Chapter 2
Two
Despite working through the day, by nightfall, Tomasz was no closer to clearing the threshold than he had been at dawn. Fresh snow had fallen overnight, the temperatures dropping low enough to encase the mass beneath a solid thickness of ice no amount of boiling water or weak winter sun could melt.
With a pick and chisel in hand, he chipped away, tossing chunks aside as soft snow fell over his shoulders and the wreckage.
Afternoon bells tolled from the village, and Tomasz set his tools aside. He straightened where he knelt, back barking with pain. His knees ached from the hard floor, and an entire day had passed without villagers or travelers stopping in for a measure or gorza or a meal.
Dismayed and lonely, he headed to the kitchen to start a fire. The sun would not set for a handful of hours. Perhaps smoke from the chimney and the smell of roasting fowl could entice Oj Pavel or Fenra in for a drink and some company.
A tapping beyond the ruined threshold halted Tomasz. He twisted around, smiling at the sight of Oj Pavel hobbling down the short walk. His gait was odd, and he leaned heavily on a cane, jaw set in a determined scowl.
Tomasz raised a hand in greeting, starting for the door when Oj Pavel stopped. Despite the bitter cold and bright sun, he whipped a worn fur cap off his head and crushed it in a gnarled fist.
“Everything alright, Oj Pavel?” Tomasz called out.
The old man said nothing. Instead, he spat twice, crossed himself, and shoved a hand deep into the pocket of his coat.
“Come in!” Tomasz hurried to the door, gripping the frame to lean over the rubble. “Around the side, we are open.”
Oj Pavel shook his head, muttering too low to be heard. He withdrew his hand and tossed a fistful of rocksalt over the fallen thatch and timber, still muttering as he shoved the hat onto his head, turned, and ambled away.
Tomasz watched until he hobbled out of sight, perplexed by the odd behavior until a howl tore his attention away.
Stars twinkled in a dark sky overhead, the trees dancing in the wind scattering their light like dusted glass glittering over snow.
Tomasz whirled like a top, tracking the empty tavern, the dust on the bar, the fallen night, and when he faced the door again, Garek stood on the threshold.
“You came back.”
“I did,” he answered in a wind-hoarse voice.
“Did you see an old man? Oj Pavel?” Tomasz leapt atop the mess in the doorway, gripping the frame to lean out. He craned his neck in a futile attempt to see further down the road. “He was not moving well, and the gates will close soon.”
“They have closed.” Garek tugged his scarf low. Plush lips, cherry red amidst a dark brown beard, pursed. “And in all the miles I have ridden this night, I have come across none but you.”
An odd twist to his words pulled Tomasz’s attention from the road to the hulking man on his doorstep. “None?”
“None,” Garek confirmed. With a sweep of his hand, the cowl covering his head fell back. Thick, dark hair curled around his temples, barely restrained at the nape of his neck by a thin leather tie, the ends of which dangled to his shoulder.
Flint-bright eyes scanned Tomasz intently, and it struck him that their appearances could not have been more dissimilar.
Tomasz was slight and fair-haired, with dark eyes the color of churned earth.
Garek was broad, his shoulders filling the doorway, and the depths of his hair made those eyes glint like freshly polished steel.
Tomasz stared, aware he was staring, but how could he not? Garek was all-encompassing. Commanding to a degree that even the proudest of men would obey.
“Come in.”
Garek’s lips parted, and only then was Tomasz aware he had spoken.
He cleared his throat, easing off the mound of thatch and ice. His heel slipped. The rubble shifted.
Garek darted out a hand, grabbing Tomasz by the wrist and hauling him upright. Soft leather burned against his skin, too soft to be layman’s wear, too worn to be anything but. His grip was as strong as expected. Stronger even, fingers flexing and tightening as Garek steadied him.
But the true surprise was when he did not let go.
Those eyes burned into him, silver and steel shifting and writhing like liquid metal in the smithy until the tavern vanished to ash and dust. Until the path to the road and the wood and world beyond were less than a memory.
Until Garek was the beginning and the end.
Tomasz worked his jaw, his tongue forcing words he barely had the presence of mind to think.
“Please,” he said, “come in.”
Garek let go as quickly as he had taken hold. His jaw tightened beneath the beard, and as the night before, he gave one brief nod.
“Be careful getting down.” That stone against stone voice rumbled.
Tomasz lowered himself carefully from the rubble, keeping his attention on the man in his doorway. He stood to the side as Garek entered. As before, he pulled the scarf free and tucked it into a pocket. The gloves followed, and this time, so did the coat.
It was a tattered, heavy thing. Dirty from the road and weather, but clearly of fine quality. Or at least, once upon a time, it had been.
“You can hang it beside the door.” Tomasz gestured to the wooden pegs on the wall. “Or on a chair closer to the fire.”
