Crier's Knife

by Neal Litherland

  “Yet you accepted his challenge anyway,” Dirk said.

  “I told myself no matter how big he was, he was just a man. So I went at him, fists raised. He just stood there, not even looking at me. I tried to draw him out, shouting taunts and leaving him an opening. He stood his ground, paying me no mind. Those who gathered to watch looked on in silence. Finally, I hit Tharn as hard as I could. My first blow was to his gut. Then I hit him a second time, and a third. I hit him in the face, hard enough to turn his head, and bloody his mouth. When I went to follow that blow, though, he caught my hand.”

  Caddell rubbed at his crooked fingers. It was like he was trying to remember them the way they'd been, that day, when his hands had been hard and sure, coarse from the field, and eager for a fight.

  “Tharn laughed at me, showing me his bloody teeth. I tried to pull away. He squeezed, and broke three of my fingers. My knuckles popped like whip snaps. When I screamed, he bent my arm back till it broke. He dropped me, and started kicking. My ribs cracked. He ground my knee under his heel until it felt like it was filled with broken glass and fire. He kicked me in the head, and I stopped feeling much of anything. It was like I was under water. Everything was too far away for me to hear or see anymore. The last thing I saw was Afra. Daerun and Gerd held her between them, making her watch. She looked like she was screaming, but all I could hear was the wind, and the blood rushing in my head.”

  “And then?” Dirk asked.

  “Tharn stopped, in time. I lay there, rolled onto my side, my eyes swelling closed. I tried to stand, and couldn't. I begged through broken teeth for them to kill me.” Caddell snorted. “Lanissara laughed, and said she would give me no such blessing. Tharn bent down, and choked me until the world went away again. When I surfaced from the black sleep, I was bound to a plank table in a tent. My hurts were bound and splinted. Daerun was checking my stitches. He and Gerd both wore white robes, and naught beneath them. Gerd asked how I was feeling. I screamed at him, and he nodded. Like he had expected me to do that. Then he put his hand over my mouth, and twisted my nose until it broke. He kept his hand over my mouth, drowning me in my own blood, until I stopped struggling. I pissed myself. When I stopped gagging, he asked how I had found them in the hills.”

  “What did you tell them?” Dirk asked.

  Caddell took another drink of his medicine, and showed Dirk what was left of his teeth. “I told them nothing, and they pulled out my fingernails. I told them lies, and they broke my other leg. By the time they pulled the truth from me, they could not tell it apart from the chaff. So they continued. I told them everything I ever knew, but it never made them stop for long. No longer than it took them to wipe the blood from each other's hands and faces. I ran out of things to tell them, in time. They must have stopped, else I would not be here telling the tale.”

  “What do you remember after that?” Dirk asked.

  Caddell shrugged. It was a slow, painful process, and one of his shoulders popped loudly as the gesture reached its apex. “Darkness, for the most. Some muddy dreams I may or may not have been awake for. The next, clear memory I have is lying abed in my room here. Bea was spooning soup into my mouth. The soup was hot, the room was cold, and I was wrapped in blankets and gauze like a boy pretending to be a caterpillar. Wind nipped the eaves, and snow was falling in the yard. I asked how long it had been, and Bea told me that reap had come and gone. She also told me it was the third time I had asked her that, and forgotten. All in all, it took my mind until the middle of winter to come back to me. It took me until the spring thaw to be able to shit on my own again.”

  Dirk nodded. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Caddell idly rubbed his cheek, glancing down at the wetness on his fingers. He wiped the tears away on his shirt.

  “That is the long of my sorry story,” Caddell said.

  “Why did you choose now to tell it to me?” Dirk asked.

  “Because in the dozen seasons I knew Afra, I learned much of the hill speech,” Caddell said, his tongue slurring for the first time. “Daerun lied to you when you had your blade to his throat. Gerd did not say he thought they should kill you, though I have no doubt he felt that way.”

  “What did he say, then?” Dirk asked.

  Caddell peered into his cup. His seamed forehead wrinkled as he frowned, like he was trying to recognize the broken man staring back at him out of the brew. He sniffed, then drank what remained. He blinked several times, then turned to Dirk.

