The wilderlands, p.6
The Wilderlands, page 6
No sun rose the next day; clouds choked light and color from the heavens. Blood still soured the air—it was hard to tell whether the scent was the bleeding of the Wildman they’d seen slain the day before blowing downwind, or the fresher foulings of Red’s death-draining. It was this stench that sundered Dhorena from a sleep she didn’t remember falling into. Her eyes flapped and she looked about.
Her brother was nestled up to her, slight and shivering at the morning cool, but safe. Red was pale as ever, looking already like a white-stone doppelgänger guarding a Valforian tomb. The fire had gone to ash, black as midnight, long faded. Knalc was nowhere in sight, only the shadow of where he’d slept remained.
Dhorena was on her feet, steel in hand, in a blink. Her heart whispered, “maybe he ran” and “maybe he went back to bring his clan” and “maybe he’s waiting out there to kill you.”
The Wilderlands cackled around her.
The heart-muttered “maybes” and the soul-shrieked “supposes” sent the girl spinning—eyeing every shadow as an enemy. The girl was right to be as frightened as she was. She was in the eye of the Wilderlands. In the Wilderlands, the grass itself would weave you up and drag you down if it could grow a touch faster. If bugs could bite a mite bigger we’d all be maggot-meat. All things held in the eye of the Green God long enough turn to dirt and dust, and ol’ Green’s eyes don’t shut. This was the first time Dhorena came to know what you and I know surer than sin—the Wilderlands will kill you. All living things limp from it. Valforians try to lock their birth-roots ‘hind walls and stone, but if ol’ Green calls their names, they too limp off to meet Death.
Green is a hungry god, who all of us are birthed to sate. We all feed ol’ Green, you, me, and the girl.
But not today.
As the girl spun and spun to fend off all the maybes reaching for her, something sneak-stepped her. She saw it too late.
She spun to stab—steel shining.
Knalc caught her sword-hand before she could slash death across his chest.
A shade of her was happy to see him; but as she shook off his hand she was thinking more of how to make a slow death for him.
“What are you doing back here?” she started.
Knalc reached to his side like he was ready to draw blade and blood. Instead he hefted up a fist of vein root.
The sounds had woken the boy and he stood not far away, watching, cave-mouthed with fright for what might happen next.
Dhorena squinted her eyes to see Knalc’s purpose clear. “What happened to ‘Can’t heal a dead man?’”
“I woke-up. He wasn’t dead,” Knalc shrugged. “And if he died out here, his blood might bring boars and beast we can’t beat back.”
Dhorena looked at Red—corpse-pale and rot-breathing and with mayhap more of his blood slurped up by Grandma Dirt than there was left in his body. The girl had seen death before, but slow dying’s a different thing. To see Death laze at his daily craft is watching a slow harvesting of the soul. Seeing the soul pulled from the body like a stubborn dyre-leech, not plucked up with ease but peeled from flesh and bone and muscle. It’s slow and gruesome and ugly and ain’t for watching. Yet she had been watching it happen to Red.
She knew Death was standing on Red’s neck and she knew, more like than not in the Wilderlands, Death could be eyeing her neck soon after. Or more likely, her brother’s.
Teeth gritted, she dropped the sword. Knalc let her go.
Each of the pair took the sum of the other, both thinking the other might make to mark them for Death. And neither did.
“Are you waiting for Pearlaphine to seize his soul?” She glowered. “Help him!” She stepped aside and sat, letting Knalc work.
Now you all marked my saying Knalc ain’t no healer or wise man. But Knalc had seen some thirty springs and winters, and living so long in the Wilderlands don’t teach you nothing. For better or worse, he’d stayed alive long enough that he knew what not to do.
Still, Red’s wounds were deep.
Knalc worked the day away doing what he could. Dhorena just sat and watched. Sometimes she comforted her brother, who was going hunger-sick, but mostly she just watched, fighting the soul-itch she felt to take up Red’s sword and slay his physician.
