Arc 10: In Silver Clade

“After the Desolation of Elves, during the times of chaos and upheaval that followed, the myriad dangers of our beauteous land roused themselves to action: great herds of centaur, howling song and cry of war alike, raced across the endless plain; in the desert, 'neath shrouds of carmine sands, great wurms stirred from everlong slumber; though it grieves this writer's heart to pen it, it must be inked that the worst of what occurred was committed and conceived by human hands and human hearts. To combat these dangers, and make safe the land once more, knightly orders came into being. Long are their histories, great are their deeds, and valiant are their most mighty hearts.”

Montrose Rainsford's Concise and Accurate Encyclopaedia of Araya, Her People, and Her Varied Environs

- - -

Amberdusk is a town built in the rounded cradle of low, rolling hills. A marked lack of trees make it an oasis of clear sky in a desert of endless canopies, allowing the setting sun's light to shine rose-gold across tall, narrow buildings and lanes of cobblestone. It covers the white painted walls in soft cheer and gentles the shadows cast by the almost alpine tilt of timbered roofs. It is quiet; the buildings that line the central, winding road have dark in their windows and locks on their doors. The signs that name them stores and shops creak and sway in the breeze of an autumn's cold night. Aside from the five of us, the sore and sorry quintet limping into town, there is no one else to be seen.

A silence such as this should have me reaching into my satchel, grasping among the bed of coin for the animal-horn hilt of a knife I no longer have. It should have Clarke wrapping the fingers of one hand around my wrist while the tips of the other rest ready on the god's ice at the hollow of her throat. It should have Milo and Adelaide closing their daughter in between them, and somehow, for some foolish, foolish reason, it doesn't. Whether from the sun's blessed light or knowing that nothing here can pose more danger than what we have already faced, it simply does not.

Instead, a long sigh leaves me. It takes with it a tightness I didn't know I was carrying in my shoulders and the line of my jaw. I reach out, not for my knife, but for Clarke. For the cool slide of her palm and the twine of her fingers in mine. For the relief in her eyes and the near-smile on her mouth. In the two days that have passed since we killed the bramble-beast there has been a change between us: a mutual and occasional need to touch and be touched. The first day had been mostly spent in a deep and healing sleep, but even then I found myself waking with her brow pressed to my shoulder, or my arm draped across her belly. On the second, as we planned and prepared for the journey to Amberdusk, only a handful of minutes were allowed to pass without her or I seeking the other out.

Is it relief that drives us, the simple ability to be without painful death waiting in every shadow? If that is so, then it may be that once this feeling fades, it will take this warm and gentle closeness along with it. My hold on her hand tightens, drawing her to look at me from the corner of her eye. “What?” she asks me, hushed to fit the quiet surrounding us. “Is it your back?”

Until this moment, there have been more injuries to heal than a magi's ability to heal them. The lion's share had gone to Adelaide, and rightly so. The infection that had taken root in her had grown with alarming speed in just a few hours. Dispelling it had left Clarke weak-limbed and collapsing with fatigue. I had needed to all but carry her to an hours long rest, after which she had gone right back to reckoning with the organ destroyed by the bramble-beast's thickest, shortest talon.

It was shredded, with no saving it. Adelaide would live, thanks to the intact twin of it she still possessed, but that life would be forever altered. The extent of that alteration is unknown to me, but I cannot imagine it being anything other than diminished. For the entire trip she was drawn and quiet, intense focus given to staying upright and moving forward. She'd lost energy quickly, relying more and more on Milo and a walking stick Lavinia gave her. Watching it happen made my heart ache.

I murmur, “No, it's fine.” under my breath. It's not fine, but a far cry from what it was. The harshest of my pains come from my shoulders and neck, each step rippling hot lines through damaged muscle. Turning my head is out of the question. Trying put spots in front of my eyes. It's misery, but a misery I can live with.

A misery, I should think, that I deserve.

Amberdusk's town square is more round than anything else. It is also far less empty, of both light and life. A stream of conversation and clinking glass comes muted through windows casting squares of gold on the pale, cobblestone street. The building itself is shorter and broader than those around it, though its roof is no less alpine in its tilt. A painted sign, nailed flat to the wall above the front door's frame, proclaims the place to be Morrow's.

