Dust and Water: A Song For The Stained Novella (A MAGICAL SAGA) (5 page)

By the time the procession is on its way back to the Meadowsblade’s place, most of the battle stories are in their second telling, and already they’re beginning to warp.

Dom recovered his horse, so I ride alone at the back of the procession. We survived. But I didn’t find my hoard. Did they burn it?

I’m glancing over my shoulder towards the pillar of smoke when Dom rides up.

“Still thinking about that guy you stole an eye from?” Dom asks.

My stomach turns at the memory of an eyeball on my dagger. I shake my head.

Ash’s slow pace lines him up with us. “What’s made you two best friends?”

I shake my head and laugh. “We’re not.”

I haven’t told anyone the story about Dom being slow-like-an-old-man, not likely to either. Gossip isn’t my thing, and Dom gives me an appreciative glance.

“What happened to your arm?” Ash asks Dom.

“Just a nick, the arrow just hit me,” Dom says.

Ash reaches out. “Does it hurt?”

“Don’t touch it!”

Ash chuckles, lifting an eyebrow at me. “Arrow wound, hey? Not a twig from when you fell off your horse?”

Dom lunges to try and grab Ash but misses and teeters on the edge of slipping out of his saddle.

“Da, Dom’s forgotten how to ride his horse!” Ash shouts.

I laugh at them both.

Dom lowers his stone cold blue eyes on me, it’s his I’m-getting-annoyed look. He signs something at Ash, then they’re both beside me, Ash on the right and Dom on the left. They grab an arm each, lift me from the saddle and start cantering. I’m carried straight over the horse’s neck, and dangling in the air – my legs running of their own accord – we whiz past the other men, everyone laughing.

“Not funny!”

The air is electric. You’d think that after a battle everyone would be worn out and off to their own homes, their own beds. Maybe that would be true if we’d had our rears kicked, but we won and there’s so much energy left over.

“This is where they attacked,” someone says, pointing to the field closest to the Meadowsblades home. It’s still a distance away from the house, and a good thing. That healer would have trouble working his magic with this many men stomping, talking, singing, and jesting, right beside the house.

“Did the girls who were attacked have something the bandits wanted?”

“Bandits don’t discriminate,” I say, turning to the speaker.

I saw him at the battle – one of the first to go in – and I know he’s one of the Meadowsblade boys.

“Wilf,” he says, holding his hand out.

I accept the shake, feeling odd having someone’s warm skin touching mine.

Ash leaps and lands on Wilf’s back, pushing Wilf straight past me. For a moment they wrestle, Wilf easily throwing Ash to the side. Dom steps up on my other side, a more serious look on his frowning face.

“Is this the field?” he asks, walking out into the centre of the half-ploughed area that we’re all standing around. All of the others are building a whopping great fire.

Most of the space is rough brown grass, a little of the green stuff close to the soil, and lines where the plough has already been through. Trees surround us, forest, just like at the other cleared fields.

“Here?” Dom asks, tapping his toe on the edge of a particularly roughed patch of dirt. Like a lot of people were moving in this small space, their feet and boots digging it up.

“Is your sister ok?” Ash asks.

“She will be, our hand was hurt too, but she has magic,” Wilf says.

“Your hand?” I ask, trying to see the damage.

Dom laughs at me. “Farmhand. Someone who works on the farm and lends a hand,” he says.

“Oh,” I say, nodding slowly. Why didn’t they just say that?

Wallace approaches and I jut my chin out preparing to defy him.

“No lives were lost, boys. No point mourning spilt blood. Come and help us,” Wallace says.

The others start to follow him, and without even looking back Wallace adds, “you too, lad.”

Kicking dirt as I go, following the others. Finding sticks in the nearby forest, and fallen logs that take two of us to carry, and adding them to the pile.

“This will burn for a week,” I say.

“That’s the idea, lad,” Wilf says. “Burn the evil out of here.”

“Superstitions,” I mutter, and I almost spit on the ground. If I were still in the city, I would have, but a dozen men are looking at me, frowning, just daring me to do it. If I do, I’m going to get my seat smashed.

So, I swallow it down and toss my sticks onto the pile.

Wallace looks about the horizon, which is the colour of freshly laid cobble stones – sunset isn’t far off.

“Light it up,” Wallace orders.

