by Matthew Cook
"You four men, fall out for burial detail,” Hollern commands, pointing to his chosen. “The rest, help me with this wagon. Ah, Kirin, I see you've come to your senses and have decided to join us."
"This is folly,” I blurt. “You cannot secure this location. If the Mor return..."
"Then we have your bow. And the advantage of elevation.” He and the men wrestle the wagon to the opening in the wall, where they are to overturn it. They begin rocking it. Finally it turns on its side, half-blocking the gate.
Hollern has gone mad. It is the only explanation. Assigning four men with three shovels between them the task of burying almost three-score bodies; trying to improvise a gate—which will not open if we should want to retreat—out of an overturned wagon and some hastily-piled crates.
I am readying my gear, intending to put as much distance as possible between myself and this place of death before darkness falls, when one of the men catches my eye. He stares at me like a starving man might eye a slice of roast, a desperate, almost feral gleam in his eye. He knows, as do I, that if I go, he will die here. I long to tell him that even if I remain, the outcome will almost certainly be the same. There is nothing I can do for them.
Yet, hours later, I am still at the fort, stationed at the northwest watchtower. The men toil outside the wall, below me, digging shallow graves. They have completed half a dozen, and now afternoon is lengthening into dusk.
Hollern has constructed a great mound of debris in front of the gate, and now turns to commanding the men to police the bodies of the fallen. Once he is satisfied that his orders are being followed, he retires inside of the fort's keep. It, too, is damaged, its door hanging askew on a single bent hinge.
When it grows too dark for the men outside to work, we spend a tense half hour shifting the debris blocking the gate in order to allow them to come inside. I help with the work, trying, and failing, to imagine this heap of rubbish slowing, let alone stopping, a charging Mor.
The men build a proper fire from the remains of the pyre, sharing around whatever horse meat is still edible. Half man the walls while the remainder eat, or try to rest.
I take my meal, the cold remains of dried meat and biscuit from the bottom of my pack, up to the guard tower. I am careful to keep the fire at my back, lest it ruin my night vision.
The forest is a line of impenetrable blackness beneath the milky river of stars above. Anything could be hidden there. Anything. I know that I will never be able to rest in such a state.
As soon as my replacement takes his post, I slip over the wall. I dash across the open space between the walls and the forest, my eyes roaming, searching for any movement, any reflection of the moonlight. I wish my sweetlings could come with me; I would feel better for some company, but they are needed back at the fort. Besides, I will move faster, and far more silently, if I travel alone.
I patrol the woods for hours, ranging far afield before heading back, always alert for signs of the Mor. In the still hours of the darkest part of the night, I find an oak and climb into its branches, fashioning a tenuous perch for myself in a convenient bough. It is not the most comfortable bed, but its concealment gives me comfort.
Dawn is a breathless promise hanging in the still air when I hear them. Heavy footsteps, breaking through the undergrowth. They are not trying to be quiet. They do not care for subtlety.
I still have time. Time to run to the fort. Time to tell the men to run. Time to warn them.
And they might—just might—listen to me. If Hollern sleeps deeply, I may have time to convince enough of the men of the coming danger before it is too late for them to flee.
But in my tree, I am safe. They will not think to look for me here. They cannot track me.
In the black, a crack sounds as something heavier than a Woodstrider steps on brittle wood. The sound, sharp and explosive, makes me jump.
Then I am scrambling down, the bark scratching at my hands, my clothes. My cloak snags on a broken branch and almost throttles me before I can free it.
I sprint across the open ground, arms upraised, calling out, “Scout returning! Scout returning! To arms! To arms! The enemy approaches!” desperately hoping one of the half-awake guards will not loose an arrow at me.
I claw at the mound of debris, slipping between the wagon and the crates, while all around the men rouse themselves with sleepy groans and cries.
They surround me, their grimed, stubbled faces pale in the fading moonlight, mouths open with questions. How many? How far off? Are they coming? Are they coming? Are they coming?
