7 – 3
Crossing beneath the tall canopies, and onto the forested road, rouses a bittersweet feeling in my heart. It comes not from a single memory or moment, but from the many hours I spent beneath Father's arm, safe against his side. It comes from the arguments of siblings, begun for the sake of beginning them. It comes from the roll and bump of wheel and axle, and the hidden paths we'd travel. The smile that follows this feeling is a small, soft thing in the corners of my mouth.
What would they make of it, I wonder, this thing I've involved myself in? The road's rut deepens without warning, jarring Clarke's shoulder into mine and drawing a head-tossing snort of complaint from our horse. It's not a question in need of wonder, for I already know. My parents would have me turn back, each for their own reasons. My brothers would have me roll on ahead, for the betterment of any stories I might survive to tell. In fact, if I should bring back any scars or missing limbs, so much the better!
That little smile grows into something wry, an amused hum sounding behind it. Brought close by the road, Clarke sees it. I suspect the mirror to it that grows spread across her own mouth does so without her knowing. In the dappled shade of the canopies towering above, her blue eyes are made all the brighter. “What?” she asks, inquisitive and eager. “What is it?”
I shake my head, hair falling from behind my ear. “Nothing,” I say, pushing it back, only to relent at her near-pout. “I was just thinking.” Obviously, her look says. “About my brothers.” That wry twist of my mouth softens into fondness.
Clarke hums, and there's a wistfulness in her expression that I want to soothe away somehow. I end up putting my hand on the back of hers and she turns it up to twine our fingers together. “You've two of them, right?” she asks, as if her memory weren't near-to perfect. “Younger?”
“Yes,” I answer, “and little terrors, both.” It isn't wholly true. Tals is too young to be much of a wretch, unless overly tired or hungry. Djan, on the other hand, isn't. Even so, he can be sweet when he wishes. I mean to tell her these things and more, spurred by her plain curiosity, but something stops me.
A chill wind blows down the forested road. It gathers up what leaves have fallen and curls them into grotesquely long fingers that reach up from the dampened earth and curl a sense of cold foreboding around my heart. Its cold, keen edge cuts through the thickness of my cloak as though it were never there. A shiver traces the length of my spine, gooseflesh erupting down my arms. The wind blows harder, pushing those reaching fingers towards us. Our horse's ears pin flat against its head. Clarke's hands wrap around my upper arm. My grip on the reins tighten.
Then comes the scent.
The stench of earthen decay; some unholy mix of compost, dead-fallen trees, and stagnant water. It burns in my nose and clings to the back of my throat. Nausea sloshes in my belly, bile rising in my throat. I seal my mouth closed, lips a thin, pale line. Sweat breaks out across my brow, the back of my neck. My breaths come shallower, shorter. It's in my mouth now, sour and sharp on my tongue.
Clarke gags and doubles over, fisting her hands in her hair. Our horse rears and screams, eyes white, wide, and rolling. Our cart shakes, jarring loose what fragile grasp I have on my composure. I lean over the side and puke, eyes streaming with stinging tears and nose filled with snot. There's a wet splash in the footwell of the driver's bench, followed by Clarke's quiet groan of disgusted misery.
The wind is gone, grotesque fingers of dead leaves fluttering back to the ground. The stench remains. It's stronger, somehow closer. Wood splinters as our horse kicks back with its powerful legs, struggling to free itself from its harness. Now empty of all but foul bile, it's dread certainty that fills my belly: if it succeeds, and leaves us here, we will die. So though my legs shake and my knees feel weak, I get down off the cart.
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Wood splinters again, the footwell of the driver's bench buckling inwards. I reach out to the horse's quivering hindquarters, feeling the heated bunch of its powerful muscle beneath its hide. It rears and screams again as I slide my hand up across its broad back. Someone whispers soft, soothing words. Hush, hush now, they say. Hooves drive deep into the packed, rutted road. Hush, hush now. A flat-pinned ear lifts and turns towards me. My hand is on its neck, the words falling from my lips. Its eyes roll in its head, mouth flecked with foam. “Hush,” I mumur, touching the side of its long, narrow jaw. It whinnies and tosses its head. “Hush now.”
