Page 6

“I found the next hollow,”

he said once he was satisfied the flames would not extinguish, and he could relax a bit.

“Two, actually, one layla -ways, one more yaelu .”

She grunted acknowledgement, a little taken aback.

He had known of the creature, had found not just one but two hollows, and the madman had then returned? A flicker of respect rose begrudgingly within her.

She shook her head and grimaced.

People always had their reasons.

Only the half-drowned, plague-ridden priests of the Sunken Hamlets believed in anything like altruism, or so the myths said.

Verpace was a place of broken edges and bloodied sands, and those who did not cut others bloody on those edges only ended up colouring the earth a little darker with their own.

“How is your leg?” he asked.

“Hurts like a bitch.

Ankle might be broken.”

“Will you let me take a look, or would you rather cuss me out?”

“Go ahead, then.”

He unclasped her boot buckles and pried the flaps apart.

Her foot was practically glued to the leather, it had swollen so much.

He tried to remove it gently without any luck.

“Need a stick to bite down on?” he asked.

“Just do it.”

He twisted the boot this way and that to loosen it, then wrenched it off.

Blood dripped from the leather as he dropped it to one side.

Her curses made him wince.

The rough stone had cut through her boot and into the muscle at the back of the ankle.

Her foot wrappings were drenched.

His face blanched.

“I’ll live,”

she muttered, exhaustion sucking away the confidence of her words.

“You could literally die from that,”

he countered.

He shifted across to her and used his knife to cut away the trousers around her swollen ankle.

“Hey!”

“You can buy another pair later,”

he said, ripping the trouser leg apart.

She leaned forward, and he held his hand firmly against her shoulder till she sat back.

She swore, but obeyed.

She did not have the strength to fight.

“Good.

Try to breathe.

In the meantime, I need to check for broken bones.”

His fingers pressed into her flesh, earning fresh and unique curses each time.

Sweat broke out across her forehead, and it took all of her willpower not to knife the man.

Esterra was all hard angles and lean muscle, scars crisscrossing and curling about her, pockmarking her skin like the madly splattered paint of a maniac's masterpiece.

Her ankle and calf bore plenty of these.

Yellowing bruises blended with the fresher, purple ones.

Tarr eyed her with concern.

She glared at him till he returned to poking at her swollen ankle.

Her bloated ankle pissed her off.

Each agonising movement was a reminder of her vulnerability, of her reliance on this bookish man who had likely never harmed a fly in his life.

How did he survive this long? she wondered to herself.

It defied her comprehension, though she found herself admitting once again that he was resourceful enough in his own way.

“Good news,”

Tarr said.

“It is just a sprain.

A bad one, and you scraped your leg terribly, hence the blood.

As you said, you will live.

We do need to get that swelling under control though.”

He chewed some faeroot, then spat it into his hand, rubbing the scratchy mess over her foot and ankle.

At first it stung, somehow sharper than the constant pain that already plagued her, but that soon faded away.

He then took some greyish bandages, clearly used and washed many a time before, and swaddled the ankle tightly, drawing fresh curses.

“I need to do this,” he said.

“I know.

I bloody-stars-fucking know.

Just hurry up.”

He worked quickly but carefully, tying off the end of the bandage with expert fingers.

She finally let her jaw relax, teeth aching from the clenching, and gasped a ragged sigh.

She closed her eyes, thankful that it was done, too exhausted to express even an inkling of that gratitude.

Her thoughts blurred into a mess of memories and dreams as the warmth of the fire washed over her and lulled her into a deep sleep.

When she woke, it was still night.

Tarr had tended the fire well.

Its warmth suffused through her, and the faeroot he had put on her ankle had helped reduce the swelling.

He sat back against the stone, looking out at the night, his bright eyes alert and ready.

He turned when she shifted.

“How long was I asleep?”

“An hour, maybe a little longer.”

She sighed heavily.

“Exhausted.”

"You curse the stars, even in your sleep," Tarr said.

"I curse many things."

"How long has it been since you left the Valley?"

She looked at him with surprise, then acknowledgement.

Only the Valley referred to the stars in their prayers.

Only exiles would curse them.

"I have lost count of the years.

Only the Circle really keeps track of those.

How long since you left the College?"

"I never really left.

It is called the Wandering College for a reason.

But I have lost all contact with the others."

Esterra grunted in reply, didn't have anything else to offer.

“How is your ankle?”

“Killing me.

But thank you.

You did a better job than I, what with your two hands and all.”

“It does give me a certain advantage,”

he said with a smile.

She laughed at that, and the laughing turned into dusty coughing.

He handed her his water gourd.

She sipped at it, wetting her throat and washing away the grit and smoke and blood that had coated her mouth.

