Torrodil

by Luke Geraghty

  Yet perhaps there had been an innate reason for her attachment. What were they called? The daeva? What an absurd existence living in the desert without men. They had no reason to breed but that was no excuse to hate an entire group of people.

  Probing her limited mind store, Anna reckoned they must reside in the deserts to the south west, past the outlying towns, through the mire and the Kurashi Wilds. Journeying there would be unthinkable. Even she realised that the Empire’s cartographers hadn’t been past the mire in decades. How could they when monarchs had been too busy plundering the country’s wealth for their own interests, or curling up on the floor in the throes of a phantom sickness, begging for the apothecaries, or so obsessed with nurturing their male heir that they let the poor starve while the rich grew richer. Finally, after half a century of bungling men, Queen Katharine had taken to the throne, doing more in five years than any of her predecessors. The royal court kept smiling even as she stripped them of their power. The Council of the Realm nodded its head even as she manipulated its ministers to remove conscription. ‘A woman,’ they said. ‘It’s what we needed all along.’

  Anna raised her back off the floor. The daeva likely didn’t even exist. The childhood visit was fiction devised by Anna’s mother to toy with her daughter. If so then it was a success. Bravo. She was sans job, sans boyfriend and to top it off sans sanity. Okay that's dreadful. Get a grip, girl. A notion sparked in her mind. Say I have some elemental power. I should be able to conjure it at will, yes? Alright then, let’s summon some rain, shall we? Looking out over the lake, Anna twirled her hands in the night air.

  ‘Abracadabra!’

  ‘Shazam!’

  ‘Make rain!’

  ‘Water, I summon you!’

  ‘Blessed be the Rainmaker. Come, Rainmaker, come!’

  The skies stared back at her, slightly amused.

  ‘That’s it, you laugh, you kick me while I’m down. Given me the worst day of my life and you think it’s funny. Rotten sod. You better watch yourself when I’m up there.’ Anna wagged her index finger at the sky and got up. Lights from behind beckoned her eyes and she assumed it was the watchman on his evening stroll. The air was perfumed with an odd smell. What was it? Turning around, she gazed on a scene of burning houses. Had she blocked out the screams? Because they were there now. Blood-curdling shrieks that for many would be their last.

  Racing down the path for the second time that day, Anna’s eyes glazed with tears, reflecting the inferno that engulfed her town. Smoke clouds puffed out into the black night and the stars shone down unaffected, the sacking of Leitrim a minor tragedy on the great tapestry of time.

  Three – A Faint Crackle

  As Leitrim burned, Anna ran. A stitch nuzzled at her insides and guilt flushed out the tears. She had known, but not done enough, lives lost by her hands as much as the bandits. The injustices of teenage life are forgotten and tears fall about her cheeks like bitter lemon drops.

  By the time she reached Stonemarket on the outskirts of town, the blaze had spread from its central origin near Ragle’s monument and burned brightly from one thatched roof to the next. Fighting was rampant. Shopkeepers forced out of their homes by the fire struggled against sword-wielding bandits until death claimed them, bandits sliding their weapons out with ease. Farmers who worked in the nearby fields had brought their pitchforks to fight them off. As Anna ran through the streets, a raider to her right wailed as his knees gave way, fork piercing a second time just to be sure.

  The smell of burning timber wafted up her nostrils, mixed with blood and fear. Buildings crumbled to the ground as support beams gave way; rats fled the town in droves; women and children joined them as their men stayed to fight; and the town Anna had grown up in, loved, hated and known glowed scarlet against the backdrop of the night.

  A bandit saw Anna running, grinned in her direction, ran to her, got toppled over by one of her kinsmen and blinded by the excrement he had rubbed on his hands. Raider took three fists to the face and two to the gut before her saviour drove a dagger home.

  No time to dwell on the mindless slaughter. Running, legs beginning to give way, chest expanding and falling, lungs begging for respite. Where am I? she thinks, stumbling and leaning against a flaming building for support. Peering around, she sees fire that has made the streets with their former unique twists and turns identical. Behind a layer of smoke she can make out the clock tower. It has to be a street away. If that is the case then she has run halfway through the town and it is halfway until home. My awful family. Nobody can kill them but me.

