by Gwynn White
Arwin breathed out a sigh and held up her hand. “All right, I’ll count out the coin.”
I handed her the bag without flinching. Arwin was many things, but thankfully thrifty was one of them. I knew she wouldn’t give a single silver more than she needed to, and with my one arm out of commission, I wouldn’t have been able to count out the coins easily anyway.
She accepted the bag, withdrew a large handful of coins, and then handed the coin bag back to me without another word. Maybe she sensed that the day was wearing on and that we’d be better off with an easy start to our journey rather than making more trouble.
I watched her jog over to the stable master and start talking animatedly with him. A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth when her waving arm suddenly pointed in the direction of the white-maned horse. The man shook his head, though, and after the coins were exchanged, Arwin came back my way with a slightly dejected slowness in her step.
“He won’t take the palomino out for us!” she said angrily before I could open my mouth.
“Palomino?”
She pointed. “The lighter one.”
“It doesn’t matter which one pulls the cart, so long as we are carried to Cleighton safely.” My thoughts were on the guard back in Mitbas. I had no idea how quickly word could spread among the Empire’s soldiers, but my imagination was running on full tilt with carrier ravens flying all across the continent, carrying dire news of two fugitives who’d emerged dirty and dangerous from the abandoned mine shaft.
Arwin seemed to sense my thoughts and nodded shortly. Together, we made a quick cut to the wagon, hopping inside and claiming a third of the bench on the right-hand side, sequestered far beneath the protective veil of the wagon’s canopy. The two other passengers climbed aboard, and though neither direct eye contact with us, there was something uncannily familiar about the broad-shouldered man.
The woman I was sure I’d never seen before, but she kept her gaze fixed on two points—the white-robed man who I was certain I recognized, and the open back of the wagon that faced the city gate. As long as her attention was away from Arwin and me, I felt safe.
After another five minutes or so of waiting, I felt the wagon shift as the driver climbed into the front cabin, and then we were off.
10
Night carried on, and the bouncing of the wagon’s wheels as it knocked into stones or branches did a fine job of keeping me and Arwin from falling into a restful sleep. Every so often, I would drift, only to be jostled back to wakefulness with a crick in my neck and lead weights pulling at my eyelids. Too tired to stay awake and too uncomfortable to pass out completely, I oscillated between the two, all the while keeping an eye on the other two inhabitants of the carriage.
Or I tried to, at any rate. There was no lantern inside with us, and our view to the outside was hindered by a tarp the carriage driver had thrown over the back opening to cut down on wind and noise. A slit remained open between the two canvas flaps, though, and I caught sight of the light from a swaying lantern hung on a sturdy hook on the outside of the wagon. I figured it was there to ward off any predators that might see us passengers as an easy meal, though I couldn’t fathom any creature remaining close to the road when the cart we were in was making such a ruckus.
“Hey, you over there.”
I looked up at the sudden voice, startled. My eyes strained to pierce the darkness, but I knew that the deep voice had to have come from the other man who sat catty-corner to me, closer to the wagon’s entrance. “Yes?”
“Can’t sleep, huh?”
I shook my head in the darkness, then realized he likely couldn’t see me. “I’m just having a hard time getting comfortable,” I told him.
The man grunted. “I used to be the same way too, when I was your age. Before Landis, I was stationed in Harcour, and before that in Orliander. Lots of time between stables to realize that wagon travel wasn’t for me.”
“But you’re riding in one now,” I said, puzzled.
“Aye, that I am. Seemed to me that it might be safest to move with a group, in a covered cart, under the veil of darkness.”
Two pinpoints of light appeared in the darkness then, and it took me a moment to realize I was staring into the man’s eyes. In place of black pupils were a pair of pinholes that shone with an inner light. They were rimmed with pale blue irises, softer in color than that of a robin’s eggs, and these too shone faintly.
“The Lord of Clouds will not look favorably on a runaway cleric,” the man intoned, then looked around the interior of the wagon. “So I stomach the discomfort, knowing that it is safer this way.”
“Why are you a runaway? To be a cleric of the faith is—”
“Every boy’s dream?” he said without mirth.
“Not what I would have said,” I countered, “but your abilities are a gift. A divine blessing. Everyone knows this.”
“Everyone knows this. Bah!” The man snapped his fingers, and a flicker of light burst to life between his fingertips. “Everyone knows this,” he said, “but not this.” At that, he widened his fingers and let the flame grow and then hang in the air, and with his free hand he rolled back one sleeve of his white robe.
I squelched the gasp before it could rise. Underneath the cloth, his skin looked mottled, disfigured, like a flame had been taken to his flesh until it melted like wax from a candle, then cooled into an unrecognizable texture. “What happened to you?”
A strong part of me wanted to glance down at Arwin, to make sure she was still asleep. She bore a similar scar, but while hers was always visible, it wasn’t nearly as horrible as the withered arm the runaway cleric had just revealed.
The man rolled down his sleeve and cupped a hand around the flame, bringing it closer to his face. “I was reckless and irresponsible,” he said simply, as if that explained everything.
