After the Fire (After the Fire: Book the First)

by J. L. Murray

  “The way of things has not been well for a long time,” said Cosmin. He shook his shaggy head. “There is no good left in this cruel world. Kill us if you can, but we will continue to defend ourselves. Continue to bring us game and your mother will be well-fed. We can gather wild vegetation during the day, but we dare not go deep into the wood. We are not strong enough, not like you. We cannot survive without you, not after losing the crops and the sheep. But your mother will not survive if you leave us. And she will die if you murder any one of us.”

  Eleni glowered at the broken man. She leaned forward and held out her hand. A flame sprang to life. Cosmin looked at it, his face illuminated in the light, the darkened circles under his eyes, the lines deep in his face. He was not much older than Eleni, yet he looked like an old man. There was even white in his beard. “You will burn,” said Eleni. “And you won't know it has happened until you smell the flesh melting off your bones. If you treat me like an animal, I will hunt you like prey.”

  “I will not let that happen,” said Cosmin. He rose slowly and took the few steps to the open door. He stopped and turned to look at her. “I am sorry,” he said.

  “If you did not know that I had the power to harm you, you would not be sorry,” said Eleni.

  Cosmin nodded slowly. “No,” he said. “The gods will punish me as they see fit.” He left, ducking through the doorway. Eleni watched for a long time, putting out the flame in her palm. No one came to close the door. She was no longer a physical prisoner. Now she just had to bide her time until the moment was right.

  She put the clothes on, a simple rough-woven dress, worn through and patched in several spots. She left the wool boots on her cot. Eleni turned to leave, then crouched down and pulled the jacket Fin had given her out of the corner. She smelled it. It smelled of smoke, like her hair. She breathed in deeply. Under her own scent she smelled something clean and cold. Like the wind. She put it on over her dress and walked out the door.

  It was turning dark. She closed her eyes and felt the night rolling in like a wave. Eleni looked up at the iron wall. It had taken the men of Krasna years to finish it. All they had was iron and sheep after the fire. Now they just had the iron. Eleni knew it wrapped all the way around the village. It was little defense if something really wanted to get in. It was two or three men high, but it could be scaled. She supposed it gave people comfort to have the wall there.

  “Move along, Eleni,” called a voice. She smiled at Sabin who had an arrow notched. He aimed at her shakily. “I like you, girl. But I will follow orders.”

  Eleni followed the top of the wall with her eyes. Cosmin must have put every man in the village on the wall. She smiled again. “You cannot stay there forever, Sabin,” she said, walking away. She would wait until spring to take her mother. She could be patient. But best not to let them know. She would keep her plans secret.

  The wolf joined her as she reached the field. Crops used to grow here, row upon row. But last spring nothing had sprouted but weeds. Now it looked like any other field. Alin had said that the gods had forgotten about them. She looked for Fin, even knowing he wouldn't be there. Such a strange name. She wondered from where he had come. Or where he was going. She followed the path she had seen him take, following it to the edge of the wood, then lost the feel of him. It wasn't a scent exactly, but she could usually trail something once she had a bead on it. But it had been too long. She walked into the forest anyway, though she was surprised not to see the marks of his horse's hooves anywhere. Who was this man? This outsider that came from the world that she had been told no longer existed. What else was out there?

  The wolf growled and Eleni followed his eyes. Something white flashed in front of her, making her flinch. A white bird landed just above her and looked at her. A white raven. It turned its head this way and that, taking note of her. Eleni looked down at the wolf. She was no longer growling. She was staring at the bird and then she lowered her head in an odd way. Almost as though bowing to it. Eleni looked at the raven. It looked back. She frowned. Ravens were not supposed to be white. It wasn't albino, like the rabbit her mother had showed her once as a child. That rabbit had red eyes and snow white fur. Eleni had even been able to touch it as her mother held it. But the raven didn't have red or even pale eyes. It had normal beady raven eyes.

