The Maiden of Moonfane Forge

*

Crickets were chirping the first time he woke. The second time, they had ceased their songs. Stars were out. He could feel that it was deep night. Vetch could also feel that his underclothes were stuck to his wounds with dried blood. When he went to try and lift his shoulders off the ground, that fabric tore away from the sword wounds painfully. He screamed and slumped back to the earth. Little white clouds issued from his mouth while he caught his breath. Moving reopened the wounds. He felt hot blood flow anew.

The next thing he knew, there was sunlight on his face, stabbing through his eyelids. They fluttered and he opened his eyes to a peaceful morning. He viewed the same tree boughs as before, only instead of stars in a black sky beyond them, it was lofty white clouds in a blue one. He was burning with fever. Only living men suffered fevers. How was it that he was not dead? Much more carefully this time, Vetch turned himself onto his side. He felt the tearing around his sticky wounds once again, but it was not as bad as the first time. He was wracked with a coughing fit that brought on its own new burst of pain.

All around him was quiet, save for the shush of a pleasant spring breeze through the leaves. Fighting his stiff muscles, he lifted himself up painfully onto one elbow and craned his neck to look around. He saw Iannitz. Flies made a little black cloud around his corpse. Looking in the other direction, he saw Mora lying on her back by her dead horse, her face a mask of dark crimson, her eyes still open. Slowly, Vetch turned onto his stomach and bowed his forehead to the ground with his eyes clenched shut. He choked on a sob, yet no tears came to his eyes. He was too dehydrated. At that moment, he would have been content to remain where he was and simply die. But still he drew breath, and overhead the sun still crawled across the sky. Again, he wondered how he was alive. Had the blade that had impaled his body somehow missed everything vital? Be that as it may, he knew that even a superficial cut could bring deadly infection under the right circumstances. That he was feverish told him that such would be his fate if he did nothing to intervene. Again, there was the temptation to simply lay there and let nature take its course. But if he were still alive, that might mean others could be, too.

Cursing the pain that told him he had somehow survived another battle, at least for the time being, Vetch pushed himself up onto his knees and from there stood up, staggering at first before righting himself. He shambled toward Mora first, before remembering that he’d seen her killed early on in the skirmish. So, there were two he’d lost. Who remained to find? Leaving behind the dark red puddle of his own vitality left in the dirt, Vetch dragged his feet past two more dead horses and farther up the road. He found Oderyk face down. His throat was cut. His fingers were curled as if they still held the grip of his longsword, but the weapon was gone. The bastards had taken it as a prize.

Wandering away from the road into the underbrush, Vetch came upon the place where he had left the dying axewoman, but she was not there. In the confusion of battle, he’d thought certain her wounds were fatal. Either the raiders had taken her body with them when they’d departed or she had survived in the same implausible way he himself had. Nearby, he found his horse had been stabbed dead. What kind of a person did such a thing? The poor beast had been dying already.

Renzo was harder to find. He lay well off the road out in the trees. His knuckles were bloodied and there were stab wounds in his back. Beside his body, there were two human-sized depressions in the grass. Maybe the brawler had taken a couple of the whoresons with him, but their bodies, too, had been carried off by their comrades. Vetch viewed all these scenes as if through another man’s eyes. It was all too horrific to fathom. Had he the strength to even express it, he wouldn’t have known how a man might mourn something so terrible as this without dying of sadness himself. This was his fault. He’d led his soldiers to their deaths. He might as well have killed them himself.

Nearby, something he had at first discerned in his peripheral vision as merely a shadow dappling the forest floor suddenly made a sound. Hope flared in Vetch as he looked closer and recognized Neschi. He made his feet carry him to her side, where he fell to his knees.

