Hollow Road

by Dan Fitzgerald

  “I’m good.” Finn slipped gracefully out of the hug. “Took a few hits, but the force shell stopped most of the damage. I should be able to heal pretty quickly, if I can get some solid rest.”

  “Sure, you milk it all you need to.” Carl winked at Finn, then turned and headed for the pile of rocks, which looked bigger and much heavier than they had just five minutes ago. “Me and Sinnie, we got this.”

  Chapter Eight

  Sinnie swept the remaining piles of smaller rocks to the side with her feet as Carl paced and re-paced the opening they had created. He nodded, clapped her on the shoulder in what felt like a military gesture.

  “Good work,” he said, leaning back to stretch. “Now let’s get moving so we can hopefully arrive before sundown. I don’t relish the idea of spending another night here.”

  “I don’t know, it’s kind of nice out here,” Finn said. “The fresh air, the whisper of the river down below, the lack of anyone judging your life choices...What’s the hurry getting back to Brocland?”

  Sinnie side-eyed him, even held her smile in for a second. “Okay, well you can meet us there tomorrow. I’m sure there will be fresh bread ready for your lunch.”

  As they walked back to the cart, Sinnie stopped by the spot where Carl had dragged the bodies. She took a step toward the valley edge, and Carl reached out his hand as if to hold her back.

  “Sinn—”

  She waved his hand away and walked as steadily as she could toward the place where the ferns were flattened down. She stopped for a deep breath, then took several more steps until she had reached the edge of the road. She looked down and saw them, all six of them, lined up in a neat row with their heads near the road, their closed eyes facing the valley. Carl and Finn stood back, not saying anything she could hear. She stepped down onto the mossy earth and scanned the bodies until she identified the one who was female. She knelt next to her, studying the red arrow hole in the center of her chest, surrounded by silver fish scales in the pattern of a star inside a circle. She had sent the arrow into this Maer’s heart. She had taken her life, along with that of three of her companions. Sinnie’s body felt numb, and her vision narrowed until anything that was not this Maer’s body lay in a blurry other-world beyond her concern.

  The arrow hole was in the upper right center of the star, roughly where her heart would be if she had been human. Her face was covered by a dense layer of short, fine hair with the texture of a teenager’s first beard, looking almost fuzzy in the afternoon sunlight. Her lips were purplish-pink, like many human lips, chapped with life out of doors. Her high cheekbones led down to a rather strong chin. Her nose was on the small side, finely shaped, almost delicate. She had no eyebrows to speak of, though her fur was a little thicker where they would have been, and continued thickening until it became a head of fine curls, which looked to have been brushed. The familiar musk of an unwashed body radiated from her, undercut by the coppery tang of blood. Though her eyes were closed, Sinnie remembered their color: light gray, with perhaps a bit of yellow. It had been hard to tell in the suddenness of combat, but it had struck her even as she faced off against them that these were human eyes set in human faces that happened to be covered in an extended beard.

  And she had killed four of them.

  “Have a good look for me,” Finn chirped, standing just far enough away he wouldn’t be able to see the bodies. “And then get your bum up here and onto your horse.”

  Sinnie reached out a shaking hand and gently laid it on the creature’s chest, half expecting it to rise under her touch. But the Maer was still and utterly lifeless beneath her fur shirt. Sinnie closed her eyes hard and tried to compress the growing fire of regret in her chest into a missile she could shoot up into the sky, letting the gods do with it, and her, as they wished.

  THEY TALKED LITTLE on the last leg of Hollow Road. Sinnie watched the cliffs, and Finn the valley, while Carl scanned the roadside ahead. It might have been her imagination, but Sinnie thought the coffin was starting to smell a bit more than before. Whatever had been done to keep Theo’s body preserved was wearing off. As they approached the Giant’s Gate, a pair of ancient columns just outside Brocland whose origins were lost to history, Carl held his palm out toward them and stopped his horse. Sinnie had an arrow up before she even realized what she was doing, and she saw Finn gripping his staff. Something moved in the bushes beside one of the columns, and Sinnie started to pull her arrow back, but Carl waved her off, so she lowered it.

