Morrighan

 

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Before borders were drawn, before treaties were signed, before wars were waged anew, before the great kingdoms of the Remnant were even born and the world of old was only a hazy slate of memory told in story and legend, a girl and her family fought to survive. And that girl's name was Morrighan.

 

 

 

 

 

She asks for another story, one to pass the time and fill her.

I search for the truth, the details of a world so long past now, I'm not sure it ever was.

Once upon a time, so very long ago,

In an age before monsters and demons roamed the earth,

A time when children ran free in meadows,

And heavy fruit hung from trees,

There were cities, large and beautiful with sparkling towers that touched the sky.

Were they made of magic?

I was only a child myself. I thought they could hold a whole world. To me they were made of—

Yes, they were spun of magic and light and the dreams of gods.

And there was a princess?

I smile.

Yes, my child, a precious princess just like you. She had a garden filled with trees that hung with fruit as big as a man's fist.

The child looks at me, doubtful.

She has never seen an apple but she has seen the fists of men.

Are there really such gardens, Ama?

Not anymore.

Yes, my child, somewhere. And one day you will find them.

—The Last Testaments of Gaudrel

Chapter One

Morrighan

I was eight years old the first time I saw him. In that terrifying moment, I was certain I was about to die. He was a scavenger, and I had never been that close to one before. Alone. I had nothing to defend myself except for a few stones that lay near my feet, and I was too gripped with fear to stoop and grab them. A handful of stones would have done me little good anyway. I saw the knife sheathed at his side.

He stood on a boulder, looking down curiously, studying me. Bare chested, with wild knotted hair, he was everything savage I had been warned about, even if he was little more than a child himself. His chest was narrow, and his ribs were easily countable.

I heard the distant thunder of hooves, and fear vibrated through me. More were coming, and there was nowhere to run. I was trapped, cowering between two boulders in a dark crevice below him. I didn't breathe. Didn't move. I couldn't even break my gaze from his. I was fully and utterly prey, a silent rabbit effectively hunted and cornered. I was going to die. He eyed the sack of seed that I had spent the morning gathering. In my haste and terror, I had dropped it, and the seed had spilled out between the boulders.

The boy's gaze shot up, and the clamor of horses and shouts filled my ears.

“Did you get something?” A loud voice. The one Ama hates. The one she and the others whisper about. The one who stole Venda.

“They scattered. I couldn't catch up,” the boy called.

Another disgusted voice. “And nothing was left behind?”

The boy shook his head.

There were more shouts of discontent and then the rumble of hooves again. Leaving. They were leaving. The boy climbed down from the boulder and left too, without another glance or word to me, his face deliberately turned away, almost as if he were shamed.

*   *   *

I didn't see him again for another two years. The close call had instilled a heavy dose of fear in me, and I didn't wander far from the tribe again. At least not until one warm spring day. The scavengers had seemed to move on. We'd seen no sign of them since the first frost of autumn.

But there he was, a head taller and trying to pull cattails from my favorite pond. His blond hair had only grown wilder, his shoulders slightly wider, his ribs as evident as ever. I watched his frustration grow as the stalks he pulled broke off one after another and he came up with only worthless pieces of stems.

“You're impatient.”

He spun, drawing his knife.

Even at the tender age of ten, I knew I was taking a risk exposing myself. I wasn't even sure why I did it, especially once I saw his eyes. Feral and hungry, there was no recognition.

“Take your boots off,” I said. “I'll show you.”

He stabbed at the air as I took a step closer, but I sat down and removed my own calfskin slippers, never taking my eyes off him, thinking I might need to run after all.

As his fear receded, so did his wild, glassy gaze, and recognition finally spread across his face. I had changed more than he had in two years. He lowered his knife.

“You're the girl between the boulders.”

I nodded and pointed to his boots. “Take those off. You'll have to wade in if you want to get some corms.”

He pulled off his boots and followed me out, knee-deep into the pond, the rushes springing up between us. I told him to feel with his toes, to work them into the mud to loosen the fat, fleshy tuber before pulling. Our toes had to do as much of the work as our hands. There were few words between us. What was there for a scavenger and a child of the Remnant to say to each other? All we had in common was hunger. But he seemed to understand I was paying him back for his act of mercy two years ago.

