Snowtear

by S. B. Davidson

  “I’ve never been this far into Black Earth,” the man said, lacing his drawstrings. “It’s so big and open, it’s hard to judge. After we make camp tonight, I’ll take Tawn and do a little scouting, then maybe we can get a better idea of our progress.”

  “Sounds good,” Riken said. Uther gave him a disdainful look that none of the other men caught. Riken ignored it. “Be right back.”

  As the crew went about breaking camp, Riken disappeared behind the tents. He looked into the distance and saw Abby far off, a hazy dot on the plains. Riken smiled at her uncommon lapse into bashfulness. He gave her another few moments to finish up, then started off toward her.

  “What?” she demanded as he drew closer. Her pants were up, but the drawstrings still hung unfastened. She ignored them and stared at him suspiciously, not exactly the attitude he’d figured on encountering.

  “Just wanted to see how you were,” Riken said, suspecting the need to tread lighter than he’d planned.

  “Fine,” Abby said, hands on her hips. “Any reason I shouldn’t be?”

  “Nay, just wondering.”

  “Needed to trek all the way out here and interrupt nature’s call just to ascertain my wellbeing?”

  Two statements in, this already going different than he’d intended.

  “Nay, I just…”

  “Piss off, Riken,” Abby said, finally remembering her drawstrings. When she’d laced them tightly, she rammed into his shoulder on her way past.

  “Abby,” he called.

  A few feet ahead of him, she stopped and spun on him violently.

  “By the Father, Riken. What?”

  “I just wanted to talk about last night.” His miscalculation of her attitude had him temporarily at a loss, but it was rapidly fading. He didn’t care much for the mocking tone in her voice. “I thought you were just making water out here. My apologies. Do continue. Here, I’ll turn around and hide my leering eyes. Didn’t realize I’d interrupted such an important task.”

  “What task?”

  “The reinserting of the rod up your ass,” he said, then gave her shoulder a little payback as he stormed past her.

  “You’re such a child,” Abby called.

  This time, Riken spun on her.

  “Am I?”

  “Aye.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t have time for this. Neither do you. There’s a little girl needs saving, unless you forgot.” She started to leave again.

  “Don’t turn away from me,” Riken said, trying to dampen the harsh tenor of his voice, but feeling his restraint leaving him bit by bit. The souring expression on Abby’s face wasn’t helping in that regard.

  “Or what?”

  “Or nothing, Abby. I just wanted to talk about last night.”

  “What about it?” she asked, fingers tapping on her hips.

  “I just…we sort of left things a little…up in the air, didn’t we?”

  “Not by my reckoning.”

  “Really?” Riken asked.

  “Aye, really.”

  “And what is your reckoning? Because I was there too, in case you forgot, and it felt…”

  “Up in the air,” Abby said.

  “Aye.”

  “Well, it isn’t at all. Last night wasn’t about us. It wasn’t even about you. It was about me, Riken, my needs at the time. For once – and I know this’ll be hard to wrap that exceptionally impressive head of yours around – something wasn’t all about you.”

  “Just about you?”

  “Aye. You were but a warm body, for me. It could easily have been Uther or one of the other guys.”

  “But it wasn’t,” Riken said.

  “Well, maybe not Dexter.”

  “Abby.”

  “Riken,” she said, batting her eyes. “I needed comfort last night, after what happened with those…people. I needed to be close to someone, anyone, to not be alone. But it was just for one night. I’m fine now. Can’t you understand that?”

  “Of course, but…”

  “Why do you even care?” she asked, and the tinge of hurt that cracked in her voice took him aback.

  “Why wouldn’t I? I care about you.”

  “Since when?”

  “Wha…since always,” he said, insulted.

  “Horseshit. You’d need one of these first,” she said, slamming her fist into her chest. When Riken started to protest, she slapped his argument out of the air, like she was fending off a bumblebee. “And even if you do, we both know there’s only enough room in there for one person, Riken, and everyone this side of Sanctuary knows exactly who that one person is.”

