“Superstitions,” I mutter, and I almost spit on the ground. If I were still in the city, I would have, but a dozen men are looking at me, frowning, just daring me to do it. If I do, I’m going to get my seat smashed.
So, I swallow it down and toss my sticks onto the pile.
Wallace looks about the horizon, which is the colour of freshly laid cobble stones – sunset isn’t far off.
“Light it up,” Wallace orders.
A handful of torches are lowered onto the timber pile. The flames catch and lick over the dead wood.
“Never seen a battle fire?” Ash asks.
I shake my head.
The swish of a skirt catches my attention. Coming down the road is a gaggle of girls, and women, carrying trays and pitchers and rugs over their shoulders.
Ash laughs and I pull my eyes from the skirts and set my frown in his direction.
“Never seen so many women, hey,” Ash says, chuckling at me.
“They’ve never seen him either, always smothered in dirt and all. Bet you wish you’d washed up now, hey Hunter,” Dom teases.
I elbow him, then take two quick steps back – out of reach.
The girl’s here, Jenny, and her ma. But, where the rest of them have come from, I don’t know. Now that these other boys are staring at me, I feel like I need to say something to find out.
“Just who are they? That’s all I was thinking,” I say.
“What’s a battle fire without all the family?” Wilf answers.
Around us, rugs are spread over the dirt, and some of the bigger logs have been kept for sitting on. Bread rolls are passed out and skewered onto sticks, or a sword if you have one, then toasted in the flames and dipped into small clay pots of seasoned drippings. The women hand out jugs of water and some of ale.
Wilf’s rubbing his hands together, like something exciting is about to happen.
“Where’s your brother?” Dom asks, but Wilf’s already walking away.
“Stayed at the house with the hand,” he says, shouting over his shoulder. “I think he’s falling in love.” Then he’s swarmed by girls and lost in a mass of giggles and skirts.
Ash chuckles. “He used to have a thing for our sister.”
“Jenny?” I ask.
“No, our older sister, Jacinta. She used to fancy Wilf’s older brother, Orin.”
I shake my head. Girls are too complicated.
“Then she married someone else,” Dom says.
I settle into a cluster, with Dom and Ash and a lot of others around our age, and sit in my squat-style.
“Why aren’t you out there with Wilf?” I ask, trying to tease Ash.
“I’m waiting for my chance to go talk to Ryan, the Timberhound’s middle son,” and he waves to a boy who needs a shave on the other side of the fire.
“Oh,” I say. Do I know anyone who fancies men? I mean girls aren’t worth the effort – but guys?
A guy who prefers a boyfriend, huh. Interesting.
I’ve never paid attention in the tavern, but I’m sure Ash isn’t the only one.
Dom turns to look at me, and like wolves smelling fresh meat everyone else turns my way too.
“Talking about attractions, Jenny smiles at you a lot,” Dom says with a familiar you-smell-like-dung tone to his voice.
Scrawling I ask, “The girl?” What I want to ask is why it’s any of their business who Jenny is smiling at?
Ash chuckles. “Don’t look so terrified.”
Dom isn’t chuckling and I hold onto my last lung full of air in case it really will be my last one – ever. There’s a handful of people closely surrounding me, and a whole lot more just beyond them. If Dom decides to try and knock my lights out here, would they help, stop him, or not even care?
Dom’s lips stretch into a big toothy grin.
“Only pulling your leg,” he says, trying to scruff my hair, but I duck out of the way. “She can hit about as hard as you can, so I think you’re evenly matched.”
“Oh, wait. Are his cheeks turning red?” someone else asks.
I ball my fists and lift my weight – ready to pounce.
A woman leans between us. “Here you go boys,” she says, handing Dom a big clay jug.
Dom passes it to Ash.
“Not for me,” Ash says, passing it on.
None of the others take a sip either.
“Here,” I say, just as they’re about to pass it on to the next group of people.
“You don’t want that. Fire vinegar it is,” Ash says.
“See the painted flames around the pot?” someone else points out.
“Burn the hairs out of your nose,” Ash continues, “only the old folks drink it. Something they used to brew in the first border war.”
“Shh, Ash,” one of the women in the next group hisses at him. “No one’s talking about there being a second border war,”
I snatch the jug up and swig down a few mouthfuls. My Pa owns a tavern, there ain’t a drink I haven’t had and I can handle them all, and I’d drink water with a drop of honey over all of them. Just saying.
Tears spring to my eyes, but everyone’s looking at me so I have another drink. The name of the drink, fire vinegar, made me think of burning, but this isn’t burning – this is exploding.
My mouth wide I gasp for air, and I know I am breathing because my chest is moving, but I can’t feel anything at all. The heat flows up into my nose and from my stomach it feels like it is shooting out into all my muscles.
I brush the tears away, but more come.
The lad’s cheer, patting my shoulders and scuffing my hair as if I’ve done something amazing – I only feel amazingly stupid, but I force a smile on my face and gasp out, “water.”
I’m never doing that again.
Belly Down In The Dirt.
“Alright, lad, let’s see if you’re worth-your-salt,” Dom says.
I frown at him.
“What?”
