Fire of the Forebears, page 2
“You know,” Faron said, “Father would kill me if something happened to you while he was gone.”
“Right back at you, little brother.”
Faron stifled a groan. He no longer appreciated that distinction, and Kura knew it, but it didn’t change the truth.
It still startled her sometimes when she caught a clear glimpse of the fingers missing on his left hand or noticed for the hundredth time the impaired movement of that arm. She tried to forget that day had ever happened—mostly she did—but it remained the moment she’d become the oldest, and she would always carry the weight of that responsibility.
Faron dropped the cougar’s paw as they came to the edge of the forest. “Here’s good enough.”
Kura did the same, examining the trees above. “I suppose we ought to bury him?”
“Of course.” Faron stepped forward to clear away a patch of brush. “How would you like it if someone killed you and just tossed your body in the woods to be eaten by the animals?”
Kura half-heartedly picked up some fallen branches. “I meant maybe we should leave him out, as a warning or something.”
Faron chuckled, as though it was supposed to be a joke.
“Dradge’s soldiers do that, to men. He sticks their heads on pikes and everything.”
Faron gave her a discerning look. “To Avaronian citizens?”
“No, Lovarian scouts. But that’s kind of the point. It’s to scare away trespassers. And for all we know, he’d do the same to us out here.” Faron didn’t reply, and Kura gave a sigh of defeat. “Well, are you going to give him a eulogy? Father always says something.”
Faron shot her a sideways glance, but straightened and folded his hands respectfully before him. “All transgressions are forgiven, tasona, and may your spirit find peace.”
Kura nodded thoughtfully. “Tasona?”
“I think that’s their word for cougar.”
She shrugged. “Good enough. I guess I’ll go find a shovel.”
Chapter two
Bound by the Law
Most considered the city of Edras to be the crown jewel of Avaron, but Triston had his reservations. The castle Avtalyon was a jewel, maybe, but while most rooftops still sparkled in the sunrise, the city growing around it better paralleled uncut stone.
Rows of short, neglected log cabins lined the alleyway where he pulled his horse to a stop. A line of soldiers, dressed in chain mail overlaid with a tunic bearing a black bird overlaying a red, pointed cross—the mark of the king—waited behind a makeshift wall of wooden crates stretching across the town square. A similar barricade lay at the other edge of the courtyard, behind which several common folk cowered, hurling both insults and the occasional stone.
This was a single misstep from becoming a riot.
Triston dismounted and left his grey mare in what he hoped would be the safety of the alley, then strode toward the group of soldiers.
The nearest man turned, leaping to his feet as he slapped his right fist over his heart in salute. “Prince Triston, sir! I—I didn’t know you were coming, sir.”
“I didn’t know I was either. This was supposed to be routine.” Triston looked up as another shout—possibly his name—rose from among the commoners. He turned away, then nearly grinned as he found the old soldier still standing at attention. A shorter man, his rugged appearance contradicted his grandfatherly air. It was a good thing one of the younger captains wasn’t in charge of this. “At ease, Garan.”
The soldier relaxed his stance, then flinched as a stone struck the nearest crate. The commoners cheered, and Garan met Triston’s gaze. “I’m not sure you should be here, sir. We were thinkin’ about goin’ in with the batons.”
“What happened?”
Garan looked down at his polished boots as he slipped a hand under his helmet to scratch the back of his neck. “We came to fulfill three draft orders, sir. The first two fellers came easy enough, but this last one, well… his momma riled up the whole block.”
Triston sighed deeply. In the past, any man called to serve had come at the asking—out of loyalty or fear, he didn’t know—but lately a draft notice was as likely to start a war as compel a trained man to fight in one. Not that there was a true war going on anymore, but that was beside the point.
Another soldier jogged to Garan’s side. “We’ve got fifteen—Triston, sir!” He grinned and came to a salute, right fist over his heart. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey, Mory.” Triston returned the salute. “How’s the baby?”
“Oh, she’s doing great, sir. She said her first word yesterday.”
“Already? What was it?”
Mory stifled a laugh. “I don’t know I should be repeating it.”
Garan cleared this throat. “Sir, you want us going in with the batons?”
Triston glanced across the courtyard. He glimpsed one larger woman and two men brave enough to peek out from behind their barricade; they couldn’t be armed with more than the stones they’d already thrown. The rest of their fellow would-be rioters scrambled away, back to the presumed safety of their stoops and doorways.
He nodded toward the shield Mory had slung over his back. “Can I borrow that?”
Mory shrugged, then handed him the shield—it was a light wood, circular, and rimmed with a strip of hardened steel. “What you got in mind, sir?”
Triston attempted a smile as he strapped the shield on his arm. “Well, if this doesn’t work, just have your batons ready.”
He jumped up onto one of the wooden crates that made the soldiers’ barricade. The commoners on the other side shouted to one another—panicked attempts at cooperation or commands, like a shield line breaking to a cavalry charge—and the woman hurled a stone at Triston’s head.
“Hey!” He knocked the stone aside with the shield. “Can I just talk with all of you, or what?”
The woman growled. “I ain’t got nothin’ I want to say to you!”
