Winterfinding

by Daniel Casey

  Jena shrugged, closed her eyes and let out a sigh, “Sure, why not.”

  “It’s a bit late to be bringing this up now.” Heston snapped.

  “You brought me in on this two days ago.” Jena stared at him like he was an idiot. “You should have figure this out ages ago. But fine, whatever, let’s just get it done.”

  “Just do your damn job.” Heston growled. “You better be as good as the shit you’ve been giving me.”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Yeah, you don’t worry about me. I was here before you showed up and I’m gonna be here when you’re gone.”

  Jena muttered to herself, “Floundering in some backwater dumped in with a bunch of ham-fisted boors. I hope he appreciates this…”

  The wagons arrived moving at a steady pace. Arrows sprang from the tree line peppering the tiny convoy. The bowmen were startled and though they leapt to action, had no target. One of the side guards banged his fist on the driver’s canopy and the horses picked up speed. None of the arrows hit their marks, but the surprise of bowman did help incapacitate a couple.

  A bowman on the lead wagon in his hurry to set himself had stumbled backward into the path of an arrow. It lodged above his collarbone dropping him to his knees, and he frantically sought a rail to hold on to keeping from falling off. On the trailing wagon, a bowman took an arrow in the meat of his calf and when the wagon lurched forward to keep pace with the other couldn’t keep his balanced. He fell hard to the road and was slow to rise.

  Jena could hear the wagons coming upon them with haste. The horses of the lead wagon seemed to glide over the mud trap, but when the wheels of the cab found it, they immediately sank deep and locked. The jarring stop sent the bowman and one of the side guards flying off. Almost immediately, the second wagon came upon the wreck.

  The horses reared breaking around the stuck wagon sending the side of its cab crashing into the back of the first. The bowman of the second seemed to anticipate the collision and leapt up, seeming to fly from cab roof to cab roof. A side guard avoided being smashed between the two wagons but still had his right side limbs pinned.

  The guards thrown from the coach had only a moment to get out of the way of the oncoming horses. The injured bowman with the help of his able partner managed to scramble away in time. However, the side guard wasn’t so lucky being trampled by two loosed horses. The able bowman turned to look after his fallen comrade, but as he stood, his tunic was yanked back. Spinning around he came face to face with Loudon who grabbed him by the neck and flung him to the side like a ragdoll. The injured bowman attempted to strike out with his qama but Loudon just swatted it away with his mace.

  He took another step intending to finish the job just as an arrow lodged in his shoulder. The bowman who had leapt from the second wagon now crouched on the first. He had already set himself for another shot, when Loudon locked eyes with him. As he loosed his second arrow, Heston cuffed him in the back of the head knocking him out for a moment. Loudon hadn’t moved quickly enough, and took the second arrow in his chest. The brute didn’t betray any outward signs of pain, but he staggered taking only a few steps before slowly dropping to one knee.

  “Get yourself sorted.” Heston bellowed at him then jumped over the top of the cab to stand before the pinned side guard. Heston smirked drawing his qama. The side guard furiously squirmed trying to get enough purchase on the cabs pinning him to, at least, free one of his right side limbs.

  “I don’t see that happening.” Heston shook his head as he bore down on the guard. Thrusting his qama forward, he would have stabbed the guard in the throat if Jena’s throwing knife hadn’t split through Heston’s wrist. “Fuckssake!” Heston howled dropping his blade and pulling his wounded hand towards him. He spun to see Jena standing with her degen drawn flanked on either side by the two remaining side guards.

  “What?” Heston muttered. He looked around and yelled for Loudon.

  “Here he is now.” Jena said casually as the two bowman dragged the enormous man’s body by his feet around the cabs to where they were. “Seems he wasn’t quite the muscle you had hoped he’d be.”

  “You double-crossing me? Stealing from me!” Heston was furious. He took a step towards her but the guards froze him as they came forward swords out.

  “No, I am not.” Jena replied dismissively.