  The raven let out a shriek and flew to a higher branch. Eleni marked it, but moved on. There was no sign of the strange man from the night before. The creatures were quiet. As if even they, the beasts and monsters of the wood, feared Eleni as well.

  She walked with the wolf until her feet were tired and the hem of her dress was wet with dew. There were no monsters this night. And the raven followed her incessantly, squawking occasionally. Shooing it away did no good. It just hopped out of Eleni's reach and watched her in an eerie way, as if it knew her.

  Finally, just before dawn, Eleni spotted a deer. A great deer with horns that spread out from its skull like the bony hands of a giant. Eleni crept up on one side, the wolf on the other. She held out her hand and the buck was dead before it even registered the scent of wolf and fire. She went to the carcass. The head was still partially attached, the wound burned black by her fire. There was no life in his eyes. Eleni let the wolf feed on the meat from the throat. Then she used her hand to cook the remains of the tender meat and picked at it with her fingers, careful not to soil her only garment. When she had her fill, she hefted the deer up, her powerful muscles working to keep her upright with the great weight on her shoulder.

  She had once seen Cosmin try to lift a carcass like this when she was a child. She had giggled as he staggered underneath it, finally letting it drop to the ground when it was obvious he couldn't carry it. But strength had always come to her easily. The pig from the night before had been difficult only because she was weak from the blue creature that attacked her. Now she walked lithely with the deer on her shoulder, the horns poking into her thigh with every step. The wolf ran off, as she always did at dawn. When Eleni reached the village gates she dropped the animal unceremoniously into the dirt.

  She looked up to see Rastin looking down at her with an arrow aimed at her head. She smiled at him and let a flame burst from her hand. He pulled back his bow further and she walked away. When she took her mother from the village, Rastin would not live to see her walk away. She would make sure of that.

  Eleni slept soundly that night for the first time in many months. She was usually plagued by strange, fevered dreams of faces she didn't know and places she'd never been. But to her relief, she slept dreamlessly with the door to her iron box wide open and the scent of the traveler wrapped around her.

  She woke at sunset, feeling refreshed. She walked away from the village, ten men pointing arrows at her back. The wolf joined her as she walked toward the river. When she got there, she carefully hung the jacket on a tree, followed by her dress. She stepped into the water and washed herself. She could tell the water was probably frigid, but it didn't affect her. She could sense the cold, but she couldn't feel it. When she had scrubbed the grime off of her body and hands and feet, she submerged her head and let the current of the river wash her hair.

  It had been her hair that had first worried the village folk. Her mother told her. It was an omen after the fire to have a child with hair the color of flame, even though her mother's had been nearly as bright. At the time Cosmin's father, Farin, had been in charge. He had been a level-headed man. The day after Farin died, Eleni had seen the blacksmith working on a great iron box. Her box. In a month's time, she had been sent to live there. She had seen her mother every day after that until five winters ago. Eleni hadn't seen her since.

  Eleni wrung out her hair as she emerged from the water. She wished she had a comb. Her mother used to come and comb her hair. By the time she reached her clothes, the water had evaporated from her body, becoming steam and trailing away into the cold wind. She dressed and walked along the snaking tree roots, smooth and cool under her feet, to find the wolf. The animal joined he
r, licking blood from her muzzle.

  Eleni looked past her to see a freshly-killed polecat. The wolf licked her snout again. There was a flash of white and something landed on what was left of the carcass. The white raven from the night before looked at her and thrust its beak into the polecat's face. It tore at the fur to get at the meat within.

  `“Strange-looking creature, is it not?” said a deep voice behind her. Eleni jumped, moving quickly away from the noise. The traveler was standing there, smiling at her.

  “Where did you come from?” said Eleni, moving further away from him.

  “I came to see you,” he said. The wolf was looking steadily at the man and Eleni expected the creature to run at him and sink teeth into soft flesh. Instead, the wolf walked over to the man, sniffed him, and kept walking. Eleni looked at the man, Fin, in shock.

  “No one ever sneaks up on me,” said Eleni.

  “I'm sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to speak with you.”