“Nothing. I think I get it. In the city we say, worth-your-liquor.”
Dom laughs. “Only if y’ live in a tavern.”
I want to say that I do live in a tavern, but I bite my tongue.
“Up the road and back?” Ash asks.
Dom nods. “To the blackberry bush.”
I frown deeper. I know where that is, and it’s almost as far away as the last lot of loot I found.
Ash passes me a bag. “And you have to fill this to prove you went all the way.”
“Don’t worry,” Dom says with a chuckle. “There’s no bandits around, not after we chased them away the other day. We want to see your riding skills.”
He leads me to a spot on the side of the barn where lines have been scratched into the timber.
“See the sun’s almost at the starting line,” Dom says. “This is Ash’s poor effort, and this is my record.” He points out two other lines.
They’ve used the side of the barn and the sun and shadows to record the time it has taken each of them to ride the distance and back, plus picking black berries.
I smile at the challenge, but inside my lungs are having trouble working. Horse riding is new to me, even though I’ve been riding their odd horse to chase sheep, or getting out to the fields, for two weeks.
“So, are you in or are you too chicken?” Dom says.
I shrug, like it’s no big deal. “If this is what you farm folk do for fun, I’ll try not to smash your records too far into the dirt.”
A few minutes later Ash hoists me up onto his horse and points towards the gate.
“Good luck,” he says.
A loud slap echoes from somewhere behind me, the sound bouncing off the stables and the house several times; but I’m already being carried away by a horse that might as well have been given fire vinegar!
Horse riding is a rush. Not dawdling along like a fancy lady, but really riding. Vermin quick, hunter stealth, street-cat wild. And, I feel some of my usual wild attitude come back as I hold onto Ash’s brown boy and whop with excite
ment.
Blackberries, blackberries, blackberries… there!
I land on my knees; the horse is walking off and snorting in that horsey kind of way. My fingers rush along the branches, being cut by thorns, but my heart is hammering so hard that I don’t care.
My shoulder bag full I run for the horse. Just as I have my foot in the metal thing, it walks forward. Almost knocking me onto my bum.
“Stay still you mule.”
I throw my weight up onto his back and land with a painful thud into the saddle. It must have been painful for him too because he rushes off in the wrong direction shaking his head and throwing his back end around.
“Turn around,” I say, pulling on the leather and grunting with the effort. “Go, go.”
He runs, and I hold on. I know there is a better term for horses running, but I am not a horse person… not yet.
If they can all move this fast, I might become a one. Wonder what it would take to trick Ash out of his mount? If I beat him in a game of cards? Dice?
Almost there. A few corners, the Meadowsblade’s place, then home.
My breath stops.
Home?
It’s not home.
Somehow, I’ve managed to pull the horse to a stop too, and with both our hearts still dancing he refuses to stand still; turning in an impatient circle.
Home? I’m still not sure of the word, or why I thought it.
“Ha, ha!” someone shouts, and the sound of a cart echoes down the road. “Move it, they’re on our tails.”
I move to the side of the road and wait for them to round the corner. Whoever it is they’re in a hurry.
Through the trees a flash of red moves towards me. A red sash means slave traders.
I urge Ash’s horse off the road and deeper into the trees. I might have a dozen blades, and a horse, but if slavers see me out here on my own, I’m a goner.
“Shhh,” I whisper, slipping from the horses back and tying his reins to a tree.
Sneaking towards the road, belly down in the dirt, I wait for a full view.
There’s a cart, four horses that I can see, and they’re in a rush.
“Help!” someone shouts from the back of the cart.
They’ve already kidnapped someone. But from where? Around here, there’s not a lot of the type of street kids, or poor farmers kids, to go nabbing.
Jenny?
No, but then, maybe. She’s been out in the fields all day; I haven’t seen her since breakfast. I have to get a closer look.
Dirty Tricks.
My hand moves, slowly and silently, away from the branches and towards my hip where the easiest of my knives is hidden. There’s four slave traders on horseback still coming down the road and the cart behind them. The fact that they’ve ridden off ahead of the cart says that there is something of greater value than slaves on their minds – like the traders lives.
The cart has my attention if those girls weren’t screaming I’d be running for my own life right now. Girls always ruddy scream and it makes it hard to think.
All right, if I wait until these mounted traders are out of sight and get in front of the cart, I might be able to stop the thing, or I might become a road pancake.
A hairy arm grabs me from behind and I almost scream.
“Gotcha, boy,” someone says, and by the stench of him it’s a bandit.
I ram my knife into his foot and in the second where he screams and falls backwards I jump to my feet, facing him with another blade in my hand.
There’s three of them. Not a band of bandits – just scouts.
The guy in front of me has his foot pinned to the ground by my weapon. Lucky these things come free from my knife-thief friend Ero. I don’t need to try and get that one back.
The other two bandits ignore their fallen comrade, useless lot they’d be even if they were on my side.
I look at their still sheathed swords and down at my little blade. It’s little, small enough to conceal against my wrist. Too small.
Running like a jack rabbit smelling hounds; down the bank, through the sunken drain, and out into the middle of the road, right in front of two galloping slave traders.
