Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

The hard-faced men by the ox team drew their longbows with disorganized timing and loosed. A hundred arrows flew straight up; I banked away hard. Long shafts passed in the air on my right. Flights whistled as they reached their zenith, turned around and plunged back. A breeze brushed my face from the nearest one. Spent arrows thumped on the upper surface of my wings. Shafts slipped between my fingered feathers. I straightened my flight path and beat madly away over the forest.

This could not be a case of mistaken identity.

Hot with panic I yelped, “In San’s name, stop!” Arrows poured around me like solid raindrops. “In the name of…San Emperor, for the will of god…” But I was coughing too much.

I flew out of range but they kept shooting for five seconds to make their point. The arrows’ broad heads crackled down behind me onto the topmost branches.

I winged back to the coach, furious. What’s it like to be hit? To have a solid wooden rod impaled through my whole body-would I be able to feel it with my insides?

I landed next to Lightning and Mist. “Did you see that?”

“Yes,” said Lightning.

“They aimed straight at me. Me! The Emperor’s Messenger!” My clothes stank of smoke. I blew my nose and flicked mucus off my fingers. “Bastards! Bastards! It’s a wonder they didn’t hit. If it wasn’t for my agility…They wouldn’t even stop for ‘the will of god and the protection of the Circle’!”

“Aye,” said Mist. “You shouldn’t have gone ahead. Now they know we’re here, and soon they’ll tell Gio.”

“Me! An Eszai!” I was smart enough to know I am not universally loved, but I never thought I was hated.

Mist said, “There must be something in that camp they don’t want us to see.”

“Probably another bloody big trebuchet like the one they’re dragging up the hill! I didn’t see its serial number.”

I described the ox team and Mist listened with a faint smile, either admiring Gio’s ingenuity or passionate for a good chase. She said, “Why’s the trebuchet this side of Eske, if he’s taking it to the Castle? Has Swallow given it to him? Or has he stolen it? There, Lightning; you see that Awndyn’s as treacherous as the other Plainslands manors.”

Wrenn’s eyes were wide in disbelief. He ventured, “Stop here and see if they come down to us.”

“In range of the trebuchet? Why not carry a target and make it their sport? We could offer foreign gold as prizes!” Lightning had a clearer idea of Gio’s character.

“They must be very confident,” said Mist.

“They shot at me!” I said.

“Jant, quit wringing your hands and tell us-you know these roads-how can we reach the Castle without pushing past them?”

I said, “We’re about halfway to Eske. This is the only coach route, unless we go back into Awndyn and join Shivel Road. It’ll take a couple more days because it’d put us two hundred kilometers out of our way. And it’s probably packed with mangonels.”

Mist took off her cap and ruffled her hair, which was damp with sweat. Her face betrayed the stress she was under, some puffiness around her disturbing indigo eyes. “Into the woods and outflank them, then. I’m carrying important information that I don’t want them to capture.”

Wrenn found this ignominious. “We can fight if necessary!”

“Unfortunately, Serein, I think they’d shoot you, too.”

I ordered my driver to take the carriage back to the last coach inn, the Culver Inn, and wait there for instructions. If he received none after three days, I told him, he should return to Awndyn. I didn’t want to lose my possessions. Lightning, Mist and Serein dismounted and led their horses off the road into the forest undergrowth. At first the going was hard; brambles hooked in my trousers and tore them. The pungent smell of bracken was up around our noses. Farther from the track, less light penetrated the canopy and fewer plants grew between the trunks. Tinder-dry oak and beech leaf litter crunched under our feet and the hooves. “I hope Gio’s rebels don’t torch this,” I said.

Mist said, “God, now he thinks of it! Scout ahead and tell us how far we have to walk before we can rejoin the road.”

I shrugged off my water bottle that glugged at every step, and hung it on Wrenn’s saddle. I dashed away. It was impossible to move without sound in the forest; stories that tell of my predecessors doing so are just flattering lies. But I have lively reactions and I can run so swiftly through the tangle that no one registers the sound as human. I ducked under branches, leapt over fallen brushwood and sprinted with long strides. I sped up the rise and doubled back to the road. It seemed clear beyond the camp. I hid behind a tree, peered out and withdrew immediately. Another band of men strutted past with their pikes on their shoulders.

I ran on again, enjoying myself, but every kilometer I spotted more groups, so I returned to my friends, nimbly through the spaces between snarled undergrowth. Hot saliva was gushing into my mouth; I felt real once more. “This isn’t good-they’re all along the road! We…” I lowered my voice. “We could walk in the forest all the way to Eske but there’s a hundred and twenty kilometers to go, so it would take you days. I say we keep going until nightfall and then try to rejoin the road farther on, when the rebels should be encamped or indoors. I’ll scout ahead again.”

Mist said, “Lead on then, smoky creature.”

“Somewhere around here is the Cygnet Ring Inn ratskeller. Foresters drink there so we should pick up a track eventually.”

“Damn, you move so fast I can’t even see your footholds,” Wrenn grumbled. “There’s no path here.”

“Then we make a path.”

We walked, leading the horses, over the copper-colored floor, under the stippled green ceiling for the next few hours, some distance from the road so we wouldn’t be heard. The light began to fade and the dusk became darker by degrees. The ground could not be seen clearly; tree boles seemed to float toward us, distanceless. I felt as if something sentient and silent was watching us. I couldn’t decide whether it was large and invincible, or small and instinctive.

On the road with their mounts, the others had been slow, but now negotiating trees and bramble thickets they slowed still further until they didn’t seem to make any headway at all. I burned with frustration. I kept urging them on until Mist lashed out, “I’m going as fast as I can! I can hardly see. I keep stumbling over things and so does this stupid nag. I hate this; we’re in the middle of nowhere and the Empire’s suddenly crawling with people who despise us.”

Lightning intervened. “Look, Jant, let’s rest here, have a few hours’ sleep and then check if the road is safe. The newspapers said Eske is full of unrest and I don’t want to be exhausted when I travel through town.”

“You’re all so unbelievably tardy,” I said, but I flopped down immediately and made myself comfortable on the leaf litter. The others, who were not as practiced at bivouacking or as careless as a Rhydanne, looked about for a patch of grass or a landmark to camp next to.

Wrenn threw his pack on the ground and sat on a stump that was so rotten he bounced off it and it fell to pieces. He brushed moss from his arse and began to unlace his boots.

Lightning paced about. “I think that the town will be safe without Gio to stir up the Zascai. The ingrates don’t understand how hard we have been working for them all this time…” He tripped over a tree root and kicked it angrily. “Creeping about in the dark like highwaymen!”

The post-coach jumps the news from manor to manor. I imagined every governor realizing that the Castle is only protected by tradition and their own beliefs. I almost heard them thinking: what could be in this for us? “Half the Plainslands has supported Gio for six months. We don’t know what we’re heading into.”