  Carl cupped a hand around his mouth and called out: “Brocland’s finest, Brocland’s best, Gods keep the Guard, the Guard saves the rest.”

  A sturdy boy of about eleven or twelve stepped out from behind one of the columns, holding a staff that was too big for him, and held up his right hand, his thumb folded into the palm facing them. Carl repeated the gesture, and Sinnie looked at Finn, whose hand was already up, and she followed suit. She hadn’t been part of the Watch, since girls weren’t allowed, but she knew the greeting.

  “Sinnie?” the boy cried, running toward her. It took her a moment to recognize Harold, or Hutch as he was called, or used to be, the last time she had seen him, when he was only seven. She shouldered her bow and grabbed him in a big hug.

  “Harold, you’ve grown into a proper young man!” She squeezed his shoulders. “You still catching silvers down below the falls?”

  “Oh, Sinnie, you have no idea! Just two weeks ago I pulled one in this long—” he held out his forearm and made a chopping motion near the elbow crease. “I didn’t tell anyone else how, but I can tell you. I dug up some nymphs from under those flat rocks and used them as bait. They do pinch a bit, but there’s nothing the silvers like better.”

  “Glad to see the Watch is still going strong, Harold.” Carl clapped the boy on the shoulder, then pulled him in for a manly embrace. “I assume your partner is running back to the village as we speak.”

  Harold nodded, his face serious. “Yes, Carl. As soon as we saw you coming, with the cart, I sent Gregory back to tell Mr. Massey that someone was coming, and it was not the Maer.”

  Carl kept his hand on Harold’s shoulder and smiled. “This must be a scary time to be in the Guard.”

  Harold shook his head, his eyes fiery with bravado, though his voice quavered a bit when he spoke. “No, I mean, yes, but...it’s exciting, to be honest. There’s usually not much to do except watch for the next cart, but lately, with rumors of the Maer all around...”

  “You can tell us all about it back in the village.” Carl eyed the dimming sky. “We surely don’t want to get caught out here when night falls.”

  Harold took a step back and crossed his arms, trying to hide his nervousness.

  “All due respect, but you know I can’t let you pass until Mr. Massey comes. He should be here—” He was interrupted by the sound of two horses approaching from the village at a fast trot. Mr. Massey, his rounded form hunched over the reins of an aging gray Sinnie recognized as Heartswealth, was flanked by a broad-shouldered young man who sat upright on a black colt, his sword drawn. When they pulled to a stop, Sinnie saw it was Nicolas, who had grown a foot taller and wider since the last time she had seen him. He sheathed his sword at Massey’s gesture, his serious face doing a poor job of hiding his fear.

  “What news of the Maer?” said Mr. Massey in a low voice, pulling close to Carl and locking forearms with him.

  “We slew six,” Carl said. “They ambushed us by a rockslide, near Haden’s Glen.”

  Mr. Massey nodded, looking the three of them up and down. “You seem to have come out of it well,” he said. “That may be the bulk of them, but there are more. We should hurry back.” He eyed the coffin, looked up at Carl, and gave a slow blink.

  “Theo,” Carl said. “He has gone to where he is needed most.”

  “Where he is needed most,” Massey murmured, his eyes closed and his hand over his heart.

  “Mr. Leavitt sent us to bring him home,” Carl said.

  Massey nodded, opening
his eyes. “He was a fine lad. A fine lad indeed. How...” He gave Carl a searching look.

  Carl shook his head. “I don’t know exactly. Mr. Leavitt only said Theo was killed on mission. You know how he likes to keep his secrets.” Sinnie couldn’t help but wonder if Carl knew more about Theo’s death than he was letting on.

  Massey’s eyes were intense but inscrutable. “There is all too much mystery in the air these days. But Gods! I am glad to see you. And you, Finn, and you, Sinnie!” He reached out and clasped their hands, looking them in the eyes with a warm smile. “One always suspects once brave young people make their way out into the world one will never see them again. You must be exhausted, and a meeting has already been called at the chapel at sundown. We should try to keep mum about just what happened until after the meeting. We don’t want to spread panic until we have the whole story. Let’s make haste for the village and get something hot in your belly before then.”

