The Hollow March

by Chris Galford

  Essa suddenly drew stock still, staring into the trees behind them. She put a finger to her lips as he stirred. Then he heard it, too. Something heavy was crashing through the woods at a furious pace, and it was growling. He thought he could actually feel the color draining out of him. Cathal. The damned beast was still coming.

  This time, however, Rurik was determined to be ready for it. Already he could see it weaving through the trees, the shaft of Essa’s arrow lurching out of its side and bouncing with every bound. It did not appear to have slowed at all—if anything, all the arrow seemed to have done was enrage it further. Rurik dug in his feet and brandished his sword, even as his hip twinged. If it dared another lunge he would stab the beast through the throat.

  “Stand behind me, Essa. I’ll deal with him.”

  Or will it be the other way around? He shifted uncomfortably. Don’t think like that, you idiot.

  He could hear her moving behind him. A branch creaked, the tree moved and bent. He glanced back, saw her fiddling with one of the oak’s thick branches, turned back and waited for his prey. Rope slid between her fingers. Why she had not simply drawn up her bow was beyond him. Whatever she was planning, hopefully they wouldn’t need it. He twisted his blade in his hand, and waited.

  “Stay there,” Essa said.

  There. The hound darted between two saplings and made a break toward them. The dog was just a few feet away, and Rurik could still see bits of his pant leg dangling from its jaw. Come take the rest you mangy bastard. He dropped back, blade poised, and the beast lunged.

  He stabbed instinctively, but the assault was merely a feint. Cathal feigned away from his blade and dipped back, then leapt again. Rurik managed to twist away from it, swinging his sword around for a backslash, but the tip only grazed the dog, and as it struck down it was already rounding on him. It dove at him again, and he made to strike at it with another backslash, but as he shuffled there was a creaking twang and the hound made it only inches in the air before the branch swung round and cracked it full on.

  With a yipe, Cathal was swatted aside. It landed several feet away, but as it struck ground it rolled over itself, snapping the arrow in its back, but reclaiming its feet in a scramble. When it came at them again, it snarled.

  Essa was beside him then, knife in hand. “Watch him,” she said. Cathal seemed to register this, but the dog threw itself at them all the same. “Don’t swing too soon—watch for the pounce!” Its massive legs pumped it forward, and then it was dipping, pressing, and propelling itself up. It flanked at the last instant, hopping aside and making a grab for his shoulder. He meant to slash at it, but he hastily adjusted, knowing the blow would be too slow. Instead he dropped the pommel on it. There was a resounding crack as he connected, but his own blow could not stop the dog’s momentum.

  Cathal’s full weight collided with his own, and for the second time that night, Rurik was taken clean off his feet. It felt like he had collided with a mountain. Both crumbled to the ground, the dog’s teeth wrapping around his arm just above the elbow, his blow having knocked off the course of the beast’s attack. Regardless, it spun him around like a limp rag doll, and he slapped against the earth with Cathal running right on top of him.

  It took him a minute to realize the teeth had followed him the whole way. From the arm, up his shoulder, biting and clamping, and it was on him, tugging at him. The beast was still up. He could not believe it. Surely he would’ve been dead if not for his chainmail, which even the hound’s massive jowls struggled with. Again he swung at the creature, trying to force it off, but Essa was already on it.

  She tackled the beast at the hip, somehow managing to tear it off him. Small as she was, he would have thought it was like hitting a tree with a stick, but Essa took the dog out all the same. It snapped at her, but she bucked back against it, and she was on it, darting between it, doing something with his legs.

  “RURIK GET OVER HERE!”

  He sprang after them and slammed down on the dog, trying to keep it from bucking Essa free, while also trying to keep its teeth as far away from his own skin as possible. The girl still had rope, he could see, and she was bundling Cathal up at the legs, like one might a wild pig. Thankfully, she was quick about it. In a few seconds, despite the beast squirming beneath them, she had its back legs lashed together, and twisted around to do the others. Of that he was thankful. Any longer and he could not say whether he would have been able to hold the dog down. For all the blows it had taken, the wolfhound seemed as determined as ever to tear out both their throats.

