by Lana Nielsen
Arithel snorted.
“The soup isn’t bad.” she acquiesced. “At least as good as anything I’ve tasted in a tavern.”
Arithel expected Mira to graciously thank her, but the woman’s face was expressionless.
“You’re a highborn lady, aren’t you? I suppose you’ve always had someone to cook for you, someone to look after you. I suppose you’ve never been expected to do much of anything,” Mira told Arithel, keeping her blue eyes focused on the cast-iron pot before her.
The silly girl couldn’t have been further from the truth, at least not for the past three years.
“Where I come from, when someone gives you a compliment, you’re supposed to respond in kind.” Darren glanced at Mira.
Arithel was glad that he spoke up in her favor. It was the second or third time he had done so. If he had not spoken out, she probably would have lost her temper.
“Oh,” Mira laughed innocently. “I didn’t mean to be rude. You must forgive me. I probably lost my manners along with my memory back in Wilderwood.”
Arithel only nodded. There was little point in arguing with this spiteful woman. She wondered if Mira was a witch. It would not have been surprising if Elspeth had planted her there. She might even be Elspeth in another form, drawing them into a trap. Who could say for sure with magic?
***
Around noon the next day, Fallon was overcome with a sudden spell of exhaustion. They stopped to rest. Mira was tired too, and lay down on the ground, looking rather dazed, with her arm thrown across her head. A front blew in and the temperature dropped. They lit a fire.
Arithel asked Darren to hunt with her while the other two rested. She couldn’t stand sitting there and shivering; she figured moving around would help keep her warm and put her mind at ease. She also hoped to fell some rabbits or pheasants before Mira got the chance.
They walked through the moors until the campfire was barely a flicker on the horizon. The frosted earth crunched gently beneath their feet. As the winds picked up, they veered towards a narrow fold of trees nestled between two hills.
Arithel scoured the weeds and scrub for game, but there was nothing. Just stillness.
Darren blew on his hands, rubbing them together and shivering.
“Quiet!” Arithel hissed. “We’re hunting!”
“I’m cold,” he said, his breath hanging in the air.
Arithel sighed and slung her bow over her shoulder. There wasn’t anything out anyway.
“Where are your gloves?” Arithel asked Darren.
His bare hands were nearly violet with chill.
“I don’t have any.”
“Bullocks, you’re not that poor. It gets colder in Elinmoor than in Neldor. Even beggars manage to stitch together gloves there.”
“That’s not what I meant… I mean I didn’t bring any with me for the journey.”
“Why not?” Arithel laughed.
“I know,” Darren admitted heavily. “It was foolish. I thought I wouldn’t need them.”
“It’s nearly winter….”
“Aye, aye, but it’s usually a wee bit warmer. And we are going south.”
“Surely you’ve noticed the sun’s blotted out.”
“As I said, it was foolish.”
Arithel put her hand on his shoulder. They stopped walking beside a slab of rock. She shushed him, pointing out a fat brown quail, peeking its head above the grasses.
It bobbed its head as it walked in stutter-steps.
Arithel quietly nocked an arrow to her bow and knelt to aim. Her arm quivered under the draw weight, but her arrow found its way to the puff of the bird’s chest. The quail was so delicate the entire shaft nearly tore through to the other side.
She laughed a little, surprised by how sharp Frey’s arrows were.
Arithel and Darren went to retrieve their dinner.
They stopped, though, noting two shadows moving through the overgrown weeds at the edge of the wood.
Raiders, Arithel thought.
***
Darren was afraid to move, even to run back to the relative safety of the rocks. From the corner of his eye, he saw Arithel raise her bow. He wanted to stop her, to tell her that it wouldn’t do any good, but only stammers formed in his mouth. He had seen these men, these demons, long ago. He knew their faces. He had tried to forget them along with his mother.
They stepped out from the tree line and into the open. Arithel let out a string of curses as she took note of their appearance.
