Chapter Seventeen - Smoke

(Part II)

It took nearly an hour to clear enough of the smoke for the others to enter. The men carried water up from the river to douse that which the rain could not, and, little by little, the haze began to clear. Ren sat quietly for a time on the grass, back turned to the mill, not daring to look. After a while, he went to help to help the men with the water, but he still didn’t look. Couldn’t look.

Once the smoke had cleared, the men carried Ted and his wife out and laid them down on the grass. All the while, his grandfather said not a word. The rain fell down around them; a thin, grey mizzle, chilling them to the bone.

‘Bad way to go.’ Dann said.

‘There are no good ways.’ Derin told him, moustache twitching. Ren looked at his grandfather. His brow was set in a low line over dark eyes, and his jaw was clenched tight in his cheeks. He looked very tired, pale, and worn to the bone.

‘Who is the other?’ Brin asked quietly.

'His wife.' Ren told him. He could not look at them. His skin still burned from the smoke, but the rain had soaked his clothes, making him shiver. ‘Her name was Werla.’

Hector nodded. ‘We should build a litter. No good burying them out here alone, so far from good folk.’

Dan and Brin went to gather wood from the trees across the bridge, and Hector produced a length of rope from his saddle. The others returned soon after, and they began to lash a crude litter together from a bed of short branches. Ren sat nearby in silence, looking away over the fields. What was left of Ted and Werla lay on the grass, faceless, unmoving.

‘Shame.’ Hector muttered, looking down at the bodies. ‘Killed by their own hearth. Bad way to go.’

His grandfather bristled suddenly, turning on the old farmer. Then he caught sight of Ren watching him, and he hesitated. The anger seemed to go out of him in a rush. His brow softened, and he looked down at his friend lying dead on the grass.

‘Fires don’t start without help.’

Hector frowned, weathered brow creasing. ‘You think someone did this?’ He asked incredulously.

‘There are tracks by the river.’ Derin told him. ‘Boot prints. A dozen, maybe more.’

‘It’s the only bridge for twenty miles.’ Hector snorted. ‘Sees enough feet in one day to make them marks.’

‘He’s right, Derin.’ Dann agreed, putting hand on the old man’s shoulder.

Derin turned with a scowl, brushing off his hand. Then he doubled over, wracked by sudden coughs. Ren was at his side a moment later, holding him upright, and his grandfather lurched against him, legs wobbling for a moment. Then Derin shrugged him off, dabbing at his mouth with one of his handkerchiefs.

‘I’m fine.’ he told Ren breathlessly. ‘It’s just the smoke.’

‘Wait.’ Brin said suddenly behind them, bent low over the bodies. He reached out, taking hold of the larger shape’s blackened fingers, uncurling them carefully. They were holding something. Brin straightened, holding it up to the light, frowning.

‘The fuck is that?’ Dann said.

No one replied. It was a mask, charred ashen from the flames, flaking wood dripping from its eyes, half in ruin. Barely intact at all. Ren knew it all the same. He had seen one before. Hard and smooth and black as jet, leering like a panting wolf. Watching him from a shelf in the fortuneteller's tent.

A mask on fire.

‘Temur’s teeth.’ Brin cursed, staring at it.

‘Makers save us.’ Dann murmured. ‘Black Hand.’

‘Brothers love no weapon more than fire. Everyone knows it.’ Brin replied, eyes wide.

Derin came to his shoulder, taking the mask from the smith’s hand. Then he went over to his pony and tucked it away into one of the saddlebags, tying it shut. Ren could feel his grandfather’s eyes on his back, prickling at the nape of his neck. The mask. The fortuneteller’s gold eyes stared back at him, flickering over silver flames.

‘Brothers? In the South Realm?’

‘Can’t be? What’d they want here?’

‘Overwood’s one thing. We’re just farmers, got nothing worth taking!’

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Ice twisted in Ren’s gut, and the smell of smoke filled his mouth. The wind whispered through the trees across the bridge, and the river rumbled. Shadows twisted over silver fire, gleaming.

‘We should go.’ his grandfather told them.

The men lifted the blackened bodies onto the litter, binding them in place with what remained of the rope, and Derin covered them carefully with his cloak. Then they tied the litter across the saddles of two of the larger ponies, and set off back the way they had come on foot, leading the horses away from the remains of the mill. No one spoke. Not even Hector, who walked quietly beside the litter, eyeing it nervously. Ren stayed close to his grandfather, but he didn’t seem to notice him at all. Derin looked suddenly very old, tired, face lined and worn like the spine of one of his books. As they walked, he dabbed at his mouth occasionally, coughing emptily, moustache twitching.

The sound of the river dwindled behind them, and the breeze murmured over the grass at his heels. Ren didn’t look back. He fixed his eyes on the way ahead, and tried not to think of Ted and Werla, crumbled half to ash, or the scorched black mask in the saddlebag beside him, empty-eyed and leering. He tried all the way home, and it did him no good.

