NO GRAVE BUT THE FIELDS - stories by Costa Koutsoutis

It was deep winter, the snow heavy and thick on the ground, trees frosted in ice after a week of snow and cold rain. There was no sound in the woods, as if they were too tired to even breathe, like life was sitting back into a pile of furs before a fire, too tired to move. The shelter was covered in snow, its opening slight, unmoving, the single small point sticking out of it, barely visible.

There was a sudden crack and a ground creature of sorts, a rabbit, Alla thought, cut across her vision in the white, and she ignored it as it skittered across the snow and left light prints, waiting, still silent, still quiet. She’d been in the little shelter between two trees for two days, waiting for him, and finally, he came.

The black wolf came into the clearing ahead of her, in a crash of snow-covered brambles and the dust of it all scattering, and she knew he was frustrated. The rabbit was long-gone, his makeshift pack probably also gone, and he was mean, lean with winter starvation...and had taken Sten badly in the leg as he was helping to fell a tree at the edge of the woods two weeks ago. He was laid up, feeling bad about it, and Alla and Quinn felt that a nice black pelt-trimmed cloak would be the perfect way to make the old soldier feel better.

The black was paused now in the clearing and pacing, frustrated, sniffing. She knew he smelled her but couldn’t see her, and softly, Alla pulled back on the bowstring inside her little shelter, as the wolf turned right in her sight and stared into the dark of the shelter…

Quinn was supervising some of the woodsmen digging a path through the snowbanks to the entrances in the wall and to the tower, white cold and wet packed like earthen breastwork. She turned to see Alla coming out of the treeline, swathed in furs, bow and quiver across her back...dragging something on a rude sled of branches behind her, black and furry. The hunter waved, and Quinn waved back. “Got ‘im?” she barked, grinning and reaching into her tunic to take the small flask out, passing it to the other woman. “Thanks,” Alla said, taking a swig, “Needed that, he took his sweet time coming out,” she said, motioning over her shoulder.

“Thinner’n a wet sick shit,” Quinn said, prodding the wolf’s carcass with a snow-caked boot. “Quick enough to get Sten, though,” Alla retorted, dragging it along towards the stone tower. She was living in the small hut most of the time made homey with blankets and bits of furniture she’d traded fresh hunts for with the woodsmen, staying in the barracks with Quinn when it got too cold though even for the roaring fire she’d get going in the hearth. Also, the skinning and butchering racks were too unwieldy to have anywhere but the big courtyard. The two women continued to talk as they walked towards the winter bustle of people and life, and from the tower’s doorway, the yeoman Lin waved, “Got him, I see!”

“Welcome home,” Quinn said cheerily, passing Alla the flask again.

Home, Alla thought. She was home.

-

The trees broke into a slow slope towards a lake, woods and what she realized were the Worldwall Mountain range in the distance. Tree stumps were scattered along the edge of the woods and she realized they were clearing the land. By the late was a wooden palisade, the thick trunks lashed together. What drew her attention though as the old man took of his cap and sighed, taking in the sight, and the woman patted Alla on the back and smiled was the stone tower. “How long has this been here?” she said, blurting it out, feeling like a backwoods rube for the first time. It was huge, she felt, looking up at it. Old, but huge, the top part open where the stones had collapsed, but still taller than any building than she’d ever seen. It even came above the nearby trees. “Can you see far from the top?” she turned to Quick, who grinned. “Oh, far enough. Used to be higher, I hear, ‘til it collapsed, or caught fire.”

“Lightnin’, I heard,” Simple said, tucking his cap into his belt as the three walked toward a building build up against the wooden wall, a long building that looked like Milo’s longhall. The door to it opened and a man strode out in a tunic over a shiny metal shirt, mail rings, a sword and dagger on his belt too, and Alla realized this must be the lord. She stuttered as he shook hands with Quick and Simple, bowing. “M-m’lord,” she said, not looking up.

“Hunter we met, lookin’ for work. She’s from Bear’s Son, you can believe it,” Simple said, and the lord laughed. “Look up, girl, I’m just the yeoman, I don’t know why these two told you I was a lord,” he said. “Name’s Lin, though most have called me Ironmouth, since I did a lot of talkin’ with this,” he smiled broadly. “Welcome to Deepvalley.” Quick leaned into his ear, speaking softly, and he nodded. “So, you a hunter? We could use one honestly, come on,” he said. “Sten and Quinn said they saw your smoke a day ago, wanted to see who was out there,” the man continued, Alla and the woman, Quinn she assumed, followed him towards the stone tower. “Won this, y’might say, for fighting for the lord of Old Stump.

“Got a smith, couple of farmer families willing to take a chance, a dozen guards, and a healer, but mostly woodsmen and their families. Last lordling who tried to settle here had the dock set up for fishing, which is...something, I guess,” Lin said, as they all sat at a round table in the tower’s first floor. The walls were rough gray stone, a few rotten tapestries hanging, torches shoved into crude sconces and a fire pit smoldering. “Not much, but I’m trying to make something here, so m’lord telling me to start and run a lumber camp here, well, figured it’s a good way to make a claim for myself in the world, if you know what I mean.” The older soldier appeared as the yeoman poured wine, Sten leaning down with a sheaf of papers. “Piss...excuse me,” he said, immediately getting back up to stride back outside, Alla alone now with Quinn. “He’s not bad, just busy,” she said, sipping her wine, feet up on another chair. “This place was a dump when we got here. First thing we did was build the wall and then that house for him, though he insists on using it as an “office,” sleeping in this dump.” The warrior motioned at the tower around them. “Anyway,” she said, “We brought supplies for this first winter with us, and fish what we can, but someone hunting and foraging regularly would be a boon, honestly. Old Gara the healer, he’ll pay for anything you can gather for him, he’s usually looking for whatever. Had some run-ins with shitty wolves too.

“You could sleep in the barracks, got a bunk next to mine that’s free,” Quinn continued, and Alla looked down at her cup, untouched, feeling overwhlemed. She hadn’t had a drink in...how long had it been? How long had she been travelling? People, again? Someplace loud with others around, again not like her small room in Bear’s Son. It felt good to be warm and dry, even in the draftiness of the stone keep. She kept still, the moment quiet and awkward, until she heard a cough. “Actually,” the older woman said, a look in her eye, standing up, “Get your stuff, got a better idea.”

The two of them outside, walked along the northern wall, past the gate that wasn’t so much built, Alla thought, as cut into the wood, a barricade across it, another in the gambeson shirt and leather tunic standing watch with axe and shield, something painted on it. The two nodded to each other, and Alla realized she shouldn’t dawdle too much, following in a haze. “Wh...who are you all?”