  “Done! Loose him.”

  She need not tell him twice. As soon as Essa hopped off the dog, Rurik yanked back his hands, narrowly avoiding its snapping teeth. The dog tried to right itself to come after them, but its legs were lashed together, and all it managed to do was to roll in the dirt and topple on its face when it struggled too hard. Still, Rurik stepped back only cautiously.

  “You’re disturbingly good at that,” he shot at Essa.

  “Years of practice.”

  Just as he was thinking they might have a moment to catch their breath, however, the howling began again in earnest. A veritable choir of howls, echoing hauntingly through the dead and dying trees. Cathal stiffened and craned its head toward them. Rurik felt his legs shake, as though folding beneath his own weight. The dogs sounded close. So close. It was beginning to feel more than a little pointless—especially if one alone had given him so much trouble. Sense snapped back to him though when Essa slapped his sword back in his hand.

  “Come. We need to get gone before the others sniff us out.” She glanced down at his leg, then back. “How is it?”

  Through the blood rush, he could not say he particularly felt anything off. When he looked down, however, he saw the thoroughness of the wolfhound’s work. Cloth and leather alike had been punctured and torn, and given the red staining the edges, as well as the warm trickle he felt running down his leg, he imagined the skin had been scored. Despite a contemptuous scowl directed at the dog, he decided to ignore the concern for the moment. There were bigger problems, and if he didn’t think about it, there was the chance he wouldn’t feel it.

  Wishful thinking, perhaps. As soon as his leg leveled against the ground again, he felt the sparks race up the limb, and he had to steady himself on Essa before he could manage a step. The bones thrummed in protest of the motion, but he gritted his teeth against it and swore to himself he would not cry out. Essa latched to him with a look that promised she would hold him as long as necessary. Reluctantly he drew back from her, steadying himself against the prospect of miles of walking ahead.

  “Where do you propose we go?” He surveyed the trees as he asked. Darkness and more darkness. He could see nothing. “Isaak’s hounds will find us anywhere we go.”

  Essa shrugged noncommittally. “First to the river. Then to Voren’s.”

  “Voren?” There’s the rub. Perhaps, he thought bitterly, the hounds aren’t so bad after all. “For all you know, he’s the one that told my father we were here.”

  Any of the men that had happened on Alviss and Chigenda were far more likely culprits, he had to reckon, but he could not give that to Voren. At least, not out loud. Whatever she might say, the weasel could not be trusted. The pain only added to his bitterness, but he did not want to think it clouded his judgment.

  “For all we know, it was that crotchety Jez. She may not have been able to see you, you twit, but she sure as hell could bloody well hear you. Voren is about as trustworthy a soul as we’re to find here. If he had wanted to do us in, he might have reported us the very night he found us. You don’t have to believe him, but for your own sake at least take the opportunity for somewhere to stop and catch your thoughts.”

  He hesitated, but could think of nothing to dissuade her. Essa seemed to take it as a sign of victory. Perhaps. Supposing the boy had turned them in, even, he was not likely to have a cadre of guardsman lurking about his home at such a time of night. No, he rather reckoned their prese
nce would be quite a shock to the baker, one way or another. He would have to leave if he intended to fetch the guards on them—and by then, they could be long gone.

  Besides, the prospect of a warm fire was an attractive thought, at that moment.

  Which brought him back around to Essa’s first train of thought. The river she says. He could scarcely contain his revulsion at the implications of that. It was a wild thing, and bitter with froth at the best of times. The wind. Assal be damned, it already cuts to the core. He fiddled with the thought of emerging into it, laden and damp. The dogs might lose their scent, but in their slowed pace, they would surely catch them all the same. Then there was the other matter. Winter was coming. He could smell it on the wind. An hour or a day, he could not say, but winter was surely coming. The wind was hurrying in a storm, and this made the thought of the river all the more unappealing.

  But Essa was already moving off, and he hastened to join her.

