Chapter 25

Snow capped the roof of the little house in a neat wafer, and smoke rose from the chimney, giving the place a cozy look. With the sunrise, the wind had begun to pick up. It hinted of warmth, carrying the smell of spring; green things ready to grow. The coming day promised to be bright and clear.

Farmer Sagget stood on his porch, watching Tythos approach with a pipe in his hand. His skin was the color of the dirt of the valley, his hair gone gray, his face lined and etched by age, and sun. He wore a knowing look as Tythos pulled his sledge to a stop. He looked at prone forms of Sigrun and Peony, then nodded, like he’d been expecting Tythos to show up with wounded.

“Let’s get them inside,” farmer Sagget said.

Upon entering the farmhouse, Tythos discovered there were three spots made up on the floor, near the fire. An iron pot was simmering on a hook above the fire, and the house smelled of herbs, roots and alcohol. It was a warm smell that filled the lungs and cleared the head.

They worked in silence, getting Peony and Sigrun positioned on the mats by the fire. Working together, they got Sigrun out of her armor. Tythos stepped and fetched as farmer Sagget cleaned wounds and applied pungent poultices.

Tythos felt steadied in this man’s presence as he handed him tools and helped him work. Eventually, farmer Sagget spoke, not looking up from what he was doing.

“Death stalked this valley last night,” he said.

It wasn’t a question, so Tythos waited for the man to continue.

“You show up with the dawn, lookin like a man who’s remembered how to live his life.” He worked in silence for a minute. “When you first came to me, you were bereft: a man who’d lost his will. Now you look fresh forged, like you begun doing what it was you were made for.” He looked up at Tythos. “But you’re looking at this girl like you’re unsure of yourself. Like maybe it’s wrong for you to have found your fire again.”

Tythos stared down at Sigrun, avoiding farmer Sagget’s gaze.

“She, saved me… using blood magic. She… made a deal with the nightmare. She sacrificed her…” Tythos swallowed, he couldn’t put words to it. “A big sacrifice. Now she’s tied to the nightmare. I don’t know if it’s right to let her live. The nightmare will try to use her to enter the world. I can’t let that happen. But after what she did— no doubt out of a sense of duty to the king,” Tythos spat the word like a curse. “I can’t… I can’t take her life.”

Tythos was quiet, looking down at Sigrun. She looked young lying there. Barely more than a child. He looked up at farmer Sagget. “I see a way forward now, but I already have to make a choice there’s no right answer to.”

Farmer Sagget studied him for a minute, then resumed his work before speaking.

“When given an opportunity to choose between life and death, life will always contain more possibility. If you choose to walk this path with her, you can’t say what the future will bring. Maybe good, but maybe bad. With life, there is hope, and the possibility of change. It is the harder path, for both of you.”

Tythos nodded, looking down at Sigrun and Peony.

“These two already did the impossible,” he said. “They killed a dragon. This is going to change the world.”

“Save your story,” farmer Sagget said. “We’re about to have company.”

***

Once moving, Bird spotted a set of tracks heading away from the blasted farm. He detoured to get a bearing on who had made them and which way they were headed. They led to the tree line by the stream. There he found Regina, curled up in her absurd layers of clothing, in the lee of the steep bank, fast asleep. He cleared his throat, and she startled awake, a knife appearing in her hand from her voluminous layers. She blinked at him, then put the knife away and stretched.

“You laid down to sleep with a dragon nearby?” Bird asked.

Regina bounded up the bank to stand beside him. She shrugged.

“Amor Fati,” she said.

Bird thought for a moment, then shook his head, “Love fate?”

Regina bobbed her head side to side, “Amor Fati is to embrace what cannot be controlled. Monstro was up there; I am down here, then— badabeu!” She flung her arms wide, indicating where the farm used to be with her chin. “Is dark and nothing I can do, so I sleep.”

“Well, seems to have worked out for you.”

“I find, is best not to worry into a knot when one cannot do.”

“You may be onto something, but right now, it’s time to walk. Come on.”

