Progress through the woods was slow, but Holt thought his progress with Ash was going well. As well as it could. Every spare moment he Cleansed. And when that was done, he Forged.
Holt was getting the hang of Cleansing now. Pushing his breath out at a controlled pace, breathing in more slowly than he was out, all the while waiting to hear those crackles in his soul. Getting rid of them was the trouble. Sometimes the impurities would push up easily. Other times it would take minutes of shallow breathing, and it was all he could do not to draw a massive breath in as his lungs begged for air.
Hard work. Holt couldn’t call it anything other than tedious. But he could already feel results. Each day Ash’s core became that bit clearer. And each night Brode allowed them a brief expedition above the trees to take in lunar motes to Forge. Ash’s core grew larger, brighter, denser – its smoky tendrils grasping further out into its navy void.
Each day his well of magic grew.
Their bond too felt more robust, having settled after the turmoil of battle and their first flight together. Its beating was now second nature to Holt, as much a part of him as breathing.
Ash too worked hard, training to gather his breath quicker and practiced weaving between the trunks, thickets and fallen trees that barred their passage through the forest. Each day he stumbled and crashed less.
There was sword craft also which Holt still found difficult. Brode drilled him in the mornings while Talia packed up their camp. Evenings were too valuable a time for him not to Cleanse and Forge.
Strangely their journey was unhindered, coming across only a handful of ghouls. Brode seemed disappointed by this, muttering that Holt and Talia needed some proper combat, and he seemed to be made more on edge by their lack of trouble.
“It’s not right,” he said. “Not during an incursion.”
“Perhaps the bulk of the swarm has already moved towards Sidastra,” Talia offered.
Brode only grunted and told them to keep close.
They did have difficulty in hunting. Brode had been unable to find more game. The one deer they came across was dead already, the blight forming a bug-like shell on its skin. Pyra burned the poor beast to stop it from rising.
One morning, Holt struck what he considered gold. A clump of healthy pigweed which he picked to add to their dinner that evening. Some greens would be a welcome addition to their traveler’s diet. Later that same day, Ash started sniffing and darted eagerly after the smell.
“Something sweet,” he declared over a bush.
Holt caught up and discovered wild strawberries. Their sweetness would be another relief from the relentless salty meat, hard cheese and oatcakes. Those hard packed, crumbly biscuits where the one thing they had an abundance of from Midbell.
That night he flicked through his recipe book, hoping for a stroke of inspiration on how to combine the fruits of his foraging. Nothing sprang out at him. The book was designed for rider halls with all their amenities and scale, not a quick campfire dinner.
He had the pigweed laid out before him on top of an empty sack, staring at it as though the leaves and stems might speak to him.
“Might I use some water for these?” Holt asked. “Is it necessary?” said Brode.
“I need to wilt them somehow,” Holt said. “Wish I’d found some garlic as well.”
“I meant must we have—” Brode leaned closer. “— whatever it is?” “It’s pigweed.”
“What?” Talia said, sounding thoroughly unimpressed.
It took Holt a moment to understand why she was so put off before realizing.
“Pigweed is what the herbalists and apothecarists call it, but it’s essentially wild spinach.”
“I see,” Talia said, still sounding unsure. “And the stems are fine to eat, are they?”
“The whole plant is,” Holt said. “But I’ll need some water.”
Brode checked their cannisters, shaking each one gently. “Just a small amount, Master Cook.” He tossed one over. Holt reached out but the cannister slipped between his fingers and whacked into his nose.
Holt winced and rubbed at his face, longing for the moment he would become an Ascendant and gain better reflexes.
He got to work, wilting the pigweed in his ration of water along with a little salt. He cooked Pyra’s beef with kracker pepper and tangy spices he still had from the Crag, and sliced off a strip of their dwindling venison supply for Ash. One stroke of inspiration came to him, and he mashed the wild strawberries down on top of Ash’s meat as a sweetener. Venison worked well with some fruit, though strawberries would be an unorthodox combination to his knowledge.
“D’you like that?” he asked Ash.
Ash licked some of the strawberry paste from his lips. “It could be better.”
Brode barked a laugh. “Becoming fussier, is he? That’s what happens.” “I’ll try new things when I can,” Holt said, giving Ash a scratch on his
head. While Ash was sitting down this was still possible, but he was still growing. The firelight danced off his white scales, and he was now large enough that it was like having a second hearth there to light the night.
He caught Talia’s squeamish expression as she picked at the spinach he’d offered up and felt embarrassed. Still, she ate it.
