Fire skt-2

by Kristin Cashore

  When she stretched to her limits she could sense possibly thirty men in the house and grounds, and a spattering of women, too. All were muddle-minded. Archer was not there.

  She pushed herself further. Archer? Archer!

  There was no response.

  And she wouldn't have minded not finding him here, she would have hoped it meant he'd come to his senses and abandoned his heroic pursuit – except for an unpleasant perception she wished she were cowardly enough to ignore. One or two of the foggy men on these grounds had the feeling of people she recognised. She thought they might have been guards recently in Nash's palace. And the simplest explanation for their presence here was that they'd come with Archer as part of his guard. Which begged the question of what had happened since, and who was left guarding Archer, and where Archer was.

  The bath was still the purest, hottest ecstasy but she stood, and climbed out, suddenly impatient to be done with this place. She scrubbed herself dry and dressed in the flimsy long-sleeved gown they'd left for her. It had enough the look of bedroom clothing to make her uncomfortable, in addition to which, they'd taken her boots and coat away and given her nothing for her hair. She went to a wardrobe in the corner and dug through its random assortment of items until she'd found socks, a sturdy pair of boy's boots, a man's heavy robe that was far too big, and a brown woolen scarf that would do for a head wrapping. She hoped, a bit grimly, that the ensemble looked as peculiar as it felt. She didn't need beauty to control the boy's empty-headed puppets, and she wasn't in the mood to gratify Cutter by presenting the appearance of a doe-eyed monster woman ready to be ravished by one of his disgusting male customers.

  She ran her mind through the hundreds of creatures held on this estate, monster predators, horses and hunting dogs, even an odd collection of rodents she couldn't imagine the purpose of. The choice of horses satisfied her. They were none of them as sympathetic as Small, but several would suit her purposes.

  She soaked the tip of her dart in the vial of sleeping poison and tucked the vial back into her gown. She held the dart in her hand, where it was hidden by the length of her heavy sleeve.

  Taking a deep breath for courage, she went downstairs.

  Cutter's sitting room was small and as warm as the bedroom had been, the walls similarly dressed, in tapestries showing fields of flowers rising to cliffs overhanging the sea. The rug here was colourful too, and it occurred to Fire that at least some of this beauty had been woven from monster fur. And the books on the bookcases, and the golden clock on the mantelpiece – Fire wondered how much of this house's richness had been stolen.

  Cutter sat at the head of the room, clearly believing himself to be the room's master. The room's true master leaned against the wall to the side, small, bored, blinking unmatched eyes, and surrounded by a woven field of flowers. Jod the archer stood beside Cutter. A man was positioned at each of the room's entrances.

  Cutter barely glanced at Fire's attire. His eyes were glued to her face, his mouth stretched into a jubilant and proprietary simper. He looked just as he always had, except for a new vacantness of expression that must have to do with the fog.

  "It's been no easy task stealing you, girl, especially since you've taken up residence in the king's palace," he said in the self-satisfied voice she remembered. "It's taken a great deal of time and considerable spying. Not to mention that we had to kill a number of our own spies who were careless enough to be captured in your woods by you and your people. We seem to have the stupidest spies in the kingdom. What a lot of trouble. But it was all worth it, boy, wasn't it? Look at her."

  "She is lovely," the boy said disinterestedly. "You shouldn't sell her. You should keep her here with us."

  Cutter's forehead creased with puzzlement. "The rumour among my colleagues is that Lord Mydogg is prepared to pay a fortune for her. In fact, a number of my buyers have shown particular interest. But perhaps I should keep her here with us." His expression brightened. "I could breed her! What a price her babies would fetch."

  "What we do with her remains to be seen," the boy said.

  "Precisely," Cutter said. "Remains to be seen."

  "If she would only behave herself," the boy continued, "then we wouldn't have to punish her, and she might understand that we want to be friends. She might find she likes it here. Speaking of which, she's a bit too quiet for my tastes at the moment. Jod, draw an arrow. If I command it, shoot her someplace painful that won't kill her. Shoot her in the knee. It might be to our advantage to hobble her."

