4 – 6
All of Valdenwood is scaled in gray. The sky, lightened by the first touch of dawn. The cobbled-stone road, covered by an uneven drape of thick-flaked ash. It piles itself on peaked roofs and windowsills. It smothers gardens and trees and grass with gentle, choking hands. The air itself is heavy and gray with smoke. Its taste is scouring and sour on my tongue. It stings my eyes, my throat, and the roof of my mouth. I cough, once, and feel a hand on my elbow. Clarke's blue eyes shine above a kerchief tied to cover her nose and mouth. She hands me another, cloth smooth and cool to the touch, and I follow her example. It feels as though it shapes itself to my skin. Every breath I take after is cool and clear.
She doesn't speak, and nor do I, because there would be no point to it. On the outskirts of town it was a distant, droning roar of a noise. Here it is at its full-throated, bone-rattling height. It swallows all sound beyond itself. I feel but cannot hear the crunching slide of my steps on the ash-covered road. I feel but cannot respond to the question I see in her eyes. Did that help?
Yes, I nod. Her silver-trimmed piece of ice, hanging from a ribbon of silk at the hollow of her throat, burns cold and bright. The tight line of her jaw, visible even through the kerchief's cover, loosens just a little. She reaches out and takes my hand in hers. Her grip is strong and sweaty. There's a shake in it, a slight tremble. It's as clear to me as my own must be to her. We were both out there with the fearful and the cowardly, but we're here now.
We're here now.
When I left, the town square was the staging ground for the firefighters. It was where the brave would bring bucket after empty bucket to the ones tirelessly filling them from the depths of the well. Are the bucketeers still brave? Are the fillers still tireless? It's fear and the heat that grows with every step that slicks sweat down my spine and stings until I blink it out of my eyes. Is Harlan still here? Is he still alive?
We enter the square. First, we are greeted with a hot, dry wind straight from the heart of the ruby-sanded desert so far to the south. Its force is strong enough to push my hair away from my neck, damp strands clinging stubbornly before being pulled away. Its enough to nearly stagger me, slick as the road is beneath my feet. It must have come in from the lake, drying out and heating up as it struck the flames. The hellish glow of them reaches over the roof of the still-standing Rest Luxuriant.
On the heels of that wind comes the sight of people. Dozens of people, even more than were here when I fled. Their mouths and noses are covered by whatever scraps of cloth they could find, from scarves to shirts to dirty bartop rags, they are here and they are fighting. There's the line of the well, bucketeers bringing their empty vessels to be filled again and again. There's those at the well, tirelessly working the handle to fill bucket after slopping bucket.
There's more; people moving in pairs or threes, helping those too tired or injured by the fight to keep going. They bring these wounded through the doors of the Rest Luxuriant. I see a woman, drooping between the two holding her up, all but carried through as she cradled her blistered hands to her chest. As she is, two others step out. Their faces are scrubbed clean, their eyes smoke-reddened, and their bodies showing weariness in every line. Without a word, they go to where they're needed, and they fight on.
They fight on.
I touch my free hand to my heart, palm down and fingers splayed. I tap it once, twice, and lower it. I hope She hears my prayer for them and gives them the thousand blessed sunrises they've earned without doubt or question. I look for Harlan's wide-brimmed hat and don't see it. Even though I don't know them well, I look also for the short, broad forms of Edith and Agnes. I don't see them, either. There's just too many people here to pick out three. It's a problem I never thought I'd be glad to have.
Clarke squeezes my hand and draws my attention to her. I can see the overwhelmed confusion in her eyes, clear of smoke and tears. Now that I think of it, so are mine. Her ice burns at the hollow of her throat. What do we do, she asks without asking, where do we even start?
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It's a good question, a vital one, and I can't answer it. I was so consumed with getting us here that I don't know what to do, now that we are. Whatever it is we do, it can't waste her energy. I remember from when she healed me that using magic saps her strength. What she does has to effect a significant and permanent change in the fight against the avaricious flame. Anything else is wasted effort. I look away from her questioning eyes and out into the square.
I don't know what to do.
Looking back to her, I shrug helplessly.
I just don't.
- - -
An old, graying man stands in the threshold of the Rest's front doors. His eyes are hidden beneath the wide, fraying brim of a hat made from woven straw. A dampened scarf hangs around his neck, which he pulls up over his nose with shaking, calloused fingers. He steps out and to the side, holding the door open for another of the wounded to limp inside. The brim dips as he nods, spilling onto his chest what ash had gathered there in the seconds he'd been outside. I know that hat.
