by J. M. Topp
‘The Hallowed Masters are coming.’ Ayagi’s voice didn’t sound like a child’s anymore. To Ayda, it sounded like what a god must sound like. Ayagi squinted his eyes. ‘We must leave before—’
Ayagi turned to Rebecca and hissed at her. A bright blue light spilled from a pile of rubble and entered the Gruizoch’s open mouth. Rebecca cradled Gruizoch’s head. The beast began to twitch and its eyes opened, clear and brown. The beast snorted, and Rebecca helped the beast back up on its hooves.
‘What have you done, elf!?’ shouted Ayagi, coiling his body and arching his neck.
Gruizoch shook his head and looked at his hands, almost as if surprised to be attached to them. Rebecca turned to Ayagi.
‘I will explain everything in due time. We must go north. Hurry,’ said Rebecca, staring into the beast. Ayda looked uneasily at the Minotaur. Gruizoch glanced at her and raised its brow. Rebecca patted Gruizoch on the shoulder and sheathed her long blade. She looked into its eyes and held its snout close to her face. ‘It will take time for you to adjust to this new body of yours. For now, simply trust me, Bendrick.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Garrulous Bartender
PATE STRUGGLED TO install the newly sharpened giant buzzsaw into the lumbermill. Elymiah looked on as he lifted a metal lever into the mill, careful not to cut himself on the razored edges. Pate cursed to himself, trying to force the lever down to house the stubborn saw.
‘Damn thing,’ he said, sweat collecting on his brow. ‘She bitches at me to change her teeth, and then when I try to change it, she doesn’t let me. Just like a woman.’
Elymiah looked at the rope lines and pulley systems Pate had in his mill. A belt with wooden scoops was attached to the saw lines of the mill, and it was propelled by a small stream that ran beside the mill. Pate did seem to have the build of a lumbermill worker, but Elymiah noticed the signs and stresses of one who had worked his entire life. He was tired. Elymiah walked up beside Pate. He took a step back and put his hands on his hips.
‘Damn,’ Pate said, wiping sweat from his brow. ‘She’s not usually this stubborn.’
Elymiah noticed a bronze lever stuck in one of the cogs of the pulley system. She leaned over and pulled it. Immediately, the housing for the buzzsaw opened up. Elymiah grabbed the metal lever and placed it in the cradle that housed the saw, securing it. She locked it in place and took a step back. Elymiah turned to Pate to see a surprised look on his face.
‘I’ll be damned.’
Pate hooked up the rope to the saw and then to the pulley system leading to the river. The saw began to turn, and before Elymiah could blink, it began to whir.
‘Listen to that roar. Like a banshee,’ Pate said with a chuckle, whipping his pipe out and lighting it. Elymiah felt a strange warmth as she stood watching the buzzsaw whir. It was an earned feeling of accomplishment, almost like when she had been named Perfect. Elymiah’s mind wandered to that day in Aivaterra. She saw Yngerame standing over her. But it wasn’t the look of kindness he had had that day that she saw. This time, Elymiah saw his face of anger—the same face he had had when Elymiah was thrown into the river. The warm feeling quickly dissipated into sadness once more, and she walked away from Pate and his buzzsaw in silence.
