Pillar of Ash by H. M. Long

Author:H. M. Long
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags:  
Publisher: Titan

Twenty-Three

The following hours etched into my memory in bursts of pain and disbelief. I welcomed intervals of unconsciousness when they came, and endured the stretches of disorientation when I awoke to find myself dangling over the shoulder of a monstrous human construct, my leg possessed by unyielding agony.

I did not know where Berin was. Isik, I glimpsed here and there. The creatures dragged him on a makeshift litter like a fresh kill, and he showed no signs of waking. The side of his head was crusted with gold-tinted blood in my Sight. Ichor.

My blood ran gold, too. I saw it on my hands, dangling below me, and watched it smear across my captor’s moss-and-wood flesh. Though tinted with lavender, it was nearly as bright as Isik’s. Berin’s blood too, dried and caked beneath my nails, glistened a duller amber.

Eventually, we came to a village. I didn’t have the strength to raise my head, so I saw the settlement upside down. The homes were rudimentary but tidy, constructed of unhewn logs, chinked with moss and clay, and overhung with eaves of moss and small, hearty ferns. Scrawny forest chickens watched me from one roof, while under the eaves of another a cluster of cautious children stared, lorded over by a protective father. This man looked similar to the one who’d pulled me from the cave in the ravine—broad cheekbones, hair in varying shades of brown, and warm skin seemed to be features of the people of the East.

Children. Humans, watching the riverman and monsters—his monsters—pass them by with cautious familiarity.

Isik and I were deposited in a low empty building, dug into the earth and capped in moss. I pretended to be unconscious, and only moved once I heard a bar wedged into place across the door. I caught retreating voices, heavily muffled by the walls—questioning but not demanding, overridden by one whose tones I immediately recognized.

The riverman.

You and all your kind will be driven out of the High Halls, Aita had once said to this same riverman. Go back to whatever den you’ve been hiding in, and never return.

Was this village, here in the east, the den the riverman had been driven back to?

I shivered and forced myself to sit upright, taking stock of my surroundings. The cellar was small and dark, smelling of earth and straw, but not damp. The floor was layered with fresh cuttings and as my eyes adjusted, I made out deep shelves and racks for wintering food. They were empty, despite the season, and the scent of apples, carrots, and whatever other sundries that might have been here were absent.

There was only one door, heavy and at the top of a short stairway. There was another small opening for ventilation, but it was too small to crawl through, and covered with sturdy wooden grating.

I turned my focus to Isik. I bent over him in the weak light, brushing hair back from his face and gently touching his beard, looking for the source of the blood. I couldn’t help but wonder why he’d come back to me, but my questions would have to wait.

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