I Know Not (The Story of Fox Crow) (5 page)

      The young guard saw me cock the bow, fit a bolt into the center groove, and set the light steel spring arm that kept the stubby arrow from falling off. He began to do the same, grunting with surprise at how difficult it was, “What’s it like to live without your memory?”

      It’s like stumbling through a dark room that is carpeted in broken glass and furnished in razorblades
, I chuckled falsely, “I don’t remember normal, Theodemar, and so I couldn’t say.”

      “Oh, well…” Theodemar blushed, feeling as stupid as he should. “So what were you looking at the crossbow for?”

      I stifled an angry retort, “I’m not sure what you mean. What’s wrong with your crossbow?”

      He glanced at the weapon in his hands before looking at me askance, “Nothing.”

      “How do you know that if you don’t examine it?” I shrugged and pointed down the road, reminding him to keep his eyes in a useful direction. “List all the things that can go wrong with a crossbow.” I didn’t bother to take the sting out of my voice, “No! Keep your eyes cast outward. We are out here looking out for an ambush, so keep looking for an ambush.
While
you do that, tell me: what can break on a crossbow?”

      Theodemar flushed again, breathing heavily as he swallowed apologies and protests, “The…the…the string could break,” He glanced at me and saw me scanning the forest on either side and made like to do the same, “The limbs could be cracked. The string could be frayed. The stock could be chipped…”

      I let him wallow in silence for a minute before continuing for him, “The trigger could be bent, or broken inside, or the stay–clip could be loose. Anything wooden can be warped; the sight could be bent; anything metal could have rusted; the whole thing could have been made by a drunk. Theodemar, any part of the bow, sword, shield, suit of armor could be broken and cost you your life in the heat of battle.”

      He nodded and smiled, saying somewhat dismissively, “They have us maintain the equipment.”

      My eyes, armed with daggers, slid across his throat as he was looking the other way. By the time he felt the cold steel of my irises I was back to scanning, “And what if the guy you trust to maintain the shared equipment is hung over? What if he’s lazy? What if he’s been paid off by the other side? Whoever you fight with, or for, you are alone behind your blade. Ultimately, you are responsible for your own survival. Think of anything that can go wrong with every bit of your equipment and check for it.”

      “And what do I do if it needs replacing?”

      “If it can be replaced, replace it. If it can be repaired, repair it. If you have no other choice…” I shrugged and while my brain was complaining that I should getting paid for teaching children, another shard of honesty snuck between my teeth, “Swap it with the equipment of someone you do not like.”

      Theodemar laughed, a little too loudly, but at least honestly. Then his face fell fast and hard like nighttime in the mountains, “You sound like the Captain.”

      I doubt that
. We walked in silence for another few minutes; even with a casual pace we outdistanced the carriage. Again my mouth worked without me, “What kind of man was he?”

      Theodemar’s face aged, dark emotion fighting a war on his youth, “He was a decent man: a good and loyal soldier.”

      I nodded, bringing up a dozen unspoken phrases to lasso the young man and bring him closer to me. Loyalty is a vulnerability, actually emotional investment is vulnerability, but loyalty is a vulnerability that is especially easy to exploit. The first step was to make sure he was loyal to me. It would take subtle abuse to break down his self esteem, flattery to forge his new self image out of materials I would provide, shared knowledge to cement a bond and begin to unveil his secrets. I would dissect his personality and build my golem from its remnants. Soon, when push came to shove, he would back me instead of…

      Is this the kind of man I am
?

      Then a crashing cold wave collided with the fog inside my head and shattered it into a billion crystal knives. They coalesced into a barbed dagger buried between my shoulder blades. The crossbow flew from my hands and went off harmlessly as it slapped into the dirt, approximately half a second before I joined it.

      Theodemar was there, I barely heard him over the roaring of my own blood, “Sir? Sir? Sir?”

      It took several minutes before I could breathe, and longer before I could answer. “I don’t know. Hurts. Maybe an old wound.” I rolled onto my back as the searing, stabbing agony pulsed into weaker and weaker echoes, “Help me up.”

      Theo did it, but I must have looked like a maggot ridden piece of meat because he screwed up enough courage to ask, “Are you certain?”

