Rise of the Valiant (12 page)

Merk stood
beside the girl, watching the morning sun spread over the countryside of Ur,
and as she wept quietly beside him, his heart broke for her. She stood over the
bodies of her dead father and mother and brother and sobbed as she had
throughout the entire night. It had taken Merk hours to pry her off so that he
could bury them.

Merk went back
to work, reaching out with his shovel and digging again and again, as he had
for hours, his hands calloused, determined to at least bury their bodies and
give the girl some sense of peace. It was the least he could do; after all, she
had saved his life, and no one had done that before. He still felt the agony in
his back from where he had been shot, and he remembered her stepping forward,
killing that boy, then removing the arrow and healing his wound. She had nursed
him back to life through a long and horrible night—and now he had strength
enough to help her. Oddly, he had come here to save her—but now he felt in her
debt.

Merk poked at
the dirt with the shovel, digging and digging, the smell of acrid smoke from
the still-burning stables filling his nostrils, needing to release the heavy
night from his mind, to lose himself in something physical. He realized how
lucky he was to be alive, so certain he was dead after being shot. He would
have been if it were not for her. He did not like these feelings of attachment
he was having for her, and as he dug, he tried to blot it from his mind. The
shoveling was exhausting, his wound hurting, but it took his mind off her
weeping, and off the death of these good folk. He could not help but feel he
was to blame—if he had arrived sooner, perhaps they would all still be alive.

Merk dug and
dug, three graves now finished, probably deeper than they needed to be. His
muscles burned as he straightened his aching back, and he put the shovel down
definitively, looking over at her. He wanted to wrap an arm around her, to
console her. But he was not that kind of man. He never knew how to express or
even understand his feelings, and he’d seen far too much death to be greatly
affected by it. Yet he felt bad for the girl’s emotions. He wanted her crying
to stop.

Merk stood there
patiently, not knowing what to do, waiting for her to place the bodies in—to do
something, anything. Yet she just stood there, weeping, unmoving, and he soon
realized he would have to do it himself.

Merk finally
knelt, grabbed her father, and dragged him into one of the freshly dug graves.
The body was heavier than he’d expected, his back was hurting now from his
wound and his over-exertion, and he just wanted to get this over with.

She rushed
forward suddenly and grabbed his arm.

“No, wait!” she
cried out.

He turned and
saw her grief-stricken eyes staring back.

“Don’t do it,”
she pleaded. “I can’t bear it.”

He frowned.

“Would you
rather the wolves have at them?”

“Just don’t,”
she cried. “Please. Not now.”

She wept as she
dropped to her knees, cradling her father.

Merk sighed and
looked out at the horizon, at the breaking dawn, and wondered if there was any
end to death in this world. Some people died pleasantly while others died
violently—yet no matter how they died, they all seemed to end up in the same
place. What was the point of it all? What was the point of a peaceful death, or
a violent one, if they all led to the same place? Did it even make any
difference? And if death was inevitable, what was even the point of life?

Merk watched the
sky lighten and he knew he had to move on. He had wasted too much time here
already, fighting a fight that was not his. Was this what happened, he
wondered, when you fought for causes that were not your own? Did you end up
feeling this sense of confusion, of mixed satisfaction?

“I must go,” he
said firmly, impatient. “A long journey lies before me, and a new day breaks.”

She did not
reply. He looked down at her and felt a sense of responsibility for her, here
all alone, and he debated what to do.

“Other predators
roam this countryside,” he continued. “It is no place for you to be alone. Come
with me. I will find you protection in the Tower of Ur, or somewhere close by.”

It was the first
time he had ever offered anyone to join him, had ever gone out of his way to
help someone for no reason, and it made him feel good—yet also nervous. It was
not who he was.

Merk expected
her to jump at his offer, and he was confused when she shook her head, not even
meeting his eyes.

“Never,” she
seethed.

He was shocked
as she looked up at him with eyes filled with hatred.

“I would
never
join you,” she added.

He blinked back.

“I don’t
understand,” he replied.

“This is all
your fault,” she said, looking back at the corpses.

“
My
fault?” he asked, indignant.

“I begged for
you to come sooner,” she said. “If you had listened, you could have saved them.
Now they all lie dead because of you. Because of your selfishness.”

Merk frowned.

“Let me remind
you,” he replied, “that you are alive right now because of my selfishness.”

She shook her
head.

“Pity for me,”
she replied. “I wish I had died with them. And for that I hate you even more.”

Merk sighed,
furious, realizing that that was what he got for helping people. Ingratitude.
Hatred. Better to keep to himself.

“Fine then,” he
said.

He turned to
walk away, but for some reason he still could not. Despite everything, for some
reason, he still cared for her. And he hated that he did.

