Chapter Thirty-Three. Humor in a Hard Landscape.
Thirty-Three
Humor in a Hard Landscape.
The lush green valley continues for what seems like an eternity, running parallel to the mountains that I expected us to have to find our way up and over.
Instead, the road we are on proceeds along the base of the great, craggy elevations, and under other circumstances, the ride might have been rather enjoyable what with all the fair, lovely weather, and the amiable amble of our steed.
That all changes.
Abruptly, the grasses disappear and the ground level declines into an inhospitable territory of gray rocks.
No more trees or vegetation, no humidity, no streams or rivers.
All we have are clusters of boulders, some big enough that the trail must wind around them, others of varying sizes from ones you could build a wall with all the way down to pebbles and sand.
The temperature changes, too, as the sun becomes unrelenting rather than pleasant.
It’s risen ever higher and higher in the piercing blue sky, but the heat that gathers around us like the cinch on a sack is about more than just the strength of the rays.
The baking dryness is a different climate entirely, a summer’s day at high noon that never fades and is never relieved by a rain shower.
Merc keeps our pace slow and steady, and he stops to offer our horse one of our two bladders of water. The poor thing drinks all of it. Merc then holds off for himself and tells me to sip from the other. I decline. I’m sure I’ll regret this later, but if he’s not drinking, I’m not drinking.
As we resume our progress, we don’t talk much—which isn’t to say there hasn’t been conversation of sorts.
My brain fills the silence with all kinds of exchanges between the pair of us, and I dub in his side of things as I wish he would respond.
I have to wonder how close the fake past I create for him tracks the actual one he’s led—
“How’re you back there?”
His deep voice cuts through the plodding of the horse’s hooves and the creak of all the tack. And even though he’s asked this with some regularity, I jerk to attention like he’s never addressed me before.
“Ah, yes, fine. You?”
Babble, babble, babble, I think to myself.
“We’ve made good time.” His head cranes up to the persistent blue sky. “We should be arriving at the Outpost by late afternoon.”
Though he seems quite satisfied with our progress, I’m crushed by the idea that I’m going to be on the back of this saddle for what surely will be another four hours at least. I’ve got chafing where a woman would prefer to have absolutely none, I’m hungry and nauseous at the same time, and my tailbone is numb.
You’d think that last one would be a benefit, but it isn’t.
It’s the precursor to a stunning pain that’s surely going to come when circulation resumes.
Meanwhile, I’m not certain Merc’s fatigued at all. His roaming gaze never stills, his broadsword never dips down, his grip on the reins never relaxes. In this, he’s as hard as this unforgiving landscape we’re trudging through. I’m grateful.
It’s also hard not to resent the strength a little.
As he falls silent once more, I twist around and look over the chestnut’s ample rump. The way behind us is the way ahead is the way off to the east and the west.
Rocks. Rocks. And more … rocks. As far as the eye can see.
I didn’t know there were so many shades of gray, and gone is my previous captivation with the breadth of the vista.
Still, the summits of the peaks to the west do gleam like diamonds in all the sunlight, and I tell myself that I can see the dragons circling round their nests.
I’m not sure whether that’s an illusion created by the waves of heat, however.
“Anybody riding up on us?” Merc demands some time later.
I search the sharp black shadows thrown by the sunlight hitting the cluster of boulders we just passed.
There isn’t enough space to hide in the fissures and crevices—at least, not if you’re bigger than a sheepling.
Our only real risk, it seems to me, is an ambush set in the lee of one of these larger groupings, but with our ability to see so far and wide, whatever threat would have to have been in place well before we arrived.
“No one.” I turn back around to look ahead, down the trail of gray sand. “And I can understand why this isn’t a well-traveled route.”
Given what I’m escaping, not crossing paths with a single soul is arguably a good thing, be it beast or man. The isolation is intimidating, though.
As my mind nibbles on whether to worry about how far we are from water and shelter, a familiar tension grips my ribs, and I begin to feel as though I can’t breathe—and maybe it’s a symptom of my weariness, but I’m annoyed at the anxiety.
How a wide-open landscape can make me feel so claustrophobic is a new one—
“This used to be a vast lake.”
