Geraln's face was covered in bruises from his swollen lip, dark black smudges beneath his chubby cheeks on his left side, and scabs of dried blood under his nose. He glared at me with his jaw locked, then shook his head and turned down the road without a word.
We were supposed to go fight a war together.
His wasn't the only relationship I'd ruined last night. The morning sun gave Sarina's deep-yellow skin a glow and reflected off droplets of lilly-scented oil she'd put in her hair. She was right in front of me, but I already felt the void in my heart.
"So this is it?" I said.
She fixed those smiling black eyes onto mine exuding an inner peace I rarely saw in her but said nothing in reply.
I spoke. "I'm sorry."
She lowered her gaze and stepped close, lifting her hands to my arms. "Caleb, you didn't do anything wrong."
I had to explain. I had to try. "I didn't mean to kiss her. It just happened… I don't know why I did. It was a mistake."
Her smile widened and she shook her head. The warmth in her face rivalled the morning sun itself. "You are exactly as you were meant to be."
"It was a mistake. Sarina, I…"
She closed her eyes and shook her head once more. "What does Father always say about that?"
"Uh… that King Jevas had a thousand wives and concubines and was also the wisest man of all, so…"
She laughed. "No, the other thing."
"Lament not the good-old-days lest with them the toils ye bring?"
She pursed her lips but still smiled. "Every mistake you made, every mistake you will make has already been accounted for in His divine plan. Sometimes the wrong we do is best if it sets in motion what truly needs to happen. You wouldn't want to go muck it all up by doing everything right now, would you?" She settled her hand on my chest to cover my heart. "I believe God has something for you in Carthia."
"That's not what you said in the belfry yesterday."
Her smile widened and her eyes beamed at me. She'd found a slice of happiness—without me. That hurt. That hurt deep inside. I didn't know where the pain was coming from, but my skin crawled and my heart raced. Sarina continued. "I spent the night thinking about this, and I realize that I need to define myself without you. We've been close our whole lives—they put us in the crib together. This is an opportunity for each of us to learn who we truly are"
In the Valley of Suffering, on the banks of the River of Unending Torment. "If I survive this war, you mean?"
She looked me up and down. Her eyes watered, but she wiped away any tears that might have otherwise fallen. "You have to promise to tell me everything. I want to hear all of it; leave no…"
Footfalls in the grass rapidly approached from the side. I turned around in time for the blur of little Teryn to throw her arms about me and squeeze me tight. I embraced her in turn while she pleaded, "I don't want you to go! Everyone else is so mean to me!"
I crouched down low so as to look into her watery eyes—hard to believe she'd gotten so tall that I'd be looking up from here. "Hey!"
She wiped her pox-scarred cheeks and sniffled as she looked at me.
"Can you do something for me while I'm gone?"
She nodded.
"I need you to look after the little ones. Make sure they do their lessons every day, and don't let them skip out on their chores all the time. Just sometimes. Look out for them the same way Sarina and I look out for you. Can you do that for me?"
Teryn sobbed, then tried to nod again as she wiped away more tears. "I don't want you to go!"
That sent a shock through my veins. "Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do. Come on."
I stood and took her hand, and led her over to where Sarina gazed at me with a warm smile.
"What?"
"Nothing," she laughed. "Come Teryn," she said, "let's go braid some pretties into your hair."
Sarina glanced back once more before rounding the corner of the church just as I was passing my eyes up and down her backside. "I saw that!"
I turned and made my way towards the bridge at the center of Gath, then followed the cobbled road south towards the end of the village.
I caught up with Davod and Geraln outside the Flaming Wyvern where Dariana stood talking with them. She wore a simple cotton nightgown stained from years of wear, and the morning sun bathed her sandy-green hair in yellow light. She ushered me in for a hug as I came up, pressing her whole body into mine and squishing herself into my chest while holding me tight.
She pulled her body away and held onto my hands, fixing her light green eyes up into mine. "Take care," she said. "It would break my heart if I lost any one of you three idiots."
Davod laughed. "Such a kind thing to say."
She smiled, then turned to Geraln, who hadn't removed his eyes from her once. "Go on, then. Go… kill your enemy or… whatever."
He responded, "We'll do a proper burning, looting, raping, and pillaging. Don't you worry."
Dariana fixed her face at him. Her light green eyes bore into his soul, and he didn't seem to notice. So she told him outright, "don't rape anyone."
"OK."
"I'm serious," she passed her eyes one by one to each of us.
Davod threw up his hands and assured her. "Why would you assume we would even think about it?"