The Wilderlands grew around them.
The Wilderlands are always growing.
By the time the trees were swallowing the cloud-shrouded sun there was no telling what Death might still do with Red. Dhorena had done what she could to rekindle the dead wood of the night before, to warm herself and dry up her brother’s tears.
Hands red as the dying day, Knalc heaved himself into a spot by the fire. He didn’t speak, he just stared into the lilt-lit flames. In turn, Dhorena stared at him. Her brother stared at her, seeming to be searching for something in her eyes.
“What happens if he does die?” She asked.
Knalc went long without answering. Long enough that she thought he wouldn’t bother. But he did speak. “If he does die, we dig into Grandma Dirt. So Wilder-things don’t sniff him out. Like as not there are already some sniffing up our trail.”
“Why do you do that?”
“What?”
She creased her face at him. “That.”
“What?”
“Why do you speak to me in a tongue I don’t understand?”
“You understand enough.”
“How is it that you speak Valforian?”
“Don’t know.”
She focused on him. If she needed him alive she would needle at him with words. “Did you do what crows do? Did you kill a Valforian and eat his tongue and learn his voice?”
Knalc laughed but didn’t speak.
“I don’t know how else you could have learned it. Savagery seems to be your sole skill.”
Knalc felt the piercing of her words but shook it off like the bite of a sprout-snake. Still, he couldn’t get himself to look her in the eye. He clutched his clay heart.
Dhorena saw this and tried to sink her teeth in deeper. “Tell me, do you get more pleasure out of killing women than you do men?” She nodded to Red. “Or do you just prefer to do it slowly with men?”
Knalc shook his head. “These words you throw at me for helping? I am … healing … the man.”
“I don’t know what you’re doing to him. Maybe you poisoned him. Maybe you’re preparing his soul to be eaten by your false gods. If so, you can stop. The man doesn’t have a soul anymore.”
“Why? Same reason his name was ripped from him?”
“Yes. Even if you kill him, you’re not killing a man. Not truly. You’re killing a coward. A deserter.”
Knalc didn’t look at the girl but at her brother who had started pulling grass up and chewing on it. “That mean the boy is without a soul, too?”
That question bit her back with the sting of a hidden sprout-snake attacking. “I—he…” She quickly covered her brother’s ears. “He has a soul! That man had his name and got it torn away. His soul bore a title that was stripped from him. My brother’s soul was never named and so it can’t be taken.”
Knalc laughed. Mocking-like. “Sounds like hogshit.”
She paused and then she gaped. She understood enough. With a deep breath, she readied her word for wounding.
“You killed a woman because all you do is bathe in blood. You can’t kill a coward because you are a coward. You haven’t killed us because you enjoy the suffering of children. You want to wait to kill me until I’m a woman and you won’t kill my brother because you don’t think he’s got a soul worth taking. I want you to know that when you try to kill me, I will fight you. I know my way around steel enough to kill a coward. Even if your steel is faster or sharper than mine, I will make sure each drop of blood you draw from me chokes you. Choke the air from me and I will ensure I suck the last ounce of air from your own lungs before I die. Every bone you break I will rip from my own flesh and plunge into yours. I might as well already be dead out here. But I will not let you kill me like you did my mother! I will not let you kill anyone else’s mother. I will not die like—”
The Wilderlands grew around them.
Knalc was silent. The fire cackled. Knalc felt like it had gotten hotter—skin-scorching. Dhorena wished it was hotter so it might tear the tears from her face, her gaze wilted from Knalc.
Both wanted to wish the other dead.
One of them knew murder’d leave their soul-splintered and the other knew it would leave them body-broke. They came to quiet compromise—let the other linger for the time, until all ends were tied and bound. A contract sealed in silence with intent that blood would break it. This they understood.
Knalc spoke only when the understanding had settled between them. “Tomorrow we go back to Khar tribe.”
