With a yawn, Balsithedeen rifled through Calnhall’s shirts and skirts. Under his half dozen breeches hid a satchel of thinweed and poppy. But not what she sought. Inside his second pair of boots, she found a silver coin. She patted his ermine robe. Inside the breast, she heard the crinkle of parchment. Her heart skipped a beat. She reached into the cotton lining. She pulled out a letter. She blinked away a wash of tiredness, so she could examine it. Right away, her shoulders loosened. She could tell it was not Drea’s secret letter.
But she read it anyway: “…none other. Dearest, I count the days till your return. Then we can be wed. Imagine me underneath the big willow tree right in front of my father’s farmhouse. I’ll wear whites and seafoams draping down my bosom and clinging to my hips. And the night of our wedding. I will dream about you and me in holy union, in carnal entanglement. Hurry home to me. I’ll send another letter with the next supply mission. Don’t…” Meaningless, she decided. The letter had been signed “Your Love, Jeulgerrishedeen”.
She replaced the letter carefully. And every article of clothing — exactly as it had been. Where else to look?
Balsithedeen stumbled drowsily as she made for Calnhall’s apothecary cabinet. Peppermint oil in an inkwell, citrus-infused water in a yellow-tinted carafe, balsam extract in a fat vial. Oily coconut jelly wrapped in dried leaves, a knapsack filled with thick salt crystals, some unlabeled bottle filled with viscous red liquid. She thought of blood, but why would Calnhall have a little bottle of blood? Everything returned to its proper place, but a sense of fatigue whelmed in her chest.
She looked under the man’s down pillow, under his cast iron bed frame, under his nightstand. Even inside the scroll on his nightstand, Soporific Properties of Popular Concoctions. She found not the secret letter, and she put every item she moved back to its home.
A feeling of self-loathing sunk in her throat. Why hadn’t she read the letter on her journey here? A sense of duty, she supposed. But why had that duty been replaced with suspicion? Calnhall and Gerrishill simply lacked social graces. What she had interpreted as sinister intentions were nothing but the innocent worrying of caretakers viewed through the purple lens of paranoia.
She knelt beside Calnhall’s bed. Paranoia, she told herself. Her hand reached under the straw-filled mattress. Nothing but rips in the outer cotton lining, where the sharp straw had caught a thread. As she pulled her hand back, she felt a boil rise in her belly. She reached into the tear of the mattress. With ease, she procured the letter. Upon examination, Balsithedeen knew it was Drea’s.
She unfolded the crumpled parchment.
Soldiers of King Yaangd XXI,
This letter is penned by Congresser Drea Drysword of the rebel colony, Hrashhill, and loyal servant to Yaangd. I have made arrangements with your crown prince to bring Yaangd to our new rebel colony. He desires a stronger presence on this continent than just this outpost where you are posted. And his ancestors have never succeeded at starting a colony on this virgin shore.
Upon your return, please bring these navigationals to your commanding officer. I expect Uandem will want to make the journey…
Numbers and symbols followed, which Balsithedeen imagined were coordinates. She had seen similar shapes when her lover Henhall had taken her aboard Gray Typhoon.
And, as for the deliverers of this letter — their names are Shepherd Eleim and Apprentice Balsithedeen, though she is apprentice to another. Do not let them leave. If you like, take them back to the motherland and imprison them. But I would prefer you execute them both…
Balsithedeen couldn’t read the signature, her eyes were so blurred. Her heart raced, but her eyelids dropped. The cast iron bed frame reached up to meet her forehead.
Footsteps. Echoes of men’s voices. Balsithedeen awoke with a splintering headache to the smell of onions and red wine. And over her stood Calnhall, Drea’s letter in hand. He looked at the letter, then back at her. Balsithedeen’s heart pumped adrenaline into her veins, and she jumped up. Calnhall withdrew an arrow from the quiver on his back and caught her by the waist. Balsithedeen still felt an unnatural drowse in her legs. “How serendipitous,” Calnhall grunted, holding the arrowhead to her neck as she squirmed. “Gerrishill! A little help!” Balsithedeen’s knee launched in between Calnhall’s legs, and he fell to the floor. Balsithedeen ran.