  “He told Daerun to get some of the devil's hair,” Caddell said. “That the Watcher would take care of you.”

  “The Watcher?” Dirk asked, leaning forward. “What is that?”

  Caddell shook his head, and sank into his chair. His breath was shallow, and harsh. The fire faded from his eyes, and his lids slid down like they had lead weights attached to them. A line of drool ran from the corner of his mouth, and he made no move to wipe it away.

  “A strangeness...” Caddell trailed off, his lips going slack as his eyes drooped further. “But be wary. They mean you harm. No good will come of it...”

  Before Dirk could ask another question, Caddell's head tilted to the side. His breathing evened out, and deepened. After a minute or two passed, he began to quietly snore. Dirk frowned, but instead of trying to rouse the innkeep, he leaned back in his seat. Thicket padded closer, raising a paw and touching Dirk on the knee. He settled the cat into his lap, and stroked its back. He watched the fire. For once, he wished he could see the answers to his questions in the flames.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Caddell had been asleep for a quarter of an hour when Bea stirred from the kitchen. She cupped Caddell's head, and touched his neck. She sighed, shook her head, and wiped his chin before pulling his arm across her shoulders.

  “Need you aid?” Dirk asked, setting Thicket on the back of his chair.

  “It would be a kindness,” Bea said. “He may not look it, but he has filled back out since his mending. Sacking him over my arm is not the child's errand it was.”

  Dirk got beneath Caddell's other arm, and the two of them levered him to his feet. Caddell's head lolled, and he muttered to himself, but his eyelids didn't so much as stir. They carried him into the small, mostly bare room near the front door. Dirk eased the innkeep down onto the bed, and Bea slid the blanket over him. She tucked the woolen blanket beneath his shoulders. And pressed a kiss to her cousin's scarred forehead. Caddell muttered something, then rolled onto his side. Once she was sure he wouldn't stir, Bea led Dirk back into the common room.

  “He has not imbibed like that for months,” she said, once she'd closed Caddell's door. “Though I fear the pain he drank it for is beyond the power of the draught to ease.”

  Bea pinched the bridge of her nose, as if she were staving off a headache. Dirk waited, and after a moment Bea took a shuddering breath.

  “I know not which of us has the bigger fool for a cousin,” Bea said. “Your blood rode into danger he knew nothing of. Mine escaped, and seems all too eager to limp back into it.”

  “You speak of the three who came this eve?” Dirk asked.

  “He nearly died finding that girl once,” Bea said. “Tonight, he would have made those two kill him to stop him from catching one more sight of her, no matter what words may have crossed his lips.”

  “Love is much like wine,” Dirk said. “Drunk deep, it will rob you of sense. But it will also let you endure, should you need to.”

  Bea shook her head, not in negation, but as if trying to clear her thoughts. “You should take his counsel to heart. He may be a fool, but he earned what wisdom he has the hard way.”

  “You heard the tale he told me, then?” Dirk asked.

  “Many times before,” Bea said, nodding. “When he was left here, it fell to me to tend him till he healed. I dried his tears when they sprung afresh after his black dreams, and I changed his bed pan when he could do little more than moan through his broken teeth. By now, I know what befell him nearly as well as he does.”


  “He spoke of a Watcher just before he drifted away,” Dirk said. “Know you the meaning?”

  Bea blinked, furrowing her forehead at the question. “A Watcher? You are certain that is what he said?”

  “Certain of the word,” Dirk said. “But I know not his intent in saying it.”

  Bea's frown deepened. She rested her hands on her hips, knotting her knuckles in her apron strings. She worried the inside of her cheek, then shook her head.

  “The Watchers are no more than a dark little yarn,” she said. “A thing told to children by their elders to make them stay abed once the sun is set.”

  “Would you tell it to me?” Dirk asked. “Please?”

  For a moment, Bea looked like she would protest. Then she blew out a slow breath, and walked behind the bar. She blew some dust off a clay cup, and poured herself a draught of sharp cider. She drank some, then came back around and perched on one of the stools. Dirk sat nearby. The shadows hung heavy around them, their curtain barely stirred by the flickering firelight. Bea took another sip, holding her cup in both hands.