Garek followed where he gestured, squinting at the flames dancing in the hearth.
He frowned and aimed across the tavern. Heavy footsteps thudded against the floor, and his coat landed with a quiet shush on the bar.
He sat on a stool, elbows propped and shoulders stretching the fabric of an off-white shirt worn beneath a wool vest.
Tomasz moved slowly, taking the time to study Garek without the weight of his gaze.
His hair was unfashionably long, his vest of a style Tomasz had never seen, but his clothing was cleaner than the standard traveler’s, and well-made.
His bulk strained the linen but did not stress the seams, and the vest fitted his thick torso and muscular chest distractingly well.
“A gorza?’ Tomasz asked as he slipped behind the bar. Garek answered with a nod.
Though his hand shook, from nerves or the proximity of a man such as Garek for the second night in a row, Tomasz poured two cups without spilling. Garek took up both and sniffed the contents.
“It is good quality,” he said, setting one down. He nudged it closer to Tomasz, watching as he plucked it from the bar. A tiny clink echoed through the tavern as they tipped their cups together. The familiar burn teased Tomasz’s tongue, and he set his elbows on the bar.
“My uncle works as a merchant in Wroclasz and cut my father a deal on Imperial grade gorza.” He swallowed more, humming as warmth bloomed in his belly.
Garek sipped and swirled the liquor around his mouth before swallowing. “I have not tasted gorza this fine since—” He paused, bright eyes dimming. “Since a long while. It must have been quite the bargain.”
“Oh, it was a deal alright. Twenty crates at cost.”
“Over time?”
“All at once.”
Garek’s eyes bugged, and he choked on his mouthful. “That would bankrupt any innkeeper.”
“It nearly did. Thankfully, the town built its walls a year or so later, and my mother negotiated with the burgermeister to keep us without.” Tomasz finished the last of his gorza and refilled his cup, offering the bottle to Garek.
He smiled, a soft, fleeting curve of his lips, and downed the last of his liquor before setting the cup beside Tomasz’s.
“With the wall came the threshold laws, and being outside the gates, the crossroads tavern can stay open until the last customer leaves.”
“Threshold laws?”
“Every townsperson must be behind a threshold by sundown.” Tomasz quoted the simplest of the laws as he refilled Garek’s cup. He nudged it across the bar with the base of the bottle. “It does not need to be their own, but it is highly recommended that the threshold lie within the town gates.”
“Why?”
“To keep them safe.” Tomasz shrugged. More gorza slid down his throat. “My mother grew up in the woods and claimed to know the beasts lurking within. She always said if her salt and ash could not keep them away, what would a gate be able to manage?”
Garek’s smile this time was deep and true. A flash of white teeth before he sipped. “Your mother sounds like a wise woman.”
“She was.”
“Was?”
“She died giving birth to my younger sister.”
Garek stilled, save for his eyes, which darted around the tavern floor. “Sister?”
“Died with my mother.” Tomasz drank his gorza in one swallow. This time, it was Garek who nudged the bottle across the bar with a single finger. “I was in my eighth summer, and it has been—was,” he hastily corrected, “it was just my father and myself, until he followed my mother into the wood.”
“Into the—she died in the wood?”
“A saying.” Tomasz reached for the bottle and stopped himself.
One glass was enough for a typical night, and here he was with two in his belly.
Perhaps it was Garek and the nerves the man set off.
His broad presence and startling eyes. His easy questions drawing out stories of Tomasz’s mother.
She had been gone for a score of years, his father for half as long, and yet the thought of the woman he barely knew prodded an old ache in his chest. “‘Those of the wood return to the wood.’”
“Ashes to ashes,” Garek supplied.
“Something like that.”
“And your father?”
“Followed her ten years ago.”
Garek nodded, as though that made sense. Distantly, the wind howled, and trees groaned in the wind. He pressed his lips together, eyes flitting over Tomasz’s face before he nodded and rose. “Thank you for the gorza.”
“Leaving so soon?”
“I have many miles to ride before dawn.” Though he said it like a statement, a sorrow colored his words. As though he regretted the miles, or perhaps, the distance.
In a rush of movement, Garek donned his coat and cowl, tromping for the door.
Tomasz stayed behind the bar, gripping his cup for fear of the thoughts rushing through his mind.
That Garek would walk into the night and leave him behind.
That his travels would take him to different roads and different taverns.
That they already had, and this odd conversation would be forgotten by morning.
That Tomasz would be forgotten by morning, little more than a passing blip in Garek’s life.
He stepped onto the rubble in the door, one large hand gripping the threshold, and the odd fear of never seeing Garek again drew forth a question.
“Why have you never come in before?”
Garek froze. Leather creaked, and wood groaned as he gripped the frame and turned his head. “You were never open, before, to invite me in.”
And with that, he stepped into the winter night and vanished.