Alexandria (32 page)

When they’ve finished their meager rations, Jack and Lia step cautiously to the edge and peer over.

“I can’t believe they built a road here.”

“I know,” says Jack. “I would have just flown everywhere.” He rubs a handful of dust between his palms like talc.

Lia goes and scratches her fingernails gently along Balazir’s coat and he nickers softly. He swings his large head around and sniffs at her shoulder, where sweat and melted honey trickle down, and drags his rough tongue across her upper arm, lapping at the salty sweetness around her bandages.

“Balazir,”
she squeals.

Balazir grunts and pursues her more aggressively. She laughs and pulls her arm back, and the horse regards her with his drawn, serious face.

“Don’t do that,” she tells him.

He chuffs and saunters away.

“Are you okay?”

“He tried to eat my arm.”

“I see that.”

She slicks horse spit off her shoulder and wipes it on her nightgown. Jack ties off the drawstring on their pack and pulls himself into the saddle, and Lia slides on behind him and they advance southward as the afternoon dwindles. Balazir dips his head and drinks from a clouded, muddy puddle left from last night’s rain. Jack ventures a couple small sips, foul and dirt tasting, and decides to hold out until they cross something better.

They weave between the thin scattering of pines and ride lightly over another veering camber that clings to the outer shoulder of the mountain. Around the way, the road opens into a small sanctuary, shrouded on all but one side by rising inclines and overhanging forest. Stone chimneys stand amidst the foliage as tombstones for the homes they once warmed. Not much else stands besides.

They trot through the lost mountain hamlet searching for water. In a shallow ditch near the deepest reaches they find it, thin rivulets trickling down off the rocks and collecting at their feet. Balazir gulps about a dozen mouthfuls before they’ve even climbed all the way down off the saddle, and they dip their heads in right after. Jack traipses around, stretching his legs and inspecting their whereabouts, and Lia grazes Balazir around the grassy channels that run through the burg.

She pokes around in the soggy dirt with a broken stick, turning up various odds and ends, doorknobs, an ornament of eagle’s wings, broken utensils, and a drab, bent wheel with disintegrating spokes. Balazir watches sluggishly, with tufts of grass poking out of his mouth as he chews.

“Jack?” She drops the stick and paces around looking for him.

“Over here,” he calls, walking toward her with something in his arms.

“Jack, don’t you dare.”

“Easy,” he says, “it’s dead.” He stretches the coiled snake out and holds it above his head, thick and ropy, with black and white stripes alternating down its length. “We can eat it.”

“Did you kill it?”

“Yeah.”

“Gross.”

Jack smiles and loops it back up and packs it away. “Balazir doing okay?”

“He’s eating a lot.”

“I guess that’s good. When he’s done, let’s get out of here.”

“It’s too bad, you know… I could almost live here. Look what I found…” She shows him the little metal wings she dug out of the topsoil, and dances them through the air in a drunken flight pattern.
“Screeee! Screeee!”
she says.

“What is that?”

“It’s a bird.” She swooshes it past his head, then pitches it away in the brush. “Okay, let’s go.”

They leave the pleasant little recess behind and carry on down the narrow crust that winds them southward. Past several more harrowing curvations, the mountains begin to level off and their path turns away from the narrow coastal drop-off and sweeps through the low foothills. The entire landscape flattens out and slopes gently down toward the sandy shoals at sea level, and a late afternoon fogbank creeps inland and piles up against the far-off hillsides like an enormous snowdrift.

“Why are we stopping?”

“We’re going to switch places.”

Lia brightens and turns rosy as she jumps down off Balazir, then she hooks her foot in the stirrup and swings up onto the front of the saddle. Balazir sways his head around and snuffles at her boot. Jack climbs up behind and slips his arms through hers and shows her how to hold the reins. He takes her hands and touches the reins to the side of the horse’s neck and tugs back gently with the other hand and they ride around in a wide circle while Lia hitches with laughter.