Bird led the way toward the little farm he’d seen with the smoke. The wind was picking up, blowing the snow and stinging his exposed skin. It reminded him of tracking the wolverines farther north. He wished he was there, doing that.

“You called it ‘monstro’. You know what that thing was, that bada-blew-up that farm?”

Regina was quiet. He glanced at her, but she was huddled in what looked like three cloaks, and he couldn’t read her expression.

“If you’re nodding, or shaking your head, you know I can’t see you right?”

She said something, but the wind whipped her words away.

“You’ll have to speak up, I’m upwind from you.”

“Le croque-mitaine,” she said, stepping closer. “How you say, thing mothers tell children will eat them if they are bad?”

Bird laughed, “The boogeyman? I’m pretty sure that’s who we agreed to deliver to Ginnung Gap, before he ran off and got himself killed. That was a dragon, and it’s a fair sight worse than the boogeyman.”

“Tythos is dead?” Regina stopped walking.

Bird turned and scowled at her, “Don’t stop! He’s gettin heavy.” He shifted Lance on his shoulders.

Regina caught up, and they resumed walking.

“He is dead? How?”

“More’n likely. He went to try and lure the dragon to the big soldier camp. After I leave this lump someplace warm and dry, I’m going to go have a look.”

“I’m coming too.” She tried walking beside him for a few paces, but began struggling in the deep snow, and fell in behind him again.

Bird shook his head, “You’d get in my way. You’re gonna do what I tell you, and stay where I put you, until I come get you. If the dragon’s still there, you’ll get us both killed. If it’s not, we’re already too late.”

She was quiet for several steps. “Too late?”

“To warn anyone. Our fool thaumaturge used magic on it, which means it’ll head to the closest city, or town, and burn it to the ground.”

“It can do this?”

“Badabeu, remember?”

“How can a thing like this be, and there are cities? Only talk of dragon I hear is babbling of drunks. I think is more superstition.”

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“I’m surprised you don’t know more about this,” Bird glanced at her. “Given what you do.”

“What I do…” Regina trailed off. Bird glanced at her again, but only saw billowing cloaks. She looked like an overstuffed scarecrow.

“Yeah, yeah. I know you’re all shadowy. Whatever, we all gotta make a living under the king, don’t we?”

“Shadowy… Yes, what I do is this. But also is what I am told… Shadowy.” She sounded bitter.

“Figures. Right hand don’t know what left hand and all that shit. Well, I’ll make it simple. There’s a deal that keeps dragons outta cities and most towns, and by throwing magic around, it was just broken.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah, oh.”

They walked in silence until the farmhouse came into sight. Bird spotted a trail leading right up to the door. Fresh footprints and sign of something heavy being dragged. As he got closer he spotted what had been used as the litter.

“Ho-lee shiiit,” he said, dropping his burden and reaching down to touch the large piece of dragon-wing.

“That man must have more lives than the god of cats…”

***

All three mats by the fire were filled, and Bird, Regina and Tythos sat in sturdy wooden chairs as they caught each other up on the events of the past night. Tythos was eating as he spoke, farmer Sagget having made them breakfast after seeing to Lance. Bird’s food sat in his lap, forgotten as he listened, open mouthed, to the story. Tythos had a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth as he told what he knew of the dragon’s death. He left out the part where Sigrun saved his life. That was hers to tell.

Regina had eaten and was sitting quietly, no expression on her face. She was studying Tythos with an intensity that was making him uncomfortable. When he finished his story, he turned to her,

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You sound like him; you act like him, but you are younger man than who I am meeting yesterday,” she said.

“She’s right,” said Bird. “I wasn’t going to say nothin, it already isn’t the most unbelievable thing I’ve seen today, but you look twenty, maybe thirty years younger than when I last saw you.”

