Chapter 17 — Nameless

Dimitra had been correct: they wouldn’t be leaving the valley for a while. But that was alright with Rína, even a bit preferred. So far the two of them had been on the road for nearly three months, and while Rína wasn’t exactly tired of it, it was nice for her to be able to meet and interact with people for more than a single afternoon. Plus, with them at least temporarily settled down, she would get to properly experience her favorite winter holiday.

Rína wrapped herself tight in the thick coat that draped down to her feet as her snowshoes flopped atop the thick powder. The night was clear but unforgivingly cold, and Rína had to fight just to keep her legs moving, not to mention keep her traitorous mouth from yawning.

It was two hours till midnight, but still early compared to the planned festivities of the night. Around her were the steep roofed homes of the village, half-buried save for the narrow trenches connecting their front doors to the rest of the world. Furrows of recent foot traffic flowed like streams out of the trenches. They merged with others, all with a common destination, and soon the middle of the street was as a river of tracks, flowing inevitably towards the center of the village.

Rína added her footfalls to the growing trail as she caught the first sight and smell of the night’s centerpiece. It was a grand bonfire in the middle of the village’s square, with smaller bonfires shooting off from it like the spokes of a wagon wheel, each representing a different divine face of Daefos. Rína could smell the veritable pounds of incense that must have been burning on the central fire, which only slightly overpowered the smells of the dishes being cooked on the smaller ones.

The Daefic Star, as the fires were collectively called, was something Rína looked forward to this time of year. There was just something primal about venturing out alone, cold, and hungry on the longest night of the year, only to come upon a great fire, and take shelter and warmth from it alongside the rest of your community. And then of course joining your friends in stuffing your faces full of food. It was a celebration of civilization, though Rína hadn’t always seen it that way.

The smell of the incense alone was enough to summon her memories of past solstices, of being carted around by her father like an ornament or some false badge of fatherly devotion. It was grating to the extreme, with her protestations only being met with retaliation. The whole situation in turn soured her view of the celebration, but as she grew older, and her father less concerned with keeping up the charade, she was able to spend the holiday as it was meant to be: with the people she actually cared about.

True, in Leighton, Rína’s list of relations was never noteworthy, neither in terms of quantity nor quality. Mostly it was Eva, the Andreous, and a few childhood friends she grew more apart from with each passing year. None of them were family, not even of the found variety, as sad as that was for Rína to admit. However they still were able to brighten the darkest time of the year for her, and for that she was grateful. Though in retrospect, that lack of any strong relationship was probably what made her decision to leave Leighton easier than it would have otherwise been.

Rína was pulled from her introspection as she entered the village square proper. Between the heat of the fires and quite a lot of shoveling beforehand, the square was perhaps the only place for kilometers devoid of any snow. And in place of snow, nearly the entire village had gathered, with still more people trickling in. As Rína walked down the final snowbank and onto the square’s cobblestones, she began looking for familiar faces. She spotted Nikolaos and Dimitra stationed at one of the cookfires, as well as a handful of other people Rína had met in the last week. But she couldn’t seem to find—

“Hey, Rína! Over here!” came a cry over the din of the villagers’ chatter and the roar of the fires.

Rína waved in reply, then wasted no time in removing her snowshoes and answering the summons. She wove through the crowd and soon sat down at one of the numerous tables that had been set around the square.

“Happy solstice!” cried Deirdre, lunging over the table to give Rína a hug.

“Happy solstice!” Rína returned, accepting the girl’s hug before addressing the rest of the table, “So how are you guys doing?”

“Ah, we’re still deciding on which Face we’ll follow for the new year,” Nóra said, following her sister in giving Rína a hug.

“Speak for yourselves, I’m already set on Zaetif,” Alexis stated, pointing across the square to a specific spoke fire.

“Boo,” Nóra chided, “Come on, the Face of the Merchant always has the worst food. Are you really going to start the solstice off eating gruel and jerky, or whatever else they’ve got over there?”

“I think you mean second worst,” Alexis corrected, “And yes, yes I am, because your father would have my ass if I didn’t. Do you have any idea how many times he’s given me unprompted lectures about financial responsibility that were just thinly veiled threats?”

“Ah, he’s all bluster when it counts. Although, now that he’s back on his feet…” Nóra said with fake consideration, “...he might just restart his ass collection business.”

Alexis scowled before shooting Rína a glare, “I blame you and your aunt for this. If anything happens to me, I’ll expect to be treated for free.”

Rína chuckled, “Sorry Alexis, but our whole business model is healing irate father-in-laws for free, then price gouging the son-in-laws after the inevitable beat downs.” Rína looked to the two sisters, “But seriously, is your guys’ father doing alright? Any need for a follow up visit? Also, where are your folks anyways?”

