by Evren, S. K.
“Hello?” he heard her question from inside. He opened the door and walked in, waving to her as she blinked at the light streaming in the door.
“Good morning,” she said, her voice still thick with sleep.
“Good morning to you,” he wrote, picking up the slate he’d left on the table.
“Did you spend the night outside?” she asked, a note of concern rising in her voice.
Drothspar shook his head. “I slipped out just after sunrise to get a few things we’ll need.”
“How thoughtful of you,” she said smiling. Her eyes brightened noticeably as she remembered what they had planned for the day. She reached for her ceramic water bottle and drank to wash the dryness of sleep from her throat. “Do we have everything we need?”
“I’m going to look now,” he wrote. He set his slate back down on the table and opened his old fishing cabinet. A few coils of waxed cord were still in place, though several more were missing. He imagined they were probably lining some mouse’s home. A cluster of rusted hooks had congealed near the line, but the corrosion was too far gone. The first one he tried to pick up had rusted solid to several others. He found one by itself, but it snapped like an old, dry twig when he tested its strength in his fingers. None of the other hooks were any better. Chance had been watching him curiously as he searched for supplies.
“Well?” she asked, her curiosity bubbling over.
“We’ve got most of what we need,” he wrote, picking his slate back up. “Unfortunately, we’re missing a key element—hooks.”
“What do you use for hooks?”
“Metal,” he replied. “Hard wire works well.”
Chance thought for a moment before her eyes flashed with excitement. She rifled through her travel pack, searching for something inside. It seemed to Drothspar that she was trying to shield her bag with her body, as if there were something inside she didn’t want him to see. After a few moments of searching and sorting, she produced two pieces of very hard wire, each about four inches long. Drothspar stared at the wire with an amazement that couldn’t show on his face. He took the two bits of wire she offered him and tested them in his fingers. He would need something to bend them around, but they would work almost perfectly.
“What do you use these for?” he asked, his writing unable to express the depths of his curiosity.
“My hair,” she answered far too quickly. He was certain she’d been waiting for the question. “I use them to keep my hair in place when I wear it up.”
He nodded and let the question drop. He was fairly certain noble young women could find better pins for their hair than thin bits of black-metal wire. Whatever she carried them around for didn’t really matter at the moment. They’d make fine fishing hooks.
“So what do we do now?” she asked, eager to begin.
“First, we have to sharpen one end of the wire. Then, we’ll bend them into hooks.” He beckoned to her with his arm and led her out of the cottage. He stopped to pick up the poles and walked with her out to the pier. He laid the poles out on the pier and picked up two coarse rocks from the shore.
“Rub the wire on the rock until one end is very sharp,” he wrote. He took one of the bits of wire and rubbed it back and forth along the rock. Part of the metal ground away and he showed it to Chance. After a few minutes of scraping, they each had a decently sharp point.
Next, Drothspar slowly drew his dagger out from under his cloak. Chance took a deep breath but didn’t flinch or step back. He laid the dagger on the pier and placed the sharpened edge of his wire beneath the flat of the blade. He bent the length of the wire up and around the flat, producing a “J” shaped hook. He did the same for the opposite end of the wire, though he bent it further, closing the loop of the hook. He repeated the process for her wire and then put his dagger away.
Drothspar took her hook and tied the closed end to a length of waxed cord. He tied the other end of the cord to one of the springy branches he found earlier in the morning. When he was finished, he handed Chance her fishing pole. She took it and examined it as he worked to assemble his own. She lashed the pole like a riding whip, listening to the whistle of the string in the air.
On her third attempt at lashing the rod, something caught and the pole nearly jerked free of her hands. She turned to follow the trail of the line. The hook had embedded itself in Drothspar’s robe, which she’d pulled slightly off the ground, exposing his legs. His hollow eyes turned to look at her. A bright red flush flared in her cheeks and she started to apologize immediately.
“I’m so sorry,” she exclaimed, looking at his displaced robe and spindly, white legs. “I didn’t mean to catch you!”
Drothspar continued to stare at her, his face unreadable.
“Let me unhook you,” she begged and reached out for the hook in his robe. She realized she’d need both hands to pull the hook loose from the cloth. She tried to drop the fishing pole, but she had wrapped herself in the line when she turned to see what she’d caught. The pole draped over her shoulder and bounced with every move that she made. She worked frantically to unhook the pin from his robe, surprising Drothspar by how quickly she accomplished it.
The episode, for him, had been too much. Though he had no voice to express it, his mirth spilled out of control. Chance looked up at him, her pole still balanced around her shoulders. She noticed that he was shaking, his shoulders rising quickly up and down. Her first thought was that she’d hurt him.
“Oh my God,” she said, “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
The shaking in his shoulders quickened and he finally set one hand on the dock to steady himself. Chance eyed him suspiciously.
“Are you laughing at me?” she asked, her voice rising in pitch.
Drothspar shook even harder and sat down hard in the stones.
“You’re laughing at me,” she accused him, pointing a threatening finger in his direction. The hand she chose to point with, however, still contained the hook and line. As she thrust her hand forward, the pole slid around her shoulder until it pointed at him as well.
