s3r4ph

[s3r4ph]

THE PALE WINTER SUN. . .

. . . was high overhead when Sareth finally went home. She and Shaemus had rode the Palisade Way for a hundred miles or more at as fast a pace as Shaemus could bear. The wound across his gut was red and puffy, but it hadn’t blackened around the edges nor oozed much more than a bit of old blood, so Sareth figured it wasn’t infected yet. Still, she could tell that Shaemus was flagging. He was slumped low on his horse, but would spring back upright every hour or so, as if realizing he had started to slouch. He would want to keep Sareth from noticing how badly hurt he was, which only made it more obvious to her. When he straightened for the third time in the span of an hour, she finally spoke.

“We can stop, Shaemus. I know it’s hard on you.”

“No,” he growled, simply but indignantly. That worried her even more. It was unlike him to argue so little. She shook her head, swaying her uneven shoulder-length waves around her ears and her awkward, blunt bangs across her oily forehead. Shaemus hated that haircut. It was garish and too long, he’d said, even as his beard inched over his collarbone. She couldn’t bear to part with it, though it did her no favors in the concealment of her sex. It was the only thing of the girl she used to be that she had left. She had given up the rest of it when Shaemus talked her into joining the war, and she’d had to pretend she was a man to join the fight. She had given up even more when he coaxed her into desertion. But Shaemus was her brother, and all she had left, and she wouldn’t abandon him for anything– nevermind the vague pretense of honor. She realized she was watching him and looked away.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a long silence. Sareth shook her head again. Her horse whinnied in imitation. “It was stupid. I know I should’ve ran. I just…” He trailed off, but Sareth knew what he would say. He’d said it twenty times already at least, mostly when he thought she couldn’t hear him. “I really thought we might win.” His voice trailed off with a sigh, and Sareth could see the desperation in his frown even from beside and somewhat behind him. 

“So did I,” she offered weakly, but she lowered her head because it was a lie. How could he have thought they might win? The Usurper Princess’ forces had arrived at every battle in glittering armor of the finest steel, castle-forged by erratic, foreign smiths. Sareth, Shaemus and the vast majority of the forces raised by the rightful King Llewelyn were peasant levies: dressed in stiff leathers and carrying only farm implements or bronze chaff-weapons, forged en masse by whatever apprentices remained after their masters had volunteered and died in battle. Sareth was lucky. She had pried an iron axe from deep within the breastplate of a knight-errant. Only the honour guard was properly equipped. King Llewelyn fought in every battle he could, but he was only one man and his regiment couldn’t be everywhere at once. So it was left to the other loyal lords of the witan– mostly minor nobles of no renown– and their feeble militias to defend what remained of the loyal North. Of course they couldn’t hold Kophis Bay. Just like they couldn’t hold Caeddister, Deerfield or the Bright Bridge. It was only Shaemus’ foolish enthusiasm to think otherwise.

It had been a massacre. The Usurper Princess herself had appeared at the head of her army, and cut a swath through the poor port authority and naval guard. Shaemus had taken a gash across the stomach, and Sareth was nearly stuck to the spot she was bade to guard when the enemy javelins first flew. The port commander, Cedric, would not surrender. He knew what everybody knew: if the Usurper Princess took Kophis Bay she would be able to import whatever provisions she needed from her foreign allies. King Llewelyn’s only hope was to keep her from his supply lines and starve her forces, so they would have to wait out the winter and end the campaign early. He had failed. Sareth had failed, Shaemus had failed, and the port commander was lynched and still dangled above the seagate portcullis when Sareth and Shaemus rode through it under cover of night. If they were caught, they would be killed as royalists or hanged as deserters.

So they rode home. Andelworth was far South of the line, and well within enemy territory, but it had also been abandoned by both sides of the conflict. Sareth supposed that neither side had seen any strategic advantage to a vast swath of destitute farmland, laid low when the trade route was seized and most of the men ran off to the war. That made it about as safe a place as the siblings were likely to find, which in turn made it as good a place as any to wait out the thaw.

