The Boneless Mercies

by April Genevieve Tucholke

  “It will all be over soon, lamb. No more pain, just peace.” I gestured to Ovie, and she handed me her knife. Sharp blade, thin neck, one slash and it was done. The woman went still.

  Next came the son. Trigve led the father outside as we climbed the ladder to the loft—he’d seen his wife through to her death, and that was enough for one man.

  The boy was ten at most, with wavy yellow hair and a brave, intense look in his blue eyes, even as he lay dying on his bed. Juniper dropped to her knees and began her prayers.

  Ovie took one look and shook her head. “No. I’ll not stay to watch this.” She spun around, went back down the ladder, and walked out the front door.

  I turned to Runa.

  “He’s just a boy.” Runa’s voice was deep and raw and sad.

  I nodded.

  Runa and I were the only ones fierce enough to take children. Yet we both held back every time.

  “Just do it,” the boy shouted from the bed, fire in his voice. “I want to reach the Great Hall of the Slain while there’s some fight left in me.” He raised his fist into the air, and a sore burst and leaked blood down his arm.

  The boy’s bravery about broke me. Even after all I’d seen, even after all the death.

  Juniper’s prayer-whispers stopped.

  “I’ll take him,” I said. “You did the last two children, Runa.”

  Runa moved her dark braids behind her shoulders. Her hair was a true Skyye black, like many Vorse people whose ancestry could be traced to the Skyye Islands, and it shone a violet-blue in the firelight beaming from the nearby brazier. “No. I’ll do it. Blood is blood and bone is bone and death is death. It’s all the same.”

  Juniper started her prayers again.

  Runa’s Mercy-knife was smaller than Ovie’s but just as sharp. She went to the boy and, despite what she’d said about death being death, reached forward and gripped his small arm in hers, forearm to forearm, like warriors before battle.

  People said the skin-eating disease was contagious, but that didn’t stop her.

  The boy’s fingers tightened on her skin until the knuckles went white. He tilted his chin back …

  And it was done.

  His body went limp, blond head sagging against the pillow.

  FOUR

  “I don’t think we should sleep here.” Juniper narrowed her eyes as she stared up at the large rock.

  I’d decided to build our fire that night next to a lonely, freestanding stone, fifteen feet around, twelve feet tall, jade-colored moss growing up its sides. We were a few miles outside Hail, in a dip of land near a group of spruce trees and an empty field.

  Trigve helped me gather wood, and Runa got it lit, like always. I could taste autumn on the air. There was still a tang of life, of green and growing things, but a nip was sneaking in—the bite that would stiffen our muscles and freeze our blood come winter.

  “I don’t think we should sleep here,” Juniper repeated. She’d been off in the spruce trees, praying for the skin-eater boy and his mother. I hadn’t heard her return—she moved as silent as the moon. She arched her back and put her hands on her hips, tunic wet from the ground, black wool leggings gleaming with damp.

  “Why not?” Runa was quieter than usual, almost melancholy, and after what she’d done earlier, who could blame her. We all had our roles as Mercies, and we were all needed, but Runa … Runa came through when the rest of us failed. She had our respect, even when her temper was as sharp as her steel.

  “Troll,” Ovie said in response to Runa’s question. She lifted her black leather eye patch and rubbed her calloused palm over the hollow.

  Trigve sat down near a bed of purple heather and undid his braid. He shook his head, and his dark hair rippled down his back. “Large rocks are not trolls turned to stone. That’s a myth. The warriors in the Blood Frost Saga named their weapons after legendary trolls, but even they knew the creatures weren’t real. Trolls aren’t mentioned in any of the Anglon Mystic books.”

  Runa walked by and smacked Trigve on the shoulder. “So you know how to read. What good does it do you?”

  Trigve shrugged. “It’s useful.”

  Runa sat down, stretched out her long legs, and began to sharpen the blade of her knife with a small piece of unglazed ceramic from her pack. “Maybe. But it can’t help you hunt or kill or win a skin-fight.”

