by N. D. Wilson
The ground split and twisted beneath the wall. It was severed, and a portion fell back into the city.
He could hear the cries and feel the shattering of bones. Bells began ringing, but his mind ignored them. Darius released another river of stolen strength across the plain, and the crack and shattering of stone marked the birth of a second breach.
Henry stood, shivering in the street. His cousins and sisters—real sisters—had followed him through the house, refusing to give directions. At the door, little Isa had given him a cloak and a pair of boots. They were too big for him.
The house was on a hill, and while the cobbled street wound its way through other houses on its way down, Henry could see over them, all the way to the river that separated the city, and to the wall. He could see the gaps and the crowd of men in dark robes pushing through them. In the other direction, from the cathedral spire, the bells were beating out an alarm, competing with the never-ending thunder.
For the second time in a single day, Henry ran toward a fight. This time, he wasn't even holding a stick.
By the time he'd crossed the bridge, he began to slow down. Archers had pushed the wizards back out of one of the gaps with swarm after swarm of arrows, but the dark-robed surge in the other was growing. Flame and balled lightning crawled over the rubble and through the streets.
Everywhere Henry looked, he saw men taking cover behind stones and in doorways, only to fall back again, retreating to new shelter. Still, Henry ran forward in the middle of the street, trying not to slip on the wet cobbles. One hundred yards from the wall, Henry stepped into a doorway and looked out over the shifting conflict.
Bodies, with and without dark robes, were scattered through the rubble, and four figures were running from the other breach. In the center, a tall man drew back a bow even while he ran. Beside him came two others. Both were carrying what looked like rifles. One was thick, dressed like a policeman and limping, the other was lean and hunched while he ran. The fourth was smaller and ran in front, burdened with a long, rectangular shield.
As they approached, wizards shifted to face them. Henry watched in shock as Zeke Johnson banged the long shield down across stones, and the men all ducked behind it.
The tall man stood the longest, and three wizards fell in the rubble with his arrows in them before he huddled with the others, flame curling above them.
Then they were up again, pushing forward, still with only the tall man letting fly his black arrows. Henry could see three quivers on his back.
Other men were pushing forward now, and wild arrows rattled in the stones. Arrows that met their purpose made no sound at all.
Henry's eyes were shifting. A dozen wizards made a stand in the rubble, combining their strength. The men on the outside were lashing out with wind, sending arrows bending away useless with raised hands and knocking the city's defenders to the ground as they showed themselves. Henry could see others inside the group, calling down bundles of lightning, cracking whips of light madly at walls that hid the city's archers, or balling the power up and bowling it through the streets, searching for life. If any defenders crept too close, then balls of flame sought them out as well.
Zeke's wide shield approached the wizards slowly, shaking in the wind and thunder, shading the men behind it from rolling flames. Lightning never reached it, though the wizards tried. Henry could see the tall man with the bow forcing it away, though his strength did not match any one of the wizards. When Zeke lowered the shield, the tall man's arrows flew, and two shotguns blazed.
Two wizards fell to wounds Henry could not see. A long arrow from behind the shield found its way through the twisting wind and through a wizard's chest. The clustered group of dark blowing robes edged slowly back, leaving behind the bodies. As they did, Henry moved forward.
Three more fell, and Henry watched the wind's strength shrink and the shield move forward. Another turned and ran for the breach, but tumbled into the rubble with a shaft between his shoulder blades.
All around Henry, dozens of archers moved into the open streets and began to let fly. Henry could hear the twang and hum of string and feather, and he watched as the last of the black robes were brought down inside the walls. The rest were through the breach and onto the plain.
Men swarmed down the streets, filling the breach with arrows while others shifted rubble and pulled away bodies.
“Uncle Frank!” Henry yelled. Frank didn't hear him. He was rolling a stone back toward the wall. Henry hit it beside him and looked up at his uncle. His forehead was red. Singed and curled white hair was plastered onto it with rain.
“Fill the breach!” the tall man shouted. “Killing barrels!”