Harlan closes the door and forces himself to stand straight. He carries pure fatigue in every line of his body, and carries on in defiance of it in what must surely be an act of spiteful stubbornness. He's alive. I smile beneath my mask, wide and genuine in a moment of joyful relief. He's probably not healthy and he's definitely not happy, but he's alive. The stubborn old mule stumps down the steps and over to the well. The person working the handle is a young man painted gray from head-to-toe. Harlan shoves him out of the way, sets the bit of that handle in his teeth, and takes over. He pulls with his arms, his back, his legs. The rhythm he sets is steady, neither slower nor faster than the young man's.
I watch him for a moment; bucket falling, filling, and rising, before it occurs to me that he might know where we can best help. Failing that, knowing someone who does. I tug on Clarke's hand to pull attention from the fire's glow, crawling up and over the roof of the Rest and into the gray-dawn sky. I point at Harlan, and she follows my finger before looking back with confusion wrinkling her nose. Him?
I nod. Him.
The presence of her doubt is clear enough. What she doubts is not. Whether it's me, my idea, or this whole ill-planned attempt to help, I can't say. I hope it's none of them, and that she doubts herself for some strange reason. It's hard with the mask, but I try to give her the most reassuring look I can before setting off for the well. Maybe I imagine it, but she seems to drag her feet a little before coming with me.
Eyes are drawn to us as we go. They see the coldly burning star in the hollow of Clarke's throat and awareness of us ripples away as though they all were a pond, and we the stone thrown in. Her hand twitches in mine and she grips me tighter as more and more of the fighters, the brave, stop what they are doing and turn to watch. The crowd at the well parts at our approach, red and weeping eyes reflecting the blue light. Their faces transform above whatever masks they wear; awe, relief, and hope. One of them even reaches out, as if to make sure we're real.
It's strange to be the object of that. In any other circumstance it would be profoundly unpleasant and require time to reflect on. Here and now, we don't have any time, so it comes as a relief when Harlan doesn't seem to register our arrival at all. He works with his whole body to turn the handle, and the wheels turn to bring up a filled bucket taken by no one. Only then does he stop, straighten, and see us.
A look of utter bewilderment crosses his features before they narrow into a squinting frown. What, he seems to ask, in all the moonlit hells are you doin' here?
I gesture between myself, the filled and still-unclaimed bucket, and Clarke. We want to help, I hope I convey. His eyes take us in, pausing only for a moment at the sapphire-star ice in the hollow of Clarke's throat, before moving past us. His thick, gray brows draw together and down. His eyes harden, and a snarl twists his lips beneath the scarf covering them. Even if he could be heard, he needn't speak.
The young man Harlan replaced at the well's handle steps around us to take the filled bucket from its hook. His reddened eyes weep clear lines through the grime coating his face. He meets our eyes and passes us by, pushing through everyone who's standing still without looking back. Harlan jostles the empty hook. Between this and the young man's passage, everyone seems to wake from whatever had so consumed them.
The buckets start coming and the line reforms. Harlan plants his feet and wraps his hands around the handle. I can see the tremble in his fingers, the tight line of his jaw. This is costing him. This will cost him. His hard eyes narrow into slits as he lowers an empty bucket down, down, down into the well. He jerks his chin at the doors of the Rest. I look from him to it, and back. He nods. The wheels turn and bring up the full bucket, it's timbers soaked with well-water.
It's Clarke that turns and begins to make for the Rest. She doesn't care to wait and see if I'm coming with her. I am, and still have her hand in mine, but there's an arm's length between us. I look over my shoulder and see the fighters gathering around the steady figure of Harlan, before he disappears behind their forms.
The inside of the Rest is quieter, enough that you can talk to someone if you shouted. All of the tables and chairs have been shoved to the walls, leaving a vast and unfurnished floor for the most wounded to lie on. Many do. Some are simply exhausted, having given all they have in the fight. Others have breathed too much smoke and lay on their side, coughing until their throat bleeds. The worst are the burned, whose limbs are wrapped in clean cloths and who either stare blankly into nothing or weep from the pain.
Moving among them, caring as best they can, are Edith and Agnes. It's Agnes that spots us first. Her bellow from across the room is easily heard. “Blessed be!” it goes, “Ye've come!”