Once again, Holt marveled at where he was and what he was doing. He was a thousand leagues removed from his routine life in the Crag kitchens, and he would never return to it. That sent a pang through him, which he had not expected. His father had been right, it wasn’t a terrible life. The smells of the kitchen, the satisfaction of hearing compliments from the riders, the joy in following one’s instincts to try something new and for it to work.
When he’d taken Ash’s egg, he really had not thought it through. Yet he wondered now whether a part of him, a small devious part of him, had hoped for this. As Talia had said, what had he expected would be the result? That there would be no consequences? Surely, he was smarter than that. Once the madness had left him, he had expected punishment. Now there
was the chance for the Order to reluctantly induct him, where he would be frowned upon for his actions.
What a choice he had made. Only to end up with no choice at all. But Brode and Talia had had a choice.
“What made you both wish to join the Order?” Holt asked.
Brode sniffed, took a bite of his oatcake and gave Talia a look to say, ‘you first.’
“If I’d been the direct heir it would have been out of the question,” Talia said. “But as the spare? Well, my role as the spare would be to marry someone important and use my influence to aid that realm and Feorlen from afar. My mother had other ideas. She wanted me to join the Order.”
“Why? She must have known how difficult that would be.”
“Her closest friend joined the Order in Brenin, though she died in battle long ago. And despite that, I think mother always wanted to join herself but couldn’t – destined to marry my father from birth. She’s fought against Harroway and his ilk for years to keep the tithes that fund the Order in place. Father left her to it; kept his hands clean of it so to appear supportive of all his ealdors. I think mother and Denna believed that if I joined, not paying the tithes might be seen as an insult to the monarchy. A political fog no one would wish to venture into. Master Brode is right,” she added with a nod to the old rider. “No one else would have been allowed to leave for bereavement. I’ve had special treatment.”
Brode picked at his teeth and said nothing. “So, you did it for your mother?” Holt asked.
“If it weren’t for her it would never have happened,” Talia said. “She made it possible. But I threw myself on this path just as eagerly.” She sighed. “Everyone has the same role in the end, don’t we? Stop the scourge. Keep the living… alive. Better to fight them directly, I thought. Leofric was always better with his words. If our positions had been switched… well, it doesn’t matter now.”
Holt didn’t want to push her any further.
“I had a brother,” Brode said suddenly. Everyone, even the dragons, sat up a little straighter. “A half-brother. Big lad, strong, a good fighter – better than me. Wanted to join the Order himself, I’m told.”
“Why didn’t he?” Holt asked.
Brode flicked his head toward Talia. “I was the spare. A bastard.” There was no bitterness in his words. “Had to be carted off as soon as could be. A
senator of the Free City of Athra can’t have a little brat running around. Mother was a kitchenhand as a matter of fact.” He gave Holt a wry smile. “My brother died defending the city during the last great incursion. But that was a long time ago now.”
“I never thought to ask,” Talia said thickly. “Did they not let you go to his funeral? Master Brode, I’m sorry if I ever—”
“Settle, girl. Never liked my brother. Carlo would beat me senseless, and our tutor didn’t stop him. Silver spoon shoved so far up his arse you could see it shining at the back of his throat. Wouldn’t have gone back for him even if I could.”
Talia gave him a weak smile. “I understand now.”
But Holt wasn’t sure that she did. Brode hadn’t met her eye, had kept his tone painfully low, not giving an ounce away, and Holt knew he wasn’t as cold as he pretended to be.
“You voted to let Talia go,” Holt said.
Brode’s face changed in an instant. He might have been a hawk about to swoop on Holt.
“Did you?” Talia gasped. Brode gritted his teeth.
“It passed by one,” Holt said, recalling their argument in the courtyard back in Midbell.
“It’s not like I had the deciding vote,” Brode said. “That was Denna.” “Master Brode,” Talia said, “I… I don’t know what to say.”
“Say nothing.”
“But why?” she asked. “You’re not afraid to make it clear how you feel about me being in the Order.”
“You’re still human, aren’t you?” Brode snapped, perhaps more harshly than he intended. “We’re still human, aren’t we? Rules and rules and rules. Well they didn’t let the rules stop you from joining, why not let you go see your grieving mother. Damage was done already. You loved your brother too, that much was plain. Think I’d have liked the chance if it were me.”
Talia got up and moved to hug the old rider. “Thank you, Brode.”
Pyra rumbled approvingly and beat her wings for want of a true roar of gratitude. Plumes of fire swirled up from the campfire, twirling into the night.
“Don’t fuss,” Brode said and they parted.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He took her rather seriously by the shoulders then. “Because I don’t think you need any more encouragement.”
“What about your mother?” Holt asked.
