by M. C. Elam
“No one’ll get at your ma or the littleun. Not deep in the dark water,” Pa had told him.
Pa set a course over the mountains. They’d not be much missed save the fact Pa bamboozled his nibs. Loud as he might a hollered ‘bout them running off, the most that probably happened when a patrol couldn’t sniff them out was that Mr. Abram Daws hustled his skinny arse off to the slave pens and bought himself some new property to bully.
So, they went, him a wee speck of humanity, heart bereft and of no import to a soul save the man he followed. One day had closed on the next until he scarce remembered what being warm felt like. Pa kept a keen eye on the trail, but the heart of a flatlander who never climbed anything bigger than a rolling hill beat in his chest. The steeper the trail, the more the poor nag had strained against the weight of the cart. She’d slipped a time or two and recovered, but tired and weak, a final misstep took her over the edge. One of the wheels caught behind a boulder as the weight of the load began to shift. The horse hung midair while the cart teetered, but then the wheel split straight off the axel.
“Jump lad!” Pa shouted.
Marcus had come to ground, legs dangling over the edge with his chest pressed against a portion of rock that jutted through the ice beside the trail. It poked straight into his middle and hurt so much he had a hard time telling whether it punctured his chest or just jabbed him bloody hard. Either way, he wanted it gone.
“Pa, can you help me?” Not until that moment did he realize Pa had gone over with the horse and cart.
He struggled to get both arms under him and take the weight off his chest while he scrambled for a foothold, but any movement dislodged him further, and he slid another inch or two over the edge. He fought to free one arm, frantic for a handhold. Close to exhaustion, his fingers touched a bit of scrub that protruded from a crevice. The dry pieces crumbled to nothing, but the main branch, green and tough, held his weight. An inch at a time he dragged first one leg and then the other onto the ledge. He had rolled onto his back breathing hard and crying those wrenching kinds of sobs, silent and void of tears. Overhead a heavy sky full of angry clouds freed a torrent of new snow that pounded his face like ice clad broom straws. They stung his cheeks and made his eyes water until the tears turned to ice, and he scrubbed them away with his sleeve. He passed that long night huddled against the side of the mountain with his arms clasped around his legs and his face buried in his knees.
The next morning he set his mind on a single task; how he meant to finish the trek. Bone thin and starved, he lost his way and found it ten times over before stumbling across a narrow creek outside a small farm village. He did not know the name of the village or that he had done what Pa set out to do; nor did he know that a range of mountains lay between him and Lawrenzia. He had never heard of Baline or Ascalla. Maybe it was hunger. Maybe it was losing his wind at the sight of an old man standing not three feet away wielding some kind of staff that danced with blue fire. Whatever the cause, his vision blurred and darkened like something had sucked away the light of the world.
When next he roused, the same old man clad in a long robe that looked as old and worn as he did tended a fire, and a woman heavy in years sat on the floor near the pallet where he lay. She lifted first one of his arms and then the other while she doctored his scrapes and cleaned caked mud and grime from his body. Startled, he had jerked his arm away.
“Ah, you be waking then. Not to worry, lad. I be Granny Stone. Folks round-a-bouts calls me Gram. Spect you will too. Here now, look at those eyes. Full of the wild they be. Don’t fret lad. You’re safe enough.”
He had wanted to protest, withdraw from her ministering touch, but she began to sing. Her voice had a gravelly timbre that he felt more than heard–like the physical sensation whenever he touched the bark of a stout tree or the surface of a stone Pa had worked. That monotone chant, syllables strung together in long chains, made his breath come easy.
“Be oh la bay oh be by oh, be oh la bay oh be by oh….” Tuneless inflections that caressed his wounded spirit and brought a kind of peace.
He had slept again, slept for hours, for days, waking to drink rich broth and sop-up the rest with crusty bread, fragrant with a pungent, yeasty smell. He remembered the feel of that tiny cottage even now–how the fire blazed on the hearth and how the old man with the blue-fire staff peered at him from across the room until he had turned away and hid his deformed mouth. Her voice though, Granny Stone’s, came easy and soft despite its raspy depth when she commanded him to look at her.