  This was not the job for a small dart bow. Jod swung his longbow from his back, pulled a white arrow from his quiver, and drew smoothly on a string most men wouldn't even have the strength to draw. He held the notched arrow, waiting, calm and easy. And Fire was slightly sick, and it was not because she knew that an arrow of that size shot with that bow at this range would shatter her knee. She was sick because Jod moved with his bow as if it were a limb of his body, so natural and graceful, and too much like Archer.

  She spoke to placate the boy, but also because there were beginning to be questions to which she wanted answers. "An archer shot a man imprisoned in my father's cages last spring," she said to Jod. "It was an uncommonly difficult shot. Were you that archer?"

  Jod had no idea what she was talking about, that was plain. He shook his head, wincing, as if he were trying to remember all the things he'd ever done and could go back no further than yesterday.

  "He's your man," the boy said blandly. "Jod does all our shooting. Far too talented to be wasted. And so delightfully malleable," he said, tapping a fingertip to his own head, "if you know what I mean. One of my luckiest finds, Jod."

  "And what is Jod's history?" Fire asked the boy, trying to match his bland tone.

  The boy seemed delighted all out of proportion with this question. He smiled a very pleased, and unpleasant, smile. "Interesting you should ask. Only weeks ago we had a visitor wondering the very same thing. Who knew, when we hired ourselves an archer, that he would come to be the subject of so much mystery and speculation? And I wish we could satisfy your curiosity, but it seems Jod's memory is not what it used to be. We've no idea what he was up to, what would it be, twenty-one years ago?"

  Fire had taken a step toward the boy as he spoke, unable to prevent herself, clutching the dart hard in her hand. "Where is Archer?"

  At this the boy smirked, more and more happy with this turn of conversation. "He left us. He didn't care for the company. He's gone back to his estate in the north."

  He was a terrible liar, too used to people believing him. "Where is he?" Fire said again, her voice cracking now with a panic that made the boy smile wider.

  "He left a couple of his guards behind," the boy said. "Kind of him, really. They were able to tell us a bit about your life at court, and your weaknesses. Puppies. Helpless children."

  Several things happened in quick succession. Fire rushed toward the boy. The boy gestured to Jod, calling, "Shoot!" Fire smashed through Jod's fog, causing him to swing his bow wildly and release his arrow into the ceiling. The boy yelled, "Shoot her but don't kill her!" and hurtled himself away, trying to sidestep Fire, but Fire lunged at him, reached, just barely jabbed his flailing arm with her dart. He jumped away from her, swinging fists at her, still yelling; and then his face slackened. He tipped and slumped.

  Fire had clamped hold of every mind in the room before the boy even hit the floor. She bent over him, yanked a knife from his belt, walked to Cutter, and pointed the shaking blade at Cutter's throat. Where is Archer? she thought, because speech had become impossible.

  Cutter stared back at her, entranced and stupid. "He didn't care for the company. He's gone back to his estate in the north."

  No, Fire thought, wanting to hit him in her frustration. Think. You know this. Where –

  Cutter interrupted, squinting at her with puzzlement, as if he couldn't remember who she was, or why he was talking to her. He said, "Archer is with the horses."

  Fire turned and left the room
and the house. She glided past men who watched her progress with vacant eyes. Cutter is wrong, she told herself, preparing herself with denial. Archer is not with the horses. Cutter is wrong.

  And, of course, this was true, for it was not Archer she found on the rocks behind the stable. It was only his body.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  What happened next passed in a blur of numbness and anguish.

  It was a thing about being a monster. She couldn't look at a body and pretend she was looking at Archer. She knew, she could feel, that the fires of Archer's heart and mind were nowhere near. This body was a horrible thing, almost unrecognisable, lying there, mocking her, mocking Archer with its emptiness.