“Fought with Lin for Old Stump, followed him when he asked after he got his yeoman reward running this ol’lovely spot.” Quinn was looking for something along the tree line, half paying attention, and pointed vaguely. “I’m from Fireseat up a ways, originally, figured this was a good halfway between my ma and my loyalty to Lin,” she said, “Quinn’s the same, fought with Lin and Lin’s father, most of us did, made sense to follow him here. Got away from fighting against Reed, at least” she spit on the ground. “There it is,”

“Against Reed? What? But...I thought…” Alla wavered, the sentence lost as she saw what Quinn was motioning to, her voice trailing. It was a cabin, a small one, the door crooked, but inside, she looked as Quinn watched, arms crossed. There was a chest, a hearth made of blackened stone, a frame for a bed criss-crossed with rope. “I can bring ya some kindling for fire, some stuff for bedding if you need,” the woman said, “there’s an axe somewhere for firewood, I think too, you could use, and a pot if you need.” Alla let her pack fall onto the wooden frames of the bed, touching the walls. She looked back out the open doorway as Quinn kept talking, “We found this when we showed up, probably some hunter’s spot or was going to be a watchtower for the keep. Falls in th’range of our authority, so to speak,” she spit on the ground outside the doorway, “Figured a hunter working to clear wolves and get some rabbit and fowl for the communal stew pot, would be able to keep this place, make it somethin’ nice, ya know?”

“Haaa!”

Alla swung the axe overhead, moving through the motions, practicing. She’d been trying every day at dawn and dusk to get used to its weight, the balance, get more comfortable with it. It wasn’t like a woodcutter’s axe, the blade was thinner, the haft shorter, and she struggled to not tip over every time she swung too hard, holding it in one hand. It’d felt more natural when warding off the wolves, but she’d been desperate then. She hated the idea of it, because it was Milo’s, but she figured when she got to Old Stump she could maybe trade it for something else, like even a sword.

The thought of Old Stump made her pause, “fuck it,” she said, slumping to sit on the ground by her small fire. She’d been heading east-ish, but moving lazily, hunting more, staying in the same campsites for more than one night. She’d decided to randomly go north a day ago, putting it off, putting it off...knowing that winter was fast approaching. She could go to Fireseat where Milo was from, but then, why wouldn’t he have told her about going there? Was there something wrong with Fireseat that he was so insistent on Old Stump?

Regardless, she knew she had to make a decision soon. If she was going to stay out here, she’d need a real shelter, not a tent or up in a tree, or she’d need to get to a town and ask if she could work for her food. But the idea of a big town made her anxious, a pit in her stomach and her breath came hard.

There was a rustling around the little clearing in the bushes, and she whirled, axe up and dagger out, breathing ragged, brain completely in survival mode. Alla had been avoiding anything that might attract wolves to her, hiding her middens and scraps in pits, sleeping up in trees, suffering the cold while a fire would burn below, anything she could think of from the tricks the older hunters had taught her. She’d even, that day when she’d come down from the tree, retrieved and tried to repair the arrows from the ground and in the one wolf, knowing that they were too precious to waste and unsure if she’d be able to replace them. One had been salvageable, at least, and she’d been able to get the iron arrowhead from the other to use later. But her bow and quiver were on the other side of her small camp, she didn’t even have the bronzed discs of the armored vest on, she realized. This was it, this was it, this was it, this wa…

The bushes parted and a man and woman approached, hands up. They were footmen, in long leather tunics over the kind of quilted shirt she wore. The man had a leather cap on, face lined and craggy, the kind of face that Milo had, she realized. Resigned to their position, skilled, self-assured, but not cruel or boastful. Simple, she thought. She’d call him simple, Alla thought in the second. He had a sword and dagger on his belt, but didn’t reach for them. “Easy, lass,” he said, a voice like gravel coming out, “We saw your smoke, wanted to see if y’were friendly, you know,” he said. “The lord asked us to find you,” the other said, a woman, in the same outfit, but no cap, and she realized that they were soldiers for a lord, in uniform. “Are...are we near Old Stump?” She said, lowering her weapons slowly, but not entirely. The woman also wore a sword, a bow and quiver on her back, and she shook her head as she took it off, the two lookign at each other. “A few days south, I guess?” The man nodded, “We’re from...well, guess’ts new, I suppose. Lord calls it Deepvalley, just an hour over,” she said, pointing eastwards. “Got a camp set up, for fellin’ trees, gonna be a new town.”

A new town? “Where you from, girl?” Simple said, “Ain’t no towns for days, weeks.” Alla, looking betweene the two, the older man with his hands up and the woman ignoring him now, warming her hands by the small fire, she sighed, putting the axe and dagger back on her belt. “Bear’s Son,” she said, picking up her canteen, drinking, passing it to the man.

The older man indicated he didn’t know it, but the woman soldier’s eyes got wide. “Hell’s piss, that’s almost three weeks west? What the hells are you doing here?” she asked, taking the canteen, sipping, handing it back to Alla as she stood up and brushed off the long leather tunic that went to her knees. It was a uniform, but Alla realized compared to what she thought a soldier’s uniform might look, it was almost...dirty. “Looking for work? I don’t know if the lord’s gonna want any more guards, but a hunter nearby’s a good thing, should be a few weeks of hunting left before the snow falls, huh?” She picked up her bow and arrows as the older man looked around. “You know, ‘M sure the lord would want to meet you, maybe ask you t’stay,” she said. “No pressure, but can’t hurt to sleep indoors by a fire, at least tonight?” Alla thought about it. There wasn’t anything about these two that were like the wandering mercenaries who’d come to Bear’s Son before, swaggering with weapons bared, bristling with danger. The man Simple reminded her of Milo for sure, the woman...the way she moved confidently, the way Quick, because that’s how Alla’s mind thought of her, wore her sword and bow, waiting for Alla’s answer, she felt like this was what she should be, how she should hold herself.

Alla stayed in the tree for a day.

She was wedged in well enough, and finally resorted to her trail food, able to loop the pack to her front so she could dig them out. She wet her throat with some water, chewing, breathing as the rain died off completely, letting the poison of fear out of her, tear by tear.

The last time she’d felt like this was...when was it? She couldn’t remember, some holiday in Bear’s Son when she’d missed her parents, even though it’d been so long since they’d died, the celebrations around her in the village and the hall driving her somewhere behind a rainbarrel, crying hysterically until someone, probably Milo, had found her. He was the one who’d called it the poison of fear, and how important it was to cry it out, get it all out like the drops of venom a snake pushed into you. It had to be pushed out, he’d said, old woman Rinn nodding in agreement, babbling about the girl being hungry, pushing food and a sweet into her hands as they’d crowded her back to the fire.

That was something about Bear’s Son Alla missed right now, looking down the tree into the afternoon and hearing a soft rustling, the wolves probably close. Everyone helped others out, something she’d heard not all the villages did, letting an orphan stay and be cared for by everyone. After that cry she’d played, some of the other children she knew playing with her out of pity on orders of their parents, but still, she figured as she swallowed the last mouthful and put the water and dried meat into her pack, cinching it tight again, it’d helped. It’d been the last time she’d let poison out, or had poison to get out. Bear’s Head had been her home.

“No more poison,” she muttered to herself, taking stock. She had the height, about a day’s water if she was careful, her axe and dagger, and bow and arrows. If she could get them to come out of the brush...but no, shit. They’d know to wait until she was close, and grimacing, she unslung the bow, tugging an arrow free and aiming down at the dirt below, partially drawing. Alla hated wasting an arrow like this, but she wanted to count them. She loosed, the ironhead arrow THUNK-ing into the soil and falling leaves.

