn’t have considered it. That was all she did, consider what others would think, worry about what was proper.

  “They won’t.”

  “You sound so sure.”

  “I am. We’re doing Terreas a great service. We’re saving our people’s lives. And if I have to … to be improper to help do that, well, then I will. I have.” This last sentence came after a moment’s pause, as though she were reminding herself of it.

  “And before?”

  “Before what?”

  “I was shunned,” Jasen said. Suddenly he couldn’t look at her—it embarrassed him, although he had been there wit
h her almost every moment of it. Clasping the pendant about his neck, taking comfort in its edges, he carried on quietly, “They didn’t treat me like Shilara. But they treated me close to it. And—you saw what happened to my home.”

  “They were cruel.”

  “You associated with me,” Jasen whispered. “You stayed by my side.” Blinking away unexpected tears—where had they come from?—he looked up to her. “Why?”

  “Because you’re my cousin,” she said. “And it is proper to stand by your family.”

  He nodded. His throat had constricted, gone tight. Averting his gaze down to his lap again, he managed to force out a wet, “Thank you.” It was not enough, nowhere near a fraction of his appreciation conveyed in it.

  “Why did you come? After the way they treated you?”

  Jasen shrugged. “They’re scared. And I know what that feels like.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course.” His eyebrows knitted. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “You always seem so fearless.” In a small voice, Alixa added, “Not like me.”

  “I’m not fearless. I just … try to have courage, I guess. It’s important to be courageous, Mother said. Nothing wrong with being scared—just have to be brave in the face of it.”

  Alixa nodded. “I’m trying to do that.”

  “You’re succeeding.”

  “It’s hard.”

  “I know.”

  They were quiet for a while, listening to the noise of the forest. There was little of it; just the quiet shuffle of small animals. A sweet, leafy smell was carried on the cool air. No death, no decay, no rot; Scourgey had gone, loping away into the darkness when it was apparent Shilara was stopping for the night. Sleeping? Prowling for any stalking beasts roaming the woods? No way of knowing. Didn’t truly matter, as long as they remained safe.

  “When we get back,” Jasen said slowly, “do you think we might be treated as heroes?”

  Alixa stared.

  “What?” Jasen asked.

  “Is that why you came?” she hissed. “So you can be a bloody hero?”

  “Uhm …” He was an inch away from telling her that she had adopted Shilara’s way of saying things—but her eyes were wide, blazing with a fire that was obvious in the darkness, and he decided that maybe he didn’t need to tell her that after all.

  “Is that why you came out here?” Her voice was rising.

  “No,” Jasen said quickly, hoping to head off an explosion. “Just …”

  “Just what?”

  He licked his lips. “It … might be nice …”

  Alixa did not get to say a word, for from the direction of the wagon came a splutter.

  Jasen and Alixa twisted. His heart hammered in his chest—

  “Sorry,” said Shilara, turning toward them in her makeshift bed. “I’ve been listening a while. But that one … that tickled me.” She pushed the blanket aside, and got to her feet. She gave a little groan as she went, clutching the spoke of the nearest wheel to help herself up. “Damn these bones.”

  “How much did you hear?” Alixa asked hotly.

  “None of your darkest secrets, so don’t worry,” Shilara said, waving her off. She leaned back against the edge of the wagon.

  “What was so funny?” Jasen asked.

  “You talking about being a hero.”

  “What’s funny about that?” A little of Alixa’s hotness bled into him there.

  Shilara gave a thin little smile through the dark.

  Jasen held himself from asking, “Well?” That would’ve made him an even closer reflection of his cousin.

  “Let me tell you a story,” Shilara said, and she came to join them, sitting opposite the cousins in a loose triangle.

  “About what?” Alixa asked.

  “War,” Shilara said—and the woods seem to grow quiet around her, their clearing becoming strangely claustrophobic.

  “We were just like you,” she said to Jasen, “back when the war began with the scourge. I marched into battle with the men, see, because we’d already lost many in a war with our southern neighbor, Galbadien—have you heard of them?” She didn’t pause for them to nod in the starlight. “We were low on troops, low on men, even before the scourge came. So when Briyce Unger, our king, called for help, I put aside the foolishness of spinning and sewing and all that twiddle and answered his call. I did things and went places I was never supposed to—and all of them, all the men there, like you, longed to be heroes. They came from villages, just like yourself”

  “Who were they?” Alixa asked.

  “They were countless; names don’t matter. Point I’m making is: in the same way you hadn’t seen the world before, none of these boys had seen war before.

  “Like you, Jasen,” she continued, looking him hard in the eye, “they had no idea what they were walking into.