“I’ve never met a tractwalker quite like you,”

Tarr said.

“You mean the arm?”

“No.

You saved my life, back there in the library.

Not many tractwalkers would have done the same, especially facing such a horror.”

Esterra did not know what to say, so she remained silent.

She expected him to either prattle on or fumble some awkward explanation about what he had said, but he too remained silent.

That’s unexpected , she thought.

The man says what he means and doesn’t feel the need to embellish.

Nice change of pace.

They sipped at their soup and shared the silence, the crackling warmth of the fire talkative enough for the both of them.

Esterra watched the wood char as the flames fed on it, little sparks popping up like manic insects when the breeze came a little more strongly, the wood settling when the pieces below broke apart.

Constant movement, never resting for a moment.

Like tractwalkers.

“I heard a rumour some time back that the murderer Pike is in these parts,”

Tarr said.

“You shouldn’t put too much stock in rumours,”

she said.

“If I had a tal for every bit of nonsense I have heard in my journeys, I would be living in a fortress.”

“Would you, now? I can’t see that.”

“Well, it was more of an expression.

I couldn’t sit in a tract just waiting for a lichtvallen.

What kind of life is that?”

“With all that wealth, you could have a listener or two.”

“No thanks.”

“Not enslaved.

You know some of them make a good bit of steel working in decent employ.”

“Where?”

“Well… I heard a rumour.”

Esterra barked out a laugh.

“And we come full circle.”

Tarr laughed, but the smile crumbled away after a moment.

She raised an eyebrow in question.

“You just remind me of someone I knew.”

“Another cynical tractwalker with a lichtridden arm?”

“A scholar at the College.

She left before the College dissolved.”

He poked at the fire with a stick, sending the tiniest sparks up into the air, and the two of them watched them flickering up into the night sky.

A veil of melancholic nostalgia settled over the little camp.

Esterra’s thoughts turned to her parents, her father especially.

Some days it seemed she had forgotten all about them, but on nights like this all the memories flooded back, unstoppable, somehow both warm and cold, heated by sweet moments and love, chilled by death and time.

It was never easy, remembering.

Life seemed so cruel when one meditated on it for any length of time.

Every good part of one’s existence seemed to disappear all too quickly, and all the vicious, violent events seemed to linger.

Yet she found a certain warmth in the scholar’s company this night, despite her noisy memories and injury and the mad creature stalking outside.

She did not often find herself enjoying talk and sharing food. So many of the tractwalkers and steelhunters and merchants of Verpace were horrid specimens, twisted into bitterness by the harshness of their travels and the violence of their trade. But this man was different. He seemed to be less scarred by all the horrors in the world, less affected. Less broken.

“Do you mind if I smoke?”

Tarr asked, interrupting her musings.

He had his pipe in his hand, and a small pouch in the other.

“That’s fine, so long as it isn’t that foul-smelling isyapi.”

“No, just tobacco.”

“I thought you had run out of that.”

“I am just extremely conservative in its use.

I last filled my pouch almost a year ago and I still have quite a few pipes left in it.”

Esterra shrugged and fell back into her quiet thoughts.

The flames danced about each other as if possessed.

In contrast, the smoke spiralling up from Tarr’s pipe spun itself in slow, somnambulistic movements without any particular direction.

Memories flickered across her mind as she let herself fall into a waking doze.

The tobacco had a sweet smell, comforting in a way the fire was warm, an intangible, emotional response inherently tied to the very thing itself.

The wood-fire and tobacco smoke each complimented the other, and the coziness of the moment warmed her heart so much that she only now realised how very cold it had become over the years.

So much death and pain and relentless violence had cast an armour of ice about it, thick and impenetrable.

She was not so unaware of her own self that it came as a surprise.

At times she had intentionally added to this armour, this emotional shield. But in this comfortable space, with the harshness of the world smoothed away for just a little while, she had caught a glimpse of what lay beneath the armour, and the damage that frigid protection had wrought on her psyche.

She blinked and pushed the entire mess of thoughts aside, acknowledging the pain, and accepting it, but deciding not to dwell on it.

But it had shaken her, shaken her terribly, and she knew the matter required further thought.

Ideally without any witnesses to her tears.

Esterra shifted between dozing and awareness.

The pain in her ankle remained constant, but chewing some dried faeroot from her pack helped push it to the back of her mind.

Tarr stretched one leg out, then the other, sighing at the release of tension.

Her own back ached from sitting so long, but their little hideaway offered little space to stand or shift, so she grumbled mentally to herself and ground more of the root between her teeth, bitterly savouring the sharp tang in a sort of masochistic way, a pointless punishment to her body for failing her.