  “MOTHER!” IT FELT STRANGE to say it again after all this time. Her mother hardly looked up from the wool she was washing.

  “Good of you to come visit, Sinn. We’ve heard but little from the outside world of late.” She laid the wool on a rack next to the bucket and stood up slowly, her drawn face stretching into a smile, and her embrace was unusually warm, full, and long.

  “Father will be out prospecting, I expect?” Sinnie asked, trying to mask the worry she was feeling. He tended to prospect in the valley, and even his years of experience there might not be enough to keep him safe from the Maer.

  Sinnie’s mother pulled back, holding Sinnie at arm’s length, and kissed her on both cheeks.

  “He hasn’t been valleyside since just after the unpleasantness began. Maer, they say, though I don’t put much stock in it. It’s probably bandits wearing masks, you ask me. Anyway, the village council decided to send him out the long way around, through the hills, to get word to the Realm, so maybe we can get some return on our taxes for once. But I guess they must be gone now, if you got in.”

  “Mother, it is the Maer. We—me and Carl, and Finn, we fought them, at Haden’s Glen. We killed six of them.”

  “Fought them? You?” Her mother put her hands on her hips, her eyes wide with disbelief. “With what? Some juggling balls?”

  “Arrows, mum. I shot them with arrows. And Carl is a soldier now, and Finn, well, you know he has the gift.”

  Her mother waved it all away and sat back down to her wool, which was about halfway cleaned. Her fingers trembled slightly as she stretched out the fibers. “Circus performers and mages fighting Maer just outside the village. The cosmic wheel is surely slowing down to its final rest.”

  “Mum, this is serious! I saw them with my own eyes. Their faces were all covered in hair, just like in the stories. They blocked the road with rocks and attacked us when we got close. That’s why no news has gotten through. They—”

  “I know what’s been going on, and you know how people like to stretch the truth. So I naturally divided the stories in half, and I figured, it was bandits blocking the road.”

  “Mother.” Sinnie kneeled down by her mother, who was holding the wool in mid-air, though she did not raise her head to meet Sinnie’s gaze. “This is me. I’m telling you, it was real. Mr. Massey doesn’t want us to talk about it before the meeting, but there is no doubt. It was the Maer. I saw them, up close. They were...they were just like humans, but for the hair.” Her mother looked up, her eyes finally betraying the fear she had been hiding. “They were shooting at us, and they came running with spears, it all happened so fast...”

  Sinnie sank to her knees and covered her face with her hands as the sob she had been holding for so long finally erupted. Her mother pulled her in, wrapped her arms around her like a warm blanket, and held her close as Sinnie cried herself dry.

  Chapter Nine

  Finn sat between Sinnie and Carl at the head of the chapel, beneath the Great Wheel, whose colors had faded with time until they merely looked like different shades of brown. As a boy, Finn had been fascinated by the wheel, and the idea that someday it would come to its final rest, and all the world, he imagined, would be one color. The brownish hue of the wheel now seemed an appropriate color for his mood, and that of the crowd. He looked to Sinnie, then to Carl, both of whom were staring off into the audience. Around them in a great semi-circle, seated on the floor, sat about forty people, each representing one of the households in the village. Mr. Massey ambled in circles around the center, favoring his left leg, as the crowd talked in hushed tones. The lamps on either side of the wheel were lit, as well as four or five of the lamps at the gods’ stations, the others having broken over the years. Elder Gummache maintained the chapel as best he could on the customary yearly donation of ten denri per man, woman, and child. Few these days gave more, and attendance was mostly limited to holidays and funerals.

  The murmurs subsided when Elder Gummache came through the hidden door beneath the Wheel, and everyone stood up. Sinnie, Carl, and Finn put their hands over their hearts along with everyone else to greet the Elder, and he repeated their gesture, eyes closed beneath his unruly eyebrows. What little remained of his hair around the sides of his head was now dirty white and wispy, trailing down to his frail shoulders like willow branches. He wore the white robe usually reserved for holidays, weddings, and funerals. His acolyte, a boy of about ten whose face Finn could not recognize, stood silently beside him in a plain brown robe, the top of his head shaved in imitation of the Elder.