      “We have a job to do.” I said but those last, handful of seconds had turned bravery into bravado. As I straightened the last of the pain evaporated into just a horrible memory. Nothing was more important than refusing to look vulnerable, “Besides, I’m feeling better.” I picked up the crossbow and scanned the forest, “How long have we been here?”

      “About a quarter of an hour.”

      I would have loved to try to understand what was going on inside my own body, but the only person who could probably tell me was a cleric who would like nothing more than to excommunicate me off the edge of a cliff if she could do it without sin, guilt, or whatever it is religious people fear living with. In any case, sitting here in the middle of the road was helping nothing. “Then we had better go.”

      The rest of the afternoon was taken up with creeping ahead, finding a likely ambush site, circling each and every damn one and making sure nobody was planning a party there later, and then rushing back out to get ahead of the caravan again. It was boring, because nothing happened. It was stressful, since at any time something
could
happen. It was strenuous, because if we weren’t sneaking, we were climbing, searching, or running. It was just short of hell. I was dripping in sweat by the time we made it to the crossroads and the typical sign, but Theodemar was completely wrecked.

      I hooked a thumb up at the sign, its arms pointing down different roads, “River’s Bend or Cornhall?”

      “River’s Bend is a more direct way to Carolaughan.” He nodded at the sign, “You can read?”

      I glanced back at the crudely carved out letters, filled with aged and chipped paint. To me it was as plain as day, but until tapped to become an officer nobody was likely to bother to invest in a footman’s education.
No point in lying now
, “Looks like it.”

      “I knew you were an officer.” Theo said, smiling wryly.

      I faked tired indignation, “Let’s hope not. Officers are a pain in the ass.”

      And for just a few moments it was just Theo and I, and while Theo was always Theo, I was feeling like I was being me. My knees felt a little weak. My heart was beating fast. I was forgetting to manipulate him. My hands were moist and shook as I put the bolt back into the slot on cocked bow. I knew I wasn’t in love, but the feeling of being exposed and defenseless remained. Can’t say I liked it much.

      But I did like it a little.

5   

Blood Merchant

Things had become a lot easier the closer we got to River’s Bend as the natural progression of human settlements has a tendency to demolish handy ambush sites. Constant foraging for building materials and fuel for fires clears out the underbrush and flattens hills. The roads become better maintained and more often traveled. Even this close to Sorrow Wood, the atmosphere was changing from the oppressive throne of the wild to the yoked domestication of arable lands. What sealed the deal was the appearance of rank upon rank of winter rye marched right up to the edge of the trees. They waved like a sea toward the clumps of buildings that made up the village of River’s Bend.

      People who grow up in cities believe that all poor families live in squat, thatched roof structures walled in wattle, what everyone else calls woven sticks, and daub, what everyone else calls excrement. It will collapse under the brutal force of an old woman waving a cane and it bursts into flame whenever anyone coughs, but at least it’s cheap. The reason people can live in something like this within a few days ride of a city is simple: in case of trouble, they run behind the big, stone walls their liege–lord provides. Stone walls are cane-proof and cough-resistant, but they are grossly expensive.

      Out in the country, especially in that lovely area between the Northern Ridge Mountains and Sorrow Wood, people are responsible for their own survival. The farmers out here build clan houses, tall, rambling structures that grow bit by bit as children married and had children of their own. Each clan works wide swaths of land taxed by the lord but defended by the family. The walls are heavy wooden logs, meaning they can still burn, but while they are easier to knock down than stone, they do provide cover from axes, blades, and arrows.

      Only one thing could drive men to risk his family so far from civilization like this: the law says that the family that etches the farm out of the forest owns it. Landowners, just like nobles. They can pass it on to their children, hire workers, and while they are taxed for the privilege, they are relatively free of royal excesses and city blight…at least until a rival family, bandit group, barbarian tribe, or marauding soldiers come along and wipe them out. Then, in exchange for all those years of taxes, the lord moves a family of serfs into the cleared and freshly turned arable land. If the new tenants are lucky, the houses are still standing when they begin slaving away for the far away lord. It’s a pretty awful deal all around. Welcome to being a peasant.