  “You have seen the tall stones standing atop the barrow mounds?” Bea asked.

  “I passed many on the road,” Dirk said. “Though I did not stop to pay respects.”

  “The stones mark the harrowed dead, or so the story goes,” Bea said. “Kings and chiefs were buried under the hills, or hidden beneath the rivers, but oath-breakers and blackhearts were buried in the crown of these tombs. They were tied to the stones, facing outward so they watched over the land. When they died, or just before they died depending on who tells the tale, they were set aflame. The ashes were buried in a ring around the stone, and the spirit was lashed in death the same as the man had been in life. It would stand post at the stone, and watch. The longer its vigil, the more it would see, and the more it would hate.”

  “To what purpose?” Dirk asked.

  “To guard the graves,” Bea said. “These wicked men gave no aid in life, so they would serve in death. The more stones there were marking a barrow, the more important the person buried within was.”

  “Was that all they did?” Dirk asked. “Watch?”

  Bea shrugged, and took another drink. “That was why they were given their name. During the day, or so the tales told, they would bear witness to all that happened around the barrows. When the sun went down, though, the Watchers could walk from their stones. They would fall upon grave robbers, travelers, or anyone unlucky enough to be lost near their stones when the darkness set them loose.”

  “What do they look like?” Dirk asked.

  Bea smiled a bit. It was a weary smile, but there was good humor in it as well. “You could not see a Watcher, whether it was day or night. The only way to tell that it was near was that you would feel the heat of the blaze that had bound it to the stone. If it touched you, that same heat would leave burning wounds. In some tales the Watchers killed to feed themselves, and to stoke their fires. In others, it was said that if a Watcher killed someone then that person would take its place in the stone until they managed to find a victim of their own.”

  Dirk nodded. He idly touched the stone his grandmother had tied round his neck, stroking it through his shirt with his thumb. Bea finished her drink, then stepped behind the bar to rinse the cup at the water keg.

  “Why did Caddell speak of Watchers?” Bea asked, toweling the cup dry before setting it on a rack.

  It was Dirk's turn to shrug. “I know not. When he wakes, if his head is not a busted bell from his brew, I will ask.”

  “Do that,” Bea said, stepping out from behind the bar and reaching for a brown cloak hanging from a wooden peg. “I should be off. Night is fallen, and there is no more here for me to do.”

  “Where do you head?” Dirk asked.

  “Home,” Bea said. “Caddell may live here, but my folk are no more than a few miles down the way. I could walk the path to my door in a dream, and fancy I have more than once.”

  “Be safe,” Dirk said, pulling back the bar and holding the door for her. “More than the dark may lurk out there.”

  “I would nay worry. The nearest standing stone is at the head of the north road, miles from here.” Bea snugged her cloak round her shoulders, and stepped over the threshold. She paused outside, giving Dirk another of her small smiles. “Till the morn.”

  “Till then,” Dirk agreed.

  He watched Bea step off the porch, and walk off into the night. He stood there until he could no longer see the lighter swatch of her cloak against the darkness, nor hear her footsteps on the hard-packed dirt. When he was alone on the deserted town street, Dirk closed the door, and pushed the bar back into place. For good measure he also hooked the chain over its anchor. He crossed the common room, and returned to his chair.

  Dirk sat before the fire. The wind moaned, pawing at the inn like a stray dog who wanted to come inside. Dirk leaned his chin on his fist. He played the evening over in his mind again and again. He watched Daerun and Gerd's expressions change, and their glances flit back and forth behind Afra's back. He watched the pain and fear hiding behind Afra's smile, and he listened to her words as she promised to meet him the next day. He watched Caddell try to numb his pain as he spoke of giant brutes, and forgotten temples. He listened to Bea's tale of the wrathful dead, and how they were bound to guard the graves of the old ones. Then, when he reached the end, Dirk walked his mind back to the beginning, and watched it all again. Hours passed. The flames died down to embers, and the embers wilted to cinders. When the shadows had nearly claimed the common room, Dirk nodded to himself. He drew a deep breath, held it, and released it just as his chest started to burn. He lit a taper, and stood. He retired to his room, his right hand never straying far from the wire-wrapped hilt of his dagger.