“Zakkai’s dead… no coin. Ruddy waste of time,” one of the traders shouts and draws his sword. “I’m going home.”
The horse’s rear, men shout, swords swing and in the commotion, I find myself scaling the same bank I just ran down. The bandits and the slave traders set to work on each other. I don’t wait to watch the show.
I do decide that my blade is worth retrieving and snatch it out of the bandit’s foot on my way past.
“Thank you,” I shout over my shoulder.
Finding Ash’s horse still tied to a tree I struggle onto his back.
My heart pounding, and the horse not wanting to stand still, I search up and down the road for the cart.
“Stinkin’ traders and bandit scum,” I mutter, but there are still some girls in danger – and I’m not sure when or why I started caring, but now that I do care I want to find out what’s going on and how I can help.
The fact that bandits and slave traders are standing in my way boils my blood.
“Ha!” I shout at the horse like I’ve seen Ash and Dom do.
But I can’t ride down the road, that’s far too crazy even for me, so I hug tight to the horse’s neck and let him run like a wild thing through the trees.
There, the cart… but it’s not moving.
“Help!” a trader shouts from the driver’s seat.
I pull Ash’s horse to a stop and whip my head around to watch. Ash’s horse fails to actually stop, but kinda slows and begins turning in circles. Sweat is beading like foam off his neck.
“Help,” the driver shouts again.
No help comes, and no help is going to come because they’re busy either fighting with or running from bandits.
We move closer to the road. It’s the younger kid from the Meadowsblades, I saw him at the battle fire but didn’t actually meet him, and he’s on the traders back hitting the guy around the chest and shoulders with one hand and holding on with the other. I can see three cheering female faces in the back, but they’re tied up – and this kid isn’t making any progress.
The trader reaches up and grips the kid’s shirt, ready to throw him off his back.
The blade’s in my hand.
I aim and let it fly.
Silver metal whacks into the trader’s angry creased forehead. His eyes roll back before he topples from the cart – almost taking the kid with him.
More girl’s cheers sound out, and the kid is beaming like he just won his first battle.
I frown at the silver blade in the dirt. It hit the man on the hilt side – when did I become such a poor shot?
“Remy, turn the cart around,” one of the girls says.
They’re soon safe and out of sight, and I hurry to grab my now red and dusty weapon.
By the time I’ve mounted up and begun moving towards the house, there’s no one on the road.
“Ha, ha,” I shout at the horse, racing into the empty Rathernfen yard.
“Oh, look. He’s back,” Dom says, emerging from the house.
“What took you so long?” Ash asks.
I toss him his horse’s reins.
Ash just laughs. “A lot of sweat for a horse who was only supposed to go down the road. Loose control did you?”
I would tell them all about it – but they’d never believe me.
“Looks like you’ve been to Fairlarn and back,” Dom says. “And you forgot the berries.”
I search myself, feeling for the bag. I have black fingers and little cuts to prove I picked the rotten things – but I’ve lost the bag.
There’s nothing I can say, except, “rematch?”
Dirty Past.
“I’ve an offer for you boy,” Roland says.
I sit up a little straighter though I am the only one left in the kitchen. Me and Roland. There’s still food here. Until I’m shouted at t
o get out, this is the best place in the house to be.
“You want a place to belong?” Roland asks, which sounds nothing like an offer. I have a place, a cold, dark, wet and damp place, and I’d be there now if I didn’t stop to warn these people… I let go of that train of thought. My hoards gone, and now I’ve been more than a week delayed. Going back to Pa is not going to be pleasant.
“Well, do you, lad?”
I nod instinctively.
“If you keep doing the work well enough there’s a bed in the house for you.”
My jaw drops. A bed?
I begin to laugh; this guy is crazy.
“I’m not joking. Best you sort out any bonds tying you down and let Sareen know if you’ll be here for dinner.”
I’ve practically run the distance into the city and my legs are shaking from the effort. But inside, somewhere right about where a horse might kick a man’s chest, I feel like finding gold in the middle of the road isn’t the best find I could make anymore.
I waltz through the streets of Argeish. Nothing could faze me here anyway; this is where I’ve grownup. This is practically everything I know.
At the end of Justice Street is the Justice of Authorities offices. Their job is simply to keep the peace. If the peace isn’t kept their job is to restore order first, seek justice second and mostly all you will ever see them doing is lots of nothing.
So it is, but then it isn’t, like sticking rotten vegetables beside crown jewels, that my Pa’s tavern and all its underhanded night life is a stones throw from the one institution meant to keep the city clean.
I barge through the tavern doors, it’s early and clients usually arrive after lunch, so there’s no one in sight. The big wooden bar is on my left, benches and tables designed mostly for cards, dice and stones to be played cover the rest of the space and in the far left corner is a door with the words ‘No Entry’ carved into it by a blunt blade.
This door is heavier to swing, so heavy that when I was a kid if I was shut in here, I couldn’t get myself out – no lock needed.
The little hallway has a handful of bedrooms on the left and a living and kitchen space on the right before it descends sharply into the cellar.
Dust and Water: A Song For The Stained Novella (A MAGICAL SAGA) Page 4