Chapter 41
“Are you okay?” asked Fern, crouched next to Astryx and wincing at the ragged scrape running down the outside of the elf’s arm. A dark stain slowly spread on her shoulder where Tullah had punched her. “Fuck, you look awful.”
The Oathmaiden eased into a seated position, groaning as she did. Her smile was wan. “I appreciate your gentle understatement. I have felt . . . better.” Coming from Astryx, that sounded to Fern a lot like “I am experiencing unendurable agony.”
“Wow,” said a hushed voice. “I mean, I imagined it a thousand times. I knew it would be amazing, but . . .”
They both looked to Breadlee where he had torn his way blood-slick through Fern’s cloak.
“None of this is amazing,” said Fern, with a frown.
“Did you not see what just happened? Bridgewrecker is a thing of the past, that’s for sure.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Tullah, unmoving in the grass. Only seconds ago, she’d been alive, vital, deadly. And now . . .
Fern felt sick, and an unexpected and profound sadness.
Beyond Tullah, Kell sat with a hand on the back of his knee and a look of dazed disbelief on his face.
“Let’s worry about your new title later, maybe,” Fern murmured.
The knife sheepishly conceded, “Okay, you make a solid point about the timing.”
“My lady,” whispered Nigel, from where he’d landed in the grass. “I have failed you. Shame chokes me from point to pommel. I beg your forgiveness.” His voice became strangled. “Perhaps I should make way for another.”
Astryx gingerly unwound the cloak from her arm, withdrawing Breadlee.
“Well, I wasn’t going to suggest it so soon, but . . .” the knife trailed off.
The Oathmaiden wiped him carefully on a trouser leg and held him point up before her face.
“Bradelys Tertius,” she said, with sober dignity. “Your steel is true. You have my regard, and my gratitude.”
He made a noise like a strangled squeal. Nigel gave the impression of holding his breath in dismay.
“But I think a better wielder has already found you.” She flipped him around and offered him to Fern with one hand, the ruined cloak with the other.
Fern received them both solemnly.
“Whoof. I’m feeling a lot of things right now,” mumbled Breadlee.
“Hey, I don’t want to rush anyone, but there are Gatewardens on the way,” said Quillin, cocking a thumb at the road. “That is, if you wanted to disappear.”
Astryx followed Quillin’s gaze to where three women wearing blue tunics with lanterns at their waists were detaching from the swelling group of spectators on the road.
She shook her head. “I don’t think I can move that fast right now.”
The elf stared at Fern for a long while as she considered something. She seemed to come to a decision.
Turning painfully, she found Zyll and beckoned. “Quickly, come here.”
The goblin tilted her head, but drew nearer, her orange hair barely topping the grass.
Astryx reached out and delicately took the goblin’s forearm, the one with the bracelet.
With her other hand she touched three points on the lattice of wire where the metal swirled in curlicues, murmuring something intricate under her breath.
The bracelet popped open and fell away.
“Go,” said Astryx. “Now, before they arrive, and things become complicated.”
For a long, breathless moment, Fern thought Zyll was going to stay.
Then the goblin vanished into the grass without another word or a backward glance.
Fern felt something splinter inside her.
She’d gotten what she wanted, but maybe Astryx was right, after all.
Maybe she was chronically dissatisfied.
Breadlee captured the feeling more precisely.
“I’m trying very hard not to be confused about how this is all working out.”
Things did become very complicated.
More Gatewardens arrived to assist the first three.
Astryx commanded both respect and the benefit of the doubt, but Tullah was, by the elf’s own admission, dead by her hand, and Kell and Marv did their best to obscure the truth to their own benefit. Of the archer, there was no sign.
Fern sat quietly beside Quillin in the grass, staring at the bloody hole in her cloak. The only coherent thoughts she allowed herself concerned whether she’d be able to mend it and get the stains out, or if she’d have to find a new one. Her entire body felt like it was vibrating at high frequency.
Any musings on Zyll, or what would happen next, she drew back from as though they were aflame.
Quillin did his part to lend weight to Astryx’s words, but still, they were all escorted back into the village to the Warden’s garrison. Fern dimly wondered where Bucket and Persimmon were.
A physician was summoned to attend to their various wounds, and more questions followed, although few were directed Fern’s way. She remained mistily detached, until a freckled woman with a Gatewarden’s badge snapped fingers under her snout.
“Are you with us? You’ve been very quiet.”
“Hm? Oh. Sure,” mumbled Fern.
“This one says you’re a bookseller.” She gestured at Quillin, who sat beside her on the bench. “Is that your trade, then?”
“I have no idea,” replied Fern, honestly.
A frown. “Are you sure you weren’t struck in the head? Still thinking straight?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.”
“Well, you’re free to go. No place to keep you anyway.” Unspoken, but obvious, was the Warden’s desire to be done with the whole affair and go home herself.
And so they found themselves in the street with nothing but a pointed suggestion to move on as soon as possible. Kell and Marv had been further detained, possibly only to prevent immediate bloodshed outside the garrison.
Fern felt adrift. Destinationless, literally. Amberlin had been their lodestone, and now it didn’t matter at all.
Astryx, too, seemed disoriented, glancing blankly into the gathering dusk, her arm sheathed in fresh linen. The lost look in her eyes bruised Fern’s heart.
Quillin cleared his throat. He extended a paw as though to clasp Fern’s, but then reconsidered. “Well. I’ve got a long journey ahead of me. I feel like there are things I want to say, but I can’t seem to find them, standing here in the middle of the road. Guess I’m too ashamed.”
“No need,” said Fern. She caught the paw he’d dropped and gave it a brief squeeze before releasing it. The motion brought a whiff of his scent to her nose.
Encouraged, he ventured, “Going to find someplace to stay the night before I find passage back west. The long route, if I can. With winter coming on, I don’t fancy the mountains again.
” He glanced back and forth between Astryx and Fern.
“You’re welcome, of course.” It was clear that last was meant for Fern alone, though.
Resting a paw on the Oathmaiden’s leg, Fern asked, “What now?”
The elf blinked and seemed to come back to herself. It took her a moment to find words. “We should get the horses, before someone makes off with them.”
Not “I,” but “we.” Fern clung to that like salvation, however temporary it might be.
She glanced at her satchelful of letters, then caught Quillin’s earnest gaze. “I’m not ready yet.”
He nodded. “Well, if that changes someday, I take my summers in Cardus. Ask for me at the Red Roost.”
“I’ll remember,” she said.
They stood awkwardly for a while, before he bobbed his head and departed slowly down the street without a backward look.
“Are you sure?” asked Astryx, when he was beyond earshot.
“I’m sure.”
A long pause.
“You let her go.”
“I did.”
When they emerged from the town again to the forlorn cries of night birds, Astryx led them through the field, still mangled by battle and blood. The windmill stood stark and shadowy and still in the failing light.
They both stopped dead, lost for words as someone emerged from behind it leading two horses.
Someone small, in a coat made of pockets, wearing a huge grin.
She approached without hurry, halting a few paces away and studying them with crimson eyes.
“We goes when is time to be somewhere else,” said Zyll.