Chapter Thirty-Three - After the Storm

It was dark outside, and his grandfather was singing to him.

He was back in the clouds.

They clawed at his skin, floating, howling, hot as flame. He tried to flee, but there was only the dark, twisting, boiling, drawing him on into the night, blood frothing against his skin, and the fear of it filled him, complete and dark and hopeless.

Then they were parting. The wind howled, lashing them with lightning, and the clouds split, torn open as if by blades. Ren stared at them, breathless with cold. The mountains would be waiting. They always were. Mountains. Jagged peaks, capped with shadow. Black sands beyond. The end of the world. Waiting to swallow him whole.

But then the clouds parted, and the gleam of it filled his blood with fire. A city, white as snow, touched by pale moonlight. A battle. Blood on the stones. And a garden, full of fire. Fire, and death.

Breathless with the ache of it.

*

Ren blinked. Was that thunder?

He looked north. Moonlight slipped like silver water over the grasslands, hills, patchwork trees, rustling in the breeze. But the storm was gone, and the night was quiet. He looked back at the little toy soldier in the palm of his hand, turning it over in his fingers. Its edges were worn smooth, and its face was a rounded sliver of formless silver.

‘Sleep, boy.’

The man who had been the fortuneteller was watching him in the dark, silver light picking out the grotesque lines of his ruined face. He was sitting against a broad oak trunk, and his hunched back rose up behind his head in the half-light, looming over the mane of knotted hair. His short staff lay across his knees, notched and worn almost as badly as he was.

‘I can’t.’

The hunchback didn’t reply. They were sitting in the lee of a little stand of trees, crouched at the foot of a low hill. The ponies snickered, heads bent low over the grass, and, beside them, the fortuneteller’s cart with its white eye mark lurked unevenly against the trees. Ren had no idea how far they’d come, sagging, half-awake in his seat, before the hunchback had finally steered them off the road. There had been no fire. No food. Just cold dirt, and scarcely two hours till dawn. He looked at the ponies, again; it turned out the animals his grandfather had found for them were Wil and Pol, inseparable even now, and apparently unscathed from their brush with fire in the stables. Quite indifferent to their new surroundings, too, though Ren couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt for Trin. He wondered what his friend would do, when he found his pony missing. He wondered if he would care that Ren was gone, with them. He shivered, shrugging himself deeper into his cloak.

‘You said you knew my mother.’ he said quietly, looking up at his new caretaker. The hunchback’s broad, twisted head was wreathed in shadow, and his ruined lips seemed curled into a permanent sneer. He looked old, older than his grandfather, at least. But he didn’t move like it, somehow. Filthy, cruel, twisted. Grotesque. The thought that this man had known his mother better than he ever would made his mouth fill with bile.

‘Aye. I knew her.’ he replied at last, then fell quiet again. The first pale shadows of dawn were beginning to flare in the east. Ren scowled.

‘Who are you, then? What do you want with me?’ he demanded, voice dripping scorn. ‘Or do you expect me to believe you’re doing this out of kindness?’

The hunchback turned to look at him, and his dark eyes flashed gold.

‘Believe what you want, boy. I am a watcher. That is all.’ he said quietly, and his eyes bored into Ren’s, filling him with shivers. ‘But I made a promise. And I always keep my promises.’

Ren glared back at him for a moment, then slumped back, heat fading from his cheeks.

‘I still don’t know your name.’ he said suddenly.

‘What?’

‘What do I call you?’

‘Does it matter?’ the fortuneteller grumbled back, staring off into the dark.

‘It does to me.’ Ren told him.

The old hunchback thought for a moment, then looked over at him, smiling lopsidedly through his jagged teeth.

‘You can call me Root.’

Ren stared back at him, frowning. Then he nodded.

‘Alright, then. Root.’

They sat in silence for a while longer, watching nothing. Somewhere in the gloom behind them, the farm was smoking in the dead dark before dawn. Farmers were picking through the ruins of the barn, binding the burned, coughing up smoke. How long would it take them, to rebuild? Would they even notice he was gone?

‘Are they still out there?’ he asked quietly, looking out over the fields. ‘The Brothers?’

