"Ah, him," the girl looked away from her blind mentor, taking in the walkways cleared to her bed. Where once has been stacks of books, organized by author's favorite beverage, now rested actual floor, buffed and polished as if soft shoes had paced back and forth for hours across them.
"He deposited you into the arms of a bewildered Chance before vanishing back into the forest. Our prince said little about him, only that he was a dark protector." Medwin sighed, "I believe I should supervise the extra curricular reading the boy has been getting."
Ciara tried to form a logical explanation for the shadow man that had followed them since the very beginning of their mad dash into the wilds, but the best her brain could come up with was "Well, he hasn't killed us yet. So, knock on wood?" Instead, another ravaging cough gripped her and she sputtered into the bed, as her crushed nose seared with pain at the jolting.
Medwin clucked his own tongue upon himself, "I should excuse myself and let you rest as well. We are a few days journey to your Tumbler's End."
The girl smiled to herself. Her chest may rattle like a caravan that Mitrione secured, her nose be as tender as pulverized tartar, and a weakness infest all her marrow, but they were almost there. Almost back to her father and the adults who could solve all the problems of the world. She could sense victory in the air, and it tasted oddly of a very familiar chicken soup.
As she settled back into her bed, weary eyes slipping quietly shut, Medwin muttered under his breath, "Be careful who you put your trust in, little one. Everyone wants more than they deserve."
"Push!"
"Not this again! I know I'm supposed to be pulling!" Chance yelled back at the man in blue robes, glaring at the interloper. He'd been grateful when the young princeling returned with the girl, but was less excited to see another mouth to feed beside them. This "intern" was proving to be a right donkey chasm.
The caravans rattled slowly down the Imperial Highway, later renamed Lord Joltar Boulevard, which none of the locals ever used, much to decapitating Joltar's disapproval. Small colonies of snow clung desperately to the ground, refusing to believe the coming tide of change as a warm wind swept out of the south. Like children at the first hint of spring, the Historians threw off their cloaks and coats and raced out into the muddy pits, dragging their robe's hems with them. Medwin followed the delighted screams of joy to find a ring of academics lobbing balls of mud at each other, trying to knock their only wizard hat off Chase's head.
"We're moving," was all he said before turning on his heel, trying to hide a chuckle. This daring mission of pulling one over on the Empire, the priests, and the gods themselves seemed to put a bounce in the old man's step. He never touched his walking stick.
With still grimy fingers, the most learned men in all of Arda packed up their belongings and began the final push. Aldrin had been quiet that morning. After checking in with Medwin, under the pretense of visiting the ailing patient (which the blind man saw right through), and learning that they'd be "Getting him to his army soon," the wind deflated his sails.
Coincidentally, it also did the same to the historian's land ships. A light spring breeze, while warm to the skin, did little to propel a giant cart overloaded with tomes. Without a word to anyone, Aldrin vanished deep within the bowels of the Associate professor's caravan, taking a turn at the pedals.
Isa, who'd been hanging on the outskirts of the men while Ciara battled her inner demons, walked a yard and a half down the lane from them. At first, she was in the lead, but either from an incredible need to get somewhere one could call civilization, or the frisky energy of spring, the caravan's soon overtook her.
And at the back stood Dean, Mitrione and Kaltar, each glaring at their caravan that refused to move. Kynton offered up un-useful advice as Chance struggled to get the blighted thing on the road.
"Did you check the emergency brake?" the new voice was still raw, but no longer sounded like death creeping across a battlefield.
Kaltar looked at his fellow brothers in books, who shrugged. Mitrione had no idea there even was an emergency brake. Sighing, the only one with any brains vanished into the depths of their caravan.
"Well, well, you look a little worse for the wear," Kynton said rubbing his fingers through what had once been stubble but was on to a full beard. The Historians offered him one of their straight razors, but he refused. For the first time in his life, he could grow a beard and he didn't want to slice a single hair from his face. As the wild dark fuzz forested his face, it was becoming clear that a little freedom could be a dangerous thing for some.