“Neschi?” he coughed through blood-caked lips. “Neschi.” No response. She lay on her back, eyes closed loosely and face slack, but she was breathing. “Neschi, can you hear me?” Nothing. She appeared unharmed, save for a patch of blood in her hair on one side of her head. While she continued to take regular, shallow breaths, Vetch could find no way to wake her. “Stay here,” he said automatically, then he pushed himself back up onto his weary feet and returned to the road to rummage through all of their possessions that had been scattered across the scene by the raiders. He found a waterskin with some water still in it and returned to her. He kneeled beside her once more and dribbled water onto her lips. Her lips moved and she appeared to take in the cooling water. He gave her more and she drank it. Heartened by this, Vetch sat down and continued to furnish her with small sips of water for as long as she would drink. Then, he drank as well and sat with her. A few times, her eyelids fluttered, but she responded to none of his words and still would not wake.

Vetch had seen something like this before, a man in the garrison who had been kicked by a horse and suffered a similar looking head injury. He had been unconscious for days, but eventually he had woken and been himself again, after a long recovery. Vetch held that hope in his heart as he sat there for the remainder of the day tending to Neschi, only leaving her side for brief periods to find more water, some hard biscuits, and bandages. He cleaned and bandaged her head wound, then sat with her some more, giving her water when she would take it, speaking to her softly the rest of the time.

As afternoon and then evening fell, Vetch finally got down to the task he had been dreading: assessing his own wounds. Almost, he hoped that if he never looked at them, he could fool himself into believing they wouldn’t kill him in the next day or two. He needed to survive to nurse Neschi back to health. Then, he and she could make the difficult trek back to Moonfane Forge.

He shed his black and silver surcoat, then pulled off his padded shirt. Beneath that was his undershirt. It was soaked red and had to be peeled painfully off his chest and back. There was nothing dramatic about the wound itself, but seeing the shape of a sword’s stab in his own chest was enough to cause him to hyperventilate and become faint from the unreality of it. This was the same type of wound that had killed Wenzl. A sword had gone through his body. Whether he died right away, or in a few days’s time, a man did not survive that.

Yet, with a detachment he could only attribute to a base instinct for survival, Vetch cleaned and dressed the wounds in his chest and shoulder, and did the best he could for the difficult-to-reach exit wound in his back. He cleaned the blood from his face and was surprised to discover that his nose was not broken, though the stitches in his cheek had been ripped open. That was the extent of all he could do—clean and dress things on the surface. There was nothing he could do for whatever injuries he’d sustained to his insides, nor for any infection that fate might curse him with. When he was finished, he merely returned to sitting there quietly to resume his vigil over Neschi.

Hour by hour through the night, he sat by her side. For periods he was silent, keeping track of time by the rhythm of her breathing, on edge every moment that it might slow or cease. Sometimes he would speak to her, talking about anything at all, anything that would take his mind off of the horrific scenes of battle they had just endured together, and his own distressing injuries. The night seemed both to take forever and to slip by in the blink of an eye. He didn’t notice how the moon moved across the night sky, nor how its light was strong or obscured depending on the branches above and the sparse clouds that came and went. He only sat and watched her, ever fearful.

“Did you ever tell me about what family you had back home?” he asked Neschi. He had just finished telling her about his family, how his parents had not wanted him to be a soldier, but to follow them in their trade by taking over the tannery. And how they seemed still to resent him for his choice, despite the time he’d lived as his own man, by his own decisions. “If you did, I don’t recall it. You never talked much about your childhood, either. I can’t even remember if you’d grown up in Moonfane Forge. I’m sorry if you’ve told me and I don’t remember.” Vetch cleared his throat. It was becoming terribly dry and he’d exhausted the waterskins he’d found amongst the carnage. “Well, we’ll get you back to your folks, wherever they are. Neither of us ever have to be soldiers again. You can work with me at the tannery. It’s not pleasant work, but it’s honest. But first, we’ll need to track down everyone’s families. Whoever they have left—”

“Na ...” Neschi’s lips barely moved, the speech little more than a weak whisper. “... Nadia.”

Vetch surged onto his knees and placed a hand on Neschi’s shoulder. “Neschi?” He squeezed her shoulder gently. “Neschi, do you hear me?”