‘Yes.’ the man called Root told him. ‘But they are hiding, for now.’

‘What about the others, then? The other boys.’

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‘Masks won’t show themselves on that farm of yours for some time, boy. Your friends are safe enough.’

Ren frowned, looking down at the dirt.

‘Hector…’

‘He’s dead.’ Root told him, shadows shifting over his eyes. ‘But you only die once, boy. Be grateful for that.’

Hector, slumping empty into the gloom, a mask looming over him, dead eyes gleaming.

‘Hector… He used to say Brothers aren’t men at all, anymore.’ Ren said quietly.

‘Most of them are men, still.’

‘What about the ones that aren’t?’

‘Something else. Something older.’ the hunchback told him, looking away into the dark.

‘Bonemen.’ Ren murmured. ‘From the East.’

‘From the Darkness.’

Ren followed his eyes into the dark, watching shadows racing over the grass, and shivered.

‘Thank the Makers none of them are here.’

‘Yet.’

Ren swallowed, pursing his lips. Beside him, the hunchback drew a battered skin out of his patchwork cloak, holding it to his mouth and taking a long draught. He saw Ren watching him, and held it out to him, expressionless. Ren hesitated for a moment, then took it, putting it to his lips. He gasped as the liquid raced hot as embers over his tongue, his throat, then surged outwards, filling his body with heat, till even his toes were tingling. He took a long, slow breath, closing his eyes, and let the lingering warmth of it swallow up his shivers.

‘Naptha.’ he said after a while, opening them again.

‘You’ve had it before?’

‘Yes.’ he replied, handing Root back the skin.

The hunchback growled in the back of his throat, and Ren realised he was chuckling.

‘Old goat always was fond of it.’

‘He…’ Ren began, swallowing the last of the honeyed heat. ‘He’s a Greycloak?’

‘Who told you that, boy?’

‘Everyone.’

The hunchback snorted. ‘Not everyone dressed in grey is a Greycloak.’

‘What about you?’

‘What about me?’

‘What… What are you?’

The fortuneteller looked at him, scarred face turned silver by moonlight.

‘It’s been a long while since I stopped trying to answer that question.’

Ren didn’t know what to say to that. Instead, he looked down at the nightglass pendant hanging around his neck, fingering the smooth black stone with his fingers. It was heavier than he remembered. He frowned, tracing the silver lines running through the teardrop-shaped stone, thin as gossamer-string. The markings looked almost like a silver tree, buried in the smooth blackness of the nightglass, branches fanning out in pale lines towards the surface. It had been his mother’s. That’s what his grandfather always said. He realised he’d never looked that closely at it.

‘You knew.’ he said at last, still looking at it.

‘Knew what, boy?’

‘About the brothers.’ Ren replied, looking up at him. ‘’A mask on fire, you said.’

‘Black stones and silver fire.’ the old hunchback snorted. ‘Mirrors and parlour tricks, boy, nothing more.’

‘But you knew!’

‘I told you, boy. I am a watcher.’ the strange, twisted man told him, eyes catching gold in the moonlight. ‘And I was watching.’

The nightglass pendant weighed cold against his skin, and the restless wind whispered over the trees. Ren stared out into the dark, and even the naptha couldn’t keep the cold knot in his gut from twisting. He sighed.

‘They’ll think it’s my fault. That I’m why the Brothers came.’ he said after a while. ‘And they’re right. I could have warned them. I could have said something. But I didn’t. I couldn’t stand the way they looked at me. The boy with the death mark. He brought this on us.’

The hunchback didn’t reply, head wreathed in shadow.

‘Maybe they’re right. I'm bad luck, everyone knows it.’ he frowned, looking off into the dark. ‘Maybe it’s all been my fault. My mother. Ted. Werla. Hector. The fire. All of it. Ever since the night I was born I’ve been nothing but bad luck. Even my grandparents couldn’t keep me safe.’

‘Fate’s just a lie lesser men tell themselves, when the world pushes back.’ the fortuneteller said suddenly, and Ren looked up to find his dark eyes staring back at him, gleaming. ‘A lie to make themselves feel warm, when the night’s at its darkest. When they want anyone to blame but themselves.’