Triston stepped down into the open space between the barricades. Both of the men ducked behind their crates, but the woman stood her ground.
“Well,” Triston said, holding his shield at the ready, “I have something to say to you.”
The woman laughed, and Triston was close enough now to see the glaze in her eyes. She was drunk. “Just scram, you little whelp! You might be happy traipsing all over for your daddy, but my boy ain’t dying for any whims of his.” She scowled and spit on the street. “The rebel king, ha! Look where it got the lot of us!”
Her companions behind the barricade rallied at this, and one of them threw another stone at Triston; it went wide and clattered to the cobblestones. The rebel king. Triston had of course heard that title before, though it used to be spoken with pride. It wasn’t entirely accurate. His father’s rise to power had been a military coup, not a rebellion.
Triston stepped as close to their barricade as he dared. “You know anyone who’s gone through the year fifteen training is eligible to be called up. It’s a random process.”
The woman muttered something and balled her large hands into fists.
“And don’t go thinking I’ve got a pass. I’ve been in the service since I was eleven, I didn’t have a choice.” Although, had he been able to choose, Triston wasn’t sure he’d change anything.
“Ha!” The woman jabbed her finger at his face. He fought the urge to duck behind his shield before he realized her hand was empty. “Your daddy’s gonna keep you safe, keep you dayrides from any real fightin’!”
Triston held back a grin. Her claim was decidedly untrue—his father had too much respect for him to do anything of the sort—but there was no use explaining that here. “Well, then, how about I keep your boy with me? He’ll go where I go.”
The woman eyed him, suspicious. “You’d do that?”
“Sure, I’d do that. What’s he trained in so far?”
The woman shuffled her grubby boots and grumbled something under her breath. “Crossbow.”
“Perfect. I can always use another man with a bow.” Fortunately, that was true.
The woman let out a strained sigh, and her angry facade cracked. “Darrow?”
Her shaky voice hung in the air as a young man peeked up from behind the crate. Triston drew in a breath. Damn, am I that old? The requested recruit was supposed to be sixteen—only five years his junior—but the soldier that stood before him wasn’t much more than a boy.
The woman wrapped her arms around her son, her bulky frame enveloping his wiry one. “You come back, you hear me?”
The boy nodded, his voice muffled against her arm. “Yes, ma’am.”
Soldiers came forward then led the boy over his barricade. The woman watched them go, tears streaming down her cheeks—until she fixed her gaze on Triston. She scowled. “Don’t think this changes anythin’. Your mother would be ashamed of you.”
Triston winced involuntarily. This woman had no right to judge what his mother would think, but somehow the words still stung. He managed a cordial nod. “Afternoon, ma’am.”
The two other men came up to the woman’s side, whispering in her ear and patting her on the shoulder, but Triston walked back to his own barricade. He wanted to be relieved—he was relieved—but the fact he’d had to do this at all diminished the victory. He climbed back over one of the soldier’s crates, and Mory met him with a grin.
“Well done, sir!”
Triston nodded, trying to appear grateful, and handed the man his shield. “That went as well as expected, I guess.”
“Are you kidding? Sir, last time…”
Mory didn’t have to finish; Triston already knew. Last time four civilians and a soldier had died, and three more civilians had been seriously wounded. Last time, he’d realized the whispers of rebellion were something more than rumors. Last time, he’d resolved it’d be the last time anything like it happened in Edras again. Of course, ensuring that was another challenge entirely.
Garan saluted. “Thank you, sir. I hadn’t wanted to go in with the batons, sir, but I didn’t know what else to do, rightly.”
“It’s alright, Garan.” Triston squinted at the sun hanging over the crooked, thatched rooftops. “What time is it?”
Mory shaded his eyes with his hand. “Almost eleven?”
Triston muttered a curse under his breath and jogged toward his horse. “I’m going to be late!”
Brushing the dirt from her hands, Kura lagged behind Faron as they followed the path through rows of carrots, turnips, and potatoes. It’d taken the better part of an hour, but they’d dug a sizeable hole and given the nostkynna a proper burial. The other farmhands had been so startled they’d packed up the harvested wheat and fled for the walls hours before sunset, and Kura welcomed an excuse to return to the compound early.
She’d always wanted to name the place. The other villages all had names, but her family had never agreed on what to call it, and now she could only think of foul names to give it anyway. The compound itself was neither large nor picturesque, but it was at least formidable. Tall logs—thick, pointed at the top—had been sunk in the ground to make a wall. Only one doorway granted passage in or out, a front gate in which two men could stand shoulder to shoulder.
Currently, a crowd of both goats and humans was gathered in the clearing outside the walls, all huddled around a small handcart propped beside the open gate.
Faron slowed his pace, and Kura nearly ran into him.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Kura shook her head, still inspecting the group. “I don’t…”
A man stepped up onto the handcart, waving his arms as he tried to talk over the rest of the crowd. Kura stared at him in surprise. “Father?”
Spiridon was a tall man with broad shoulders and straight auburn hair that reached his neck. Everyone said Faron would look just like him if Faron ever grew the same brown, bushy beard. He stopped talking as he noticed Kura and Faron standing off to the side, and he gave them a tired wave.