"Quite the charmer," Ciara quipped back. Medwin hadn't been happy with her rising from her sick bed but she was about to scream if she didn't get out and do something. Her mother would have tanned her hide if she'd caught her sleeping away the day in bed.
"I do my best," Kynton grinned wide, showing a row of surprisingly white teeth.
"I'd hate to see your worst, then," the girl responded.
The priest laughed at that, his voice growing louder as he realized no old man was going to shush him for disturbing the patients. "I shall have to keep my eye on you," he leered at her and winked, "both, in fact."
Ciara crossed her arms, grateful to have her old dress on instead of the intimate nightgown. Not that it revealed anything other than her head, hands and occasional toes resting beneath a blanket; but to share her bedwear with the world was like reading aloud from her diary to the square on market day.
She'd have lobbed the priest a serious barb if Kaltar hadn't poked his head out and called, "It was the brake. She should be moving again."
And to punctuate his words, the wind picked up, lifting the over patched sails. Wheels rotated quickly until the historian wafted in the breeze, clinging precariously to the door. As the caravan began to pick up speed, Chance chased after, his fingers reaching for the wheel, while Mitrione, startled from the noise, dropped his writings and waddled after.
"This should be good," Kynton said, rubbing his hands as the historians fought against their own machine.
Ciara picked up the lost bit of parchment (a poem devoted to a miniature woman named Debbie) and pocketed it, intending to hand it over to Mitrione, assuming he survived. She glanced over at the priest, who was clapping like a schoolboy as Chance clung onto the back bumper with all his force and Mitrione waved after, already huffing. "I suppose I should thank you, priest."
"Kynton, please," he said without looking at her. There were only two ways this chase would end, either the larger of the twins would stop up the wheel or...CRASH! The wagon would hit a tree. Still, good show.
"Ah, yes. The priest who gave up his frock for an exciting life trailing after a bunch of strangers and their incompetent chaperones," Ciara gestured to the historians scuttling around their once again immobilized vehicle.
"At least the view is pleasant," Kynton leered lightly, as if it were meant for any female within spitting distance.
Ciara scowled and glared down at her shoes, unused to this kind of male attention. Flirting was something that happened to already married women who needed a way to pass the time between plagues and keeping their offspring from dying. Things were much more direct below the stairs.
The ex-priest ignored the wave of vitriol steaming off the girl and asked nonchalantly, "What brings a woman such as yourself into the company of a band of rowdy men?"
"A Queen tried to take my heart to feed her own obsession with vanity."
"Really?"
Ciara cocked an eyebrow at him; he really had spent most of his life head deep in someone's spleen, "No."
Mitrione gave out a cheer as Kaltar and Chance attempted one final shove, getting the last of the caravans on the road. Kynton clapped excitedly, as if he'd given any help. "Do you try to shut out every man who wishes to know you?" he asked the girl beside him.
"Only the ones that annoy me."
"So, yes."
Ciara laughed at that, earning a glare from the witch trying to feign indifference w
hile also remaining just close enough to eavesdrop. "You first, pr...Kynton. Why leave your order?"
"Most men enjoy devoting their every waking moment to being kicked face first into a bucket of piss you collected from a man raving about the pixies living under his skin. Me, I'm just too picky," Kynton bent down and draped his fingers around a small bud not ready for the world.
Rising, he picked a few leaves off the purple flower, little more than a weed, and then donned it into his buttonhole. "If you were cursed to spend your mortal life in a decaying city, wouldn't you take every opportunity to escape?"
Ciara paused to stand beside the ex-priest taking in the splendor of a coming spring. It didn't seem so bad to her. She'd been facing down a life serving in the castle she was born into. And now...perhaps she could return to Albrant once she said her byes to Aldrin. A life in safe, sturdy walls, scrubbing pots and pans and keeping ditzy maids like Marna in line. It was...something.
"Why wait for us?" the girl could niggle a scrap of information out of the best-trained spy if she wished to avoid her own thoughts.
Kynton sighed, "I tried to escape almost eight times before your prince traipsed through the doors."
"Eight?"