The beast moved somewhere in the night, betrayed by the clatter of pebbles and the quiet susurrations of its huffing breaths.

Tarr’s gaze followed the sound.

For a few moments they sat without breathing, waiting for an inevitable rush that never came.

Was the thing strong enough to push the stones apart, or simply knock them over for access to the little bastards who had hurt it? Esterra doubted it, but doubt was damned far from certainty.

When Tarr shot her a glance, she knew the same thoughts wandered through his mind.

“The sun will rise in a few hours,” he said.

“It will,”

she replied.

They looked at each other, both aware that the statements did not mean anything in regard to their own survival.

The creature was dangerous whether they could see it or not.

Sometimes seeing a horror was more lethal to one’s courage than blindness.

The fire crackled away between them, and finding nothing more to say in the moment, they resumed their watch.

The sky gradually grew lighter, shades of opalescent pink announcing the first timid blush of dawn.

The pair of wanderers grew tense as the silhouettes of the odd scythe-like trees emerged from the dark, harbingers of the creature whose horns shared that very form.

Dull purple turned to pink and gold, and the sun breached the crest of the tawil, painting the thin clouds in brushed copper.

Tarr packed away his things, and helped Esterra ease her bandaged foot into her boot.

He buckled it as loosely as possible, but she still struggled not to punch him for his effort.

Esterra knew the day might require walking, perhaps even running.

She grit her teeth and strangled a whimper in her throat.

Tarr caught the look in her eyes.

"Are you going to be okay?" he asked.

"I get a choice?"

"I'll be with you.

Since all my books were burned up, I don't have much to carry, so you can use my shoulder.

"I shouldn't need it."

He shot her a half grin, as if to say "We'll see about that."

They scanned the tract for movement, but saw nothing.

No wail rose through the crisp morning air to haunt them.

The sun breached the tawil, the warmth banishing the chill on Esterra's cheeks.

She turned to Tarr.

"How far are the hollows?"

"See there, that gap in the trees right at the base of the tawil? That's the more layla one.

The other is just a few hundred paces alza ."

"That's further than I expected.

Almost half the tract."

"The other option is to go back to the last hollow."

"I would break my other ankle going down the hill in this condition.

I wouldn't make it.

Besides, we would only be forced to return through here again.

We can't go all the way back to that buried city."

Tarr shuddered in response.

"Damn it all.

Can you hear the beast? Or see it?"

"No."

"The unseen enemy is usually the more dangerous."

"Correct."

"Damn it." Esterra put some pressure on her wounded ankle.

It hurt.

A lot.

Dealt with worse , she thought.

At the same time, that did not mean this was a trivial matter.

One bad step, too much pressure, who knew what further damage she would cause? She sucked in a breath and tried again, putting more weight on it.

Pain blossomed up through her nerves, hard.

She inhaled sharply.

Not too bad. But I can't fight like this. Even with the licht as a last resort, she would be effectively immobile in a fight. She might be able to kill the thing, but not before it got to her.

"Let's go," she said.

"Toward which hollow?"

"In between.

We can adjust once we know where that horned beast is hiding."

They crept out from beneath the stones.

Esterra ignored her blood spatters on the stone and dirt, her mind on both her ankle and surroundings.

Tarr took the rear, letting her set the pace.

They walked down the gentler slope on the layla side till they were off the hill and into the forest of weird trees.

Esterra found a good long branch to use as a staff, and it helped tremendously.

The creature did not make an appearance.

She could spot a thousand of its tracks through the leaves, particularly the fresher ones where it had fallen or stumbled last night.

Bits of burned hair and blood traced ragged paths between the trees.

It was wounded, perhaps mortally.

She hoped it had dragged itself off to its lair to lick its wounds or die, and leave them alone.

They wended their way between the pallid trees and through the fallen leaves, their boots wafting through them far too noisily for Esterra’s taste.

Here and there pale yellow-white stones protruded between the roots.

Esterra stepped carefully, using the staff to take the majority of her weight.

Her ankle was behaving, and if one ignored the tension in her mind and muscles in anticipation of the impending attack, she was feeling rather good about the whole affair.

The faeroot was helping.

Tarr kept quiet, and it was nice to have a companion with a head on his shoulders.

Her begrudging respect had solidified to something closer to trust overnight, and while she was cynically aware of the change and hesitant to accept it for what it was, she knew that she had her reasons to trust him.

The stillness of the forest did not change.

There were no smaller creatures to rustle through the dead leaves alongside the two humans, nor any to perch in the thin branches of the sickle trees.

There was no hum of insects, no scat to betray a den, no sign of any life at all but the ever-silent trees.