Kura ran toward him, pushing her way through the crowd as a smile spread across her face. “We didn’t expect you back so soon! What—” Fear caught in her chest as she noticed the two oblong shapes covered in bloodstained blankets on the ground at the base of the cart. “What happened? Where’s Elli?”
Her father climbed down from the cart. “I sent her home, she’s fine.”
“For how long, huh?” A man forced his way to the front of the crowd. It was the Murderer—he had a name, but most were better known by their crime, and his scarred and wrinkled face was a hard one to forget. He stuck a fat finger in Spiridon’s chest. “It’s you who said we’d stay safe here!”
Spiridon shook his head. “I didn’t promise that, only hoped. But I was a fool to think I could find peace for myself while the rest of the country withers away.”
“Father…” Kura’s frown deepened, but the rest of the crowd spoke over her.
“It was you who insisted on going to market!” a woman, the Horse Thief, shouted over the rest.
“We didn’t have trouble at market, love,” her husband said. “It was afterward. There were soldiers in the Waste…”
The crowd returned to their fury, all crowding close to shout their questions.
Kura caught hold of her father’s arm. “There were soldiers?”
Spiridon sighed. “A few. We ran and they didn’t follow, but archers shot the Drunk and the Thief. We weren’t able to do anything for them.”
Kura stole a glance at the bloodstained blankets, trying not to imagine the grey faces underneath. “What were soldiers doing in the Wynshire?”
“They burned down the compound east of here.” Spiridon spoke calmly, as if the soldiers had ever braved these woods before. “They executed every family there for taking part in the rebellion. I suspect they were approached by that same man as we were a while back, only they didn’t send him away.”
A new fear caught in Kura’s chest this time, and she hoped it didn’t show on her face.
“And who’s to say the soldiers’ll stop there?” the Murderer shouted, drawing everyone’s attention. “It’s time to move on, unless we all want to end up dead like these folks.”
A murmur of conversation rippled through the crowd.
Kura turned to them in disbelief. “We can’t just run!”
“Kura—” Spiridon started, but she leapt into the handcart.
“This is our home! It’s not much, but we’ve worked hard for what we have. They already drove us out of the mainstates. You’re going to let them drive us off here, too? We know the land, and we have the advantage. We can put archers along the walls and pikemen near the—”
“Of course you’d say that!” the Horse Thief said. “You’re the Soldier’s daughter!”
The crowd murmured in agreement.
“Kura, come on,” Spiridon said, catching her by the wrist. Reluctantly, she let him drag her down from the cart, but words of protest still echoed in her mind.
“That’s it,” the Murderer said, pushing his way toward the open gate. “I’m gathering my things, and I’m heading for Lovaria in the morning.”
“They won’t welcome you,” Spiridon said with a shake of his head. “And you won’t make it over the mountains before winter.”
The man scowled. “Whatever you say, deserter. You were a coward then—who’s to say you’re not the coward now too?”
Faron pushed toward the man. “Hey!”
“Faron.” Spiridon caught his son by the shoulder.
The Murderer met Faron’s gaze with a crooked grin. He threw his hand over his head as he turned to the rest of the crowd. “Any of the rest of you are welcome to join me!”
The crowd broke apart, most with apathetic shrugs, to debate among their own families, but Kura stepped closer to her father’s side.
“They can’t go,” she whispered harshly. “The harvest isn’t finished, we need—”
“We can’t stop them.” Spiridon sighed. “Families come and go like this every year. We’ll make do, we always have.”
“Are you all leaving, then?” a soft, high-pitched voice said at Kura’s side. It was one of the goats. Large horns curled atop her shaggy head, lending her height enough to reach Kura’s chest.
“Not all of us,” Spiridon said.
The goat shook her head, the motion flapping her long ears and the wattles nestled into the fur below her jaw. “The others said it was a mistake to make our home with you. Perhaps they were right after all. Humans have no place among nostkynna.”
“Yes we do,” Kura said. “Think of all the good things your herd has had these past few months: a safe place to stay out of the rain, large open fields to pick weeds from, not to mention protection from the wolves and cougars.”
The goat tilted her head. “That is true.” She flicked her tail. “I suppose we can’t leave now. The other nostkynna would think so little of us for having taken your charity.”
Faron nodded cordially. “You’re welcome to go or stay as you please. But we do hope you choose to stay.”
The goat chewed her cud leisurely, and strolled away. “We shall see…”
Spiridon nodded toward the gates. “Come on, your mother is waiting.”
Faron followed at his side, and Kura reluctantly tagged along behind. She still wanted to argue, but she didn’t know what to say. Her father never changed his mind, and no one listened to the daughter of a deserter.
They passed through the gates into the compound, several others from the crowd following. It was not a large space, and the family cabins packed between the walls made it smaller still. Most were old and run-down, although a few were better crafted.
A short overhang jutted from the right wall, forming the goats’ shelter—their home was a long, two-walled shed filled with hay, and every one of them said it was better living than they’d ever had. Spiridon stuck to the center path, walking Kura and Faron past the clay hearth in the heart of the compound.