"There is still time to flee,” I hiss, hoping that they will hear me. “We must go. Now. Before they arrive. We must—"
"Silence!” Hollern is here. Is coming through the broken keep door, uniform rumpled and hair wild, naked steel in his fist. “We must flee. They are in the woods. They are coming this way,” I say, facing the commander but speaking to the men. Hollern, I know, will not be swayed. But the men might.
"To arms, all men to the battlements. We'll drive them back, in Loran's name,” he says, a wild gleam in his bloodshot eyes.
"No! The gate will not hold!"
I see doubt bloom in some of the men's eyes, a poison flower that is their only true salvation. The seed takes hold in the fertile soil of the men's fear. Inside, my sister crows in triumph, and for once I am glad of it.
"You men!” Hollern shouts. He has seen it too. “You men; be true. This is Fort Azure. We can defend this place. We have walls, and gates."
"The men stationed here had those as well,” I say, not bothering to mention that Hollern's gate is mere rubbish. The men know. “They had five times our number, as well as a stout, intact gate, and even with all that, they were no match for the Mor."
I see the men look to one another. Some nod. As one, they move to the improvised barricade, begin tearing it down.
"When you get outside, run for the trees,” I say, helping them pull aside boxes and furniture. “Scatter. Do not stop to fight; you cannot hope to win. The Mor are powerful, but are not quick. They are no match for your fleetness.
"And do not stop, no matter what. Try to find water; they do not like it. Head for the road, and then keep going."
"This is mutiny! I'll see you all hanged, starting with you, you treacherous bitch!” Hollern rages.
"Cut out ‘is tongue. That'll shut ‘is yap right quick,” one of the men suggests. That stops his words. Hollern moves aside, glaring daggers at me, cowed for the moment.
"Movement in the trees!” a sentry shouts. The words turn my blood to ice. “Movement!” a second calls out.
As one, we look up from our labor, the pile only chest high now, and see them.
The Mor flow from the concealing forest. Three. Six. Adozen, and still more. Their hulking shoulders gleam like burnished stone in the growing dawnlight. Their inhuman faces, like armored masks, stare at us, eyes glowing with laval heat, full of hate.
They emerge from the trees, a ragged yet impassable line of armored death. Behind us are the foothills of the mountains, rising up and up, the ground turning to stone. Far above, snow glitters with the promise of eternal, peaceful cold.
It is too late. They have come.
Chapter Four
We moved into Kirin's dream cottages soon after the wedding. The gardens we cultivated near our shared wall were my sister's treasure. She loved flowers, Kirin did, and spent every morning planting daisies and snapdragons and morning's glory. Bunches of sun-yellow marigolds vied with climbing rose, their alternately pungent and sweet scents vying for attention.
Ever the practical one, I focused on more mundane, useful crops. Tansy and thyme and mint. Chamomile for teas and hyssop to help with the winter's coughs. All this and more I grew, the plants in ordered, neat rows, surrounded by the desperate riot of Kirin's flowers. I did not know it then, but I would lay those same blooms, with mud-caked hands, on her defiled grave a scant year later.
Pregnancy came fast for Kirin, and I watched with envy
as her reed-like body swelled with its preparations for motherhood. Knowing what I know now, about the body's changes in response to the growth of a child and the resulting blood and pain that is the gateway into life, I marvel I still retain such sentimentality about the process. Certainly, the girl I was felt an undeniable stab of jealousy every time I saw her, hands cradling the swell of her belly, her face serene and knowing, thoughts turned inwards.
Urik and I tried and tried to match her but no child quickened in my belly. At first, Urik said nothing, but as the months passed and Kirin's time drew closer, he began to first question, than accuse me, demanding to know if I or my father had known I was barren. I defended Father, of course, once going so far as to suggest that perhaps the fault was Urik's, not mine. The look he gave me was so full of fear and black hate that my blood ran cold. He told me I was to never repeat such hateful lies.
