Tarah Woodblade (24 page)

“I’m so sorry, Tarah,” Djeri said and Tarah could feel the sincerity in his voice. “Would you like me to go in for you? I can see if there is anything worth saving.”

She pulled back, looking at him with gratitude. “Would you?”

“Of course.” He stood. “Is there anything in particular you want me to look for?”

There were so many things. “Anything that hasn’t been destroyed. Would you check his trunk? And under his bed?”

“Sure,” he said.

Tarah stood and turned away as he opened the door and stepped inside. The smell that came out made her shudder. She stumbled back into her room and stood anxiously waiting. She couldn’t believe she had actually done it. She had told Djeri her secret. And he hadn’t scoffed! If only she had been brave enough to tell him about her staff.

What about your gold
? asked Grampa Rolf.

Her eyes moved to her bed. She hadn’t seen any gold anywhere in the house. Was it really possible that her hiding place had remained undiscovered? Surely not. It was a ridiculous hope, but she walked to the bed anyway.

Tarah grabbed the broken wooden frame, ignoring the vile memories of the ogre that leapt up at her touch. With effort, she dragged the bed away from the stony cave wall. At the base of the floor was a wide rock, one of the paving stones that her father had used to make the path. It looked like it hadn’t been moved!

Good
! Grampa Rolf said.
With enough gold, Tarah, you can do anything
! It had been his idea, hiding her gold in case someone came to the house while she was out.

With trembling fingers, Tarah lifted the edge of the stone and pulled, revealing the hollow underneath. Everything was still there. She sat next to it and lifted the two heavy bags of coin out of the hole and held them close in relief. “It’s still here, Grampa!” she whispered.

Gently, she set the two bags aside and reached back inside the hole. She pulled out a long cloth-wrapped bundle and opened it hurriedly, revealing a long slender piece of wood; her papa’s bow. Her fingers touched it and she immediately felt his presence, strong and focused, as he hunted. Her lips quivered as she wrapped it back up and laid it across her legs.

There was one more thing inside and it was perhaps her most prized memory. Tarah withdrew a leather satchel from the bottom of the hole. Taking a deep breath, she lifted the cover and stuck her hand inside to touch the small book within.

For a brief moment the world faded away. Tarah was small again. Tiny. Not quite six-years-old. She was sitting in her bed, a book open in her lap. One soft arm was wrapped around her, the other pointing out a spot on the page. She listened intently as a loving voice helped her sound out a word.

The memory faded and Tarah closed the satchel. Tears rolled down her face again, but these weren’t tears of sorrow. They were tears of happiness. She still had the memory of her mother.

The door in the hallway closed and Tarah heard Djeri’s heavy footsteps as he entered the room. His look was dour.

“They didn’t find my hiding place!” she said. “My coin was untouched and I have my papa’s bow.”

“Good!” he said, a smile touching his lips. “I wish I had better luck. I-uh, won’t say what they’d been using the room for. I only found these two things.”

Tarah stood and walked over to him. In one hand he held a small glass jar. It was half-full of a thick pink substance.

“I’m not sure what this is, but it doesn’t look like something a goblinoid would carry around,” Djeri said.

“That’s Grampa Rolf’s,” she said, taking the bottle from him. She felt a very faint memory of her grampa’s, just an absent grunt as he closed the jar. “Thank you.”

“Then there’s this,” Djeri said. He held out a thin tube of parchment. “The bedpost was broken and I saw this sticking out of the end.”

“I’ve never seen this before,” Tarah said. When she touched it, a powerful memory crossed her mind. It was her grampa’s, fervent and secretive as he rolled the scroll up tight, fearful of discovery. Strangely she got a sense that he was outside somewhere, standing in the cold. “I need to see this in the light. Would you grab those two bags?”

Tarah quickly picked up her father’s bow and the leather satchel and headed down the hallway towards the front door. Djeri hoisted the two bags of coin, grunting in surprise over the weight, and followed her.

She left the house and stepped into the light, briefly noticing the pile of goblinoid bodies in front of the porch before unscrolling the parchment. She squinted at the small fine penmanship. This wasn’t written in her grampa’s hand.

“Good gravy, Tarah. That’s a lot of coin,” Djeri said.