When they finally arrived, Shaemus had abandoned his attempts to act unhurt. He grunted softly with every second step of his horse, and had wrapped an arm around his stomach as he leaned lethargically over his horse’s neck. The door to the farmhouse had been shattered, and lay in splinters around its original frame. Sareth placed a hand against the thatch wall of the simple structure and thought of how excited she had been to see buildings of stone. Even their liege lord’s estate was made only of wood, though the inlays were beautiful and the construction far more study than the homes of any other of the townsfolk. Shaemus hobbled back around to the front of the house, having put the horses up in the little stable they had built as teenagers. It, at least, was still standing, a monument to their single achievement. Sareth helped Shaemus up the steps and inside the barren farmhouse. Clothes were strewn about the large single room, and two bowls sat beside each other in its center. Shaemus limped up to stand before them. One had been tipped over and stood upside-down on its rim, while the other sat upright and displayed a half-inch or so of rotten meal. Sareth approached to see him staring at the bowls as if they would reveal some further aspect of what had happened to the siblings’ parents. The scene only revealed that their parents had been eating when they fled. Sareth fought not to read more into it than that. Turning her attention to Shaemus, she watched him for signs of faltering. She was prepared to try and catch him if he fell; console him if he began to wonder aloud; or suggest something better than the alternative. They fled when they heard hoofbeats and decided not to return, perhaps.

But they would have returned, and father’s back didn’t permit him to lift a scythe above his ribs, nevermind sprint across the craggy forest floor. No, if the food was uneaten then they would be dead or enslaved. Dragged off to die in some Usurper quarry or collapse on the road carrying packs for the convoys. Shaemus thought like she did, she knew, and there was nothing either of them could say. They left the bowls alone and huddled in the corner, chewing salted pork in sullen silence. Shaemus placed a hand protectively over his wound as he ate. It glistened slightly, having started to weep. It was more swollen now, too, and the redness around it had grown to encompass much of his stomach.

“Does it hurt badly?” She asked. He shook his head, but he looked pale and drawn and she didn’t believe him. If their mother had been here, she could have concocted something to help him in a matter of minutes. Something for the pain, and to stave off infection. Sareth swallowed the last of her pork and focused on her thoughts, poking at their small cookfire with a stick. Mother wasn’t there, and Shaemus could be dead long before Sareth found a recipe for a poultice or a gifted enough healer. The ride home was a tall enough order for him in his current state. She needed something now.

But her mother was almost certainly dead and she was no alchemist, so she consigned herself to a walk through the woods to gather some milkroot for the pain. It, at least, was plentiful enough in this region that whatever marauding troupes had recently been through could not possibly have collected all of it. Shaemus was already nodding off, anyway, and she figured he could use the rest after the long ride and whatever weight the guilt was putting on him. It was hard enough to get to her own feet. She consoled herself with the thought that Shaemus, at least, was much stronger than she was. She ambled out into the woods near their home, scanning the spaces below fallen trees and patches of overgrown roots in search of milkroot. The marauders and the passing army had been more thorough than she expected, it seemed, and after an hour she was empty handed save a couple of stems and a trampled reed that she thought might be calburn. It wouldn’t help with the wound, but Shaemus always loved the taste. The woods were familiar and comfortable, but the ground was newly smoothed by the trampling of hooves. It wasn’t normal for so many horses to pass through Andelworth, and it made Sareth nervous that there might be Usurper forces about. She supposed she ought to be nervous about Loyalist forces, too, but decided not to think about that.

As she approached the edge of the forest where it met the broad fields of home, she heard the whinny of a horse. She dropped quickly into a low crouch with a start and ducked behind a large tree. There were voices coming from nearby; rough men speaking loudly from the direction of the stable. Her jaw clenched and eyes shut tight as she thought of her next move. It sounded like a small group of them talking, and she strained to hear their words. “Two skinny mares in the stable.” The voice was gruff, and issued in a low, conspiratorial tone.

“Deserters?”

“Most likely. Don’t look like they could haul all that much.” Sareth sighed and pulled her axe from her belt, clutching it in a desperate act of precaution. She tried to count the footfalls, or delineate one voice from another, anything to get an idea how many of them there might be. The handle was halfway clear of her belt when she heard a bow pull taut behind her.

“Slow-like, skinny.” It was barely above a whisper and spoken with a growl, but Sareth could tell that the speaker was a woman by the pitch of her voice. Sareth paused, and slowly drew the axe the rest of the way.