They came in a flash, brown and gray and one black, she thought, nosing, looking up at her. One, two, three...five...seven. Shit. Seven mangy half-starved wolves were a problem, and alone she didn’t think she could do this. Alla pulled another arrow free, drawing back, sighting...holding her breath, and release.

It hit the brown one, and the wolf squealed and fell over, thrashing. The rest took off in a flash, the brown one whimpering and on its side, unable to get up completely. It wasn’t dead yet, and the pathetic noises it was making was almost too much for her to bear. In a hurry she drew again, aiming for the long head, and snapped off another shot, putting it out of its misery. It was sloppy and wasteful, she chided herself, but leaving it to suffer like that was cruel, she reasoned, worth the arrow that probably broke off inside it. She drew a third and fourth arrow, might as well try to lure them out again. One on the bow, the other ready in her fingers to nock and draw, she pulled back, again the THUNK into the soil.

Nothing.

“Fuck!” she barked, they were onto her. She couldn’t stay up here, she should have tried to get more than one before, but wasn’t thinking. “Stupid,” Alla hissed and breathed deep. “OK, fuck it, let’s go,” she said, steadying herself.

The bow was useless now, and as she slowly slid down the tree, making sure it was all snug on her back, hand slick with sweat. She’d seen Milo do this once, when they’d fought the wolf that one time, but she’d been up on a roof with just her bow, watching. Once she was almost a man’s height from the ground, she stopped...hearing the rustling, and slowly unslung the axe and pulled the dagger, holding the hatchet blade loose in her grip, the dagger blade-up. Her feet touched the forest floor with a soft thump, and they came at her.

“AHHHHHH!” she yelled, trying to make herself large, loud, scary, and one backed up, unsure. Before the rest could do anything she stepped back with her back to the trunk swung out wildly with both arms at the same time, the dagger and axe extending her grip. The wolves paused, one growling, but not moving, the black one, the one her yell had scared, stepping back. Good, she thought, they knew what blades were, had experience with hunters, with steel. The black one was biggest, less rangy, she noticed, swinging and stepping forward again, another “AGRALALALALALALA!” loud in her throat and out her lips, and he stepped back again even as her axe swung close to a ragged ear, a brown wolf that immediately yelped and bolted into the brush. The rest weren’t growling, the black and the others now cautious, realizing that she might not be worth it after all this time.

“Now or never” she whispered to herself, and took a step to the left, exposing her back to the woods, and swung again, this time a deliberate move at the old rangy brown that still snarled, dagger narrowly missing its nose. Then the axe overhand at the one next to it, which barked and backed up, turning into the woods. The black wolf yapped, the rest turning into the brush, he, and she knew that a dirty mean wolf not part of a true pack was a he, stared at her a long time, tongue lolling. Then the black mass turned and slowly hopped, almost like a tame cat or a fox, over a log and into the woods, melting away.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck!”

Alla ran, foolishly, running at top speed through the trees in the rain, feeling the sweat soak her under the thick clothing that was now just heavy and cold, her hood off, rain in her hair, the thick tied-up bun of it unravelling and tangling with her pack and bow and quiver. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought. So stupid. She’d gotten lost, turned around while chasing a rabbit, figuring she could hunt rather than dip into her stores, the sun wasn’t visible for a moment...and now she was unsure where she was. Somewhere in the Old Wood, hopefully running east, towards Old Stump or even just the edge of the woods.

Then the wolves found her. Thin and mangy, a small group, probably cast-offs from true packs brought together from ugly desperation and a bad winter for them, good for places like Bear’s Son though, she thought briefly, possibly laughing as she breathed hard and leaned against a tree, looking around. A mangy pack would be dangerous but at home, a half-dozen archers on roofs could cut them down, the stringy meat and furs useful for communal stew and rags or leathers.

But she wasn’t at home, she thought, tightness in her throat for a moment.

There was a good chance they’d leave her alone, especially if the rain didn’t let up. She just...she had to wait. She had to wait them out, she took off again, hearing their thrashing in the brush, seeing through the rain a low-enough branch finally, breathing hard and jumping up, straining to pull herself up onto the branch, clinging to the wet bark hard with both arms. The growling under here in the wet dark was louder, and she didn’t stop, the weight of her cloak and pack and bow feeling like too much as she inched forward, reached up, kept climbing, didn’t stop. The trunk split and she leaned into the cleft of it, breathing, breathing...breathing, shivering for the first time she realized, shivering so hard she couldn’t stop. “G-godsdammit,” Alla muttered, out loud, realizing today was the first time in days she’d used and heard her own voice, teeth chattering. Below, the growling was lower now, but not gone, and she felt her fingers work to drag the hems of her cloak ‘round her, shivering so hard she was scared she’d fall out of the tree.

She was scared, Alla realized. She was scared, alone, wet and tired, up in the tree and lost, and for the first time, she realized she was scared and wanted nothing more than to be back in Bear’s Son, back in the hal...in Milo’s hall, at the fire listening to him talk about chores needing to be done, or sitting and listening to Enna telling her a story about her brother tripping and falling into the barrel of brewing ale their father had made, firelight making her freckled cheeks glow.

The rain began to slowly lessen, and Alla shivered one more deep time, knowing that meant the wolves would be staying down there now, waiting her out, and when she breathed out, her face felt full and stuffy and she cried, just letting loose and wailing against her arm, snot and tears hot against her wet cold face.

In the thick cloak and the garb Milo had given her, the pack over one shoulder, dagger and axe on her belt, with the bow and quiver wrapped up against the light rain, she realized as she walked south on the road out of the village that she appeared to be like any of the other lone hunters and mercenaries she’d encountered who would come to look for work or trade in the village when she was a child, and she felt a thrill, an odd feeling about it after the fear and anxiety of leaving. She was on her own, in the world!

The last time Alla had gone anywhere besides the woods was a farm a few miles over, helping a few villagers kill a wolf that had been harassing the farmer’s goats. Beyond that? She’d lived her whole life in the immediate area of the village and woods, and as she walked, realized she’d never had much thought about leaving the comfort of the village, of the warmth of the hall and of knowing that even with no one, she was not alone. Of course she’d thought about travelling, fantasies of seeing the world or meeting new people, but as time had gone on she’d never thought it was something that would happen for her, and she’d slowly accepted it, that Bear’s Son being her home, her place, the woods her real escape. Now though, with so much in front of her to find and seek out, everything felt so different, even the taste of the air. It made a knot wind and unwind in her stomach, both excited and nervous and back to excited again, interspersed with...fear?

No, guilt. She felt guilty for leaving, leaving Enna, leaving Milo, having this opportunity and still feeling scared and anxious about not being at home. She thought for turning back, running as fast as she could, armor and weapons clanking and she’d throw them all down at

“Milo, a yeoman,” Alla said to herself softly as she paused halfway through the day on the side of the road, the sun visible barely through the clouds. The rain had stopped but the clouds and chill remained, and she was glad for the new clothes. The armored vest felt odd but comforting to have on, and she fingered the axe in the loop at her belt.