  “That’s not fair,” he said, realizing how juvenile it came out.

  “Fair? Fair?” She was almost screaming, but caught herself and lowered her voice to a dull growl and continued through clenched teeth. “You have the nerve to speak about fairness to me? To me, Riken? What’s fair, huh? Was it fair to hire me on to this job, after all this time? Were you being fair back in that little room of yours, flaunting Little Miss Prim in my face? That one seems a little less whorish than you’re used to, don’t you think? What about all those nights after you left? All those nights I spent crying like a frightened, hurt little child, like some weakling little priss, because, for some unholy reason, I stupidly believed it might make you come back to me?”

  The mournful wind whipped at his hair. A few strands fell into his eyes, but he couldn’t conjure the will to move them away. He simply stood, still and defensive, letting Abby’s barrage flow down upon him.

  “But you were never going to come back,” she said. “Were you? After all that time, all your promises, you just left. Did you ever give a thought to what that did to me? Did you feel guilt? Can you? I cried a river deep enough to overflow the banks of the Twins. Did you shed even a tear for me, for what you took from me?”

  “Abby, I never meant…”

  “You never do, Riken. I suppose you can’t help it.” If she had said it was in his nature, Riken would’ve crumpled to the ground in a manic fit, but, thankfully, she didn’t.

  “What do you want from me?” he asked, fixing his eyes just over her shoulder to avoid her devastating look.

  Abby froze in thought, stoic like the earth beneath their feet. He could tell she was waging a valiant effort to hold back the tears she felt would make her appear weak. She couldn’t seem to find a place for her hands, which was fine so long as they didn’t find the daggers waiting at her hips.

  “What do I want?” she asked. Her hands had finally found something to do. They were patting against each other, clasping and unclasping frenetically. “That’s a loaded question if I ever heard one. You want to know what I want from you? Fine, if you care to hear it, I’ll tell you. I want to know if you cried. When you made the decision to lay waste to my life, could you leak out even one teardrop on my behalf, on yours?”

  The sun peaked over her shoulder, flashing a brilliant beam in his eyes, but that wasn’t why he suddenly felt the unbearable need to lower his head.

  “No need to hang your head like a mongrel,” Abby said. “I figured as much. Just wanted to know for sure.” A measure of ten feet separated them, but it might as well have been ten miles, ten thousand. “My, but you were a proficient liar.”

  “I never lied,” Riken said.

  “Didn’t you? Maybe you’ve read some altogether contrary definition in some ancient book my simple mind couldn’t comprehend enough to endeavor reading, but if not, I’d say that’s precisely what you did. Even though you knew I didn’t want them at the time, and that you could never fulfill them, you filled my head with visions of new and wonderful possibilities, a future together, a life apart from anything I’d ever imagined. And I fell for it, didn’t I? Like one of those naïve brothel girls you so love. I truly believed you were rescuing me. It’s humorous now. Now I can’t for the life of me imagine what I thought you were rescuing me from. Perhaps it was my sanity. If so, you certainly accomplished that.”
>
  “Abby, I didn’t know,” Riken said. “I never meant for all that. I thought I could. I wanted to, truly. I did love you. I did want to spend my life with you. I wanted to give you all the things you deserved in life.”

  “I never asked for that, damn you,” Abby shouted. “I never wanted any of that until you introduced it. I was fine on my own for the first time in my life, and you stole that away from me. I was finally out from under my family and the life they’d chosen for me without consultation. I was earning my own way, and well, I might add. I was making a name for myself in a trade I’d chosen. I was happy. Then you come along with these highfalutin notions, and what did I do? I fucking fell for them.”

  “Abby, my apolog…”

  She wasn’t listening. “I thought, ‘Hey, maybe I could be the woman you wanted’. I actually believed that I would be happy with the life of a simple wife – cooking, cleaning, tidying our little cottage that I spent weeks preparing, rubbing your back at night in our comfortable bed. You made me think that’s what I wanted. By the Wind, I was such a fool. I never asked for it, Riken, but I accepted it wholeheartedly. Then you just snatched it away from me.”

