Five Years Later

  I had a good vantage point on the wagon from where I laid in the bushes, obscured by the shadow of the quiet forest around me. The wagon was unfortunately covered, so I couldn’t see what laid inside, but a wagon this big had to have something. Better still, there was only one person sitting at the reigns driving the two horses forward, and no light from inside the cover to indicate any more hiding in there. One lone traveller, with a large freight wagon, with no security or mercenaries, and clearly not from around here either. Exactly what I was waiting for.

  I tugged on both the ropes in my hands. All of a sudden, the treetops I had looped the first one through began to rustle as though packed with a hundred shapeless dangers hidden within the leaves. The driver jumped in his seat, coming to full wakefulness, just as the second rope sent a weakened tree falling down, crashing right in the way of the road. The horses whinnied and reared up, startled, and I took my chance.

  I leaped from the bush, raising my pistol and taking quick aim. The peals of two shots echoed through the woods as I sent two bullets straight into the wooden hitches attaching the horses to the wagon. There was an explosion of wooden splinters as they struck home, and one of the horses took the opportunity to leap over the fallen tree and bolt down the road in fear.

  The driver started frantically fumbling for his own pistol, but by the time that he had gotten it loaded, I was already right next to the wagon, holding my axe up to his throat.

  “Brigand…!” he spat, his trembling voice betraying his fear.

  “Drop the gun, and get on the ground,” I ordered. The driver hesitated, and I pulled the axe back a hair, not enough to deliver a lethal slice, but enough to nick his neck and draw blood. Enough to show I was serious. “Now!”

  The man complied, setting the loaded gun down on his seat, and hopped to the ground. I gestured downwards with my pistol. “Face down, on the ground, hands behind your back,” I commanded.

  The man glared daggers at me, but he grit his teeth and obeyed. “The Watch will have your head for this,” he hissed as he laid down prone.

  I pulled a small piece of tough thread from my pouch and tied his hands together, making sure to bind them extra tight for that little barb. “They’re welcome to come try,” I muttered. I holstered my own pistol, took the driver’s, fired it into the ground only a foot from his head, and then hurled it as far as I could into the woods.

  “As you’ve heard, you’re surrounded,” I said, starting the stock speech I’d given enough by now to know by heart. “You’ve no weapons, and no protectors here. This is your only chance to leave here alive. Stay where you are until we’re done, and you can be on your way. Resist at all, and we’ll make sure to bring your corpse with us for extra profit. There’ll be no bargaining.”

  The man stayed silent. As much as he was an easy mark, I was still a little nervous about him calling my bluff and realising that I was alone, but reassured myself that he’d have to have a death wish to take that risk. I cut the wagon cover open with my axe to take a good look, and quietly cursed under my breath. It was mostly crates and barrels, no small chests or loose loot in sight. Worse, when I pulled the torn flap of cloth back and jumped inside, I could see that most of them were filled with potatoes, grain, and a few small ones of fruit. Food wouldn’t sell well back home unless I had a lot of it, and I couldn’t carry that much alone.

  At the very least, I spotted a small case filled with fiasco bottles bearing the labels of a winery from down in the hills. It wasn’t especially fancy, but cheap wine was still wine: Small enough to carry, and valuable enough to at least buy a few days’ worth of meals. I snatched it up, took a few bites out of a loose apple for energy on the walk back, and hopped out of the wagon.

  I broke for my hiding spot deeper into the woods, leaving the driver where he was. I wasn’t in imminent danger of pursuit, but I still needed to act fast so that I could get out of here before a Watch patrol came through. I wasn’t that far from town. Luckily I’d practised this routine quite a few times, so I got to my hiding spot quick and quiet, finding my loot bag right where I’d stashed in a tree trunk’s hollow. It was just large enough for me to stuff all twelve fiascoes inside.

  With the loot secure, I hefted the bag, and then carried the case a hundred or so feet farther into the woods before throwing it at a random tree, just in the off chance that the Watch found it, there wouldn’t be any suspicion cast on my usual spot.

  My territory masked and all the goods hidden, I could finally get to walking back home. I stayed off the road for a good mile just in case, but it was a slow summer evening, most travellers coming or going from Vandermaine would have already been gone by then, especially since we’d been having a dry spell of visitors since mid-spring. Satisfied with the sparse company, I rejoined the road for good once it got to the switchback pass up the mountains. No one dead, I’d only had to give out a paper cut, and my tracks were covered. If only the loot were more valuable, it would have been a perfect hit.