Yeomen were the next step after the common folk and soldiers between them and nobility, landowners with property and holds or halls or farms to manage. Usually they were ex-soldiers who could be called on to fight and lead by their lords. Some, she’d heard, were richer than lords, rich in land and crops and loyal tenants, with keeps of stone and wood, not just a farmhouse or longhouse, and would be called up to fight sometimes by lords and kings to lead men. In the stories, knights and warriors with their own retinues were always dashing heroes in full plate armor on giant steeds. Milo just...didn’t seem like that in her mind, honestly, and she still struggled to think of him as a soldier at some point in bronze-disced armor with axe and dagger, or bringing men down with his bow and arrow on a field. He’d just always been Milo to her, to everyone really.

He and the others had talked about towns and cities fighting amongst themselves for land or things like cattle and goats and crops before the king in Silverseat forbid it finally, but that didn’t mean people didn’t fight. She chewed her trail meat and suddenly thought about how exposed she was, on the old king’s road there, alone. Alla remembered the few times the men and women of Bear’s Son had acted when unruly mercenaries, men who fought for whoever would pay, came looking for work and trade, but drank too much. It was the first time she’d seen a real fight, when one had tried to steal a cask of wine and hit the old woman who yelled at him for it, old Janna the widow. The elders suddenly had swords and daggers, and she’d never even seen them wearing weapons before, like they’d been hidden, but waiting for trouble. Nothing had happened and the men had moved along, but still, the memory of it made Alla look around nervously, aware of herself out in the open perched on a boulder on the side of the road. Across the road to the west was the far plains, meadows and low hills that seemed flat but in that tall brush and grass, she knew something could be hiding. Behind her to the east were the Old Woods, the edges of the forests she’d hunted for years, a mammoth terrain in the middle of the region full of trees, ripe for lumber and hunting. “Lumber,” she said softly out loud, and dug into the inside of her sleeve for the small rolled-up hide map she’d found in Milo’s house. It was older, because someone had added Bear’s Son to it after it’d been first drawn compared to the rest of the faded ink on it.

Still it was accurate enough, she reasoned, grabbing it as she’d left from the spot on the dresser. Whiteland and Old Stump were both to the east of where she was roughly, and both big growing timber towns. Whiteland even had a castle with a moat, she’d heard, either place would be perfect to set up as a local hunter for the inns, or even an archer in their home defense ranks. Better than trying to get to Blackwheel, south and east for far longer, and definitely better than her half-baked idea of going to Reed as a soldier. The thought of a ship felt so foreign to her, and patrolling swamps, full of snakes and fever and stagnant water...she shuddered. No thank you.

In the morning, she left Milo’s house as the sun crept up over the trees, headed south. The shirt and armor felt bulky, but also comforting as she’d dressed, slowly packing what little she owned and what she could find in Milo’s house. A bag of sweet dried fruits he’d get from traders and she’d loved as a childhood treat. A second cloak, not as thick or warm as the one she wore, more suited to summer rains. Flint and steel for firestarting. The weapons on her belt, pack and bow on her back. The boots fit her as well, worn-in but soles still good with no cracks or tears. A few other odds and ends.

She silently entered the hall, where she found Milo had been asleep in a chair by the main hearth, a bottle in his lap. Tearstains were running down his cheeks.

Alla kissed his forehead softly, shouldering her pack and bow, and stepping out of the hall into the early-morning air, almost knocked Enna over. “Oh,” she said, staring at Alla, “I...I came to get my fath…” she trailed off, seeing Alla standing there, feeling alien and strange in armor and cloak. “I’m sorry,” Alla said, and Enna touched her shoulder, nodding. “Good luck,” she said, kissing her softly before going into the hall, quietly closing the door.

“It should be tomorrow,” Milo said to her, a week later while passing her in the communal hall one evening as she helped him and the elders do inventory after the first frozen rain of the season. “Come see me tonight, after the evening meal.” She’d merely nodded, having been living in a haze since that first conversation after the hunt. Leaving Bear’s Son felt less and less real, and yet, somehow, even more necessary once it’d been realized. She saw now, truly, how few people there were in the village. How many people had settled here, and how long had it been? Five, seven years? And still, there was always space, always empty homes and spaces in the back for their farms or the animals they’d raise. It felt smaller somehow, and since that night she’d known in the marrow of her bones, she knew it was too small for her. It was the only place she’d ever really thought of as safe, as absolute really, but the way he talked and the things he’d pointed out, she thought about leaving as a good thing. She’d been avoiding anyone she talked to really, even Enna, who would try to talk to her, only for Alla to have something to do, somewhere to be, no time to talk.

Alla went through the rest of her evening, barely sleeping, barely eating at the communal meal, the last of the informal celebrations of the fall since the hunt. She watched the stars become more visible over the mountains in the north, beyond the last of the fields, and knocked on the door to Milo’s home. Normally she’d be thinking now about her fall and winter plans, basically who to visit regularly in the evenings, insulating the walls of her room against the worst of the cold, mending her own clothes, and any hunting she could get done when the worst of winter was happening. It was possible, a lot of hunters lived like that sparsely in huts and caves in the wilds, travelling sometimes to trade fresh meats and pelts or firewood to villages like Bear’s Son for spices and drink. Hard, but possible.

“He’s in the hall,” a voice said behind her, and she started. “Huh?” she turned, the boy from the hunt, Althus, was standing there. “Milo said to make sure you came to the hall, he’s in there, waiting for you.” He turned away and she followed him to the communal building, walking in through the main doors of the long tall structure, the fire pits crackling, benches and stools creaking. The whole building was actually bustling, people sitting at the main long table, and someone strummed a lute in the corner absently, the tuning before a song Crast, she realized, who looked at her sadly, probably about how she’d been avoiding Enna. Before she’d have welcomed the noise and warmth, but now it just made her anxious as she approached Milo sitting in a chair to the side, who got up and walked towards the back, motioning for her to follow. “Tomorrow morning, as soon as you can, you should leave,” he said as if they were discussing the weather. “Have you thought about where you wanted to go?” They walked into a rear storage room, the din of the main room muffled as the older man knelt to start unpacking a box. Alla realized that she’d never been in this room, her own small space on the other side of the building up on the second “story,” the balcony running above close to the rafters. What were these rooms for?

“Reed, I guess, like the others?” Alla said, thinking this might have been a bedroom at one point, and Milo shook his head, “No, don’t go there. The lord’s been trying to fight pirates out of Delos for a while now last I heard, you’ll end up on a boat at sea for half a year, or marching through the swamps in Lowland Way across the water hunting poachers and catching fever.” She nodded, as if it made sense for him to know all this, “Then, I don’t know, a hunter? In...in the woods? I could find a cave, trade and wait out the winter, work on a shelter in the spring?”

“Girl, you might as well stay here for that, and not risk losing a toe to frost” Milo said disapprovingly, shaking his head. “Or worse, you’re a poacher, all it takes is one overzealous guardsman or ranger to find you, fill you with holes before you can prove you’re not a thief.” Alla rubbed her hands together, shivered. It was already at that time of the year when it was getting cold in the uninsulated back rooms of the hall without coals or a fire. “But, I like hunting. I like the woods,” she said softly, and it was true. The woods were comfortable, and part of what made Bear’s Son so safe to her was the nearness of the forests, of being able to slip away to hunt for a few days, return with game and maybe some gathered herbs or pelts. Once she’d found a man’s bones, rotten ancient armor and the remnants of a sword and shield’s rough iron scattered around. Alla had thought about going through the belt on the bone’s waist, briefly, before gathering it all up and gathering dirt and stones to mark a cairn, coming back empty-handed for once.  