They were tall and thin, with long, sagging faces, somewhat shrouded by the hoods of their heavy blue cloaks. Their faces were powdered white and red paint had been spread like blood beneath their eyes, which were tinted yellow with disease. Worse, they were among the most misshapen and ugly men to have ever graced earth. Their mouths were large, with flabby lips marred by open sores and deep scars. Bony protuberances stuck out of their cheeks and nose. Black dots were arranged in undulating patterns across their brows, chins, and bared arms. Dried plants and bags of medicines hung from their girdles and knives were strapped to the leather braces around their wrists.
Arithel, in her apparent madness, walked closer to them. They mirrored her steps and bared their teeth as if to threaten her. One stuck out its tongue and hissed. Darren shuddered; its tongue was as black as ink, forked down the middle.
Darren finally regained his senses, and grabbed hold of Arithel’s sleeve, attempting to pull her towards the rocks.
She brushed him aside and approached the devils, her bow poised to fire.
“There are six of us and two of you!” she shouted fearlessly. “We’ve slain witches and raiders and ghosts, we’ll smite you Southrons too!”
Darren was shaking. He tried to speak, but again nothing came out. He hated how easily frightened he was. He remembered his mother sweeping him into her arms, before tearing into the woods to the stone disc where nothing could harm them. He could hear her cool, clipped voice again: “Never leave Aelfelm, my son. Only trouble lies beyond these pastures.”
Darren blinked away the sting of the past and looked ahead.
Both devils had their horrible, drooping eyes fixed on him.
One sprang forth, moving very quickly in some half-leaping, half-running motion. Instead of attacking, he simply crouched down and snatched up the quail.
He pointed at Darren with his free hand, the end of his crooked finger stained the dark green of rotting flesh. He sank his teeth into the bird and gnawed on the raw meat. Feathers and blood flew from his wide mouth.
The monster turned around, and with his partner, disappeared into the thicket.
Arithel finally put her bow down. She sighed and rubbed out a knot in her shoulder.
“We need to walk, not run, back to camp. We cannot show we are afraid,” she said in a low voice.
“Arithel,” Darren breathed, his voice cracking, “You’re the craziest woman I’ve ever met. You shouldn’t have threatened them. They’d have killed you like it was nothing.”
“They left, didn’t they?” Arithel said. “I’ve dealt with raiders before.”
“No,” Darren swallowed, “Those were followers of Marduk the Devourer.”
Arithel raised her brows. “So—cultists, heretics? Like the deer-man you stupidly steered us towards. They seem to be drawn to you.”
“No,” Darren said. “They are the real deal. They have no souls; they’re more devil than man. I’ve seen them before, when I was a boy. They’d stalk me every so often, and Magda—my mother.” He cleared his throat. “Would take me to the stone I showed you. There they couldn’t see; there they’d go away…”
Arithel shuddered, remembering the face of the woman she had seen. It was surely Darren’s mother.
“Why didn’t you tell me that?” she asked, walking faster now.
“I didn’t want to scare you.”
“Should be obvious I’m not easily rattled,” she said, then added, “Elinmoor—it’s full of magic. Not like Neldor.”
<
br /> “Agron is still at war with the old gods,” Darren remarked. “That’s what my priest says. That’s why going to temple and rooting out witches is so important.”
Arithel rolled her eyes.
“I think there is more to me than you know,” Darren said.
***
Arithel stopped walking about one hundred feet short of camp. Darren assumed she stopped because Fallon was now awake, pacing around the fire, smoking, and reading some scraps of parchment.
She stretched out her arms and legs and laughed nervously to herself. Darren glanced back at the woods the devourers had disappeared into; all but the tops of the trees were shrouded with thick fog.
“More than I could know, huh,” Arithel said, finally responding to what he had said a good two minutes ago. “Let me guess—you’ve seen signs from Agron that you are destined for great things, that you are no ordinary lad. Perhaps your priest, too, has encouraged this, and has helped you see what a bright and godly soul you have.”