Drothspar fell back in the stones shaking so hard that she thought he’d shake himself to pieces. She looked at the pole that was balanced over her shoulder and down at the pile of robes shaking on the shore. The flush deepened in her face. A look of resignation crossed her brow, and she, too, began to laugh. The sight of the skeleton rolling in its robes on the rocks was just too much. She hadn’t really laughed since she’d left Petreus. The sound of her laughter echoed out over the water, and she wiped tears of mirth from her eyes.
After a few moments, Drothspar gathered control of himself and sat upright in the rocks. Every so often, his body would convulse. He even raised his hand once to cover his non-existent smile.
He had never heard Chance laugh before, and he was amazed at the rich, contagious tone of her laughter. It was healthy, he thought, the laughter of a good soul. He reached up on the dock for his slate and pulled his charred stick from his pocket. He didn’t write a single word, but drew only a large smile.
Chance smiled back warmly at him, her mirth maintaining the glow in her cheeks. It was the strangest thing, she thought, to be smiling at a skeleton. She had to admit, however, that as hungry as she was in this odd situation, she was actually happy. She reached out her hand to help Drothspar to his feet. He looked up at her, no longer shaking. His head focused on her hand, and he reached out to take it. She leaned back and pulled, tugging him upright. He had surprisingly little weight. She was certain she could have picked him up entirely if she’d have wanted.
Drothspar held her hand for a moment, and touched the back of it gently with his other hand. He let her go and wiped the smile off of his slate. “Thank you,” he wrote, and Chance swore she could feel warmth in the words. She watched the slate, hoping he’d write something more that might confirm or deny that strange sensation, but he put the tablet down and reached for his fallen fishing pole.
He pointed up on the pier and walked out with
Chance walking next to him. He dangled his feet over the edge as he’d done before and held his tablet in his lap. Chance sat down beside him and lashed her line out into the water. Drothspar looked at her and she smiled back.
“You have to bait it,” he explained, pointing at the line in the water.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You have to give the fish a reason to bite the hook. You have to put bait on it.” She read the tablet and pulled her hook out of the water.
“Okay,” she said, taking her dripping hook in hand, “how do I do that?” Drothspar gently tapped his hand to his head to indicate he’d forgotten something. He set his pole aside and walked back to the cottage. He came back in moments with a battered bowl in his hands. He got back into position on the pier and handed her the bowl.
“You’re not serious,” she said flatly, looking at the wriggling mass in the bowl.
He nodded emphatically.
“How do you get them to stick when they writhe around like that?” A harrowed look passed over her face as suspicion crept into mind. “You’re not serious,” she repeated.
Drothspar picked up his hook and one worm from the bowl. He pierced one end of the worm with the hook and slipped its body over the metal like a sleeve. Chance gagged once as she watched the worm still wriggling on the hook.
“You’re not serious,” she said again, her voice almost a whisper. “I’m not sure I can do that,” she admitted.
Drothspar looked at her with his hollow eyes. He set the bowl behind them and took her hook in his hand. He turned to bait her hook hoping to cover the process with his shoulder. As disturbed as she was by the action, she leaned out to peek over his shoulder anyway. When he was finished, Drothspar released her hook and took up his pole. He leaned back slightly and cast the line out into the water.
Chance watched him and lashed her pole so her hook slapped against the surface of the lake. Drothspar pushed his pole under his thigh bone and took up his tablet.
“Cast your line a little more gently,” he suggested. “If it makes too much noise when it hits the water, it’ll scare the fish.”
“Cast?”
“That’s what it’s called when you throw your hook and line out into the water,” he explained. “It’s supposed to be a smooth and fluid action.”
Chance pulled her line out of the water, eager to try it again. She wanted to do it properly. She hadn’t always enjoyed her physically educational classes at school, but whatever they tried to teach her, she worked very hard to get it right. There was always time for experimentation later, she believed, once you had learned what the supposedly proper form was. The difference between experimentation and floundering around was whether or not you could do something the way it was supposed to be done.
As she drew her line out of the water, she realized her worm had, literally, gotten off the hook. She didn’t imagine it was in a much better situation. Drothspar, too, noticed the bare hook and reached out to catch it.
“Let me practice a couple times, first,” she said. “No sense in wasting the slimy things,” she added. Drothspar nodded and pulled on his line.
Chance practiced her casting, quickly perceiving the difference from lashing. She leaned back and forward, extending her arm, and enjoying the sound of the line sweeping through the air. She started picking areas of the water where she wanted her hook to land and became quite good at hitting her mark. Once she was pleased with the results of her practice, she pulled in her hook and extended it to Drothspar.
“Would you, please?”
Drothspar nodded and baited her hook, again trying to shield her from the process. Once she had a worm on her hook, she cast out her line and sat back down beside Drothspar.
“Now what?” she asked, holding her pole with both hands.