“Almost there,” Milo encourages. He looks from wife, to daughter, to we two tagalongs. He breathes in and repeats, “Almost there.”

- - -

Heads turn, conversation halts, and a curious, almost disbelieving quiet sets in as awareness of us spreads. It starts with the drinkers nearest the door, their liquor-shine eyes wide, as if they can't quite believe a group of people as battered as we can exist, let alone stand unaided. What would happen if they learned how far we'd walked, just as we are? Perhaps their soused, sodden heads would simply fall off. It couldn't make them any less useless. One of them looks us over, thick brows advancing on a retreating hairline, and has the temerity to ask, “You, uh, you lot alright?”

“We look alright?” comes the dry, rasping answer. They're the first words spoken by Adelaide since this morning. Sweat has matted her hair to her brow and cheeks, her green eyes sunken and shadowed. The walking stick hangs loosely from her hand, its end dragging across the wooden floor. The only things keeping her upright are the fistful of Milo's shirt she has a grip on, and his arm around her waist.

Her answer seems to spark some light in the fog bank rolling through his mind. Quicker than his unsteady limbs would like, the drinker comes to his feet and turns the chair he once occupied in her direction. He clears his throat, red-faced from embarrassment or booze, and offers, “Should sit yourself here, ma'am,” with exaggerated care. Milo wastes no time in doing so, and the other man turns to the three others who still sat stupefied, thick fingers curled protectively around their sour-smelling drinks. “You get up,” he tells them, with much less care, “they're hurtin' an' need t' sit.”

“Why can't they sit someplace else?” one of them complains. He frees a hand from its anointed task of protection to wave it at the rest of the still-silent taproom. “I've been workin' all day! All I wanna do is to sit here an' have a nice drink! There's plenny a' other tables! Let 'em go an' sit there!”

He's a kind, virtuous drunk, it would seem. Loud, as well. His yellowed teeth flash in the light, and I can smell the stench of his breath. My lip curls, in both sneer and snarl. Another night, another tavern, and without the misery of pain and guilt, I might have kept my peace. I might have kept quiet. I pull free of Clarke, ignoring how she murmurs my name, and bend to look him in his eye.

“I am asking you kindly,” I say to him, with nothing resembling it in my tone, “to give up your –”

He interrupts me. “I!” he snaps, “Don't. Want. To. An' why should I? An' who are you t' ask, anyway?”

I know well the mulish set of him. Each of my brothers have worn it many a time, as I have. This grown man argues for the sake of it, like a child would. He is, before my very eyes, beginning the first steps of a tantrum, reduced to this state by the drink he values so much. Anger rushes through my blood, through my mind. I know I'm giving him exactly what he wants by answering, but I am tired and hurt and so very, very miserable. Venom pools on my tongue. It feels good to snarl, “Moonlight curse you, just get up, you vile, petty drunkard!”

His face flushes red. Anger, not liquor. Something ugly enters his liquor-shine eyes.

Good.

Before he can retort, before he can give me a way to let free what I'm feeling, two things happen. First, Adelaide's hand on my arm. Reproach in her tired, sunken eyes. Enough to give me pause, but also; an urge towards defiance. To fight, because I'm meant not to. I don't know which one holds the most sway, and I'm not given the chance to find out.

Second: a long, long shadow falls over the table, cast by a giant. A massive, broad-shouldered, pot-bellied man with a bald head and a thick beard. He wears an apron, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow on powerfully hairy arms. He glowers at us with a thunderhead-frown looming above deep, dark eyes. By the power of that look alone, he kills the argument before it can truly start. When he speaks, it's in a deep rumble. “Thorngage,” he greets, beard twitching. “Look like you been through it.”

“Morrow,” Milo returns it from behind me. “You have no idea. Your sister in town?”

Morrow's beard, black shot with gray, twitches again. That looming frown eases a little. “Up at the fort,” he answers, “but in tomorrow for supplies.”

Milo sighs. Relief, for a number of reasons. I feel thwarted and foolish and ashamed. I want there to not be so many eyes on me. I want to not smell booze on the air. I want to go home. “Put us up for the night?” he asks. Morrow grunts, which seems to mean yes.

I've no home to go to. Not now, maybe not ever.

I'm so tired.