Chapter 34 Claret
My knife strikes true, right in the sternum.
That nasty Crinan fellow stumbles and falls, eyes wide open in surprise. His lantern falls with him, but thankfully the snow cushions the fall, propping it upright so its flame still burns.
‘A debt repaid,’ I tell the Bard who stands stunned beside him.
‘For when you saved my life, back with those waves.’ The man just stares at me, his usual eloquence evaporated.
Doesn’t he remember how he waved his torch, forced the daughter-shaped apparition back into the waters before it could grab me?
That particular adventure wasn’t long ago, but Shepherd’s realm seems to distort time, so I’m uncertain.
Maybe he barely recalls who I am. I notice his hands, then, still hovering over his heart, trembling, as if trying to keep a bird from flight.
‘Did you think I was aiming at you?’ I chuckle. ‘Maybe one day.’
But not until I learn why Anassa brought us here, and why he turned up like a bad weed, immediately after, and what transpired between them while we were separated.
I walk to Crinan’s body, place my foot on his chest for purchase, and remove my knife.
It comes out with a wet squelch, coated in blood.
I can’t see his own knife – he must be lying right over it.
I could roll him around but … I sniff; the man already smells, having soiled himself in death.
‘We should bury him,’ I tell my two companions who remain motionless, as if struck by Medusa’s gaze, eyes wide in shock.
‘Or burn him. The ground may be difficult to dig in this cold, but we shouldn’t leave his body to the wolves. ’ No one deserves that.
‘I … I …’ the Bard stammers, his gaze flitting between the dead body next to him, Anassa, and me.
‘You what?’ I bark, losing my patience. It’s too damn cold to sit around like this.
‘I … thank thee, of course.’ He bends his head in an awkward bow. ‘For saving my life. It was … unexpected. But I’m most grateful. Most, most grateful.’
‘You knew this man.’ It’s not an accusation, not exactly, but the Bard takes it as such.
‘A fleeting acquaintance, to be sure! A means to an end. I arrived here yesterday, you see, dreadfully lost, and this old chap that I met at the tavern, over drinks, claimed to know these woods. He said he could help me search for you two ladies, for a price.’ The Bard approaches Crinan’s body, his nose twitching at the odour.
‘I suppose it is a good thing I did not pay him all the money in advance … We could use it to get you two a room tonight.’
His blabbering hides truths that need to be delved into, that much is clear. But before I speak, Anassa’s voice comes from behind me, as soft as snow and yet just as lethal.
‘I’m not going back. I have a mission to fulfil, an innocent to save.’
I turn to look at her, my corvid queen puffing her chest, making her plumage bigger to scare off bigger predators.
She is magnificent and prideful and so fragile, and I would murder any fool who looked at her like Crinan did, twice.
‘Are you all right?’ I ask her. Did watching me kill someone change how you see me?
‘I’m sorry if I scared you, but there was no time to discuss. That man was dangerous.’
Anassa gives me an odd look, her forest-green eyes searing.
‘The man you left alive is much more dangerous. His pen, mightier than any sword …’ Her voice fades like a gust of wind between tree branches.
Then her gaze finds the Bard and the muscles in her neck tighten.
She takes a deep breath and yells, ‘I won’t go back to rot in your garden.
Tell Shepherd to come and look for us herself, tell her to come on all fours and start sniffing the snow for our scent, for all I care, because I’m not returning there! Not without saving Gruoch first.’
Frustration fills me, burning back some feeling in my limbs.
Why is Anassa so cavalier towards Shepherd?
And who is this Gruoch she keeps mentioning?
My head pounds. This wretched snow keeps falling, making it hard to think.
It’s all I can do to keep my teeth from chattering, my body from earthquaking.
‘Will you two stop speaking in riddles, for a while? We need to get out of the storm. You,’ I point at the Bard with my knife, ‘pour the oil from this lantern over him. He won’t burn fully in this cold, but his gods should at least acknowledge him.
And you,’ I turn to Anassa, ‘no one will force you to go anywhere. Not while I’m around. ’
Unless, of course, Shepherd does come, and melts us all to embers with her wrath. But that is a divine threat for later. For now …
‘You mentioned something about drinks? And a room?’ I ask the Bard. ‘Somewhere safe from this cold?’