Tythos looked from one to the other, trying to figure out what they were trying to pull. It sounded like a bad joke. It was the sort of thing he expected from the nightmare, but didn’t fit what little of what he knew of these two. They both looked back at him without a hint of insincerity. Tythos looked over at farmer Sagget, who was sitting by the fire with his pipe. He blew a neat little smoke ring and met his eye. Farmer Sagget nodded,

“You do look younger,” farmer Sagget said. “I suspect it has to do with what we talked about before.” He gave a subtle nod in Sigrun’s direction.

Tythos reached up and felt at his face, not sure what he expected. It felt like his face. He cursed under his breath, and shook his head. Then he looked down at his hand, the one that wasn’t black. Really looked at it. He cursed again and leapt up, ripping off his shirt and looking down at himself.

Feeling gobsmacked, Tythos walked out the front door and into the snow. He stood there, letting the wind pelt his exposed torso with ice. Enjoying the sting of the cold.

It was his body that he saw. His arms and his chest. It had the old familiar scars, gone white and tough. It was just as he remembered it being: when he’d met with the tribes of northmen, over thirty years ago.

“Not again…” He said, his words lost to the morning snd the wind.

***

Bridge rose and walked to the door, looking out at the bear of a man that was Tythos. The metaphor fit, the man was built like a bear, thick chest and arms, standing in the snow in nothing but thin pants. It didn’t appear to bother him in the least. Tythos stood twenty paces off the porch, with his back to the door.

“I’d leave him be, for now,” said the old man smoking the pipe. “Let the man have a few minutes to think.”

Bird turned and looked at him. The man had tended to Lance with a deft hand, showing the skills of a healer. Judging by the state Sigrun and Peony were in, the old man had saved their lives. Bird shut the door and stepped closer to the fire.

Bird studied the man. He’d introduced himself as John Sagget. Bird squatted near him, glancing at Regina. She was looking at the door like she wanted to go after Tythos. He shook his head.

“Tell me something, John,” Bird said. “You know that man well?” He indicated the closed door with a gesture.

The old man gave him a level look over his pipe. It seemed to go right through him. He could feel it like a physical force. Bird grew uncomfortable under the stare before John Sagget spoke,

“You can call me Mr Sagget. I know Tythos as well as anyone, I expect. We been neighbors for a while now. Who’s asking?”

Under the stare, Bird felt compelled to justify himself. To speak of his years in the wilds, of learning the ways, then his years spent looking after people before he was allowed to carry the title: hunter. He almost spoke of his efforts in the war, the time he spent relocating people, teaching them how to live far from cities and towns. How to stay small, so they didn’t attract the attention of the hungry things. Dragons were far from the only man eaters in the wild. He opened his mouth to say he volunteered to be one of those who guided the traveling traders once every three years. The supply lines brining essentials that the common people in remote places depended on. Instead, he said,

“Did you know, Mr Sagget, the practice of herbalism is forbidden by edict of the king?” He cast a glance at the jars and shelves in the house, full of damning evidence of just this. “Practicing healers who are caught, are to suffer immediate loss of status. Commons who are caught, are to be put to death.” Bird looked at the three party members laid out in front of the fire. The old man puffed on his pipe, waiting for him to continue.

“These people who’s lives you just saved, work for the king. I’m their guide. Hired on to be hunter for their journey. If they take it into their heads to report you…” he paused for a long moment, “they will never make it back to make that report.” He glanced at Regina, who was listening impassively. She shrugged at him.

“Never borrow trouble,” Regina said. “Also, do not repay good with evil.”

Bird looked at her. He wasn’t sure if that meant she agreed or not. He turned back to Mr Sagget, who was still looking at him with his penetrating stare.

“I’ve agreed to take this party,” Bird continued. “Including the old Tyrant— who now looks young enough to be my son— to Ginnung Gap. I have just learned, this group may have made the most important discovery in history… how to slay a dragon. I’m the only thing standing between them and certain death, as we travel. I’m the guy who wants to know how deep in the shit he’s gotten himself. That’s who I am.”

Bird leaned back. He’d said more than he intended to. It was the stare the man was giving him.