I waited for him to elaborate, but when it seemed clear that was all he was going to say on the matter, I changed the subject. “You still bear the power of the Lord of Clouds, though…”
He nodded. “And not a day goes by when I don’t wonder why. As soon as we reach Briarsworth, I’m ditching the cloth and heading back north.”
“Why not do that back in Landis? It would have been quicker to get where you’re going.”
“True, but that is where the citadel would expect me to go first. By coming east first, perhaps I can lose them for a few weeks.”
I gulped, already fearing the response to my next question. “Why would they pursue you so fiercely?”
The man tapped his temple, and when he blinked, the light inside the carriage from his eyes disappeared momentarily. I got the sense he was smiling grimly. “That is a discussion for another day, with another person. Who are you, after all? You and your companion, fleeing under the cover of dark with a coin purse larger and heavier than my fist.” He raised his large closed hand for emphasis. “What are you running from?”
“We’re not running from anything,” I said automatically.
My answer was too quick, though, and again I felt the man was smiling. “Everyone’s running from something,” the man said. “Most just don’t realize it.”
“We’re going toward Cleighton, that’s it. I’m going to train to be an iron tamer.”
“Is that so? What makes you want to beat swords with hammers all day in a sweltering forge?”
“I…” I hadn’t thought about it all that much. Arwin had half convinced me it had been my idea to start with, but now that I thought about it…it really only benefited her. She wanted me to work all day and then smuggle her swords to sell to complete strangers. I’d work around iron, but whatever my ability was to manipulate that hard element, I wouldn’t be able to use it in plain sight. Taming iron was an honorable profession, and a rewarding one, but money had never been my objective. Now that I was away from Pointe and Answorth and everything I’d known my whole life…what did I want?
The bright eyes disappeared again, and didn’t return until a deep sigh resou
nded from somewhere a few feet away in the darkness. “Pardon me for intruding,” the robed stranger said, suddenly sounding ten years older than he had before. “It’s not my place to provide advice to anyone, much less someone still so unmolded. I am hunched in the back of a darkened cart hoping to be delivered away from men with powers you can’t begin to imagine. I’ll be lucky to make it past this week.” He shook his head, and his eyes left little lazy trails of light in the air from side to side. “Find what you’re good at and do it, kid. It might not be what you want to do, but if you excel at something, don’t throw it away. You think you’ll be a good iron tamer?”
“It’s not what I envisioned—”
“That isn’t what I asked. Do you think you will be good at what you do?”
I nodded. “It should come naturally.”
“And it will be profitable enough to let you lead a life of comfort, I imagine.”
“I guess so,” I said.
The man grunted. “Then do that. And count yourself lucky,” he added with a short laugh. “Some men the Lord of Clouds didn’t see fit to grant with any exceptional qualities.”
“But…that seems so wrong,” I argued. There was a hint of disgust in my words that even I could hear, but I couldn’t help it. “How can you say it’s right to give up on your dreams, on what you want to do, in favor of taking the easy way?”
Arwin shifted against me, and for a moment I worried our conversation had woken her, but it was just a sleep twitch. Her head soon found its place against my shoulder again and she was still.
“I never said it was the right thing to do,” the man countered, “just the sensible one.”
“Well when you hear my name sung in taverns across the land, you’ll regret giving up on your dreams.”
He snorted. “Have to have a dream to chase it,” he said. “How many songs d’you hear sung for a mere iron tamer? But I’ll humor you. What name should I keep my ears open for, should I outlast the week?”
“Mal,” I told him.
Out of the darkness, two pinpricks of light met my eyes. They grew slightly as he shifted toward me. “My name is Oren,” the white-robed man said. From the sound of fabric swishing, I knew he’d raised his arm, and I reached out slowly into the gloom with a closed fist. I found his fist, and our knuckles locked against each other briefly before Oren lowered his hand. “Perhaps my name will be heard across the land as well,” he laughed, “albeit for a different reason.”
“I’m sure whatever you’ve done can be forgiven,” I assured him.
His eyes flashed in annoyance, and for a moment I thought I saw their color shift. “It is the citadel that needs to be forgiven, not me!”
At that moment, the cart rocked violently, and Arwin and I were flung to the other side. I narrowly avoided slamming into the woman who’d fallen asleep next to Oren, but my elbow caught Arwin in the stomach, and I heard a violent exhale of air rush from her lips as she was jolted awake.
“Mal, what’s—?”
Her half-formed question evaporated as we continued to tilt. Blood pounded in my ears with each beat of my heart as weightlessness took hold for just a moment. My feet left the wooden slats of the cart’s floor and I fell head over heels until landing hard against the bound and tethered canvas siding.
The taut material snagged on a rock outside the overturned carriage and a gash as wide as I was tall appeared in front of me, the wicked point of the guilty rock no more than a few inches from my face as we skidded past it. Then the front of the cart slammed into something solid, like a tree, and the four of us in the back were flung forward like so many sacks of grain.
I landed in a pile with Arwin and the other woman, my arms and legs tangled with theirs. The woman was awake now and screaming shrilly, her voice so loud next to my ear that her words were incoherent.