“So your friend can make me marry him? Whatever wedding bed he tries to make for us will be the last bed he sleeps in.”
Knalc gave a hearty, honest harrumph. “I hope you do. I have no love for Radruk. Kill him for you if I could.”
“I’m not going back there. My brother and I are going home to Illmiv.”
This harrumph was more humor-lacking than its predecessor. “You know how to get to Illmiv?”
“Of course, we just follow the Road.”
This, children, was back when there was only one road—leastways, one road out where these happenings shook out. Wander west and you can still see it today—etched through those Wilderlands like a faded battle scar. The Road was Valforian dug with an aim at sending messages, traders, and food hither and yon. Back then it was a mightsome thing. At its widest point, twenty Valforian soldiers could march hip-close. Knalc knew the Road well—it was where he’d killed Dhorena’s mother. He’d spilled more blood there than most anywhere else. There were four types of Valforians to tread on the Road: them with messages from city to city, them sending soldiers, them who are merchants, and them with travelers.
Messages, ink, and paper are as well as empty air to Wilderfolk. Soldiers carry that tricksome steel—good for killing, which means striking to steal from them is a good way to bleed yourself. Merchants carry fine furs and cloaks, but them is oft pompous-like and don’t hold fast come cold winds—aside from that, those merchants made sure to bring a heap of soldiers.
The best for raiding were the travelers.
Pregnant with food and sturdy cloth, they had soldiers, yes, but not near enough to fend off a clan of Wilder-worth. And though they’re travelers, them is Valforian travelers—sole-soft and shit-scared—not made for Wilder-wandering. They don’t move fast, but slow and heavy, like a spear-bled boar. Of all the caravans, the Wilderfolk raided these most.
Dhorena told it true. The Road would lead them right to Illmiv, just as it was leading all manner of merchant and sort of soldier.
“Death is the only end on the Road for us,” Knalc huffed. “Least that’s how it is if we’re found.”
And Dhorena huffed. “One savage and three Valforians.”
“Not as you tell it,” Knalc said and counted their group. “You are one Valforian. You are one … nameless man. You are one boy. Mayhap they think I am setting a trap. Most like they’ll kill us to be sure as not to be tricked.”
“Better to die on the Road than live in godless land.”
“Fine.” Knalc stretched out his arms to show the Wilderlands around them. “I will trod back to my home. You trod back to your home. We will see who limps back living.”
No more words passed between them for the rest of the night.
The boy wept for lack of food. The fire shrank for lack of fuel. The man in red cried for lack of arm. The girl and Knalc slept and did not miss the other’s company. While they slept, the Wilderlands grew and laughed and lived and loomed around them.
Red lived still when they woke.
The days without food had taken their toll. The hatred and fear had fizzled out and left them all hunger-struck. The boy had it worst of all; he couldn’t cry for all the water in him had washed away.
A spattering of words was all that was spent between Knalc and Dhorena.
Her, “Food?”
Him, “When we can.”
And him, “I’ll bind some sticks and vines to carry him back.”
And her, “What?”
Knalc got to sifting and searching for vines and sticks. Afore long he had a shamble-craft sled and was tying Red to it. Blood-cracked, dust-mouthed, and gape-eyed Red was, but he wasn’t hip-close with Death. Not yet.
Lugging his heft, Knalc bramble-bound him to his handy work and they all began their shuffle back through the Wilderlands—Knalc shouldering Red, Dhorena shouldering Red’s steel. First they found a stream, they drank deep and leaf-spooned water to Red. Going further on their way, they plucked what scant fruits they could. Bloodberries, flyfruits, cherries, and treecorn. It wasn’t no Gor feast they found, but it kept ‘em moving, which is all food is meant to do. Dhorena didn’t lick a grain of anything until Knalc had also eaten it, but the boy didn’t care. Knalc could have fed the child zealrounds, horse nettles, or virgin blush—the blush would have been the best way to end both the children; that five-leaf plant has a magic that’ll turn the untainted redder and redder ‘til they go flake-fleshed and start to rot alive. But the boy didn’t know about virgin blush, and Knalc didn’t feed him none, so the child was happy to keep putting every which thing in his gullet.
