Silver Eve

by Sandra Waugh

  Our humor was grim. Laurent’s hand was close to his sword. This business of waiting went against him. He wanted action, bloody justice against the soldiers. And I was ordering a puny task where broad strokes of the blade would have been more to satisfaction. Still, he bent willingly enough for the weeds, ripping them into small bits, tossing them into the bubbling stew. We worked quickly. The dried blood and dirt on our hands worked off on the greens and so they were black even before I stirred them into the heat. They looked like savory bits of herb. Choke on this, I thought, brutal.

  “They’re coming,” Laurent said, low and sudden. He grabbed my waist and half dragged me up a tiny ladder in the shadow of the cottage as the door banged open. Voices—three soldiers with the old woman now. I was panting, tucking my skirts, scrabbling to fit on the ledge of the loft, an empty shelf for the storage of grain and dried fruits barely wide enough for one person. Then Laurent wrapped his arms around me, forcing me still against him, my face in his chest. Behind the dirt of a day’s turmoil, I could smell his skin like warm oak and that faint dusting of sandalwood. I swallowed and tried to turn my head away, for it made no sense in this moment to be enticed.

  “Don’t move,” he mouthed in my ear. I felt his fingers in my hair.

  We waited, still as stone, hearing the armored figures clunk across the floor. Two supported something between them, which was dropped heavily by the hearth—I could smell it: a wine cask. The old woman said loud, daring, “Is it enough? Ye got the last of everything. The stew, the wine. Is it enough yet? Or will yer shadows return to take the very sun from our fields?”

  Her hostility was ignored, though she gnashed at them, taunted. Other noises—of metal, of thick crockery—a jug most likely—thunked on the floor, then the thunk, too, of an axe in wood, and slops of wine spilling everywhere. And then the old woman’s voice was stopped. There were retches and whimpers as if she was being forced to drink the remnants of wine, and guttural laughs as if it amused the soldiers to watch. I tensed, thinking to shout, leap down—

  The whimpers ended abruptly on a sigh. There was the scraping of a stool being pushed away, and then the clatter of the old woman’s crutch. And, after all the harsh clanks and crashing, the following thud was quite soft.

  The old woman was dead. Killed below us as we hid silent and still, and did nothing to prevent.

  I jerked in reflex. “Wait” was the breath against my ear, a command like I’d never heard. I couldn’t have moved anyway; Laurent’s hold was like iron. I could feel the heat of his blood, the fury. I wanted to hate him for his caution, but he was forcing himself to stay still as much as he forced me, maybe more so. As if he’d had to swallow cruelty before. I pictured his scar.

  The jug was collected, the pot from the fire lifted on its long brace. I was so strained against Laurent’s grip that I thought my bones would break, but he held me hard, waiting until the soldiers clanked out of the cottage. The last one kicked the burning logs off the hearth with his metal-shod foot, for we heard them scatter over the floor, and smelled the smoke rising.

  Still, Laurent held me for a count of fifty before deeming the soldiers far enough gone, and then we were both scrambling down the ladder. I ran to the old woman; Laurent pushed the logs back into the fireplace, then beat out flames with the hook rug and stuffed it into the wide fireplace as well.

  “She’s dead!” I hissed at him. “Stabbed straight through while we lay there!” I whirled in disbelief. “We just lay there!”

  Laurent said grimly, “We’ll carry her to the well.” He stamped on an errant flame.

  “The well? So we can lay her out the same as the boy, as if that is some honor? We let her die, Rider!”

  “More would die if we’d intervened—”

  “More already died! We waited in the woods while the soldiers tripped past and slaughtered those men and boys! We did nothing to stop that either!”

  Laurent rounded on me, gritting, “And you think my sword and your little spear would have stopped it, any of this? You don’t even have your spear!”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “Thirteen soldiers, my lady! Ten of them took twenty-three villagers with barely a struggle and rounded up the rest.” The Rider leaned too close. “You might be a Healer, the Guardian of Death, but you are just as easily and softly killed as she was, never mind how grotesque the weapon.” He reached a finger and touched the hollow below my collarbone, making me shiver. “There, my lady.” His voice dropped to a bare whisper. “The tip of an arrow, a spear, a sword—just there. And then where would we be? We need you. That is my duty above all else.” Laurent dropped his hand and moved so the old woman lay tumbled between us. “Take her feet,” he said. I swallowed and bent to lift her.