  “Are you mad? We’ll freeze.”

  “Then we’ll make a tougher treat for your brother’s dogs. At least this way they won’t smell us.”

  They were scarcely away before Cathal’s bleating barks began to descend into something all the more pitiable. What was fierce grew frustrated, then miserable. The dog began to whimper, still weakly pawing at the air, but otherwise motionless. As it began to drift from sight, however, Cathal began to howl, a dark, mournful thing, beckoning to its master and its pack, wherever they were.

  Rurik wanted to say it served the beast right. As they picked their way through the brush, however, even he began to feel a touch of sympathy for it. Cathal’s cries were laced with pain, its tone lonely with need—the whimper of a wounded child, crying out for its parents. He wished that he might do the same, as the adrenaline warred with the throbbing in his leg for some form of dominance over him. Yet the only one that might hear his own cry stood right beside him, looking every bit as miserable as he. He could see Essa stiffen and twinge at every wail, and he knew as hard as the cries struck him, it must have been twice the wound for her.

  She always did have a love for animals that went far above and beyond her care for the human world. Given the house she had to live with, though, he had never really blamed her for it.

  They made good time as they hurried through this latest patch of woods, any trail now since lost to them. In little duration, the river was before them, its wide banks snaking through the flatlands, surrounded by trees, and disappearing off into more of them further on. If they followed it long enough, they would find Verdan, sure enough, and if they crossed it, they would find themselves quickly ensconced in Surinian territory.

  It wasn’t a particularly unappealing thought to him at the moment. Isaak would have to break off his chase, and the Surinians only rarely kept watch along the border, especially as winter drew near. They simply didn’t have the men for it.

  As she neared the river, Essa shrugged off both her bow and quiver. Motioning for him to follow suit, she took up place by the river and touched a hand to the water’s edge. She withdrew it as quickly. Rurik felt a knot tightening in his throat, but he obliged her. Slipping off his belt entirely, he tossed it and his sheath and his pistol and the myriad number of pouches into the dirt alongside Essa’s bow, but deigned to keep his sword with him for the moment. One never knew what might be just behind them, and he thought it a matter of safe being better than sorry.

  He tossed his cloak and offered up a silent prayer to any that would take it. At the water’s edge, however, he hesitated.

  “It’s easiest if you just do it, Ru. Don’t think.” Still, he hesitated. The water ran on, its foaming white surface bubbling faintly beneath the wind. He breathed deep, trying to work up the courage, but Essa shoved at him suddenly, shouting, “In!” Slipping on frost, he plunged into the waters.

  He sunk like a stone. All at once the chill engulfed him, pulling at his arms and his legs and snapping him back, attempting to drag him down and away. It felt like sunburn searing away his skin, as though the cold had transcended the boundary between the elements. It made no sense to him. He could not even scream. All he could feel was the chill in his bones and in his blood and in his lungs, and he struggled against it, even as his body stiffened.

  Straining to swim, he stretched for the sky, or what he thought was the sky. Everything was dark. His chainmail, as feared, held him back. He put all his strength against it, but between the weighted metal chill and the rushing force of the stream, it was a terribly uphill battle. His only saving grace was that the stream wasn’t that deep.

  When he emerged, it was thankfully near to shore, and he flung himself at it with all his remaining strength. Clutching to the frosted clumps of dirt along the banks, he gradually pulled himself out. He could hear Essa running, though he hadn’t the energy to turn and look at her. Collapsing onto the earth, he coiled inward, shivering violently. Everything was soaked through, and the wind was ice raking his skin.

  Dead for sure. He gagged on the air, and began to cough. At first, bits of water came up with the air, and then it was just dry heaves. The fire was no longer around him, but within him, and it was a fire without warmth. It burned at his lungs and threatened nausea, but he managed to hold that back. What am I doing?