When they spoke, their words were breath-soft so as not to over-tempt the gods. Most of the speaking they did do was to answer silent questions. You know the way of children, even them with unspoken souls—name-hankering—the boy would point at anything strange to his eye and remain pointing until he knew its name.
“Eldertree. Eldertree,” Knalc’d say in both tongues, even sprinkling in the Wastefolk words when he could find ‘em. The boy would point and Knalc would tell him what what was. This was how they passed the day.
Pappa Sun had run the sky by the time they were nearing the Khar clan. It was then sour air filled Knalc’s nostrils. In that breath, Knalc feared Red had run to Death. No, children. Death had not taken Red yet, but the scent was on the wind, mingle-mixed with the stink of ash and blood.
Knalc halted and held up his hand.
Dhorena, taken to carrying her brother, set the boy down in her halting. “What?”
Knalc breathed deep. “Do you smell that?”
“Everything smells out here.”
“Yes. And I smell blood.”
She squinted at him hard. “You said … ‘yes’ and ... What was the rest of it?”
“Blood,” Knalc said. “Blood.”
Dhorena took a hefty whiff. “It … smells like the night you raided our caravan.”
“Yes.”
“Blood and fire,” she used the Wilder-word, mayhap ‘cause her own word would have made the blood real.
Knalc grim-nodded. “Stay. Until I know everything is safe.”
He started to move, but steel song stopped him.
“No,” she said in Wildertongue so she knew he understood, Red’s blade in her hand. “How do I know this isn’t a trick? Maybe you lied. Maybe you’re good friends with Radruk and you’re worried that if I fight when we get back I might kill you. Maybe you’re planning on going ahead to bring back a party, so you can take me by force. Maybe—”
Knalc wound-up to laugh, but the dagger-look she shot him killed the notion. “Fine,” he spat. “You want to risk whatever might be there? Then come.”
She did, blade still set to strike. They moved on.
They didn’t have to wait long to find the source of the death-stink.
Wastefolk ain’t known for fighting.
With all the stones they got in the Wastes, the folk who lived there never could mold or muster steel. But what Wastefolk can muster is magicks—“gases” and “oils” if you want to use wizard blubjub. Their shamans and goddesses are the only ones wield-worthy, I seen ‘em do it myself. Seen a whole city flame-swallowed. It was told to me—like I tell you this story—that sometimes Wastefolk leave camps and cities untouched by their scorch, yet still made men, women, and child dead in their sleep without even a god’s brand on ‘em. Once I saw ‘em turn stone to dust in an instant and heard Grandma Dirt cry out.
From what Knalc and the girl saw, the Wastefolk were not of mercy-mood when they’d fought the Khar tribe. What a sight they left. Oh yes, Fire and Green long ago made their peace, but Fire knows it is a cold peace and will burn mightsome when spark-summoned to spite Green.
Where the Khar camp had been was now a scorch-puckered wound on the earth. Still seeping smoke and puss. Still smelling of flesh-rot.
Knalc—ears and nose and eyes and taste all sending pain through him—stepped forward. His foot sank through ash then earthy-blood. Clan-blood. Knalc fell to his knees, sputtering up ash.
He could taste it in his mouth. He’d never loved them—there were those he’d barely liked—but in the Wilderlands your aim ain’t to like, it’s to live, and Khar clan had held him just as he had held them. First he was sad that he couldn’t tell the tang on his tongue—man or mutt or tent or worse—but not knowing was a mercy.
Blood had flowed so horribly here, even Grandma Dirt must not have been able to sip it all ‘cause the sky had swallowed its share, you could see it streaked across the horizon.
