I.v

We arrived at the village only a day after The Wolf’s blades had come for us. In the few hours we had stopped to rest, Arash regaled me with his small tale of his attack as he cleaned and bandaged the laceration now residing on my upper chest.

He had done much the same as he did in many towns before: when the sun graced the sky, his wares sat spread for people to graze over, and when it began to hide underneath the lands edge, he took to whatever establishment served something harder than water. In that atmosphere, he made nice with the locals, spending their newly-taken coin on drinks and games.

He was apparently one to indulge, for the wine took him to bed much earlier then intended, and it was there he was sloppily awoken from sleep by the man he had taken with him, in shock at the silver-masked figure loomed over them.

Luck and circumstance, on both our parts. His in the form of a light sleeping partner, and mine of restless slumber and nightmares. That fact sat on me like a shroud I could not eschew as we travelled the very familiar road and eventually entered the fishing village once more. As we crossed the border, we uneasily split from each other; Arash hastily set up wares in the stall he had occupied before, and I trekked into the wilds surrounding the town, taking a roundabout way to the Wolf’s camp. People did not walk these gently-travelled trails, and that was why I chose to take them.

Niko’s camp

It was barren. No hum below the surface to signify life. No tents. Everything of value had been stripped and packed. Holes pocked the ground where pegs and table legs had taken root. At random intervals pits of darkened grass and scrap wood sat. Only the walls remained, built hastily but with purpose. They were here to stay. Everything else sat somewhere unknown.

My heart pulsed and my veins throbbed. My fingers ached for iron through flesh. But all I had was empty air and hard dirt. I screamed into the void around me because there was nothing else I could do to vent the feral steam rising inside me.

I spent most of the day outside the village.  Denting the soft, white shores with deep, angry footprints. Pushed away from the town by the people I had left in the Lycons grasp, by the Wolf’s presence somewhere outside its borders. Pulled into its grasp by the information held within, of where the army had went.

When my feet tired, I walked into the shallows of the water, sandals and all. No clothes removed. I sat in the heated sand and gently pushed my hands into it. Sun-boiled water licked and lapped at my legs and fingers and palms and hips. The rhythm of the waves brought a cool hand to cover the fire inside me.

Niko of Lycos

The Wolf sends his regards

And once more flames leapt behind my closed eyes. My fingers closed around sticky, wet sand. They grasped it firmly, like the handle of a blade. I imagined sliding it between the ribs of the Wolf.

He was young. Big eyes. Dark.

Between the bundles of heat and light rampaging through my body came a small song. It sung a low, gray tune. Melancholic and regretful. Either of things done, or things to be done.

Sand scratched and painted my cheeks as I cupped my face, leaning the weight of my head into my palms. The sun was burning brightly, washing the azure of the ocean and the sky into a pale blue. It could make its way through closed lids, but once my flesh and bone covered my eyes, darkness bloomed.

Niko was below me. His face was full of features I couldn’t take in. I knew he had a nose and a mouth and two eyes, but none of the details stuck with me. It was formed into a blunted surprise at the knife in his torso. Shock by my betrayal, from then and now.

My jaw clenched. I felt the corners of my face harden into small stones. Muscles tightened and my throat closed. Something softer and slower than lightning flowed through my veins. It turned my heart to liquid stone, letting it fall into my stomach.

The Wolf of Lycos was below me. His face was anger and pain. It was formed into shocked rage at the knife in his torso. Shocked at the betrayal, from then and now.

Nothing I cared about. If both of us ended this journey in the afterlife, the Lord of the Dead and his council would weigh our souls and find his betrayals much heavier than mine.

I decided to limit my time inside the village. I had no want to find myself in the same space as the woman who had hired me days ago.

I acted out the finale of the long performance I had put on for months. For two hours I walked and talked and questioned, clad in the façade of the mathos. For some villages this was a day like any other, unaware of the lack of bloodied coin in my pouch. On others I saw unvoiced accusations. When I passed they glared and glowered, and when we spoke they were restrained and curt and displeased. Yet they gave me what I desired despite their misgivings.  

In the six months the Lycons had sat beside these people like a long-healing sore on the edge of a limb, it had been unknown what they desired from this village. Then, they had learned of the island to the south, and the legends that were spoken of it. In an age where the gods visited the earth that had long since passed, that island had been decided as the home and place of final rest for a now-unnamed hero. This man had been buried with a gift from his father, the Lord of War.