  “How many ways can I covey my regrets?”

  “And, stupid me, I asked so little in return. All I ever wanted was your love, Riken, your love, your devotion. And you couldn’t even give that.”

  “But I did,” he said.

  “You believed you did,” Abby said. Her eyes were tearing up. She wiped them defiantly with her sleeve. “That little morsel kept me sane, at least, knowing that in your mind, you didn’t plan any deception. On those first few nights, as I lie awake in the bed we’d shared so briefly –

  you remember it? Those little knobs on the posters we thought looked like giant raindrop – as I lay there, crying my heart dry, the only thing that kept me from wishing you dead was knowing in my heart that you’d intended no malice, that, at least fleetingly, you’d believed you could love me forever.”

  She finally broke, and the tears fell like a heedless waterfall. First she began to tremble, a subtle quake that began at her lip and quickly shuddered down her body, until her knees started knocking together. Then, without warning, she crumbled. She bent at the waist as if struck, her arms hugging her convulsing belly. She fought for breath in huge, heaving gasps, then fell to her knees.

  Riken wanted to go to her, wanted nothing more. He’d known a portion of the hardships she’d faced after he’d left. Uther hold begrudgingly informed him on that score. But he’d never realized the full extent of his betrayal. He’d never imagined. It was Abby, the strongest, bravest person he’d ever known. That she would so utterly fall apart because of him couldn’t seem true. She’d faced much in her short life – exile from her hideously wealthy family, life on the streets without coin or home, admirably working her way up in an occupation hardly known for its admittance of women. He’d known her strengths, her unbeatable will, when he’d come to his senses and made the hard choice to go back on his promises to her. He’d thought they would see her safely through the initial suffering. How could he have been so wrong?

  He went to her, placing a hand on her stooped back. For a moment, she allowed the intrusion, then her arm flailed upward wildly and hit him with such force that he rocked back a couple steps.

  “Don’t you dare touch me,” she said, far too calm for his liking. She spoke to him as if he were a misbehaving dog. “It’s bad enough for you to see me in such humiliating straits. The last thing I need is for you to think your touch will cure my ails. I don’t need anything from you, Riken. I never did. I just didn’t realize it at the time.”

  “I so sorry, Abby,” Riken said, feeling a small measure of what she must’ve experienced back then. It turned his stomach.

  In an instant, she was on her feet. Her trembling ceased. Her defiant air returned in pure style. Only the beet red circles around her eyes betrayed her newfound composure. Dispassionate, she batted the dust from her clothes in collected swipes. She never looked at him.

  “Keep your apologies,” she said, staring into the unfathomable distance beyond him. “They’re not required. I’ve said my peace. That’s all I wanted. We’re going to find and rescue those little girls. Then we’re going back home. After that, I don’t ever want to foul my vision with your visage again. Back in Winter Moon, Abby and Riken will be strangers that never had in the ill luck to meet. Understand?”

  He did. He nodded.

  “Grand,” she said, turning her back on him. As she ambled away, her hair bounced happily in the breeze, and the confident sway returned to her hips.

  When she was comfortably out of earshot, Riken muttered, “Aye, grand,” then trailed on after her like a man who’d just been dragged naked through a nasty briar patch.

  Chapter Twenty

  Trying to conjure the illusion from the womb of the darkened crate was arduous at best. She had no indication of the outlying surroundings, no bearing whatsoever to fasten onto besides assuming her and the girls were in the back of a moving wagon. Still, Sage had to make an attempt, however feeble. Her distraction might bear no fruit, but neither would huddling in the corner, going meekly to her fate.

  Before being hauled into the wagon not long ago, she’d heard crashing waves. She hadn’t been surprised. Of course, they’d traveled on Crystalline. There was no other way out of Winter Moon besides traveling through the mountains. The crate having been stationary the entire time, she’d been certain Pristinus wasn’t their route.