His scars gleamed, and his eyes flashed gold.

‘But we all make our own fate, boy. And we’ve all got regrets. Sometimes, to be decent men, we have to do indecent things. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter at all. You can spend your time feeling guilty, or you can keep moving forward. One foot in front of the other. Same as everyone else.’

‘Towards what?’

‘Being better.’ the grotesque man replied, still staring at him. Ren looked back at him, then lowered his eyes, shivering.

‘That’s why you’re taking me, then? To be better?’

The hunchback shook his head.

‘A bargain was made. A bargain must be kept.’

‘What bargain? By who? My parents?’ Ren asked, frowning. His mind felt for a moment full of fog, and he was back in the clouds again, tossed by the wind. A garden. He blinked.

‘Who were they, to you?’

The twisted old hunchback turned, meeting his eye, then stiffened suddenly.

‘Quiet!’ He hissed. He was up on the balls of his feet, misshapen body taut as a bowstring, staring into the trees behind them. Ren followed his eyes, listening. Nothing stirred. He looked back at the man who was Root, and the hunchback met his eye, holding a finger to his lips. Then he darted forward and vanished into the trees, crouched low against the ground, quiet as a shadow. Ren stared after him, wide-eyed. Black Hand. The Brothers had found them. There was a thick swatch of oak in the dirt beside him, and he curled his fingers around it, squeezing them white as bone. His heart pounded in his chest, and he craned his ears, staring into the gloom. The ponies snickered nervously, shifting in the loam, and the white eye blinked back at him from the wagon, watching. Ren waited.

Then there was a sudden rustling in the bushes beside him, and a figure emerged breathlessly into clearing. Ren shot to his feet and threw the branch over his head, ready to strike, then let it fall, blinking.

‘Trin?’

‘Ren, quickly!’ the other boy hissed, gesturing for him to follow. His ruddy face was still half-streaked with soot, and his cloak was wet with rain. ‘Before he comes back!’

‘Trin, what are you-’

‘Come on, quick!’ Trin said, grabbing him by the arm. ‘We have to get you out of here.’

‘I-’

There was a sudden crack, and Trin’s eyes went slack. He crumpled face down onto the ground at his friend’s feet, leaving Ren staring at the fortuneteller’s ruined head, staff held ready in both hands.

‘What did you do’? Ren demanded, dropping to his knees beside his friend, turning him over carefully. The boy’s ruddy face was pale in the moonlight, and his eyes were closed. There was a thin line of blood running across the edge of his temple, and a fresh bruise was swelling at his brow. The hunchback sat down with his back against a tree trunk and began to wipe the end of his staff on the grass indifferently.

‘You know him?’

‘Yes, I know him!’ he took Trin’s face in both hands, shaking him gently. ‘Trin?’

‘Won’t be waking anytime soon.’ the hunchback told him darkly.

‘What did you do?’ Ren said again, looking up at him accusingly. ‘He’s my friend!’

‘Your friend was creeping around in the dark.’ Root replied.

‘He must have followed us.’ Ren shot back, cradling Trin’s head against his knee. ‘We have to take him back to the farm!’

‘Leave him.’ Root told him, expressionless. ‘Dawn is coming. There’s no time.’

‘He could die if we leave him here!’ Ren snarled, scowling at him. ‘What if the Brothers find him?’

‘Then he dies. There are worse fates.’ the hunchback straightened, lifting his staff. ‘We cannot go back.’

‘Then we take him with us!’ Ren said desperately. ‘Or… Or you’ll have to leave me here with him!’

Silence. The old hunchback stared at him in the soft light of the moon, and Ren stared back, cheeks hot with anger. The breeze moved over the tops of the trees, and the ponies snickered. Then Root snorted, stepping back.

‘We should get moving. We’ll move slower with three.’

With that he turned on his heel and stumped off towards the ponies, grumbling. Ren exhaled hard, looking down at Trin, but his friend didn’t stir. The sun was rising over the trees. Somewhere in the distance, the Swiftwater rumbled, and beyond that?

Well... Ren couldn’t know for sure.