Terry Simpson: Ashes and Blood

“No, they won’t. They’ll regroup first, most likely find another pack to bring this way. We still have time if we hurry. Charra can stand guard. Let’s go.” Unsheathing his sword, Stefan headed into the trees.

Ancel followed, staying close, eyes scanning the shadows. The sun’s glimmer showed higher in the sky, but the overcast conditions fought against its light. Among the woods, the hardier cedars were still green. Burnt-red oak leaves dotted branches covered in hoarfrost. Dead foliage peeked through piled snow. Ancel kept a wary eye on those mounds.

The sound of hacking drew his attention to where his father chopped at a sapling. After one more uneasy glance at the piled foliage, Ancel followed suit.

Time passed at a torturously slow pace as they worked. Bird song and the chatter of winter animals feathered the air. On occasion, Ancel stopped to mop his brow and take a sip from his other waterskin. When hunger gnawed at his belly, he chewed on pieces of dry rabbit and crusty bread. His scarf now rested around his neck, and although tempted, he resisted the urge to remove his cloak. Often, his father flicked a hand to his own forehead to wipe away perspiration. Between the two of them, they had a growing collection of branches from which to choose.

While they worked, Ancel kept an eye on the giant from time to time. Unlike before, he breathed evenly and slowly as if in a deep slumber. How could someone be in his state of frostbite and still live? Where was the man from? Men almost as large lived among the Nema and Seifer clans in the Kelvore Mountains, but like most northern Granadians, they were a paler skin tone. If the stories were true, the Sven and Harnan were as big, if not bigger, but the latter were in Ostania. Ancel pursed his lips. That might explain the giant’s mahogany complexion.

The man’s wound troubled him. Ever since he received his Etchings, his arm and chest in the same area were much stronger. Unbelievably so. He’d taken to testing it. One day, rather than use his sword, he raised his hand to block a blow while sparring with Mirza. He never told, but besides a slight sting, the strike, which should have broken a rib, hadn’t done much. Later the same night, he took a knife and tried to scour the Etchings. Again the twinge, but not once did the blade pierce his skin. Then, today. The wolf’s teeth should have pierced his fur and armor and crushed his arm but hadn’t come close. So how did Da’s arrow go through armor and flesh covered in an Etching?

“I think we have enough,” his father said.

Ancel looked around, surprised to see how many saplings they’d cut down. A swath of clear forest occupied by larger trees and deep snow surrounded them. He put away his sword, grabbed a branch in each hand, and dragged them toward the clearing.

Morning grew into afternoon. His father left the branches to him while using rope from his saddlebags to tie the wood together near an old stump. Stefan dug out a patch of snow into which he placed the litter angled up toward the tree’s remains. Ancel was almost finished with the branches when the first howl echoed from the north.

“Hurry,” his father implored.

Without a backward glance, Ancel dragged the last two pieces of wood to the clearing. He held them in place while his father secured them to the others.

Another howl. This time closer.

Charra grunted.

“Go. Protect us,” Ancel ordered.

The daggerpaw, dried blood a dull brown against its fur and bone hackles, bounded off into the trees. Charra soon disappeared from view.

“Da,” Ancel said.

“Yes,” his father answered without glancing up from the litter.

“There’s no way Charra holds them all off. We won’t make it through the trees with this litter before they catch us.”

Stefan nodded.

Ancel waited for more, but his father said nothing.

When Stefan finished, he stood. He walked over to the giant with a few pieces of rope he’d braided together and bent over the man.

Brows furrowed, Ancel watched.

His father worked the rope up the giant’s arms and over his shoulders to form a type of harness. He brought his horse closer, looped the rope’s ends over the animal’s head and onto its shoulders, and then wrapped the remainder around the pommel. The mount’s eyes rolled, and it snorted several times. Stefan guided the horse in the direction of the stump and gave it a light tap on the rump. The horse pulled, and the rope snapped taut. Muscles straining, the horse took one step forward, then another. The giant’s body shifted an inch or two before it began to slide toward the litter.

A few more paces and the horse dragged the unconscious man up onto the makeshift contraption. Stefan stopped his mount, untied the ropes, and used them to secure the giant to the wood. Then he looped the remaining loose ends around the strongest saplings. He directed his horse to one side to drag the litter away from the stump. When the entire process was completed, he nodded in satisfaction.

The first yowls, snarls, grunting barks and growls of daggerpaw fighting wolf echoed through the gloomy trees.

Stefan strode over to where he’d left his bow and picked it up. “I’ll send Charra to you to help clear a path.”

Ancel shook his head, his words easing out in a disbelieving whisper, “No, you mustn’t.”

“Yes, I must and I will.”

“Da, there’s no way you can hold them off. Please, don’t do this.”

“Alone, I probably wouldn’t be able to, but we’ll do our best.” He nodded toward the south, the direction of Eldanhill.

There, appearing from the tree line like a spirit dressed in the dark-colored britches and tunic she favored, a short cloak whipping around her, jogged Kachien. Two sheaths stood out on her hips, each containing a black-handled dagger.

“How?”

“I told her if we weren’t back by noon to come find us.”

“Why not Shin Galiana?”

“She had more pressing issues with the possibility of Pathfinders coming to Eldanhill since we declared ourselves.”

Ancel cringed with the thought of the men and women tasked with capturing those who Forged without the proper control, used Mater to commit crimes, or stood against the Tribunal. Not only was he guilty of the first and the last but so was much of Eldanhill. To the Pathfinders, they’d also done the second.

In the distance, the fight between Charra and the wolves grew more pronounced. A howl resonated to the northeast. A different wolf pack.

“There’s no time to waste,” Stefan commanded. “Mount up.”

After a slight hesitation and a pained look to both his father and the woman he’d grown to love, who he still cared for to a great extent, Ancel climbed atop Stefan’s horse.

“Don’t stop. Don’t look back until you reach Eldanhill.”

As his father was saying those words, Kachien drew even with them. Ancel opened his mouth to acknowledge her at the same time that she glanced down at the giant. She sniffed, rubbing a thumb across her nose. Then her head jutted forward a bit, her eyes narrowed, and her hands slid imperceptibly closer to the handles of her daggers.

Before Ancel contemplated her reaction, his father slapped the rump of his mount and sent him on his way.

Head held high in defiance, Irmina Nagel regarded the Tribunal Assembly’s members arrayed before her. Tiered alabaster steps formed a semicircle like an amphitheater of old. Spaced along every stone stair were chairs of the finest mahogany behind matching balustrades. Upon each chair sat the Tribunal High Seats, the twelve colored stripes on their sleeves unmistakable.

Depicted on the walls behind them was Denestia’s creation by the Annendin, taking his lifeblood to produce Mater. He separated it into the three elements and made the worlds. He further broke down the elements into the essences and bestowed them onto the gods. Other murals showed the gods passing their essences down to the Eztezians. Mixed in were the wars with the netherlings, the shadelings, and men with black boiling from their bodies-supposedly, the Skadwaz after the god Amuni changed them. Thinking back to Ryne’s story of the man he faced near the Vallum of Light and their battle in Castere’s Keep, she averted her eyes from that specific section.