  We placed her next to the boy at the well in the market square. Laurent left immediately to get Arro. I stayed for a moment longer, wanting to be alone. I looked at young Ben, whom Laurent had carefully laid feet to the water. I reached out and smoothed his hair, a final tidying. The glowing embers of the burned cottages gave light to the ruined village square, to his shuttered face; I wished it had been completely dark. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  My hand rested on his forehead, warm against cold. For a moment it was Raif lying there, lifeless. And I was helpless once more. I’d saved no one.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered again miserably before running on.

  Laurent stood with Arro, strong figures against the brittle corn. He was watching my approach, so I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. “The river’s south,” I said, striding past him. “That’s where they’ve taken all their captives.”

  Laurent let me walk ahead for a while, but then without difficulty he caught up with me, saying: “You know it’s all right to be angry.”

  “I am not angry,” I lied.

  “You’ve seen little violence, tucked away in Merith. There is much you’ve endured just in two days. It cannot be easy to take it all at once.”

  “I am fine.” I bit the word, adding, “You’ve endured just as much.”

  He ignored that. “What was it that you put in the stew?”

  “Sleeping herbs. They should put down the soldiers fast enough.”

  “Sleep?” It burst from him. “Only sleep?”

  I turned on him hard. “What—did you think ’twas poison? That I’d killed them? I cannot.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Do you not understand my wretched duty, Rider? No harm. ’Twas born into me; I cannot reject it! I would not have killed those soldiers in the cottage; I’d have tried to stop them from killing and, yes, probably died for it! And do you think it makes me glad? You can wield your sword, slay for good, for evil, for whatever you wish! But I cannot. No matter what I feel, I must respect life.” I caught my breath, tried to lower my voice, but it hurt too much to sweep emotion back inside when I was already so stuffed with it. “Do you know what it’s like to let someone die when you could have saved him, and not even be able to avenge his death?”

  “I know it.”

  “Then do not say I should kill!”

  “I do not say,” Laurent murmured softly. “I trust you.”

  No one had ever said that to me before. No one had ever needed to. It unnerved me. I’d called being a Healer wretched, which unnerved me too. I slumped, put my hands on my thighs, and tried to breathe.

  “But I would ask,” Laurent added, “if you have thought what to do after they have gone to sleep?”

  “We’ll tie the soldiers, take their armor, weapons….” My voice faded then, for the plan seemed childish against such vicious things. Laurent looked at me, waiting politely. “Anyway,” I insisted, “I have an idea.”

  We approached the top of the gully as silently as we could. Laurent had his sword out; my heart was in my throat. Had all the soldiers eaten? Were they all passed out as they should be? The glow from a campfire was visible at the edge. Laurent motioned Arro to stay where he was, and then he and I crept to the overha
ng.

  A river, reduced by half, glittered by firelight. Below us, bound and lassoed together, huddled the villagers. They were chattering, struggling, and trying to break from their bonds, unafraid of their captors now, for stretched out by the bank of the river lay thirteen soldiers. Their armor gleamed darkly.

  I gripped Laurent’s arm. He turned to look at them, at me, and I gave him a triumphant smile. We went over the edge, sliding down the sandy sides to a tremendous shout from the prisoners. Laurent took his sword and sliced the ropes and vines used to bind them—old men, women, young children, three babies. I ran to the soldiers and began unbuckling the armor, clamping my mouth against the foul stench beneath it. They must live in this armor, I thought. Their skin was pasty pale, overly soft and molded by the hard plates.

  Others joined me. We removed the metal and the weapons, piling them at the edge of the river. No one asked yet why we didn’t slice the throats of the soldiers, but I heard one woman quietly gasp at one, “He still breathes!” and fear was palpable after that. I called out, “They will not wake! Do not worry,” worrying myself how I could find some way of ending this fear without murder.