“Good boy,” said the woman tensely. She was struggling to hold the bowstring. Sareth hoped she had the strength. “Put it down, now.” She did, and when she released the handle of the axe the woman slowly released the bowstring, returning to a neutral stance. She hollered out to her companions about having ‘caught a live one’, and Sareth heard the bustle of boots heading towards her. Two men pushed out of the clearing and into the little thicket where she hid. One was stout and hardy, wider than he was tall, but the other was the picture of a knight errant. His doublet was sewn back together in places where the rigors of the road had taken their toll, and he certainly looked like he hadn’t bathed in a fortnight, but none of that stopped Sareth from seeing the wealth on him the moment he appeared in view. His boots were too well-made, his doublet too well-fitted, and the breastplate he wore was emblazoned with a sigil she didn’t recognize– though it was the only plate he wore and it was scored with rivets of varying depth. Moreover, his sword was still in his belt, and his hand rested readily on the pommel, whereas the stout man beside him had a hammer in his hand. Sareth thought that this man must have been accustomed to having others do his fighting for him. That made her nervous. If this man was a commander, then he was likely the type to command that deserters be lynched. The woman then came into view, holding her longbow with a huntsman’s ease, though Sareth was surprised to see that she was quite small, and could only have been teen-aged. She had a vortex of curly red hair, short but unkempt atop and around her head. The knight, or so Sareth assumed, was visibly older– maybe thirty– and appraised her with a slow, scanning look, which ended on her discarded axe. Then he looked her in the eyes and sniffed, apparently deciding he wasn’t impressed.

“A live one, indeed. You have a sort of feral look about you, don’t you boy?” Sareth was glad that they thought she was a boy. If she could keep up that illusion, she might be spared the worst of it if he attacked her. She had heard of Usurper knights who weren’t too chivalrous to commit rape atop all their pillaging. “Where have you come from?”

“The woods,” she said, in the boyish tone of her soldier’s identity. It was easy enough, she found. She just had to lower her tone and clip her words. The chest bindings she wore and the soft curvature of her face certainly helped. She imagined she looked like a teen-aged boy to most who saw her: scrawny, freckled and with cheeks just barely beginning to hollow. The man scoffed.

“Well, I can see that. Where else?”

“Nowhere. This is my land.” It came out more venomously than she intended. His expression was inscrutably neutral, responding to her nerve only with what appeared to be calm bemusement. That worried her more than if he had been visibly angry. Then, at least, she had a chance to predict what he might do.

“Point well taken,” he said simply and turned on his heel to leave. The stout man followed suit without a second thought, while the girl glanced at him as he left, clearly shocked at her own master’s mercy. Then, she lowered her bow and turned to jog after him, offering only a parting glance in Sareth’s direction as she went. Sareth waited a moment, collecting her breath and wondering if it had been some kind of trick, but left with no better choice she soon followed after.

Back at the farmhouse, Sareth could hear the voices of men from the window-slots in the small thatch building. She hurried up the steps and pushed past the cracked-open door. Inside, two men in ill-fitted leathers carelessly searched the room. One man, taller than the other and with a mane of unkempt blonde hair, tossed Shaemus’ belongings from his pack, stopping only to set aside the things he intended to keep. The other was kneeling over Shaemus on the floor. Sareth tentatively approached a couple steps to intervene, but stopped when she saw that the young man was pulling a bearskin cloak over Shaemus’ sleeping form. He turned his young face towards Sareth– not much older than the huntress– and raised a finger to his lips.

“It’s jus’ to keep him warm. We doused y’fire,” he said gently. Sareth turned to see the drenched embers, and looked back at the boy. “We seen the smoke. So could anyone else.” She nodded. She went to turn to see the door, maybe just to remind herself that it was there, and jumped back a step as the blonde man stood suddenly beside her. His face was lost in an overgrown forest of hair: sprawling down from his head and out from his face in a beard that was so wide, it made his head look like a solid block of white gold. She thought it looked like he was smiling beneath it all, but couldn’t tell for sure.

“The boy is Jep.” He gestured slightly with a grubby hand, dried with what looked to be blood, at the other man. “I’d be Kirk.”

Sareth nodded. “Sareth.” Kirk nodded back.