“I shall not ask
you again,” he said, his voice quivering with anger, standing there, waiting.

She would not
respond.

He turned and
scowled at her.

“You do
realize,” he said, dumbfounded, “that staying here alone is a death sentence.”

She nodded.

“And that is
precisely what I hope for,” she replied.

“You are
confused,” he said. “I am not their murderer. I am your savior.”

She looked him
with such contempt that Merk recoiled.

“You are
no
one’s
savior,” she spat. “You are not even a man. You are a mercenary. A
murderer for hire. And you are no better than these men—don’t pretend that you
are.”

Her words struck
him deeply, perhaps because he cared for a person for the first time he could
remember, perhaps because he had let his guard down. Now Merk wished he hadn’t.
He felt a shiver run through his spine, felt her words ring through him like a
curse.

“Then why did
you save me last night?” he demanded. “Why not let me die?”

She did not
respond, which agitated him even more.

Merk saw there
was no reasoning with her, and he had enough: fed up, he threw down the shovel,
turned, and marched away.

He hiked away
from the burning compound and into the breaking sun, heading back for the
woods. He could still hear the girl’s crying as he went. He crested a hill,
then another, and for some reason, as much as he hoped they would, the cries
still did not fade. It was like they were echoing in his mind.

As he crested
another hill, Merk finally turned and look back for her. His stomach clenched
in a knot as he spotted her, a small figure in the distance. There she knelt,
still, far in the valley below, by the graves of her family. Merk was confused
by his emotions and he did not like the feeling. It clouded him.

Worst of all,
Merk felt a lack of resolve. He knew she would die out there, and a part of him
wanted to go back and help her. But how could he help someone who did not want
helping?

Merk steeled
himself, took a deep breath, and turned his back on her. He faced the woods
ahead, and looked out at the pilgrimage before him. On the horizon, waiting for
him, he knew, was the Tower of Ur. A place where his mission would be simple,
where life would be simple. A place to belong.

Suddenly, as he
pondered it, he was struck by an awful thought: what if they rejected him?

There was only
one way to find out. Merk took the first step and this time he resolved to stop
for nothing—for no one—until he completed his quest.

Kyra rode Andor
at a walk, Dierdre at her side, Leo at their heels, miserable, unable to stop
shivering in the freezing rain. The rain fell in sheets, so loudly she could
barely hear herself think, pelting them for hours, sometimes turning to snow
and hail. She could not recall the last time she had been indoors, beside a
fire, in any sort of shelter. The driving wind kept at them, and she felt a
chill deep in her bones which she did not think would ever thaw.

Dawn had broken
long ago, though one could not tell from the sky, the clouds dark, angry,
hanging low, thick, and heavy, gray, lashing rain and hail and snow, barely an
improvement over the night. They had ridden through the Wood of Thorns all
through the long and harrowing night, trying to get as far as they could from
the Pandesians. Kyra had kept expecting them to be followed—and it drove her on
without rest. Perhaps because the dark, the rain, or just having all those boys
on their hands, they never tried to follow.

Hour passed hour
and Kyra, freezing, scratched by branches, sleep-deprived, felt hollowed out.
She felt as if she had been riding for years. She looked over and saw Dierdre
equally miserable, and saw Leo whining, none of them having eaten since Volis.
The irony of that whole encounter, Kyra realized, was that they had endangered
their lives for food but had not managed to salvage any—and now they were even
hungrier.

Kyra tried to
focus on the quest ahead of her, on Ur, on the importance of her mission—but at
this moment, sleep deprived, her eyes closing, all she wanted was a place to
lie down and sleep, a warm fire, and a good meal. She was not even halfway
across Escalon, and she wondered how she would ever possibly complete this
quest; Ur felt like a million miles away.

Kyra studied her
surroundings, peering through the rain, but found no sign of shelter, no
boulders or caves or hollow tree trunks—nothing but this endless, mangled wood.

They rode and
rode, mustering the strength to go on, Kyra and Dierdre too exhausted to speak
to each other. Kyra did not know how much time had passed when she thought she
began to hear, somewhere in the distance, a sound she had only heard a few
times in her life: the crashing of waves.

Kyra looked up
and blinked into the rain, blinded by it, wiping it from her eyes and face, and
she wondered. Was it possible?

She listened
closely, stopping, and Dierdre stopped beside her, each exchanging a curious
glance.

“I hear ocean,”
Kyra said, listening, confused by the sound of gushing water. “Yet it also
sounds like…a river.”

She rode faster,
encouraged, and as she neared heard what sounded like, perhaps, a waterfall.
Her curiosity heightened.