She clenched her arms, one in each other. "You know goddamn well I know too much about what men do when they go off to war. If any one of you does that, I'll carve you up, eat you, shit you out, then grow a tree out of your shit, chop it down and burn it to the ground."
"That's a bit…"
"... Then I'll piss on the ashes and salt the ground to make sure nothing ever grows from you. I'm fucking serious." She pointed her finger at each of us in turn. "Don't rape anyone. Don't do anything like that. You hear me?"
Geraln wasn't finished joking, though. "Not even a little bit?"
She stepped over to slap him, but he dodged out of her way. "I'm warning you!"
"All right, all right," he conceded. That made me smile. Then he caught a glimpse of me again and turned away, returning his face to a mean scowl.
Dariana turned back to me. "I know you won't. Anyway, go on now, and please come back, all of you." Then she swatted my arse as we headed out.
Dariana stood at the doorway to her tavern and watched as Davod, Geraln and myself took the road away from the only home we knew. I turned round to see the top of her head peeking over the dirt road watching until the very last, and that was the end of Gath.
We descended into the gully. The trees were small at this part of the road, a young forest one generation removed from having been harvested, but tall enough to block the morning sun while yielding to the blue sky above.
Davod's voice cut through the chorus of birds singing over the accompaniment of wind in the trees. "I know you're not going to wear that chain mail all the way to Carthia."
"I can't figure if that was supposed to be a question."
"Why are you wearing that armor?"
"Because it's heavy. If I put it in my pack, I'll strain my shoulders. If I wear it, I spread the weight around."
Geraln shook his head and spat out, "stupid."
Davod looked at him, but didn't address the word. He turned back to me. "Has it started pinching your skin yet?"
"Is it supposed to?"
"Look. You were raised by a doctor, I was raised by a smith. You understand what I'm saying?"
It took me a minute. "You're saying I should pack it up."
"Nah, man. Go ahead and wear it. Then every night, you'll get to spend an hour cleaning the sweat off and oiling it up unless you want it to rust before someone tries to stab you. Not to mention eight days of that heavy pack over your shoulders, those rings are going to dig into your skin something fierce. But, it's up to you."
Geraln murmured under his breath, "fucking idiot."
I stopped and carefully folded the armor into my pack. By the time I was done, the two of them had gone far ahead.
To my right was a small tunnel through heavy underbrush, barely enough for a coyote to fit through. As I descended further, the sound of rushing water overpowered the birds in the trees, and a cool mist met my face. Off to my left, a giant oak had been left alone while a modest grove of diamond trees paid tribute to its overpowering branches. There was a cut branch from one that had previously loomed over the road too low to allow a cart to pass, and the wound had grown gnarled with splotches of wood to where one could hardly see the smooth remnant of a saw cut.
To my right was the old shack Doren the Hermit once called home, the same man who once tried to get a little too friendly with Guenevieve when she was only ten. The roof had caved in, and the walls were torn apart by vines. What stood was a stone chimney covered in bright green moss. This was the place I was supposed to meet Sarina had I not sacrificed her love for one fleeting moment of drunken lust.
The symphony of rushing water crescendoed as I reached the bridge Hakon built. All of us, really, but while Ryoan and Tor were busy sword-fighting with sticks they'd found, Davod and I helped set stones in place. It seemed stronger than it had the day we finished it—a wide, stone masterpiece that stood a relic meant to outlast him and become a permanent fixture of the landscape for time immemorial. Beside it was a carved totem that matched the one outside the Flaming Wyvern with Falcon sitting atop Cougar with His wings spread wide.
I caught a glimpse of my friends up ahead as the road turned left and followed up the hill through pine and eupin trees standing as tall toothpicks with a canopy of needled branches overhead. Up and up the road went until I found Geraln sitting on a section of a giant boulder split in two with a young diamond tree growing from the crack and whorling its roots all over the pieces of rock like some greedy miser. Davod stood stretching out his heavy arms. His giant figure eclipsed a nearby fir tree.
"... I'm just saying," he was talking to Davod, "it's got uses."
"I'm fine without it."
"What's going on?" I asked.
Geraln turned to me; his chubby cheeks were flush. "Nothing to do with you." Then he stood, grabbed his pack, and faced Davod. "I'm good. You ready?"
With that, we set off again. The road meandered around the side of a mountain on the left, with trees climbing up beyond where eyes were permitted to go. To the right a small, flat plain filled with grass that hosted a noisy creek, beyond which the ground rose up once more untold distances with snow-capped rocky saw blades at the horizon.
The two of them walked far enough ahead that I could scarcely make out what they were saying. Unwittingly, I found myself walking faster so as to insert my thoughts into the conversation. Geraln was talking about economics. "... no, no, not the most wealth. We've got the highest wealth per capita."
