Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Heard you’re leaving us tomorrow,” Aramal said.
Vren looked up from his seat on an overturned bucket. Aramal was standing in the stall door, looking relaxed, a harness in his hands.
Vren smiled at the man and gestured him in. “Harvest done?” he asked.
Aramal had understood that Vren couldn’t sleep within four walls. He’d offered an empty stall in the barn, used to store feed. Warm, what with all the animals. Vren had spread his bedroll on a pile of hay and slept like a rock.
There was only one horse in the barn, thankfully, an old plow mare in a box stall. Vren made sure to keep his distance from her as he came and went.
“Aye, and it looks to be a good one.” Aramal seated himself on a barrel across from Vren and began to check the leather straps for wear. There were no idle hands in Athelbryght. “You sure it’s a good idea, heading up into the mountains now? What of the weather?”
Vren shrugged. “I’ve a need to get home.”
“First I ever heard anyone call the Wastes ‘home,’” Aramal said. He pulled some tools from his pockets and began to work, then paused to gesture at the blanket where Vren had emptied his pack. “So what’s this about, then?”
Vren had tossed most of the contents of his pack into the center of the blanket and now was sorting everything, spreading the items out. “Been traveling for a bit, and one acquires things, more than ya know. Just checking to see what needs repair.”
“Like your boots?” Aramal jerked his chin towards Vren’s foot.
“Aye,” Vren wiggled his toes in the hole. “And to see what I need to leave behind.”
“So? Worried about weight?”
“No,” Vren smiled. “The Wastes tolerate nothing forced by the hand of man.”
“So the stories are true?” Aramal’s curiosity was clear.
“Truth,” Vren said. “Step into the Waste with this,” he held up his steel dagger, “and it will return to the elements. I need to rid myself of that as well as things like this.” He held up a small tin box holding flint and steel.
“And I have to sharpen these,” he added, digging out his set of bone knives.
“Ho, now, those are lovely,” Aramal set harness and tools down and reached for the blades. Vren gave them up willingly. “The handle’s horn, isn’t it?”
“Aye,” Vren said. “But they don’t hold an edge like steel does, so I have to keep sharpening them.”
“You don’t use stone?”
“Never,” Vren said as a shiver ran down his spine.
Aramal didn’t seem to notice. He ran his fingers over the yellowed blades. “An odd sort of life, seems to me,” he said slowly.
“The one I know best,” Vren said.
“What are the Wastes like?” Aramal asked.
Vren took a moment to think.
“I’d not offend,” Aramal said quickly, into the silence. “I’ve never been out of Athelbryght and only travel to trade at our borders. I had a chance to leave once but…I didn’t take it. Not that I have a reason to leave, mind, but sometimes I get an itch to know.”
“No offense taken,” Vren said. “Just not sure I know the words. To your eye, the Wastes would seem desolate. Plant growth is sparse and scrubby. Trees don’t get much taller than me and the ground is stony, full of grit and sand. Water’s scarce.” He shook his head. “Shades of brown, yellow, tan.
“And the heat?” Vren rolled his shoulders at the memory. “At the height, sun burns like the hottest fire. I come to the border of the Wastes, I won’t be wearing leathers.” He reached into the depths of his pack and pulled out a cloth tunic and trous, and a rather battered straw hat.
“I’ll not tread in the full sun, either.” Vren smiled. “Walk early in the mornings, or after the sun peaks.”
“What about snakes?” Aramal asked. “And I heard tell of creatures called gurtles that hunt in packs.”
“Well, you always walk with both eyes open,” Vren said. “‘Cause everything in the Wastes is trying to kill ya.”
“Why live there, then?” Aramal asked, eyes alight with curiosity.
Vren hesitated. How to explain ancient oaths that bound them? “There’s a beauty to it,” he said, settling on something Aramal could accept. “In the Spring, after the rains, the Wastes become alive with color and the scent of growing things.” Vren lifted his head and flashed Aramal a grin. “And ya might be cold, but ya never find yourself balls deep in snow.”
Aramal laughed and returned Vren’s knives. “True enough, friend.”
“It is home,” Vren said; the longing in his voice caught him by surprise. “I am called to return.”
Aramal nodded. “As I would miss the scent of the harvest, and maybe, just maybe, the snow as deep as my balls.”
They shared a grin.
“What about that doll, then?” Aramal asked.
Vren turned to look. He’d forgotten he’d propped it against the wall, wrapped in its sling. “A distraction,” he grinned. “For any who might pursue me.”