Drothspar placed his pole under his leg again and took up his slate. “Now we wait,” he wrote. “When a fish hits, you jerk the pole up, and, hopefully, the hook will get caught in the fish’s mouth. Then we pull him up to the pier.”
Chance nodded. “Did you fish often?”
“Sometimes,” Drothspar replied. “I always enjoyed the pace of it. If you hunt something in the forest, you have to stalk it and concentrate on the direction of the wind and how your scent might approach the animal. There’s an amazing excitement that comes when you’re close to your prey, but in the end, it takes a lot of energy and focus.
“Fishing,” he continued, “is much, much more relaxed. The fish bite or they don’t. You can’t herd them to your line or stalk them. There’s time to collect thoughts and ideas, and time to converse if you’re with someone. It’s very peaceful. Still, when a fish hits your line, it’s exciting. And, at the end of the day, after watching the beautiful water and thinking profound or meaningless thoughts, if you’re lucky, you still come home with dinner.”
Chance nodded her head and looked out over the water. Drothspar watched her for a moment to see if she would ask him anything else. After some time had passed, he set his slate aside and picked up his pole. Chance watched what he had done out of the corner of her eye. What a strange situation, she thought to herself.
She started to wonder just who the strange being beside her was. She knew his name—Drothspar—she’d learned it from Petreus. The old priest had told her that Drothspar was a good and decent young man. The more time they spent together, the more she came to believe what the old priest had said.
She had met other men, young and old, at school and in the cities. Most of them seemed so full of themselves, eager to display for her the qualities that they thought would impress her most. For some it was wealth, for others it was power, for others… well, the list went on and on. Who was this Drothspar, she asked herself, who was this man who had been a priest, a guard—this skeleton that had been a man?
From the time they had met in the cottage, he had treated her differently than any other man she had met. In the several days they’d spent together, he had not made even one lewd or improper comment. Most of the boys and men that she’d met thought that sexual innuendo was the height of charming humor. Drothspar had never done that, not even once.
She thought back over all of their conversations and everything they had done. He had never once tried to impose his will over hers. Well, except for grabbing her ankle. But that had been a simple misunderstanding, she excused him. When she’d first met him, he was the most frightening thing she’d ever encountered. It would have been easy for him to use that against her. Instead, he’d taken, or even made, every opportunity to prove to her that he was friendly.
He had asked her what she thought of things. Not only that, he had listened when she answered. She had been on the run when she’d come to the cottage. She had been running from men who wanted nothing to do with what she thought or what she said. Drothspar, however, had awakened from a sleep that wasn’t supposed to end. He had to have fears and doubts, questions that burned inside of him. He had asked her once to accompany him to the city, but she had refused. She had been focused only on getting away. When she told him she couldn’t go, he hadn’t tried to coerce her. He hadn’t once tried to change her mind or guilt her into submission. He asked only if she’d consider it when she felt she was ready.
She watched her line leading her off into the east. He had spent two nights out of his own home only to make her feel comfortable. When she was frightened, he stayed near her—at her request—without a trace of self-consciousness or wounded pride. When she was overcome in Æostemark, he carried her to safety. When she was thirsty he collected water in her bottle even though she hadn’t said a word.
Krekel, one of her professors at the university, had gone to great lengths to tell his classes that the genders only approached each other for one, and only one, reason. In his “Humors of Love” class, he had set up demonstrations and lectures and torn every shred of the childish beliefs of love, friendship, and goodness from each and every student. What then, was she to think of the collection of bo
nes at her side?
The man, the being, the whatever-he-was, was being thoughtful and kind and considerate. She had caught herself being thoughtful and kind in return. Why? What was in it for either of them?
Maybe he was just biding his time, waiting to use her to be his ambassador to the living world. If that’s all he wanted, why would he wait? He could have made his bid to control her using fear and violence. If all he wanted was to use her, why would he ever care if she were comfortable? Why would he care how she felt?
There had to be more to this man than she had learned from her experience in life. That he was different was certain. She had never met the living dead before. His state of being, whatever that may be, was not the only difference. She was beginning to believe it was not the most profound, either.
There would be time, she thought, to see what he actually was, what he might become. He had shown no signs of being threatening or malicious. If he ever did, she could bolt like she had from her family. She had felt the light weight of his body when she had helped him up off of the shore. If she had to, she could fight. If she had to, she knew, she’d do whatever needed being done. For the moment, though, she was content to study the oddities that made up their relationship. For the moment, that was enough.
Chapter 18 – Rising Star
The rain had done much to cleanse the army. The majority of the creatures, the undead, were the skeletal remnants of those who had died in the last invasion of the West. The sky-blackening storms had pounded the marching bones, knocking years of packed dirt and decay from their frames. Some of the putrid stench had also dissipated, unless he had simply become more accustomed to it. Troseth shook his head at the thought.
From the time of his youth, he’d been taught that Death was his closest companion. He had started training to be a soldier when he was eight years old. His family had groomed him to be a warrior, a leader of men. He had trained with masters who taught him the principles of weapons, the secrets of strategies, and the arts of controlling men. He had grown up in formation. The ring of steel on steel had been his music.