Milo withdrew a long oil-wrapped bundle, a quiver of arrows, fletched in grey, and another bundle of canvas, talking as if to himself, not really listening to her. “I’d say head south to Blackwheel, be an archer or a hunter there. It’s a growing town, there’ll be plenty of chances to work. Inns and farms will buy game, or trade a bed for a brace of birds or a whole deer. I’m sure they’ll have a keeper of the peace who will need someone handy with a bow,” He unwrapped the oilskin, handing her the dark wood longbow and the quiver. “For you,” he smiled, as well giving her the canvas bundle. “This too, I won’t be needing them anymore.” Alla, her arms full, looked at what the older man had given her, and sat on a bench, unsure what to say. She set the bow aside, far nicer than the old one she’d been using, a village common weapon stored in the hall. The bundle, unwrapped with trembling fingers, had thick warm hunter’s togs, leggings, a quilted gambeson shirt, far more sturdy and warm than the tunic and trousers she wore. There were boots as well, made for long marches, and below that...

Treasures.

A pouch that was heavy with coins, an armored vest, a long dagger, and a one-handed war axe, the handle wrapped in soft leather. The vest’s bronze discs were sewn to the thick leather on the front and back, dull with age but still firmly-attached, the whole thing held together with leather stitches and small buckles of bronze at the shoulder. The dagger and axe were sharp and well-maintained, oiled and almost-new, a belt for the two wrapped around both. She looked up. “What is all this? Where did you get it?” she said finally, almost scared. Armor and weapons, real armor and weapons, were worth their weight in silver and crops, and she’d never be able to actually afford something like this. Barely anyone in Bear’s Son even had coins, she realized, unless they sold goods in other towns instead of trading.

Milo sighed and sat down next to her. “Do you know where this village came from, even? The elders are a little ashamed of it, act like we’ve always been here, but…” he rubbed his face, almost embarrassed to admit it, “It’s mine, Alla. I’m the yeoman, the hall is actually my home, I just...well, I let the villagers use it all. I don’t mind, it’s too much trouble honestly.

“My father and I served the lord in Fireseat, to the east.” Alla listened in shock as the man she’d known most of her life talked, “fought bandits for years between there and Icehold. My father died, I earned the right to settle my own stead, own land, serve when needed. To be honest,” Milo stood up and laughed, “I think Fireseat forgot about me, I moved here to what I’d been ceded, the land felt right, built a hall with a few men who’d gotten leave to go with me. They served me as men at arms, some farmers and hunters settled nearby, and we became a village. I’m not much for ruling,” he said ruefully as he carefully re-packed the crate he’d opened, “So when the older men and women wanted some say about twenty years ago, I gladly gave it, even though I usually have last say in anything.”

Someone yelled as the fire was dying down and the music was quiet in a moment, pointing to the horizon. The sun was rising, and those who’d survived the night’s revelries after a successful hunt cheered, some drunk, some still drinking, some sober after retching their guts up and continuing, as one more round was poured in celebration. Alla wavered in her seat as Milo poured her drink, uncrossing eyes as she raised the cup and they cheered for a successful hunt and a prepared winter.

It was tradition in Bear’s Son, their small village in the eastern regions of Hroth, for the pre-winter hunt to be celebrated, and whoever didn’t pass out before the sun came up was considered to be lucky for a year. Alla remembered as a child watching and waiting up as long as she could with the other children, huddled at the edges with their yearly cups of watered wine and special treats, wishing it was them telling stories of hunts past and present, revelling. Now she was here, her second hunt, and this time she was determined not not pass out and be carried to bed, or, like the year before, left to wake up with the others who didn’t make it wrapped up in a cloak outside by the dead fire, smelling of ale.

“Well, tha’seasy,” she burped as the other men and women laughed around her. Of all the hunters who’d gone into the woods, she was one of the youngest and she’d managed to not only help bring down two deer but also, stay up all night. “Congratulations,” Milo laughed as the rest of the veteran hunters of the village cheered her on, draining the cup. Most of the “Now, have you thought about what I asked you?”

“Hnn?” the young woman said, confused, as she sat back down. Alla thought hard about what the man who’d helped raise her as a father when her parents died, had said earlier in a break from the din of the celebration, before the real drinking had begun, before she’d danced to the drum and flute beats with the red-headed boy Crast, whos father brewed ale, and then with Enna, Crast’s sister, who had her mother’s blonde hair and freckles...and then it clicked. “Oh, that,” she said, focusing hard on her words, focusing hard on clearly saying them, on spelling every sound with her rubbery drunk mouth out. “Milo, I don’know…”

“Alla there’s nothing here,” he said, firmly but quietly, gesturing around them. Bear’s Son was around them, and she sat back, looking, suddenly sober. There was a communal long hall, Porin’s small blacksmithy, homes around spreading out from there, and the farm fields behind them spreading out, with a  communal well and a small temple in the center where they were all gathered. That was it, and Alla thought about how this was her home, how she’d lived in the communal hall in the back room, it’s unofficial “keeper” to earn her place by fires, to earn enough for her clothing and food and her bow and arrows. It was all she’d ever had, and she was unsure what to make of that, of this small family that hadn’t turned her out or forced her to work like an adult when fever took her parents. How could there be nothing here? It was...it was her world, she thought, and suddenly she didn’t feel like drinking anymore, not after what Milo said.

“We have no wall,” he pointed, his voice kind, the plains and far woods beyond the fields around them clearly visible in the dawn and fast-fading starlight, pinks and light blues in the sky, and then back to where they sat with. “No wall, no real market, no inn, more and more people leave for other places every year, last season Thom’s son and daughter took four young people with them to go soldiering with the lord at Reed...Alla,” Milo said, a hand on her shoulder, “Bear’s Son is dying. We barely have enough people to justify even being here.”

He was right, she realized with a shock, and adjusted herself in her seat uncomfortably. There’d been talk of an inn but so many people just made their own ale or wines and drank in the communal long hall, what was the point, everyone ended up saying.

Alla remembered when those six had left, Thom’s children large and strong, the rest also good hunters, and how the village elders had whispered long into the night after it, forgetting she’d been in that small back room. She realized with a shock that the elders and Milo had offered her old Pell’s house in the village, and she’d thought nothing of it after he’d passed...and his sons and their wives had left Bear’s Son to go work for the yeoman at his holdfast a valley over. Pell’s household leaving meant another...five people gone. Almost a dozen in a year gone from the village, and it dawned on her that what Milo was saying made too much sense.