  Nonetheless, this did not stop her dropping to her knees and stroking the cold arm of this body, over and over, breathing shallowly, not entirely sure what she was doing. Taking hold of the arm, clutching it, while confused tears ran down her face.

  The sight of the arrow embedded in the body's stomach began to bring her a little too close to sensibility. An arrow shot into a man's stomach was cruel, its damage painful and slow. Archer had told her that long ago. He had taught her never to aim there.

  She stood and turned away from this thinking, stumbled away, but it seemed to follow her across the yard. A great outdoor bonfire was alight between the stable and the house. She found herself standing before it, staring into the flames, fighting her mind, which seemed insistent that she contemplate the notion of Archer, dying, slowly, in pain. All alone.

  At least her last words to him had been words of love. But she wished she'd told him just how much she loved him. How much she had to thank him for, how many good things he had done. She hadn't told him nearly enough.

  She reached into the fire and took hold of a branch.

  * * * *

  She was not entirely aware of carrying flaming branches to Cutter's green house. She wasn't aware of the men she commandeered to help her, or the trips back and forth stumbling from bonfire to house, house to bonfire. People ran frantically from the burning building. She might have spotted Cutter among them; she might have spotted Jod; she wasn't sure and she didn't care; she instructed them not to interfere. When she could no longer see the house from the black smoke billowing around it, she stopped carrying fire to it. She looked around for more of Cutter's buildings to burn.

  She had mind enough to release the dogs and rodents before torching the sheds they lived in. She found the bodies of two of Archer's guards on the rocks near the predator monster cages. She took one of their bows and shot the monsters with it. She burned the men's bodies.

  By the time she got to the stable the horses were panicking from the smoke and from the sounds of roaring flame, and shouting voices, and buildings falling apart. But they stilled as she entered – even the most frantic among them, even those who couldn't see her – and left their stalls when she told them to. Finally empty of horses, but full as it was of wood and hay, the stable blazed up like a mighty monster made of fire.

  She bumbled around the perimeter to Archer's body. She watched, lungs hacking, until the flames reached him. Even when she could no longer see him she kept watching. When the smoke became so thick that she was choking on it, her throat burning from it, she turned her back on the fire she'd made, and walked away.

  She walked without knowing where she was going and without thinking of anyone or anything. It was cold and the terrain was hard and treeless. When she crossed paths with one of the horses, dappled and grey, it came to her.

  No saddle, she thought numbly to herself as it stood before her, breathing steam and stamping its hooves against the snow. No stirrups. Hard to get on.

  The horse knelt awkwardly on its forelegs before her. She hitched her gown and her robe around her knees and climbed onto its back. Balancing precariously as the horse stood, she found that a horse without a saddle was slippery and warm. And better than walking. She could wind her hands in the mane and lean her body and face forward against the aliveness of its neck, and sink into a stupor of no feeling, and let the horse decide where to go.

  Her robe had not been made to serve as a winter coat and she had no gloves. Under her headscarf her hair was wet. When in darkness they came upon a plateau of stone that was oddly hot and dry, its edges running with streams of melted snow water and smoke rising from cracks in the ground, Fire didn't question it. She only slid from the horse's back and found a warm flat place to lie. Sleep, she told the horse. It's time to sleep.

  The horse folded itself to the ground and nestled its back against her. Warmth, Fire thought. We'll live through this night.

  It was the worst night she'd ever known, skimming hour after hour between wakefulness and sleep, jerking from dream after dream of Archer alive to remember that he was dead.

  Day finally broke.

  She understood, with dull resentment, that her body and the horse's body needed food. She didn't know what to do about it. She sat staring at her own hands.

  She was too far beyond surprise and feeling to be startled when children appeared moments later climbing from a crevice in the ground, three of them, paler than Pikkians, black-haired, blurry at the edges from the glow of the rising sun. They were carrying things: a bowl of water, a sack, a small package wrapped in cloth. One bore the sack to the horse, dropped it near the animal, and folded the top down. The horse, which had shied away with frantic noises, now approached cautiously. It sank its nose into the sack and began to chew.