  A short and stout man caught Anna’s eye as she trundled on, finding the route ahead blocked by fallen buildings. He was hitting a safe with a small hammer, making dents but little headway. She guessed it would take hours to open.

  ‘What are you doing?’ The man ignored her, diligently pounding away. She thought of what her father would do. The moral compass. The good, honest man. And then she ran into the burning building, shielding her face with her arm.

  ‘Leave it, it’s not important!’

  ‘My money’s in there. Everything. I can’t leave it behind.’

  ‘Listen, this whole place’s falling to—’ coughing, heaving up the smoke and ash that had nestled inside. – ‘I’m taking you with me.’ She tugged at the man, who had to drop the hammer to clutch onto the safe with both hands.

  He looked at her face, dropping his gaze to her neck. ‘How could you possibly understand? You’re a birth brand; you’ll never have anything anyway. Leave me be, you vile girl. I need to open it! I can’t live like you people!’

  A beam fell near Anna but she was pre-occupied with coughing, covering her mouth and nose with her sleeve. It was when the heat began to blister her skin that she took heed and limped towards the door, shooting a fleeting look in the stout man’s direction before she left.

  Onto the pavement and finding a fresh path towards home, Anna discovered the streets had become deserted of man and marauder. It was in the wide open space of the central square that Anna heard the brawl. Narrowing her eyes, Anna discerned a satchel lying on the floor along with two men.

  Those deserting twerps.

  Smoke billowed out of buildings and obscured her vision as she passed Ragle’s monument. The din of crashing stone and wood made masking her footsteps unnecessary so she ran closer, trying to determine what was going on. It was clear that one of the fighting men was Cesar, but who was the other? Peering, trying to give him a face or locate a recognisable feature, she distinguished an emblem on the second man’s cloak. He’s a Venecian, too.

  Cesar had seen her but was pretending not to notice, losing in a duel with his countryman and being slowly forced back into a corner where he would find two harmless spiders, a bundle of lace and certain death.

  Eyeballing the stone block by her feet. Telling her to pick it up and knock the man unconscious.

  She shakes her head ‘no’.

  Gesturing vehemently to be a good girl and pick up the stone block and do away with this fellow.

  She goes to leave.

  Being pushed up against the wall in the corner, sword at his throat, a final exchange of last words with his combatant, gesturing very vehemently this time to pick up the stone block and smack this fellow over the head. Please.

  And she obliges. Finally. When Cesar leans in for a romantic scene she slaps him across the face and goes to help up one of his men, who she unloads on a shoulder before struggling on, Cesar not far behind.

  ‘I said there was something special about you.’

  ‘Interesting, you said there was something interesting.’

  ‘These words mean the same thing, no?’

  ‘Not quite,’ she replied, propping up one of the Venecians and finding him heavier than anticipated. ‘Is this how you spend your days – getting into fights you lose?’

  ‘They found us outside your fair town; told us to help burn it. I like this town. I say no. Me and my companions run. Two men follow. One of
mine takes down one of theirs, they knock out two of mine, and I am left fighting for life until you, my darling luchadora, saved my life. I am indebted to you. And bruised by you, I think.’

  Staggering on with the men, they took one of the two routes out of the city and towards Anna’s home. Empty streets made for an easy journey, the newer buildings of the area purposefully spread out to mitigate the effect of fires.

  ‘You know, you are pretty strong. For a woman.’

  ‘And you are pretty weak for a man.’

  A noticeable grimace.

  ‘I’ve worked many a field in my time,’ Anna continued. ‘The poorer among your women must be the same.’

  ‘Few of our women work in fields. They sow and nurse and bathe, but we do not want them to toil in the midday sun; to lose their feminine charms in the sweltering heat. What a waste that would be. But not with you, of course. With you it is quite charming.’

  ‘I’d prefer it if we didn’t speak.’

  They worked their way to the town edge. Anna breathed a sigh of relief when she saw figures in the distance. The relief vanished when she saw the emblems and heard the renewed cry of the wretched.