Crinan’s body burns bright, a small gesture to whatever gods he believed in, to accept his spirit in their arms as it soars back to them.
The smell of roasting flesh and sizzling fat attacks our nostrils, lingering for a long time, even when we depart.
Yet as we trudge along on tired feet, following the Bard, none of us comments on it.
Each of us carries their own ghosts, it seems, whispering to us in this cold, dark forest, where tree trunks white from snow bring to mind bony fingers, rising from the ground in supplication.
Another litany of death, just like the skulls in Shepherd’s hallway, equally silent and unmoving.
At some point, even the snow stops falling, an eerie mist rising from the ground in its stead, making it hard to see.
The Bard’s lantern flickers, its flame erratic.
His hand must be trembling and for once, I can’t blame him.
‘How much further still?’ I ask, if only to subdue this silence.
‘It should be just up ahead.’ He huffs – with exertion or existential dread, it’s hard to tell.
I cast a glance at Anassa. She seems determined to avoid my gaze, her head high, jaw locked.
Wearing her mask again, to hide whatever troubles her.
The phantom of her touch lingers on me, her spontaneous hug back in Shepherd’s world.
Was that only this morning? I hope we stay alive long enough to feel this warmth again. And maybe this time –
‘There,’ the Bard says, bringing me back from my thoughts. ‘That should be our carriage, up ahead.’
I spot it right away, as the trees thin, revealing the road ahead. A chariot, unlike anything I’ve ever seen, towering like a house, complete with a curved roof made of wood planks. And at its front, two chestnut brown beasts, neighing as they see us.
‘Easy now.’ The Bard raises a hand tentatively for the horse closest to him to smell.
Not a complete idiot, then. The horse shuffles its hooves, and I can feel the ground vibrating, but then it settles.
‘We may have a slight problem,’ the Bard tells me as I approach to let the beast smell me too.
‘I’ve never had to drive a horse-drawn carriage in the past. I remember the way back to the inn, I think, but our driver …
’ He points back to the forest, to the crisp corpse we’ve left behind.
I sigh. ‘Fine.’ Grabbing hold of this hulking house, I find my footing and climb up.
There is a wide bench at the front, so that the driver can steer this thing seated.
How lazy … Yet in my current exhaustion, it will do.
I settle in, grab hold of the reins, the leather layered with frost – almost too stiff to bend.
The Bard and Anassa stare at me again. You’d think I’d just committed yet another murder, or managed something equally preposterous.
It grows tiring, having to issue orders, think ahead, while the two of them gape at me, shocked or affronted or perplexed, like children who need to be told how the world works.
‘Well?’ I ask, the challenge clear in my voice.
‘Anyone want to tell me where we’re going, or would you rather walk? ’
The Bard snaps out of it first. ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ With a fluid movement, he climbs aboard the carriage and sits next to me, too close for comfort. ‘I’ll guide you to the inn.’
‘Great.’ I look at the remaining member of our group, a tall, tenebrous figure in the mist, with eyes that cut like lanterns. ‘Are you coming, Anassa? Maybe you’d rather sit in the back. No sense all of us being in the cold since this thing has a roof.’
She blinks, then nods.
When the carriage shakes and the wood groans and I’m certain she’s on board, I give the reins a small tug. The horses start with a slow trot, gradually increasing speed as the wheels get unstuck from the snow and this whole thing starts moving.
‘Where to?’ I ask the Bard without taking my eyes off the horses’ flanks, the way their coats glisten as the snow melts with their movements.
‘Follow this road, then take the first – no, the second turn right.’
I catch a glimpse of his hand, pointing to our left.
‘That’s not right,’ I say. ‘Are you sure?’ Do words mean anything in this world?
‘Oh, forgive me, I was thinking stage right. Yes, left. Take the second turn left,’ he enunciates slowly, and I consider throwing him off the carriage.
But that might upset Anassa, and she’s already closed off as it is.
So I spare his life, again, and instead focus on the rhythm of the horses, on maintaining the right hold on the reins despite the trembling of my hands and of my heart.
No need to alert these beasties that their driver knows not where she’s going, what this world is, and why she has now chosen twice to upend her life, all for a woman wrapped in black.