The Temple of Heart and Bone

by Evren, S. K.

  So he watched her body, hoping to see her breathe. He knew she was young. He knew she was healthy. He knew she had made her way from her home to his cottage alone. Still, he watched her. He needed reassurance of her life. Her breathing was that reassurance. Light continued to filter into the sky. Darkness fled, grudgingly, unable to stand the presence of the frail-looking pale stain rising from the east. The form of Chance became more distinct in the growing light. Drothspar saw the rhythmic moving of her chest. He noticed her breath rising into the cool morning air. She was alive. She was breathing. She was still with him.

  He sat, watching her, he didn’t know how long. The rising sun cast a ruddy glow in the eastern sky before broaching the horizon and pouring its light on the world. Drothspar could feel the warmth, even of the post-harvest rays, touching his side and shoulder. The growing light washed over Chance. She continued to breathe, continued to lie still. He wouldn’t wake her, he told himself. She’d had a long day. They’d reach Æostemark by early afternoon even if she woke late.

  The sun was well over the horizon when Chance finally began to stir. Drothspar, watching her breathing, became nervous when it faltered in its rhythm. He had leaned closer to see her breath when her body moved. Her movement surprised him, and he jerked himself back against the tree. The sound he made stirred her a little more. She rolled over to face him, and he quickly made sure his bones were covered. Her eyes cracked open while he was checking. She smiled at him, though he didn’t notice.

  “Thank you,” she said drowsily. “Thank you for not leaving me.” Startled again, Drothspar grabbed for his slate.

  “Good morning,” he wrote. “You’re welcome.”

  It took Chance a little while to wake herself up completely and get ready for the rest of the trip. Drothspar gave her some privacy by walking a short distance away. Though he kept his back to her, he never left her line of sight. The morning’s light streamed into the forest through bare limbs and trunks. The air had the fresh scent of morning, but mixed with something sooty. The scent of a recently extinguished fire hovered just on the edge of conscious awareness. If they would have made their own campfire the previous night, he was sure he’d never have noticed it. It was, he thought, most likely just that, a camp fire extinguished with the morning. If that were true, they would have to be careful. They could meet another living person before they’d gone very far. He decided to warn Chance.

  “I think there may be someone camping near us,” he wrote.

  “Really,” she asked, her eyes suddenly intent. She had been checking her bag and cloak, getting ready to leave.

  “I think I smell an extinguished camp fire. It must be fairly near.”

  Chance lifted her face slightly and sniffed at the morning air. She shrugged. “I don’t smell a fire, she said, though I do smell something else strange. Not sure what it is.”

  “If there’s a fire nearby,” he insisted, “we might run into someone this morning.”

  “Okay,” she said, “do you remember what you’re supposed to do?” Drothspar adopted a hunched pose and shuffled his feet slowly. He kept his head bowed down, staring at the dead leaves on the ground.

  “Very good,” she congratulated him. “I’ll do all the talking and explaining, so you just stay behind me and a little to my right.” She smiled at him and adjusted his position relative to hers. “Are we ready?” she asked.

  Drothspar nodded his head slowly, his hood bobbing up and down.

  “Let’s go then.”

  They walked through the woods, heading in the direction of the rising sun. The air became hazy as they walked, and Chance admitted that she could scent the remains of fire in the air. They did not encounter anyone in their first few hours’ walking, though they could see that they were coming to the end of the woods. Threading through the trees, they could see flashes of grass and open fields. Without a word, they picked up their pace.

  They moved through the edge of the forest and out into the vast plains surrounding Æostemark. The forest had been pushed away in times long past, so that no invader could use its cover to creep up on the city. The trees stood at the edge of the fields, a wooden army, patient and cunning. The forest waited for the passing of Æostemark. It waited for the time when seedlings would fall and occupy the land once more, all but erasing the man-made city.

  The haze in the morning air hung low in the fields around Æostemark. It pooled in the little valleys between rolling hills. The hills were low and wide, a feature predominant in the area. What had been hidden by trees in the forest, however, became prominent in the clear land surrounding Æostemark. The cause of the haze, likewise, became apparent to Drothspar and Chance. The city had burned.

  Æostemark had been destroyed in the last invasion. Although Drothspar hadn’t been aware of that, Chance had told him about it on their walk through the forest. She mentioned that merchants were moving in to reclaim the city—and the trade-routes that crossed there from East to West. Chance hoped to find food and supplies with those very merchants. Looking at the city, they could tell it had been invaded once more.

  Countless trails funneled toward the smoking ruins. Emerging from the breadth of the forest’s edge, they pointed like veins to the heart of Æostemark. Columns of smoke rose from all quarters of the city. If the flames were still active, they couldn’t be seen from that distance. The rising smoke and the paths crushed into the grass, however, left little doubt. Æostemark was dead.

  Chapter 15 – Æostemark

  Drothspar felt an urgent need to go into the city. Curiosity, as strong as he’d ever felt, pushed him to go and investigate. He wanted to know, had to know what had happened to Æostemark.