“Henry York,” Frank said. “Brother Caleb said you were here.” He grinned. “I'm glad to see you while we're both still pullin' breath.”
“He's your brother?” Henry asked.
Frank smiled. “And brother to your father. Can't shake me. I'm still your uncle, Henry. By blood.”
Caleb strode over to them, and Henry looked from his face to Frank's. They were alike. But very different. Henry braced himself to be sent running home, back up the hill to bed.
“Can you shift stone?” Caleb asked. “Both breaches need filling.”
Henry nodded. Zeke and the policeman were too far away to be heard, but Zeke dropped a rock and waved.
“Push coming!” someone yelled.
Shouting echoed along the wall while men dropped to their knees and bellies.
Again, fire filled the breach, and lightning laid men low. But this time, the archers stood their ground at the wall, and the wind bristled with arrows.
Henry rolled and lifted and stacked stone until the sun was gone and darkness, almost as heavy as faeren light, settled on the city.
Still, with hundreds of nameless men, Henry worked by lightning light, his bones vibrating with the dwindling thunder. The storm was regathering.
The wizards had drawn back. And though no one understood it, it was welcome.
Henry stood beside Zeke, and they stared at their hands, with flapping skin where blisters had been born and died in a matter of hours. Every drop of rain stung what it touched.
Zeke looked at Henry, and Henry looked at Zeke. Henry had thrown his cloak away to work, and now he was as wet as he had been in the harbor. Zeke had lost his baseball hat, and his face was filthy with smoke and grease. Rain beaded up on his cheeks. His eyes were as calm as they had ever been, despite the madness they'd seen, and burn spots had welted up on his forearms where he'd leaned against the flame-heated shield.
“We're still here,” Zeke said.
Henry nodded and looked out at the darkness beyond the walls. For how long? Someone with strength beyond all the wizards stood out in the hills. He thought he could feel him pulling at the wind, though he couldn't quite see it. He wasn't even sure if the wizards he'd watched die would have been able to call down lightning on their own. Someone had handed it to them.
Two stone walls, U-shaped, had been erected from the rubble, quarantining the breaches. Wizards who entered the breach would be standing in a space surrounded by stone, below the bows of men on the intact walls. Killing barrels.
Uncle Frank and the policeman walked over to Henry and Zeke, carrying their shotguns. The policeman limped.
“Coupla shells left,” Frank said.
The policeman nodded. “They'll be gone by breakfast.”
“Henry.” Frank put his hand on the cop's shoulder. “This is Sergeant Ken Simmons, who thought he would come along when the house was ripped from Kansas land. He does good work with a shotgun.”
Sergeant Simmons stuck out his hand to shake, but when he saw Henry's torn fingers, he slapped him on the back.
Caleb was moving toward them. All three of his quivers were empty, and he stooped to pick up arrows as he walked. He ran his hand over the shaft of each, muttering something to the head and breathing on the feathers before he kept them. Some he dropped back on the ground.
&n
bsp; “The quiet will not last,” he said when he reached them. “Return to the house and rest and eat while you can.”
“And you?” Frank asked.
“I will search beyond the walls,” Caleb said. “There is one strength behind this, and I do not know why he bides. But while he bides, I may find a way to strike.”
“His name is Darius,” Henry said. “He's a seventh son.”
Caleb raised his eyebrows. “You know him?”
“He pulled me through the cupboards.” Henry shook his head, thinking Caleb wouldn't understand. “He kidnapped me and tried to make me his son.” He pulled his shirt up, and his pale, wet scars stood out in the dark. “I escaped.”
Caleb crouched and ran his fingers over the tangle of scars on Henry's belly.
“A tree?” he asked. Caleb stood up and stepped backward, toward a shadowed doorway. In a flash, he spun, grabbed something near his waist, and pulled it out of the shadow.
Surrounded by shimmering air came Frank the fat faerie, pulled by his nose, grimacing, sputtering pain, and kicking.
