by Guy Antibes
The two women had to undress Meldey in the cold weather to remove the bandage and replace it.
“I don’t see any infection and the stitches aren’t broken,” Willa said with worry covering her face.
Sara wished that Nona had joined their party. The healer would know what to do. A wound as deep as Meldey’s didn’t have to turn red around the outside to be infected inside. They had no medicine and, with the word out that they had escaped, couldn’t chance a healer.
“We have to keep her alive for three more days,” Sara said as she washed off her tattoo and Meldey’s.
Soon they were on their way with full stomachs and tattoos for the next province. Two more and they’d be in the mountains.
The next village had started their celebration early and all of the adults were very mellow. In Belonnia, Winter’s Rise celebration evidently included a lot more alcohol than in Parth. They weren’t challenged and were even offered some pretty hard cider as they passed. Willa had accepted their mugs, but they didn’t stop until later in the afternoon for another round of the breakfast stew. The pot still exuded a bit of warmth. Meldey couldn’t be wakened, but they changed her bandage again.
Willa wiped the wound clean with the cider. “Healers will clean wounds with alcohol. I’m certain this will fit the bill.” Meldey moaned as Willa worked. Sara felt better that it cleaned up, but they had no means to determine how Meldey really fared.
Sara put her hand on Meldey’s forehead. With her flushed face, she wasn’t surprised that Meldey had developed a fever. How would she ever get Meldey over the pass? She wanted to talk to Willa about her, but didn’t dare discuss Meldey’s condition when she might hear.
The breakfast stew still worked its wonders on Sara and Willa as they ate. Perhaps she’d introduce the dish to Natti after this was all over. They gathered their things together and kept going.
Sara didn’t want to stop, so they traveled into the night. The sky was clear and she shivered underneath the blanket. Every hour or so, she’d rest the horse and let it forage. They stopped by a stream that hadn’t frozen to let the horse drink.
When the moon set, Sara could no longer see the road and found a break in the brush where they could hide. She unhitched the horse and hobbled it before she crawled underneath the wagon.
Morning came. The sun’s feeble light woke Sara. Their stopping place was more hidden from the road than Sara had thought. Sounds came from the east and a column of at least one hundred soldiers rode past. They could hardly be seen, so Sara didn’t feel immediately threatened.
The men talked and joked as they travelled. They certainly were in no hurry, so Sara didn’t think of them as pursuing them. She checked on Willa and Meldey after the soldiers had been gone for a number of minutes. Willa snored, but Meldey didn’t move when Sara touched her. The fever had gone, but so had Meldey.
Tears came to her eyes as she gazed into the pale face. Meldey had passed away during the night. Her body was stiff from the cold and it was all Sara could do to keep from wailing on the spot.
Willa’s eyes blinked open. “What’s wrong?” She looked over at the still figure sharing her cart. Willa closed her eyes tightly with a tear tracking down her face. “She didn’t think she’d return, did she?” She took a stiffened hand in hers and kissed it. “Goodbye, my sweet. You didn’t deserve to die in a hostile land.” Willa sobbed and grabbed her knife.
“What are you going to do?” Sara said.
“Dig a grave. We can’t carry her to Parthy, as much as I want to.” She gulped a breath.
“No need. There’s a shovel underneath the cart. I’ll do it.”
Sara walked back further into the wood and found a protected clearing. Once she had dug through the frozen crust, the soil was soft with centuries of decayed leaves. The sun was at its zenith as she finished and Sara could feel every bruise that still existed on her body.
“Wild animals. I had to dig it deep,” Sara said as Willa came to check.
Willa had wrapped Meldey in two of the blankets and tied it up with strips of underclothes. They struggled with the stiff body and lowered it into the grave.
“May the One God protect Meldey Streams and keep her until the day of her Personal Salvation. She didn’t live a life without sin, but she died for her homeland. Surely there is merit in that. Goodbye, Friend,” Sara said.
“Goodbye, Friend.” Willa repeated the salutation and then Sara covered her grave. She spread leaves around it to make the site look more natural, but Sara took out her knife and cut three slashes in the bark of the nearest tree.