Davod answered. "What's the difference?"
"OK, look. The Duchy of Golago has the most wealth, but also the highest population. Heralia has about half as many people, but if you look at wealth per capita, we have the highest in the empire by a good margin."
"So?"
I answered him. "He means per person."
Geraln turned and glared at me. "Was I talking to you?"
"Well…"
"I wasn't talking to you."
Davod resumed their conversation. "Why don't you just say per person? To me that makes more sense. I don't see why you have to make up a new fancy word just to confuse everyone."
Geraln tried to explain. "It's old Jinati; it just means per person."
"Why don't we just speak Herali like normal people?"
Geraln gave an exasperated sigh. "It doesn't matter! All it means is that if you take the wealth of the entire duchy and spread it out evenly so that everyone has the same amount…"
"That doesn't sound fair. I don't see why the loafs should get an equal share as those who work hard."
Geraln shook his head. "They don't actually do that, Davod."
"But you just said…"
"It's a hypothetical! You never actually do it!"
"Well what's the point of planning to do that if you never intend on doing it then?" I could see Davod trying to keep a straight face.
"No one's planning on doing it!"
"Well then why consider it?"
"It's not…" Geraln shook his head in frustration. "It's a number, that's all it is. You take the wealth per capita, that's the mean."
"It certainly is! You take my hard-earned money and give it to someone who didn't do anything; mean is the least of what I'd say about you." Davod tried to keep a straight face, but I could hear him cracking.
Geraln threw his hands up and scoffed. I couldn't help it. "Sounds fairly average to me."
Davod turned to me and grinned.
Geraln stopped and pointed a finger at me. "You fucking cunt! What the fuck makes you think you can just shove yourself into everyone's business, huh? This doesn't have shit to do with you!"
"Well, I…"
"Piss off!"
High up on the hillside, a wooden house was built half on stilts and half buried in the rock, with a stone trail leading down to the main road. The last time I came through here, they were still building it.
After about a quarter-mile of silence, Geraln once again spoke to Davod. "As I was saying, what you do is you take the wealth per capita along with the split."
"The what?" Davod was sincere that time.
I answered. "It's the difference…"
Geraln turned and shouted. "Fucking piss off, man! Gods! Nobody wants you around…"
"Hold up." Davod raised a hand to calm him before he could go on. Then he faced me directly. "Explain this?"
Geraln looked away and spat while I elaborated. "You take the mean, divide it into the median, and subtract one. That's the split. The Duke uses it to measure how lopsided things are and plan accordingly. If it's a big gap, the Duke raises land taxes and pays for services for the poor. Small gap, cut taxes and reduce spending. That sort of thing."
Davod nodded and turned back to Geraln. "Why didn't you just say that?"
Geraln shook his head and scoffed, then turned and walked away in silence. Davod chuckled, and the two of us followed him.
Trees grew more and more ancient as the road twisted through the woods, with thick, gnarly trunks and branches untended, growing the way they willed without the undue influence of men to chop at them. Above, the forest canopy cast such a shadow on the floor that there was scarcely any underbrush.
Ahead, the road was blocked by some large boulders that had fallen from the hillside. To the left, the ground sloped sharply up. To the right, it dropped down towards the sound of rushing water somewhere beyond the trees below.
Davod and Geraln climbed over the pile, but I stooped to pick up a few rocks and rolled them off to the right and into the ravine.
"What are you doing?" Davod stopped to ask. A faint breeze fidgeted with tufts of hair that hung down his shoulders and dangled over his chest.
"This road leads to Gath, right?"
"Yeah?" He furrowed his brow.
I reasoned. "What if a merchant tries to get a cart of goods through here? They won't be able to go past these rocks."
Geraln sucked his teeth and looked away. "This fucking moronic idealogue! Gonna save the world aren't we?" he mocked.
Davod glanced at him and pursed his lips, then dropped his pack and stooped down on the opposite side, lifting up another giant rock and rolling it off. It crunched a few twigs as it tumbled.
Geraln crossed his arms over his rotund belly and scowled at him. "They can clear the way themselves. Let's go "
I answered. "What if it's an old man who's not strong enough? We can do it right now."
Geraln nearly shouted. "I wasn't talking to you, you selfish cunt! You want to pat yourself on the back over some do-gooder bullshit, great. It won't erase the crap you pulled last night!"
I dropped my pack and everything else I could lose to prepare for the work that lay ahead. Davod grabbed a few smaller rocks and launched them far into the ravine. It was quite a few seconds before we heard rocks crashing against other rocks amid the steady chorus of water somewhere below.