But the Lycons had been given half-truths and unfinished stories. Underneath the jagged cliffs lay caves and caverns hidden by the sea, accessible only by a journey into the water. With this information they had left, like a cloth in the wind, sudden and with haste.  

And in the wake of this departure, all the boats that remained had been broken. The contract on the Wolf had reached crimson ears.

So Arash had waited for the Goddess of the Hunt to chase her brother and his celestial body from the sky and packed his cart and vanished with me in tow as quickly as the Lycons had.

“To Karos,” I told him. A small town to the east. The opposite of Mykon in many ways. Directionally, economically, socially. Mykon had boats we could hire, but I had no need for a crew. No need for help, and no need for that many ears and eyes on my journey.

Karos fished, much like the village we were leaving behind. But the haul was bigger, as were the ships. But not by much. People sailed many vessels there only fit for one passenger.

It had taken less to convince me of the need to stop on our journey now. The Wolf may still be hunting his prey, but I had no qualms if he found me.

“This gold you promised me for my assistance, you have it?” Arash asked through thick firelight.

I blinked. Said nothing. Took a chunk of hard bread into my mouth and continued to stare aimlessly. When that was done, I said:

“You do not need to worry if you will get your money.”

Arash smiled gently at this.

“That was not the intention of my question. One hundred gold will go a long way when you and I eventually part ways, and I do not wish to see someone stuck without enough gold to move forward simply because she promised all of it to a crafty merchant in a moment of desperation.” He broke the monologue with a small bout of silence, pausing to chew a piece of bread before he continued.

“However, my services do need to be bought. So, a deal may be struck. Fifty gold, and a handful of stories to sate my curiosity of the woman who fights like a man.”

I said nothing.

Arash continued to eat, unfazed by the silence. He looked at me expectantly while he tore and chewed and swallowed, patient and content as a stone on a beach, who accepts one day the tide will come to wash him away.   

The deal was sound. My purse was light on gold. I was not light on tales.

And yet I felt myself tighten. Lips pursed and eyes fell and my mouth dried, like a riverbed wasting exponentially fast. I had many tales, of fights gone right and fights gone wrong, of blades and blood and gold. Those were not the stories he wanted to hear. A single look at me, and you could read those words on my body, written by new bumps and old cuts.

I looked up at him. Blinked once. Twice. Then made a face, and a small noise of approval.

He smiled. The look was content and genuine. Just a simple man, sitting at a fire and wanting to be told a tale.

For a moment, he eyed the bandage on my wrist. A spool of cloth without a drop of blood, sitting unreplaced for days. And then he moved back to my face and said:

“What was your family like?”

The Wolf of Lycos sends his regards

I closed my eyes only for a moment, and followed that small action with a gentle breath.

Niko of Lycos

He was young. Big eyes. Dark.

And so I told him of the time before Lycos. A soft paternal voice, barely remembered. The face it came from even more vague in my mind. I told him of stern hands guiding mine through actions that soon became rote. Of preparing a boat with only my hands and no assistance, and of swinging nets through water and watching silvery fish attempt escape. Then the voice, gone suddenly, into the wind and the rain and black depths of the sea. Yet the world still went on. Our lives continued. And we needed coin. Niko sat wherever we called home most days. Sometimes he did what his small hands could, delivered messages to and from patrons, took product from merchants to their wealthier customers.

The workers of the sea would not take a girl. Neither would the merchants or the carpenters or the builders. Work for the master of the house.

But I was large for my age and my sex. Strong from the few years of soft work I had done on our boat. Without a head of hair, I was simply another shapeless boy, thin and stringy from lack of years rather than sex, lumped together with the young males who did what they needed for their mother’s and sisters. And then I become stronger still, from the pulling of ropes and the pushing of wood and boats.

Arash simply breathed quietly through the tale. He sat casually but intently. For all I knew, the only thing he cared about in the world were the words I strung together.

And then the story trailed off. No lie came to cover up when the Lycons had taken us from the streets. Simply silence.

But Arash said nothing of that. Simply nodded, and smiled, and thanked me, and wished me a good night. I followed his lead into restless sleep, made worse by the recently-shared stories and now-itching and pulsing heat of the slash below my collarbone.  