  The fires appeared to have died down. Of course, fires had a way of coming back. It could be dangerous, but he was already dead. What harm could come to him by going into the city?

  Still, he wasn’t alone. Chance was very much alive. Would she want to risk that life just to explore some smoldering ruins? Could he even ask her?

  Chance looked down at the city and felt something close to despair. This had been her hope, her opportunity to get supplies, and her planned last refuge from her family. She looked out at the stricken city, watching her hopes dissipate with the smoke. Despair lasted for a few moments before a new feeling pushed it to the side.

  She had never seen a dead city before. She had seen enough death lately. She had walked along beside it. An entire city, though, that was something else. Certainly everything couldn’t be destroyed. Perhaps some merchant’s cellar escaped the general looting and destruction. Maybe there was still a chance for her to come up with food and provisions.

  She wanted to see the city. Maybe it was morbid curiosity. Maybe it was simply the continuance of her course in death, the next-level class from all she had seen so far. She had to go down there, she had to see it. How could she leave it behind without knowing what secrets it held?

  What about her companion, she wondered, would he want to see it? He had been a priest after all, a man dedicated to peace. She had heard stories that priests all had some level of martial training, but she had seen no signs of that in Drothspar. He was always thoughtful, concerned with her well-being. He had been so gentle with that mutilated animal. Would he want to expose himself to the kinds of horrors that might linger in Æostemark?

  Drothspar and Chance looked out at the city and back to each other. Chance kept her face neutral and her thoughts to herself. Drothspar’s hood shrouded his skull, though nothing would, or could, show itself on his face. Quietly, each studied the other.

  “No one seems to be moving around the city,” Drothspar wrote finally.

  “We have come a long way,” Chance suggested.

  “It’s a long walk back,” Drothspar agreed.

  “Something may have survived the attack,” Chance said in an off-hand manner.

  “We do need to get you some supplies.”

  “We should go down and take a look,” Chance said.

  �
�Carefully,” Drothspar wrote, grateful the suggestion had come from her.

  “We can be careful,” she said. “It’s still some ways away.” He’s going to agree, she thought to herself excitedly. Her face, however, remained calm and serious.

  “All right,” he wrote, “let’s go on then.”

  They left the forest and walked toward Æostemark. After an hour, they had moved close enough to see that other trails approached the city from the north and south. Who had made the trails? Were they citizens escaping into the woods? Chance didn’t think this was very likely. She’d heard that only a few hundred people had moved back into Æostemark—if that.

  If the trails had been made by soldiers, Drothspar thought, why were they following each other in lines? Soldiers moved in broad fronts, presenting a wall to the enemy. If they were going to move in file, why not simply use the roads?

  As they came closer, they could tell that the trails ended before they reached the actual city. The plains nearest Æostemark had been stamped flat into some sort of staging grounds. A vast force had arrayed itself around the city; that much was obvious.

  The smoke in the city continued to rise, though fire did not appear to be chasing it into the sky. The west gate of Æostemark had collapsed, but this had happened many years earlier. Grass had started to grow around the tumbled stones and timbers. Several feet off the ground, more grass and weeds reached out of the stones, settled there by years of dust and wind. The plants were thin and spindly.

  Chance told Drothspar that only the east gate of the city truly functioned. She’d also heard that there was a large breach in the north wall, burst asunder in the last invasion. The walls of Æostemark certainly bore the scars of battle. Arrow storms had pitted the higher battlements. Great chips were cracked out of the walls by siege weaponry. The damage was not recent. Rain and time had started to soften the jagged stone edges. Stains of lime, rust, and water ran down the walls like dried blood from an old wound.

  The last time he had seen Æostemark, Drothspar had been with Li. It had been a bustling city of commerce, the site of many open-air markets, and a tax collector’s dream. The city, while busy, had always breathed a nervous air.

  The oppressive nearness of East and West intruded itself upon the dealings of merchants and citizens. The daylight hours of Æostemark were a time for money and profit. The nighttime aura of Æostemark was one of intrigue and fear. Crude spies left in caravans to reach their targets, or entered the city as a last stop before going home to debrief. Often, bodies were found before they could do either. In the darkness of night, the citizens of Æostemark wondered if their profits were worth the proximity to potential enemies. In the day’s light, they forgot their fears and counted their coins.

  Drothspar and Li had come to the city to purchase supplies and goods for their cottage. The markets were busier here than they had been in the cities further west. The merchants called out their wares as if each day were their last. Pick-pockets and thieves worked nervously in the crowds, knowing, if they were caught, their marks were quite capable of killing them before the town guard ever arrived to apprehend them. Drothspar remembered the city of Æostemark as if it were an armed camp, always on the eve of battle. Even the most dignified of merchants carried a wide dagger in his jewel-encrusted belt. The guardsmen of Æostemark were well-trained, but in the meeting ground of enemies, they couldn’t be everywhere at all times. Security in Æostemark was as much an individual responsibility as eating and dressing in the mornings.

  That Æostemark, he realized, was gone. It had died seven years ago along with him. This city, this shell that remained, had died once more. Here he was, walking around its corpse, wondering what had happened this second time. Were the answers still inside? Certainly something had to be left to tell the tale of Æostemark. They only needed to find it.