  Skin-fight was a slang term for Vorse one-on-one combat, fought naked, no weapons. It was sometimes to the death, but mostly not. Jarls often used skin-fights to resolve disputes between two tenants. The opponents were usually of the same gender, though not always.

  Siggy had taught us the basics of Mercy-killing—where to put the knife and the angles that made the blade go swift and deep. She taught us poison and the doses that would bring death. She taught us how to pull the breath from someone with a rope and with our hands. She even taught us how to snap a mark’s neck—though I believed Runa was the only one among us strong enough to do it.

  But winning a skin-fight usually came down to either strength and stamina or wits and cunning. We’d seen a few in our travels—the times we’d been called to work in a Great Hall—and the fights always brought excitement to dark winter nights.

  “Trolls are real, though.”

  I looked over my shoulder. Juniper was staring up at the stone again.

  “They were the mortal enemies of the Winter Elvers. One of my Sea Witch sisters saw an Elver battle a troll once, in the far north, past the Skal Mountains, in the Wild Ice Plains—it was a great fight of blood and ice, lightning and thunder. I believed her, too. Sea Witches never lie. Not to one another.”

  I smiled. “I hope to meet your Sea Witches someday, Juniper.” Something about her tales of the witches made my imagination flicker, my blood move faster.

  Trigve and I started on supper. We knelt on the cold ground and shared a plank of wood—I sliced carrots with my Mercy-dagger, and Trigve cut onions. We were making rabbit ale stew again. The skin-eater deaths had given us enough coin to buy vegetables and mead.

  I hated taking money from the sad-eyed man in the hut. A father, no longer, a husband, no longer. Alone.

  Trigve tossed his pile of onion slices into the pot, shoulder grazing mine. “Forget what I said earlier. Juniper is right. There is something unnatural about this big rock. I feel as if it’s watching me.” He turned and pointed. “Look at those spots there, where the moss doesn’t grow. Don’t they look like eyes? And there … See where that part juts out, like a nose? It’s eerie. Why did you pick this place to camp, Frey?”

  “I thought the stone would block the wind, which it does. I didn’t know everyone would worry about trolls.”

  “Enough.” Runa was on her feet, blade in hand. “I will skin-fight the next person who says troll.”

  She reached up, undid the simple pewter clasp at her throat, and let her Mercy-cloak fall to the ground.

  “Today was the last day I will do this. I meant what I said at the inn. I’m done. Done killing children, done killing weak, ailing people. Done with sadness. Done with death.” She gathered up the cloak in her arm, raven feathers gleaming in the firelight. She lifted it out over the flames …

  I jumped to my feet and pulled the cloak back from the fire, holding it bundled to my chest. “Don’t burn it, Runa. You need it to keep off the cold this winter, if nothing else.”

  She looked at me for a long moment, then bent down, one knee forward, and seized the knife from the leather sheath around her hard, lean calf. She lifted her chin and put the edge of the blade to her neck. “I can’t go on doing this. I’d rather take my own life than the life of one more innocent person. I’ll slit my throat. Watch me do it.”

  We faced each other, eyes locked.

  It was that feisty, dying skin-eater boy. He’d been the last straw.

  I dropped to the ground and gently pulled the knife away from her throat. “I agree with you, Runa. I don’t know how Siggy did this year after year. I don’t know how she bore it.” />
  Runa leaned forward, her face close to mine. “Did you mean it, at the inn, about going after the Blue Vee Beast?”

  I opened my mouth, and then shut it again. Had I meant it?

  I felt small fingers at my elbow, and then Juniper was there, her thin arms sliding around both of us. “People are in pain, and they need us. We help them. Isn’t that enough?”

  Juniper, always unselfish, always thinking of others.

  I stood, and Runa followed. I put my hand on my heart, a gesture of apology. “I’m sorry about the skin-eater boy, Runa.”

  Runa let out a deep sigh, and her posture relaxed. “How could we have known the boy would be so young, so full of heart and life despite the sickness? Besides, we’ve done Mercy-kills for children before. We need the money. We always need the money.”

  It was true and would always be true as long as we stayed in the death trade.