“No, just listen—”
“Ah.” Arithel gently placed two fingers on his chest and smirked. “Perhaps the story is better because you’re orphaned. Your father was a criminal, and you feel ashamed because of it. Or perhaps you have done something awful, and that’s what all this about—your gallantry, your following us out here for no good reason...”
Darren noticed her voice was cracking. He furrowed his brow and wondered if this was her peculiar way of hinting at some of her own sins. There was no telling what they were—she was a little strange and rough after all, and she was in the company of Fallon.
Not that he cared one bit what her sins were, with a face like hers.
“Let me finish my thought. It’s about Elspeth and what she told me. It’s not like you say, I never had any notions about destiny until she put them in my head.”
“The witch,” Arithel said, her tone changing. “What did the witch say about you?”
“She said I had king’s blood, the finest blood she’d ever come across. And that I was ‘the lost child Tiresias could never find.’”
“She told you that you’re an Ankarian.” Arithel grinned.
“Aye, it seems she did. It’s why I asked about Nureen the other day. I wanted to see if any of it made sense, even though from the moment she uttered her prophecy, I somehow knew in my bones it was true. I can’t forget a word of it. I hear it in my head all the time, especially as I fall asleep.”
“What was it?”
“Keep this between you and me,” he leaned in to whisper. “The prince is doomed to die despite his servant’s careful eye. A star returns to curse your race, as the errants wander, forever freed from time and place. One forgot their name, but they all forgot his claim. A king in the shadow, pure of heart and callow. I ask you, now, empty your foggy mind, arouse the sleeping and awake the blind. See what’s always been there, in the soil and the air. Deeper than blood, darker than night, soon I promise, we can live without light.”
***
Arithel laughed. “Well, she had obviously prepared that one long before you came along. That’s probably what she told every unfortunate soul who happened upon her lair. I see why it’s enthralled you.” Indeed, it was like the stories from the books Lord Faldros had given her.
It was surprising that Darren, who had never struck her as the sharpest tool in the shed, managed to remember such a long poem. It was unusual enough that it had to be a near-verbatim recitation.
Darren looked down. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me. I’m sure you and Fallon will mock me for it behind my back.”
“I won’t do that, Darren. I promise,” Arithel said seriously.
His accusation stung. It wasn’t that he was wrong; it was simply that his characterization described some unpleasant person. Darren was a gentle and good-hearted lad; she resolved to treat him as well as she would any friend.
A strange realization dawned upon her. Darren, this naïve farm-boy who had haplessly trudged after them, was now her friend. She cringed, recalling how willing she had been to trade his life for a chance to escape Wearywindle.
“I suppose you believe yourself to be the hidden king. And Mira has certainly forgotten her name,” she humored him.
“Exactly,” Darren said.
“And Fallon and I….” she muttered, assuming the only way she could fit into this absurd prophecy was if she was one of the ‘wandering errants.’
“It could be interpreted in different ways. We’d have to see what else happens first. Who else we may run into.”
“Free from time and place… sounds an awful lot like dying and becoming a ghost,” she mused.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “You are running from something, aren’t you? A girl like you wouldn’t be out here otherwise.”
“I’m running towards something. I’m trying to save my sister,” she declared quickly.
She desperately wanted to tell Darren about the changeling woman. It was so awful that the only person who shared her secret hated her. The longer she harbored the secret, the more the changeling haunted her.
“Perhaps you are the servant,” Darren suggested.
Arithel scrunched up her face. She found it funny that he had yet to consider that he was the servant and this ‘shadow king’ was someone else entirely.
Besides, in no way could Fallon, a lord, be construed as a prince—even to Elinmoorians.
“Let us speak of it no more,” Arithel said, noting that Fallon had put his scrolls back in his bag and was now walking towards them. “The requisites are a little… dark.”
“I am the right age to be Princess Milisandia’s son. I know, because the Nureenians who passed through Aelfelm always loved hearing songs about lost Ankarian children,” Darren said breathlessly. “Magda—the witch who raised me—she could not have been my real mother; she didn’t even look like me. And I never knew my father, not his face, not even his name.”