  The sun was setting by the time I set the bag down to take a break, right as I got to the flat fell that the town laid upon. I was exhausted from the walk, and tired since I was up before first light looking for a target. Dragging the haul even further and then walking around the town at night, trying to avoid the Watch for fear of having to answer uncomfortable questions about why a “merchant irregular” was trying sell wine after dark, didn’t sound appealing.

  “Guess it’s back home for now, then,” I said to myself, hoisting the bag once again. “At least I’ve got some bread and jam leftover for tonight.”

  I tried to keep my head down on the way back up to the old house. I didn’t like looking at all the rotted and ill-maintained fences that once marked the boundaries of our sheep pastures. All they did was manage to make me remember stuff I’d have rather left quarantined in a small, dark corner of my mind.

  I finally got back up to the house, its squat, rickety frame perched upon the edge of a bluff that had been worn away by wind and rain in the last few years. The roof was leaking on the north side, and the walls were getting pretty drafty. I would have repaired it if I had the time, energy, and money, but all of those had been tight for some time now. At least I had managed to remove the old chopping block at the side, though the hole it had been sunk into by years’ worth of blows from an axe was still there out in the open. The hole was better. I couldn’t stand looking at that thing after a while.

  My heart skipped a beat once I blinked and took a better look at the house. The door was ill-fitting now that the wooden frame had suffered some weather damage, but it still latched shut if you lifted the handle up when you closed it. I knew to do that, and I’d closed it properly before I left that morning, I was sure of it. But now it was ajar.

  I quietly set the bag down and drew my knife. I suspected the Watch, but it could just as easily have been a burglar or some other bandit, and I couldn’t be caught unawares if it was. I stayed low, silently creeping forward until I reached the door, and peeked in.

  Someone was sitting at the table in the living room. It was a woman, taller than me by a fair bit, with pale skin and wavy, dark red hair that fell over her bright green eyes in the front, and down to her neck at the sides and back. Two scars ran across her nose and underneath her right eye. She was wearing a burgundy quilted gambeson, with hefty greaves and vambraces, and a broad metal breastplate painted with a black bar across the top. A round metal helmet sat on the table beside her, alongside a medium-length spear with a long, thin head and a small red tassel tied to the end of the haft.

  The woman was smiling and vigorously scratching and petting Juni, who was excitedly sniffing at the woman and licking her hands whenever they came close. The woman laughed, a bright and jovial sound, and that was enough for the gears in my brain to finally click over.

  “Grace?” I asked, standing up and releasing all the tension that I had been building.

  She looked up as I called her name, a mile-long smile crossing her face as she saw me through the crack in the door. “Belfry!” she shouted, instantly leaping to her feet and rushing over. She barrelled through the door, hurling it open and leaping into a tight embrace with me, almost gutting herself on the knife I still had in my hand. She was much stronger than I remembered, and I nearly choked because of how tightly she hugged me.

  Eventually, she released me and pulled back, hands still on my shoulders. “Saints, Belfry, when you weren’t here, I thought you might have just left!” she said. “I didn’t know if I would ever be able to find you.”

  I carefully put my knife away and scratched the back of my head. “Yeah, well, if I had, I would have sold the house to someone else.” Juni plodded over and pressed her nose in between us, looking for more attention. I obliged and have her some scratches behind the ear. “And I would have taken Juni with me.”

  Grace let me go, and I inched forward, motioning her to follow me inside, where she sat back down at the table. “I’m afraid I haven’t got a lot of food here, if you haven’t eaten yet.”

  “Oh, no, I stopped at a pub in town a while ago,” said Grace. “I’ve been waiting here for a few hours. I didn’t want to go sifting through your stash if you weren’t here, so I decided it’d be best if I got food on my own.”

  I held back a sarcastic comment. I would have liked to have gone with her, especially if she apparently had the funds to just go to the pub on a whim, but she didn’t need to know about my dire financial straits, nor was she directly to blame for them. “Sounds nice,” I said flatly. “I do have, uh…some wine, if you want.”

  Grace shook her head. “No, thanks. I need to stay sober for right now.”

  “Okay, then,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I slipped outside for the bag. I still needed to bring it inside so it didn’t get ruined in the event of a rainy night, but I also needed a moment to brainstorm a good cover story to feed Grace. She couldn’t know this was stolen. I thought it would break her heart if we spent half a decade apart and she goes to all the trouble of coming back home just to find out that I’m back to robbery for a living. Except now, I hurt and threatened people instead of just picking pockets.

  Grace cocked her head a bit as I hauled the bag inside and started stacking the casks by the door. “Is that the wine?” she asked.

  “Mhm,” I confirmed, taking the extra time to make sure the little bottles were stacked neatly.

