Blood of War (39 page)

Carefully, quietly, he jogged until his back was pressed against the structure. He listened. He scanned. His eyes popped open and he gaped. What he had seen at the fence should have warned him. But he had not really put the pieces together. Ahead of him now, and with the sun climbing higher and brighter, he saw the secondary barn and he scanned it more carefully. Paint was peeling in great strips to reveal the aging, weathered wood beneath. The roof was missing patches of tiles while other patches were crooked, broken, sticking up like a rooster's crest. He turned his head to the right and peered down the alley created by the secondary barn on one side, and the living quarters and smithy on the other.

The narrow view of the main barn that was afforded him confirmed what he had begun to suspect. On the ground, like a fallen soldier, lay the tree that had fallen the previous winter. Tiny tenuous leaves still grew from a few branches as though the great oak was still in the midst of its death throes. Above that, on the roof, the hole that had been caused by that tree, the hole that Galbin had been trying to repair when he fell to his death was there. It was covered with old and ill-fitting planks, but it was there.

Jurel sneered. So Valik really and truly was running things then for it was only that slovenly bastard who would allow the farm to fall into such a disgraceful state.

A movement resolved itself into a lone person, a man Jurel could not recognize at that distance, crossing the alley near the smithy and Jurel pressed himself further against the wall, unaccountably afraid of being seen. Did it really matter after all if he was noticed? Yes, he decided. Yes it did. He searched for an untarnished memory of his past, not the corrupt reality of the present.

He waited until the man was out of sight, waited for a dozen more heartbeats after that, and he stole away, rounding the corner of the living quarters. Ahead, half way to the main road, Jurel saw his tree. Once again, he was flooded with memories. How many times had he climbed to its upper limbs? How many times had he perched and watched the stars roll across the sky, or the farmers toiling in the field? How many times had he enacted and reenacted new adventures in his mind while the tree and indeed the whole world seemed to spread out to eternity at his feet? But as he stood staring at it, it seemed small. It occurred to him then that somehow the entire farm seemed small, confined. Not a sanctuary but a prison of sorts, a place where one might spend an entire lifetime, but never for a moment live.

At the tree, he looked up to the canopy, to the spreading limbs that had supported him and he suddenly understood Kurin a little better. He thought, at least, that he saw what Kurin had seen all those years ago. Provincial farmboy, the old man had called him and he had been right. Jurel circled the base of the tree, found the spot where he had carved his name with his father's knife, slid his fingers along the crude blocky letters, trying to find some connection, some link that said that yes, it had been he who had done this, that yes, this was his past, his life.

But he had moved on. He had become someone else in the past year.

There was no point in stalling any longer. For that was what he was doing. He had come with one goal in mind. He had come to see his cabin, his home. With a glance to the living quarters, he jogged away from the tree that had once been his.

It is odd that sometimes as one looks ahead, one is actually looking back. So it was when Jurel first laid eyes on his home. Clean white logs laid so neatly, so exactingly that no draft could find a port of entry, a roof with perfectly straight shingles, a chimney that jutted from the roof like a finger. Two windows, one by the front door and one at the side, both a luxury usually reserved for much wealthier folks. It stood in front of him as it always had and he almost expected to see the door open and his father step out.

But...

He blinked and that made all the difference. The windows remained but the shingles were in dire need of repair, the white paint was flaking away in places, and the door hung crookedly in its jamb. The place looked diseased.

Anger welled in his throat, a white hot surge that threatened to steal his breath away. His fists clenched as though of their own accord and he trembled. It was a battle for him, a stupendous struggle, but he managed to control himself. One deep breath, followed by another, and more, and finally he was able to unclench his fingers.

Though the sadness did not leave him, he was a pragmatic young man. This was why he had come. This was what he had to see. He searched for his past but perhaps it was time to close the book, time to put it to rest, to once and for all put it behind him. There was no point being angry or indignant. On the contrary, perhaps he should be grateful to whatever lowlife had allowed his home to become such a wreck. If it had truly been as pristine as it used to be, then it may have been harder for him to let go.