“Never worry your mind on himself over there. That be Melendarius. Carried you safe from the water when you went face down in the creek over to Baline. He’s a good sort. Best there be, so never you worry.”
He’d held his hands over his face until she drew them down, crooning to him in the same singsong way.
“Ah so that’s it, is it? Aw, now lad, it’s not so bad as all that. Costs you a bit of broth down the chin I dare say. Still you got no broken bones or plague stink about you.” She looked at the low ceiling black with smoke. “Praise our Lord above and the Mother dear for making you strong.” She patted the covers smooth around him before continuing. “Some be born of the three lips, boy, but you I be thinking, come to it by a different road. Cut straight it be. A dirk’s my guess.” She watched him, taking care to observe the slightest change in his expression. She must have caught a twinge or twitch or some such because she nodded. “Tell it laddie. Take it from your soul where it feeds.” She watched him shake his head and turn away. “Alright then. I’ll not be pushing for it.”
For all the years since and as much as he loved that old woman, he had kept the secret inside.
He cleared those images from his mind and rubbed a calloused hand through his hair. The mountain demanded concentration and took quick revenge when neglected. The men knew the hazards well enough. Still, he commanded, and their safety fell to him. If physical strength and size meant anything, then the measure of his ability to lead the men came on a grand scale. Tall in stature with large beefy arms and well-muscled legs, Marcus stood a head above most men. He had a neck as thick and tough as a bull’s. An unruly shock of dark hair covered his skull like a blanket of heavy thatch. Pulled straight back from the forehead, he captured it at the nape of his neck with a thin strip of rawhide. A strong brow-line and deep-set eyes framed with heavy black lashes gave him a formidable look when leveled on someone with whom he bore displeasure. Fat composed none of his considerable bulk. The sheer weight of his armor would have exhausted most men. Hell’s bells, it exhausted him. He mulishly refused to wear it except for the sake of ceremony. The people of Ascalla loved pomp, and parading with the rest on the jousting field in Falmora came around only twice a year. The rest of the time, he opted for chain and a linen mask to cover his nose and mouth.
Another icy gust ruffled the mask, and he smoothed it back into place. Why give a bother here, he thought, no one to see, not even the men. Habit, it was, habit and something besides. Grim memories of what happened when he lowered his guard, like with that pretty whore down to the brothel. She had made no secret of how she felt.
“A fine body, you’ve the muscles of a warrior.” She had run her fingers from his wrist to his shoulder. “And what eyes, why any maid, paid or free, be won with a wink.” She had moved to sit on his lap, crooning love words meant to entice him. Before he could stop her, she drew the mask away from his face, gave one look and let out a shriek. Quick to recover, she was. He gave her credit there, but anything close to desire drained out of him like water from a leaky pitcher. He had pressed a few coppers into her hand and made for the door.
Funny though, he thought, the way his name grew legendary among the prostitutes after that night. To hear tell it, every whore in Ascalla had a story about the night she spent with Ugly Marcus. Those tales came back to him. Some made him laugh aloud since they played up his virility to match his ugliness, but even that could not ease the ache in his heart when a lass turned away aghast a
t the sight of the split-lipped hole in his face.
He touched the mask again to be sure it hid him. Naught he could do about his mouth except conceal it and try to bury the hate he felt for the devil who gave it to him. He leaned forward, patted Baron’s neck and heard a soft, trusting nicker.
“You don’t mind Ugly Marcus, do you lad? Funny the things floating in me head tonight. A fool I be for sure, thinking of romps with brothel trollops when the damnable cold be making me toes freeze in me boots and still another hour of climbing afore we be done.” He patted the horse’s neck again. “The wind and cold be making me daft, letting me mind go off on that wee bit of nonsense when the trail’s a bloody frozen disaster. You and me’s got the job of bringing our lads safe up to Widening Rock. Best we get on with it and stop thinking about things what won’t ever change.” Baron tossed his head in seeming agreement, and the split-lipped mouth grinned beneath the linen mask.