  ‘We cannot go that way; it is futile,’ said Cesar. ‘The fire will not reach this part of town. In the building, we go.’ He carried himself onwards to the small home, opened the door and laid his fellow bandit down on the floor inside. Anna followed and dumped her burden beside him. ‘Close the door. They will see.’

  On the windows were the flames of her ruined birthplace. She saw the spot where she’d had her first kiss and the field where she’d known her earliest heartbreak. The aroma was of the cherry cake her father had bought from the bakery one birthday, much to her mother’s disapproval.

  ‘Stay here until morning. I’ll come for you, I swear. If you have to leave, go to the lake. I’ll make my way there after checking this house.’

  She ran outside before Cesar could stop her, slamming the door in her wake. Realising it would indeed be pointless to head into the onslaught, Anna sought out an answer in the ashes, looking from building to building, street to street, and finding blocked-off alleys, people too frightened to fight, and beggars too drunk to care. Following a bend back to her starting point, Anna heard the shout of a man up ahead. From the reflection on a window she could see it was one of the preachers, Bale, being chased by two bandits. If he sees me, Anna thought, he may be convinced to fight.

  Anna bounded out onto the street corner and into one of the bandits, sending them both flying through the air and onto the cobbled pavement. Bale had been captured and was shouting obscenities.

  ‘Get your hands off him!’

  The bandit Anna had tackled to the floor grabbed her calf. She gave him a foot to the face but he didn’t relent, seizing her other leg and pulling her into his midst. Wrestling, biting, screaming her own obscenities, Anna was quickly overpowered by the brutish man, who lay on top of her, crushing her into stone. His compatriot watched on with bated breath.

  ‘Let me go!’ she cried, clamping down her teeth on his ear.

  ‘You are wild!’

  Bleeder’s enjoying this. Cesar, you pansy. Helped you and now you’re hiding inside, oblivious to my cries. Shaper, somebody, hear me.

  He was grappling with the belt buckle when he saw it: her eyes had gone completely black. ‘What the…’ he said, clambering off her. Suddenly a gust of wind from her hands sent him coursing into the smoke-filled sky, his body falling onto a thatched roof three houses down, leaving his sword behind. Anna stared at her hands in disbelief.

  ‘Witch! Wiiiiiitch!’ cried Bale.

  You’ve got to be kidding me.

  ‘I don’t know what you are, jeva,’ said the second bandit, tossing Bale to the floor, ‘but I’m betting a sword to the chest will let me find out.’

  Anna raised her hands. Nothing happened. She twirled them again and again until the Venecian backhanded her, pain streaking through her jaw. Cool stone underneath. Hand yanking her up by her hair. The blade glinted as she slid by and she picked it up and slashed at his thigh. Scared witless but going to fight till the end.

  The Venecian met her sword with his in a loud clang, sending a jolt of agony up her arms. She parried a hit but another almost took her head clean off. Her senses were dulled; the sword too heavy. He dived in for her heart but found her blade, forcing the sword from her hands and sending it to its resting place in the leg of Bale, who then proceeded to scream something other than slurs.

  A sword met Anna’s throat.

  ‘Kneel for your execution. You deserve that much.’

  She swallowed and did as he requested, black eyes once again brown.

  The Venecian’s sword swung through the air, Anna’s eyes closed, her mind armed with the knowledge that she did not accept it lightly, her breaths grown steady, her person awaiting the deadly blow that was incoming. Except it didn’t come.

  Opening her eyes, the Venecian stood before her, face engorged, the sword falling to the floor. A second blade twisted in his gut. The hand it was attached to pulled it free and let the man collapse at Anna’s feet, death sweeping over him. The anonymous stranger helped Anna up and when she got there it became perfectly obvious. The red insignia on his breastplate. That unusual footwear. This was a defender of the realm. One of the Queen’s cavalry. And he was perplexed as to why a man was lying unconscious on a thatched roof three doors down.

  When an earthquake levels a city or a tornado uproots a town of farmers, there is a degree of acceptance, for nature is at liberty to wreak unspeakable havoc, and often does. Yet the citizens of Leitrim could not blame nature for the morning’s pallid bodies and thick grief.