“Wh...why’re you telling me this?” She felt ill, partially the drink, the lack of sleep, and the realization that he was right. He sighed, scratching his nose and mustache. “Because you have to think about what I told you you should do, child. You have to leave, especially if you want any sort of future that isn’t farming. Hunting alone won’t be enough anymore, soon, not if you want a family.” Alla looked away uncomfortably, and Milo continued. “The elders,” he looked away for a moment as the bonfire, low already, began to die out, the last of the revelers pouring dirt into it to quench it as the sun crept over the horizon, “the elders are thinking of non-renewal, of ending the village.”

Alla sat back, stunned. Non-renewal was when the king’s men, the counters, came to check on villages and towns every few years to update maps and see if places could grow into towns or cities, or merge with other close-by settlements. She knew one was due soon, and the severity was starting to sink in. Non-renewal meant that whoever stayed here was on their own, that the road here off the main road was no longer maintained or patrolled unless they paid for it, and while it meant no more taxes, it also meant no more protection from the lord. It was harsh freedom to some, and death to others.

The woods felt as if they were tired, if that made sense, breathing softly and deeply with slight rustles, the kinds of invisible but heavy movement of the end of a day. Alla softly walked forward, weighing every step across the early-autumn ground in well-worn leather boots, thinking of every single branch around her as she slowly raised the bow up, arrow already on the string. A dozen paces away was a clearing, and at the far end of the clearing, the herd of deer grazed, periodically raising their heads up to scan the treelines. Any sound or smell would tip the large creature, whose meat and hide would be useful for a small family for almost a whole season, in an instant.

They’d been low-burning all of the night before and this early morning before hunting though, small smoldering fires at the edges of the trees with the wind to their backs. Set by elders and children, it’d flood the woods with soft smoke to confuse the sharp noses of the deer and other animals they’d hunt as winter began to set in and people had to start seriously stocking up their larders. Hunting and farming crops was possible in the snow, but difficult, and at times it just made more sense to have stocked foods and goods before the first snows fell the frost locking the soil felt near-permanent. So, the village would organize one week of coordinated hunting, like this, with beaters and low-burning to take a herd of deer, as well as rabbits, birds, and wild dog and on occasion, bear, if they were feeling bold.

No one was bold enough for bear this year, and Alla didn’t blame them, not after that sick he-bear killed Donin back in the spring. It’d been sickly even beyond the thinness of a winter sleep though, she’d heard, probably injured and forced to scavenge for food all winter, getting thin and hurt and desperate. The village elders ended up giving what meat it had to his widow, selling the teeth, pelt, bones, and claws to a travelling trader and giving her the coin as well.

Also, there was honestly no need, she thought. Crops had been good this year gods bless, and the forests were teeming. She couldn’t see them as she waited, but Alla knew that the other hunters like herself were stretched out around here in the woods descending on the clearing, their dark brown and green clothing, the smoke of the fires, and the dirt and scraps one found in the woods rubbed into their clothing, they were invisible to the herd. The one big stag was on edge, she could tell, slowly pulling back, and reminding herself not to knock over the backup arrow stuck in the dirt next to her foot just in case. It was risky on a hunt like this to fire a backup arrow quickly, because you might hit someone else, but she was confident in her second shot to take the risk. And if enough first shots got enough deer, she wouldn’t need it, she reasoned. The fletching of the arrow was to her cheek, and a loud “Now!” was barked, and she let fly.

The second arrow was on the notch and she took two quick steps forward further towards the clearing, as the big stag and two older does fell. Alla swivelled left, where she knew only one other hunter would have been, seeing him duck as she sighted the other buck taking off, and tracked him looping through the woods behind them, suddenly bolting back towards them in the panic of a cornered beast. She let loose and it brayed and wheezed while she jogged back fast as it fell to the ground, the arrow in its neck, the big antlers tangled into the grass, the buck wheezing. Alla and someone else, Milo she thought, were on it in a second though, her weight on its thick neck while Milo’s knife cut the main vein, and the buck wheezed one more time, not suffering anymore.

No one said anything for a moment before the sounds of people standing and breathing again began, and the fruits of their efforts were visible. Someone cheered softly, and the work began. “That was stupid,” he said, an older man, standing up, wiping his knife on his togs as she saw why the buck had turned back towards them. “Shit,” Alla muttered, realizing the beaters had been the ones to push the fleeing animal back towards them, as they emerged from the brush. “I…”

It smelled like rain and cold, even though it didn’t feel like it.

It was cloudy, and the wind refused to blow, a coolness in the air that just hung there, letting the humidity make it not hot enough to be unbearable, but just enough to be uncomfortable, especially for the horse-mounted cavalry in full plate, bolted into their position and saddles, lances in loops on the sides of their saddles, aimed upward. Horses shifted, not used to being still on a field, sweltering under their own padding and plate. It was a row of shining metal almost ten feet tall in some spots. The footmen behind them in loose lines were antsy as well, their own spears and halberds that had been uniformly upright when they’d arrived now swaying as men leaned on them, against them, loosening heir grips on the hafts, making the whole mass, from a distance, look like a shifting strip of tall weeds or thin trees.

On the other far end, up the hill, the old soldier watched, reaching under the scale mail shirt to find the skin he’d filled before they’d left the camp, men like him laughing and traipsing through the early-morning mist of dawn, the armored horsemen of their side in an orderly procession, like a parade. A little water, just a mouthful to wet his lips and tongue, and he trickled the rest over his head into his hair and beard, the collar of his shirt under the armor, on the back of his neck. His helmet was hanging from his belt by the chin strap, clanking against his belt periodically as he shifted his position. The rest of the mercenaries that made up those front lines with him were similarly occupied, one sitting on the grass of the hill resting his feet, another further down the line outright pissing, breeches half-undone and long brigandine coat hiked up. The mounted soldiers, born into nobility and war as a game of honor, had grumbled at first when the mercenary footmen treated this long wait as a casual thing and didn’t stand at attention as the two sides squared off, but slowly cooking inside their steel had made them give up, and the soldier saw that boys and girls, squires and pages, were now running and darting dangerously amongst the antsy war horses with water and wet rags for their knight masters.

Their lances didn’t sway in the sockets they were kept it, but the soldier could see their horses wavering, and he was sure the only reason many of the riders didn’t was because they were literally screwed and fastened into place to keep them from sliding off the saddles in the field. It was a shitty way to fight, he thought, but then again, most of these men and women didn’t fight, not really. Cavalry hadn’t been used in any real sense since there’d been peace a dozen years ago, so armored horse was mostly for show. Clashes like this, they were mostly for show.

Like waves of tall scrubby grass and saplings, the thin hafts of the weapons in the air cast odd shadows on the men and women holding them up as sunlight burst through small gaps in the humid clouds. The old solider felt, for a moment, that brush of memory of being a child, hiding from parents and chores and the sun in the shade of dunes and tall grass, the weeds that his fisherman father said held the sand dunes up on the beach, as they’d draw the boats and nets up past the tide line…

He shook his head. “Hungry,” he murmured to himself. Still, no food this morning, because a full stomach meant a horrific death if you got a belly wound, and getting the shits or a bloat cramp was asking to be run over by a horseman. Across the field, the soldier saw them returning, the fat old warrior in the full mail coat and the woman in the long robe with slashed sleeves and dingy but well-maintained plate strapped over it, their employers. The woman looked calm, the fat man unreadable. The fat old man was helped into his waiting horse’s saddle by a squire, while the woman stayed on foot. She’d been the one the old soldier had signed on with, swayed by gold, but also by her frank manner in needing men to look tough, possibly get shit on by nobles, but that the pay would be worth it and she’d make sure that they didn’t get fucked over. He’d appreciated that, after a week in the muck and mud last month, leading farmers fighting bandits and the town headman who’d hired him suddenly admitting they had no coin to pay him, so he’d settled on whatever foodstuffs he could carry. Coin was always better, because gold meant a room in an in or a farmer’s barn. Coin got food, drinks, company.