For the next few days after fixing the saw, Pate didn’t ask a thing from her or Robyn. It was not like she could do much more than that anyway. Her body had been completely broken and pierced. Pate had gone to some lengths to make sure that her wounds did not get infected. Elymiah cleaned them herself and wrapped them every night, like Bertrand had taught her long ago. For two days, she only wore her wrappings and slept. Days turned to nights, and nights returned to days over the lumbermill. They all seemed a blur, with Pate coming in every once in a while with soup or stale bread. Each time, Elymiah was grateful for it, knowing that it was all he had to share. Pate had shown a kindness that was not common to most people of the Khahadran, and Elymiah thanked him deeply for it. Robyn remained silent the entire time. He would sit up and remain sitting for hours, like a statue. His face revealed no emotions, and he would soil himself often, not asking for help even then. Elymiah made it her duty that Pate would do no more effort for him. Robyn was her sole responsibility, and she cleaned him and washed his wounds as often as she washed her own. His wounds were more severe than hers. She had deep cuts, but they would heal over time. The brand on her neck was already beginning to seal up, but the places where the knife had cut out Robyn’s eyes and tongue were crusted with blood and pus-riddled bodily fluids. Elymiah tried to be careful when cleaning them to not hurt him when she did so, yet if she did, Robyn expressed none of it. Infection was the greatest threat to his life now. Pate cooked foul-smelling herbs into a stew one night, and Elymiah made sure that Robyn drank some. He had to crane his neck back and allow gravity to work for him, since he didn’t have a tongue to propel food and liquids down his throat. She drank from the stew as well, and before too long, her strength began to return. Robyn, however, showed very little sign of improvement. Though his improvement was slow, at least he wasn’t getting worse. The plague that had burned so intensely in his body seemed to have been quenched. Elymiah asked him if he could at least signal to her—something to know how to help him. Robyn remained like a statue, as if she were not even there. Elymiah’s heart broke when he did that. She almost wanted to press into the void where his eyes used to be just to get a reaction out of him. He didn’t even cough anymore. When Elymiah fed him, he would simply open his mouth and chew and crane his neck to swallow.
‘Robyn…I am here,’ Elymiah whispered to him. He opened his mouth, and Elymiah’s heart rose for a moment, but then he closed it, and it remained closed without a sound. Her heart sank deeper into her soul than she thought possible. Elymiah shook her head. What was she expecting, anyway? He could not speak.
One day, Pate entered with a white deerskin jerkin and bronze leather pants for her and a roughspun leather doublet for Robyn. Pate had had Robyn’s pants cleaned for him. Elymiah couldn’t express her thanks. She had been wearing Pate’s shirt and pants and finally was able to change out of them. Pate even had a cloak for her to wear. Elymiah kept true to her word. When she regained more of her strength, she stood one day and asked to help. Pate had kept his word, as well, when it came to being fair, and Elymiah found that she didn’t mind the work he had her doing. Her job was to drag the sliced wood from the track and go at it with an axe to cut it up where the buzzsaw could not.
Elymiah’s arms regained the strength that they had lost in her ‘execution’. Her wounds closed, and her hair began to fill in where the spikes had poked and where the Protector’s knife had cut. Her legs built back the muscle after two months of working every day. Elymiah found that it was better therapy than speaking to a priest, as she had been accustomed to doing her entire life before this. With jaw clenched and arms tensed, Elymiah hacked away at the thick wood. She pictured the faces of the people that had betrayed her: Trystrem, Joan, Ansfrid. She placed wood on the chopping block and stared at it. Ortengryyn. She sliced the block of wood, and it fell to the side. She placed another piece of wood. The Protector. She hacked at the wooden block with all her strength. She set another piece of wood on the block and raised her axe above her head.
Yngerame.
She clenched her teeth, but she could not strike the wood. She let the axe go from her hands, and it fell behind her with a soft thud. Elymiah fell to her knees and began to cough violently. Black goo splattered onto her hands and on the ground. Elymiah stared at her hands and looked up. Her chest hurt with piercing pain, but it was bearable. The skies began to turn red as the sun took its last look over the earth for the day. Elymiah clenched her fists.
What was the point? Her days were numbered as well. Her breath came in short bursts, but tears would not come, no matter how hard she summoned them. She closed her eyes.
‘Oredmere, forgive me,’ Elymiah whispered as she gathered the chopped wood in her arms. Before walking down the path to th
e row of small huts that was Pate’s neighborhood, she glanced back at the piece of wood that was still laying on the chopping block.
THE DRUNKEN FIREKEEPER had been the most famed tavern in all of the Khahadran, if Cale’s stories could be believed. The first floor was decorated by rows of long tables and chairs. The second floor had a couple rows of doors for women to entertain the tavern’s customers, when The Drunken Firekeeper had customers. Elymiah scanned the lobby. Though lanterns were lit at every table, only ghosts sat beside them. It was as if Cale was expecting a group of people to walk in from the night to inhabit the abandoned tavern. Two harlots sat at a table on the second floor overlooking the center tavern. They were playing cards and smoking. One of them eyed Elymiah with dirty looks.