“It will have to do as her marker, Willa.” The two women hugged each other, crying and helped one another to the cart. Sara now fully regretted coming to Belonnia. She could rationally offset her interrogation injuries with the death of Hansfeld, the Emperor, but she couldn’t forgive herself for Meldey’s demise. Her father’s face came into her mind. How could Duke Northcross condemn Meldey to death? Her skills were such that she could enter into the Emperor’s study and kill him. Why waste such a Parthian asset? The whole thing didn’t make sense, especially when Meldey’s original target had been Doctor Miller. Sara tried to piece the puzzle together, but couldn’t do it.
The breakfast stew had congealed as it cooled overnight. Neither had the stomach for it. “We’ll heat it up when we are in the mountains. They still had plenty of fruit and vegetables from Jinsi’s bag, especially now that they were just two. The thought brought an almost unbearable sadness to Sara, but they eventually hitched up the horse and moved back on the road.
Willa now sat up on the driver’s seat with Sara. The blankets and gear lay folded in the back. Neither had much to say as they moved through the Belonnian countryside. The road began to rise and fall as they noticed a smudge of dark blue appear on the horizon—they approached the Eastern Mountains.
Meldey did, indeed, die to save Sara. If Meldey hadn’t been retrieved from the cold river waters, Sara might have been talked into going with Linssa and Lily. She’d be in a Belonnian prison or executed as an accomplice to an assassination. Sara played with one of Meldey’s knives while Willa drove the cart.
Why did Duke Northcross’ trainers end up dying to save her? She put her head in her hands and felt the grief of Choster’s loss along with that of Meldey. She didn’t feel she deserved their sacrifice and the guilt of their deaths reappeared and depressed her. She looked up through tears at the road ahead. What made her such a prized commodity? Why would the Emperor of Belonnia want her so badly enough to abduct her? She still didn’t have any answers and could only continue to sob.
Willa leaned over and grabbed her hand.
“Why me?” Sara said. “Why am I alive when they are captured or dead?”
Willa gave her a grim smile. “For the simple fact that you survive and thrive on hardship. I know you feel down about Meldey and I share in that sorrow and I fear for the rest of our friends, but you are the one heading for Parthy.”
“You’re with me, Willa. Why aren’t we going back to save Lily and Linssa?”
The woman scoffed. “I’m your trusty companion, not your oracle. Do you have any idea how to save them or even where they might be? No. When we had to save you in Stonebridge, it was with your plan. We knew what we had to do. With Lily and Linssa?” Willa shrugged. “If Meldey recovered we might have the means to do something, but without her, we wouldn’t have a chance. Not every adventure has an adventure novel ending.”
“Is that what my life is like, an adventure novel?” She thought back to her imprisonment. No novel had ended as hers had and her shoulder still throbbed in the cold and she still felt all of the bruises that Miller had created. Meldey had died and Lisa and Linssa might be dead as well. Sara balled her fists and put them in her lap, she had to succeed for them—she had to.
Willa nodded. “It still is like an adventure novel and the action’s not over yet. We’ve got those mountains to cross. Focus on our path forward—you’ve said it yourself. We don�
��t have the luxury to dwell on the past, at least not yet. Certainly feel bad for Meldey, Salvation knows I do, but don’t let that grief twist you so hard that it keeps us from reaching our goal. It’s what Meldey would have us do, not mope around wondering what could have been or devising plans that have no way of being realized.”
Even with Willa by her side, she felt so alone. It was as if a legion of ghosts trailed behind her, seen, but not accessible. Was Lily still alive? She shook her head. Lily had made the decision to abandon them. The woman lived to make her own decisions and this one didn’t pay off. That’s just how Lily thought—pragmatic and cynical, yet with an eye for fashion and taste. Sara let a wan smile emerge. Sara thought herself pragmatic, but not particularly cynical. However living in the horrible society of Okalla and even in Parth with its prejudice and pettiness, she knew that a certain degree of cynicism had to have crept into her thoughts and judgments.