  Runa threw her blade onto the ground, tilted her head back, and let out a howl of frustration. “I still say we head into the nearest Endless Forest and to Hel with the consequences.”

  I smiled. “I love your spirit, Runa.” I picked up her knife and gave it back to her with a flip of the handle. “But I do not want to starve to death in the snow this winter.”

  Runa gave me a long look and then nodded.

  The three of us stared into the fire, not talking. Ovie slipped out of the shadows, back from checking her traps, and came to my side. Trigve stood apart and alone. I motioned for him to come over, but he shook his head. He wasn’t one of us, and he knew it.

  It would become a problem down the road. Even if I wanted him to stay … even if he wanted to stay. It wouldn’t be enough. Not as long as we continued to roam and trade in death.

  I felt something touch my cheek, and I looked up. It was snowing. The flakes were light and pretty, but it was snow all the same.

  Winter.

  I looked at Runa, then Ovie and Juniper. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I smelled juniper and pine and snow.

  Trigve had been teaching me the Two-Pronged Path. It was a discipline mastered by the mystics and took years of training, but he’d accomplished the basics. The goal was to send your mind down two paths and follow them both to the end in an attempt to understand the future.

  I breathed in and out. Slowly.

  The first path, the path of Mercies and the death trade … I knew where this road led. It was filled with cold and loneliness and tedium and sorrow.

  The second path, however … The second path was filled with sharp turns and deep angles. Dark shadows and bursts of light. It was unknown.

  It was beautiful.

  I opened my eyes.

  I put my hand on my dagger and faced the Mercies. “It has been less than a year since Siggy died, and here we all are, at a crossroads. Siggy Mercy-killed for forty years and led with courage and love and blood and fire. But things in Vorseland are changing. I’m sure I’m not the first to notice that the other Mercy groups we meet on the road are all older. The young aren’t taking up the trade anymore. It seems that orphaned Vorse girls have found a new path. And so must we. We make a decision. Tonight. Voice your suggestions now, and then we will vote.”

  There was a long pause. The snow fell, white flakes on long Mercy hair.

  “I won’t go to a Bliss House.” Ovie’s expression was calm and impassive. “I’d rather eat a black Snow Plum, ripe from the vine and leaking poison. I’d rather die shaking and screaming in pain, than end up there.”

  “Yes,” I said. “So would I.”

  Ovie reached out and let her palm fill with the falling snow. She closed her fist, and it dripped through her fingers as it melted. “I think we should go south. We’ll need to steal enough gold to book passage on a ship, and it will be a risk. But the woman in black silk said that Iber has sand instead of snow and that the sun is hot and strong and the women are filled with fire. I want to see this place.”

  I raised one finger. “Ovie votes for the south.” I raised another finger. “And I say we fight the Blue Vee Beast and try to win our gold, rather than steal it.”

  I turned and met Juniper’s gaze. “What is your wish, Juniper? What path do you think we should take next?”

  Juniper looked up at the night sky, and her pale sea-green curls slid down her back. She held up one hand, thumb bent, in a Sea Witch gesture that meant hold, wait, give me time. “Let me say a prayer for guidance.”

  She moved a few feet away from us and knelt on the ground, eyes closed, lips moving silently.

  I looked over at Trigve, sitting by himself near the fire. He would not voice his opinion.

  Next to me, Runa reached up and gripped her blue-black braid in one fist. She pulled her dagger and put the edge of the blade to her scalp. “The Quicks will take us in. They will. I’ll cut my hair right now. We can all cut our hair, burn our cloaks, take to the woods, and join the first band we come across. They wouldn’t take us in as Mercies, but perhaps they will accept us as orphaned boys with no homes and no families and no worries. We’ll never tell who we are, what we’ve been. I’m ready, just say the word—”

  I grabbed Runa’s wrist and stopped her blade for the second time that night. “They’ll see through the ruse. We can’t simply dress as boys and fool everyone for years on end as we move through the Endless Forests. Juniper might be young enough still, but the rest of us would always struggle to hide what we are.”

  “Some of us more than others,” Ovie said with a half-smile.