Elymiah didn’t care. She stared at the frothing dark drink in her hand. She had never even dreamed that she would one day partake in what so many called a sin. When Elymiah had first entered the tavern after working the lumber mill all day, she really just wanted to stay out of the chilling rains that had been pouring over Yorveth for the last week. When Cale saw the look on her face as Elymiah entered, he had suggested a beer.
‘First one is on me,’ he said with a broken but kind smile. Elymiah knew the look he was giving her, but she accepted anyway. Cale Maughlin couldn’t have been older than thirty, but he had the gait of a grizzled man twice his age. He slouched horribly, and his eye twitched uncontrollably at times. His beak-like nose and black eyes seemingly stood out from the rest of his face. He had no hair to speak of, except for a stubble on his chin. His smile revealed rotten yellow teeth, yet that didn’t keep him from smiling. Cale was rubbing one particular spot of alleged grease on the counter. He stole glances at Elymiah, staring when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. Elymiah shook her head. He was a veteran of the Kingsfury War. He had fought on the Uredoran side when he was twelve, but to hear him speak of the battles, you would think that he was some kind of war hero. That was a human war. What stories would he tell if he had seen what I’ve seen? Perhaps they were the same stories Elymiah wore around her neck. That thought made her gasp inside. It clung to her like a noose, choking her day by day. Elymiah put the tankard to her lips. The sour stench of beer wafted to her nose, and she shut her eyes. This will help ease the pain, right? She forced the piss-tasting dark water into her mouth and swallowed hard. The beer burned her throat, and she coughed but forced the rest down her throat. She wouldn’t let Cale see her spit up a drop. Even then, her neck turned red hot. Cale cleared his throat a little and resumed his business of rubbing the countertop with his cloth rag. The beer tasted awful, but Elymiah felt a warmth on her chest and back, and it wasn’t from the cloak she wore.
Elymiah put the drink up to her lips again and swallowed hard. She looked at the bottom of the tankard and realized she had drunk the whole thing. Elymiah tossed the tankard to the ground and put her hands to her head. Tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked, making a few fall onto the table before her. She was relieved that there were tears this time. It felt good to cry. Immediately, fearing for Cale’s attention, she wiped her eyes and sniffed hard, but it was too late.
‘Are you ok?’ Cale jumped from the counter and was suddenly beside Elymiah. He held another tankard in his hand and set it in front of Elymiah.
‘From the beginning, I wanted to be the strongest. I wanted to be an example, to be admired. Is it weird? It was something I saw in distant dreams.’ Elymiah looked up at Cale. ‘In those dreams, I see me as who I always wanted to be, but someone whom I now can never become.’
Cale twisted his eyebrows. It wasn’t what he was expecting. Even so, Cale touched her elbow. ‘You carry a story with you, Elymiah. I can see the weight of it on your shoulders. I myself have felt that weight. I am a friend. You can tell me. What’s wrong?’
Elymiah knew that she couldn’t. She was supposed to die in the Kingsoul River. If the Hallowed Masters knew that she had survived, she would be hunted down and executed again, this time by decapitation or hanging. If Cale knew that she was a heretic, he might call on the Hallowed Masters looking for a reward. He didn’t look as if he could do something so evil, but Elymiah didn’t want to take that chance.
‘Sorry, Cale. I…you wouldn’t believe the hell I’ve been through,’ Elymiah said and then took a swig from her tankard. The beer tasted less bad the more she drank and this time gave warmth to her chest and stomach. Elymiah closed her eyes as she drank. Cale sat in silence for a moment, studying Elymiah. ‘You were in Weserith, weren’t you?’
Elymiah choked, and her eyes shot up at Cale. ‘What do you know of Weserith?’ she whispered, wiping her lips and touching the indentations of the wooden table.
‘Only what traders, travelers, and other customers tell me. Well, before they all abandoned Yorveth. They said daemons and all kind of dark-kin besieged the city. Word has it that the same thing happened to Aivaterra as well,’ said Cale. ‘Though Weserith was lost, the Land of the Sparrows was freed. The Hallowed Masters have begun to rebuild Aivaterra and its walls. It seems there is some justice in this world.’
‘Justice?’