“Who is this?” Caleb asked, crouching.
“That's Frank Fat-Faerie,” Henry laughed. “He's alive! Can you see him?”
“I can smell him,” Caleb said. “More or less. I do not have the full gifts, but I have enough to know when a faerie is blinding vision.”
Caleb let go of the faerie's nose and gripped him by both ears. “Listen well, Frank Fat-Faerie. Faeries will not walk unseen in my city, not in these times and not with the district committees as they are. I do not trust the faeren. Make yourself seen.”
The shimmer disappeared. Uncle Frank and the others all blinked. Caleb dropped the faerie's ears.
“What business do you have in Hylfing when the wizards attack?”
“Well, sir,” the faerie said, “my busyness involved saving your nephew from wizards, sir. Saving him from faeren corruption, sir. And saving him from wizards again, sir. Bringing him to the city of his fathers, sir, and in other ways manifesting extreme faeren nobleness and loyalty.” The faerie's face was flushed with anger. He looked at Henry and nodded toward Uncle Frank.
“Is that your uncle Frank?” he asked. “I like him. Much better than some I could mention, who're eager to grab faces and accuse. But then it's hard to go wrong with a Frank.”
Caleb laughed, and the others laughed with him. “What else have you got hidden in that doorway, Fat-Faerie?”
“A young wizard, sir. But a good one. He's badly hurt in his gut.”
“Monmouth?” Henry jumped toward the doorway.
“Mushrooms,” Monmouth said quietly. “Not a tree. Darius's strength began with mushrooms. His brand is poison.”
“Mushrooms,” Caleb said. “That makes more sense of his strength, though it may not help me.”
“Caleb?” a voice cried. Henry watched old Eli hurry toward them through the shadows.
“Eli,” Caleb said. “You look pure and unspoiled. How have you passed the battle?”
“With Lady Hyacinth,” he said. “In the hospital. Ask her if you doubt me. But now she sent me to tell you that the table is set, and the priest waits.”
“Priest?” Caleb asked.
Eli nodded. “For the christening.”
“And about time,” said Fat Frank.
was very happy. But she was a wise woman, and an old enemy had returned. She did not think her happiness would last.
There was a window in her room, a large window that saw the sun's path most of the day. She had borne nine children, and for each of them, she had tended a sapling tree on its sill. She had woven all of the magic of motherhood into those trees, and as they grew large enough, she planted them in the courtyard behind the house. There were five trees in the courtyard now. Three had died when her oldest sons had fallen. Her daughters' trees blossomed every spring and were still small. The trees of three living sons led strange lives. Their leaves changed and fell, not in Hylfing's autumn but whenever autumn found her sons. And when spring sun was on their faces in some far part of the world, leaves budded and grew through any winter that might fall on their mother's house. But there was one tree, more twig than sapling, that still sat in soil in Hyacinth's window. It was Henry's tree, though it had never known his name. Not once had it ever produced a leaf or bud, and yet it had never died.
She looked at it and ran her hand over its surface, humming. It was supple, wick with hidden life.
Downstairs, she heard loud voices and knew the others had arrived. She turned and walked to the stairs.
Uncle Frank and Caleb carried Monmouth into the house.
Zeke and Henry stopped in the doorway and stared into the front room. Richard, in baggy clothes, came and stood beside them. Tables had been brought in from somewhere, strung together, and set. There was a dusty bottle of wine, larger than Henry had thought possible, and huge plates of cold meat. Aunt Dotty was bustling around the table with a steaming bowl of apples in each hand. Her face was flushed red, like the first time Henry had seen her, and her hair, once pulled back, fell down onto her cheek.
When she saw Henry, she set the bowls down and rushed to him. She was softer than his mother, and she wrapped him in the smell of apples. She smiled and kissed him and couldn't speak, and then led him to an old white-haired woman, already seated at the table. The woman was blind and spreading smiles through the room.
Henry's cousins and sisters were seated around her.