She tripped into the corridor. Behind her sat her own chambers. Before her descended a modest stairwell. She needed water, maybe a little food. Suddenly, she wanted Drea’s secret letter. She could bring it back to Independence — reveal Drea Drysword for the traitor he turned out to be. Her parents still lived in Independence. Her pregnant sister — surely a mother by now. Henhall lived in Independence, ready to marry her as soon as she returned — a hero.
Leather steps approached. Balsithedeen backed quietly towards her own room. She picked up her backsack from beside the bed she had been forced to sleep in. A quick check inside — strawberries, blueberries, Gerrishill’s cornbread, two lace-up shirts, the jagged dagger Henhadn gifted her, and the parchment with the pictures. She threw everything over her shoulder and tiptoed outside.
No sound from Calnhall’s bedroom. They went downstairs to search for me. But Balsithedeen did not intend to check inside the room. Fleet-footed, she scurried down the corridor. The faintest of grunts. Sinew tore from flesh and bone. Balsithedeen’s right shoulder split open and gushed forth. The heavy broadsword which had cut into her fell at her feet as she fell against the wood slat wall, grasping at her shoulder. She fingered at the spongy folds of gore on her shoulder, and her stomach churned. Her head felt light. She tumbled to the ground.
Umber boots approached her. Gerrishill descended into view as he picked up his broadsword. “I enjoyed your company.” He raised his greatsword. Balsithedeen drunkenly swung the jagged dagger from inside the backsack and across the back of Gerrishill’s ankles. He squealed like a bled pig and joined Balsithedeen on the floor. Only then could she see Calnhall in the threshold of his bedroom, arrow nocked and ready.
Several things happened at once. Balsithedeen plunged the jagged dagger into Gerrishill’s eye. Calnhall loosed his hungry arrow. Balsithedeen pulled Gerrishill’s seizing body over her own like a blanket. Searing heat pulsed through her shoulder. The arrow pierced through Gerrishill’s neck and gently scratched at Balsithedeen’s forehead. With a frustrated scream, she threw Gerrishill’s convulsing body beside her. He died bloody and confused.
While Calnhall nocked another arrow, Balsithedeen picked up the dead man’s broadsword and rushed towards the stairs. An arrow whooshed past her cheek, and she tripped down the stairwell. Her shoulder oozed crimson, and her eyelids tried to close. She lay at the bottom of the steps. She had to get up. Behind her, a bowstring stretched. Her grip tightened, and she flung Gerrishill’s greatsword up the stairs. An arrow flailed through the air as Calnhall dodged the flying sword.
Her arms pushed herself from the rushes, anguish throbbing up and down the right side of her body. The pain grew too intense. But the sound of a bowstring’s elasticity and leather soles on oaken steps — she cursed as loud as she could muster and propelled herself towards the front door. Another arrow missed her by a few feet but stuck its tooth into the heavy front door. Balsithedeen reached for the door. It opened, but Calnhall threw his whole weight into the door. It slammed shut with a thunderclap, and Balsithedeen’s feet danced backwards towards the kitchen area. She slashed aimlessly with the dagger, but it made no contact. Another slash, and the dagger flew from her sweaty palm.
In the kitchen, Gerrishill’s fingerprints were visible everywhere. The remnants of a dead man. She picked up his floury rolling pin and threw it at Calnhall, fast encroaching. The rolling pin bounced off the wall, as did the pots and skillets she threw — she had to use her non-dominant hand. Her fingers recoiled from a hot pan of burning onions, marinating in wine and oil. She winced and spilled the hot oil at Calnhall’s ankles. He shot another arrow into her gaping shoulder. Calnhall fell back trying
to cool his ankles, ripping off his breeches in a violent fury. Balsithedeen pulled the arrow from her shoulder, already numb with unimaginable stabbing pain. She aimed for his heart but landed the arrow in his arm. They both yelled, blinded by agony and anger and desperation.
Balsithedeen stumbled backwards. Underneath a cabinet, she found a knife. Warm blood cascaded down her right arm. The hilt of the knife maintained her handprint as it twirled through the air and into Calnhall’s bare thigh. She tried to catch her breath, and Calnhall stood up with a vile curse and dropped his bow. He still blocked the way. Leaning against a counter, she found a huge glass jar of pepper dust and swung.
But Calnhall caught her wrist. He took the jar and broke the glass over her temple.