“Now just pull back a little and he’ll stop.”

“Okay… Now what?”

“When you’re ready, squeeze your legs together, give him a light touch with your heels, and he’ll go.”

She does so and Balazir lumbers forward.

“Why is he going so slow? How do I make him go fast?”

“Uh… why don’t we just go slow for a little while. Practice turning.”

“Okay.” She rides a tight figure eight and smiles back over her shoulder at him. “I’ve been watching you.”

“Oh, I see. You want to go fast?”

She nods furiously. Jack tells her how to send the signal and she clenches her heels swiftly and they surge into a loping gallop, charging across the open field through the bright sunlit fog.

They settle and build a small fire at eventide, and they sit quietly and roast their snake meat. Lia looks idly at the map and ponders the great distance they’ve covered in the last two days, and the nascent, unknown world she’s seen for the first time. After they’ve eaten, Jack tamps out the fire and they lie down for the night. Lia falls asleep first and Jack listens to her soft purring as he tries to unwind his tense muscles and calm his strobing mind.

He closes his eyes.

Crickets and wind song and whispered neighs from Balazir, and above this delicate refrain he hears the trampling of hooves riding down on them.

“Lia, get up.”

“Hmm?”

“They’re coming!”

He dashes to Balazir and unfastens his bow and wheels around with an arrow drawn back. Lia runs to him and clings to his back, holding the kitchen knife in her small, trembling hand.

“Untie him. You ride, and I’ll shoot.”

Balazir shuffles his hooves and whinnies as he hears their approach, and Lia’s quick hands fumble in the pitch dark for his lead. The silhouettes of two horsemen rise over the embankment and scream toward them.

“Forget it,” says Jack.
“Go!”

She hesitates for an instant, then turns and runs for cover. The horsemen split their course, one following Lia’s trajectory, the other narrowing in on Jack. He trains his bow on the shadowed form and releases the string, grimacing as the arrow strikes the foreleg of the horse, missing the rider completely. The horse rears back and screams. Jack fires off another shot and Halis dodges around the side of the horse and loses his hold on the reins. He tumbles to the ground and launches himself at Jack with his machete drawn back.

Jack backpedals and tries to slide out another arrow, but Halis is gaining too fast to maneuver. He swings the long bow in a wide arc and cracks it in half against Halis’s blade, knocking it aside. Halis reaches out and clamps his free hand over Jack’s throat and pushes him to the ground and falls on him with a barrage of punches leveled at his face and sides. Jack raises his forearms up to shield himself and Halis gnashes and snaps at him like a feral boar. Jack tries to pull away, only to be dragged back and elbowed sharply in the ribs. Lia screams as Halis works his knee onto Jack’s chest and keeps on pummeling him.

Cirune rounds the thick trunk that Lia hides behind and snatches at her again. She swings out with her little knife and Cirune pulls his mount to the side and doubles back on her. She stumbles away, clutching their pack against her chest, looking wildly around for Jack. Cirune feints to her left, then rears his horse back and crosses to her right. He reaches a hand down and clutches a tangle of her hair, then spurs his horse forward, dragging her along behind. He rides to the tree where Balazir is hitched and draws out his blade and cuts the lead, then throws his foot out and kicks roughly into Balazir’s side and sets him running.

“No!”
she screams.

Cirune hefts her up by the hair, then works his other arm under her shoulder and drags her over the pommel and rips the pack out of her hands. From the corner of her eye she sees Jack on his back, his face a mask of blood.

Halis bears down on his throat. Through the blood in his eyes Jack can see nothing—he flails his arms out, reaching for anything. He feels along Halis’s shoulders and lays his palms across his face, and he can feel the rippled flesh on his cheek, the hollowed indentations and the jagged scar. Lightheaded and on the verge of unconsciousness, he presses a thumb into Halis’s eye socket and bursts it open. He emits the same horrible sound he made at the quarry years ago when Jack ruined his face the first time. He scampers out from underneath the thrashing form and kicks his heel into Halis’s jaw, then pounces on him like a true savage.