“Go home!” she barked suddenly, loudly, for the men on the line. “We’re not needed, fight’s over,” she continued, passing each a handful of coins from her pouch, all gold. “Here, a bonus for sweating half to death” she said as a few of the men and women laughed at that. The men and women moved away, some alone, some in groups, those who’d decided to travel together as bands, some back towards their camp, others who carried everything they owned simply picking a direction and walking.

The old soldier looked around him as the woman in armor was helped into her saddle by a squire, looking at the tall grass of spears and lances in the sun, from rows like weeds across a hill to scattered upright dark shadows in the brightness of the sun emerging from behind the glad. It was then he looked down, seeing his own shaking hands, recognizing how he’d been breathing too fast, too shallow. In anticipation of more fighting, more burying the head of the axe on his belt into some poor conscript’s unarmored chest so he didn’t end up stabbed by a stray kitchen knife or slapped-together spear half-by accident while horses screamed and trampled around him while men and women died in the name of land and money and other men’s honor.    

He forced himself to breathe deeply, and held his hands out, palms down. The backs and palms were wrapped in rags to help his grip on the haft of the spear and axe. One nail was broken, they were all short and dirty, knuckles scarred, as he turned them over, focusing, one-two, three-four. He felt them slow down, the nervous trembling slowing down as he felt himself get lighter in his piecemeal armor, finally looking around. The war grass of the battle to come, any signs of spears and lances, was gone, all scattered and returned to their halls and farms and inns, to the next fight, to whatever it was they called home.

The grass and dirt was wet and soft, but still an effort to move, she thought as she was on her knees in it, feeling the grass rub against the metal of her greave-covered knees and shins. The warrior dug the grave using her dagger, and then, when she was tired and the small blade not enough, her sword, the men and women who stayed behind after the battle standing off at a distance. Some of the hired men and women had left, but others had not, waiting for her. In her head, as she breathed heavy, rolling the warlord’s body into the open grave, the old warrior spoke, the night when he spoke to the boy and the girl by the fire, when they camped one night outside.

“Only time I see open space is when I’m fighting,” he’d said, more to himself, wrapping a bandage around his arm as the boy sharpened the old warrior’s sword, the girl tended the fire and preparing food. “When I die, bury me in an open field, so I can see the sky.”

And he’d never spoken about it again.

The warrior looked down, the warlord’s sword in the dirt, next to the dirty and rotting half-gone old sword of the old warrior’s, still in the grass and dirt of the field, the new grave stark and brown compared to the old one, green with grass and growth. She looked down at her sword in her hand, natural in her grip, and tried to throw it aside. She couldn’t, looking at her sword-arm and trying, again and again to just let it drop into the grass and dirt, but she couldn’t put it aside. “Damn it, eyes,” she muttered to herself, wiping a tear away as she sheathed it, walking back towards the group, a man holding her horse.

They mounted up, one of them pointing east, and the warrior nodded. As they rode, she let herself fall back towards the back of the riders, next to the young man she’d hired at the end, who she honestly hadn’t thought would stay this long. “Sticking with us?” she asked, and he nodded soberly, “Good,” the warrior responded, and after a moment, pointed up and then around them, at the sky and the fields. “Ever notice how we never look up at the sky?” And as they rode east, past towns and the burned remains of the castle and across the plains, she talked, and the boy nodded, finally answering.

“So you can see the sky.” 

END

-

The sun was coming up by the time she caught up with him, and even from yards behind his horse sounded lathered and heaving, its breathe gone.

It stumbled along the edge of the bank of a small stream, and he fell, hard, off the horse into the wet mud and grass, coming up fighting, face smeared with black soot and sweat. He had a sword in one hand, an axe in the other, and as the warrior dismounted she stepped aside, one-two, like the old warrior, decades ago. Her sword was in her hand, but light, half down, as he heaved, lungs straining to take in air. He breathed too much smoke, she realized, and when he dropped his weapons and coughed and heaved, the boy looked up at her.

“I…I t-tried, I really did…” he croaked, spit flecked in his face. “I tried to s-spend it,” he continued, pausing to hack and cough and spit, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, “t-to spend the c-coin, mercy, h-how I wanted to!” His voice raised, and again, she didn’t see the warlord, but the boy, scared and angry. The warrior’s face felt hot and wet, her nose stuffy and running all of a sudden, as she realized she’d been crying too, and her sword-arm dropped as she approached, it all coming out.

“That’s not what he wanted! You didn’t…you didn’t even try!” She was yelling, “You didn’t even try, you didn’t do what he wants!”

“You think I didn’t try? You think I didn’t bleed trying!” he was hysterical now, eyes bloodshot, and he staggered to the side, down the embankment and splashed among the water, about to fall. She rushed forward, and caught him in her arms, against her armored chest, hearing and feeling him shake as he sobbed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said over and over again, and she has her arms around him, sword dropped in the grass, easing him to his knees. “I’m…I’m sorry too,” she got out, softly, vision blurry from the wetness in her face. The warlord breathed in deeply, almost a sigh, and slumped. The warrior kept crying until the sun was high in the sky above them.

The girl eased the boy back into the grass, the hilt of the iron dagger embedded in a gap in his armor, and used her sleeve to wipe her face. She closed his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest, and sat back in the grass before falling forward on hands and knees, puking into the stream. She retched until nothing came out and more, and then, carefully, gently, she pulled the boy up to her horse, lifting him up over the saddle.

In the darkness, with no tall trees around, a fire burned.

It was a huge fire, but like all huge fires, the light it cast was cruel in the darkness, the warmth uncomfortable to the men and women standing around in the aftermath. There were dead men and women on the dark grass, armor rented, black and brown tunics torn. Others were milling to the side, sitting on the ground on their hands looking tired and dejected while the warrior’s other hired men walked the perimeter of the circle of light the burning castle cast. “I think he’s gone, looks like horse tracks,” a woman said to the warrior, who nodded and wiped her face with a rag. “Get me a horse,” she said, and pointed in the dark back towards the direction they’d come. “The rest of everyone’s bonuses are in the trunk in my tent. Take whatever you want from the tent, I don’t need it,” she continued as one of the hired men brought a horse over.

They’d come for the castle as the sun was going down, the warlord’s men streaming out of the thick but rudely-built wooden gates, hooting and roaring, tramping through the grass and mud. She’d held half her people back, letting them sneak in through that open door to crack open barrels of oil open and pour it all over the straw that any place with horses and roofs would have, from a far to a castle. She thought about what the old warrior had told them about fire once, when he’d used it to deal with a bandit’s nest.