Neschi gave no sign that she could hear him or feel his hand. Her eyelids fluttered, but did not open. Once more, her lips moved, as though she were trying to speak again, but that was all. No words issued. Her countenance remained unchanged, her face slack, pale.

“Please speak again, Neschi. Who is that? A friend? A sister? We’ll find her, I promise.” Vetch searched her face for any sign that she at least was aware of his presence, that she might be on the verge of waking. Speech was a step in the right direction, and for a few exciting moments Vetch felt hope blossom. But with every additional minute she didn’t speak again, apprehension filled back in to take its place and before long Vetch was banished once again to his earlier state of emotional dormancy. Hours passed and Neschi remained the same as when he’d found her, alive and breathing, yet unaware of the world around her. After a time, Vetch wondered if he had only imagined that she had spoken at all.

The sun was rising when Vetch could ignore his returning thirst no longer. The hard biscuits he’d found and eaten had only made it worse. Neschi, too, would need more water, and so he would need to find more. He didn’t want to walk back through the scene of the battle on the road amongst the dead, view the empty eyes of his friends and fellow soldiers anymore, but he must. He steeled himself and stood.

“I will be right back, Neschi,” he told her.

Returning to the road, which was just beginning to be touched by morning sunlight, Vetch cautiously looked around. If he feared any of the raiders might have returned, his fears were unfounded. The scene was as he’d left it—dead Moonfane soldiers and their horses and supplies strewn about. Crows and vultures jockeyed and cavorted about Iannitz’s corpse, plucking at his uniform. Vetch looked upon this tableau with sadness, but found he had not the stomach to do anything about it. He forced himself to look upon Mora and Oderyk as he passed them and he felt guilty for being alive. He’d been allotted a plot in this impromptu graveyard for soldiers, but he’d gotten up and walked away from it, as if he were too good to join his fellows in stillness.

The raiders had rushed through their looting, not that there had been much of value for them to take. Only some spare weapons and horse tack were gone; the rest had simply been thrown about the road in their haste to be gone. Vetch found his own waterskin in the underbrush a short distance from his horse. They’d run his horse through just like they’d done to him. The poor beast lay on its side with flies beginning to gather. One of Vetch’s saddlebags was trapped under it, and briefly he lamented that his fire making supplies had been in there. He would have to find somebody else’s before he and Neschi could begin their walk home.

Taking his waterskin, he retreated back into the shade of the trees to Neschi and sat down beside her.

“I’ve some more water,” he said, as he unstoppered the skin. He bent over her and carefully tipped the water to her lips. As it dribbled over her cracked lips, only then did Vetch notice that she was breathing no more. Confused, he dropped the waterskin and held her cheeks in his hands. “Neschi? Neschi!” He felt for breath from her mouth and nostrils, found none, felt for a pulse at her throat, and again found nothing. Panicking, Vetch shook her shoulders, calling, “Neschi! Neschi, wake up, soldier!” as if he could stir her back to life with such commands. Neschi’s head lolled to the side. She was gone. It had been pointless—sitting with her through the night, speaking to her, helping her drink water—all of it. None of it had mattered in the end. Vetch could do nothing. The last little shred of hope that someone would survive along with him, that he could save just one of them and bring her home, was mercilessly snuffed out.

From the initial numbness and dazedness, a welling of emotion flooded Vetch’s senses and everything finally came pouring out of him. He stumbled up onto his feet, taking up the waterskin and hurling it away as he shouted an inarticulate cry of pain at the world. He stomped in different directions, bellowing all his sadness and frustration until he was too out of breath to remain on his feet. Then, he sat down hard beside Neschi’s still form, pushed his fists against his forehead and bawled. For every one of the soldiers he’d led to their deaths, he bawled like a child—for Neschi, for Wenzl and Captain Tarese, for Lily and Moonfane Forge and all its townspeople, he shed those most bitter tears left remaining to him.