"Nah," I said. "If we can pile them up on this side, the mud will seep into the cracks as it rains, and that'll reinforce the road, keep it from collapsing. Help me with this big one."
And a giant boulder it was. Between Davod and myself, straining every muscle in our bodies, we managed to roll it off the roadway. It fell a little further than I'd hoped and rolled down the hill until it thudded against a large tree.
Geraln protested further. "This is a waste of time. I don't understand why…"
Davod stopped and stood, resting his giant arms at his sides and answered our friend. "You're in such a hurry to get killed in that war, go on then!"
"It's not…"
"Look, man. All your ramblings about our glorious economy, this road brings travelers into Gath and that helps our economy. Our families. Our home. You can stand there and watch, or you could help."
Davod and I together got behind a large boulder and wrestled it out of place, letting it fall over and roll down the side of the road. That one left my arms burning, and by this time my fingers were covered in scratches and dirt, promising to callous over in the coming hours. I took a break by tossing down some of the smaller ones.
Geraln continued to talk. "Why don't we let the people back home take care of this?"
"Because we're here," I said.
"I WASN'T TALKING TO YOU!"
My hands were tired from working on the pile, and I'd broken a sweat. Still there were more. I looked at Davod, who'd taken on the same yet continued to lift, hoist, and roll rocks from the roadway. I struggled with a large boulder that was blocking an even bigger one, as it had snagged on a smaller rock beneath it. Davod came over and pushed his meaty hands in my way, and gave it a solid yank. With the both of us we managed to dislodge the thing and send it down the ravine. It rolled and bounced, crunching through low bushes until it thudded against a tree.
I looked up at him. "That was a deeply satisfying sound."
He laughed, then repeated it as best he could. "Bunk!"
We both laughed at that, then we each tossed away some more of the smaller ones while Geraln continued to watch. Then there was a big one. One giant boulder had been hidden beneath the rest, and it didn't seem as though we'd be able to dislodge the thing. For though we tried, it didn't budge, not even a little.
"Look," Geraln said, "we did enough. Let's just leave it, alright?"
"Or you could help," Davod snapped.
"I can't move that damn thing!"
"You could try."
"Let Marsans and Korel get a lever up here and remove it themselves."
"Go get one, then."
"I still don't see why this is our responsibility."
Davod finally had enough. "You know what your problem is, you fat fuck? You're entitled. You think you're entitled to Talys, and you never stop to think that maybe, just maybe she's a human being with her own wants, and she don't want you because you're fucking entitled."
"Why are you…"
"Because I'm sick and tired of your bullshit, man! When Caleb climbs out of the water with his muddy clothes clinging to his skin, girls notice. Meanwhile you run off to eat all the minicakes Guenevieve's mum made for all of us. Then you get all pissy because you can't figure out why Talys likes him and not you."
"But…"
"Can't even lift a few rocks. You book-smart fucking worm!"
Geraln stopped trying to get a word in.
Davod kept going. "You want to know why your face looks like that? Did you even hear what you said about Sarina last night? She's one of us! That girl never said an unkind word to you for you to go off on her like that, not ever. She even stood up for you behind your back when Oren and them were mocking you for being so bloody fat! I don't give a rat's fuck where her ancestors came from, she's one of ours, and right now I'm thinking I shoulda got my own licks in!"
Geraln stood still, staring at him with a blank expression. His chest lifted up and down as the air wheezed through his nose. I was petrified; I'd never seen Davod cut into him, not like that, not ever.
Down below, the rush of a small creek crashing over rocks filled the air along with the scent of high mountain herbs. The three of us stood silent, glancing back and forth among one another.
Finally, Davod raised his hands level with his hips and nodded. "We all had too much to drink last night. Yeah?"
He looked at me. His hair fell in a disheveled mess down his shoulders front and back, and his green eyes fixed on me for an answer.
I gave him one. "I was pretty drunk last night. I don't usually drink that much."
Davod nodded and turned to Geraln.
Geraln stared back for a while. A lock of dark hair framed each side of his chubby cheeks, and sweat had saturated his collar despite not helping with any of the rocks. He looked up at me, and for the first time that day his green eyes met mine and he swallowed. I couldn't tell what thoughts ran through his mind, but he turned back to Davod and took a deep breath. "Yeah, man. I had way too much to drink."
"Yeah?" Davod nodded.
Geraln looked down. "I was pretty out of it."
With that, Davod nudged his chin and smiled. "Alright. Help us with this big one."
Geraln looked around. "Maybe we can use that branch as a lever, and this smaller rock as a fulcrum. It's fairly round on this side. If we get it moving, we can use the momentum to push it over."