As I home in on Merc’s voice, I’m beyond grateful he’s talking. “Really?”
“Yes.” Merc points off to the left with the broadsword, then sweeps the horizon up and over the horse’s bobbing head and lolling ears.
“This is the Lake of Lost Souls. You can see the old shoreline all around us. And check out the marking toward the tops of these tall rocks we pass by. That’s the old level of the water. ”
Even though I’ve been looking around for hours, this is a revelation that now seems too obvious to have been missed.
We’ve indeed descended into a massive basin of sorts, the distant edges of which nudge up in every direction.
Instantly, my mind recasts the landscape, and I imagine an ocean’s worth of water filling the depression, with boats under sail navigating around the rocky protrusions, far, far above from this stone-filled bottom.
“I didn’t notice,” I murmur.
“A landscape never lies.” His head swivels back and forth as he scans. “The signs of what has come before are written in the topography, the soil, the stones themselves. These clues are a physical manifestation of the passage of centuries.”
I recall him spearing into the soil with his hand, and try once again to picture his life before he learned how to wield that broadsword.
Farmers are not fighters, not unless they’re defending their land, I suppose.
I don’t think he’ll ever tell me much more about himself, and I crave his secrets like they’re a meal I can consume.
Then again … I also wonder some about my own.
“What will you do after we get to the Outpost?” I ask.
“Whatever comes next.” His laugh has an edge. “There’s always work for a man like me in a place like that.”
From what I understand, the Badlands is a catch-all name for this stretch of territory that runs between the southernmost edge of the Kingdom of Prosperitus and the outskirts of the Kingdom of the South.
“You’ve been before?” I ask.
“Its reputation is well-known.”
He’s right about that. Back at the pub, I overheard travelers talk about the town and its debauchery, and I can remember thinking that I was glad I would never have to go there. Ah, fate.
“I have two rules for you at the Outpost,” Merc announces. “And we might as well get them straight before we’re anywhere near that place.”
Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe it’s my hunger. But I become churlish at his attitude. “I do believe I am in charge—”
“Rule one. We’re going to stay together while I’m there.”
I frown. “I’m sorry … what?”
His head turns to the left, his profile briefly carving an outline through the vista. “You and I will be in the same room.”
Stiffening in my seat, I mostly keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Still interested in collecting on our deal?”
“It’s about safety, not sex.”
So I’m right. He’s changed his mind and doesn’t want me. “You still think anybody else would lust after me? I’m flattered.”
“What’s that supposed to mean.”
“I’d guess that my natural attributes are deterrent enough. Now that I’ve decided to be done with facial coverings.”
Merc reorients forward again. “I don’t know what you’re about.”
“How am I going to pay you?” I wonder aloud. “If sex is off the table?”
Merc pulls the horse to a halt, and swings his leg over the chestnut’s mane to drop to the ground. As he lands, he does that thing with his hands, clapping his torso under his surcoat, at his hips, then his right thigh, left thigh. He’s absently checking for his weapons.
“Yes?” I prompt when he just looks around.
After what feels like too long, he turns back to me and our horse. “Rule number two—”
“I haven’t agreed to the first one—”
“You will cover your head again as soon as we get in range.”
This takes my breath away. And I want to keep the raw emotion to myself, I really do. But as I lower my head, my voice comes out small and soft.
“You are … that ashamed, then.”
But come on. A man not finding me attractive isn’t nearly as hard as nearly drowning in a submerged tunnel or almost dying in a moat. Or falling off a horse. Or being eaten by demons, cursed by black magic, lost on the way to the Badlands—
“Well, too bad,” I answer for myself. “I like the air on these features of mine, such as they are, so you’re just going to have to deal with it. If you have a difficulty being seen with me, we can part ways anywhere you wish.”
In the periphery of my vision, I absorb the details of him, and am struck by an absolutely penetrating conviction that he’s about to leave me and the horse—and I swear to the crescent moon that he’ll do it by disappearing into thin air, as if he’s an alter I’ve conjured in my mind, rather than a living, breathing person—
The chuckling that rumbles out of his broad chest is the very last response I expect from him.
And then he laughs at me properly.