‘If you don’t want to speak of it, Elymiah, I understand. I know war. I stood on the highest tower of the Uredoran Castle during the Kingsfury War. I saw the Weserithians pour over the castle walls like black hot stew into a bowl. They murdered and killed with great abandon. Those fiends,’ Cale said, shaking his head. ‘I defended my people as best as I could. I killed dozens of men in black armour. Alas, it was all in vain.’
Elymiah wanted to laugh. She had seen the undead shoot back into the heavens in pillars of smoke. She had seen her horse change its face and try to rape her. She had seen fairies dance in a creek without a care in the world. But something inside her told her that there was comfort in the story he was telling her. It was a voice other than her own she was hearing. She listened intently, knowing full well that some of it was exaggerated. It didn’t matter though.
‘My sword glistened with the blood of my enemies, yet I knew, in their poor bastard souls, they didn’t want this war. When kings fight, it is the poor who die. Except now, there are no kings left, and what is a knight without his king?’ he said, staring into a corner of the tavern as if seeing the battlefield unfold before him. ‘Have you ever been in a battle, Elymiah? You seem like you might be able to hold your own.’
Elymiah forced a smile off her face and glanced at her arms. They were strewn with muscle, and she had not an ounce of fat on her body. To most people, it would be a natural assumption that she was some kind of soldier, but to tell Cale that might put her in danger. It might put him in danger too.
‘I was an acrobat in Aivaterra during the tourneys. Queen Gwendylyyn took me with her to Weserith to keep her entertained.’ Another lie, Elymiah realized. That one had come too easily. How many of these will I continue to speak?
‘An acrobat?’ Cale’s eyebrows shot up in awe. ‘A celebrity, in my very tavern? I must hand you another drink.’
‘No, Cale, but thank you. You’ve been too kind already.’
‘Nonsense, Ely.’
Elymiah’s nostrils flared, and she stood up, kicking the chair beneath her. Cale lost his balance and fell to the wooden floor beside the cast down tankard.
‘Never call me that again!’ shouted Elymiah, glaring holes into the surprised tavern keeper. Cale looked frightened. The tavern wenches gasped at the display of anger. Immediately, Elymiah regretted shouting at him. Cale didn’t know what had happened. He didn’t know what the Hallowed Masters, The Holy Purple Rhinos, and even Joan had done to her. He had no clue about Robyn. Cale tried to mouth an apology, but the words wouldn’t form in his throat. Elymiah knew she had drunk enough. She wrapped her cloak around her shoulders and walked out of the silent tavern.
PELTING RAINS GREETED Elymiah and drenched her to the bone as she walked through the muddy brick streets. Empty house after house stared at her gloomily as Elymiah passed the open windows and doorways. She huddled into her c
loak and pulled the hood over her head. Elymiah glanced at the skies as she walked through muddy alleyways. The moon was slightly visible through the clouds, giving her a little bit of light as to direct herself through the streets of Yorveth. From the corner of her eye, she caught a shadow moving behind her. Cale? But when she turned to look, the shadow disappeared into the darkness. Elymiah’s heart skipped a beat for a moment, but then she shook her head. If the Hallowed Masters had found her, they wouldn’t be skulking through the alleys.
Why would Cale be following her?
Elymiah had left her axe by the cot at Pate’s barn. She regretted having left it there. I’m becoming rusted. She moved her hand to her side to make sure that she indeed had left it. Normally, she would scold herself, but there was no time. The shadow reappeared in her mind’s eye, and she could hear the splashing of its feet on puddles behind her. Elymiah glanced back, and this time, the shadow did not disappear. Instead, there were three shadows behind her. They looked like swordsmen, but their outlines were blurred by a black fog.
It was a daemon.
Elymiah turned and shot down the street, her boots rapping the brick street as she ran. She stepped into a puddle of water and ran into an alley, careful not to slip. The shadows followed closely at her heels. She could hear their footfalls catching up to her. Elymiah unfastened her wet cloak. The heavy cloth fell onto the street, giving Elymiah a little more momentum. Her breaths were laboured, but without her armour, she was faster and stronger. Even being chased as she was, Elymiah herself was a weapon. She allowed herself to smile. The shadows seemed to be falling behind as she plowed through the street. Her muscles burned in her arms and chest, but it didn’t feel wrong. She was fierce and built to fight. Even the pain in her chest disappeared as she charged through the streets and alleyways.