  Anna Gray had been escorted by the member of the Queen’s cavalry to her home on the outskirts of town. When he enquired about the bandit on the roof she pleaded ignorance: ‘I am but a poor girl, sire. My mind is blunt and small like the head of a needle.’ Then she hummed and complimented him on his fine attire. Considering the inferno raging behind her, he thought the behaviour odd, but then individuals react to catastrophe differently, and these were Outer Kingdom villagers, reputedly strange and ignorant folk.

  The fighting soon abated when the cavalry arrived. The hundred-odd armed and trained warriors made short work of the bandits, who tried to flee to the woods but were hacked down while they ran. Villagers thanked the Shaper and the Queen’s men for their salvation and vowed to train a local militia to safeguard against future attacks.

  Riding on the soldier’s steed, Anna passed by bloodied faces and bruised pride. A woman soothed a child covered in thistles. She had evidently hid it in a bush, knowing that its chance to survive would be slim if she was taken, but slimmer if it was caught with her. Coming upon her home, Anna found it stinky, dilapidated and frightful – just as she’d left it. Jean, John, Aidan, Erik, and Stephen. All family members living, breathing and sickly glad to see her again. Content in the knowledge that he had upheld his duty, the soldier rode off, cloak sailing out behind with the night wind.

  Anna rose with the clock tower bell and snuck out of the hut, walking across fields fresh with dew. Buildings smouldered but the town was quiet and resting from the events of the previous night, a miller and seamstress disturbing the peace with a heated debate on a street corner:

  ‘Half the town’s been wiped out at least. And who honestly has the money to repair? Cheaper to knock it down and start afresh, that’s what I say.’

  ‘As usual, Sebastian, you’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

  Further on, two elderly women gossiped:

  ‘Apparently he awoke to find Mr Hubble poking him. He’d only gone and got a ladder, hadn’t he? “Why the ‘ell you on my roof,” he says to him. And the man’s Carric is so poor Mr Hubble couldn’t understand a word of what he said, so he handed him over to Peter Cranford who’s imprisoned him in his basement. Poor fella’s been screaming half the night.’

  The women bit their tongue as Anna went by, passing t
he town crier as she approached the small house the Venecians had hidden in.

  ‘Barbosa to Katharine: Stick that in your pipe and smoke it…Window tax looms. Queenie wants a few more corgis…Who is that beggar in the window?: Shocking tales about where our meat really comes from…’ Anna checked to see if there were people around, but the coast was clear, so she turned the door handle and, finding it still unlocked, went in.

  ‘Hullo? Is anybody there?’ Best to play it safe for now. If the owner of the house came down she could explain her presence away. A butter knife and crumby plate stared up at her from the kitchen table. ‘I greatly like the butter you have here.’ Pillock. But where is he and where are his men? She went upstairs and checked the bedrooms. Nobody. Running a hand through her hair and coming out with enough strands to convince her she was prematurely balding, Anna pondered. Had they been rumbled in the night, or fled to the safety of the lake? She didn’t know what she’d do with them regardless. ‘Hi Ma, I’ve brought back some guests for dinner. Don’t mind their swords or their clothing or their accents. They’re as Carric as apple crumble!’ That’d go down about as good as tar-water—

  ‘Do you drift off like that a lot?’ asked Cesar, interrupting her thoughts.

  ‘There you are. Where’ve you been hiding?’

  ‘In the cellar. Who knows who may come home, you know? We are ready to leave when you are.’

  ‘Leave?’

  ‘We cannot stay here. Morning light is upon us. We must go before it gets busy. Take us as far as you can, that is all we ask.’

  Anna was worried. She prided herself on being able to lie through her teeth – an ability essential to the preservation of her livelihood – but Cesar saw straight through it. ‘Say if you do not want to do this. We can find our own way back.’

  ‘I can’t let you do that. Frankly you’re quite useless and there are hundreds of men out there who’d see you hang and not ask questions first. I’ll take you as far as Old Haven, a village twelve miles to the south. If we change your appearance—’