  Grace looked around the room, obviously eyeing all the imperfections in the walls and old furniture. “Why have you got a couple gallons of wine and ‘not a lot of food’?”

  “I’m a merchant,” I lied. “It’s wine for selling. I’m just willing to cut into profits a bit for you.”

  “Oh!” said Grace, visibly brightening. “You got licensed? That’s great!”

  “Nope. Merchant irregular,” I clarified. “I didn’t have the luxury to get an apprenticeship without pay. So, no license for me.”

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  Grace deflated slightly, but still kept up a cheery spirit in her voice. “Hey, at least you got a job!” she said. “I’ve been worried for years about whether or not you would have gone hungry after I left. Or maybe started stealing again.”

  I let out a cold chuckle to disguise my wince. “Good to know you have such a high opinion of me,” I said sardonically. “Love that you just dance back in here like it’s your home, too. I would have appreciated some warning.”

  “It is my home, though,” said Grace.

  “Not anymore. You left.” I gestured with a butter knife.

  “I–I never, that wasn’t—” stammered Grace. “Sorry. It’s just….” She let out a loud breath. I started spreading the last of the jam on some stale bread for my meagre supper, carefully watching her face.

  “It’s good to see you,” Grace finally continued. “I’ve been worried sick about you since we last saw each other. I…started regretting leaving as soon as I got to Bryn Corben. But then, I was too scared that you wouldn’t let me back in if I came home.”

  I set the butter knife down. “Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “We all make our choices in life. I don’t blame you for wanting to leave this place. I’ve thought about leaving a lot since then, too.” I shoved the bread into my mouth and shrugged.

  Grace looked down at the floor. “Still,” she said. “I should apologise to you. I’m sorry for leaving you here alone. Even if you get it, I still don’t think it was acceptable.”

  I went and sat down at the table beside her. “It’s fine,” I said again. It wasn’t, but what else was I supposed to say? “Besides. Looks like you got everything you wanted out of the situation, anyway.” I gestured to her armour and weapon. “Seems the cuirassiers are treating you pretty good.”

  Grace glanced down at the spear and shook her head. “The cuirassiers are gone,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said, not really knowing how to respond to that. “That makes sense, I guess, given the collapse of the empire.”

  “Well, they’re kind of gone,” said Grace, leaning back and looking up at the ceiling in thought. “After the revolution ended, the Council of Lords—you know, the new government—they wanted to get rid of the Imperial Order of Cuirassiers since they were important to the old empire. There were hearings about it. A lot of old members spoke there, and so did the military, a lot of boring politics. Eventually, they decided that since they couldn’t break any of the bonds riders already had, and it would be unfair to punish all the dragons who didn’t have a choice, they would just reform them and supervise them instead. So now,” she puffed out her chest and smiled, “they’re the Dragoon Corps!”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Okay? Same difference.”

  Grace reeled in offence that was a bit played up. “No, that is not the same! The old cuirassiers were basically just the emperor’s special enforcers. The dragoons are knights! Real knights, like they had centuries ago! Who hold themselves to knightly standards!”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said. “You’d think they’ve got a lot of ‘imperial enforcer’ chaff to cut through if they want to get to the ‘pure-hearted knight’ wheat.”

  Grace relaxed, shrugging. “Well, yeah,” she said. “It’s an ongoing process. It’s only been four years since the corps officially began.”

  I pointed a wagging finger at the spear again. “So then…looks like the dragoons are treating you pretty good,” I repeated.

  Grace glanced away. “Um…still no,” she said.

  “Oh?” I leaned forward

  “I…wasn’t accepted into the corps.” Grace hung her head. “I went all the way to Kirkwall—which, I’m going to have to take you there one day, it’s a huge city—and went through their trial gauntlet. I passed in endurance and strength trials, I passed the written exam and the combat exam, but then at the end they brought out these three little dragons. They said that the dragons were ‘testing my blood’, so they pricked my finger and had them all look real close at it and wave their heads around my bloody hand.”

  I pulled my head back and made a sour face at that. “What…does that mean, ‘testing your blood’?”

  Grace shook her head. “I don’t know. They said that they’d explain it if I passed, and I guess I didn’t. It had something to do with what they called ‘bond potential’, because they said I didn’t have enough. Maybe that’s how they make their bonds with the dragons? In a blood-pact sort of way?”

  “That would make sense,” I said. “If the bond is magic, I guess it would involve blood somehow.”

  “Mhm,” Grace agreed. “But apparently mine wasn’t any good for it, so they sent me home.”