But if he let go of his past, what was left? He'd come here to find his past, to escape into it, not leave it behind.

He stepped to the window at the side of the house and, cupping his hands, he looked inside, feeling a twinge of guilt, as though he were some dirty voyeur who hoped to catch a glimpse of something scandalous. He was not sure if what he saw was scandalous but it certainly was not as he remembered it. Bits of clothing cluttered the floors and the table, and what was visible of the floor was filthy and muddy. Days old dishes and spoons were piled in a corner, the ladder that led to the loft was missing a rung. More of his past slipped away.

He stepped away, musing, mulling over the changes, wondering if they had any real significance. The depths of his thoughts, of his distraction was such that he did not hear the approaching footsteps.

“Holy shit,” someone said.

Jurel stiffened. Slowly he turned until he faced someone who looked to be thirteen or fourteen, but Jurel knew he was in fact sixteen. Or fifteen? Close enough. Even though the visage was pale and twisted in fear as though he had seen a ghost, even though the face was pocked with uncontrolled acne, Jurel still recognized the big ears and the general homeliness. He resigned himself to the inevitable. Of all the people who could have found him, perhaps only Valik himself would have been worse. In approximately ten minutes, every living being within a mile would know that Jurel was there.

“Hello, Wag,” he sighed.

“
Ho. Lee.
Shit!”

Wag spun and darted away.

“No, wait. Wag!”

No use, that. The boy was already disappearing around the corner of the living quarters. As Jurel recalled, Wag had always been a quick little bugger.

He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should wait, or if he should just turn tail and run back to his place. He still wanted a glimpse of the main house though he had a pretty good idea of what he would see: aged grandeur; something once glorious, crumbling to dust and decay. He decided, with bone-deep sadness, that whatever last shreds of his memory remained intact should remain that way.

But his decision took too long. The door to the living quarters flew open and a veritable sea of people emerged led by Wag and Trig, some still donning shirts, one hopping on one leg as he awkwardly pulled on his trousers. They flooded toward him, some staring, some glaring, and they halted in a wide semi-circle around him. No one wanted to get too close. Some believed he was a murderer. Others did not want to take the chance. Some he knew, like Jax, the old smith, and Meran who had at one time been nearly as inseparable from Galbin as Daved had been. Kerv was there with his ever present squint and Porris too limped in—his leg had never healed from the bad break sustained when a huge bale of hay had broken a cart's axle and fell on it. But most of them, most of the faces that stared at him, or glared, were strangers.

“Jurel? Is it really you?” Trig asked.

Whatever had transpired on the farm in the past year and a half, whatever these people had been through, it had not been easy. Trig was a ghost of himself, pale, far too thin, his clothes appeared to be the survivors of a ship-wreck. As Jurel transferred his eyes from Trig to Wag and on to the others, he noticed that all of them were in the same general state.

Jurel sighed. “How've you been, Trig?”

Emotions battled for control of Trig's face, flickering by so quickly that Jurel saw a dozen before finally the victor seemed to emerge and Trig stared at him with guarded fear—and was that gladness almost hidden under there?

“I can't believe it's you. What are you doing here?”

“I'm fine too, thanks,” Jurel responded with a wry smirk.

Trig's brow furrowed a little and then as day dawning, his eyes cleared and a smile grew. “I'm sorry. How are you?”

“I'm surviving,” he said with a shrug.

As though that opened the floodgates for the rest, questions began pelting him.

“How are you?”

“How's your da?”

“What're you doin here?”

“Did you really kill Shenk?”

“Where you been?”

A hundred questions from twenty throats melded into one solid roaring voice. It was a little overwhelming to be honest. Trig, apparently noticing Jurel's discomfort, turned and raised his hands above his head.

“Quiet! Let the man speak.”