A handful of torches are lowered onto the timber pile. The flames catch and lick over the dead wood.

“Never seen a battle fire?” Ash asks.

I shake my head.

The swish of a skirt catches my attention. Coming down the road is a gaggle of girls, and women, carrying trays and pitchers and rugs over their shoulders.

Ash laughs and I pull my eyes from the skirts and set my frown in his direction.

“Never seen so many women, hey,” Ash says, chuckling at me.

“They’ve never seen him either, always smothered in dirt and all. Bet you wish you’d washed up now, hey Hunter,” Dom teases.

I elbow him, then take two quick steps back – out of reach.

The girl’s here, Jenny, and her ma. But, where the rest of them have come from, I don’t know. Now that these other boys are staring at me, I feel like I need to say something to find out.

“Just who are they? That’s all I was thinking,” I say.

“What’s a battle fire without all the family?” Wilf answers.

Around us, rugs are spread over the dirt, and some of the bigger logs have been kept for sitting on. Bread rolls are passed out and skewered onto sticks, or a sword if you have one, then toasted in the flames and dipped into small clay pots of seasoned drippings. The women hand out jugs of water and some of ale.

Wilf’s rubbing his hands together, like something exciting is about to happen.

“Where’s your brother?” Dom asks, but Wilf’s already walking away.

“Stayed at the house with the hand,” he says, shouting over his shoulder. “I think he’s falling in love.” Then he’s swarmed by girls and lost in a mass of giggles and skirts.

Ash chuckles. “He used to have a thing for our sister.”

“Jenny?” I ask.

“No, our older sister, Jacinta. She used to fancy Wilf’s older brother, Orin.”

I shake my head. Girls are too complicated.

“Then she married someone else,” Dom says.

I settle into a cluster, with Dom and Ash and a lot of others around our age, and sit in my squat-style.

“Why aren’t you out there with Wilf?” I ask, trying to tease Ash.

“I’m waiting for my chance to go talk to Ryan, the Timberhound’s middle son,” and he waves to a boy who needs a shave on the other side of the fire.

“Oh,” I say. Do I know anyone who fancies men? I mean girls aren’t worth the effort – but guys?

A guy who prefers a boyfriend, huh. Interesting.

I’ve never paid attention in the tavern, but I’m sure Ash isn’t the only one.

Dom turns to look at me, and like wolves smelling fresh meat everyone else turns my way too.

“Talking about attractions, Jenny smiles at you a lot,” Dom says with a familiar you-smell-like-dung tone to his voice.

Scrawling I ask, “The girl?” What I want to ask is why it’s any of their business who Jenny is smiling at?

Ash chuckles. “Don’t look so terrified.”

Dom isn’t chuckling and I hold onto my last lung full of air in case it really will be my last one – ever. There’s a handful of people closely surrounding me, and a whole lot more just beyond them. If Dom decides to try and knock my lights out here, would they help, stop him, or not even care?

Dom’s lips stretch into a big toothy grin.

“Only pulling your leg,” he says, trying to scruff my hair, but I duck out of the way. “She can hit about as hard as you can, so I think you’re evenly matched.”

“Oh, wait. Are his cheeks turning red?” someone else asks.

I ball my fists and lift my weight – ready to pounce.

A woman leans between us. “Here you go boys,” she says, handing Dom a big clay jug.

Dom passes it to Ash.

“Not for me,” Ash says, passing it on.

None of the others take a sip either.

“Here,” I say, just as they’re about to pass it on to the next group of people.

“You don’t want that. Fire vinegar it is,” Ash says.

“See the painted flames around the pot?” someone else points out.

“Burn the hairs out of your nose,” Ash continues, “only the old folks drink it. Something they used to brew in the first border war.”

“Shh, Ash,” one of the women in the next group hisses at him. “No one’s talking about there being a second border war,”

I snatch the jug up and swig down a few mouthfuls. My Pa owns a tavern, there ain’t a drink I haven’t had and I can handle them all, and I’d drink water with a drop of honey over all of them. Just saying.

Tears spring to my eyes, but everyone’s looking at me so I have another drink. The name of the drink, fire vinegar, made me think of burning, but this isn’t burning – this is exploding.