Aramal shook his head. “Well, I’ll not pretend to understand, or ask for explanations. Just know you’d be welcome to stay, if you wished it.”
Vren shook his head and Aramal nodded, accepting.
“Still, it must be a hard life.” Aramal returned to his leather stitching. “No metal for tools, pots, or pans.”
“We’ve bone and stone,” Vren shrugged. “Glass too, and pottery.”
“But isn’t glass forced?”
Vren shrugged again. “The Elders think it’s because glass is formed of sand and heat and then shaped. ‘When the Blood turned on the Blood and the wrath of the elements fell upon us, there was no reasoning with the forces of wind and fire. We adapted to their ways, at their command.’” He dug into his pile of possessions and held up a glass disc. “So we make fire with this.”
“I can see good parts and bad parts to that,” Aramal mused. “Mostly having to do with cloudy, dark days.
“Again, we adapt,” Vren said. “I welcome my return to the Wastes tomorrow.”
“It will take more than a few days to trod that path. I’ve a good piece of cow hide that might work to fix those boots.” Aramal set his work aside. “Let me fetch it.”
“My thanks,” Vren called after him, then waited until his footsteps had faded before digging out the most precious of his burdens.
The glass vial was still well stoppered with cork and sealed with the wax that Queen Kara had dripped on it. The blood within gleamed bright red.
The small key that he’d wrapped with it was also still safe. He didn’t know what it was made of, but it was worked metal and probably magic at that. “You’ll not survive the Wastes,” Vren told it. “I’ll cache you with my sword and daggers until the Liam figures out what to do with you.”
He wrapped the items up again and placed them back in his pack, along with his cloth garments, then continued to sort through his belongings. Funny, how so much metal wormed its way into his pack on his travels. Buckles, pins, spoons. Yet they were easy to shed, once his focus returned to the Wastes.
As his fingers worked, he considered his options.
There had been no sign of pursuit for some time. He’d thought of back-tracking and killing her. The vore might aid him in that, even if Athelbryght was neutral.
But that wasn’t his goal. He wanted the pursuer to fail, to report back that he’d escaped with the babe into the Wastes. Anything to pull their attention away from Orval and Amari.
So he’d play the prey a bit longer and wear the sling.
Just in case.
Iris knelt by the rough wood of the barn wall and pressed her ear close. She was numb and shivering, naked, every inch of her dark skin covered with a thick layer of muck from the pig sty. She stifled her curses at the wind, and the cold, and the muck, and idiots who slept in a barn instead of a warm bed. It had taken many a miserable night to learn that much.
But he was in there. She could hear the men talking, but their words were muffled. She leaned in, seeking a crack, holding her breath, hoping to hear something. Anything.
The wind died.
The local spoke, his voice deeper, louder, asking about the wastes. Then the breeze picked up and she heard little of the marcus’s reply.
At least now she knew her target was male. Which just made her more determined to cut off his private parts.
Iris found another crack, a bit wider, with more light. She checked her surroundings, then pressed in close. The words became clearer.
“What about that doll, then?”
Iris caught her breath.
“A distraction for any who might pursue me.”
Rage shook her so hard that she lost the rest of the conversation. Her vision darkened and it took everything she had not to rise up and kill them both. Muck-covered, naked avenger with naught but her gleaming knife in her hand, teeth bared, as she slit their throats.
He had no babe. He. Had. No. Babe.
Her whole body shook at the fury of being fooled. Fierce hate filled her.
Death was too good for him; she’d inflict such pain as she was able.
Reason asserted itself. No, she couldn’t do that, not yet. There had been a babe born; she’d seen the evidence of that herself in the Airion command tent. The Bonded had commanded and she would obey.
A wisp of words reached her ears.
“I welcome my return to the Wastes tomorrow.”
Iris allowed herself a moment of triumph. That mountain path. The smug fool would sleep warm this night and head out in the morning. But she’d start now, this moment, circle back to her cache, skirt the manor house and its fields, steal a bit of food, maybe more blankets.
Iris eased away from the wall and crawled to where the shadows were deepest. Suddenly the cold, the wind, and the dung mattered not a wit.
The Bonded needed to know where that babe was. It had to be somewhere back in Edenrich. The marcus would tell her as she carved him into pieces.
He might have the vore with him, and that made her think. She’d have to find a place to attack well before the trail headed down to the Wastes. A good ambush site, then a crossbow bolt for the vore and her knives for the man.
She wouldn’t bathe. The stink would last.