“I don’t spend much,” she said absently. “I never know when I might need it.” Except on books. She was going to need to replace her books. “You ever heard of ‘Jharro Tree sap’?”

“I’ve herd of Jharro trees,” Djeri said cautiously. “What’s on the scroll?”

“It’s a list of ingredients and amounts. I think it’s the recipe for my grampa’s resin.” Tarah said. “The stuff he used to make my armor.” She rolled the tiny scroll back up and slipped it into the leather satchel along with the small jar.

She turned back and looked at her house. “I can’t live here anymore.”

“You know, it’s not so bad really,” Djeri said, rubbing his chin. “After our mission’s over, we can come back. I’m sure some of the Pinewood boys would help. We could clean the place up and sand off the carvings, make it good as new.”

“No,” Tarah said with a shake of her head. “All the memories are gone. This place just ain’t my home anymore.”

“You know . . .” Djeri paused thoughtfully. “Whatever those goblinoids did, they can’t really take your memories away. Even if your magic-.”

“No matter what we did with the place, it wouldn’t be the same,” she said. “They didn’t just take away my family’s memories. They replaced them with their own.”

I’ll never truly be gone, Tarah
, her papa said. The memory bubbled to the surface. He was in bed. The rot had taken his vitality and he barely had strength to lift the finger he placed on her forehead.
I’ll always be with you in here
.

“You can scrub those away too eventually,” Djeri suggested.

“Stop,” Tarah said, raising a warning hand.

“Then what do you want to do?” Djeri asked.

Tarah Woodblade takes action
, Grampa Rolf said.

Tarah looked back at the house, her jaw set in anger. “We drag those monsters’ corpses inside. Then we burn it to the ground.”

“Burn down your home?”

Tarah nodded grimly. “If I ever live here again, I’ll be starting from scratch.”

Chapter Twelve

While Djeri went to retrieve Neddy, Tarah took a solitary trip around the side of the hill to her papa’s gravesite. It looked much like she had feared. The ogre had dug it up and thrown aside the heavy stones she’d laid on top of it. Her papa’s bones had been piled on the ground next to the grave.

Tenderly, she placed each bone back in the grave. No flashes of memory entered her mind while she did so. Bones didn’t keep a memory. It was an oddity with the magic that Tarah had never understood, but she was grateful for it now.

Her trail shovel had been left with the mule, but instead of heading back for it, she used a flat rock and scrapped the dirt back in. It was hard work, but Tarah did it reverently. By the time she was finished replacing the stones on top of the grave, she was sweaty and dirty and her back was sore.

Tarah headed back towards the house feeling worn-out and emotionally drained. The moonrat mother had marked her for death and even though she still drew breath, Tarah felt like part of her had died. She had been uprooted. She had no home. All that was left was to bury that part of her past.

Your survival is the most important thing
, Grampa Rolf reminded. At the moment, she didn’t know if she agreed.

When Tarah returned to the house, she saw Neddy standing outside. Djeri was having some difficulty pulling Clobber’s body in through the front door. The ogre’s legs were inside, but his upper body was wedged in the doorframe.

“Hello, Neddy,” Tarah said, patting the mule’s head before going to help Djeri out.

 Together, they got the ogre’s body turned and pulled inside next to the others. Once they had finished, they loaded up the front room with any flammable debris they could find. Then they set to clearing away all leaves and fallen branches from around the house. Tarah would have felt incredibly guilty if they mourned her loss by burning down half the forest.

The sun was fading into the treetops when Tarah started the fire. She lit a stack of tinder just inside the front door. The flames spread fast. Soon they poured out the door and licked along the thatched roof. Tarah found it frightening how quickly her home burned.

Djeri walked up and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder as they watched the fire rise. Tarah’s face was wet, though she didn’t feel the tears.

“What do you want to do with this?” Djeri asked. He held out her papa’s sword. “I took the scabbard off of the ogre before I dragged it in. It’s in surprisingly good shape considering.”

“You mean considering the fact that it spent the last ten years in the ground?” Tarah reached out hesitantly and touched the hilt. The memory that flashed through her mind was no longer the ogre’s. This one was more recent, full of Djeri’s sadness for her as she had left the sword in his arms. She gave the dwarf a thoughtful look.