  Essa was over him, holding his shivering body. She was blubbering the same words over and over—“sorry, I’m so sorry.” Then she was dragging him away, the sound of dogs howling in the distance. Not so distant, perhaps. She cannot drag me the whole way. His mind reeled. What were they doing again? Dogs. Bloody dogs. Try and eat me. All you’ll get for me is a touch of frostbite in your bowels. He kicked at the dirt, trying to help her along, but Essa was saying something and he suddenly felt he was not doing enough. But it was cold. So cold.

  “You-you should have grabbed hold of the bank. You know how the waters are.”

  Helpful. Very helpful. They stopped, there along the bank. He rolled over on his belly, trying to force more of the vile fire loose, but all he lost was air, and possibly a bit of lung. Essa’s arm dipped under his and helped him stagger up on unsteady feet. Dimly he became aware of the fact that he was still clutching his sword in one claw-like hand. The rest of their goods had been draped on Essa’s equally sopping and shivering self. She must have gone in after me, he thought. It was not particularly reassuring.

  What followed was the most grueling trek he had ever had to make. Every step was agony, every breath a knife through his heart. He was forced to limp-run, his mauled leg near to numb, whether from the pain or the all-pervasive chill he could not say. At first, he huddled in his cloak, savoring its meager protections, but the sable lining quickly soaked up the water and held it all the more cruelly against him, and the cloth hooked on passing limbs. Branches raked at them, roots tripped them. Essa helped him along as best she could, but he could see the energy fading from her as well. The river was a cruel thing. They may have needed it, but it damn near sucked the life from them in the process.

  When they arrived at the edge of town, only a few lanterns flickered amongst the log-wrought huts and cabins. No one stirred amid the handful of dirt roads, save a smattering of guards wandering the periphery. They managed to limp in out of the trees unseen, thanking Assal the trees still grew so near. Much had been torn down in the time since Rurik had gone, but much remained, as well.

  They shambled past the silhouettes of a few other houses, slipped around and behind the town square, and wandered up to the bakery nestled in its shadow. Essa pounded as Rurik sank against the wall, seeking anything he could for support. If Voren were not home, he had little doubt he might just lay down and die right there. There was no energy left in him.

  There was rustling inside. Then the door creaked, just enough for someone to glance outside. One beady little eye peered out at them, then widened in shock. “Essa?” The bodiless voice gaped. She nodded slowly, and he could tell she wanted to speak, but the words would not come. Her breaths were slow, ragged. She seemed to be more in cont
rol of herself than he was, but how far that actually went he could not say.

  The eye darted back inside and the door opened to them. Voren rushed out, swaddled in some ragged robe, and pale as snow itself. There was flour all over his face, though why anyone would still be churning out bread so late into the evening was beyond Rurik’s grasp. The baker darted outside, taking Essa by the hand.

  “Come in, quickly,” he said, and guided her inside, but Essa motioned to Rurik, and only then did the baker seem to recognize his existence. Voren seemed to twitch, pausing despite himself, then motioned Rurik in all the same. Was that disappointment? The baker slapped the door shut behind them and barred the door with a wood beam.

  The house was not so different from their room at the inn. Sparse. Very sparse. There were a couple tables, with an appropriate number of chairs for each. A small bed sat in the corner of the room, with a few bundles of hay tossed elsewise about the wall—makeshift beds, if someone wished it. Notable improvements: a fireplace and what looked to be a small kitchen leading to the bakery. There was also a second room, apparently, though the door was shut to them. He imagined it was Voren’s little hideaway, though that would not explain the second bed. All in all, it struck him as a finer place than many of the homes in Verdan—not quite so grand a place as those the landed men beyond the town’s borders might call their own, but certainly not wanting.

  Essa returned to him, slipping her arm up under his and helping him to one of the chairs. Rurik slid into it with a grunt and spread out as best he could. A bolt of pain lanced up his leg, and he immediately regretted his decision. Wincing, he waved Essa off, but she crouched beside him and plucked the sword from between his icy fingers. Then she started to rub and roll the hand between her own.

  Voren hovered nearby, obviously awaiting an explanation, but left completely in the dark. Take that, powder-face. He felt like grinning like some pock-faced little twit, but decided that might be a little much.