by Amber Argyle
“You are the only man I have ever revealed myself to. You should feel privileged.” The fairy’s voice was deep and her words clipped.
“You’re the darkness that follows Matka.”
The fairy cocked her head to the side in a movement so bird-like it made Otec shudder. “No. I am simply the one who brings about the end,” she declared.
“The end?”
She shook out her feathers. “An end is required to bring about a new beginning. But endings are always messy, and they require a breaking. If mankind survives, everything will be different.”
If Otec was wary before, he was terrified now. “Why are you helping me?”
She seemed to look into his soul then, examining its flaws, vices, and strengths beneath her clawed fingertips. It took everything he had to look away, and when he did, he felt violated and wronged, like he needed to scrub his body with fire to get rid of the feeling.
“I have saved your life, and the lives of your friends. In return, you will save Matka,” the fairy announced.
“Of course I’ll save her!”
The fairy’s wings stretched out behind her. “Good, then the bargain is struck.” She launched herself from the branch.
“Bargain?” Otec called after her. “What bargain?”
Hovering, she looked back at him as if he was daft. “In the game of fire, every person is a player, and the world the field.”
“Game of fire?” he said in bewilderment.
The fairy smiled, cruel and terrible. “All the pieces are in place now. Over the next twenty years, the game will play out exactly how I want it, if you manage to keep your end of the bargain. If you fail, the curse you placed upon Matka will devour you.”
“I didn’t mean it!” Otec blurted. “I thought she had betrayed me! You must remove the curse.”
The fairy narrowed her eyes at him. “You have brought upon her the attention of the dead, which is not within my power to remove. I will see that Matka accomplishes her move. Then the dead will take her.”
“No,” Otec begged. “Please!”
Feathers emerged from the fairy’s body, growing as feet were replaced with talons. A mouth with a beak. Hair with feathers. She flapped her wings, then caught an updraft from the raging fire and soared out of sight past the line of smoke.
Otec lay beside a smoldering campfire, staring up at stars that were too weak to give off any useful light. Sharing a room with three brothers used to feel suffocating. But now that he was alone, he could barely close his eyes lest the emptiness steal in with the dark and smother him with loss and loneliness.
Sleep had become a specter in the night—a quarry to be endlessly chased but never caught. So Otec stared at the useless stars until he heard distant hoof beats. A sharp whinny broke out from one of his horses. Otec pushed himself up as Ake stepped into the dim firelight and said, “Clanmen are approaching.”
The boy, who’d been on watch, should have brought the warning long before Otec could hear their horses. “Did you fall asleep?”
Ake dropped his head. “I’m sorry, Otec.”
Moving stiffly, Otec pulled back his furs and tugged his boots onto his swollen and blistered feet. He pushed himself to a stand, his muscles sore down to the bone. He looked up at the uncaring stars and realized he must be like them. “Had they been Raiders, we’d all be dead.”
He moved past the boy without another word, squinting at the canyon. It was too dark to see the smoke, but Otec could smell it, dark and heavy. Knowing he would need more light, he tossed logs on the fire as the clanmen drew closer. A minute later they came into camp, dark figures on blowing horses. The men dismounted and stepped into the growing light.
First, Otec saw Seneth, who nodded a greeting and then moved to the fire. Otec’s father, Hargar, stepped forward. Otec looked at the other men, searching for his three brothers.
“Rest the animals and eat something,” Hargar said to his men. “We’ll move out in an hour.” His gaze fell on his son. Motioning for Otec to follow, he stepped away from the others and sat heavily on a rotting tree trunk.
Otec sat beside him and searched the faces of the men still moving into the encampment.
“Your brothers are dead.” Hargar said.
Otec’s head whipped up. “Which ones?”
“Lok and Frey both died on the battlefield. Dagen died of his wounds five days later.” Tears streamed down Hargar’s face and disappeared in his gray beard.
Otec desperately shook his head. “No. They’re too strong and cunning and—”
“They’re dead, boy. I buried them together in a single grave, so their bones wouldn’t be alone.”