Deirdre laughed before a soft smile crossed her face, “Dad’s doing great. I don’t think I’ve seen him sitting down for more than a minute in the last few days. And he’s running around here somewhere, talking with people with mom in tow.” Deirdre looked Rína in the eye, “We really can’t thank you and your aunt enough.”

“Seconded.” Nóra said with a genuine nod.

Rína fidgeted uncomfortably, “You’re welcome, but it was all my aunt—I’m still in training. So… Uh, Faces. Which ones are you thinking of?”

Nóra shrugged, “Honestly, I was just thinking of picking at random this year, or just grabbing whatever smells the best.”

Deirdre scowled, “Picking with your stomach is a terrible idea.”

“Oh yeah?” Nóra challenged, before continuing dramatically, “Then tell me dearest sister, who claims to be wiser than my stomach, which face of Daefos will you be emulating? Which fire will you be stoking?”

“I—” Deirdre grumbled before saying in a quiet voice, “I was thinking of choosing the Saint again this year…”

“Lame! Come on, what are you even hoping to get out of that?” Nóra chided.

Deirdre grumbled again, burying her head in her crossed arms, resting on the table.

“How about you Rína?” Alexis asked.

“I don’t know, I’ve been picking the Traveler for the last couple years but…” Rína considered, eyeing the younger of the two sisters, “Hey Deirdre…”

The girl, only a few years younger than Rína, poked her eyes above her arms, “Yeah…?”

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“Gods and their Faces aside, do you know what you want for the new year? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but do you at least know for yourself?” Rína asked.

Deirdre paused for a moment before grumbling a third time and giving Rína a slight nod.

“I was never really religious,” Rína shrugged, “But growing up, a part of me still kind of hoped that the Traveler would give me the freedom I wanted—as if they would just drop it out of the sky one day. And yeah, I eventually got it, but not because of whimsy or a carefree attitude or anything else Traveler related.

“What little freedom I had was under threat and… if I’m being honest, wrath is what saw me through. It got me moving and taking the freedom I had wanted for years. And yeah, things didn’t go… perfectly… but—Look, the point I’m trying to make is that sometimes you’ve got to take a more aggressive stance to get what you want, and I happen to know of a certain someone whose whole deal is basically that.”

Deirdre furrowed her brow in confusion, “Are you seriously suggesting I follow the Warrior this year?”

“Yeah, why not?” Rína asked.

Deirdre shook her head, “There’s no way that’s what I’m picking for my first plate. Maybe for my third though? The spicy sausage does smell pretty good.”

“Ah come on,” Rína complained, “after the second plate, it barely even counts. At that point it’s just food for food’s sake.”

“And you know Deedee, if you want some hot sausage for the new year, you should grab a pastry from the Lover.” Nóra said with a suggestive eye waggle.

Deirdre turned bright red, “I—Th—You absolute reprobate!” the girl managed to say, giving her sister a hard pinch on her shoulder.

“Ow! Sheesh, take a joke, would you,” Nóra cried, rubbing her shoulder.

Rína chuckled, “But seriously, why not go for the Warrior for the first course?”

Deirdre stared at Rína as if she were an idiot, “Why? Rína, because I actually want to get married someday, and no guy is going to marry a girl whose first pick was Maellock the Warrior.”

“I don’t know what it was like in your hometown, but Deirdre’s right,” Alexis added, “Here guys and their parents would be weirded out by that kind of thing—it’s just unnatural.”

“Eh, marriage is overrated anyway, isn’t that right?” Rína said, smirking at the newlyweds.

Nóra snorted, “Man, I pity your aunt for the day she needs to find a husband for you. Where is she, anyway?”

Rína’s upper lip twitched, threatening to turn into a silent snarl.

“I seriously doubt my aunt will ever have to worry about that.” Rína said, giving Nóra a flat stare, “Anyway… Yvette is staying home—she’s not much of a people-person.”

“Seriously? Even on the solstice?” Nóra asked.

Rína could only shrug wordlessly.

Nóra sighed, “Well her loss. I guess—Oh hey! It’s starting.”

Nóra pointed to the center of the square where a small stage had been erected. Susurrations echoed through the crowd as an elderly man in fine clothing ascended the steps and addressed the village.

“GOOD EVENING!” the man bellowed, “Happy Solstice, friends and family, neighbors and newcomers. Before we begin tonight, I would just like to say a few words to reflect on the year our nameless village has had. And I know we all must be hungry, so I shall keep my words brief. Foremost, I would like to congratulate…”

Rína was already primed to tune out most of the speech, but there was one thing that stood out to her.