  And then I saw: fishing skiffs were neatly tethered some paces downriver by a small dock. The dock stood stick-legged in a dry portion of the riverbed, the boats beached. I left a soldier and thrust out into the river, wading toward its center, judging. Neck-deep, maybe more—was that deep enough to carry a heavy-weighted boat? The villagers paused to watch me. “Does it stay deep?” I yelled. “How far does it go?”

  Someone called back, “These are the only shallows for many leagues. It goes on to the sea.”

  “Those!” I called then, pointing at the boats. “We need two of those!” And Laurent was running with two of the children to the dock, cutting the moors and dragging them into water. Then he too was wading chest-deep in the river and pulling two boats behind.

  “What is all this?” one of the men growled from the shore. “What do we need the skiffs for? Take their weapons! Finish them!”

  “No!” I shouted from the water. “No! Do not kill them!”

  “Not kill?” I’d sparked a little fire—murmurs of unrest. “An’ what? Have ’em come back again?” “They’ll slaughter us—” “Nay, they’ll torture first—”

  “No! Do not strike first.” I slogged toward the beach. “It makes you no better than they!”

  “Who counts the order of strikes?” The shouts were piling up. “Who are ye ta say?”

  “Others will come at you with greater force!” I cried. “They’ll show no mercy!”

  “And these metal men won’t? I’ve nothin’ left but my anger!”

  “My home is burned!” Others shouted in agreement: “They killed my son!” “My da!”

  I saw a figure—the youngest of the old men—make the first break from the pack and race for the soldiers’ weapons we’d piled. He pulled the first thing he could, some wicked-looking axe.

  Laurent was already on shore, unsheathing his sword as he ran. “You will not strike!” he commanded. “The lady says we spare them.”

  “Lady! What lady makes demands?” The man raised the axe over his head, stumbling under the weight, and swung it at the nearest slumbering soldier. I screamed. It was worse, this, than the terrified little group with the Troth. Those villagers had been frightened into inaction, but these would take their fear straight into the slaughter of sleeping men.

  The Rider was faster than I could have imagined. Laurent sprang with a rounding kick, sweeping the man’s feet out from underneath and bringing him down at the side of a soldier.

  “This lady.” Laurent panted, his sword tip at the man’s throat. He whirled back, sweeping the blade at the restless group. They shuffled back nervously, and he pointed at me. “We do as she says.”

  Someone had the temerity to ask, “Who is she?”

  Laurent said, before putting his sword down, “She is the one who will save us.”

  —

  We bound the soldiers’ hands and laid them in the boats, six in one, seven in the other, then pointed them downriver. We watched the boats slide away, firelight glinting on the sterns. The villagers were silent; I was the only one who wanted this mercy. One by one we scrambled back to the top of the gully, hoisting the children, hand to hand, pulling, pushing….

  There were more cries at the sight of Arro. Laurent told them to calm, but for naught. There was too much shock and now distrust to react any way but frightened. One old man, though, broke through the group and stepped nearer.

  “A horse!” he exclaimed softly. He went to Arro, reached a tentative hand to his nose. Arro gave a soft bluster. A few of the children immediately reached to do the same but were yanked back. “Yer a Rider?” the old man asked, turning to peer at Laurent in the dark. “I heard o’ ye. Never seen one o’ yer kind, though. It bodes ill fer us.”

  “You have time, yet,” Laurent said, then called out to all: “Bury your dead. Melt the armor into shields; take the weapons. Then move on. Tell others what has happened. Prepare.”

  “Do they come back?” a woman asked.

  Laurent adjusted the saddle. “If you band with other villages, you have more of a chance. Learn Tyre’s weapons; learn to defend.” He turned to me, murmuring, “We have a journey, my lady,” and lifted me onto the saddle before mounting. Laurent gathered Arro’s reins and stepped him sideways. “Use this time wisely!” he called to the villagers. “Food, shelter, and protection.”

  And then Laurent urged Arro into a canter while I caught my arms around his waist, and we were away.

