“Bloody lords and their stupid, forging requests!” Curses and a tirade exploded from Terince. Marilyn nearly fell out of her horse as she winced. Very rarely did her mentor resort to such language, especially within earshot of other people. It wasn’t very becoming of a Huntsman. Not one bit. Marilyn’s tan gelding, Ides, nearly stopped, but continued on when he realized that she had righted herself as quickly as one might expect.
Such a good lad. If only Terince could compose himself so.
That wasn’t particularly fair. Terince had already ended his outburst and was on to brooding silently. The Huntsman was a normally mild mannered, thoughtful, slow to yell, and quick to shame Marilyn when she exhibited the opposites of those qualities.
She could recall a time where an oath she had picked up from Yoric and his teacher had her sleeping in stables for a week, living off of the land for her dinner. Mother forsaken men and their Mother forsaken words. She had known thirteen birthdays at that point. Four had passed since and small bits of anger still swelled within her when that week came to mind. Scents of hay and horse dung still caused an involuntary squinting of her eyes now and again.
I will put you in the stables when I see you next, Yoric. Just you wait. Ides snorted. She couldn’t tell whether he thought she was being silly or if he was providing support to his rider. She decided to think it was the latter.
Having finally taken total control of her gelding, Marilyn turned to her mentor. “Are you going to talk about it?” Prodding was often necessary with this introverted man, even more so when his bald head was so red that it’d give Prairie tomatoes a run for its money, or when his brown eyes could bore holes through bark.
“Soon. Ride tall and proud. Like a huntsman.”
She could do that. Straightening her back, squaring her shoulders, and looking ahead, she rode on.
Absolom’s Hearth was not the standard for what most folks might consider a backwater village. It had every little characteristic one might think of when thinking of an isolated town such as this.
One road ran through the Hearth and had homes on each side before it ended right in front of the Mayor’s mansion. The mansion was only that by association with the other homes. Mayor Janus’s home had the same pointed, thatch roof that was present in the rest of the village houses. On the other hand, within it were three bedrooms and a kitchen with a window so big that one could watch him have dinner if they so chose. There had been no need for a third bedroom. Janus’s niece, Dorene, was his only living relative. Marilyn had only seen the girl once. A brief moment, that had been. The village Mystic, a tightly wound Solrusian woman named Natalia, had picked the child up for some tutelage in her profession. Marilyn had seen the Mystic instructing her student over the properties of turmeric.
The roadside homes had a kitchen and a bedroom. That was it. It mattered not how many belonged to a family. Their kitchens served as dining rooms, living rooms, washrooms. Marilyn shuttered at the lack of privacy and suddenly felt quite thankful that Terince always spent coin on separate sleeping arrangements- save when she was sleeping in a stable.
There were no fenced in back yards in the Hearth. The grasses behind both rows of homes held an army of clotheslines and wash buckets. Today was laundry day. One could hear parents yelling at their children to go play anywhere else, as though that would work. Parents also yelled at one another for slacking off. Plenty of clothes needed to be laundered, for every one of age in the Hearth was a parent. Everyone! Marilyn had never seen anything like it!
The kids were odd as well. Not because they were backwater dwellers, but there was a crop of ten or so who were all the same age. Not only had they all known twelve winters, but they had all been born within the same two month period. The children had excitedly told her this with very little prompt, as most children did, before being scurried off by their parents with forced apologies to the huntsmen.
Other than that, the kids were normal. That was what made them so odd. They were normal whereas their parents were a bunch of sad sacks. The adults seemed fine when around the children, but Marilyn could see it. Their movements, their apprehension when speaking, the constant lowering of their eyes, all of it. That might be normal in the slums of a rougher city where food, safety, and purpose might be scarce. It was not normal in a backwater village.
Marilyn had expected pride, stubborn attitudes, even a bit of haggling when renting a room. She had found hushed and contrite responses, quick subservience, and bedding rates that were too fair. The Mystic seemed to have a bit of fire, but that was it. One adult out of nearly forty or so. Even the Mayor had a backbone of jelly.
Janus and Terince had spoken with one another for not even three minutes. That left them enough time for Janus to make his request, Terince to deny it, Janus to plead for a moment or two, and Terince to deny it gain. Huntsmen protected the average person from monsters that they themselves couldn’t. If there was something in this area which Janus believed to be dangerous enough to warrant a huntsman, it would take a meek man to back down after two quick denials. Either that, or Janus’s request had been so ridiculous that Terince hadn’t gone through the proper procedure and had shut the mayor down quickly.
She had only seen that happen once, when a lord down in the South had requested that they take down a bandit camp that had been terrorizing merchants and travelers along one of the main roads outside of the city. Huntsmen didn’t take jobs to kill humans. Since the dawn of the order, those who took these jobs on were found and executed; their names struck from the records of any accomplishments, only to be spoken around young trainees in order to scare them out of ever doing such a thing.
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Lords could do as they pleased. If they wanted to set bounties on whoever they perceived as a criminal, let them. It may be a barbarous method used by those who struggle to keep the peace by normal means, but it was their right. They would not use huntsmen for the act. Not even those assigned to their lands. Huntsmen served the people of the land, not a lord and definitely not a mayor.