The boy and girl had crouched on each side of the small cave entrance, and the soft glow of a muted campfire inside illuminated it as smoke trailed out. They’d poured oil all over the grass and dirt while the old warrior aimed an old borrowed hunting bow into the mouth of the cave, firing an arrow in blindly. As the bandits had yelled and run out, they’d lit the oil, sending a “whoosh” of fire back into the bandits and into the cave. It’d been horrible, and taken far longer than the girl had thought it would. While the boy had used a small shovel to dig and overturn the dirt, burying the oil and smoldering grass and scraps, the old warrior and spit. “Fire’s the worst, because you can never go back.

“You can pull swords and axes back, you can hold back an arrow, or slow your horse down. But fire?” He’d looked back at her, one of the few times he ever looked at them face to face, and he’d seemed so sad. “Fire you can never go back once you start it. Be careful, using it.”

When the boy went east, he tried to be kind. He tried to show mercy and explain to the men and women he met, hard men and women who fought for money as champions and as soldiers, that he wanted to use his strength to spread the kindness of what coin he had.

Some had nodded, but most had been confused, and others laughed at him, telling him that the only kindness he could expect was the kindness that fear of strength brought out. It was, to them, the nature of the hard world they lived in, the nature of men and women with strength versus those who didn’t have any. One such person remembered an old fool who talked like that and had been driven from his brotherhood of warriors, and the boy no longer spoke of it, ashamed. Instead, he spoke about how his strength was a gift to himself, and how he spent it on others was a mercy. He lived in towns and fought for towns, with sword and axe and spear, and then joined men and women who would fight against other towns. They’d threaten fire and steel in exchange for tithes, calling it a mercy and a kindness when they’d leave. If no one gave them anything, they’d use fire and steal.

Then they came across the farm, the farm where the boy had wanted to stay that one night, scared and cold. The farmer was dead, his wife dead, the animals either dead or long-gone, the buildings empty. So the boy, now a man, stayed, and the men and women who followed him and fought like him stayed as well. The barn and house and cold store dug into the earth were now full of people and things they were tithed, and more would come there over time, wanting things and wanting to show their strength.

They took towns, wholesale. Men and women feel before spears and swords and daggers, ran from fire and arrows, their homes looted. The man thought of how scared he was as a child only for a moment, and then watched other children, scared, running and dying, because the coin from it kept him feeling loved.

Someone brought timbers and logs, fire-hardened, to make walls. Eventually, others brought stone, so they built walls. And a castle grew, with men now in brown and black tunics and armor to all look alike, to show that they had strength. They fought among themselves and eventually, they fought for him, for the man. The walls of around the farm that the boy who was now a man made into a castle grew higher and more men and women came to them. The boy as a man thought he felt love, because people loved his strength and how he chose to call it mercy, how he framed his mercy reinforced as strength as a kindness. It made him feel good.

When the girl and the boy had gone their separate ways, she had wandered until she found a town, sleeping in the dirt at the base of trees, hiding. The town had three guards, and two of them laughed when she told them she wanted to be one. “Your pa must be waiting,” one had said, her laugh loud and high with her shield arm clutching her gut from laughing.

The oldest of the three didn’t laugh though, and asked her to prove herself. So she pulled her sword and swung at the first guard to laugh, and when he fell on his backside into the water of a puddle and the woman guard laughed at him, the old guard nodded and told her to report in the morning to get the dirty white tunic to wear over her padded shirt, and the wooden shield with the black-on-white bull’s head painted on it.

The first guard to laugh and his wife let her sleep in their barn. The town was small, but in a year, a second inn and then a store opened, and she and the guards helped raise the roof of the second inn and recruit two more, then two more, and then a man who said he was a noble built a house of stone and said he was the lord. She shrugged, because he paid in coin and gave the guards horses.

The girl tried to be kind when and where she could, never laughing or taunting the drunks she roused or the bandits she chased and fought. The other older woman guard told her, one night, that she’d met the old warrior once, many years ago when she was young, and that she could see the old warrior in the girl’s ways, the girl now a guard.

Another year passed and two dozen guards with horses and white tunics with black-on-white shields patrolled the road and space around the town. The people began to build a wall, and a year after that, stone and fire-hardened wood surrounded the town.   The girl, now the guard, kissed someone, and gave that person kindness for a while.

Men came in groups to demand the town and the lord tithe to them, and they’d threaten fire and steel. She fought them, a real war, not combat or guard duty, and when the old guard and the woman guard fell to men like that, she was now in command of the guards, and grew the number to fifty. The stone house the lord grew in raised up another story higher, and they built a wooden watch tower too, outside the wall where more people were building houses.  

From the east, people were talking about a man they called a warlord. He didn’t build towns or lead men, but he had men and women who followed him and killed and fought alongside him, and he told people that he was being kind in showing strength.

It had been even more years.

The sword in the dirt was rusty, the blade chipped. The wrappings of the great hilt were ragged and almost gone now, and from the dirt creeping weeds grew up it. The dirt mount was now grass, only the old weapon marking the grave, half-lost among the springtime growth around the field. The trees had encroached closer, she thought, but for the most part, nothing was different, nothing marking that anything had happened here except the sword.

A ways back, a group watched. Men and women in plate and leather and mail, swords and axes in their belts and hands. One leaned on a spear and another held a bow, a few talking softly but most of the forty-odd people were silent. One was even further away, watching picketed horses idly resting, nosing each other.

The girl, now a warrior, was on her knees in the grass at the sword. Eyes once big and wide were now smaller, in proportion to a hard face with a nose healed slightly crooked from being broken, and braids holding most of the hair on the sides back while she still had some in a topknot. Her sword and belt were on the ground next to her as she looked at her hands, and then at the grave marker.

“I’m sorry, I…I tried,” she said softly, more to herself than to the old warrior, “I really did.” She brought one knee up and lurched to her feet, picking up her belt and sword, fastening it around the waist of the long brigandine coat she wore, hands brushing crushed grass from her, “I tried, he tried, we both did, we tried to be kind and to make kindness our coin. We wanted…” she trailed off as she brushed the dirt from her knees at the old grave and breath came hard with the tears, gasping. “We tried.”

One dirty hand wiped at her cheeks as she breathed in deep, the girl pulling a smirk onto her face to become the warrior again, facing away from her hired band, “We wanted the coin we could give to the world to mean…to mean something. We wanted to mean something.” Suddenly she turned on her heel, back towards the group, hand signals indicating they should move back towards the horses. They had ground to cover before they could rest, and as she reminded them, she hadn’t spent good coin paying them so they could just watch her mourn and then do nothing for a while. There was work to be done. There was always work to be done and places to go to, she thought, but that part she didn’t say.

She thought about the dagger she’d found sticking up in the dirt next to the sword, old and dirty with disuse, unlike the one in her belt that she cleaned and whetted when she could, keeping the old iron blade sharp and shining. It hadn’t been there that long, she thought to herself as the group mounted, one riding ahead to scout as another mentioned the faint smell of smoke in the distance, carried by the wind. He’d heard there was a newer castle somewhere around here.

She knew of it too, she confirmed to them.