  He was angry, his back stiffly slanted away from my cheek. “You wanted to kill them,” I called out. “The soldiers. You wanted them dead too.”

  A nod. Terse and final.

  But I did not let it go. “Why? Why kill?”

  He let Arro run and turned his head; a gleam of moonlight caught the edge of his cheek. “There is no good that will come of keeping those soldiers alive. They will return; they have to. Soldiers cannot go back to Tyre without slaves or they themselves will be forced to the mines. So do not think you’ve spared anyone, my lady.”

  “But they have no weapons, no armor now!”

  “Them or the next wave. Tyre is a bastion of Breeders. They will not be stopped.”

  I was stunned. “And so you kill and they still come? Then why not tell those poor villagers there is no point? Why bother giving them hope?”

  “Hope is what keeps life worth something!” He was furious; he reined in Arro and turned fully in his seat, gritting out, “What would you tell them: Chaos is upon us? How do you beat Chaos? That struggle is forever.” I felt his breath—short, hard. “Few should bear that burden. ’Tis better to give these folk something to fight: soldiers and famine. Things they might defeat. Things that have an end.”

  He nudged his steed forward. I had no retort; it upset me that this different view of violence opened a cavern between us. But there was something else, something that bridged the cavern that bothered me more. “You accepted my way of it, Laurent. You are angry and disagree, and yet you let me spare the soldiers, helped me tie them to the boats.”

  He did not turn again to answer, but his breath sighed. “You are the Guardian, I am the Complement. Ultimately, I must trust your choice.”

  And then we rode on. How many miles, how many hours, I do not know, except that we did not stop again. Anger drained. Thought drained. I fell asleep against his back; he held my wrists tight around his waist to keep me upright. Somewhere it occurred to me that the Rider had used Complement not as a description but a title.

  Healers do not dream. But I remember the soft thudding of hooves, the brush of wind, and finally the smell of water, as if they were vestiges of some other world unlocked when my eyes closed. And then I felt hands lift me down and the wrapping of something warm and soft.

  I missed leaning against Laurent.

  ’TWAS THE COMFORT that woke me. I lay still for a time, feeling th
e give of goosedown beneath, blinking at the rafters above. Rafters. How long had it been? A roof and a pillow. Light streaked in, there was a steady rush of water….It lulled me back to sleep until I woke again, this time with a start.

  Room, bed, rushing water—incongruous after months of wander and drought. I got up, pulling the quilt with me since my clothes, I saw, were gone, and went to the window—not a true window, but a narrow, open rectangle cut into stone as thick as the length of my hand. I wedged my shoulders into the space, and peered out, down, then jerked back, heart hammering.

  A moment to catch my breath and prepare, and then I peeked out again in awe: I was midway up a steep limestone cliff—some manmade territory within a manmade quarry, forced into the landscape by ages of stonecutting…and from where water sprang like leaks in a bucket.

  Gren Fort.

  From what I could see ’twas part of a wide, curving quarry filled with waterfalls. Above, below, from thin trickles to great torrents, waterfalls were everywhere. The spray was shot through with sun colors, rainbows shimmering in the mist. They spilled into some inaccessible lake far below while the fort itself was hewn right into the rock, halfway up, halfway down. It snaked along the idiosyncrasies of the rock cutting, so was built in levels—stone steps, wooden ladders, narrow footpaths, and rope bridges leading between stages and portions. The zigzagging passageways scored the face of the limestone like teeth.

  I turned around and looked again at the room I slept in, realizing ’twas all cut from stone, even what seemed like rafters were merely stained to appear as such, and the ceilings and walls only looked of yellowing plaster because the limestone was so pale. A dugout. A cave. Spare; function without detail—as if no one was meant to grow attached to this as a home. I wondered how many years Gren Fort had taken to carve, when the Keepers fought the Breeders from this hideout from which they could attack then disappear, and how they’d kept so hidden these years. I thought of the image of Tarnec that also appeared in my Insight spell, and how earth and rock seemed an important place for Keepers’ dwellings. They built from things that could not be undone. Solid, and purposeful—