  The bowman Heston had cuffed dropped Loudon’s foot then pulled off his mesh hood as he came to face the others, “She’s helping me arrest you.” Addison spoke with a smug satisfaction. As he did, Gregson was being shoved down the road towards them, his face the shade of raw meat. “And here’s your last accomplice.”

  “You sold me out!” Heston growled nearly choking on his own fury.

  Jena nodded, “From the first.”

  “Be glad she didn’t end you when she could’ve.” Addison said.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you.” Heston said just before one of the guards punched him in the gut dropping him to the ground in a bent heap as the other bound and gagged him.

  Jena rolled her eyes, “Right, that’s how you’d have avoided this.” Jena turned to Addison, “Your men?”

  “A little worse for wear.” Addison nodded rubbing the back of his head where Heston had struck him after he had loosed his second arrow at Loudon. He pointed back toward the guards holding Gregson. “Harold dislocated his shoulder when he fell, and then, there’s the arrow that sliced him but that can be stitched up. The same is true for Corin. Garret got the wind knocked out of him but nothing more. The horses did a number on Adam, but just bruises really. Wendal here did a great job of nearly getting himself crushed.”

  “Give us a hand, eh?” Wendal asked.

  “Garret, get him out of there once you’re done with that one.” Addison directed the guard that had helped him drag Loudon around to them and was now binding him.

  “You could’ve just tipped off the actual guards, you know.” Jena said sheathing her blade. “Let them take the knocks, you clean up.”

  Addison shook his head, “Better to have my crew. I know I can trust them. Plus, it gives them a better sense of doing for the town.”

  “Noble.” Jena nodded but wasn’t impressed with the answer. “Still, if they had died, I doubt a sense of duty would comfort their families.”

  Addison said nothing. He looked around at the wreckage of the wagons. “I’m going to have to pay for this.”

  “Add my fee and the bounty on those three, and, yeah, you’re gonna be stretched thin.” Jena needled him.

  “There’s no bounty on those three.”

  “There’s always a bounty.” Jena laughed and turned away wandering back over to the furrow she’d shared with Heston. She squatted, picked up the hessian sack, and looked into it. Nodding she held it up for Addison to inspect.

  He came over and took the sack, “What’s this then?”

  “The plan was to cook the cabs, smoke out the guards with tarfire. If that didn’t work, the fool was going to use darklime.”

  “Darklime?”

  “It’s a bithumin compound. Used during sieges mostly. If these idiots had tossed it on tarfire…” Jena shook her head.

  “I’ve not had the chance to be involved in many sieges.”

  “It would made a poison cloud. Would burn the skin and lungs of us all.” Addison drew the sack closed and looked worried.

  Jena shook her head reassuring him they were fine. “More importantly, this is the kind of stuff you can only really get from quartermasters. Shitty thieves don’t just have this lying about.”

  “So now I have to poke around the garrison.” Addison sighed. “Well, I’ve got enough on my plate right now. Best to just finish this up. Maybe, now I can run that errand for Moria and get her off my back.”

  “Do you think that’ll improve her mood?” Jena ask tentatively.

  Addison shook his head, “Absolutely not. But putting it off any longer will definitely make it worse.”

  Jena smiled,
“I’d rather not see that.”

  “Come on,” Addison led them both over into the treeline where their horses had been tethered, “I buy your supper, and I think we both earned more than a few drinks.”

  “A drunk constable is no one’s friend.” She teased.

  Addison mounted, “I didn’t suggest anything of the sort.”

  “What about this mess?” Jena looked around. The three bandits were lined up next to each other bound and gagged. One of the guards was patching Loudon and Heston’s wounds, while the others were attempting to right the wagons.

  “My men will take care of it. I’m more the brains of the operation really.” Addison winked.

  “Well,” Jena swung herself up on her horse, “it was certainly evident that you weren’t the muscle.” Addison called to one of his men and gave a wave. The soldier nodded as he and Jena trotted off down the road toward Arderra.