Cold against the skin. Moisture. Midsummer air, stale. The rip of cloth. Glass. The smell of peppercorn. Balsithedeen blinked. She had blacked out — for how long? She draped over a counter. Calnhall could have killed her by now. She heard cursing and grunting behind her. Her fingers wrapped around an unwashed bowl. She whipped around to hit him, but he stood several feet away — thigh bandaged, but arrow still protruding from his bicep. Some fire flickered in his pupils. He scowled.
Calnhall knocked the bowl from her hands and punched the enormous gash in her shoulder. Her vision blurred, and bile churned in her stomach. He grabbed her by the neck. “A girl of sixteen,” he whispered, examining her face. “That was my friend.” He forced her around, counter pressing against her stomach. He hiked her skirt up and tore off her undergarments.
Balsithedeen shouted. Her elbow launched backwards, pressing the arrow further into his flesh. He tripped backwards and reached for a knife — the one that had opened his thigh. Balsithedeen leapt onto him and sank her teeth into his scrawny neck. He cried out, and she gave into some base instinct. Survival, she told herself. She struck him in the jaw with one swift punch, and his moans turned to mumbles.
Her backsack sat at her feet. She threw it over her shoulder, stole a bag of freshwater, retrieved the jagged dagger, and made for Calnhall. He was already lifting himself from the floor. Balsithedeen had to choose then and there; she limped into the bare night, quick as she could.
She knew Calnhall and Gerrishill had been effectively stranded at this outpost, but one rowboat rested ashore — a two-person fishing craft. A trail of blood followed her to the nearby shore of sand and pebble. She tossed in her backsack and jumped in. She took the oar in the boat and pushed away from the land. Into Hrash’s domain.
Balsithedeen figured she could float out to sea, circumvent Calnhall’s bow and arrow range, then return to Independence with news of Drea’s betrayal. Once a good thirty feet out, she removed a shirt from her backsack. The shirt made a poor bandage, but her shoulder would need all the help it could get.
She popped a strawberry into her mouth and suddenly felt the sticky blood across her face — where Calnhall had bashed open the glass jar. She found a patch of old cloth in the rowboat, next to some fishing tackle and a swollen book. She leaned over the prow to view her moonlit reflection and wipe away some of the blood.
A thwack against the hull. Towards the shore. She looked up. There stood Calnhall, small as her thumb. And a second arrow loosed from his bow. Even taking cover, Balsithedeen could not avoid the projectile. Her right shoulder took another hit. She vomited onto her chest and blacked out.
Her dreams ebbed in and out of view. There sat Henhall with his harpoon. Over there stood her parents with her pregnant sister. In the distance ran Drea with his secret letter. Eleim chased him. The moon waned in the sea’s reflection. Then it turned crimson. Balsithedeen’s back stuck against the quiver tree. Massive trees sprouted from the earth, and she found herself in the Eleimwood. Two gray hounds foamed at the mouth. They bore the faces of Calnhall and Gerrishill. They opened their mouths and roared like a hundred lions.
Balsithedeen sat up quick as a loosed arrow. The thunder emanated from the real world. Thunder? No. Her blood pushed against the inside of her flesh. To her best estimation, two beasts of great size sang conflicting melodies at one another. A tremulating cry fused with a lower-pitched grumble — both rolling over hills from miles away.
She glanced at her surroundings, heart racing. Her rowboat had wedged into the golden sands of a strange island. The shores quickly receded into thick woodland. Tall, thin trees with long sprawling leaves. The brown fruits within these ubiquitous trees looked almost hairy. Thousands of trees climbed hill and valley until they coalesced at the center of the island, where stood a squat mountain, missing its peak. Balsit Isle, she decided to call this bizarre place.
Bright blue waves pushed against the back of the rowboat. Saltwater smelled different here. In the far distance floated two more islands, also sporting their own peakless mountains. Otherwise, the sea stretched out forever.
Her tongue stuck to the inside of her dry mouth. She searched for the bag of freshwater, but she already held it in her left hand. She must have sipped at it half-asleep. Crumbs also dusted her vomit-crusted chest. Her stomach ached. Her vision focused. Slight discomfort in her right shoulder. When she turned, her head grew lighter.