She needed a dose of cynicism right now so she could deal with the guilt that consumed her. Sara admitted that she sought action after getting the Women’s College chartered. She certainly wouldn’t be teaching.
The magnitude of her act—participation in the assassination of a head of state—still seemed unreal. What were the ramifications of murdering the Emperor?
Would Parthy and Belonnia be at war? Certainly a Parthy citizen killing the Emperor would qualify, except for the fact that she was a prisoner when she performed the grisly deed as an accomplice—Meldey actually did the work. Politically, Parthy had more justification to invade Belonnia. No one knew exactly what happened in the Emperor’s study other than Sara.
Another woman had killed the Emperor and the matron. Meldey’s involvement might not be known if Lily and Linssa wouldn’t talk, but they would. Sara had been tortured and knew what it was like. But no one knew who did the killing and who did the burning. Her magical secret was still intact. What would the Belonnians make of the Emperor’s charred body?
What a story she’d tell to her father, the Duke, if she could keep from throttling him. Certainly Miller deserved death, but Sara didn’t like being a pawn, a diversion. The Duke had put her into harm’s way as bait to kill Miller. She didn’t know what to feel about her mission.
Now she knew why the Duke wasn’t a family man. If he could so easily send her off into an uncertain future in a foreign land, how could he go home at night to a normal household?
But what was she? Sara didn’t know. She remembered the euphoria that accompanied her campaign through Shattuk Downs. What kind of a mother could she be if she took up a sword to fight her enemies or burn the dying body of a head of state?
She knew that disappointment and hurt ran through Klark. He wanted to settle down and run the carriage factory, or at least that’s what he said. They were to talk at Winter’s Rise. The holiday had passed in the village of Vissing with her cutting the hand of a guard to escape from the government. What kind of person would do such a thing in a normal world? Sara desperately wanted to return to the normal world to find out.
She still thrilled to think of Klark, but was he thrilled to think of her? Perhaps she was, to him, a waste of time so he could spend pursuing a woman who would be more docile. More docile. Sara had never thought of herself as a heroine. She thirsted for knowledge at the Women’s School in Obridge and didn’t think of herself as someone more like Meldey and less like Vesty or Anna, yet she was.
Sara wouldn’t call her mother docile. Not at any time, still, she wasn’t her mother. She had never felt the bitterness that her mother always displayed. Sara just felt sad for all that had happened. The deaths, the destruction of Brightlings, the exposure of her father as a bad man. Even Duke Northcross made her sad that he lacked the compassion that would make him a better man. Sara had no doubt that the duty to his brother changed his life and made him into a heartless wielder of the State as a tool for the King.
Willa touched her shoulder as she stopped the wagon. “Come out of your funk, Sara. It’s getting late and I think there is an encampment at the top of the hill some miles away. I don’t think we can slip through that. I think we need to change our tattoos and prepare for anything. There’s a thicket just up the road. I think we need to chance a fire. The breakfast stew is only edible if it’s eaten hot.”
They had gone quite a distance while Sara had been oblivious to their surroundings. “That sounds good if we can build a fire without much smoke. I think we’ll need to be prepared to fight our way through them.” Sara wondered if the Belonnian army had already been issued the ‘fire weapons’ that the Emperor and Grappel had talked about. She’d have to put her grief and her musings aside and pay attention to their getting through the army camp and into the mountains.
The little clearing had been used before and dead leaves filled a blackened fire ring. Sara looked out and could only see the thick gray twigs of dormant bushes and trees. She roamed around the area, picking up the deadfall. She didn’t want to burn green branches that would smoke.
Sara used her talent to start a small fire. She was past caring what Willa knew or didn’t about her ability. The fire let out little smoke and in half an hour, the pot of breakfast stew was beginning to bubble.
Willa gave Sara some silent time as Sara concentrated on pulling out the three guns and making sure they were loaded properly. Sara appreciated her friend. She didn’t know what would she have done without her. If she had traveled just with Meldey, would the guard have been more inclined to stop them? She’d never know, but she did have the comfort of Willa by her side.