Otec stared into the depthless sky, feeling like he was falling. Desperate for something to occupy his hands, he picked up his knife and a bit of wood he’d been working on, carving a little field mouse. But the eyes were wrong—eerie and far too large for the face.
Flinching as if in pain, Hargar removed his battle axe, specially made of solid steel, and leaned it on the tree trunk beside them. “What happened to my clan?”
Otec wiped his eyes so he could see his carving. “I was in the mountains with the highwoman Matka. Do you remember her?” When his father nodded, Otec went on, “We saw the fires and went for help.”
He couldn’t look at his father as he said this, for the shame that ate away at his insides. “It turns out she wasn’t a highwoman at all, but an Idaran. Still, she risked her life to free me.”
Hargar rested a heavy hand on Otec’s back. “Seneth told me what you did at the canyon. I’ve brought nearly seventy boys from all over the clan lands. I’m going to use them as archers. And I want you to lead them.”
Otec looked at Ake and Ivar and Arvid. He’d lead them, yes, but his only goal was to keep them alive. Heading into battle with nearly a hundred boys . . . “Father, I don’t know how.”
“Don’t be so selfish,” Hargar growled.
“Selfish?”
“Yes, selfish!” Hargar gestured to the men who had gathered around the fire. Some were cooking. Others lay on the ground, resting. “Being a leader isn’t about you—it’s about them.”
Otec shook his head in frustration. “But what if I get them killed?”
His father passed a hand over his face, and Otec noticed how haggard he was. His eyes were bloodshot, and a bandage covered most of his left arm. “I say again—it isn’t about you. It’s about what’s best for everyone.”
Otec stared at his hands. “I—I don’t think I’m the best man to lead them. Surely there’s someone with more experience.”
“You’ll be the next clan chief now. You’ll have to learn fast.”
Suddenly dizzy, Otec leaned forward. “I’m not supposed to lead.”
His father batted the little wooden mouse out of Otec’s hands. It skittered across some rocks, one of the delicate ears broken off. Otec’s palm stung where the whittling knife had cut into him. “It’s time to put away childish things,” Hargar said. He went to one of the horses and removed an axe, then returned and held it out to Otec. “Let’s go and get our family.”
Otec stretched out his hand and took the axe, which felt foreign and impossibly heavy. His father marched toward the fire and settled down on the furs Otec had vacated. Otec opened his palm to look at the smear his cut had left on the haft. How fitting that the first blood the weapon had worn was his own. He stood to follow, but not before he retrieved the little mouse and placed it deep in his pocket. He sat beside his father and glanced at the clanmen. They had just made a five-day trip in less than three, and their faces were hard with determination and exhaustion.
Hargar motioned for Otec to eat, so he forced down the lumpy gruel, which tasted like wet ashes. His father slurped his own gruel, then said, “This attack was well planned. The Raiders struck my village and the coast on the same day.”
“Will we hold?” Seneth asked.
Undon, the eldest son of the Tyron clan chief, leaned forward. “They hit Card
enholm first, but the city held fast—which is vital, as that would have given them control over most of the river ways.”
Hargar grunted. “They struck Corholm next. They outnumbered us two to one, and we couldn’t hold it.”
“How many men have you brought?” Otec asked.
Hargar drank a cup of beer, his throat working. He set the cup down with a smack and wiped his face. “High Chief Burdin would only allow two hundred and fifty of us—most of the Shyle as well as a few Tyrons commanded by Undon, and Argons commanded by Seneth. Any more, and Reisenholm would never stand against them.”
Otec spread his hand wide. “Why didn’t they allow more of the Shyle clanmen? Surely they wouldn’t abandon us now.”
Hargar grunted. “The rest are on the other side of the clan lands, in Delia. They couldn’t have gotten here in time.”
Otec rested his pounding head on his palms. “So the Raiders outnumber us two to one.” By the Balance, how was he going to keep all these boys alive to go back home to their mothers?