      From this distance, River’s Bend looked like one of the few success stories. Several families had built six three story farmhouses, equal parts home, barn, and wood stockade. The country folk build their homes like their women: big and blocky. Generations worth of one family name might occupy one of these ugly, square–

      –My hand arced out and slapped into Theo’s chest, stopping him in his tracks and nearly setting off his crossbow. His mouth made a little ‘o’ and his wide eyes flicked across the irregular rows of rye. He managed to hold off his questions for two whole breaths. At least he whispered, “What? What?”

      The trouble was: I didn’t know ‘what’. I crouched down and he followed suit. We crept forward. Every single second, my eyes flicked left, right, up, and down. There was something…something…We advanced cautiously, but even with our view completely blocked, it was sinking in that we weren’t about to stumble in on a harvest celebration.

      All these small communities have dogs. They catch rats, they warn of intruders, and in a pinch they even fight in your battles. Mostly they run around like idiots and bark at birds, trees, and passing clouds, except now when they had all decided to stop barking. Even more obvious was the lack of children. Country women are either nursing, pregnant, about to become pregnant, or some combination of the three. Old children work the fields. Young children work around the house. Infants yell and play. All of them make a great deal of racket, except now when they decided to be quiet little darlings all at once.

      I felt like standing up in front of a crowd and announcing my brand new motto: ‘If I ever approach a village and I hear no children and no dogs, I will not go in.’

      I moved to the side of the road, almost into the field of winter rye and, slowly, I raised my hand. Theodemar followed the line made by my outstretched finger. There, far down the road near the gate in the village stockade, the grain was disturbed. Well, I say disturbed, but that is a lie, I mean it was flattened, churned like a few dozen energetic people had burst through there and stormed inside.

      That’s when I discovered an addendum: ‘If I ever approach a village and I hear no children and no dogs, AND there is evidence of an armed attack, then I will not go in under any circumstances.’

      I waved Theodemar over and leaned in so close my breath bounced off of his ear. “Just back off slowly. We’ll head back down to the crossroads and meet the carriage. We will take the other track.”

      Theo shook his head and whispered back, far too loudly, “That will take us around the Sorrow Wood. We don’t have time before the bidding starts.”

      Bidding? The lady is supposed to be negotiating a trade deal
. I glanced back down and up the road. “Do you think we can skirt the village?”

      As the words cart wheeled past my teeth Theo looked askance at me and I realized the answer just as he whispered, “The village is called River’s Bend. There’s only one bridge across and it’s in the middle of town.”

      “Of course.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid
.

      Of course there would be an unhappy corollary to my motto: ‘If I ever approach a village and I hear no children and no dogs, and there is evidence of an armed attack, AND I have some kind of motto that says I should make my way anywhere else, then it is an absolute certainty that I’ll have to go inside.’

      I shook my head, wondering at what god in heaven or devil in hell was enjoying watching my misery. I quickly came to the decision that one of each were in a bar called limbo, having a friendly drink, and laughing at me. “Looks like Barbarians. Hang back ten paces. If you see something, shoot it and then draw your sword. If I run; don’t ask, don’t yell, just try to keep up.”

      Theo nodded and rubbed his chest, obviously missing the weight of his chainmail hauberk. I clapped him on the shoulder and screwed my courage to the sticking point.

     
No, that is a lie
.

      It would be normal to say I was afraid, but not accurate. I was cautious. I was even apprehensive. I was blindingly aware of every detail, but I was not afraid. I was pretending to be for the sake of Theo, but it was not in me. The Dark Thing, half–hidden by the Fog, was muttering that this was a waste of my time, and provided no reward for moderate risk.

      At least the way in would be easy: I knew the gates would be thrown open for the morning chores in the field. Harvest of this late growing crop would be chilly, it would be quick, and it would involve everybody. We passed the agitated winter rye and I could look down the corridor of trampled plants that led all the way back to the skirts of the forest. The slightly soft soil was torn up by hard boots.