As Kirin's pregnancy advanced, Marcus's journeys away from home grew longer and longer. He became distant and cold. Rumors began to spread that he had a mistress in a nearby town, and I often saw my sister's eyes ringed with the unmistakable red of weeping when we met near the garden wall.
The day Kirin's baby finally arrived, red-faced and screaming on a raw, gray winter's day, was one of the most terrifying and thrilling experiences of my young life. The child was breech, and only the quick thinking of the midwife spared the life of mother and child both, but the delivery necessitated that she be cut most deeply. Never before had I seen such blood, blood enough to drown in, it seemed. That Kirin survived at all was a miracle, and the hard labor forced her to her bed for weeks afterwards. She named the babe Vanessa, after our storied grandmother.
Marcus, of course, was absent for the event, out on one of his “hunting trips.” When he finally returned, three days later, he could barely walk, swaying drunkenly across the muddied yard. His bellows waked the babe, and she screamed in her father's face in terror, causing Marcus to shout even louder. He rode out that very night, headed for the tavern and “some peace and quiet,” and did not return until the next morning.
After the birth, Marcus did seem to try to mend his ways. His trips grew shorter, and he spent the better part of the winter at home. Things were always difficult when he was around, however; men such as Marcus do not have much love for inactivity, and the six long months of winter crept by with painful slowness.
Finally, spring arrived and with it the return of Marcus's waywardness. Even as his absences grew longer and longer, Kirin would hear nothing ill of him. It was as if her love for him had stolen away not only her ambition but also her very reason. My entreaties for her to run away, for her own good as well as that of her newborn child, were met with stubborn silence.
One day in the late spring, close to Vanessa's mid-cycle birthday, he returned, reeling with drink and smelling like a whorehouse, bellowing for her to come and fix his supper. She refused and confronted him, her shouts of accusation drifting over the wall. Soon, they fell abruptly, ominously silent. When I saw her next, her face bore the hand-shaped bruise of his displeasure. She wore the mark for days.
I pleaded with Urik to talk to his friend, but he would not; either out of friendship or fear I know not. Worst, the poison that had infected Marcus was contagious, and began to taint his simple spirit. The next months were a torture, filled with the white heat of arguments and the helpless, creeping doom of waiting for my husband and his loutish friend to return from the tavern or from one of their increasingly frequent trips.
My first life ended on the day my husband hit me. Urik, for his part, apologized profusely and tearfully, swearing over and over it was a momentary lapse, brought on in the heat of anger. That it would never happen again. But the deed was done. The long summer drew out like a blade, endless days of stifling heat and dreary days of waiting for my husband to return.
When he did finally arrive, more often than not, we fought. About the chores he promised to attend to but never seemed to finish. About the way his endless drinking was bloating his already soft body. About the accounts that needed paying. Soon enough, despite his promises, I was to feel the pain of my husband's hand again.
Divorce is not unheard of among my people, for the gods want all men and women to be happy and fruitful. Yet, a lifetime of instruction in what is and is not seemly and proper for a woman of my breeding had left me unwilling to endure the humiliation. The whispers and openly curious stares that followed me whenever I went into town began to disgust, then enrage me. I spent more and more time alone.
With Kirin lost in her world of denial, and Mother's refusal to become involved in anything distasteful and embarrassing, my only confidante was Edena, the old wise woman that lived up in the hills. Kirin and I sometimes traded the herbs I cultivated and gathered to her in exchange for the potions that soothed our monthly troubles and the healing poultices which Kirin's infant always seemed to need. There were many stories about Edena, tales that spoke of her dancing, nude, in the moonlight on summer's eve, or of strange men who were seen to live for a week, or a month, on her property, disappearing afterwards without a trace.
Yet she was always kind to me, her aged face open and inviting, ice blue eyes sparkling with merriment above rose-tinged cheeks. She seemed to me much more of a grandmotherly figure than my own storied ancestor, always bustling about her workshop, crushing herbs or boiling potions, her gray hair wreathed in fragrant steam.
