James West - Lady Of Regret

“Well,” Loro said taking a contemplative swig from his flask, “she read your fortune, said something about your curse being lifted.”

“Truly?”

“Aye.”

“And after?”

Loro pondered that, as if not quite sure himself. “We gathered at a table in the common room, ate Master Gilip’s rabbit stew, then I let him lie to me about dragons. After, we drank and made merry with a few wedding guests who grew thirsty after so much dancing and singing, those same scoundrels who later turned on us.” He gave Rathe a concerned look. “You don’t remember any of that?”

“I recall her taking my hand … and then men talking about some women, the Hunting Bitch.”

“You lost half the night,” Loro said, growing concerned. “Jathen warned you might have lapses. How do you feel now?”

“Well enough,” Rathe said, surprised to find it so. It seemed a weight had been lifted from him, a burden he had not known he carried.

“Mayhap she did break that curse,” Loro said, shrugging.

“I don’t believe in curses.”

Loro chuckled. “Not believing doesn’t change the truth of a thing.”

“You a philosopher, now?”

“Shit on that, brother,” Loro said, hiking a leg to break wind.

Rathe could not help but laugh. He laughed all the harder when Loro joined in, roaring and clapping his knee.

“This is no time for mirth,” Yiri admonished, exiting the hovel with a plump haversack slung over one shoulder. Buried under panniers and supplies, Horge came out after her, a look of bemusement on his narrow face. Together they made a pair of pitiable youngsters, both clad in rags, their hair long, black, and matted; one stern, the other perpetually worried. But they were not youngsters. In truth, they were a handful of years older than Rathe.

Rathe and Loro shared a look, and laughed harder.

“Let’s be about this,” Yiri ordered sharply, turning on her heel and stalking toward the back of the hovel.

“Where are you off to?” Rathe called between guffaws.

“To the Keeper’s Box, you blithering fool. Sooner done, the sooner we can be shut of each other, and Jathen.”

Rathe sobered. “Just so.”

“Don’t mind her,” Horge said, after she vanished. He seemed about to say more, but instead began doling out panniers, waterskins, and blanket rolls between Rathe and Loro.

“Thought you said Samba knew the way home?” Loro asked, settling the load on his shoulders.

“Aye, he does.”

Rathe made a show of glancing around. “Then where is he?”

Horge shuffled his feet and mumbled, “Samba must’ve taken the long way home.” Before any more questions could be leveled at him, he abruptly set off after Yiri.

A trail behind the hovel led high into the mountains. Shady cool forests welcomed them, the sun-dappled still broken by flitting songbirds and the occasional chattering squirrel.

When Loro remarked on the peacefulness, Horge said, “Midsummer is pleasant as it gets, hereabouts. Come winter, the Iron Marches freeze solid. Men burrow through snow as rats through walls. If winter lingers, men grow weary of drinking and sleeping, and go mad.”

“Sounds like a place to escape,” Rathe said, wondering just how far off winter was. Last he could remember of warmth had been in Onareth, just after King Nabar spared him from the headsman. Of course, all that was before Rathe killed Nabar’s brother. A long time, it seemed, but only a pair of months had passed, maybe a touch longer.

Horge shrugged. “’Tis home.”

Rathe walked in silence, wondering if he was destined to spend the rest of his life running from Nabar’s men, never calling any place home, even one as grim as the Iron Marches. It was a thought for another time. For now he had purpose, and maybe one purpose would lead to another. At present, that was enough to keep him placing one foot in front of the other.

Near midday, after following a rising trail up the rugged spine of a ridge, the foursome dropped into a narrow vale. A stream cut through it, braced on either side by a grassy meadow strewn with tiny-blossomed wildflowers. On the highest edge of the meadow, within easy walking distance of the stream, a pile of charred rocks and blackened timbers showed where a house had once stood. The stout chimney had fallen in years past, and lay like a forsaken shrine.

Yiri motioned for them to stay behind, then veered toward the rubble

“Where’s she going?” Rathe asked.

“To retrieve the Keeper’s Box,” Horge said.

Yiri hesitated just beyond the ruins, seemed to draw something in the air before her face. She was too far off to decipher the words, but Rathe made out something spoken in a guttural tongue that made his skin creep.

“What devilry is that?” Loro asked, his suspicion palpable.

“There are wards against intrusion,” Horge said, unperturbed. “If she doesn’t drop them, they would burn her to ash.”

Rathe arched an brow. “Only she can enter?”

“There are some who could break the barriers Yiri built, but only a few.”

Loro looked around nervously. “Are there many such folk in these lands … sorcerers, witches, and the like?”

“Are there none where you come from?” Horge countered.

“We have our court magicians,” Rathe said, “but theirs are tricks of deception, sleight-of-hand.”

“There are seers, also,” Loro put in. “But of true and powerful magic? Such as that is for stories.”

“I would like to visit these lands,” Horge said. “They sound peaceful …….”

While Loro and Horge talked, Rathe watched Yiri. At her gesture, a pearlescent dome shimmered over the rubble, and just as quickly vanished. Yiri lowered her hand and cautiously stepped forward. She spoke to the air again, and a curl of mist rose from the ground, almost invisible under the sun. Something about what she was doing, some sort of witchery, and likely the true reason Jathen had not retrieved the box himself, brought to mind a nightmarish image of a creature with four faces.

“How did you know to find the box here?” Rathe asked, distancing his thoughts from the unsettling pictures in his mind, doubtless spawned by some hellish dream he had forgotten.

Horge’s bottom lip trembled when he spoke, and a sudden tearful sheen wetted his eyes. “I really cannot say.”

Loro gave him a hard look. “Which means you know, but refuse to explain.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Horge said, refusing to meet Loro’s eye.

“Keep lying,” Loro warned, “and I’ll begin to believe we are not the friends you claim us to be.”

Horge looked at his sister, and Rathe followed his gaze. The mist she had been talking to was gone. Now she busily poking through the scorched rocks where the hearth had once stood.

With an aggrieved sigh, Horge said, “This was our mother’s home, where Yiri and I were born. The night it burned, our mother perished.”

“Gods and demons,” Loro blurted. “You mean to say, she burned alive?”

Horge shook his head, looking more hesitant than ever. “She was dead before the flames turned her to ash, her throat cut at her own table. Mother Safi, folk used to call her to her face, while naming her a devil behind her back. But when need compelled them, they came in the night, full of shame, and bearing pleasantries and kitchen scraps for her cures. Swearing poverty, never did they bring silver or gold. They took more than they deserved, and ever did Mother Safi give, happy to do so.”

“You said her throat was cut,” Rathe said slowly. “Were you there, when it happened?”

Horge swallowed, rubbed his thin nose. “Aye. I was but a child, less than four years, but I remember it still. The girl sliced her ear to ear, like a hen for the pot. After Mama fell into the hearth and caught fire, Yiri took us into the forest. For long years, we lived as we could, stealing and hiding, until Yiri began telling fortunes hereabouts, and earning coin.”