They rode through the warm, muggy morning silently. They rode after the homes on the side of the westbound road disappeared, as they reached the crossroad which took them either to the Wall or the shore; even as they turned toward the Wall and plenty of time had passed for Marilyn to make as many possible assumptions regarding the men’ interactions as they could.
Hours later, once the Wall was in sight and Marilyn had thought through dozens of different scenarios, including one where she considered riding back to make sure the Mayor was alive, he spoke up. The All-Forsaken man spoke up. He did so quietly.
“He asked me to hunt down voidlings. Nightseers.”
Mari sat on that for a bit. Maybe she should have waited a bit longer.
“Nightseers haven’t been around for centuries,” she said, but even she could feel the uncertainty in her voice. Everyone knew what Laerna Brakos claimed she was. Nightseer. Dark Eyed Queen. She had left Mithrock be for the decade and a half, but rumors involving her battles in the Frontier had made their way to the west. Dread fleets. Fjallborn subjugation. Whole ships of pirates murdered only to rise from the dead and join her side. Even the two remaining Chieftains had apparently been avoiding her. Others said she had killed Clarissa Le Noy and Gwondoya Akimba and that the entirety of their fleets had sworn fealty to her.
“Bah, of course they haven’t. It matters not if they were. We do not kill humans as our job. Even if the Nightseers were here, even if every bloody rumor about Laerna Brakos was true, it wouldn’t matter. Nightseers are human, lass. Just as the sages were.” Marilyn understood. It was the principle of the matter. Even if Nightseers were running amok on the coast, it wasn’t their job. That was under the scope of the Aegimari.
“Will you send a message to Winthrop, then?”
“Aye. Maybe the Aegimari can get the right of this. I feel for the mayor, I do. The history of that All-forsaken village is downright dreadful and he’s trying to break free of it, but someone out there is trying to pull them back into the dark times. The only thing stopping us from helping him is that it’s obviously a someone and not a something.” Cold calmness made up his voice. Terince wanted to help, but there was nothing to do about human conflicts when you belonged to this particular order.
“I cannot let you send that message, I’m afraid.” Cold and melodic. Frighteningly beautiful. Both huntsmen turned their horses around, throwing knives ready in one hand. Marilyn’s other hand went to her unstrung alder bow, Terince’s to his Sosin long-knife.
Goosebumps sprung up from their arms as the woman spoke again. “I am thankful you came, though you are not who I was hoping for.” Marilyn felt herself shiver. The woman wore a black, hooded cloak from her head to her knees. Well worn black boots went up to the calves of fine black breeches. Noting her average height, Marilyn could see nothing else of her save her wand and stance. Sure, confident, not an inch of hesitation. This woman had seen many fights.
The man to her side was even more frightening. He was garbed similarly, though his tree trunk arms wouldn’t have been contained by any cloak. His sheer black doublet was visible through a part in the cloak. Like the woman, Marilyn could not see his face, but he did have a lengthy gray beard.
There’s no way-
The cloaked woman spoke up again. “Is Yoric Youngclaw traveling with you? Bianca Rosamund? Perhaps a large, brusque commoner named Abraham?”
Marilyn yelled back in surprise, “What could you possibly-“
“Lass.” Terince sat atop his black gelding, ready to strike at either enemy in an instant. By the mother, they felt like enemies. “You’ll not find any information about them from us. Now, turn around and walk away. There’s no need for us to fight. You’ll have the whole order on your backs if anything happens to us.”
Huntsmen wouldn’t take a job to kill a person. But if someone was directly attacking the order, that would be a different matter.
“Good,” was all the cloaked woman said as a thin fragment of orange flame flew through the air and singed through Terince’s neck. He hadn’t the time to throw his knife.
Marilyn screamed. Fright, sadness, desperation, anger all flooded from her throat and into the world. She charged the woman and quickly fell from her horse and into the ground. She tried to stand, but her legs would not allow her to. Her chest felt warm and she could see her life-blood forming a pool upon the ground. The warm liquid ran across her cheek. How?
The cloaked woman appeared before her, kneeling down, her black boots stained with Marilyn’s blood. Yellow Hues were fading from the tip of her wand.
“You did nothing wrong, huntress.
“I do what I must to protect my loved one. You were a bump in the road, but you did not deserve to die.
“Your one fault is that you were weaker than me; for when the lines of morals go gray, those with strength are those who get to choose what is right.” Regret lined the murderer’s words. How dare she feel upset?
How? How did this happen?
Marilyn died more confused than she had been afraid.
- - - -
Marilyn continued toward the coast. Her horse had taken a moment to get used to her again. It had been frightened, and understandably so. The air felt cold now. Warmth did not reach her. It mattered not. Nothing mattered, really. It’s not like she had a say in how things could go. She could think her own thoughts, though she couldn’t even do that privately. She mourned for Terince, wishing she could join him.
Marilyn wanted to set a goal, anything. Anything to escape this cold, nihilistic existence she had been provided. A new life where she couldn’t choose what she did. Not one bit. She would kill. She would lure. Her skill set would be used against those she wanted to protect. Something as will-driven as a goal was useless, as she had none left to her.
She wished to weep for so many things. The life she had lost, the love she’d never know, the parents and sisters she’d never see again, the family that Terince had left behind. All of it and more, but she couldn’t weep.
“If you want to cry,” the keeper spoke up, her melodic chords warmer than they had been when they had met on the road, “all you have to do is ask.”