  I drummed my fingers on the table. “I’m sorry,” I said. I felt a little silly apologising for that, when she clearly was doing a lot better than I was, but my empathy hadn’t completely dried up yet. “I guess that must have been crushing for you.”

  “A little,” Grace said with a slow, sullen nod. She snapped out of her brief melancholy and forced a familiar jovial fa?ade back on to her face. “But, it’s alright. I got a license as a mercenary, so I’ve been doing that for a while. Pay’s good, and I’ve been able to get in some practise with fighting for when I eventually go back to the dragoons!”

  I sat up. “Is that why you’re here, then?” I asked. “For a mercenary job?”

  “No,” said Grace. “Well, I am going to be doing a job here, but I came because…it’s been five years. I wanted to say hello to you again, and apologise for what I did. And I wanted to say hello to Pa.” A tear came unbidden to her eye and she wiped it away. “I’ve thought about him a lot, and I figured now was a good anniversary to go pay respects. For real this time.”

  I crossed my arms. “You know there isn’t a grave, Grace,” I said.

  “The house is good enough.” She shot suddenly to her feet. “Actually. I’m going to go do that. And then, we can talk about the other reason I’m here, alright?”

  I pursed my lips. “Yeah. Alright.” I made a dismissive gesture, and Grace nodded and headed outside. I stared into the middle distance as I heard her footsteps retreating from the house, until I supposed she felt like she was far enough away so as not to be overheard. But the breeze carried her voice anyway.

  “Pa,” I heard her say, sounding like she was somewhere out in the field. “Hi. I don’t know if you can hear me, up there in heaven, but I still wanted to talk to you for a minute…. I hope that neither of us have disappointed you any. I know you always wanted us to follow our own paths, even when we were kind of stupid, but…oh, I’m getting too self-centred again. I still love you. I’m sure Belfry does too, even if she’s an ass about it. I…hope you can hear me….”

  I couldn’t listen anymore. I got up and paced perhaps a bit too heavily to make sure the sound of my boots against the wooden floors drowned out Grace’s prayers. Eventually, I decided to make use of my inability to sit still and start moving the wine bottles into my room, where they would be a little safer from prying eyes in case that merchant I’d robbed decided to come back and get his due.

  I couldn’t quite process how I was feeling. In five years, the hot coal of resentment I’d harboured had gone pretty much cold. I still wanted to yell, to tell her what I’d had to go through alone in her absence. But just thinking about that made me feel tired. She had come back, for now; the least I could do was make sure she didn’t leave hating me like I’d hated her back then.

  Without any warning, Grace burst back in just as I was picking up the last two bottles. She was blinking away tears as she sat back down beside her spear. “Gods, he never even found out what happened to Ma,” she mumbled to herself as I walked back into the living room. I ushered Juni to her side, and she immediately devoted her attention to the dog.

  “Are you alright?” I asked.

  “I will be,” she said. “Someday. It’s a lot of guilt. A lot of guilt, and then wondering if he was satisfied to…go the way he did.”

  “I don’t know if anyone is satisfied to die,” I said. “That’s kind of the point.”

  Grace shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ll be the first to hear if and when I make peace with death.” She wiped her eyes one last time, cementing the tear stains of the last several minutes into her gambeson’s sleeve.

  “Okay,” she said, tapping the sides of her head and taking a long breath. “I can talk now.”

  I sat down in the chair across from her. Despite her openness, I couldn’t speak. Not about what I wanted to, anyway. Words just weren’t forming in my head. She’ll be here more than an hour, surely, I thought to myself. I’ve got time to figure this out.

  I leaned forward. “So, you said there was another reason why you were here? And you implied that it had something to do with me? I’m guessing you’re not about to try and recruit me to your mercenary business. At least, I hope not. I’m not into fighting for a living.”

  Grace frowned and scrunched up her face in thought. “It’s not technically mercenary work, it’s just a job,” she said. “And it doesn’t involve any fighting. But we might get a lot of money out of it.”

  I steepled my fingers on the table. “I’m listening.”

  “Okay. So.” Grace mirrored my position. “Since you’ve lived here your whole life, I’m sure you’ve at least heard of the ancient temple that’s not too far to the east. Right?”

  I wracked my brain, and came up empty. “I don’t normally sit around listening to folk stories and fairy tales,” I said.

  Grace rolled her eyes. “Saint Gideon give me strength, it’s not a fairy tale! There’s a real temple. They called it ‘White-Gold Temple’. They say—”

  “Who says?” I interrupted.