Esterra turned to ask Tarr how long he thought they had to go, but her words died on her lips.

There, some distance away, in a clearing between the widely spaced trees, lay the creature.

It did not move.

Tarr had followed her gaze and stopped beside her.

They joined the trees in standing perfectly still, breathing in shallow sips to kill any sound.

The creature did not move in the slightest.

They were not close enough to see if it was breathing.

Its eyes were hidden from view, as if it had been in the process of rooting around in the earth and had dug a little pit, with only the sole surviving burned antler sticking up and out, the odd similarity to the trees about it only all the stranger.

Its horn looked like a fresh sapling, emerging from the ground in that manner.

"Is it dead?" Tarr whispered after a long while.

"Unconscious, perhaps?"

"Why did it bury its head in the dirt?"

"I don't know, you're the scholar.

Why don't you go ask it?"

They stood for a long moment, watching for any movement.

Esterra rested on the staff, considering it.

"Those antlers, the horns…" Tarr said, trailing off.

"What about them?"

"The way it has planted its head in the earth, it's like it has… well, planted itself."

"What are you babbling on about?"

Tarr did not answer, but instead began brushing leaves around with his boot.

Esterra wanted to knock him in the head for making such a racket, but the creature did not seem to notice at all.

"What are you doing?"

"As I thought.

Look." He pointed down at the ground.

Esterra saw the outer surface of one of the grey boulders there, in the little space Tarr had cleared of leaves.

She glanced up at Tarr, frowned.

He gave her a smug look, then, before she could hiss a curse at him, he kicked the boulder with the heel of his boot.

It cracked.

Esterra budged him aside with her shoulder and hit the cracked area with her staff.

It went straight through, and bits of the grey shell fell inwards.

"That's bone," she said.

Tarr nodded.

Her eyes traced the curved trunk of the two trees above, down to the gnarled roots which twisted between the leaves.

She used her stick to move the leaves aside.

The roots were one with the giant skull below them, melting seamlessly together, bone and the wood-like texture of the antlers blurring together.

She glanced back at the dead creature in the clearing, its head buried in the earth in its dying moments.

A fresh grave dug by its burned and scarred horns.

Eventually its body would rot away, and the skull might break up and disintegrate, and that weird curved sickle tree would be left as a memorial, life growing from death, a forest of life from a forest of death.

"Do you think it is the last of its kind?" Tarr asked, whispering in reverence for the fallen.

"I wonder if there are more, in other tracts, to study…"

Esterra looked at him with some degree of wonder, amazed how someone who was being hunted by such a creature could be so passionately interested in it, so intrigued by it, to want to know more not out of a desire to kill it, but purely to understand it.

Now that the danger was effectively removed, this bookish traveller wanted to see more of the things! She shook her head.

The man was insane.

That was the only reasonable explanation.

She shook her head slowly, then stopped.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

The madman was walking towards the dead beast.

"Oh no, no no no, we are leaving.

Now.

You wanted to know if it was the last one? It may very well not be.

So we are leaving."

Tarr looked at her with a pained expression, but eventually his studious passion gave way to reason and he came back.

Esterra sighed and chuckled under her breath.

Absolute madman, she thought to herself.

I will never understand scholars.

They climbed the long, slow slope up to the tawil.

Tarr spent the time studying the antler trees, marvel written across his features and a childish wonder in his eyes.

Esterra decided to spend her time watching her step and scanning the wonderful, amazing forest for things which might be hunting for them, such as the giant antlered-beast which had tried to maul her last night and then planted itself like some kind of vegetable.

Thankfully, there were no signs of any more creatures and they reached the mid-point between the hollows without event.

Esterra turned to the right, Tarr to the left.

Tarr stopped and turned.

“Shall we go?”

“I’m heading down, nightways.”

“Oh…”

He looked suddenly abashed.

Esterra frowned.

“Look, Tarr, I don’t do friends.

You’re a reliable traveller and I thank you for saving my life.

I saved yours as well.

We’re even.”

“Even,”

Tarr said quietly.

Esterra looked him up and down, waiting for him to say the usual nonsense of going on together, safety in numbers, split the profits, all the tripe that scared tract-dwellers and steelhunters usually spouted.

But he remained silent, nodded once to himself, and set off sunways.

“Hey,” she said.

He stopped and turned. “What?”

“I never met a tractwalker quite like you.”

“I’m not a tractwalker,”

he said.

“I’m just a scholar looking for answers.”

“If you say so.

We might meet again.”

“Perhaps.

Safe travels, Esterra Stake.”

She nodded and turned back onto her path.

Something shifted within her heart, but she clamped it down and killed it.

Her path was one of solitude, and there was no use in hoping for that to change.