His father slapped his back, making his head pound even harder. “We know the land, and that gives us the advantage.” He turned to Seneth. “Will the boys be ready to fight?”
Seneth stared at his bowl. “They’ll have to be.”
“Good. Battles makes men out of boys. And men are what we need now.” Hargar glanced at Otec as he said this, then just as quickly looked away. With sudden vigor, Otec’s father pushed to his feet.
Otec stared at the remnants of lumpy gruel in his bowl, wishing he hadn’t forced himself to finish.
“Mount up,” he said. “Let’s move.”
“That wasn’t an hour,” someone grumbled.
“After we’ve moved into place,” his father growled, “you can rest until it’s time to kill Raiders.”
That bought a cheer. Otec stepped up to his borrowed horse, saddled him quickly, and mounted up. Seneth rode next to him. “Dagen—” he started after a minute.
“Don’t,” Otec said. He couldn’t deal with his grief and the impending battle at the same time.
They climbed into the pass, the horses with their superior night vision picking their way along the blackened path. Patches of embers still burned where trees had been, glowing white-yellow when the breeze picked up. The horse’s hoofs kicked up ash, which grew into a cloud that coated Otec’s skin and left him with the taste of burning.
When they reached the place just beyond the canyon summit, Seneth called out to the men around them, “The Raiders think to strike us just before dawn. They believe us trapped, that outnumbering us two to one ensures their victory, but they forget that we know our lands. We could hold their five hundred in those mountains with a mere hundred men. But lucky for us, we have over two hundred.”
The clanmen all hit the flat of their axes against their shields.
Hargar stepped forward and spoke without any trace of the devastation Otec had witnessed earlier. “We will secrete ourselves in the forests at the narrowest part of the pass while the boys ambush them from above. Then we will hold our ground until every last one of them is dead.”
Over two hundred men cheered—angry, bloodthirsty cheers. Otec stayed silent, the weight of his father’s expectations oppressively heavy.
The clanmen chose a narrow place in the mountain pass where the fire had been blocked from the forest by the river on one side and a cliff on the other. Sometime in the night, the weather had changed, shifting from the spice of autumn to the chill of winter as dark clouds billowed across the turbulent sky.
Concealed behind a bare outcropping of rock, Otec felt the outline of the broken little mouse in his pocket as he lay waiting, shivering, with the boys of the Tyron and Argon clans in the hours before dawn. All were silent and still, anticipating the signal from Otec’s father, who hid with the men behind a rise in the road. They would prevent the Raiders from entering Argon, while the boys fired from above.
Otec just hoped he didn’t get any of the boys killed. A clanman learned the art of the bow from the time he could walk, but these boys had never fought in a real battle before, and he’d never been a leader.
He heard a scuffle behind him and turned to reprimand the boys, since the Raiders would come into view any second. The twins had pinned another boy down. It was Ivar, his eyes wide, like those of a spooked cart horse that is determined to run, no matter who or what it plows over. “I can’t do this again,” he cried loudly. “I can’t kill another man, even a Raider!”
One of the twins clapped a hand over Ivar’s mouth. “You fool! You’ll get us all killed.”
Every man had to face his fear. For the twins, the fear had come first. For Ivar, it was coming now. Seeing the panic in the child’s face, something within Otec hardened. “I have killed Raiders,” he said. “They die just as easily as a deer or a lamb, and they are more a beast than both.” The boys all looked at him, and he so desperately wanted to say something to rally them—something like Seneth and his father had said earlier. For some reason, Otec thought of Matka on that cliff, terrified and alone.
“Though you are still boys,” he began, “you are more man than any Raider, for you fight to save your sisters and mothers. And save them we will. When you are old, you will tell your grandchildren of this day.”
Ivar stopped fighting, and the boys holding him slowly eased back. There was a dark stain on his trousers—he’d lost control of his bladder. Ivar saw Otec notice. Knowing such a thing could haunt the boy for the rest of his life, Otec said, “Fear touches all men. It’s what you do with that fear that counts.” He said it loud enough and with enough conviction for all the boys to hear. Hands shaking, Ivar took up his bow and settled back into position.
