Girl in the Bearskin (Once Upon a Harem Book 6)

by C. L. Stone

  “Am I late?”

  “No,” he said. Ivan’s beard was growing in marvelously, and I was jealous at his ability and for having such a fine one. “But we used to have two men out here on patrol.”

  “We’ve split it up,” I said. “One at every--”

  “I know that,” he said and he waved me off. “But if we’re going to continue to sit here like babies, then we shouldn’t get lazy, either. We should shorten the amount of time, to keep the one on patrol fresh.”

  I had to agree with him. Being here for so long, we were straining for things to do while we waited for our next orders. “Maybe you should tell the Cap…” I paused, gazing out at the road.

  The mist was thick further down the road, but not enough to hide the horse and rider coming at us full speed, about half a mile off.

  It looked like a boy, maybe a few years younger than myself.

  I found an arrow, brought it to my bow and aimed at his nose, ready. The enemy was tricky. Sometimes they sent children to distract us, or got them close enough to spit sleeping darts into the camp. It was odd he was alone. Another trick?

  Ivan held out his sword, ready.

  When the boy spotted us, he reigned in his horse, holding up a satchel to show us the side of it.

  “I come for the Captain,” he said. “Let me pass.”

  “Name your purpose,” I called to him. I kept my arrow aimed at his face but slackened my arm.

  The boy looked at me and then at my companion guarding the entry. He kept his hands up as he slid off his horse and approached.

  He continued to show us the satchel. He appeared weary. “The war is over,” he said.

  My arm slacked more, and I lowered the bow completely. “What did you say?”

  “The war is over,” he said, coming closer, showing us the satchel with the seal of the king embedded on one side.

  “What does it mean, it’s over?” I asked Ivan. Others who had been nearby were starting to come over from their tents, interested in what was going on. “How is it over?”

  “It is when the king says it is,” he said, although he seemed displeased. His dark eyes met mine and he frowned. “He’s made peace with the opposing side. We’re no longer needed.”

  Somehow, in the long years spent with the men, the idea of it one day ending never occurred to me.

  No longer needed?

  We let the boy pass, with one of the men escorting him to the Captain’s tent.

  The others remained beside me. I’d put away my bow by then but I remained vigilant of the road. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Where will we go now?”

  “Home,” one said.

  “To…the capital?” I asked. “Do we patrol? Do we…”

  “No,” Ivan said, and his tired face shook. “No, girl, we go home. You go back to where you came from.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “You get married. You have babies. You join us at the taverns and we shall talk of the glory days of battle. We will talk of how we survived, of our fallen, and we will inspire the younger men of the future, when war calls again. That is our role now.”

  I couldn’t believe it.

  The Captain left his tent, the boy walking off. I wanted to call to the Captain, wanting to ask questions but unsure of how to utter my concerns.

  I had no home.

  There was nowhere to go to.

  The Captain took one long look at me, nodded once and then turned more toward the others that had gathered around. “It’s true,” he said. “We’ve been disbanded.”

  All at once, it seemed the men started to move. Some were swift, heading back to their tents. Others remained behind, talking to one another, clapping each other on the shoulder or even hugging.

  Saying goodbye. Talking about what routes they would take, getting parties together to travel for the journey back home.

  I looked back at the chair. Do I remain here? Didn’t someone need to watch out for…

  Ivan beside me seemed to know my struggle. He planted a hand on my back and shook me where I stood. “Go collect your things, daughter of Yousef. By nightfall, there won’t be a camp to guard.”

  I moved slowly, my body reluctant to leave a post I was in charge of, but no one hollered at me as I moved.

  Feeling disjointed, I skirted around the camp, watching as others were waking up. Word seemed to move faster than I did. They weren’t in a hurry to move on, but tents were being emptied so everything could be disassembled.

  When I returned to my tent, I stayed outside. Our little spot on the outside corner was quiet. The firepit just outside was cold. The pot we’d used for stew the night before still sitting next to the log Thorne and I had sat together on. Wood I’d collected last night was stacked off to one side.

  I sighed heavily. I had to tell him. But maybe he’d understand how I felt. I was to go back, but had no idea what to do.

  I readied myself, and then opened the flap to the tent.

  His bedroll was still there, but Thorne wasn’t.

  And the whole rest of the inside of the tent was in disarray. Blankets were thrown about. The little bit of food we kept in the tent spilled over onto the ground.

  Did he hear before I got back? Did he throw things about in anger?

  I was glad of it. He perhaps felt the same as I did. Lost. Maybe I should throw things.

  I considered my options but then noticed his pack was gone.

  And then I noticed mine was gone as well.

  Confused, I rechecked again, sure maybe I’d missed something. Did he pick them up and take them to meet me somewhere? If so, I was hoping to at least bring one of the bedrolls. It’d take a long time to get back to anywhere civil.

  I left the tent, scanning the camp, looking for him, expecting he was doing the same. We weren’t supposed to just leave. What about the tent?

  I walked through the camp again, and when I couldn’t find him, I walked to the topmost point, looking out among the men, hoping to spot him.

  No.