      We made the gate without alarm or challenge, but then the smell of rotting meat and pierced bowel wafted across our position. Theo retched far too loudly. Inside me icy cold walls sprang up, transparently separating me from the rest of the world. I was certain that I could tell you everything we would find long before I placed one foot past the gate doors. I wasn’t disappointed.

      Historic homes became places of ambush, cover, and possible wealth. Rotting animal carcasses were only sources for disease. Bodies of the young, old, and everyone in between were little more than cause for caution lest I slip in a fluid or trip on a limb. None of it mattered to me, personally, which meant none of it mattered at all.

      Theo tried to shuffle his features into unmoved professionalism, but his young eyes failed him, “They are all dead.”

      I shot him a cold glance, but he didn’t notice. It was for the best, because to my eyes he was transformed into an expendable resource. In fact the emotional color was drained from everything in the village and I don’t know how my face would have read.

      I waved the boy guardsman to a stop in the middle of the compound, unmindful of the decapitated old woman next to a spilled wicker basket of half shelled beans. I hissed at Theo, reminding him to quit staring at the body and keep his eyes cast outward. I carefully set the loaded crossbow down in the pile of beans to keep it from going off, and then unlimbered the Phantom Angel. A quick tug parted the thong and I moved across the path carved from the gate, along the front of the houses, and over to the stone bridge.

      I set foot on the span. It was wide enough to pass a carriage, made of stones twice the height and width of a man. The blacked cracks and crevices were so tightly fit not even a razor could be slipped between them. Idly, the back of my head whispered,
Dwarves built this
. I reached the apex, twenty paces from either bank. I could clearly see the cold fire pit that had been dug in the center of the far square. Some kind of beast of burden had been slaughtered and roasted here for the barbarian celebration. Only the Gods knew how many survivors there had been to act as entertainment. All I could see was even the fire was not smoking, which put us over a day behind. The cold would keep the insects away, but there should definitely be scavengers here by now.

      Then the wind shifted.

      Out here, just away from the bodies I could smell something that clawed at the back of my mind. It was oily, mossy, and rotten, like a body buried inside the hollow corpse of an old oak tree. The claws grew in size, scraping down my spine as fear, real fear, reached out of the fog and filled me. Everything inside of me was screaming for me to run, to hide, but the friction of it ignited a raw, rude flame inside my chest. The terror was funneled into hate, a consuming abhorrence of all things.

      I heard a stifled yelp and spun around. Theo raised his crossbow at the hint of movement and fired. Even hurried, the boy’s aim was true and I heard the bolt slap into meat. A pig, until now spared from the slaughter, staggered drunkenly out into the road. It seemed to breathe heavily for a minute, unsure of what was happening, bolt sticking out of it and jittering in the air.

      Then it started screaming.

      The sound filled up the village, echoing from wall to wall as a traitorous tattletale. Theodemar turned his guilt stricken face toward me but before he said a word his eyes flew wide. Without hesitation, I jumped towards him and spun around, Phantom Angel singing in a deadly arc. With a forge of fury exploding in every muscle I swung the Phantom Angel and hit a weapon, in reality little more than a sharpened rusty bar of metal. Using both hands, I circled my blade over my head and hit it again, and again, each hit moved it further and further from in front of the owner. Finally, the rusty bar jerked just enough out of the way and the Angel bit flesh deeply, blood fountaining out in a black fan from an ugly gray throat.

      The thing that collapsed at my feet could only be mistaken for human in a pitch black room. Three more had gained the far side of the bridge and clawed feet were pounding onto the stone with fierce anticipation.

      Their skin was gray and knobby, and it was draped in loose folds despite the obvious power inside of their thick, stunted limbs. Their faces were things of horror, heads melding almost completely into their chests, joined at a massive jaw line that even now opened to expose numerous rows of razor sharp teeth. They yawned wider and wider, spittle flying in gobbets as they gave inhuman voice to alien battle cries. Their mouths were toothed pits large enough to swallow a thigh whole. Their massive manes of white hair were slicked back and stained black with old blood. It dripped down onto crude white leather clothing. They were things of nightmare, and men tried to tame them by giving them names: goblins, orcs, or redcaps, but nothing could capture the truly inhuman nature of these scavengers. Now they had come for me. Deep inside I always knew they would.