  “Travellers,” said Grace. “Trappers. People who go out into the mountains every week for a living. And anyway, they say that it’s old. Thousands of years old, older than Kirkwall, older than the whole province, and the rest of the empire. But for as long as most people remember, it was owned by the Church, and they had a monastery there.”

  I caught a glimpse of the direction this conversation was headed, and I did not like it. “Where are you going with this?” I asked. “Are you suggesting we burglarise a monastery?”

  “No, not at all!” said Grace. “Because, apparently, it’s not a monastery anymore. When the war ended and the empire was replaced with the confederation, the monks abandoned the place. Supposedly. Allegedly.”

  “Alleged by trappers who’ve caught a glimpse of the place over the hills,” I said.

  “And according to someone who said that he delivered food for the monks before they left!” added Grace. “And they also said that the monks left quickly, like they were in a hurry to get out of here. So what I’m saying is that it’s very possible the monastery still has some religious artefacts or maybe art there that we can just walk in and get, and I’m sure that the Church would be willing to pay a bounty to us to get them back.”

  “Either that, or they’d just confiscate them,” I said dryly.

  “Oh, come on,” said Grace. “Sure, I guess they might do that, but I doubt it. And even if they did, what’s the harm in trying? It’s one night’s search, we go there, get out, sleep it off, and then the next day we either lost a few hours and that’s it, or we bought ourselves tickets to wherever you feel like making a living.”

  “We could also get prosecuted for trespassing,” I pointed out.

  Grace made a sour face. “You are looking for holes in this idea where they don’t exist,” she said. “Why in the world would the Church charge us for going in some place that they abandoned?”

  I shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “I just don’t trust them,” I said. “I’ve seen people prosecuted for less.”

  “Right, but it’s the Luminary Church, you dolt!” Grace lightly slapped me on the shoulder. “They’ve got a whole lot of things to do other than slap us with a charge for trespassing somewhere they don’t own anymore! Come on, it’s all reward, no risk, even you have to admit that.”

  I let my face sink onto the table, resting on my arms. “I’m going to regret this.”

  “You won’t,” Grace chimed in.

  I tilted my head to the side, stealing a glance at the barren kitchen. I was out of food. And assuming that everything went according to plan, the potential to not have to worry about eating for months, maybe years, or maybe even to do like Grace suggested and move out of Vandermaine to somewhere I could get a real job, maybe to somewhere I could actually see her more often…it’d have to be the highest price not to take that risk. And as long as we stayed quiet and were careful about fencing anything we found, it shouldn’t come to that.

  Right?

  “Fine,” I said. I got to my feet, vigorously rubbing my face to try and massage some energy back into my brain after the long day I’d had. “It’d better be right now, because I’m going to be busy tomorrow. Let me go get my stuff.”

  Grace raised her fist to the air with a smile. “I knew I could count on you!”

  The comment hit me like a hammer to the face as I went into my room to gather all my thieving equipment. It was all tucked away into nooks and crannies in case of a raid, but I had enough practise grabbing everything in a hurry by now to find it all in just a few moments. Lock picking set, caltrops in case we got chased, rope, lantern, signal bell, knife, axe, gun…that was all.

  Equipment sorted, I met back up with Grace in front of the house. She had her helmet on and her spear fastened to a strap across her back, above a large satchel hanging at her side. Juni was still at her feet, receiving as many pets as Grace cared to give.

  “Alright, Juniper,” I said, getting her attention. “I’m going out again. Stay.”

  Juni gave a small bark before slowly plodding back into the house. Grace gave me a pained look. “She’s getting old,” she said.

  “I know,” I agreed with sigh. “I’m glad we don’t have sheep anymore. She wouldn’t be able to guard them now.”

  Grace bit her lip. “What does she do, then?”

  “Sit around inside,” I said. “Get pets. Go on walks in the fields with me every now and then. I think she’s happy still. She gets excited every time I come from…er, work. It’s just that her ‘excited’ now is getting up from a nap and sniffing someone a whole bunch.”

  Grace nodded limply. “Yeah. She’s getting there.” She cleared her throat, and motioned for me to follow as she led the way down the path and onto the road going east. “You weren’t there when our first sheepdog died. After living on a farm, you’d think I’d be used to this sort of thing, but after five years away….”

  “I get it,” I said simply. “She makes me sad sometimes, too.”

  Our walk was filled with a tense, melancholic quiet from then on. It felt surreal to be doing this again, hiking out past the edge of what I knew with my sister. The moons were fully out by the time we started clambering over mountain ridges, and finally set out on a path I’d seen but never pursued before, one that led south, deep into the Fountainhead range, far from any homesteads or hunting lodges, and farther still from home.