  “Droves of people came—because it’s not just soldiers who march to war, but their families, entertainment, merchants. I wasn’t attached to anyone, but I blended in, hoping, wishing all the while that I could be a part of the war myself.”

  “You did fight,” said Jasen. “Didn’t you?”

  “Oh, aye,” Shilara said. “I was a part of it, all bloody right.”

  “What was it like?”

  “Brutal,” she said, her voice blunt and melancholy, almost haunted. “Whole armies were slaughtered. The villages we tried to blockade, to protect, were overrun anyway as the scourge broke through our defenses, whittling us down, killing every person we staked our lives to protect. They flooded in en masse, packs the likes of which you’d never hope to see in your darkest nightmares, and left—devastation.

  “Most of my comrades perished. For a long time, I envied them, for they never got to see the bloodshed grind to its end. They went on to be with our ancestors, free of all...this.” She made a gesture to the air around her. “They were done happening upon half-living men or women, or worse, children, whose sides had been split open, innards torn out. They didn’t have to taste iron in the air anymore, so heavy and thick it choked you, worse than the scent of a thousand of those verminous beasts who’d spilled so much blood.

  “Frightening, isn’t it?” she asked Alixa and Jasen, looking between them in turn. “To think that you’d think the dead lucky, for however grisly their fate, it was better than surviving. Surviving to see the land of Syloreas, of Luukessia...turned into this.” She gestured again, more harshly this time.

  Quiet. And then, softly, from Alixa: “You feel guilty.”

  Shilara didn’t answer, not with a word, nor with a nod or shake of the head. She only continued.

  “When I realized how hopeless things were, I retreated. It was a hard battle, fighting my way to Terreas, and one I almost lost many a time. But I got there, pursued by them, a hair’s breadth away and on my tail. I was crawling then, bloodied, damn near dead myself. They could’ve had me, easy.”

  “They left you at the boundary?” Jasen asked—then: “Wait. You … didn’t you discover the boundary in the first place?”

  Shilara lowered her head in a sage nod. “Aye. Wasn’t a wall there, decades ago, when I crossed it. I was dragging myself by the end, horse dead miles back, battles fought that I’d won, all the way up to a mile outside the village. I left dozens of their dead behind me, but they’d struck true—got me here.” She patted her leg. “They were almost upon me, a pack of them. But just as they came to finish me—and they would have—something out there made them stop. It was as if an insurmountable hurdle, totally invisible, lay in their path. And so the scourge let me crawl away.”

  “But why?” Alixa asked.

  “We’re the favored of our ancestors,” Jasen answered for Shilara. “They watch over us. That’s why the scourge don’t cross the boundary.” It was an explanation he had heard many a time—from his mother, from Aunt Margaut, and over and over from the assembly, past and present. Hanrey had been particularly fond of that one for many years, back before he’d truly soured.

&nbs
p; “What about the other villages?” Alixa asked. “Why didn’t their ancestors protect them?”

  “They were undeserving,” said Jasen.

  Alixa frowned, turning her nose up at his answer. “That doesn’t seem very likely to me. Why wouldn’t they be deserving?”

  “They just …” Jasen began, then found he had no further words. Exactly why hadn’t the other villages scattered across Luukessia been deserving of salvation? He’d never thought of it before—and now he tried to source an answer, all he found was an enormous hole.

  “Whether our villages’ ancestors failed them or not,” said Shilara, “it’s enough for me that the scourge did not pursue that day. But—”

  Some distance off, twigs snapped—hard.

  Then more.

  A branch cracked in two.

  The smell of rot seeped into the air on the night’s breath.

  “Damn it,” Shilara whispered, rising.

  Scourge.

  26

  Shilara moved into action, footsteps swift. She made for Milo, who was tied off barely four feet from the cart; quicker to jump into action that way, should they need to. He was awake already, in no need of prodding; someone else struggling with a sleepless night.

  “On the cart,” Shilara barked—or a whispered approximation of it anyway. “Now!”

  Jasen and Alixa did not need telling twice. They clambered up and onto it.

  “Where’s Scourgey?” Alixa whispered.

  “Don’t know, nor do I care,” Shilara said.

  “We can’t just leave her.”

  “It’ll catch up if it wants to.”

  “She,” Alixa said.

  “I don’t have time to care.” And with that, Milo reattached to the cart, Shilara climbed aboard. She got the horse moving with a whispered, “Yah!” before she’d even settled her backside.

  Milo pulled. The cart was slow to begin moving, weight of so many barrels holding it in place. But once those wheels began to turn, they turned quicker, building speed as the cart returned to the trail proper, leaving this passing place they’d tucked into.