by N. D. Wilson
Henrietta thought for a moment. She wondered how different she was from her grandfather. If at all.
“What were the things Eli gave away?” she asked.
Caleb sighed. The horse turned beneath him. They were entering a grove of small trees. The rain quickened for a moment, and dry leaves rattled beneath it as they passed.
“A stone. A hilt. And a shaft.”
“A shaft?”
“An arrow,” Caleb said, “fletched with the feathers of a desert seraph, pointed with a tablet shard brushed by God's own breath, and shafted on the core of great Moishe's rod, first found and flown on the ancient field of Ramoth Gilead, killer of kings.”
Henrietta tried to turn around on the horse. She couldn't see his face. “You believe that?”
Caleb laughed. “I don't know. But even if I found it lying in the road, I would never touch it for fear of being struck down.”
“And Grandfather took it?” Henrietta asked, as much to herself as to Caleb.
Caleb drew the horse up, and relief poured through Henrietta's body, though she was sure it would not last long. They were in a clearing surrounded by smaller, dying trees. In the center, one towered over the rest, still green. Horses slowed down around them. After a moment, the dog appeared and threw itself down on the ground, panting.
“Ride on,” Caleb said. “We will catch you.”
The horses continued on. Caleb dropped off the side of the chestnut, told Henrietta to stay on, and began walking toward the large tree. He didn't look at all stiff to Henrietta. When he reached its trunk, he placed his hands on its bark and looked up into the branches. Henrietta could hear him, but only slightly, and it sounded as if he was singing. Then he stepped back and pulled a knife out of his belt. It had a straight blade and a silver handle wrapped with black leather. He swung his arm suddenly and with tremendous force. Henrietta flinched onto the horse's shoulders. He had struck the tree, burying the blade deep in the wood. Leaving the knife behind, he turned and walked back to the horse and Henrietta.
“Are you going to leave your knife there?”
“Yes,” he said, swinging up behind her. “The tree was a marker established by my fathers. I did not want to see it drained by their hated one.”
“Did you do something magic?” Henrietta asked.
The horse began moving again. Henrietta's eyes stayed on the knife.
“Some would call it magic,” Caleb said. “But only because they cannot do it.”
“What did you do?”
“I told it not to be deceived, not to give its strength away.”
Henrietta wiped fat drips off her face and pushed her hair behind her ears. She needed a shower. It felt filthy. “Why'd you stick it with the knife?”
“So it would not sleep. It is awake now. As awake as a tree can be.”
The horse moved into a trot again. They were leaving the grove behind.
“Were you singing?” Henrietta asked.
“In a manner. I spoke so that it would listen.”
“How do you know how to do that?”
Caleb was distracted. There were more animals on the ground than they had seen, and bigger ones. Some kind of wildcat not far from a skunk. Farther on, she saw her first badger.
“My father taught me,” Caleb said suddenly. “He could do much more, but I learned some.”
“What could he do?”
Henrietta heard something rattle behind her. Caleb had pulled an arrow from his quiver.
“He would not be riding away from this scourge, for one. He would be leaning against it and calling the world around him to lean as well. He would walk to its center and find its source, and the greenness would follow him.”
“We can't do that?” she asked.
“We can't do that,” he said.
She looked down. Beside her, she could see Caleb's bow in his left hand, one finger holding an arrow in place, already notched.
“What's wrong?” Henrietta asked.
His voice was tentative, distracted. “Everything. Something. We'll see.”
The trees were growing thinner now, and the ground was becoming more broken. Caleb kicked the horse lightly and let it pick its own path. They could see the last of the other horses disappearing over a small rise. The dog had run ahead.
Caleb's arm was no longer around her.
Through the trees and off to one side, a horse's scream pierced the wood. Snarling followed after, and the baying of a dog.
“Hold on,” Caleb said. “Grip with your knees. Grab his mane if you need to.” The horse broke into a gallop, as much as was possible through the trees and boulders. She wondered if he needed to steer the horse at all.