But none did he shed for himself. He refused to include himself in that outpouring, because it had been his fault it had all come to pass. He deserved no pity and no sympathy.

When he had exhausted himself with his mourning, to the point that his face tingled from crying, Vetch sat with his head in his hands and caught his breath. His fruitless raging had started the blood flowing from his wounds again. The bandaging was soaked, and a trickle of blood trailed down his stomach. He watched the sanguine droplet reach his belt and be absorbed by the material of his trousers. The calm that comes over a person directly after spending all their emotions settled over Vetch. He looked at Neschi’s pale face. She’d been his dear friend in the garrison. She looked calm and serene. He nodded to himself. He likely didn’t have long either, not with the kinds of injuries he’d sustained, not with the fever that even now was making his head pound and his joints ache. But he couldn’t just lay down and die. He couldn’t leave his fellow soldiers as they were.

Forcing himself up onto his feet again, Vetch returned to the road. This time, he made for Iannitz’s body. Nearby, Vetch’s sword lay in the road. He didn’t wonder why the raiders had chosen not to steal it. He simply picked it up and used it to drive all the carrion birds away from the dead young soldier. Then, he sheathed his blade, grabbed Iannitz by the boots and unceremoniously dragged him off the road and back underneath the trees to where Neschi lay. He placed the boy beside her, then went back for Mora. Then Oderyk. Then Renzo. One by one, he dragged his companions there and placed them beside one another, arranging them with care, as one would to prepare them for their funerals.

The last was Rolande. He had not seen her since the beginning of the battle. He recalled the location from which she’d been firing arrows, including the two that had saved his life early in the skirmish. He went to that place across the other side of the road and there is where he found her, lying atop the raider with which she had struggled as Vetch himself had challenged the raiders’s commander. It appeared that Rolande and the raider she had fought had killed each other simultaneously, and her body had hidden that of her foe. The raiders had missed this man in claiming and taking away their dead.

As he had done with the others, Vetch brought Rolande back to where he had placed her fellow garrison soldiers, and arranged her in line with them. Like the rows of newly-dug graves he’d seen outside of Moonfane Forge the day after the raid, like soldiers, who always stand in rows, these soldiers now lay shoulder to shoulder in a neat row. Only, Vetch had not the strength to dig graves for them. He already felt unsteady on his feet from dragging their bodies. With the last of his remaining strength, he cut branches from trees and used them to cover up his fallen companions. This was as good as he could do, though he knew it was not good enough. He didn’t wish to think of the forest’s scavengers finding them. There was nothing he could do to prevent that. He was only glad that he would be gone from the place by the time it happened.

His only plan now was to walk home. He had nothing else. He would try to make it back to Moonfane Forge before his injuries killed him. In searching through the things scattered on the road for the supplies he would need to keep him alive on the walk back, he came again to the dead raider. He knew it was pointless, but his curiosity got the better of him. Kneeling beside the man, Vetch scrutinized him. He had different features than some of the others, not like those of a northerner. It was his armor that he was most interested in, however. This man wore a motley of chainmail and studded and boiled leather. Vetch found the marks of a few different makers in the various bits of protective clothing, but nothing that would indicate where the man had come from. These raiders were all dressed in what they could loot from whatever foes they defeated, in whichever lands they fought them, not equipped by any lord or garrison. It was as Ennric had guessed, and the horse thief had described: sellswords.

“So ... a mage with an army of mercenaries,” Vetch spoke to himself, as if he were at last getting around to deducing possibilities from the conversations he and Ennric had had after the raid. “Would she not have had a proper garrison at her back, if she were in the employ of another kingdom’s ruler and been sent out to abduct our Marigold? Is she a rogue mage?”

Vetch spoke the words and wondered why it mattered to him now. He would never find this woman. She had won. She and her army, with their prize, Marigold, in their clutches, would return victorious to their ‘castle surrounded by wheatfields’ and Vetch would never see them again. He would return home with his tail between his legs and become a tanner.

“If I make it home,” he amended his inner voice.