The wind pushed its way through his cloak and the heavy woolens beneath his chain. His teeth chattered against a chill that penetrated all the way to the bone. When the force of the heavy gusts increased an hour earlier, he had considered turning back, but they were so close to the plateau and the protection of Three Peaks at the Widening just below the Arch, he decided to continue. They would spend the night there and start back in the morning. The deserted trail meant no marauders ventured into Ascalla from Lawrenzia. Nary a track signaled trespassers afoot.
Four times in as many weeks since the raid that destroyed Baline, Marcus had made the journey up the eastern wall of the Blue Mountains. Usually the captains rotated boundary patrol, but since the raid, King Ian trusted mountain duty to none save his personal guard. That meant Marcus and his men. Each journey yielded the same result. Except for the initial signs made when the Owlmen disappeared across the Arch and finding the body of a wee frozen lad at the Widening, not a single track warned of intruders. With winter already setting in at these higher elevations, the need for the patrol would end until spring. Canyons glutted with snow and inches of unyielding ice would close the trails. Again, Marcus glanced behind him. All six men followed.
”Not much farther now, lads.”
“Aye, Marcus, a hot fire to warm my backside be what I’m about.”
Marcus chuckled. That be Clayton Pool or he’d give a week’s coin. The man never complained of the cold save for his arse. Truth told his own backside could do with a bit of toasting. He shifted in the saddle and gave Baron his head.
“You’d be a better judge of footing here than me, lad.”
The wind died for a moment, and he thought he heard an almost human sound–a sound like that of a wee one. Impossible, must be mountain whispers playing him for a fool, but it worked along his spine and left him unsettled. Old stories Gram told flooded his memory, stories of wild creatures enchanted by fairy people that came in the dark to spirit away a babe and leave a foundling in its stead. Gram could always tell a good story. Wisdom or foolishness, he wondered, and whispered to Baron urging the horse forward despite a certain reluctance he sensed in the animal since that imagined cry.
“All’s well me laddie. Naught but the wind.”
Baron snorted, still hesitant, then moved ahead, and Marcus wondered which of them he tried to reassure. He thought of that poor little beggar they had found frozen stiff and wrapped in a homespun blanket. Set upright in a nook between two boulders, how his ma must have wept to leave him. King Ian ordered a burial, but Father Wryth gave his council on the matter. Marcus had heard the upshot of the whole thing.
“Bury the boy without a proper name? I’ll not hear of it, Ian.”
The three of them had stood in the great hall. A late afternoon sun gleamed through the stained glass windows and spread a soft rainbow of color across the floor. Marcus held the frozen little body, still wrapped in the same blanket. He had dismissed the men at the barracks and come straight on to make his report. Now he wished he could slip outside and not be part of any exchange between the king and the crusty old priest.
“Spare me Wryth. The Lord knows the lad, even if we do not. I say bury him.”
“What of his mother, his father?”
“What of them. Lost sure in the raid.”
Wryth banked his roll of the dice on his next remark. “What if the boy was Hawk?”
King Ian brought his fist down on the edge of a long table and slumped into a chair at the head. “You push me too far, priest. My son has naught to do with the burying of that boy.”
Wryth had him now and continued.
“Milord, you, your son, our good queen and the people of Ascalla all have to do with that little frozen lad. Someone held the child dear. Did you not hear Knight Marcus say how he found him swaddled? Wrapped in a blanket and the mountain bloody cold. A wee boy wrapped in a blanket. Think on it milord. Who might that blanket have served better, a dead boy or his freezing mother?”
Marcus saw the king’s shoulders slump and knew Wryth had won the exchange. What’s more, he agreed with him. Wouldn’t he just give the world to know the place where any one of his family slept? The wee body ensconced in a small coffin rested in a room under the church where he and Father Wryth carried it that same day.
“He’ll be safe in the arms of the Mother soon, mistress. You’ve my word on that,” Marcus whispered and wiped away a bit of spittle that escaped his lips. He had promised Wryth a thorough search of Falmora for anyone who might know the lad’s name, and a thorough search he’d make of it as soon as they got home.