Then both of his arms came back around her. In his left was his thick black bow with the heavy-shafted arrow on the string. Fingers from his right were around the arrow's notch. Henrietta could not hear anything other than the pounding of the chestnut's hooves as she hugged the horse's neck. Something came over the rise toward them. It was a riderless horse. On its rump was a large gray wolf. Two more ran beside it, lunging at its legs and shoulders, snapping at its neck. Then from over the rise came another shape. It was Caleb's black dog. The horse spun and kicked, but the wolf's teeth were in its saddle, and the kick missed. The horse screamed again.
Caleb's chestnut lengthened its stride as it wove, pounding through the trees toward the animals. They were closing fast. Caleb's body twisted sideways behind her, and she leaned back against his chest, ducking her head as he drew back his bow. She saw the shaft fly and bend its course through the air. The arrow passed just above the empty saddle and through the wolf's body, scraping off its feathers as it went. The animal dropped limply onto the hooves of the kicking horse and spun into the dirt. The other two wolves did not break concentration, though Caleb was bearing down on them from one side and his dog from the other. Caleb's bow bent again, and a second wolf dropped, kicking dust and writhing with the feathers pluming its shoulder. Then they were past them. Galloping up the slope and around the trees, a snarling broke out behind them.
“What about the other one?” Henrietta yelled.
“The dog can manage one wolf. Look for Eli.”
“Eli?”
“That was the horse he stole.”
As they reached the top of the rise, Henrietta frantically looked around. She saw nothing. Caleb slowed his horse to a walk, looking from side to side as they picked their way through the trees. Ahead, the other horses were returning. Caleb saw something she did not and changed their course, plowing the horse through underbrush. On the other side, beneath a tree, was Eli. The only blood visible was on his palms. Caleb slid off of the horse and put his hand on Eli's chest. Eli opened his eyes.
“Oh,” he said. “I fell out of the tree. I jumped and grabbed a branch, and the wolves chased my horse. Then I fell.”
“Are you all right?” Caleb asked.
“I believe so.” Eli blinked. “I have never been attacked by wolves. It was not the experience I expected.”
“What did you expect?” Henrietta asked.
“I expected to die. Is the horse dead?”
“It should not be.”
“The wolves?”
“Three killed if I know my dog.”
“The she-wolf?”
“I did not see one.”
“She was back a way. They were circling her and broke off when I rode right into them. I do not know how they would miss my coming.” Eli stared at his hand. “Or how I could miss them.”
“It is hard to sense anything now. We walk through the clamor of death.” Caleb put another arrow to his bow and stood up. “Which way?” he asked, and he whistled through his teeth. Henrietta heard a horse coming, and then it appeared, still bucking and kicking at the air. There was blood on its flanks and scratches on its neck and shoulders. Eli was trying to stand up and point for Caleb at the same time. Caleb followed his hand and began picking his way slowly through the underbrush. No more than thirty yards aw
ay, he stopped. Henrietta could see the top of a large rock in front of him. Then, as he crouched down, he disappeared. Henrietta followed quickly.
The wolf was large and beautiful, a dark gray, nearly unmottled. She lay on the ground with her head leaning on the rock, exhausted, tongue limp and lolling. Behind her lay three pups, all dead. One had been chewed. The wolf's yellow eyes rolled toward Caleb, but her tongue remained draped out the side of her mouth as she stared. Henrietta watched her uncle set his bow on the ground and crouch in front of the long animal. Her lip curled, and the smallest of snarls crawled out of her throat. While Henrietta held her breath, Caleb whispered to the she-wolf, and she stopped. Then he dropped to his knees beside her.
Henrietta exhaled and bit her lip. Caleb was stroking the wolf's head. Slowly, he worked himself around behind her and placed his back to the rock. The wolf was stretched out on her side, legs extended, head in Caleb's lap. Her tongue was still out of her mouth, but her eyes were shut. She wasn't dead. Henrietta could hear her breathing. Caleb looked up at Henrietta, but his hand did not stop its motion along the wolf's neck, and he did not speak to her. Instead, he bent over as far as he could and whispered in the wolf's ear.