“Well,” Mr Sagget said, after a long pause. “You’ve got your work cut out for you. You askin because you want the measure of Tythos? I’ll tell you. That’s a man who’s determined to change the world.”

“He’s already done that,” Bird snapped.

“Sit with your mouth shut a spell,” the gaze became a glare, and Bird held up his hands. The glare relented. “He tried to change the world, and failed. He sees injustice, and he can’t let it lie. He makes his own way to tryin’a right it. The problem is, he’s too quick to judge, and doesn’t know how to forgive. That’s mostly cause he won’t forgive himself. You’d do well to work hard to help him see the world you do, or he’ll run you over the first misunderstanding you have.”

Bird was quiet a moment, but Mr Sagget’s stare drew words out of him, like water from a well. He found himself answering though he had not intended to say more.

“Injustice? The man started a war that damn near burned down half the world. I saw first hand the pain this man has caused. Villages burned, people starving, tens-of-thousands killed in the fighting, then more die after, when order breaks down and the remote places are consumed by the wilds. Then, then— he gets the throne! He wins! Which begins the worst years in the history of the kingdom—“ Regina cut in,

“Were you there? In Highfall?” She said.

“No, I was organizing supply trains for people who were starving,” Bird said.

“I was,” Regina said. “I grew up in Highfall. I have starved, in Highfall. This? This is first I have left the city. That years you speak about? You are wrong. For those like me, who grew up with nothing, it was best years we ever have.”

“What about the riots? The fires? People died in Highfall those years, Regina.”

She smiled at him, no humor in her eyes, “People die every year in that city. The reason you hear about these years you speak of, is people doing the dying were not only the common. The people doing the riot, were the wealthy, the citizen!” Regina stood and walked to the door. “Those years, was best years I ever have in city. Was years I learn hope. Many learn hope those years. Without Tythos, I am dead, not surviving. You are wrong about him.”

She opened the door and left. Bird looked at the closed door for a moment, then shook his head. He’d met Tythos sympathizers before. In his experience, they were people who turned a blind eye to the damage the war caused. They didn’t travel and see the large-scale breakdown of trade and supply structure. He’d spent the last decade trying to repair the damage, and to make the remote places more self sufficient.

Bird had to admit that Tythos was not what he expected. That didn’t mean there was a way to justify the war he’d started. To say all the pain and death he’d caused was right. War was no way to make meaningful changes. Sure, Bird could admit he didn’t agree with the king. Outlawing the practice of herbalism, for example, Bird did not think that was right. He wasn’t about to start a war over it though. Instead, he’d helped many of the practicing healers move to the remote places where the king’s grip was weaker.

He turned and looked at Mr Sagget. If he didn’t have his hands full with this party, he’d make just such an offer to this man. Bird stood and walked to the door. He wanted to see the dragon for himself. Tythos had gotten enough time.

“She has a point you shouldn’t dismiss,” said Mr Sagget.

Bird looked at him, but said nothing. He wasn’t going to get drawn into another argument.

“I was there too,” Mr Sagget continued. “Those years. In Highfall. I wasn’t always a farmer.” He gestured with his pipe. “Now go see the dragon, I can see you’re itching to leave.”

Bird looked at him for another moment, then stepped outside. Regina was standing on the porch staring at Tythos. Bird stepped up beside her. The man had stripped to his small clothes and was using the snow to scrub his skin clean.

“You think it was his mother, or his father?” Bird asked.

Regina looked over at him, “I do not understand. His mother or father, what?”

Bird looked at the man bathing in the snow, “The way I figure it, one of them had to be a bear.”

Regina laughed. “Probably mother was bear. I hear stories about the northmen.”

Bird dug in a pocket and pulled out a copper coin, “I’ll give you a copper to go ask him that. Just walk up, lay a hand on his arm, bat your eyes at him, and ask him if he’s a son-of-a-bear.”

Regina scoffed and shoved him, “No way, you go bat the eyes at him. I am doing no such thing.”

Bird stepped off the porch, “Missed opportunity. Now let’s go see a dragon.”

***