Calnhall’s arrow protruded from her flesh. And Gerrishill’s gash enveloped it. Vague memories of Physician Aerhall the Amputator. “If you’re pierced with anything, leave it in to stop the bleeding.” If she had had the choice, she would have pulled it out. Luck sails with me. Or is it Hrash? She decided she didn’t care whether she lived by fortune, chance, or divine intervention. She ripped the arrow from her black shoulder, bit on a corner of her backsack to stifle her screams, and dabbed at the spots of blood that followed the arrow’s removal.
Before the sun dove behind the topless mountain, Balsithedeen swallowed all the berries in her backsack. She couldn’t fall asleep. The cornbread lasted her through the rest of the night. Cornbread baked by a dead man. A man I slew. She had to fish the next morning.
A fishing rod hid beneath one of the benches within the rowboat. Henhall’s words bounced around in her head. Her erstwhile beloved sailed and fished almost every day. She had gone with him on countless excursions.
It took her half an hour to catch two grasshoppers on the beach, like her heart's desire had taught her. She stuck her hook through the bug and cast her line a few hundred feet from the shore.
The fish she caught looked like no other fish she ever saw. The midmorning sunlight reflected off its blue and orange flesh. She took little pleasure in scaling and filleting the colorful creature. Using a flint from the rowboat and stray twigs and branches from the edge of the dense jungle, Balsithedeen started a small fire. She speared the fish with the rod and held it over the flames. Something deeply primal pulsed behind her lungs as she bit into the flesh of a strange fish she caught and cooked over a fire she built.
She recorded as much in her diary. She had a passing idea at the day, telling by how the moon hung in the sky the night before. As she penned the island’s name, the ink ran dry. “Trees taller than buildings seem to bow towards the great mountain at the center of Balsit Isle,” her diary finished.
She spent her afternoon climbing one of the thousands of tall trees and pulling down a hairy brown fruit. To her shock, its outer skin was actually a shell. After scratching away at its bonelike exterior with the flint for twenty minutes, she walked a quarter mile to a rockier part of the shore. She nestled the head-sized brown fruit in between some sizable rocks, picked up the largest stone she could carry, and let gravity do its work. Five drops of the black stone and the shell cracked open.
Inside, lighter brown fibers clung to an inner fruit. Balsithedeen shook the inner fruit and heard some sort of liquid slosh about. She shucked it like corn and saved the fibers for a future fire. As the sun set on her second day on Balsit Isle, she managed to cut into the fruit with her jagged dagger and drink the cloudy water within.
That night, a light rainstorm crept closer and closer. On the open sea, she could make out the storm clouds from miles and miles away. Sh
e propped up her rowboat on a pile of big rocks and tried to sleep beneath the shelter. Her backsack served as a pillow.
Nightmares of Henhall and Eleim, Calnhall and Gerrishill — Balsithedeen could barely sleep. Nevertheless, the sunrise surprised her. As her eyes adjusted, her ears perked up. The sound of wood crunching, behind her. She turned to find the source of the noise. Legs.
Green and brown scales climbed up skinny, sinewy legs. Veins of fur — no, the legs sported blue and gray feathers. Each leg had four bulbous toes. An ivory claw sprouted from each toe. Balsithedeen clapped her hands over her mouth as she writhed out from under the rowboat.
She hopped on two legs. The sand muffled her footsteps. She stumbled backwards, watching the reptilian beast chew curiously on the wooden slats of her rowboat. She stepped on a sharp rock and fell to the ground with a whimper. The monster perked up and spotted Balsithedeen. Its eyes pulsed, and its nostrils flared. It lurched towards her with violent ferocity. She knew her life was forfeit and breathed in deeply.
A thunderous growl stopped her heart. A thousand vibrant birds flew from their perches in the trees. The roar did not originate from the man-sized beast that had chewed curiously on her rowboat. In fact, the scaly feathered monster looked towards the jungle then darted away. A higher-pitched cackle answered the thunderous growl, and Balsithedeen turned towards the jungle. There stood a larger incarnation of the beast that had just run away. Much, much larger. Each finger extended the length of a full-grown man. Each pointed tooth outsized a teenager. Each feather which formed colorful lines up its legs and arms could cool down a king.
And the enormous beast stood quite close to the beach. Balsithedeen swore she caught its eye, and they stared at one another. Something pulsated in her gut. All of a sudden, she seemed as tall as the monster. She felt the strength in her arms. She smelled the flesh and blood of her prey.
The Heirs of History: A Nation From Nothing Page 39