  He wasn’t here.

  Worried now, I ran through the camp, asking questions. “Have you seen Thorne?” “Where’s the dwarf?”

  All the answers were the same. “Nope. Didn’t see him.”

  I returned to the tent, looking around again, seeking out clues as to what happened. My heart was a scramble of worry.

  I was bending over to pick up some of the blankets, hoping for more answers, when Ivan and the Captain entered the tent.

  I straightened up as they looked over the mess. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s not normally like this…”

  Captain raised his hand up, a palm out, an encouragement to stop rambling. “When did you last see him?”

  “This morning. Right before I came out for guard duty.”

  He nodded shortly. It was the first time Captain appeared unsteady to me. Captain’s hair had grayed, as had his beard, in the years I’d known him. There was a weariness to his face, like he hadn’t slept much lately. He looked over at Ivan. “Tell her.”

  Ivan didn’t falter, but looked me in the face with a dark and tired expression. “Word is he left in a hurry to the south. He’s not here. He’s gone.”

  “I know he’s gone,” I said. “Something happened. I should go after him. Something’s wrong.”

  Ivan frowned and approached me. He grasped my chin and shook me hard, something the men hadn’t done to me in a long time. “Listen, girl, he’s betrayed you. He took your things, probably what was valuable, and he left. Well before word of the war being over had come to him.”

  Had the men lied to me about knowing what happened to him? They knew this and didn’t tell me? “No,” I said, the weight of disbelief dropping on me. “No…what? Why?”

  “No idea,” Ivan said, but he released me and looked back at Captain. “If it was before the word was called out that the war was over…”

  “Technically the war was over weeks ago,” Captain said. “And he was here voluntarily on behalf of their people. Desertion doesn’
t really apply here.”

  “Theft does,” Ivan said. The anger rising up in him, and he looked over at me. “He took your pack?”

  I hesitated in my answer. This was wrong. He wouldn’t leave. Not without me. Not…taking my things. I had little but… I looked around again, picking up blankets and looking underneath the bedroll where I’d slept.

  My coin purse was gone.

  Ivan and Captain talked, but I didn’t hear them. I sat back on my heels, gazing at the side of the tent.

  The well in my heart I’d felt that morning crumbled.

  THE HOME I FORGOT

  I denied any help from my brother soldiers when they learned about what happened.

  In my uniform, with my tent and two bedrolls and whatever was left in my camp, I started off. I took the south road at a rapid pace, but despite this, I didn’t find him on the road, nor at the towns I passed along the way.

  For some time, it was all I did. I headed south. I asked about Thorne as I went. No one had seen him.

  Without the ability to confront him, I told myself to forget him. I hated the thought of his face, of the things he told me.

  Stealing from me was bad.

  Running off without a word to me, without a reason, I found it cowardly. It hurt more than the theft and desertion of my brothers.

  However, part of it, I blamed myself. Something happened that morning that made him run. Whatever that was, I feared that had something to do with it.

  And in a way, I didn’t totally blame him. Perhaps he thought running off would kill the feeling…but did that mean he actually felt something?

  Something horrible enough to run off?

  The questions mounted on top of me, weighing me down. I’d no answers, pondering them alone. I would have to try to look for him, and hopefully catch up somewhere. I didn’t care about the money. I just wanted to know.

  I’d sold the second bedroll for a few coins to get me by. Eventually I ended up selling the tent, a spare dagger, and then, with a heavy heart, I traded in my armor for lighter leather breeches and a tunic.

  I kept my sword and my bow, despite knowing the war was over. I simply couldn’t leave them with anyone else. I used the bow when I could for game for food, but wandering the wilds left me lost. Without purpose.

  For a few weeks, I wandered further south, but no one had seen a dwarf. Wandering cost me coin, and since I had no occupation to earn more, I had nowhere else to go but back home. I considered I could at least gather supplies, and figure out what to do next.

  It was a journey that took longer as the nights got colder with autumn coming on. The green trees had changed to orange by the time I’d reached the village closest to the old farmstead.

  It was twilight when I approached the house I'd left when I was a child.

  I never thought I'd see the place again. There was a wood cabin at the very end of several rows of fields. An ancient, waist height stone wall surrounded the entirety of the fields to keep deer and other animals at bay. Wood fencing dotted the property line and around the house.

  I thought maybe I wouldn’t recognize the place, but I did. I spent many days walking the wall as a kid, and then later in harvesting a kitchen garden and taking care of the farm animals while my brother worked the wheat fields.

  The windmill was positioned opposite the barn, and it was still at the moment. The golden wheat was half harvested, waiting to be turned into flour and later to be sold.

  I clutched my bow, shouldered it, and walked down the path toward the house. More memories returned to me, of being sent to the barns to muck the stalls, of my brother goading me into working day and night in the windmill to grind the wheat into flour.

  The cabin was the worst memory, of feeling trapped in a corner as my brother yelled obscenities at me while drunk off mead he’d made himself.

  I thought of this as a man stepped out of the cabin.

  He was tall, with a twisted beard and big, wide eyes. He’d aged considerably, but it was hard to not see my brother, the young man who was angry and spiteful.