  Dirk shut the door at his back, kicked off his boots, and peeled down his stockings. He stripped off his shirt, tossing it over the foot of the bed. He hung his belt from the headboard, leaving his dagger dangling near the pillow. He stepped to the side of the window, and glanced outside. Beyond the narrow slats, the night was dark as fresh-poured pitch. He sniffed at the crisp air, but all he smelled was a ghost of the departed day; midnight dew, and the thick scent of summer grass gone to seed. He listened, but he heard no scrape of boot, rasp of steel, or whisper of cloth. His charm lay still against his skin.

  Dirk set his taper on the side table. He sat on the edge of the bed. He touched the place where Daerun had grabbed hold of his hair. He tugged the leather thong from his dagger's hilt, and checked the draw. He snuffed the candle, stretched out, and pulled the covers over himself. He closed his eyes, and took long, slow breaths. In time, his heartbeat calmed. Beyond his window, the night carried on with its business. The inn settled and groaned, but they were the same sounds Dirk had heard every night he'd stayed there. Everything was in its place, but he could not shake the feeling he was on a possum hunt. So he lay quietly, breathed deeply, and did his best to wait.

  In the dark, time ceased to mean anything. Each breath could have been seconds or minutes, and the gaps between them may as well have lasted hours. Dirk drifted on the world, and there were times he had trouble telling if he was truly awake. Buried in the night, his mind sought sleep to shield itself. He tried to dig in his heels, but wrestling with sleep was like trying to grapple the rain. Sounds lost their sharp edges, and the smells of the room all blended together. The chill wind whispering between the slats became a soft caress against his cheek, and the biting edge of straw pressing into his back was little more than a dull tickle at the edge of his mind. Then, just as sleep started lapping at his lips, Dirk heard a rasp. It came again, then again. Something dragged at his window, trying to pry it open. There was a warm breath in the air, as if a furnace was panting just outside. The talons round Dirk's throat pricked him, giving him a moment's warning before the shutters tore open, and something unseen rushed over the sill.

  Dirk moved on instinct. His right hand snatched his dagger from its sheath, and in the same mo
tion he struck. The steel fang darted, and tore through something in the shadows. It parted like rotted cloth, and a blast of heat blew against Dirk's face. Something tore at Dirk's arm, dragging fingers of fire along his bare skin. His eyes shot open, and he hissed in pain. He saw nothing, at first, but then he noted a wavering line hanging in the air. It was like the shimmer above his father's forge when it had grown hot enough to melt steel. As he stared, something struck him again. Invisible claws raked across his bicep. Dirk snarled, and snatched his arm back before he could be wounded a third time. He rolled off the bed, landing in a crouch on the bare boards. The roaring heat rent his bedding, and Dirk smelled scorched cloth, and smoldering straw. The thing let out a strangled cry, and a burning brand struck Dirk in the chest. He smelled burning hair, and hot blood. Hovering in the air above him was the thin shimmer he'd seen before. It was closing, growing thinner by the second. Before it could vanish entirely, Dirk attacked.

  He sprang to his feet, bringing his dagger up in a vicious slash. Moldering not-flesh ripped beneath the blade, and the air before his weapon parted like a weeping mouth. Heat poured forth, along with a snarling, weeping sound. Cinders pushed at his shoulders, trying to halt him, but Dirk stepped into the assault. His arm swung, and his dagger cut the other way. He hacked and hewed, driving the haint back with every blow. It fled for the window, and Dirk brought his dagger down. It pierced the diaphanous form, now outlined by a dozen, baking wounds, and thudded into the windowsill. Unseen claws scrabbled against the frame, gouging at the wood as the ephemeral thing tried to pull away. It tore itself along the blade, and screamed. It wrenched around, ripping at Dirk's hand like an enraged cat. Dirk held tight to the dagger's hilt, lips pulled back from his teeth as his skin was flayed in one blow after another. The creature's struggles soon slowed, losing what force they'd had. It took a ragged, snuffling breath, and exhaled. Heat rolled out from the window, and was swallowed by the night's chill. Ashes fell, and vanished on the breeze.