  The night that Jena had encountered Heston, she had gone on to get blackout drunk with Adamix. Apparently, two things happened during that lost time. First, she had made her way to Addison’s station and pounded on his door. Having woken the constable up out of a deep sleep, the aggressively drunk Jena was just barely able to avoid being detained. Yet she had been lucid enough to let Addison know Heston was plotting something and wanted her in on it. The two hatched a plan to take down the petty thief that night, although Jena had to be reminded the next morning.

  Reminding her was a bit more difficult that it should have been. The second happening of the evening Jena had no memory of was bedding down with the maid Jej. When Jena woke, she had found herself in a different bed with Jej curled up along her side. With her mouth dry and sour tasting, her joints aching, and a pulsing pain behind her eyes, Jena just wanted escape.

  She had lain perfectly still afraid of waking Jej. Her eyes darted around the space realizing that she wasn’t in her rented room but what must have been Jej’s. It was small, narrow. Lifting her head, Jena realized she wasn’t naked. In fact, she still had her boots on. So there was relief that she hadn’t done anything too stupid with the dishwater girl.

  She had slid off the low straw bed, moved to the floor, and then stood. A rush of blood to her head blinded her. She had steadied herself against the cold stone wall, pressing her face against it to feel a cool relief. For a moment, she forgot where she was. Then a clanking of pots down a hall that must have led to the inn’s kitchen snapped her back to reality. Jena looked around to make sure she wasn’t leaving anything. She found her belt and blade sheathes, grabbed them, and made her way out.

  Wandering through the back halls of the inn turned out to be more confusing than she suspected. She was turned around more than a couple of times and only just missed running into an already sour-faced Moria. It was barely just after dawn. She felt wretched. A powerful thirst was washing over her. When she got to her room, Addison was already there leaning against her door.

  Addison didn’t say anything as Jena fumbled with her key. When she opened the door, he casually followed behind her. He then leaned against the other side of the door as he waited for her to clean herself up. Jena splashed water on her face and took several long drinks from her bota. She striped off her leathers with her back to Addison changing into some fresh clothes and asked him what he was doing there.

  To his credit, he never once gave her any grief. He simply began to recount what had happened the night before. Slowly it had come back to her. Later that night when she had meet with Heston to learn the details of his plan she also met his accomplices. When she returned, Addison had been waiting in the exact same pose against her door that he had had that morning.

  The two hashed out the details of their takedown of Heston. Addison made it clear that he had to catch him not just at the scene but actively looking to harm the guards. Then he could arrest him. Jena suggested just eliminating the thieves altogether but Addison had quashed that idea asserting that he was no murderer.

  Jena began to see him as a version of Goshen, more mature, more experienced in the world but essentially just as naïve. It annoyed her but in a queer way endeared him to her. She was also quite impressed with Addison’s insistence that he be part of the convoy’s guard. He needed to be involved, Jena could see he was gnashing at the bit to get Heston. Whatever history the two had, it seemed as though this was the summation.

  Now on the way back to Arderra, Jena felt a panic creeping back into her mind. With the distraction of Heston over, there was nothing to prevent Addison from heading out to Reg’s place. He’d find the graves, the burnt out cabin, the absence of Colm, and nothing but further questions. Jena wouldn’t have more clout with Addison than she did now. It made sense to broach the topic.

  “How’s that knock that he gave you?” she asked.

  “It will leave a bump but I don’t think I’m concussed.” He rubbed the back of his head. “I’m more embarrassed than anything else for letting him get the jump on me.”

  “It was more important that you downed that knuckle-dragger.” Jena said.

  “Two arrows tipped with your venom, thank you,” Jena nodded and Addison continued, “and then Garret with a running start had to bash him twice. Once in the back of the head and then across the face, before he dropped.”

  Jena shook her head, “I thought for sure that mix covering your arrowheads would do the job. I’ve used that venom to sedate lestodons.”

  “Why were you hunting giant sloths?”

  Jena shrugged, “I took a few contracts around the Elixem orchards years ago. Sloths would get into them and we’d have to get rid of them.”