The calm I've helped it reach is fragile. Should the wind return, or the stench worsen, it will break. The same can be said of my own. The horse presses its snout into my palm, smearing that foam onto my skin. It slashes its tail through the air and dances on agitated legs.
Clarke's short, sharp hiss of air snaps my attention to her. She sits in frightened stillness, wide eyes fixed on some thing behind me. Trembling fingers touch the silver-trimmed piece of ice at her throat's hollow, igniting the pale star in its heart. “Zira,” she commands, quiet and forcibly calm, “get back on the cart. Now!”
I don't twist to look over my shoulder and see for myself. I get back on the cart.
- - -
What I see is the cold light of a magi's fear, the deepening shadows of towering canopies, and the rutted road. The air is still, the forest quiet. Even the lap of lake-waves on rock-strewn shores has gone and gone away. It is an oppressive and heavy thing, like the smoke from a town ablaze. There is nothing to see, down the forested road ahead, save for the rest of it rolling away into the evening. There is nothing to see, but there is something here regardless. The truth of it roars in my blood and beats in the drum of my heart. “What did you see?” I whisper.
Slowly, I reach into the satchel at my side. Fingertips touch the animal-horn grip of my knife, its weight of Cobalt steel is solid, real, and keen. I draw it out, bringing its dull gleam into the light of the setting sun. Never in my life have I brought sharpened steel to bear. Never in my life have I been so afraid. Somewhere in the darkened depths of the wood, there is the crunch of fallen leaves crushed.
“I don't – I don't know,” Clarke answers. “I've never – it was too fast, I couldn't –” Power untapped falls from the star into her trembling hand, winding serpentine around her fingers and pooling in her sweating palm. “Horns,” she manages, “it had horns, and...” With a shake of her head, she stops there.
It is not the spirit. It is the same as knowing the sun will rise and rise again, come each break of dawn. In the wood, it had never smelled of anything other than elk. In the dream, it had never sought to do anything but warn me. It is not the spirit, and it means us ill.
“What do we do?” I ask, my eyes tracking the treeline. I'll find nothing in the deepening shadows beneath those towering and distant canopies. She doesn't answer, and I tear away from my pointless search to see her staring down the empty road. “Clarke!” I hiss, and she jumps. I see panic in the white roll of her eyes. “What do we do?!”
“I–” Her gaze flickers from me to the road. The power she'd gathered in her palm wisps away from her grasp. The pale star shining in the heart of her ice is darkening. “I don't–”
I grind my teeth together, muscle in my jaw flexing. An angry flame sparks in my heart, growing fat and bright on fear. Anger at Clarke, for being useless. At the horned thing in the shadow of the wood, for haunting us. At myself, for letting it. I release my knife from its aching grip and take up the reins. Our horse rears and saws its forelegs in the air. In the corner of my eye, deep in the darkened wood, I see it.
Just for a moment, I see it.
Horns like a ram, ridged and curling over a wild mane of dead, thorning brambles. A face of haunting length and narrow width, jagged teeth gleaming wetly from a lipless mouth. It curls an eight-fingered hand around the trunk of a slender tree. Gouges have been torn in the bark by the viciously long and curved talons at the end of each finger. It stands shrouded in shadow, giving the barest hint of its hulking size. I feel the horrid weight of it looking back at me, yet see no eyes with which it does. Why does it not attack us? Why does it simply stand there? What do we do?!
Does it matter? If Clarke will say nothing, if she will offer nothing, then this moment is mine, to do with what I will. I flick my wrist and slap the reins against the horse's broad hindquarters. It needs no more to throw itself into flight down the forested road, as if all the curses of the moon are at our heels. Our cart rattles as it's pulled through the ruts, and from behind us comes a high and piercing scream. I look over my shoulder and see the horned beast chasing us, its form flickering as it moves through the trees. It means to run us down, like wolves after a bull elk. It's hunting us, I realize, and in that same moment name the emotion in that scream.
Joy. It was of joy.