  “Why does the wolf not tear you apart?”

  The man shrugged. “I have a way with animals.”

  “You are wearing clothes now,” he said. His eyes twinkled as he looked at the jacket. His jacket.

  “They are afraid of me,” she said.

  “Weren't they always?” said Fin.

  “They are afraid in a different way,” she said. “They know they cannot control me. It scares them.”

  “They stopped locking you up,” he said.

  “You were watching me?” she said, narrowing her eyes. “How long have you been here?”

  “Don't worry,” he said smiling. “Nothing I haven't seen before. Remember?”

  Eleni looked away from him, listening to the forest. It had been so quiet for the last few days. No monsters. She didn't know what it meant. She looked back at Fin. “Where is your horse?”

  “Epona? I left her with my friends,” he said.

  “Another town?” said Eleni. “Where?”

  “Not a town,” he said. “More of a camp. Would you like to sit down somewhere? So we can talk?”

  “We are talking now,” she said.

  “You don't make things easy, do you? Are you going to tell me your name at least?”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “Eleni,” she said quietly. “Who are you?”

  Fin smiled again. It was a kind smile. “Someone that might understand who you are. Someone that's just like you.” He turned and started to walk into the wood. Eleni watched him go. He looked back at her. “Are you coming?” he said. He disappeared in the trees.

  Eleni looked around for the wolf. It had gone when she was busy talking to Fin. She shook her head at her own negligence. She needed to be more alert. She was growing lax. Slowly she put one foot in front of the other, almost surprised to find that she was following the way Fin had gone. As if her body had made a decision before she could do anything about it.

  Fin was sitting on a rock smoothing his beard. He had his legs stretched out in front of him and held something that looked like a boar tusk in one hand. He saw her and gestured to a similar rock next to him. Eleni froze, looking around. The white raven let out a scream in her ear as it flew past her head and alighted on Fin's shoulder.

  “I saw that raven yesterday,” she said.

  “It belongs to a friend of mine,” said Fin. “Please. Sit.” Eleni felt nervous and twitchy. She couldn't remember the last time she had been invited to sit with another person. Not since she'd been separated from her mother. Fin watched her with patient eyes. He lifted the tusk and Eleni heard the sound of a cork being pulled. Fin lifted it to his lips and drank, making a face as he re-corked the container.

  “You drink from the tusk of a pig?” she said, suddenly curious again. She took a step toward him, but stopped again. She was afraid to be close to him, but at the same time she did not want to leave him. She looked behind her, into the thick of the woods. Two golden eyes grew larger as the wolf emerged from the brush. She looked at Eleni almost chidingly, then walked over and lay down next to the large stone Fin had invited her to sit on. Haltingly, Eleni followed, stopping every few steps and looking around, as if she would find a reason not to stay. The man, the raven and the wolf all watched her progress in silence. All three seemed to know the difficulty of what Fin had asked her to do.

  Fin looked down as she sat. He lifted up the object he had raised to drink. “This is a horn, not a tusk,” he said without looking at her. His voice was friendly, without a trace of the contempt she felt from most of the villagers. All but Alin. Though she had felt fear from the old man quite often. Fin did not seem to fear her. He did not seem to loathe her either. Eleni did not know what to think about him. She felt a great curiosity towards him, but she was afraid he, too, would leave when he grew tired of her. Either that or he would come to loathe her.

  “A horn,” Eleni repeated. Fin handed her the object. It was nearly as long as her forearm and heavier than it looked. It had a strap on it so it could be worn.

  “From the head of a steer,” he said. “Great wooly beasts. As tall as you and ten times as heavy. At least.”

  Eleni stared at him, transfixed at the way he spoke, the languorous way he leaned back watching her. She could listen to him all day. She looked down at the horn in her hands. It was polished to a sheen, and was cool and smooth in her hands.

  “You don't see many these days, of course. But every once in a while I come across one.”

  “Where?” she said suddenly, surprising even herself.

  Fin smiled. “I come from the West,” he said. “From the Islands.”