Jurel would have spoken but he did not know what to say. He had not been prepared to meet the farm's population. He had wanted to get in and get out without being noticed. For a moment, he toyed with the idea of just going to his place right then and there. Now
that
would have been interesting. The only problem was that he would not get to see their reactions as he disappeared right before their eyes. He discarded the idea, not because of that, but because in the end, he had been discovered. He figured he may as well get some good out of it and reacquaint himself with old friends.

“It's nice to see you again,” he started lamely. “How are things here?”

Trig shrugged and it was a sad thing though the man tried to hide it with a patently false smile. “As well as can be expected. The crops are doing fairly well. The silo's almost empty but there's not much worry yet. It's...” He threw a look over his shoulder and when he looked back at Jurel his eyes were filled with earnest meaning. “Maybe you'd wanna sit down somewhere. Maybe share a cup with old friends?”

Jurel understood.
“Maybe we should find some privacy,”
is what Trig really meant.

“Sure,” he replied.

He was not quite sure how he was going to get through the throng that tangled in front of him, but when he took a step forward, then another, the staring and glaring farmers melted out of his way creating a path through their center.

Six steps they took, Jurel and Trig. Six. Then, from beyond a corner of the cabin, a very familiar voice bawled. Six steps and his escape with Trig was thwarted.

“What in the name of the underworld are you doing on my farm?”

Jurel closed his eyes, and suppressed a groan. He turned, cringing inwardly. All things considered, this meeting seemed inevitable.

“Hello, Valik.”

The farm's owner glowered as he strode up. He had begun to grow fat. Galbin had been fat too but where in the father the obesity barely camouflaged the immense power earned through hard work underneath, Valik seemed soft, doughy. There were dark shadows under his eyes, and his nose was a color that any widow of a heavy drinker would recognize. Jurel had not wanted to see anyone on the farm and this man was the reason. Had he been afraid of what seeing Valik again would bring? Had he worried that he would become once again the mousy creature that he had been in his youth? Or perhaps he feared more the demon he had become his last night here, the monster that lurked ever present beneath the surface.

Now that he stood face to face with his childhood nemesis, he searched himself for the emotions that must surely be there. But they were not. Some vague annoyance, perhaps, but that was all. It was as if, when he left the farm, he left it all behind, just up and dumped it all on his way out. Certainly there was more to it than that, but it was an explanation of sorts.

A step behind him, Merlit's beady little eyes were squinted in malicious glee. Behind them, Ingirt hurried to keep up and her eyes showed fear. Fear. Real, actual fear. For years, Jurel had lived in terror of the formidable, indomitable woman. Galbin's wife had always been quick to anger, quicker to exact retribution for any slight, any prank and her punishments had been severe—except when it was Valik who was caught out. She had been the mistress of this farm, and more. She had been queen. The woman that approached in her somber dress and her frayed mass of unruly hair now was a broken wisp of the woman Jurel remembered.

“Didn't you hear me? Your ears all packed up? I asked what you think you're doing here.”

“Oh, not much. Just thought I'd drop by and see how my friends are doing.” He said airily, then, as an afterthought, he added, “And you too, I guess.”

The farmers shuffled their feet, their eyes were, to a man, on the ground. Clearly they wanted to be elsewhere. Even the newer hands, the ones that Jurel had never met, turned their attention away. Of course. Valik would have made sure that everyone knew of the murderer that he had driven off. In a flash of inspiration, he was suddenly quite certain that it was one of Valik's favorite topics of discussion. He could almost see Valik sitting at his fire while enrapt farmhands (or at least farmers who were smart enough to appear enrapt in front of their employer) gathered close.

“
Oh I tried to stop him. I fought him right in my own dining room the night he killed my father, may he rest in peace. But the sneaky bastard used foul trickery and escaped. I sent two good men to grab him until we could get the proper authorities to take him. But he left Shenk for the vultures and Merlit lying half broken in the forest. That man knows no remorse. His soul is black I tell you. Black.”

Yes, he was certain that everyone on the farm had heard something like that. A much longer version, but that would be the gist.

Teeth bared, Valik took a threatening step forward followed closely by Merlit. “What, you here to kill the rest of us now? Shenk and my father weren't enough for you?”