“I don’t know what to do.” She had considered throwing it into the fire and letting it be buried in the rubble, but now she wasn’t so sure. A strange impulse overcame her and she found herself saying, “Why don’t you hold onto it for now?”

“Me,” he said in surprise. “I couldn’t do that.”

“Just until you find a replacement for your mace,” she suggested and added half-mockingly. “You do know how to use a greatsword, don’t you? It’s not too big?”

A half smile touched his face. “Woman, I might be young for a dwarf, but I’m a hundred and fifty years old. I’ve used about every weapon there is and I have two greatswords in my collection at home. Still,” he said, turning the sword over in his hands. “I’ve never used one quite this nice. Are you sure?”

“For now,” Tarah said. She liked the idea of Djeri’s memories washing the ogre’s away. “Just until you find a replacement.”

Djeri nodded slowly. “Thank you. I’m honored.”

“And you should be. My papa was a legend,” Tarah said, taking the sword from him. “Now turn around and I’ll help you belt it on.”

Tarah set the scabbard diagonally across Djeri’s back. The dwarf was right. It was in good shape. The wooden sheath was uncracked and the leather barely weathered. Her papa had kept it well oiled.

While she adjusted the straps, Djeri said, “Tell me about your papa. Who was he? The way you talk about him tells me he was an academy man.”

“His name was Gad the Brawler,” she said. “He was Berserker Guild.”

“Gad the Brawler?” Djeri said in astonishment. His jaw worked for a moment. “You’re kidding! You were right about him being a legend. Why he could have been guildmaster.”

“They offered it to him twice,” Tarah said. “But papa never liked being in charge. He just wanted to fight. He was happy to serve under Tamboor the Fearless until the berserkers were disbanded.”

Djeri reached up and grasped the pommel of the sword. Tarah had belted it on at just the right angle and the blade slid free of the scabbard with one long pull of his arm. The blade gleamed in the firelight as he shifted his body into an offensive stance. “Then this sword is the Ramsetter?”

“Yeah,” she said. The sword was huge in his hands and yet somehow it looked right. “Papa got it as a gift from some king or other after a mission. I don’t know all the details. He didn’t brag about it much. When it came to his academy days, he preferred talking about the other warriors.”

“Anyone who’s been through history classes at the academy knows about this sword.” Djeri said, shaking his head. “Made by a master smith, runed for carving through armor like it was paper. No wonder it nearly cut my mace in two.”

“I warned you,” Tarah said. “When that ogre swung the second time, I was sure you were dead.”

“If that ugly mace of mine hadn’t been so thick and stubborn I would have been.” Djeri shook his head. “I’m still mad about that, by the way.” He slid the blade back into its scabbard. “So tell me. How did Gad the Brawler and his daughter end up living out here all alone?”

Tarah’s brow furrowed in indecision as she stared at the climbing blaze. She never told clients about her past. Grampa Rolf had warned against it. Whenever someone asked her where she was from, she’d say, ‘I was born in the forest and raised by squirrels until I was big enough to kill moonrats.’ Or. ‘Tarah Woodblade wasn’t born. I just appeared one day, cutting myself free from a bear’s belly.’ She had a dozen of them and usually she’d just repeat new ones until the client stopped asking. But she’d already told Djeri some of her biggest secrets. Why stop now?

 She took a deep breath. “When the academy got rid of the berserkers, papa could’ve done anything, I guess. He could’ve stayed and joined the swordsmanship guild like Tamboor did or he could’ve joined about any army in the world, but he decided to retire. Momma wanted to stay in Reneul, but papa hated living in the city, so they compromised and moved out here, close to Pinewood where momma was born.”

She paused, letting the light of the flames create afterimages in her vision. “They were happy for a few years, but momma died when I was real young. Papa decided to stay here and raise me in the woods. He liked living in the country. You know, away from his fame. Besides, he didn’t want me learning life from city folk.”

“Did you like it here?” Djeri asked.

Tarah looked down, “I loved being with papa. He taught me how to survive. How to hunt. Taught me everything I know about the bow.”

“Really?” Djeri said. “I didn’t know Gad the Brawler was a bowman.”

“Well, there ain’t much call for berserkers to use a bow, is there?” she said. “Bow hunting was his hobby. That, and tracking.”