---



Karos was two nights and three days away. In the latter, we travelled and passed villages and spent time in stalls and kapalias, showing wares and selling items. Arash gave me no instructions on what to do, but I knew what my part was in this production. Stand, dirty and bruised, with a visage crafted from ice and stone. The rest the customers did for themselves. Looked at the figure behind the merchant, and decided trouble did not need to be made.

In the nights, we ate and spoke.

“That fishing village tells tales of a state much different than what it is now. Long ago, before the Lycons and before-“ He paused slightly, tasting the words in his mouth, “-my people, the village pulled fish from the ocean in bundles, like plucking fruit from a tree. They sailed smoothly on well-crafted boats with strong sails to catch the mightiest breeze.”

He gestured with empty hands, bowl sat aside. The action was sadly accepting.

“Now it sits as it does. Tirus promised their League great action once, and delivered.” Those last words dropped in tone, coloured gray despite the firelight and it’s cheerful warmth.

“Lycos resents it. Yet both have villages like yours in their Leagues. War still brews. Men choose to fight because they disagree with either power.” He pauses now, taking a hearty drink from his waterskin. The fire pops, small sparks birthed and gone in an instant. I do not correct his assumption of my relation to the village.

I sip quietly at my soup. Arash’s tone of voice is casual, languid. But his words are pointed. I have yet to understand where they may end up, though.

“And me, I am a travelling merchant. I die in a ditch, get robbed by soldiers, maybe, but war is good for me. Some men wear red, some blue, some pull carts as their sigil. What does war mean for you, Helena?”

I blink. Not surprised, but slowly, thoughtfully.

The soup is salty on my lips, and I drink more, keeping my mouth occupied while I stare into the bright content of the firepit.

“Nothing.”

He stares at me. Impassively, neutrally. From a face as usually expressive as his, the look unnerves.

“The choice of nothing is not a privilege that many know in war.” Arash states.

I make a tiny noise into my bowl. A small hum that disturbs the surface of the soup. I sip and swallow, and then:

“I’m a mathos. I fight for coin.” I pause. Then:

“I fight battles, not wars.”

Arash responds with a tiny noise of his own. Neutral, leaning towards disapproval.  

“This Wolf you seek. He is of Lycos, and he takes part in this conflict. His blade sips Tirion blood. If you take this mans life, that’s a line in the sand, crossed. People will notice, and they will talk.”

“Let them. The colours he wears matter not to me. I simply want him dead.”

It was a lie. The red of Lycos was behind every shadow and corner. It swaddled my mind in fea-

None of that in Lycos. Fear is just another creature of the mind, which you will slay with your anger and your sword.

Arash looks at me then, like a hunter does a doe caught in a trap she entered of her own volition. A small smile, pulling at the fringes of his mouth, and eyes filled with simmering glee and pride at a game well played.

“Why?” He asks. A question I had seen behind the colour in his eyes since we had nearly been slain in our sleep, flirting at the edges of his lips in every conversation. Now it broke from its cage, freeing him from the weight of that single syllable and allowing it to come to rest on my shoulders.

another creature of the mind

My nails bent and folded as I pressed my fingers into the bowl. Wood caved under the pressure.

which you will slay with your anger

Something heavy rose up from within me. It tightened my throat and sullied the even tone of my breath.

The Wolf of Lycos

Lightning sparked within me, and I could feel the edges of my jaw sitting as tight as two small stones across the bone.

sends his regards

My breath pulsed from my nose like a raging bull. It hurt to swallow.

Niko of Lycos

And then everything stopped.

He was young. Big eyes. Dark.

Everything seemed to fall inside me, like leaves coming to a standstill after the departure of a violent monsoon.

She ran away and they never found her.

The last few days settled onto me like a blanket of stone and rotting wood.

The village.

The Wolf

niko

The lady and her gold. Travelling with Arash. Tales. Firelight. More people and towns seen in these past days than in my last six months of life.

A final surge of lightning, settling behind my eyes. Instead of electrifying them it makes them buzz with fatigue, the energy pushing at the inside of my skull.

“The gods do not favour him.” I state. Arash stares at me, feigning stoicism. Through the cracks in that mask of stone I see dissatisfaction and disbelief. The former, about his curiosity gone unsated. The latter, about the words I know he sees through as easily as the smoke spinning between us.