*

The sun was low when they came walking back into the farm. Doors began to open as the sad procession moved slowly between the buildings, and the farm folk filed out into the gathering dark, staring, whispering. Ren watched them as he walked. They were afraid. South Realmers rarely had cause for fear, and they are not so practised at hiding it as the rest of us. The farmers watched, frozen, taut as bowstrings, staring at the litter between the horses, the half-shapes beneath Derin's cloak. Word spread quickly, rippling through opened doors and unshuttered windows. There had been a fire. Brothers, they whispered. The Black Hand had long fingers.

The litter did not stop, though. It went on between the farm buildings, past fire-lit windows and the wafted smells of fresh cooking, and Ren went with it, numb and cold, nose scorched beyond smelling any of it. They came to his door last of all, just as it fell open. His grandmother stepped out onto the porch, tugging absently at her apron, smiling. Then she caught sight of the litter, and the light went out of her in a rush. She came to Ren first, holding him by the shoulders, smiling sadly. He smiled sadly back. Then she took Derin in her arms without a word, holding his head against her breast, and he folded against her like an old cloak, weary and greying. There they stood, for a time, untouched by the eyes all around them.

They buried them on the hill just outside the farm, by the small stand of trees, just south of the barn. Another grave to add to the little line of stones in the shadow of the branches. There was no stone to mark the place, so Derin had them lay a wreath of autumn leaves on the upturned earth. The mason would tend to it later. Two dozen men and women stood around, heads low, shoulders slumped. The children, too, though few of them had even heard the names of the dead, before that night. They came all the same. It is always like that, in the quietest places of the world. Death is shared, same as everything else.

Ren stood beside his grandparents, watching the leaves of the wreath rustle in the breeze. The sun began to leak below the horizon, and the orange light dripped bloody over the trees. He listened as Hector said the words. Maker, Farmer, Merchant, Smith. Lover, Sailor, Warrior, Storm. Ren barely heard them. When it was done, the people of the farm turned back to their homes, one by one, until only a handful remained. Trin was still there, watching his friend. Hector too, his old, milky eyes cold and unblinking. Ren tried to think of Ted. Not as he’d known him before. Not as the strange old miller with his fearsome scar and booming voice. It was a boot that fit him very poorly, now. Instead, he tried to think of his laugh. His smile. Kind words over the fire. He tried to think of Werla, so young. Smiling. But all he could see was the mask, flaking to dust. The fortuneteller watched him over the light of the brazier, eyes gleaming gold.

Not every price is paid in coin.

‘Ren?’

His grandmother was watching him. Soft eyes glistening, arm wrapped around Derin's waist. She lifted up a hand to his face, holding her palm against his cheek. He hesitated.

‘I’m alright.’ he lied, drawing his lips into a small smile. She smiled back at him, and they were quiet again for a time. Listening to the breeze rustling over the treetops, the distant sounds of the farm as the others returned to their homes. The minutes drew by, and Hector turned to leave at last, leaving only Trin behind. The other boy gave Ren one last look, then followed the old farmer away, ringing his hands. Ren didn’t see them go. His eyes were wandering down the tree line, picking out each of the stones in turn. A little grey line in the grass. He knew them well, now, though better by moonlight. Black Breath, most of the newer ones. No larger than dinner plates, gleaming in the orange dusk-light, filtered like gossamer thread between the narrow, empty branches.

‘Which one is my mother?’ he asked quietly.

His grandmother looked at him sadly. His grandfather was frowning.

‘There.’ his grandmother told him, pointing to a small square of stone a few yards away. Just like the others. Half-crawled with moss, obscuring a faint line of scratchings in the stone. He didn’t think about her much, he realised. How could he, when his only memories of her were others’ stories? The nightglass pendant at his neck was cool against his skin, heavier than it had any right to be. All she had left him was his death mark, and the hurt of that didn’t bear dwelling on. Right then, though, he wished he could have known her. Even if just a little. Heard her voice. Seen her smile.

They stood there for a long while, watching the fresh mound of earth beneath the trees. Then his grandmother's arm was around his shoulders, turning him back towards the farm. She looked older than he remembered, stretched, and her soft eyes were wet with tears.

‘Come.’ she said softly. ‘Let’s go home.’

They set off unhurriedly across the grass, hand in hand, watching the sun dwindle away around them. His grandfather’s eyes were weary, ringed in shadow, lips set in a grim line, but he squeezed Ren’s hand as they walked, and whenever his grandson looked over at him, he quickly stretched a kind smile over his moustached lips. Like that, the three of them, weary and worn and choked raw with ash, went back together over the grass. Back through the soft light of the farm buildings, bound for hearth and home.

‘What’s that?’

Ren’s ears heard the sound as if through water. Cries were starting to go up around the farm. Fearful voices on the dusky air. The old hound poked its head through the open doorway, sniffing at the air. Ren’s eyes were blurring. There was something cold in his gut, twisted like ice, and when he looked north, another column of smoke had joined the first, bled thick and hot into the gathering dark.