  The other two carried the package and bowl to Fire, setting them before her wordlessly, staring at her with amber eyes wide. They are like fish, Fire thought. Strange and colourless and staring, on the bottom of the ocean.

  The package contained bread, cheese, and salted meat. At the scent of food her stomach threatened to heave. She wished the staring children would go away so that she could have her battle with breakfast alone.

  They turned and went, disappearing into the crevice from which they'd come.

  Fire broke a piece of bread and forced herself to eat it. When her stomach seemed to decide it was willing to accept this, she cupped her hands into the water and took a few sips. It was warm. She watched the horse, chomping on the feed in the sack, poking its nose softly into the corners. Smoke seeped from a crack in the ground behind the animal, glowing yellow in the morning sun. Smoke? Or was it steam? This place had a strange smell to it, like wood smoke but also something else. She put her hand to the warm rock floor on which she sat and understood that there were people beneath it. Her floor was someone else's ceiling.

  She was feeling the beginnings of a lustreless sort of curiosity when her stomach decided it did not want her crumbs of bread after all.

  After the horse had finished its breakfast and drunk the rest of the water it came to where Fire was lying in a ball on the ground. It nudged her, and knelt. Fire uncurled herself, like a turtle ripping itself from its shell, and climbed onto the horse's back.

  The horse seemed to move randomly west and south across the snow. It shuffled through streams that crunched with ice, and crossed wide crevices in the rock that made Fire uneasy because she could not see to the bottoms of them.

  In the early morning she felt a person on horseback approaching from behind. She didn't much care at first. But then she recognised the feel of the person and was dragged against her will into caring. It was the boy.

  He was also riding saddleless, awkwardly so, and he kicked his poor frustrated horse until it brought him within shouting range. He called out angrily. "Where are you going? And what are you doing, sending your every thought and feeling over these rocks? This is not Cutter's fortress. There are monsters out here, and wild, unfriendly people. You're going to get yourself killed."

  Fire didn't hear him, for at the sight of his mismatched eyes she found herself dropping from her horse and running at him, a knife in her hand, though she hadn't realised until that moment that she was in possession of one.

  His horse chose that instant to throw the boy fr
om its back, toward her. He fell in a bundle on the ground, clambered to his feet, and ran to escape her. There was a blundering chase across the crevices, and then an ugly scuffle that she couldn't sustain because she grew exhausted too quickly. The knife slipped from her fingers and slid into a wide crack in the earth. He pushed himself away, scrambled to his feet, choking over his words.

  "You've lost your mind," he said, touching his hand to a cut on his neck, staring incredulously at the blood that came off on his fingers. "Take hold of yourself! I didn't come after you all this way to fight you. I'm trying to rescue you!"

  "Your lies don't work on me," she cried, her throat coarse and painful from smoke and dehydration. "You killed Archer."

  "Jod killed Archer."

  "Jod is your tool!"

  "Oh, be reasonable," he said, his voice rising with impatience. "You of all people should understand it. Archer was too strong-minded. It's quite a kingdom for the strong-minded you've got here, isn't it, the very toddlers taught to guard their minds against monsters?"

  "You're not a monster."

  "It amounts to the same thing. You know perfectly well how many people I've had to kill."

  "I don't," she said. "I don't. I'm not like you."

  "Perhaps you're not, but you do understand it. Your father was like me."

  Fire stared at this boy, his sooty face, his thatch of filthy hair, his torn and bloodstained coat, oversized, as if he'd taken it from one of his own victims, from a body he'd found unburned on Cutter's grounds. The feeling of his mind bumped against hers, simmering with strangeness, taunting her with its unreachability.

  Whatever he was, he was not a monster. But it amounted to the same thing. Was this what she had killed Cansrel for, so that a creature like this could rise to power in his place?