  Eleni's eyes widened and her heart beat in her throat. “The West,” she repeated.

  “Have you never been away from here?” he asked.

  Eleni averted her eyes. It made her nervous to meet his eyes. “I was born after the fire,” she said. She was quiet for a long time, staring at the horn, turning it this way and that to make the ivory catch the light of the moon. “They tell us that nothing survived,” she said. “Only our village and the monsters and the Reivers.”

  “Who tells you that?” he said.

  She didn't meet his eyes and spoke as if he hadn't. As if she had to continue or she wouldn't be able to say it. “They tell us that all this is because of me. I am a bad omen. We are being punished. We survived the fire so we could see what happens. So we could see what has come because they were kind to take me in.” She fiddled with the cork in the horn. Fin was silent. “They tell us nothing survived,” she said again. “But you are here. So either they are wrong, or you are not real.”

  “I'm real,” Fin said softly.

  “I could not find your horse's tracks,” she said, glancing up at him. “I looked for them last night. You left no trace.”

  Fin looked up at the sky. The moon was rising and was almost directly overhead. It was almost full. “You and me,” he said softly, “we're not the same as the rest of them. There's some that will fear us. There's some, nothing can stop them from hating us.” He looked at Eleni, his face finally serious, unsmiling. “There's some that would do anything to worship us.”

  Eleni didn't breathe for a moment. She forgot to look away from Fin. He stared right into her. “That cannot be,” said Eleni, her voice a whisper. “What you are saying, I don't understand...”

  Fin smiled with his eyes. “Let me show you something,” he said. He leaned forward. “Put your hand here, on this patch of grass.”

  “What?”

  “Please,” he said. “I want to show you.” Eleni did as he asked, crouching down and placing her hand on the ground. The wolf raised his head from his paws, watching them. “Now burn it,” he said.

  “Burn it?” she said, not comprehending. “What is the use of that?”

  “Just burn it,” he said.

  The raven hopped down to Fin's knee and then down to the ground, seeming to be taking in Eleni's every movement.

  Eleni let the fire flow gently through the palm of her hand. Smoke rose from between her finger
s, lingering in her nostrils. She removed her hand to show him the hand-shaped burn in the earth. He nodded and Eleni sat back down on her stone, watching Fin. He smiled at her confused expression. He knelt next to the scorch mark and placed a large, scarred hand over the smaller, blackened hand-mark. He exhaled oddly and Eleni saw something in his eyes. A flash, like the lightning in the mountains, only bright green. It was gone in an instant. Eleni sensed something happening in the ground under Fin's hand. Like a cool sort of heat. She felt a gentle rumble in the ground, like thunder with no sound.

  There was a pressure in the air, and then a movement under Fin's fingers. Eleni leaned forward. Something was coming out of the earth under the man's hand. At first Eleni thought it was a living creature, then she realized they were plants. Green grass and vines snaked out of the ground, wrapping around Fin's arm as the vines sprouted leaves and the buds that came before the blossom. Fin took his hand away, untangling himself from the vines and laughing at the look on Eleni's face. The scorch mark was gone. The damage her hand had made had disappeared and been replaced by new growth. Eleni shook her head, frowning. She knelt down by Fin and examined the ground. The plants had roots when she tugged at them. It was real, not a trick. She looked up at him.

  “You're not the only one,” said Fin.

  “The only what?” said Eleni. “What am I?”

  He hesitated. “I know someone that can explain it better. Someone you would believe. Will you come with me?”

  Eleni sat back on her heels. “Come with you?” she said. “Away from the village?”

  “Yes,” said Fin. “There's a world out there. Much is still recovering, but there are sights that you wouldn't believe. The world is resilient. There are people that would treat you...well, they wouldn't lock you in a box, that much is certain.”

  “I cannot leave,” said Eleni.

  Fin stared at her. “Why not?” he said after a moment.

  “Cosmin,” Eleni said. “He keeps my mother in the village. He says if I leave he will kill her.”