By the time we parted, he had a sack full of the fleshy roots.

“This is my pond now,” he said sharply as he tied the sack to his saddle. “Don't come here again.” He spat on the ground to emphasize his point.

I knew what he was really saying. The others would come here now, too. It wouldn't be safe.

“What's your name?” I asked as he mounted his horse.

“You are nothing!” he answered, as if he'd heard a different question from my lips. He settled into his saddle, then reluctantly looked my way again. “Jafir de Aldrid,” he answered.

“And I am—”

“I know who you are. You're Morrighan.” He galloped off.

It was another four years before I saw him again, and the whole of that time, I wondered how he knew my name.

Chapter Two

Morrighan

It seemed being afraid was in my blood. It kept me ever aware, but even at ten years old, I was weary of it. I remember I returned to camp warily that day. From an early age, I had known we were different. It was what helped us to survive. But it also meant little passed by the others, even the hidden and unsaid. Ama, Rhiann, Carys, Oni, and Nedra were strongest in the knowing. And Venda too, but she was gone now. We didn't talk of her.

Ama spoke without lifting her gaze from her basket of beans, her gray and black hair pulled back neatly in a braid. “Pata tells me you left the camp while I was gone.”

“Only to the pond beyond the rock wall, Ama. I didn't go far.”

“Far enough. It only takes a moment for a scavenger to snatch you up.”

We'd had this conversation many times. The scavengers were wild and reckless, thieves and savages preying on the work of others. And sometimes they were killers too, depending on their whim. We hid in the hills and ruins, quiet in our footsteps, soft in voice, the walls of an empty world giving us cover, and where the walls were only dust, the tall grasses hid us.

But sometimes even that was not enough.

“I was careful,” I whispered.

“What called you to the pond?” she asked.

I was empty-handed—nothing to show as a reason for my trek. As soon as Jafir had galloped off, I had left. I could not lie to Ama. There were as many questions in her pauses as in her words. She knew.

“I saw a scavenger boy there. He was tearing at the cattails.”

Her eyes darted up. “You didn't—”

“He was a boy named Jafir.”

“You know his name? You
spoke
to him?” Ama jumped to her feet, scattering the beans in her lap. She grabbed my shoulders first, then brushed my hair back, examining my face. Her hands traveled frantically up and down my arms, searching for injuries. “Are you all right? Did he harm you? Did he
touch
you?” Her eyes were sharp with fear.

“Ama, he didn't harm me,” I said firmly, trying to dispel her fears. “He only told me not to come to the pond anymore. That it is his pond now. And then he left with a sack of corms.”

Her face hardened. I knew what she was thinking—
they take it all
—and it was true. They did. Just when we had settled on the far side of a valley, or meadow, or among the abandoned shelters, they would come upon us, stealing and sowing terror in their path. I was angry with myself now for showing Jafir how to loosen the tubers. We owed the scavengers nothing when they had taken so much from us.

“Was it always so, Ama? Wouldn't they be part of the Remnant too?”

“There are two kinds who survive, those who persevere and those who prey.”

She scanned the horizon, and her chest rose in a weary breath. “Come, help me collect the beans. Tomorrow we leave for a new valley. A far one.”

There were no valleys far enough from their kind. They sprouted as freely as burrs in the meadow grass.

Nedra, Oni, and Pata grumbled but said nothing more. They deferred to Ama because she was the oldest and the head of our tribe, the only one among us who remembered Before. Besides, we were used to moving on and searching for a peaceful valley of plenty. Somewhere there had to be one. Ama had told us so. She had seen it with her own eyes when she was a child, before the foundation of the earth was shaken and before the stars fell from the sky. Somewhere there had to be a place where we were safe from them.

Chapter Three

Jafir

I wiped the blood running from my nose. I knew better than to draw my knife—but I would not always be a head shorter than Steffan. He seemed to know this too. The back of his hand came less frequently these days.

“You were gone all day, and you only have a bag of weeds to show for it?” he shouted.

Piers puffed on his pipe, gloating over Steffan's display. “It is more than I see dangling from your hand.”