“How d’you know him?” The boy had a dandyish, country accent. She couldn’t place it, but he looked human, so she figured him for a Metessian. He wasn’t big or ruddy enough to be from frigid Kastrya. Kirk, though, had the look of a Northman. 

“He’s my brother.”

“Ah,” he clicked his tongue and looked back down at Shaemus. She wished he would get away from him. However personable they might seem, Sareth didn’t trust these men. “He’s gettin’ sick, aye?” Sareth scowled and didn’t answer. “Well, he is. Belly-leakin’ and all’at.” Kirk had returned to rifling through their things, but Sareth didn’t say anything. There was nothing she could do to stop him, she supposed. She sighed and turned towards the open doorway, considering her next move, and saw the knightly man leaning against it nonchalantly. He was watching her with a mild interest, as if curious about how she might respond to the mix of care and banditry his group displayed. She looked between Jep, Shaemus, and the knightly man. 

“My brother… He needs a healer,” she admitted reluctantly. “His wound is getting worse.”

“Yes, a long ride is hard on a wounded man. Where have you ridden from?” He asked. Sareth hesitated. “Oh, come now. Your horses are still warm with sweat and you’ve not unpacked your saddlebags. I know you’ve just arrived.” He stepped closer, calm and charming but with an undercurrent of menace. “Let’s have the truth now, boy, before I tire of your evasion.” With the narrowing of his eyes, his entire demeanor changed. His tall, easy stance read now as a dread confidence rather than simple disaffection. His hand resting easily on the pommel of his sword belied how quick he could be to draw it, and his jaw set in the appraisal of a threat. Kirk and Jep detected the change almost immediately, ceasing their other duties as if awaiting a command. Sareth knew she had no choice but to assent. Her heart thudded in her throat, anticipating the turn these men would show when they realized there might be a deserter’s bounty up for the taking.

“Kophis Bay. We fled after the battle.” She didn’t dare to state which side they’d been on. To keep that single secret made her feel a little safer. It was her final line of defense. The knight nodded slowly, but his face betrayed nothing besides contemplation.

“Deserters, then,” he said finally, and looked around to Jep, Kirk, and finally to Shaemus. “Honourless curs, scrambling out from beneath the boots of their betters.” He shook his head, sighed, and looked back to Sareth. “That’s who we are, too. Curs, that is.” He smiled, and Kirk issued a low growl like an angry dog that made the hairs on Sareth’s neck stand on end. “Well, Jep? Can you help the lad?” The knight looked at Jep, who still crouched protectively beside Shaemus. He looked down at him, as if weighing the effort against a potential gain, and nodded towards the knight in a soft, non-committal way. To Sareth, it inspired little confidence. The knight, though, seemed perfectly pleased. He nodded heartily back and turned his eyes back on Sareth. “We’ll get your brother right. We’ve got a woman with us that knows those sorts of things. A ‘seeress’, if Redcap is to be believed.” He gestured with his head to the girl with the longbow, who had taken up a picket in the tall tree Sareth could just barely remember climbing. He looked back at her. “Anyway, she’s good with poultices and spells and all that. I’m sure your brother would be in good hands with her, but…” He trailed off. Now came the ultimatum.

“But?” She asked impatiently.

“But we’re short a couple of swords on this thing we’re out to do. A local man needs to be brought to justice for a crime I frankly don’t feel like re-telling.” He was back to the disaffected, lackadaisical knight, but she could sense the switch coming. “See, we had these two other lads with us, but they died. They died when we ran across a loyalist patrol who were looking for two deserters, you see.” He punctuated the sentence with an accusing look. Sareth’s stomach sank. “You do, right? You see?” She nodded.

[s3r4ph]

We Remember the Redcaps

Long ago and far away, beneath a distant sky, We stood against the Rust and Rot, The final Spears, just You and I.

The Towers Red, just above, watched our final stand. Perhaps they wept in their stony way when we fell together, hand in hand.

But now the sun is high again, The birds return to sing, And we awaken, bold of heart, And eager to see what the morning brings.

For nothing lives that does not die. Nothing kills that cannot be killed.

There are no trees that shirk the cut, Nor fields of dirt that resist the till.

And even when our skies do Split, And Drifters pour out of the earth, We'll build this kingdom, You and I, Until our gods have learned our worth.