"The Bishop always threatened to toss me into the vulture pile if I got to ten. Laughs on him now. With all them unblinkers he's probably feeding it."
A chill gripped Ciara at the unwashed memory of that stumbling corpse rearing its lolling head. She'd always wanted to pass the old tales off as nothing more than drunk bravado from a man who accidentally stumbled into a crypt to take a piss. Her core beliefs were getting a good working over on this trip.
"How'd you wind up there in the first place? If'n you hated it so bad," she added.
Kynton's laissez faire face dropped to a stern countenance that belonged more on a man glaring down a galley of baron's than a priest on his first road trip. "You know much about nobility? Aside from the golden child you drag about, I mean."
Ciara chuckled a bit cruelly at his summation of Aldrin, "I...my mother served a knight. I have a fairly invasive grasp of the politics."
"Was her skin the same intoxicating color of mushroom soup?"
At that Ciara barked hard, her still healing hand coming to rest on her fluttering diaphragm, "That's a new one, I'll grant you."
Kynton smiled, his surprisingly sharp grey eyes scouring the pressing foliage around them and coming to rest on a witch who scowled, but refused to turn her head to face him. "You've heard of the Heir and the Spare," he continued his tale to the girl still chuckling beside him.
"You were the third excess lordling that fell out your mother."
"Not quite," Kynton's fingers fiddled with his small weed. "A plague of some sort that involved lots of discharge and swelling of the...a sickness swept across my father's lands. Things weren't looking so good. It cut through half his army and most of the smaller villages. By the time it reached the keep, he became desperate. Noble desperate. Calling upon the Hospars, he promised his last born son to her service in exchange for a cure.
"The men in blue waddled about, waving their hands, saying a few words, and miraculously the tide of illness turned," the priest who'd done much the same to numerous patients clawing on death's door seemed unimpressed. "My father was a man of his word and promised to send my brother to them once he reached the age of six.
"Hospar's men all went back to their dead city and life grew warm again. Frederick could look towards a life of sitting down and shutting up, while I chased about being a spoiled brat."
Kynton closed his eyes, his slow pace ceasing as the next words tumbled from his mouth slick with scorn, "Then the little bastard had to go and die. A kick from the horse, knocked his skull right in. Near his sixth birthday no less. So who should come waddling up the walk while the ashes were still warm?
"But my father, my father who hadn't known a day of work in his entire coddled life, swore he was a man of his word and silently handed his last born son over to them, not even bothering to wave goodbye."
The ex-priest was strangling his little flower, the tiny petals fresh to life bruising and slipping off the stamen. His eyes screwed tight as he fought through his own memories. Ciara involuntarily moved away out of fear of what would arise from those awakened eyes. But as soon as the moment came, it passed, and that nonchalant grin returned, "Family? It's a kick in the teeth."
The girl turned from him, the emotions washing from a man of god, almost too powerful for her (or perhaps it was his socks that he refused to change). Kynton chose to not notice, or failed to, it was hard to say as the slippery mask of the unwashed priest fell back into place.
"If you don't mind my asking," the priest began indifferently, "what the fuck are we doing out here?"
He'd intended the cursing to be quaint but it only earned him a glare from one of the hulking twins who favored tucking their robes into their pants. Ciara, who'd heard worse from a stable boy half his size and a quarter his age responded, "Traveling."
"So I gathered. Anywhere in particular or is this a rather bland circus? Will one of the more corpulent ones try to shove his overstuffed head into a painting of a lion's mouth?"
Ciara smiled to herself, surprised to find a growing warmth to the man who'd have left them all to the Empire if he hadn't needed them, "We're to meet with the King's army at Tumbler's End."
"Tumbler's End? Sounds like the title of a poorly thought out nursery rhyme," Kynton mumbled. "And an army? They're so much fun with rampant strains of gangrene, cholera, and every venereal disease known to man, and a few to livestock."
The girl nodded slowly, her illusion of a white knight in shining armor shattered long ago. It was hard to think a man heaven sent when he was vomiting on the tapestries yards from his bed.