  While being placed in the wagon, she’d thought of screaming for help. She’d heard differing voices from outside. But when she’d opened her mouth, the icy claws of fear had wrapped themselves around her throat. She’d damned herself for her cowardice, but she’d remained silent. When the dull roar of the town had begun to dwindle, signifying the bleak product of her trepidation, a fire had lit beneath her. Roused from her terrified trance, she’d shouted at the top of her lungs. Too late. Aid from the citizens of Harrenport was foregone. Her captors hadn’t even bothered to come into the back of the wagon to quell her pleas.

  Her courage renewed, Sage wouldn’t have the same lapse twice.

  Encircled within the pack of girls, Sage tried to center all her concentration on the task at hand. Their freshly agitated states posed a difficult obstacle. The girls had been sleeping when the crate begun to tip and rock. Never was it comforting to be startled from sleep, even more harrowing when you woke to pitch blackness and were forced to remember the precarious nature of your ongoing tribulation. Five separate pairs of trembling hands gripped and squeezed at her dress. Unable to speak, to tell them to quiet themselves while she made an attempt to thwart their captors, Sage drowned out the sounds of their whimpering as best she could. She pictured the illusion: a rattlesnake.

  A tourist in her own head, Sage snuck into the nebulous recesses of her mind to manifest the fabricated reptile. She imagined the sleek, scaly body – coiled, agitated, hissing. She saw its darting tongue, its tawny eyes. She envisioned the serpent’s distinctive slither.

  Next, she had to estimate the shape of the wagon and the driver. There would be a short bench for him to sit on. He could have a companion sitting next to him. She would have to account for that possibility. The wagon would be a large one. It had to be to haul the sizeable crate she and the girls were confined within. If she judged the parameters faulty, the ruse would disappoint. If the snake was not fully realized, the same. She’d rarely attempted using her fibra to create something without being cognizant of her surroundings.

  Once, while living in a seedy district of Burden, she’d shared a wall with an infuriatingly noisy neighbor. For six consecutive nights, the boorish man had come home in the company of women Sage could only assume had been whores, and proceeded to drink himself into a voluble tumult. His favorite nocturnal pastime had been testing the stability of their adjoining wall by getting a running start then hurling himself at it, knocking the books from Sage’s shelf in the process. Sh
e’d only been back in Burden for two weeks at the time, having just culminated her Tish’Ret. She hadn’t the coin to seek improved lodgings, nor the want. The way she’d seen it, that little room with its splintered floors and leaking roof was her home. Her dear mother would’ve fainted away at the ignobility of it, probably spilling a glass of fine wine on a pretty dress in the process. Maybe that had been part of its appeal. Whatever, she wasn’t about to let some inconsiderate slob drive her from it. On the seventh night in a row that the man had violated the solace of her sleep with his impersonation of a battering ram, Sage had sent him a small present by way of a half-dozen irate badgers. Sitting cross-legged on her flat, moldy mattress, concentrating on holding her illusion, Sage had relished the shrieks of the man and his two temporary employees with contained glee. Her neighbor hadn’t returned the next day. He must’ve come into some coin and found better accommodations.

  The thing with that, though, was she’d known the layout of the room without having to see it for herself. It had adhered to the same design as all the other rent rooms in that shady inn. The wagon, she’d never seen. She could only hope that it appeared as any other she’d ever known. For all she knew, it could have seats instead of a bench for the driver to ride on. She would simply have to make her best guess, and hope it was right. It was only her life and those of five little girls on the line anyway. What pressure was there in that?

  The first part of her plan worked splendidly. Sage heard a scream from the front of the wagon, and they halted. Through the thick walls of the crate, she heard frantic shuffling outside. A least two different men were yelling.

  She knew they couldn’t be far from whatever town they’d docked in, most likely Harrenport, since it was the first stop after Winter Moon. She figured there was some sort of meliorater in the town, or at least a medicine man. If she’d performed the deception correctly, surely her kidnappers would take their afflicted cohort back into town to have the poisonous bite seen to. The effects of the illusionary wound wouldn’t last long, but maybe they’d persist enough for her to arouse the attention of some of the townsfolk.