My mouth wide I gasp for air, and I know I am breathing because my chest is moving, but I can’t feel anything at all. The heat flows up into my nose and from my stomach it feels like it is shooting out into all my muscles.

I brush the tears away, but more come.

The lad’s cheer, patting my shoulders and scuffing my hair as if I’ve done something amazing – I only feel amazingly stupid, but I force a smile on my face and gasp out, “water.”

I’m never doing that again.

“Alright, lad, let’s see if you’re worth-your-salt,” Dom says.

I frown at him.

“What?”

“Nothing. I think I get it. In the city we say, worth-your-liquor.”

Dom laughs. “Only if y’ live in a tavern.”

I want to say that I do live in a tavern, but I bite my tongue.

“Up the road and back?” Ash asks.

Dom nods. “To the blackberry bush.”

I frown deeper. I know where that is, and it’s almost as far away as the last lot of loot I found.

Ash passes me a bag. “And you have to fill this to prove you went all the way.”

“Don’t worry,” Dom says with a chuckle. “There’s no bandits around, not after we chased them away the other day. We want to see your riding skills.”

He leads me to a spot on the side of the barn where lines have been scratched into the timber.

“See the sun’s almost at the starting line,” Dom says. “This is Ash’s poor effort, and this is my record.” He points out two other lines.

They’ve used the side of the barn and the sun and shadows to record the time it has taken each of them to ride the distance and back, plus picking black berries.

I smile at the challenge, but inside my lungs are having trouble working. Horse riding is new to me, even though I’ve been riding their odd horse to chase sheep, or getting out to the fields, for two weeks.

“So, are you in or are you too chicken?” Dom says.

I shrug, like it’s no big deal. “If this is what you farm folk do for fun, I’ll try not to smash your records too far into the dirt.”

A few minutes later Ash hoists me up onto his horse and points towards the gate.

“Good luck,” he says.

A loud slap echoes from somewhere behind me, the sound bouncing off the stables and the house several times; but I’m already being carried away by a horse that might as well have been given fire vinegar!

Horse riding is a rush. Not dawdling along like a fancy lady, but really riding. Vermin quick, hunter stealth, street-cat wild. And, I feel some of my usual wild attitude come back as I hold onto Ash’s brown boy and whop with excitement.

Blackberries, blackberries, blackberries… there!

I land on my knees; the horse is walking off and snorting in that horsey kind of way. My fingers rush along the branches, being cut by thorns, but my heart is hammering so hard that I don’t care.

My shoulder bag full I run for the horse. Just as I have my foot in the metal thing, it walks forward. Almost knocking me onto my bum.

“Stay still you mule.”

I throw my weight up onto his back and land with a painful thud into the saddle. It must have been painful for him too because he rushes off in the wrong direction shaking his head and throwing his back end around.

“Turn around,” I say, pulling on the leather and grunting with the effort. “Go, go.”

He runs, and I hold on. I know there is a better term for horses running, but I am not a horse person… not yet.

If they can all move this fast, I might become a one. Wonder what it would take to trick Ash out of his mount? If I beat him in a game of cards? Dice?

Almost there. A few corners, the Meadowsblade’s place, then home.

My breath stops.

Home?

It’s not home.

Somehow, I’ve managed to pull the horse to a stop too, and with both our hearts still dancing he refuses to stand still; turning in an impatient circle.

Home? I’m still not sure of the word, or why I thought it.

“Ha, ha!” someone shouts, and the sound of a cart echoes down the road. “Move it, they’re on our tails.”

I move to the side of the road and wait for them to round the corner. Whoever it is they’re in a hurry.

Through the trees a flash of red moves towards me. A red sash means slave traders.

I urge Ash’s horse off the road and deeper into the trees. I might have a dozen blades, and a horse, but if slavers see me out here on my own, I’m a goner.

“Shhh,” I whisper, slipping from the horses back and tying his reins to a tree.

Sneaking towards the road, belly down in the dirt, I wait for a full view.

There’s a cart, four horses that I can see, and they’re in a rush.

“Help!” someone shouts from the back of the cart.

They’ve already kidnapped someone. But from where? Around here, there’s not a lot of the type of street kids, or poor farmers kids, to go nabbing.

Jenny?

No, but then, maybe. She’s been out in the fields all day; I haven’t seen her since breakfast. I have to get a closer look.