The ex-priest rubbed his hands together. Casting his eyes downward, he picked up a shed stick and raised it as if it were his own sword, "To Tumbler's End!"
A creaky pair of wheels rattled over the broken stones of the road leading into the cornerstone of the Caddatch mountain pass. Only the sounds of bouncing axels and creaking wood reverberated across a town deep in the throes of an unending sleep. Well-read eyes peered out through windows, carefully sealed tight against the rising dust and to obscure the men inside. Something was terribly wrong.
Aldrin, begrudgingly placed in front as their ambassador, turned back to the robes peering from the lead wagon. At the gaze of their prince, the men flew away from the window. Slowly, each rattling wagon of the convoy came to a rest, recently thawed dust kicking up into a still wind.
Ciara cracked open Medwin's door, barely pausing as she jogged up to Aldrin, who seemed like he'd been stood up as he waved his rusty sword at the silent city. "This is..."
"Eerie," Ciara finished for him, "like that dead city."
"Only worse." The prince's eyes followed along stone houses, built to hold two or three families a row, rimming a well-worn road branching off to more adorable back alleys. Each roof was painted an alternating shade of mossy green or red the same shade as Aldrin's sword. A handful of window boxes, waiting for the seedlings of spring, hung from arched windows boarded up in a hurry. They weren't the ruins of a long forgotten Empire's reach exceeding its grasp, but the homes of people who'd hammered and painted their entire beings into the four walls.
A single food stand sat forlornly beside one of the wells, long abandoned. A hand drawn sign hanging off the front offered three turnips for a Chickpea, or a squash and two potatoes for two Turnips.35 Plentiful fall harvest was never changed for the coming winter.
"It's as if they all picked up and ran," Ciara said, glancing down into the dark pits of a well over brimming with melted snow.
Aldrin's eyes turned to the windows, their drapes drawn tight behind a blockade of wood. A yellow mark, hastily painted onto a plank, blocked some of the doors. "The war?" he suggested, "Maybe they're with the army."
"Yeah," Ciara said, "maybe," knowing in her heart that no army would suffer
a gaggle of useless women and children. At least not those unwilling to perform certain services.
A boisterous voice called out from the second caravan, "Well, isn't this charming." Kynton, growing restless and uncomfortable with his overextended legs jammed into his chest, tumbled from the second wagon. The trip was not one he wished to repeat, over a week with only enough room for him to occasionally cross one leg over the other while the fatter of the historians babbled about the miracles of an all garlic diet.
The ex-priest meandered up to the teenagers, not bothering to lower his voice in the claustrophobic quiet of the silent city. He spent half his life in the equivalent of a living library; he was immune to the social cues. "It's been a few decades, but has all of humanity cast off the trappings of city life and returned to the wilds? I must say, I wouldn't mind joining them. This robe can get rather restrictive," he joked, tugging at the starched collar.
Aldrin glared at the man, doing his best to not look over at Ciara. But the priest just smiled back, enjoying his bit of peacocking. Maybe later they could try and butt heads over the dark maiden's hand. Or have a very deadly game of checkers. The twins hadn't accidentally eaten all of the pieces yet.
"The army won't be camped in the town," Ciara said, paying no attention to the grungy priest as he peered into the well before tossing a stone into it.
"You an expert on the comings and goings of armies?" Kynton asked her, "Must be hard finding armor to fit you."
The girl crossed her arms but Aldrin leapt to her defense, a fact that did not endear him to her,36 "She's right, the bulk of the horde would be sheltered near the watchtowers, while only chosen platoons would be sent into town on a rotating basis." His hours spent trapped with a droning Kaltar and Grang Gor's Secrets of Killing The Other Bastard And Calling It War pressed to his nose were not entirely in vain.
A cough echoed across the abandoned street as a grimy witch approached solemnly from the East, having been forced off most of the unpaved road into the muck and treacle runoff in the ditches. If magic were powered by hatred, their entire caravan would have been leveled with a single thought. Instead, pale eyes smoldered murder beneath a hastily tied crimson scarf.
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