***
A few minutes later and higher in elevation, Marcus rounded another twist on the slippery path and gasped. The importance of that frozen boy and his name must wait. Awed, he held his breath and stared wide-eyed. A great wolf stood just above him on a rocky projection. Baron shied sideways and whinnied. Marcus feared reining him too hard and used the firm pressure of his knees to calm the animal instead.
“Stand steady, fellows,” he called over his shoulder. He knew the sharp turn in the trail kept them from seeing the wolf. He’d just as soon avoid any encounter with the animal, but his position made backtracking foolhardy, and Baron could not negotiate an about face on the narrow trail. He eyed the wolf. Something about its stance made him think of it as female. Marcus had encountered black wolves before but never one with a silvery-white coat. If the snow had not slowed, he might have missed seeing her at all. She dropped her head and peered at him. From experience, he knew she wanted no more to do with him than he did with her. Like as not she’d take her leave in a minute.
“Captain, what be amiss?”
“Stay put, now, mates. I be well,” he shouted. He knew that horses, even those as well trained as Baron, feared wolves. Let the men wait until the danger passed.
The wolf cocked her head to one side at the sound of his voice. She moved just enough so that Marcus saw something on the ledge beside her. He squinted trying to make it out. The great beast moved again, and small arms stretched toward her. Marcus felt every hair on his neck come erect. By the breath of the gods, what was that thing, an imp, a gnome, a witch’s spawn? The church said naught to such as that, but Gram swore such tales be true. He shut his eyes and shook his head. He looked back in the direction of the wolf. Still there and not his imagination, proper real she was. A soft whimper like the one he thought he had heard earlier, drifted on the wind. The wolf moved, and all of the imps and gnomes fled into the dark cavernous place from which they had come.
Beside the animal stood a little girl clothed in a long-sleeved homespun overdress like that of the country folk. She wore a knee-length, fur vest tied at the waist, and deer hide boots that laced around her calves. A tangle of dark curling locks framed her face, and her little cheeks glistened with tears. No more than three seasons old, he judged. She blinked and rubbed the tears from her face. Something incredibly bittersweet swept through him, and he knew he could not pass from the mountain without the child safe in his care. By the gods, those little bare hands, she must be so co
ld.
With the wolf close, Marcus puzzled about how to reach her. Obviously, the animal protected her. Legends spoke of children raised by wolves. He shook his head. More stories, more tales, he thought. Had snow sickness grabbed hold of him? Bloody damn if it had. A family pet, mayhap, some folks did take wolf pups as pets. He knew a man once kept a pair of them. Protective of him they were, but somehow that explanation seemed all wrong. The Owlmen would have killed it straight off. No sense wondering about it now. The wolf protected the child, and puzzle or not, she must be a raid survivor. At least he had found her alive and not frozen stiff like the boy. But four weeks since the raid, how had she lived?
Slowly, so as not to alarm the wolf, he dismounted and eased toward the little girl. Still the wolf eyed him. He took another step. The wolf’s rumbling growl halted him. He stood for a long time waiting before he tried again. The same raw snarl threatened a warning. By his own sweet arse, he could not see a way to reach that child. Nothing for it then he supposed. A shame, he would have to kill the wolf. He drew the bow from his shoulder and an arrow from the quiver. At such close range, he could not miss. He nocked the arrow taking care that the cock feathers pointed away from the bow and drew it back against his cheek. The arrow must fly true and straight through her heart. He took a breath, held it, and closed his eyes for a minute against the cold that made them tear and blur. When he opened them, the wolf was gone. Shouldering the bow, he strode forward, raised his arms and lifted the little girl down from the ledge.
“Guard her well, lad.”
Marcus jumped. “Who be ye?”
Melendarius stepped from the shadow of the overhang. The wolf hesitated behind him, but the old man put out his hand, and she came forward to lean against his thigh.
Marcus recognized him immediately. “Melendarius? Gram be fair worried you’d crossed over. Sent me searching the realm over, she did.”
“Nay lad, the Mother guides my path. Listen now. We have little time. I place the child in your care. You must carry her safe into Falmora. Take her to Granny Stone. I’ll follow you with the wolf in a few days.”