“Why did he put so much emphasis on the word ‘nameless’?” Rína asked the table.

“Why? Because our village is nameless,” Nóra said with a barely concealed snicker, with Deirdre then groaning in response.

Rína furrowed her brow, “What do you… ‘Nameless’ is literally the village’s name, isn’t it?” Rína practically accused with a flat stare.

“The way I heard it,” Alexis said, “it was someone’s bright idea to muddy the bureaucrats’ paperwork in the hopes that we wouldn’t have to pay taxes because of it.”

“Yeah, there’s no way that would ever work,” Rína shook her head, “And hells, with the Homestead Decree this region doesn’t even pay taxes in the first place.”

“Yeah, I guess folks were thinking more about the long term—after the decree—or maybe they were just having a laugh.” Alexis shrugged.

“... and without further ado…” the elder concluded, “... LET’S EAT!”

Noise erupted from all across the square as people got to their feet and the youngest amongst them rushed to be first in line at their Face of choice. The four young adults were no different, and with a few shared nods, split off into the surging crowd.

Just as the rest of the crowd was doing, Rína first snagged a scrap of wood from one of the piles set beyond the ring of cook fires. The scraps were small, and normally wouldn’t be used for anything other than kindling, but tonight people would be using them to grow the cookfire of their chosen Face of Daefos.

Firewood in hand, Rína was faced with a decision. Yesterday she had planned on choosing the Traveler again, especially now that she was a proper traveler herself, but she also hadn’t been lying to Deirdre when she said that wrath was what got her to where she was. Her eyes naturally fell on the growing line for the Warrior.

She had been somewhat flippant in her recommendation to Deirdre. She knew women simply didn’t choose the Warrior—it was a fact that held true in Nameless just as it had for all the solstices Rína had spent in Leighton. But to hells with it, there was a first time for everything.

Rína stepped in line, right behind a musclebound teenager who already towered over her. She caught the boy doing a double- and then triple-take as he looked back and saw her.

“Uh, miss, I think you might be in the wrong line…” the boy said, his voice cracking.

Rína returned a confident, impish grin, “Nah, I think I’m right where I should be.”

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“I’d say it’s two or three hundred people,” said a former logger, looking through a spyglass, down into the valley and village below, “Looks like the whole village is in the square around the Star. It should be easy to sneak up to and surround them.”

Chuckles and sighs of relief rose from the nearly fifty other men. The dog sleds they had ridden in on were serviceable, but the valley pass they had just exited was decidedly an unkind one—or at least it should have been.

Previous avalanches had made the snow uneven and filled with boulder sized chunks of ice. But instead of having their sleds damaged by the hidden ice, the leader of the band had directed them through, avoiding even the chunks just below the surface.

And the pass itself was not a straight shot either, with plenty of offshoots and dead ends. There allegedly was a signposted path through, but it was buried beneath however many meters of snow. Once again, the leader came to their rescue, guiding them atop the buried path without any trouble. By rights, the men should have taken five or even ten times as long to get through the pass, and perhaps even become victims of an avalanche. But instead they were through without delay, with the village’s Daefic Star in the distance like a veritable light at the end of the tunnel.

“Happy solstice, everybody,” a former farmer shouted, “I can’t wait to be sleeping under a proper roof.”

“I’m more looking forward to the other… amenities,” a former candlemaker said with a hungry grin.

“For our sake, I hope you’re talking about a bath,” jeered a former caravan guard.

“Save it for later; we still have work to do,” admonished their leader as he considered the village, “The sleds will stay here, and we’ll approach on foot from downwind in case they have watchdogs. I want the square surrounded, and then ten men will peel off to search for stragglers and weapons, and smash any other sleds they find. The rest stay at the square, grab a hostage from each of the families, and kill anyone that so much as thinks of putting up a fight. If all goes well, gentlemen, I believe we are in for quite the comfortable winter this year.”

Cheers and ‘Yes, sir’s followed his declaration as the men descended upon the unsuspecting village. Too long now had they been hiding in the rough country, or spending only a night in the smallest of villages. But before them was the windfall they had been owed: a nameless little village practically sealed off from the outside world. They had heard of this place and its isolation only weeks ago, and while it was certainly a gamble to come all this way to investigate, it would appear as if the gamble had paid off.

As he led the men to their prize, their leader—a former apprentice—readied himself for a fight. Others may have thought it unnecessary, but the leader was not one to discount the value of shock and awe. With a flex of his will, and an expenditure of aether, snow rose from the landscape to compress into blades of ice.