  It was true enough. Runa was built straight and tall and solid, and Ovie was compact and lean, but I was rounder in every way.

  Runa eyed my chest and frowned. “We could go to the Seeth Forest, where we met that friendly band last winter, and see if they will take us in this time—”

  “No.” Ovie shook her head, and the firelight moved across her blond braids. “It won’t work. There’s a reason the Quicks hesitate to take in women.” She paused. “My mother joined a band of Quicks when she was young. She was quiet and fast, good with a bow. They let her in on the understanding that she would be female in form only, that she would dress as a man and be a man.”

  Ovie paused again.

  “What happened?” I asked when she didn’t continue.

  Her eyes met mine, and I saw sorrow, deep and sharp. “My mother lasted three years. She fell in love with another archer, and all went well until she ran out of Wild Carrot Oil in one of the Endless Forests and became pregnant with me. Women with babes can’t roam through the woods with nothing but a dozen arrows in hand. Infants are unpredictable. They cry and startle prey. They remind wanderlusting men of homes and settled life. The Quicks kicked her out faster than they let her in. Her time with them haunted her until her death—she ached to return to the forest.”

  I stared at Ovie, a bit stunned. She rarely spoke, and never for so long.

  Juniper rose from the ground, done praying. I pulled out my flask of Vite and passed it around as we waited for the Sea Witch’s decision.

  She took a long drink of the fire liquor and then looked at me. “Jarl Roth is a man in need of heroes. We go west.”

  Runa swore.

  Ovie nodded.

  I smiled.

  Heroes in the Vorse sagas like to seal a promise with blood. I grabbed the blade from its strap across my right calf and slashed my palm, deep enough for the blood to ooze.

  “The four of us will go to Blue Vee and fight this beast,” I said. “If we survive, we will take the gold and do whatever we please with the rest of our lives. We will be as free as any woman in Vorseland. I swear it on Siggy’s flaming pyre.”

  I closed my fist and let the blood drip through my fingers as Ovie had done with the snow.

  * * *

  Trigve and I sat up late by the flames that night, talking softly while the others slept—something we’d done often in the seven months he’d traveled with us.

  “So we go west.” Trigve touched the edge of my cloak, rubbing his thum
b along one of the feathers.

  “Yes.”

  I squeezed my hand into a fist, felt the cut sting my palm. I reached up and unhooked the pewter clasp at my throat, just as Runa had done earlier, and let my cloak slide to the ground. I felt lighter suddenly.

  Trigve threw his fur over both of our shoulders. We sat hip to hip, arm to arm, the dying fire making our cheeks glow. He’d been with us less than a year, but I knew his body like my own, through and through, blood and bones.

  I looked out across the field. The snow had stopped, and the moon was bright. The night was no longer black, but a vivid midnight blue. A few more weeks of warmth, and then the snow would come for good. The easy days of green leaves and balmy breezes and plenty of food were behind us. Warm skin, deep skies, long days ending in lingering twilights … It would all fade into memory after the first few snowfalls.

  I held up my hands and turned them back and forth in front of the fire. They were free of the marks of a settled woman: no burns from scalding laundry, no creases of dirt from a garden, no bruises from a butter churn, no calluses from cleaning stables, kitchens, floors. My palms looked … innocent. All the spilled blood hadn’t left a trace.

  I realized suddenly what day it was. I twisted to the left and looked at Trigve. “I will be seventeen tomorrow. I’m the age my mother was when I was born.” I paused. “That must be why my voice is starting to sound like hers in my ears.”

  Trigve pulled one knee up, and his thigh brushed against mine. “You were born in the autumn?”

  “Yes, on the night of our village’s Lion Star festival.”

  Trigve’s eyes went soft and distant, as they often did when he thought of books and ancient stories. “Many of the old sagas speak of lions. Our Vorse ancestors brought back tales of the great beasts from faraway lands.”

  I nodded. I’d glimpsed the creatures on tapestries, yellow fur, mouths open wide, white teeth sharp and bright. Ergill in Ergill’s Saga had compared their roar to the growl of wolves and the sound of thunder.