Page 63 of Crown of War and Shadow
I must have spoken that out loud.
We press on because we must, the road seeming to go on forever, the landscape offering us no true shelter or coverage. Time condenses into a focal point of the persistent present, no future ahead of us, no past behind. Only the single heartbeat of each moment repeating to the beat of the horse’s plodding gait.
At least the tension that coils in my gut chases away the chill that’s settled into my bones.
Overhead, the three-quarter moon rises, but offers little illumination to go on, as if it’s determined to remain neutral with regard to our travel and destiny. A strange desperation grips me, unlike anything I’ve felt before: I know the safety I yearn for will not magically appear whenever we find a place toshelter ourselves for the night. We will still be out on our own, and in the best course of things, we’ll only be attacked by robbers or a landowner defending his—
All at once, we round a curve and the forest gives way to a meadowed valley that seems big as Anathos itself. The terrain change is so abrupt, I wonder if I’m dreaming as I look out over the fields that unfurl like carpet to the base of a mountain range far to the southwest. In the moonlight, the long grasses are cast in shades of palest blue, and I know it’s not just because of my veil. In the autumnal daytime, the thread-thin stalks are yellow instead of green, the seasonal change having come upon them. The lunar light, however, is an artist who paints with platinum and steel rays, and along with those delicate blades, the road ahead, and even ourselves, glow in the cool palette of the night sky.
“There.”
Merc points with his broadsword to a settlement cluster halfway between where we are and the first of the snowcapped summits. The farmhouses are too small in number to count as a village, too many to be a single homesteader, and I’m hoping the inhabitants have it in their hearts to welcome strangers.
Given the tenor of things, I doubt it—so I don’t bother to ask if it’s safe to approach. The answer is no.
It’s a better shot than risking demons in the forest, however.
Merc stays at the ready as he urges our tired horse on. He doesn’t ask for a trotting, just as he’s stopped twice at streams to make sure that the chestnut is offered a drink. We all need a rest and some food.
“I don’t want to steal anything else,” I warn.
“We’ll see.”
The farther along we go, the more exposed I feel out in the open. And yet when we were surrounded by trees, I was surely stalked.
Spoiled for choice.
Merc scans the fields, and here in the open, the moon does give the eye something to work with. After I measure that bright star that nearly throws its own shadows, I vacillate between jerking my head over my shoulder to make sure there’s nothing coming up behind us, and fixating on the outcropping of buildings as it grows larger and larger.
And then I only look at what’s coming.
There’s something wrong with the settlement, and as I narrow my eyes to tease out what it is, a chill of warning tickles the back of my neck. And then a strange scent blows our way, the acrid sting in the air making me sneeze.
It’s not until we are halfway across the meadows that I realize it is a proper town. But most of the structures… they’ve been—
“Quite a fire,” Merc remarks.
“Oh… dearestfates…”
So many of the homes and stables have been burned to the ground, only a couple of surviving structures remaining at the far edge of what turns out to be quite a large community. And then it dawns on me.
“Is this Fielkirk?” I whisper. “How can this be?”
“You know the town?”
“I do—I mean, I’ve never been here. But they would come to us on market days with grains and hay on offer. Crafts and clothing, too. What happened?”
I try to recall what the men and women looked like, but of course, I didn’t spend much time on their faces. I do remember thinking that their clothes were just like our own, and so were their accents, and now I wish they’d had a wall to protect them, even if its mortar was breaking down in places.
And a moat. Andbalas.
Soon enough, our horse’s hooves cross over onto scorched earth, the flames having spread out from the core to the grazing fields on the perimeter. Yet the stink of ash and smoke is not too overpowering. This happened a week ago at least, and there has been plenty of cold rain since. Fates, though, the fire must have been an inferno. The burned carcasses of cattle and sheeplings break my heart, their charred ribs still retaining shape, the ghostly spaces where internal organs had once been like the rafters and chimneys that are the remains of the homes in the distance.
“Who did this?”
Merc offers no answer, but as if he’d have any? He pulls up on the reins, and the chestnut docilely halts. Then, for the first time since we started out, he twists in the saddle, and I’m forced to turn with him or risk getting pushed off by the breadth of his shoulders. In a slow swivel, he pivots all the way back around, like an owl.
“We have to stop, but I don’t like this.”