  “Stop,” he said. He stood by with his arms crossed, glowering at me from the porch. How familiar. “Stay where you are.”

  “Have you forgotten me so soon?” I asked, and raised my head further to stare at his face. “Do I not look familiar?”

  He peered out at me from the stoop of his door and squinted. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Nothing can kill me,” I said. “The war is over. I've returned.”

  He shook his head. “Returned to what? I've no room for you.”

  I blinked rapidly and looked beyond him. Inside, there was a plump pregnant woman, and next to her, she clutched to a little boy, not yet three.

  “I don't want you here,” he said. “You abandoned me.”

  “You wanted me gone,” I said, although I didn't see the point of arguing if he wasn't going to let me into the house. And after seeing his wife and child, I didn't want to go in. I didn’t care to argue in front of those who didn’t deserve to hear it. “But I'll go. But may I have shelter for the night?”

  He lowered his arms until they were by his sides. Something in him changed, I supposed when he realized he could be rid of me without a fight. “You can sleep in the barn with the animals,” he said. “For tonight only, after that, I need you to go.”

  The fact that he and his family were here and father wasn’t told me he had remained gone or he was dead. I didn’t even ask which.

  My brother’d never been so defensive before though. I backed away. Perhaps he worried I was here to claim what might belong to me.

  But I didn’t want it. After all the traveling I’d done with the army, I wasn’t sure the farming life suited me. Perhaps I just needed to come back, see it for myself, knowing my brother would constantly be there even if I claimed part of it for myself by right of birth into the family.

  But I had no desire for this.

  Being in one place didn’t feel good to me.

  In my own way, I was still looking for Thorne. Only when I was drunk or about to fall deep asleep, only then I might admit to myself that I was chasing him.

  I wanted answers.

  That night, I slept in the barn in an empty stall. My bedroll was underneath me. I listened to the bull in the stall next to me. There were horses and chickens somewhere else, but the bull often huffed as he slept, something like snoring perhaps. Or he smelled me and didn’t like a human nearby, especially one unfamiliar to him.

  I drifted, thinking about Thorne. Where to look next for him was the question. I considered finding where his clan of dwarves lived. Maybe he returned there. Thorne had mentioned mountains on occasion, that the dwarves lived at the base of them, but which mountains? I hadn’t asked.

  And would he have actually gone back?

  More than that, I thought of the last time I saw him. The touch he’d put upon me, the well that had crumpled after…the mess was still there. It was a feeling I’d never experienced before. A need to fix something, to get back something that I’d only felt for only a moment.

  The sound of footsteps soon met my ears, working me out of my deep thoughts to focus on now. They came from outside, and I considered it to be a beast that had gotten beyond the fences except for the squeak of leather boot against the mud.

  I was upright, with a hand on my blade, ready. I was aware it could have been my brother, come to kick me out on second thought, or perhaps talk to me about land rights to confirm I wished no claim on it. Perhaps I could ask him for a few supplies instead, and relinquish any claim of my birthright completely.

  The barn door opened. I crept in the dark toward the sound, straining my eyes to see who was out there.

  It was raining outside. The pitch black made everything shadow upon deeper shadow.

  But there was a glow. A small one. Like a firefly kept in jar, only I didn't see the jar. It was behind a dark figure peering into the barn.

  “Who is it?” I asked him. He had a male figure.
“Brother?”

  “I don't know who you are,” a man said. His voice was masculine, but the accent was odd to my ear. “But I'm just a traveler and I'm caught in the rain. May I share the barn with you tonight?”

  be a thief, but with the heavy rains coming down, and myself having slept in a couple of barns on my journey, I reconsidered. “It isn't mine to share,” I said. I lowered my blade. “But if you're gone by morning, and keep away from the animals, you can stay the night.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and he approached me. The glow followed him.

  I took a step back. I felt naked without my uniform on, but the thin linen cloth covering my body wasn’t enough against the cold after I’d warmed myself in my bedroll. My hair about my shoulders and around my body didn’t do much to help keep me warm.

  As he approached, his face lifted.

  His nose was long, his hair in curls that framed his face and his skin dark like half baked leather. I had only run into men like him a few times. They sought work, but only took food in payment and never stayed long. Everwanderers is the word I often heard used from my army brothers. Men from lands in the south who had come north when war had destroyed their homes. Still, Everwanderers weren’t common, rarely anyone came into our realm after the wall came down. Most didn’t want to have anything to do with us.

  He studied me under that firefly glow and squinted. “You sleep alone?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And I intend to keep it that way.” I pointed to a stall opposite of mine. “You can go in there. It’s empty.”

  He looked toward it and then back to me. I realized his accent was funny when his “l” and “r” sounds seemed to roll off his tongue differently. “Thank you very much. I'll see you in the morning.”

  As he turned, I had better light to see him clearer. He wore a cloak with the front open, showing his bare feet, worn breeches and shirt. He carried nothing with him, but the glow followed wherever he went. Magic was only common from outside the wall or from witches, and I had encountered little of it while in the army.