Cirune rides around and barrels toward Jack with his long blade ready to slice down into him. Lia struggles in his grasp, holding her knife tightly with the blade pointing back toward her wrist. She works her arm around behind her, aiming for the soft parts, and sinks the kitchen knife into Cirune’s side and he lets out a tortured howl.

Jack fumbles in the dirt for the machete and he swings it and chops it squarely into the pale meat of Halis’s throat and a river of steaming blood pours out. He stands and staggers clumsily forward and falls to his knees.

Frantically, Lia works herself off the saddle and drops to the ground. Cirune twists his hand deeper into her hair and rides over to Halis’s deserted horse, skittish and backpacing away, and lashes it, corralling it toward the direction he sent Balazir. He tries again to pull Lia onto his horse and she claws feverishly at his forearm, drawing thin streaks of blood.

“Jack! Jack, help!”

On shaking legs, Jack stands and immediately falls to the dirt again. He feels around for loose stones and begins hurling them at the receding horseman. The first couple go wild, and he finally connects with the third. Cirune flinches and Lia drives her elbow into his ribs. She bucks back against the knife handle, still lodged in his stomach, then leverages herself against the horse’s barrel-chest and pushes away. She feels a tearing on her scalp, and when she tumbles to the ground she sees Cirune lording over her with a fresh, red clump of hair in his hand.

Jack is on his feet now and advancing steadily. He looks like he’s been painted in blood. He fixes on Cirune and sways the machete before him like a pendulum. Nimble Lia scrambles backwards on the ground, then leaps into a lopsided sprint. Cirune makes a false start toward her and Jack steps into his path and they eye each other viciously. With increasing dread Cirune feels along his torso and fondles the knife handle that protrudes from his side. He winces and cries out again, weighing his options behind a panicked veil, then pulls the reins to the side and tears off after the other two galloping steeds. The machete drops from Jack’s hand and he sinks to the ground and watches Cirune ride away.

“Lia…”

“I’m here.”

“Are you hurt?”

“I’m more worried about you.”

“I’ll be fine.” He pulls himself up and looks around. “Where’s the… the…”

“He took it,” says Lia. “He took everything.”

Jack puts his head in his hands, and as Lia starts toward him he rushes away and kicks Halis’s corpse in the head. He screams and stomps brutally down, again and again, shattering the dead skull underneath.

“Jack! Stop it!”

He crumples at Halis’s feet and stares blankly into the night. Lia settles behind him and wraps her arms around his neck.

“He killed my mother.”

“Jack, I’m so sorry.” She holds the pendant in her hand, wearing its surface down with her thumb, then slips it back in her gown and turns Jack’s face toward hers and caresses his blood red cheek.

“We shouldn’t stay here,” he says. “In case he comes back.”

“We don’t have a map…”

“I know.”

“Where are we going to go?”

“South.”

They brace themselves against one another and start to move, holding nothing with them. The only map that guides them now is the scattering of distant light across the night sky, cast down from distant, faraway worlds some untold aeons ago. They put the North Star at their backs and walk slowly into the enfolding darkness.

With no pressing deadlines in the shop, the Temple girls laugh and carry on brightly. Since the days of the infiltration, their initial fear has transformed into a kind of exuberant solidarity, spurred on by talk that a larger invasion was suppressed, put down in its infancy by the strength of the ethereal shield that protects them, and that order has been restored and the perpetrators of this vile act safely imprisoned. They feel, at last, that things are getting back to normal.

Narrow aisles run between the tables and workstations and Elise navigates them breezily and settles in with the new apprentices and inspects their simple stitchwork.

“How are you coming, Phoebe? Let me see.” Phoebe hands up the dress. It has frayed, uneven seams and crimps and puckers where none should be. “Hmm, okay,” says Elise, “I think you’re going a little too fast. Let’s try again, and take your time with it, okay?”