  Chance marveled at the destruction. She looked at the signs of the last invasion, trying to imagine the armies that must have surrounded the city. In her mind she watched sheets of arrows striking the walls and heard the hiss of their passing. She tried to imagine what it would take for a soldier to try to run up to that massive wall and climb a scaling ladder. She’d heard stories in her history classes about the process of taking cities in war. There always had to be a first man up the ladder. Didn’t he know he was condemning himself to death? What reward could be worth such a sacrifice?

  Learning about history in a classroom far away was much different than circling the walls of a dead city. What she had once imagined vaguely became clear in focus and detail. Thousands had died storming into Æostemark. The enraged invaders slaughtered the inhabitants without mercy. Before they could withdraw, the King’s army had presented itself on these surrounding fields. The ensuing battle had been disastrous for both sides. She had heard that every man on both sides had been killed. Of course, that had to be an exaggeration. Someone had to have escaped. If no one else, at least the last man to kill someone had to have lived to flee. Unless, she thought, he had been too severely wounded to live long himself. What were the odds of that?

  Eventually, they worked their way around the west wall to the north side of the city. The plains to the north stretched out in shades of brown, the grass dead and mostly scraped away. Some massive force had mustered itself in those plains. The recent storm had turned the dirt into mud. Puddles were scattered everywhere.

  They found the breach in the northern wall about halfway around the city. The gap was wider than the shattered west gate with building stones lying both inside and outside of the wall. Something had moved in and out of the city at this point, though what it had been was masked by the newly smoothed mud. Drothspar and Chance peered into the opening, looking to spot any movement inside the city itself. After several minutes of watching, Chance suggested they move inside.

  Slowly, cautiously, they slipped through the opening in the wall. Chance climbed over the rubble like a cat, and Drothspar watched in amazement. He was grateful for the cloth wrappings on his feet. They had soaked up moisture from the mud, but instead of becoming slippery, they became almost sticky. His own hard, bony feet would have scrabbled off the irregularly angled stones.

  Once inside the city, the haze and smoke thickened to something like fog. Chance coughed quietly into her cloak until she wrapped her scarf around her mouth and nose. Though Drothspar could sense the thickness of the smoke, it didn’t bother him in the least. Chance, he was certain, was still inhaling the smoke, and he watched her closely. They clung to the shadows as much as possible, ever watchful for movement in the ruins.

  The city appeared to be empty. Aside from the drifting haze of smoke and the occasional falling stone, nothing stirred. Chance tried to follow an alley, but it ended up against the wall. The smoke was dense in the little pocket, and Drothspar could see her chest wracking with coughs. He beckoned her out with his hand, and she staggered after him.

  “Let’s move toward the square,” he wrote on his slate and pushed it toward her eyes. She had doubled over coughing, but nodded her head. Drothspar plucked part of his robe away from his body and handed it to the young woman. She grasped it gratefully and followed him out of the alley.

  She was still coughing as he led her to the main street. The houses on either side, he remembered, had been for local merchants. They were quartered in the center of the city to the north and south. Transient merchants were housed near the gates in the east and west.

  The street provided a channel for air to mix with the hazy smoke. Drothspar stayed in the middle of the street to help Chance work the smoke out of her lungs. He felt her pull on his robe during a particularly violent bout of coughing. She tugged so hard he almost lost his footing. He managed to keep himself upright. If he’d have been living, he’d have put a comforting hand on her back. He didn’t know her all that well, though, and he wasn’t sure how she’d react to his dead arm patting her reassuringly. He stood still and waited.

  After a few minutes, Chance tugged on his cloak twice to g
et his attention. Her coughing had subsided. Her eyes were red and her face was quite flushed. Drothspar pointed out toward the north and then in toward the city. Chance pointed in toward the city, and he nodded his head. He was surprised that she’d want to remain in the smoke and ruins.

  Li had been a brave enough woman, but there were some things that she just would not abide. Smoke was one of them. If he had come home smelling of smoke as he must right now, she’d have made him bathe in the lake if he’d have had to have cracked open the ice in the middle of winter. She would take one look at these surroundings and flatly refuse to go anywhere near them. In his mind, he smiled fondly at the image of Li folding her arms and looking at him crossly. Sadness and loss washed the smile from his thoughts and he fought to keep his mind away from them. He thought instead about the woman who was holding tightly to his robe.

  “Chance,” she had called herself. He realized she had never told him her real name. Maybe she was embarrassed by it. Maybe she was afraid to tell it to a stranger, and a dead one at that. She had told him some few things about herself, but not much of any substance. He knew she was strong-willed. She had left her family and fortune to maintain her ideal of freedom. She was friend and family to Petreus, and that old man had a way of reading people.

  She had endured death to come this far. First at the Ferns’ farm, a place he was certain would have given him nightmares if he could sleep, and then in her continued contact with himself. How much strength of personality did it actually take to stand the presence of a “living” skeleton? How much fear did she have to suppress? How often did she fight down the warnings of reason and instinct—and why?