  “In trial as in triumph, in death as in life, in famine as in feast,” intoned Elder Gummache, “we are bound to one another.”

  “We are bound,” came the mumbled reply of every single person present.

  The old man walked up to Carl, put his hands over Carl’s ears, and closed his eyes. Carl closed his too. Gummache did the same to Sinnie, then to Finn, then held out his hands to the crowd as if holding all of their heads in his hands. Everyone closed their eyes for a moment, then opened them again.

  “You left us green, but you return to us golden.” He gestured to Finn, Sinnie, and Carl. “We would hear of your travels, and of your encounter at Holden’s Glen.”

  Finn snuck a sideways glance at Sinnie, who gave a tiny shake of her head and turned her eyes toward Carl. Finn breathed a sigh of relief when Carl stepped forward, and the already quiet crowd fell stone silent. Elder Gummache and Mr. Massey stepped to the side, their arms behind their backs, and Carl began to speak.

  “It is good to be back in Brocland,” he began, pacing slowly around the circle, “and to see everyone safe and sound. We had heard nothing from the village for some time, and the lack of news was troubling. A little over a week ago, I was contacted by Gerald Leavitt, whom you all know, and told that his son, my friend, Theodore, had been killed on mission, and had gone where he was needed most.”

  “Where he was needed most,” the crowd murmured.

  “More than that he did not say,” Carl continued, “and in my grief, I dared not ask, nor could I refuse his request that we bring his body back home.” Finn suppressed a smirk in Carl’s omission of the thousand denri fee they had been paid for the endeavor. “Mr. Leavitt hinted at some potential danger, given that Brocland had not been heard of for more than a month, so we left with our hearts heavy and our eyes wide open.” Finn was surprised by Carl’s eloquence, though he shouldn’t have been; Car had more book learning than most, but his gruff military demeanor tended to cover that up.

  “We asked along the way, but had no news until we came to the Hollow Road, and the town of Kelsey. There we spoke with a blacksmith named Hoyle, with whom my father once did business. He told us they had heard nothing from Brocland, but that a livery boy had left for Brocland with three horses in tow and had never returned. He said there were rumors...” He stopped his pacing. “That the Maer had returned.”

  The crowd burst into a low buzz, with almost every single mouth whispering in its neighbor’s ear. The buzz began to build, as whispers became murmurs, then ta
lk, but Elder Gummache put a stop to it by raising his right hand, and silence quickly returned.

  “We continued until we reached Holden’s Glen, where the road was blocked by a rockslide. I scouted the area from the valley below, and it was then that I first laid eyes on them. They wore furs and carried spears, though one had a sword. They looked much like humans, but for their faces, which were covered in hair.” Carl paused as the crowd burst again into murmurs, which subsided as he continued. “As we stood at a distance planning our attack, they began to rain arrows down upon us. I was struck in the leg, but my mail took most of the hit. We took cover, and from there, things devolved into a pitched battle. Finn and I engaged them in close combat, but it was Sinnie who won the day with her arrows.” Finn looked at Sinnie, whose face was turning the deepest color of scarlet.

  “Once they were all slain, I lined them up by the roadside and examined the bodies, head to toe. Their faces, it is true, were covered in hair, like a faint beard that goes all the way up. But other than that, every detail—teeth, ears, eyes, nose, and every other part—was no different than a person, though I will say they were hairier than any person I have ever met.”

  “Are you trying to tell us,” said Mr. Massey, his voice rising in incredulity, “That the Maer are human? That the legends, nay, the history, laid out in countless stories and testimonies from the last age, depicting them as half beast, are pure fabrication?”

  Carl shook his head, and Sinnie stepped forward.

  “Yes,” she said in a small voice that nonetheless carried throughout the room. “The Maer are no different than us, besides the hair.” She stood silently as the crowd’s murmurs rose again, and Elder Gummache spread his arms wide, seizing the audience’s attention.

  “It is writ in the oldest texts,” he said, gazing out around the room, then back at Sinnie, “that the Maer share much in common with men, but their hearts, their souls, even, lack the spark of compassion common to mankind.” Finn wondered if the Elder had forgotten about the many atrocities committed by humans, during wartime and peace.