“I will say this… anything is possible. Just don’t go stating this prophecy as fact yet. After all, crooked Elspeth recited it.”
Arithel did not want to encourage his fantasies, but neither did she want to crush them. No doubt the boy was traumatized after Wearywindle and needed to create a narrative to explain his brush with death. It helped reinforce the poor sap’s dogmatic views on religion and the shame he must have felt for being a bastard with a witch as a mother. He was a teenage serf who could neither read nor write. Of course even the slimmest possibility of some foreign royal heritage would likely prove overwhelming and exciting for him.
“Thank you, Arithel. This is why I told you. I knew you would weigh these possibilities fairly.”
Darren’s eyes glimmered hopefully. He smiled and gave her an unsettling look of absolute adoration. Arithel felt uncomfortable and finally made her way back to camp. She probably should have ended his nonsense, on second thought.
Chapter Sixteen
The next day passed much as the last. They walked by two Nureenian settlements that were surrounded by ranches. One had a massive foundry on the premises and the smoke from its smelting sent obnoxious particles flying down Arithel’s throat to tickle her lungs. After that, the landscape changed little and they encountered few travelers. Fallon promised they would reach an inn by nightfall, but that proved to not be the case—once again they had to huddle in the warmest spot they could find, in one of the narrow dales between hillocks.
“It appears we won’t freeze tonight,” Arithel announced as the party came to a halt. She pointed at steam rising from the surface of a nearby pond.
“What do ya mean?” Mira asked.
“Look at the fog hanging over the pool. The water is warm, maybe even hot, probably from an underground spring.”
Mira appeared confused. Arithel tried not to get too aggravated.
“We shouldn’t camp too close. I’m sure the springs are attractive to other travelers, including thugs and thieves,” Fallon remarked.
Arithel had told Darren no
t to say anything about the men they had encountered. As much as she wanted to boast about having scared them off, telling Fallon about painted, diseased marauders dressed like devil-worshippers didn’t feel necessary or sensible. Darren seemed glad to have a secret to share with her.
“One of us could keep watch?” Arithel suggested. She’d rather be wary than freezing.
Fallon led them to a campsite about a hundred paces from the springs. An overhanging boulder provided some degree of shelter and mounds of pine straw softened the ground. Mira grabbed Darren’s bow without permission and went hunting for supper. He weakly complained but she ignored him.
She returned with two dead grey squirrels, both bushy tails grasped tightly in her right hand. She laid the carcasses over a rock as Darren lit the kindling for the campfire. Mira sawed off the heads with a dull cooking knife; the crunching noise that resulted made Arithel shudder.
“We’re eating squirrel?” Arithel asked as she stirred honey into her tea.
“Aye. Is that a problem?” Mira glared at her, the bloodied knife upright in her hand.
Her sleeves were rolled up. Arithel noticed a long thin scar running down the length of the girl’s forearm.
“No,” Arithel muttered. “Just never had it.”
“It’s little different than chicken,” Mira said with a slight smile.
Arithel offered to help. Mira assigned Arithel simple tasks such as chopping onions and carrots. She lost interest within minutes.
After glancing at Arithel, Mira asked, “Could you go to the spring and get some more water?”
“Uhh, sure,” Arithel said, and picked up the pot. The metal handle was painfully cold to the touch.
She trudged off through the forest. Had she and Mira finally come to an uneasy peace? Though Mira was a good cook and apparently a decent hunter, Arithel still wished the woman would go away.
As Arithel approached the springs, she noticed Fallon on his knees at the edge of the pool. She was astonished to see he was shirtless and there were two torches staked in the ground behind him, though it was still daylight. A line of moss and dried flowers encircled both him and the flames. It was no natural scattering of plants; they had been arranged like a wreath. He was talking to himself in a deep, guttural tongue that sounded like Padenite. Curiously, inked into his left shoulder was a tattoo of a serpent devouring its own tail— Morden’s doing, no doubt.