“Your grandmother Anastasia,” Dotty said, and the woman found his face with her hands, squeezed his cheeks, and kissed his head. Little Anastasia sat beside her.
Monmouth was tended and laid on cushions in the corner, where he slept. Fat Frank refused a seat and instead crouched nervously by the door, fidgeting and gnawing on his fingernails.
The wine was being poured. Henry's mother took him by his elbow and directed him to a seat as she had already done for Richard. Zeke was on Henry's left, and his uncles were seated at either end of the long table. A bowl of warm water and a cloth were passed for washing. Another bowl of water, wooden, sat in front of Henry, and he rinsed his fingers in it. The seat beside him was empty, and his mother stood behind it, pushing hair away from a glowing face. She was saying something, but Henry was a little dazed. He watched the smiling, serious faces. He watched the fat faerie squatting nervously by the door.
Then a man in black, a priest, stood up beside his uncle Caleb and spoke while everyone was silent.
“A table laden in the face of enemies,” he said. Henry heard little else. The man continued, and when he had finished, everyone laughed. Henry laughed as well and didn't know why. He didn't need to know, because it was real, and it came from within and without. Henry watched the food on the table travel around and the people at the table smile and take of it. He smiled, but he could hear little of their words. His mind and his eyes were sensing other things. He heard rain on the windows and wind through the cracks of the house. He watched the thunder shake his glass and felt the sea pounding the coast. And none of these things were as loud as his uncles' laughter. Zeke was talking to Caleb, and Caleb was telling him that he would give him a bow. Hyacinth was smiling at Henry, and Grandmother Anastasia stared toward the ceiling. Her smile was gone, and her food was untouched. Uncle Frank was trying to explain baseball and ketchup to whomever might listen.
And Henry found that he was eating as well, and drinking something extraordinarily red out of his glass.
The eating passed quickly. The mounds of food grew smaller. Henry was full, and he felt warm.
Caleb stood, and the conversation quieted.
“My nephew, brother-son, eats with us today. He returns to us in a storm. Some of his brothers sleep in the earth, as do some of mine, and others, now away, he shall someday meet if this storm breaks. He is the seventh son of a seventh son and more. His inheritance is rich. May he make it richer for those behind him. His father, long lost, is gone, but his mother tonight shall name him.”
All eyes, esp
ecially Henry's, went to his mother. She stood slowly, smiling, but her eyes were sad.
“I have long lacked this son and knew not what had become of him, as I know not what became of his father. But now I know in part and am grateful even for the providence that took my son away an infant, because he has retrieved a lost brother and uncle.”
Dotty began crying, but Hyacinth continued.
“A name is meant to shape and mold. To destine. And yet my son has already found shape. This is not the naming of an infant. This is the naming of a young man with feet already on a path. His name shall still be Henry, and it is a good name. He has dwelt away from us in the home of another father, descended from another line. This house would honor that, and we would not try to remove the mark of his young exile. It has shaped him and is woven in his story. So he shall have the name that those other fathers bore. He shall be Henry York. But another name he still lacks. It is the name on which he will stand, the river on which his other names will travel.”
Grandmother Anastasia pushed back her chair and stood up, weakly, still staring at the ceiling. She opened her mouth to speak, swaying as she did.
“This is Henry York, seventh son of Mordecai West-more, seventh son of Amram Iothric, in the line long faithful to the Old King, farmers of the earth, husbands of the sea. Through him shall kingdoms find new birth. Through him shall the earth find balm for hidden wounds. He shall not be a man of blood, though he shall shed it. He shall not be an angry man, though he be angered. An old enemy has risen through him, but he shall be its curse. It marks his flesh, but he shall break its back. He shall be called Maccabee, for his strength has been hidden away, but it shall become a hammer that burns in the night, both green and gold.”
The room was silent as Grandmother settled into her chair, smiling. She began to eat.
The priest rose to his feet and walked slowly around behind Henry. He set his wineglass on the table and picked up a plain wooden bowl filled with water. Henry twisted in his seat, looking up at the priest and his mother.