  “Why not just kill them?”

  “Elixem doesn’t allow that. Besides, they were just nuances. Not really dangerous. If there’s no point in killing, why kill?”

  “Yet you wanted to with those men from the first.”

  “Those men were dangerous. That changes things.”

  “Our law doesn’t just let you do that.”

  “So I didn’t. Remember, I did ask why I couldn’t.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t make me feel at ease.”

  “Why would it?”

  Addison laughed, “Well, I do owe you for your aid. You’ve earned not just coin for this but a favor from me, should you ever need it.”

  Jena looked down the road. They were coming upon Arderra’s low stone wall demarcating its boundary. “Yeah, well, I may need to cash that in sooner than I’d like.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’re going up to take a look at Moria’s brother-in-law’s place, right?”

  Addison nodded as Jena let out a long sigh looking down at her reins. “You’re gonna find a mess.”

  “What kind of mess?” Addison’s eyes narrowed.

  “The kind that widows.”

  “Are you confessing to me? Because if you…” His voice was stern tinged with disappointment.

  “Nothing by my hand.” She assured him. “But I buried men up there. I buried Reg.”

  “You knew him?”

  “I know his son.”

  “Is he?”

  “Quite alive as far as I know.” Addison was scowling at her. “Look, head out there. You’ll find a cairn, that’s where I laid him to rest. There’s a stone near the head, beneath it I placed a silver necklace that I found in the ruins of the cabin.”

  “Ruins.” Addison muttered. Jena nodded. They had entered town proper. She pulled her stead off to the side and dismounted handing him the reins.

  “Look, go out there. See for yourself. When you get back, come get me and we’ll both talk to Moria. She’ll need to hear what happened as best as I can piece it together.”

  “I’ll need to hear that too.” He asserted. “How do I know you won’t be gone when I get back?”

  She looked at him expressionless, “You don’t. But I’ve got nothing to run from here.”

  Addison nodded spurring his horse on pulling the other in tow. “Then I guess I’ll head out there now.”

  Jena
nodded, “You’ll find me at the Archway.”

  “I better.”

  “You will.”

  Addison didn’t look back as he trotted off to his station. Jena lingered for a moment watching him. She wasn’t sure that had been a good idea, but she was in it now. What truly made her stomach lurch was what she was going to have to do once she made it back to the Archway. Maybe with Jej in her favor it would go smoother. Then again, Moria didn’t seem the kind of woman who softened. Yet she had won Addison over, for now, and that would go a long way to making this whole mess wrap up easier.

  She stopped and stood before a shop, the place Adamix had recommended. The windows were glass but they looked black. Not blackened, but black. Seemed pointless to her. The door was closed and latched, which she expected. After rapping with the meat of her first for ten minutes, she heard shuffling inside and the aching creak of the iron latch and lock. The door opened a crack and boy’s dirty face peered up at her. He didn’t say anything, but stared expectantly at her.

  “I need to see the scrivener.” She said. The boy didn’t make any movement that acknowledged her. He just continued to stare. “Adamix told me about this place. I need some work done.”

  Still eerily catatonic, the boy said in a whisper, “What?”

  “I’ve a vellum I need reproduced, not revised just copied and validated.”

  “Makes you think he does that?” The boy’s tone was even.

  “Like I said,” Jena was getting impatient, “Adamix told me this is where I could come to get it done.”

  “He’s an ass, that Adrenine.” The boy replied.

  “Well, yes, but I can think of someone being a bit more of an ass right now.” A toothy grin opened on the boy’s face.

  The door opened wider and the boy waved her into the darkness of the shop, “Of course you are.” The boy was walking away from her. “Close the door behind you, latch it too.” He commanded.

  “Your master about? The scrivener.” Jena looked around the shop. It was dingy. There were several desks, the kind she remembered from the brief stint she spent in school before her father had to pull her away. Each one was covered in a thick layer of grey dust that itself was collected strange tufts. She looked at the window glass, which now on the inside that let in a bluish light and seemed to queerly glow.