Brian Ruckley - Exile

‘Is she talking to me?’ he grunted without cracking an eyelid so much as a hair’s breadth.

‘She is,’ Hamdan confirmed, taking a bite from the bread. He sounded vaguely amused now. ‘She did feed us. You could trade a word or two for it if you want.’

Kerig sighed and sat up. His movements were stiff and laboured. He took the bread from Hamdan’s hand just as the archer was about to have another mouthful.

‘She’d have gone away by now if you hadn’t been so friendly,’ he said. ‘You talk too much.’

Kerig looked at Wren for the first time as he chewed. He was a handsome man, she thought. His use of the entelechs had not aged or marred him too much. Not outwardly at least.

‘There’s people waiting for us at Homneck and we need to get there quickly,’ he said. ‘Since our horses came to grief at the Wardle Bridge,’ – he cast a sideways glance towards Hamdan – ‘and it seems there’s no more to be had in this forsaken quarter, our only way to get back to our fellows is this.’

He waved the bread at the deck beneath him.

‘Too slow though,’ he went on, ‘so I… you’d not really understand. I opened the river, near as makes no difference. I sped our passage so all the rest of you get the fastest, easiest barge ride you could ever wish for.’

Wren nodded. She understood more than he imagined. He was probably a Vernal Clever, most capable when shaping the entelech of that name. Flowing water was a partial expression of the Vernal, so if he was strong and skilled he might control even a huge river like the Hervent. Depending upon how much of himself he was willing to surrender in exchange for that control.

Kerig made to settle back and pretend more sleep.

‘You broke the Wardle Bridge?’ Wren asked. ‘I’d heard it was big, that bridge.’

Kerig paused for a moment, halfway down to his repose on the deck, and then turned back to her with pointed effort.

‘It was big. And we did break it. Me and Ena Marr there.’ He nodded towards the slumbering form beside them; the woman Wren had guessed, when she first saw her, must be another Clever.

‘So much use of the entelechs’d break most people, wouldn’t it?’ Wren asked, and knew at once she had stepped that one unwise pace beyond the invisible border that separated the Free from everyone else. She saw in their faces – both Kerig’s and Hamdan’s – that she had become a trespasser.

‘And how would you know I’m not half broken?’ Kerig muttered. ‘Maybe that’s why I need to sleep. Now.’

With that he lowered himself down and rolled onto his side so that his back was to Wren. She retreated, silently scolding herself.

‘Thank you for the bread,’ Hamdan said behind her, and she glanced back as she went. Kerig had raised himself up again on one elbow. He and the archer were both watching Wren intently as she walked away.

Foolish woman , she thought. So excited to see others of her own kind – others who had not submitted to the School, who chose their own path – that she had acted like a needy girl. Forgot years of caution and care.

She looked out over the river as she settled herself down. The moon had slipped behind cloud. The high ground to the north was an indistinct mass of dark shapes looming over the Hervent. Somewhere out there, in the wild lands, was the exile. Lame Ammenor. The man who, Wren had come to believe, was her last and best chance at understanding what she was, and what she might be. Her last chance at finding a life she could bear to live. She had left everything she had known behind to get this far. She had killed people. Now was not the moment for distraction. Nothing mattered but getting beyond this river and finding the exile.

‘What do you mean you’re not stopping at Hamming Ferry?’ Wren exclaimed in disbelief.

Her fury washed over the barge captain without so much as making him blink.

‘Not my doing,’ he growled. He pointed up the length of the barge with his thumb. ‘You want to shout at someone, you take it up with the Free. Whatever they’ve done, we’re getting sucked downstream like there’s a wall-tide at our back. Couldn’t pole to shore if I wanted to.’

‘And you didn’t think to tell anyone until now?’

The captain shrugged, which did nothing but stoke up the fire of Wren’s anger.

‘There’s not one thing any of us can do about it, unless you get the Free to change their plans. You’ll not hear many complaining about getting to Homneck fast.’

‘ I need to get to Hamming Ferry,’ Wren snapped, and pushed him hard at the shoulder.

A mistake, as was immediately apparent. He stiffened his legs and leaned against her shove. His bearded lips pulled back to bare teeth so crooked it looked as though his mother had just flung a handful in there when he was a child, and they had taken root where they fell.

‘You don’t go raising your hand to a barge’s captain unless you know how to swim. You know how to swim, sow?’

Wren could not swim. But nor had she ever been the sort to let misfortune knock her from her feet without at least kicking its shin as she fell.

‘You took every coin I had left to carry me to Hamming Ferry,’ she said.

The captain almost smiled at that.

‘And the fare to Homneck is more, so you’ve turned a good bargain. There’s a bridge there. You’re so desperate to get yourself on the end of a Huluk Kur spear, you can cross the river easier there than at Hamming.’

He turned his back, but Wren hooked a hand on his shoulder.

‘And how many more days of walking will that mean?’ she demanded. ‘How much time are you costing me?’

She wondered if she would regret squandering food on the Free. She wondered how much further her tired legs and blistered feet could carry her. She wondered whether the Huluk Kur were even now killing the man she sought.

‘Three days,’ the captain said, glaring at her, pushing her hand roughly from his shoulder. ‘Four maybe, unless you’re stronger than you look.’

You have no idea how much stronger, Wren thought, but all she could bring herself to speak was a furious echo: ‘Four days?’

‘Aye,’ the captain shouted, the last of his patience gone. ‘Four days. Now are you going to close up your mouth or am I going to…?’

The end of Hamdan’s bow came to rest gently on the captain’s chest. The archer leaned in.

‘The woman’s disappointed,’ Hamdan said quietly. ‘Can’t blame her for that.’

The captain’s brow furrowed and twitched. He scraped his ramshackle teeth over his upper lip. And turned silently away. A murmur from one of the Free was all it took to quell his anger. Not Wren’s. Not entirely.

‘I’m more than disappointed,’ she told Hamdan, fixing him with much the same hostile gaze she had bestowed upon the captain.

‘I heard. Everyone did.’

Wren glanced around. Most of her fellow passengers, most of the crew, were watching her. They looked away without fail as she frowned at them.

‘I needed to cross at Hamming Ferry,’ she said, recognising the tone of defeat in her own voice.

‘And what’s over the river from there that’ll be gone by the time you walk up from Homneck?’

Ena Marr drifted up behind Hamdan while he spoke. It was the closest and clearest view Wren had yet had of this Clever, and she saw a small woman, almost frail. One who moved over the deck all but silently, light as a breeze. There was hard strength in her eyes though. A weight.

‘Wants to wed herself to a Huluk Kur hunter maybe?’ Ena Marr mused with a fleeting, faint smile.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Wren said. ‘We’re going to Homneck whatever I say, aren’t we?’