They finally
emerged from the wood and as the sky opened before them for the first time
since entering the Wood of Thorns, Kyra was taken aback by the sight: there,
but a few hundred yards away, sat the widest sea she had ever laid eyes upon,
seeming to stretch to the end of the world. The sea was white with foam,
windswept on this blustery day, pelted with rain and hail, and Kyra saw dozens
of ships, taller than she’d ever seen, their masts bobbing and rocking. They
were all clustered in a harbor, close to shore, and as Kyra looked carefully,
she noticed a gushing river leading from the sea and winding its way through
the wood. The river seemed to divide two woods, the trees on the far side a
different color and glowing white. Kyra had never seen anything like it in all
of Escalon, and she marveled at the sight.

They stopped
there and stared, mesmerized, their faces pelted with rain and neither
bothering to wipe it away.

“The Sorrow,” Dierdre
remarked. “We’ve made it.”

Kyra turned and
examined the river before them, and the small, wooden bridge spanning it.

“And the river?”
Kyra asked.

“The River
Tanis,” Dierdre replied. “It divides the Wood of Thorns and Whitewood. Once we
cross it, we are in the West.”

“And then how
far to Ur?” Kyra asked.

Dierdre
shrugged.

“A few days?”
she guessed.

Kyra’s heart
fell at the thought. She felt the hunger gnawing at her stomach, felt the
freezing cold as another gale of wind lashed her, and as she shivered, she did
not know how they would make it.

“We could take
the River Tanis,” Dierdre added. “We could find a boat. It won’t take us all
the way, though, and it is a rough ride. I know more than one man from Ur who
has died in its waters.”

Kyra examined
the gushing river, its sound deafening even from here—louder even than the
crashing waves of the Sorrow—and she realized its danger. She shook her head,
preferring to risk whatever they might encounter on land than in those
torrential currents.

She studied the
contours of the river and saw where it narrowed, one shore nearly touching the
other; a small bridge spanned it, clearly well-traveled, shaped in an arch to
allow ships to pass through. She spotted something on its shores: a small,
wooden structure, like a cottage, weathered, leaning, perched at the edge of the
river. Candles burned in its sole window, and she noticed dozens of small boats
tied up alongside it. It was a hub of activity. She saw men stumbling out of
it, off-balance, heard a raucous shout, and she realized: it was a tavern.

The smell of
food wafting in the air hit her like a punch in the gut and made it hard for
her to focus on anything else. She wondered what sort of people were inside.

“Pandesians?”
she wondered aloud, as Dierdre examined it, too.

Dierdre shook
her head.

“Look at those
boats,” she said. “They have foreign markings. They’re travelers, coming in off
the sea. They all take the Tanis to cut through Escalon. I’ve seen many in Ur.
Most are traders.”

As Leo whined
beside her, Kyra felt a hunger pang in her stomach; yet she recalled her father’s
warning to avoid others.

“What do you
think?” Dierdre asked, clearly thinking the same thing.

Kyra shook her
head, torn between a bad feeling and a desire for food and shelter, to get out
of the rain and wind. She studied the tavern and her eyes narrowed in concern.
She did not like the sounds coming from within its walls; they were the sounds
of drunken men, she could recognize it anywhere from having grown up as the
only girl in a fort filled with warriors. And she knew that when men drank,
they looked for trouble.

“We will attract
unwanted attention,” Kyra replied, “two girls, traveling alone.”

Dierdre frowned.

“Those are not
soldiers,” she replied. “They are travelers. And that is no garrison, but a
tavern. This will not be like encountering Pandesians. That was just bad luck
back there. These men will be focused on their drink, not war. We can buy the
food we need and leave. Besides, we have Andor, and Leo and you and your
weapons. The Pandesian soldiers could not stop us back in the wood—do you really
think a bunch of drunken sailors can?”

Kyra hesitated,
uneasy. She understood her point of view, and she wanted to eat as badly as
she—not to mention to take shelter, even if for a minute.

“I’m weak from
hunger,” Dierdre said. “We all are. And I’ve never been so cold in my life. We
can’t keep going on like this. We will die out here. You are shivering so
badly, you don’t even realize it.”

Kyra suddenly
realized her teeth were chattering, and she knew Dierdre had a point. They
needed a break, even if for a few moments. It was risky—yet going on like this
was risky, too.

Finally, Kyra
nodded.

“We’ll get in
and out,” she said. “Keep your head down. Stick close to me. And if any man
comes for you, stick this in his gut.”

Kyra placed a
dagger in her friend’s palm and looked up at her meaningfully. They were frozen
from the cold, weak from hunger, tired of running from men, and Kyra could see
in her friend’s eyes that she was ready.

Even so, as they
rode out of the wood and into the clearing, towards the gushing river, closing
in on the tavern, Kyra felt a deep foreboding overcome her—and she knew, even
as she rode, that this was a very, very bad idea.