Henrietta was silent. She didn't think Caleb would like it if she said anything at all. Instead, she stepped closer and waited to see if Caleb would tell her not to. He did not, so she crept closer still. The wolf's eyes opened, and her body bent, spasmed, trying to stand up. Henrietta froze, and Caleb whispered again. The long charcoal body relaxed, and Caleb looked at Henrietta and nodded. She got down on her knees and reached her hand out to the wolf's shoulder. The yellow eyes opened and looked at her, but the body was motionless beyond the soft rise and fall of its ribs. She felt the animal's neck and head, gently rubbed behind her ears, and then, growing bolder, she ran her hands down the wolf's legs, stroking the lean bones, and feeling her pads.
When Caleb nodded at her to stand up, she didn't want to.
“We must go,” he said. His voice was no louder than normal, but it felt like a shout. Henrietta stood, tucked her hair behind her ears, and looked down at the pups. She moved toward them, but her uncle shook his head. Caleb slid out from beneath the wolf, lay her head down on the ground, ran his hands down the length of her body twice, and then placed one hand on her head and one on her ribs.
“Go,” he said quietly to the wolf, and Henrietta watched her ribs rise and rise in one long, deep breath and then sink. She did not breathe again. Henrietta walked in front of Caleb to the horse. She was trying not to cry.
Eli was back on his horse, and the other riders were around him. Caleb slid up onto his horse, grabbed Henrietta, and pulled her up in front of him.
“Eli,” he said. “You are a liar and a coward and a thief. You think you have no master, and so you are lawless in your self-worship.”
Eli flushed. “I have no love for myself.”
“Self-loathing and self-worship can easily be the same thing. You hate the small sack of fluids and resentments that you are, and you would go to any length, and betray anything and anyone, to preserve it.”
Henrietta was shocked. She watched Eli's face darken, and then grow white with anger. He opened his mouth, but Caleb raised his hand to stop him.
“Swear fealty to Hylfing now,” he said. “Eli Fitz-Faeren, belong to something other than your puffed self.”
“I—I don't know,” Eli stammered.
“It was not a request.” Caleb's voice was bone-hard. Henrietta felt fear surge through her, and she couldn't even see his face. “If you do not, I will spit you to a tree. Your theft could have cost a life from among my men. If you felt the sudden growth in danger and did not tell us … three more lives have already been added to your tally. Swear.” Caleb paused. “Now.”
Eli sat, frozen. Henrietta heard Caleb draw another arrow from his quiver.
“Please don't,” she said suddenly. “Don't kill him.”
“Peace, Henrietta,” Caleb said. “Be still when you have no understanding.”
Henrietta bit her lips.
Thunder tumbled slowly across the sky. The rain had made up its mind. It came down hard, needled and stinging, warm but cooler than the air.
“Eli?” Caleb asked.
“I swear,” Eli said quietly. Henrietta strained to hear him in the rain. “Before God and these witnesses and all the witnessing world, I swear to serve Hylfing, pursuing its good, its purity, and its peace.” Avoiding Henrietta's eyes, he looked up at Caleb. “Will that do?” he asked sharply. “Or did you have something else in mind?”
“That'll do,” Caleb said. “What awaits you if you break this oath?”
“An arrow, I presume.”
“Something sharp, anyway,” Caleb said. “Right—” Caleb turned to the others, but Eli interrupted him.
“You realize, of course,” Eli said, his hair limp and wet, “that I remember you when you wept to be suckled. As a babe in a soiled nappy.”
Caleb laughed. “I cannot remember you as anything. Anything at all. But let us change that.”
The men all smiled, but briefly.
Caleb pulled a cloth out of his cloak. “Blind the horses. We are within a mile of the old gateway. The death will worsen as we approach, so there will not be another moment for stopping. Come what may, we will ride to the door and through. Do not fall to the ground. That is where the drain is strongest. Once we are in, if a mount or rider stumbles, there will be no time for a rescue. Do not breathe until you are in the light. Follow on my heels with weapons ready. We do not know what waits for us before, in, or through the evil door.”