More than once, however, I spied a dusty book or scroll winking out at me from beneath a shawl or folded blanket. I reminded myself that young ladies do not help themselves to others’ things, even such a small and harmless thing as stealing a simple glance, all the while burning with curiosity.
I still do not know if it was her plan to entrap me with her knowledge. A lonely young woman, desperate for affection and starved for the chance to learn; she must have known what sort of student I would prove to be, always eager to read anything that passed through my hands. The whole town knew, why not she?
Eventually, I let curiosity overwhelm my manners. After reading the first page, I knew I wanted to know more. I went to her, the book open in my hands.
"My wisdom isn't for the idle or curious,” she snarled, her usually smiling lips twisting with an expression of cruelty, waving away my promises and assurances that I would do anything she asked if she would only teach me more. “Nor is it for those lacking in courage, for I know of such things that would rattle the very fibers of a timid woman's heart and mind. Go back to your garden, little bird. Go back to the life that your sister has chosen for you."
I bent my head, letting my hair fall over my bruised eye, the painful legacy of last night's fight. It was true; I did lack the courage to stand up to my sister and to what my husband had become. But sitting there, head bent beneath Edena's stony glare, so different from her usual welcoming smile, I decided that I wanted to have that courage. To learn the things she kept hidden away like dragon's gold.
When I raised my head she must have seen it, for she met my challenging stare, holding my eyes with hers for what felt like a fortnight before dropping her gaze and nodding.
I still remember that first book as if I had just looked upon it yesterday—such a marvel. An atlas of the human body, illustrated in surreal detail, the body's layers drawn on translucent vellum, which peeled away to expose the hidden secrets beneath. The colors were so vivid, more lurid and enticing than any mummer's show. It was an ancient thing, made through artistry the likes of which I'd never seen before, more precious than gold. Once that door was opened, I had no choice but to pass through.
Every day that Urik was away, I would hurry to finish my daily chores, then trudge the well-worn path to Edena's cottage. Then my studies would begin: long hours bent over my small desk, memorizing chants and herbal mixtures and the names of a thousand bodily parts from all manner of beasts and birds. When she deemed I was ready, we proceeded to a study of a different animal.
Eagerly, I studied the intricacies of the human body and h
ow it reacts to death, transforming from a hunk of dead meat to the birthplace of miraculous new life. How nature wastes not the smallest particle after we leave our mortal shells behind.
As I began to master the physical mysteries, she spoke more and more of the nature of our souls. It was she who first showed me how the human spirit often lingers near the place where it is ripped from its earthly shell.
What she taught me filled me with a dark glee, which I hid away, like a precious stone I feared would be stolen. Even then I understood that our forbidden knowledge was power.
Once, we traveled in the dark of the night to the place were three highwaymen had been hanged and left as a warning beside the road. I'll never forget the sickly-sweet smell that wafted forth as we cut them down, repulsive, yet oddly compelling. The way that her oils and unguents opened my secret eye, granting me a glimpse of the robbers'shades, still lingering near their decaying bodies.
At my mistress's whispered command, those souls drifted back into their former bodies. They awoke from their endless slumber, her devoted, if not very nimble or swift-witted, servants. My education dispelled my fear of them.
My excursions did not go unnoticed. Kirin began to question me about my doings when I was away from home. She smirked when I assured her I was simply helping the old woman with her chores and keeping her company through the long nights. I am sure she assumed I had taken a lover, and I did nothing to disabuse her of that notion.
One night, Marcus and Urik returned from a days-long hunting trip, reeking of beer and women. I watched from a far-away place outside of myself as my husband, once so tender and shy, used me. The stench of another woman lay thick on his skin. He giggled as he put his filthy hands on me, grinning as if he thought the smell might arouse me. I knew the time to depart had come. I slipped away when his snores filled the cottage; the herbal mixture I had put in his wine would assure his slumber for at least a day.