She grinned mirthlessly. For all their reputed abilities, marcusi were still human. They suffered pain, as any did.
Iris was good at pain. He would tell her what she needed to know. And after, well, she might get a bit of revenge for all the trouble he’d put her through.
Then she could bathe and sleep and take the vore’s fur back to the Bonded.
It was as good a plan as any.
Vren lay in his bed of straw and blankets, eyes wide open. The barn was quiet and dark, with nothing stirring but a few mice, being hunted by barn cats. Moonlight filtered through the old boards, giving everything an odd glow.
Vren was free to wrestle with his conflicts.
He should not do this, he had no right and no desire to offend, but when would he have such a chance again? He was leaving at dawn, and who knew if he would survive the journey. And if he did, when would he leave the Wastes again?
Before he could talk himself out of it, he flung back the blanket, rose to his feet, and donned his patched boots. He straightened his clothes as best he could, brushed himself off, and ran his fingers through his hair. His care might not make a difference, but then again, it might.
Vren took a deep breath, stepped into the main corridor, walked a few steps it took, and faced the open stall.
The old plow horse stood there, her shaggy winter coat more grey than brown. The moonlight seemed to make it glow.
Her large head turned, eyes dark. It stamped one forehoof, hard. “No farther,” it seemed to say. Old it might be, but a horse that size could do harm.
Vren swallowed hard, moved one step closer, then sank to his knees. He bowed his head. Carefully, slowly, he raised his hands, palms open. “Spirt of the Horse, hear my plea, and in my voice, hear the plea of all those of the Wastes.”
The only sound was the rasp of his breath and the beating of his heart in his ears. “Forgive us,” he whispered. “Forgive us for what was done by our ancestors.” Vren crossed his hands over his chest, resting his fingers on his shoulders. He expected nothing, for the prayers and petitions of his ancestors had always gone unheard. Guilt and shame flooded through him, at the past, at daring to plead. He’d rise to his feet, back away, and return to bed.
He lifted his head and lost all ability to breathe.
The mare was now a gleaming warhorse, eyes bright, tail swishing in anger, saddled and bridled, armored in gleaming metal that reflected the moonlight. Its gaze was not friendly.
The woman standing beside it was also clad in armor, top to toe, her eyes bright under her helm, a huge, two-handed sword on her back. In the shadows behind her, Vren caught a glimpse of a man in leathers, little more than an impression of bright hair and kinder eyes.
Vren went still, for there was power here, and fear that that power might strike him for his nerve. He sank lower, bowed his head almost to the floor.
“Far from home, wanderer,” came a voice that climbed up the hairs on the back of his neck. It was a woman’s voice, yet not, echoing yet clear. “Long time since we have heard this plea.”
Vren swallowed hard. He didn’t dare speak.
“You are of the Tribe of the Horse. Faint, but traces remain of the old blood within you.”
Vren licked his lips. “Yes,” he breathed a whisper.
“Change will come. You will not see it, Vren of the Horse.” her voice held a hollowness of truth and dread.
Sorrow gripped him.
“But you might be the spark that ignites the wild grass fire,” she continued.
Hope forced him up, made him stare right into the glitter that surrounded her.
“You plead to have the Wastes restored to what was, wanderer. To have the horses return, to flourish and grow. For forgiveness of the betrayal so long ago..”
“Yes, on behalf of all my people,” he said breathlessly, tears in his eyes. “Yes.”
“It requires much,” she said. “The price is high.”
“Yes,” Vren said again.
“Even if you do not see it in your lifetime?” she pressed.
“Yes,” he said for the third time. “Even so.”
The Spirit turned her head ever so slightly. The male figure behind her nodded, giving assent.
“Let it be so,” she said, and now there was warmth in the hollowness. “Willing sacrifice, willingly made. Not an easy thing, but you will have a choice to make, wanderer. You will know when the moment comes. Remember us.” She put her hand on the horse’s shoulder. The warhorse shook its head, rattling its barding, and stamped its hoof.
Brightness flared all around them. When his sight returned, they were gone. All that was left was an old plow horse, who snorted and turned its head away.
Vren, mouth dry, backed away, shaken, his heart racing. He returned to his pallet, buried himself in the blankets, and tried to convince himself that what had happened had not truly happened. He stared at the beams above him, his heart pounding, his breathing coming faster and faster as a panic he’d never felt before overcame him.
The plow horse snorted again and stamped her hoof.
Peace washed over him, and with it, sleep.