Moments later, Otec heard the sound of marching. He peered over the trees stripped of their leaves, to the canyon floor, stained black and choked with still-smoking debris. Orange flames glowed here and there whenever the wind picked up.
The Raiders came into the open as they rounded the tip of the mountain row by row. The cadence of their marching feet reminded Otec of the sound of drums in the distance.
When the last of the Raiders were directly in front of Otec and his company of boys, Hargar strode to the top of the blackened rise, his feet kicking up clouds of ash. A chill wind tugged at his cloak. He appeared a lone man facing five hundred Raiders. “I mark you for the dead. By my axe, I swear you shall never see your home shores again. I will throw your broken bones into the rivers, and they will be food for the fishes.”
There was a murmur of derision among the Raiders, and some of the soldiers in front drew their twin blades.
Hargar simply waited, his axe and shield by his sides. One of the Raider commanders gave an order. A note rang out on an instrument that was part flute, part whistle, and the soldiers formed into a phalanx. Another note and they charged the hill. Hargar waited until they were halfway up, and then he gave a great shout.
At the signal, all the boys on the mountain stood. Working tirelessly over the last few days, the Tyron and Argon women had increased their arrows by double, though some of them didn’t fly true. Thirty arrows for each boy. “Make sure each one counts!” Otec called out.
He took three arrows in his hand at once, aiming and firing as quickly as he could. As the arrows struck true, the Raiders milled in confusion. When the flute blew out another melody, two companies split off. The men in the center put away their swords, pulled out recurve bows, and aimed for Otec and his boys.
“Take cover!” Otec cried.
The boys ducked behind rocks or simply lay flat. But they had the high ground, leaving the Raiders a very small angle to hit any of them.
When the first volley flagged, Otec grabbed three arrows and loosed them one right after another, then crouched down, grabbed three more, and shot those. It wasn’t long before all of the boys were doing the same.
Otec spared a glance at the clashing armies. His father, too, had the high ground. And swords weren’t much good at blocking the h
eft of an axe swing.
The flute-like instrument called out again. Another company of Raiders split off, charging up the mountain toward Otec’s group. They splashed through the crystal-clear waters of the Shyle River and penetrated the bare-branched forest.
Otec peered down at them, his cold fingers gripping the gritty outcropping of rock. They would kill his boys—the boys he’d sworn to keep safe. But he could not order them to run, for if he did, the Raiders would surely overwhelm his father and the other clanmen.
Otec’s gaze swept up the mountain, pausing on both sides of the shelf where his boys stood. The Raiders would have to climb a narrow, steep path to reach them. And they would have to go through him to touch any of them.
He pushed his arrows into another of the boy’s hands—one of the twins. Suddenly he knew which one. “Ake, if I fall, you order the boys to climb the mountain and disappear.”
The boy nodded wordlessly. Otec gave his hand a squeeze of solidarity and luck, then picked up his borrowed axe and shield. This time, the weight felt right in his hands. He positioned himself at the best place in the path, where it was so narrow only one man at a time could approach. He thought of all the times he’d defended his flock from a bear or wolves. This was no different.
The first man burst through, his face flushed with cold and blackened with soot. Otec blocked the Raider’s thrust with his shield and chopped with the axe. The man fell, and within seconds his life’s blood ran down the channels carved into the mountains by decades of rainwater.
Another man charged, but Otec blocked him effortlessly. As the Raider twisted his blades and danced his fancy footwork, Otec blocked again and chopped. Blocked and chopped until the Raider fell.
Two men charged Otec next. He blocked one, but the other arced his sword down, slicing into Otec’s arm. He felt no pain. He bashed one of the men with the rim of his shield, shoving him back. The Raider stumbled, then toppled end over end out of sight. Suddenly, another man appeared and swung at Otec, but this Raider also stumbled back, an arrow sticking from his throat, blood gurgling from his mouth. Otec glanced up to see Ivar watching him. They shared a nod.