Sara would have liked to fire one of the guns to see if it could knock her over like the old charges, but the firing might be heard all the way to the encampment. The sun hugged the horizon as they bolted down the stew. This would be the last they would eat of it, but their stomachs were full, and they appreciated the warmth from the food and from the fire, as they let the coals dwindle.
“Get as warm as you can because I’m going to cover the fire with dirt,” Sara said. “We’ll fill it up with leaves again, too, before we leave in the morning.”
“I’ll sleep in the wagon, again,” Willa said.
Sara closed her eyes recalling the map she had memorized and pulled out the tattoo book’s maps. “The army camp wasn’t on the map nor is it in this book, but there is a village called Dunst that hugs the foot of the mountains. Our tattoos should still hold up this far west.” Sara consulted the district listing in the book. “Yes, we’ll be okay.” She took a deep breath.
They would have to pass the army encampment. Sara took care of the horse to make sure it would be rested and fed in case they had to flee. She hobbled the animal and moved some dead branches across the opening to the clearing after pulling long grass that grew in tufts in the more open areas of the woods. Meldey came to her mind. Would the soldiers believe their story? Even the idiot guard in Vissing doubted them. It was a cruel thought, but their chances had improved with only the pair of them.
Sara tried to shake the thought away. Poor Meldey. At least Sara had given the woman a chance. But what if she left her with Jinsi in Okalla? Sara refused to play a what-if game. What happened happened. She bit her lip and concentrated on preparing for the next day.
“I suppose we’ll be getting up early tomorrow,” Willa said. She looked as tired as Sara felt. The day had taken a huge emotional toll on both of them. She pulled out three blankets and picked the rocks out from underneath the cart. She lay down and looked up at the undercarriage. Their vehicle wasn’t too sophisticated. Simple arcs of steel were attached to the axles to give the cart some springing. Sara wondered how much pain Meldey had felt during their trip. Certainly she had been thrown around in the cart as they traveled along this rough dirt road. If her bruises hurt from the jolting, then how badly had Meldey suffered?
She’d rather be sleeping under a Brownhill coach, or in one rather than on the cold ground. The feeling of isolation assaulted Sara again. She heard Willa’s snore and it didn’t comfort her. Sara cla
mped her lips together. She would not let her fears overcome her thinking. Tomorrow she had to be sharp. She reviewed the Shattuk Downs campaign in her mind in every detail and fell asleep before Choster died at Obridge.
~
The sky had begun to lighten up when Willa pulled on Sara’s foot. “Time to get up.”
Sara stretched. Both of them had apples and water for breakfast.
“We’ll put on extra clothes. I want to be prepared to take off running if we have to. There are woods on the other side of the camp if the map is correct. If we get separated, head west. On the other side of Dunst there’s a road that turns into a trail. Just follow it all the way to Parthy. It looks to be a day’s walk to the top and all wooded. You can sleep under leaves if you’re caught out in the night.”
Willa squinted at Sara. “You talk as if you won’t be going with me.”
“That’s not the case at all. We have to be prepared for whatever comes. The information we need to get to my father is important.” Sara laid out their weapons. “We need to carry all of these. Nothing should be in the cart that indicates we aren’t traveling to Dunst.”
The first layer of clothing held most of their contraband. Knives, guns, the tattoo book. They could leave the ink and paper with the cart. The blankets and remains of their food would be fine. Sara looked at the wagon and noticed bloodstains on one of the blankets. She inspected them all and found another.
“We’ll have to bury these before we leave here.”
“I’ll do it.” Willa said. “You can tend the horse. You know I don’t know how to handle animals.” She shivered in distaste and took the blankets and the cart’s shovel.
Meldey’s face returned to Sara’s mind. They were truly abandoning her in Belonnia. The thought hit Sara hard and brought more tears. What a horrible experience. The anger she had felt towards the Duke blossomed again. Sara took hold of that and let it grow. It warmed her up and made her focus on the day. She would show him how a Passcold could endure.