The men all pulled out scarves and rags and bandages and bound them around the horses' tossing heads. When the horses had quieted, the men drew blades or notched arrows on bowstrings. Caleb nudged his chestnut to a trot, guiding him through the brush with his knees.
The rest followed in a line.
Henrietta had a knot in her stomach. Her body no longer ached, or maybe it did and she failed to notice. In days of wild adventuring, she had reached a new level of nerves. They were riding toward something that could kill them. Three bodies were already wrapped in blankets.
Even Caleb's body felt tense behind her, and the horses whickered as they went. The black dog trotted with his nose up and ears high.
The grass around them was more than curled. As they rode, it went from brown to gray, and all of it was battered down in the rain.
Henrietta's wet hair was slicked back, and she didn't bother to wipe the running water from her face. Instead, she sucked at it with her lower lip. It was her first drink of the day.
She didn't need to ask Caleb where they were going. Ahead, she could see for herself. They were heading for an outcropping of stone surrounded by leafless trees. A funnel of gray death was traced toward it on the ground. Soon enough, she could see the open door.
Thunder rattled the sky in the distance. She saw no lightning. Her eyes were on a growing black mouth, just a little too symmetrical to be a cave. She swallowed hard as the ground leveled out in front of them. Dead ground. Gray ground. Every blade of grass, twisted into wet, ghostly corkscrews, lying back, pointing toward the door.
Caleb clicked his tongue, and the chestnut surged. For the first time, Henrietta thought of the birds and squinted into the rain.
“I released them,” Caleb said in her ear. “Long ago. You may see them again. For now, prepare to hold your breath. If you grow dizzy, cry out and clutch the horse's neck. Do not fall.”
Henrietta nodded.
“Be stubborn,” Caleb said. “As stubborn as a stone mule.”
She clenched her teeth and expanded her fistfuls of mane. She could do that.
Caleb continued, and his voice was a chant. “Your life is your own, your glory is your glory, but you will lose it if you keep it for yourself. Grasp it for the sake of others. What might you do with it? Do not let the demon woman take it. Do not breathe.” The words did not stop, but Henrietta could no longer understa
nd them. They were no longer for her.
The door was in front of them. The horse slowed, but not much, as Caleb guided it in. Henrietta caught her breath and entered dead, rushing darkness with her eyes open wide.
She felt the pull immediately, like a hook set in her guts, tearing its way out. Gasping, her breath was gone. The horse's hooves sparked on stone, and others clattered behind her. She wanted to breathe, but she couldn't open her mouth. She wouldn't. Something would come out if she did. Something important. Her skin felt stretched, peeling. They were in a broad, circular room, a polygon, each wall a doorway. Faint light came through some of them. The chestnut surged toward one in the darkness, and Caleb corrected it, angling toward another. Henrietta felt her eyes pulling her that way, her hearing—
She opened her mouth to breathe, and sickness filled her. She was turning inside out, leaning, falling off the horse. A strong hand closed over her mouth from behind and pulled her up. She was pinned against Caleb's chest. Her eyes burned as she shut them.
Something clattered to the floor behind them, and they were through, into rain and much louder thunder.
Henrietta threw up through Caleb's fingers. He moved his hand, and she threw up again, down the horse's shoulder, and again, finally, on the ground. Then she sat up and realized she was crying.
Caleb had turned the horse and was watching others emerge. One. Coughing. Two. Strong. Three. The horse stumbled out of the doorway with Eli on its back. It staggered sideways and crashed to the ground with twitching legs. Eli rolled free into thick brush.
“Up, Eli!” Caleb yelled. The rain and thunder drowned him out.
The chestnut moved toward the fallen man, and Caleb slid off its side.
Caleb was on the ground and had lifted Eli up behind Henrietta before she could even think to object. Three other horses bounded into the rain, and a fourth carried a limp rider, who tumbled to the ground. No others followed.
Caleb reached up and slapped Henrietta across the face.
“Wake up!” he yelled. “Hold! Eli, take her to the house you knew as my mother's. Take her fast. You will not betray my trust.”