Brode made a sound somewhere between a scoff and disgust. “She was worse than my loving brother. Think my father suffered embarrassment for my birth? Well she suffered worse. Already married too. Her husband didn’t like me either. Didn’t treat me or her well after it, and she took it out on me. As though her mistake was my fault. No, everyone was happy to pack me off to Falcaer.”
“And that’s where you trained with Silas?” Holt asked.
“Trained? I was his squire, Holt… his loyal squire for many years. They may never have let me become a real rider had he not vouched for me.” Brode’s fist clenched and the oatcake still within his grasp crumbled.
“Master Brode,” Talia said, as though speaking by his sick bed.
At last Brode seemed to succumb. “Erdra was my only real family. And I had to burn her body and bury the ashes on some forsaken hill along the road east of Athra… because Silas left us to die. I won’t leave her there forever. When my time comes, I’ll make my last journey and rest by her side.”
Sorrow passed over the bond from Ash. The white dragon padded gently over to Brode’s side and nuzzled him as he would Holt. Brode cleared his throat and patted Ash.
Holt didn’t know what to say. What could he say? Brode had suffered, really suffered; all of Holt’s grievances seemed so small now. So trivial. He had a loving family, a father who wanted nothing but the best for him. A fresh vigor to save Jonah Cook swelled within him; the need to seek forgiveness for the danger he had put them both in.
That vigor turned into raw hatred for Silas Silverstrike, the man who had betrayed them all – left Brode for dead despite all Brode had done for him.
“Why?” Holt said at last. “Why did Silas leave you? Why has he done this?”
“There was a village. They were slow to answer the summons to Athra… so a swarm nearby was drawn there. Silas reckoned we should leave them. I felt we shouldn’t feed the swarm more ghouls so readily if we could help it.”
“Lesson one,” Talia said.
“Lesson one?” Holt said, feeling he had heard them mention this before. “It’s the first thing they tell you when you take the oath,” Talia said.
“Lesson one: you can’t save them all.”
“There’s a difference between that and not trying,” said Brode. “And there’s—”
A silver-blue light streaked above the tree line.
Brode tensed at once and looked up. Holt joined him. The thunder rolled in eventually, distant and faint.
“Twenty seconds,” Brode said. “Four miles away. Quiet now,” he added in a hushed tone, but there was no need for it. The whole party had turned silent as the grave. When nothing came, he said, “Talia, check above.”
Talia launched herself high, grabbing onto a thick branch then continuing up until she disappeared in a flurry of leaves.
Holt guessed Brode wanted to check for a distant storm. But Holt didn’t think there would be one. The air was thick enough, but it was always thick in these woods and hadn’t grown any worse. The colors in the sky hadn’t been entirely natural either, but then again it had been very quick and—
Another flash of silver-blue light. Holt counted this time too. When the thunder finally reached them, he made it as twenty-three seconds.
“Farther away,” Brode confirmed.
Talia dropped down and landed in a crouch. “Clear skies everywhere.” Now it was undeniable.
“Silverstrike is here,” Holt said, panicked. All his recent advancements with Ash now seemed naïve and hopeless.
“We’re not doomed yet,” Brode said. “Something or someone is keeping him busy if he’s unleashing power like that.”
“Maybe his scourge forces have turned on him,” Holt said. “Maybe.”
“But how did he even pick up our trail?” Talia said.
“Our measures to cover our tracks weren’t foolproof,” Brode said. “Even if he searched the woods by chance, he could sense us if he happened to come close enough.”
Pyra braced herself and stretched her wings as far as injury would allow. “Let him come’, her voice rang inside Holt’s mind. ’He and Clesh must answer for their crimes. I will not run. Let him exhaust himself in his search so we may burn his husk.”
She glared at Ash as though to make him join her declaration. Ash braced himself and stretched his own white wings.
“She can be very scary,” Ash said covertly to Holt.
“Don’t let your fire get the better of you,” Brode said. “You’re strong Pyra, but Clesh will leave you a smoking ruin with a single thought. Remember what happened to Mirk and Biter.”
“And Commander Denna,” Talia said.
“I know it’s not what dragons like to do, but we will run and hide from them until there is no other choice.”
Pyra snorted thick smoke and clawed at the earth.
“Pack now,” Brode said. “We go deeper into the woods. Background distortion from the blight might be enough to mask us.”
“And if it isn’t?” Holt asked.
“Pray it does,” Brode said. He jumped to his feet and began packing at speed.
Holt rubbed at his eyes but got up as well, helping in his own, slower way.
Even as they took their first steps deeper into the forest the sky lit again with the power of the Storm Lord and the thunder boomed.