“Silence!” Oren ordered. Somehow he’d managed to grip the edge of the bench and stop himself from being thrown alongside us, and now he sat crouched between the open-hanging flap at the back of the wagon and the gash in the canvas that used to be the siding. “We didn’t hit a bump in the road.” His bright eyes shone against the darkness. “There is someone out there.”
Beneath me, Arwin groaned in protest, and I spent the next few seconds disengaging our jumbled bodies as best I could. The other woman was less than helpful. She clamped a clammy hand against my face and shoved off hard to right herself, and even then, there was no offer to help me or Arwin get to our feet.
Faintly, I was aware of something wet trickling down the side of my face.
“Oren, can you see out there?” I asked, only barely able to see him.
The lights of his eyes shook. “I can see well enough in the dark, but whoever it is remains shrouded. They are actively hiding, perhaps waiting for us to expose ourselves.”
I lent a hand to Arwin, who accepted it and rose to her feet. “So what do we do?” she asked. She still sounded out of breath, and I felt a pang of guilt for having elbowed her earlier, even if it had been accidental.
“We find out what they want and we give it to them,” the other woman said. “Once they have whatever they’re after, they have no reason to kill us.”
“No reason to keep us alive, either,” Oren countered. His eyes glanced toward the front of the carriage. “I don’t hear anything up front; maybe the harness broke and the horse escaped. If we can find it…”
“Then one, maybe two of us can ride to safety,” the woman said. “I can ride to Briarsworth and send back aid!”
Arwin stepped up, placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder, and spun her around hard. “I think you just want to save your own skin! You don’t care if the Depths take the rest of us.”
“I find your accusation insulting,” the woman sniffed. “Besides, you know that what I’m saying is true. We can’t all make it out of here; why should I not look after myself first?” She spun in a small circle. “I don’t know any of you. I don’t owe you anything.” She gestured out through the back flap. “If whoever’s out there is willing to make a deal, I’ll take it.”
I shook my head in disgust. “They hurt us. They don’t know us, and they hurt us. We aren’t going to be able to reason with them or trust any promises they make.” I turned to the white-robed man, a trained cleric of the citadel. “Oren? What’s our plan?”
He turned to me slowly, his pinpoints of light narrowed with grim resignation. “We fight.”
11
Fight?” the woman shrilled. “We have no weapons, no training. How can we hope to win?”
“You have no training, you mean. Clerics are trained in several forms of combat,” Oren said firmly, and by the set of his weight, I believed him. I’d seen similar determinedness from the men in the Brigade back in Pointe, just before a foray into the Grimwood. Oren had seen some things in his time. Maybe he gave himself too little credit when he claimed he wouldn’t last a week on his own with the rest of the citadel on his heels.
“Arwin and I can fight,” I said, taking a step toward Oren.
“We can?”
I faced Arwin. “Yes. It’s the only way for us to win this.”
She took a deep breath, audible from several feet away, and then I heard the shuffle of her feet against the canvas siding that now acted as the floor. “Okay,” she said, steadying herself against the wooden slats at our side. “I need a weapon.”
Oren looked the two of us up and down. Then he reached into a concealed flap of his robes and pulled out two slender knives. “Here,” he said, handing one to each of us. “Those should suit you.”
“Where did you even keep these?” she asked, a hint of awe in her voice.
“Never go anywhere unprepared.” His eyes were trained out the open flap of the back of the cart again, then to the torn section. “Everyone, out through the side. We’re shielded from view now, but it won’t be long before they think to encircle us from behind. If we get trapped against this cart, we’re done for.”
“Out in the open
, we’ll be sitting ducks,” Arwin argued.
“They can’t see in the dark.” Oren touched his temple, just left of his eye. “I can. Come on, follow me.”
He stepped past me and then paused before the woman with the attitude. “And who are you?”
“We have been traveling together since last night,” she said defensively. “How could you have forgotten—?”
“I am not asking because I don’t recognize you,” Oren said curtly. “I’m asking because when someone is coming at you from behind with an axe, I need to warn you with something other than ‘Hey, you, get out of the way.’ Understand?”
She looked abashed for a moment, stunned into silence, her features only just visible under Oren’s stare, and then she collected herself and replied quietly, “Morena. Morena Belva.”
“Morena it is.” He gave a nod of approval to her, then turned to me and Arwin. “Through the flap, now. Keep tight to the cart and move toward the front.”
I reached and grabbed the torn fabric, then ducked through its narrow slit opening into the open night. The stars were concealed behind a thin layer of clouds, and the lantern that had hung from the back of the cart now rested on its side on the ground, one glass panel smashed into pieces. The flickering light still licked at the air with a pitiful flame. Before rational thought could stop me, I reached over and picked it up.
Almost instantly, a pair of projectiles—sharpened rocks, maybe, but moving faster than an arrow loosed from a bow—scored the dirt where the lantern had been just a second ago. I almost dropped it out of shock, but then Oren grabbed me by the back of the shirt and pulled me away.
“That was a damn foolish thing to do,” he growled, his eyes glowing bright. They were…had they turned a pale shade of orange? “If we’d moved quietly enough, they might have assumed everyone inside was dead. Now they know at least one of us made it.”