Harsh Lands

What horrors does Voltursburg hold for the Spaldur siblings?

"Sharp, cold, and grey." 

My father was a man of few words.

"Melda," he would say, "don't ever take a word to make a statement when a nod would do."

Since I was a child, he would say little things to me. Small bits of knowledge from his vast, hidden mind wound up in my open, one-room skull. They were usually descriptive words. I had a feeling that, had he been alone, had he never met mama and made Bennet and me, he’d have been a mute. I knew he described things for my sake. Not cause he wanted me to know how he felt, not cause his opinion was important. He’d been saying words like that since I was born. He did it so I would know how to see the world.

When I awoke on that late hour hiding behind a mask of dawn, he had those three words waiting for me. And he was right, as usual. This territory was sharp, covered in jagged rocks and dead trees. It was cold, with frost hanging in the air. It was so grey, it looked like it was leaching the color from our skins.

I nodded to him and went about fixing some breakfast. The movement of the wagon wasn't helping my already apparent disorientation. Mornings were simply not my time to shine. I nearly fell into Bennet every time our wheel rose over a rock or even a pebble. He didn’t care. The boy could sleep through anything, and add to the ruckus with his snoring at that.

The biscuits were stale, the gravy was chilled, the ale was warm, and my nose wouldn't stop dripping into everything. It’d already been like this for the season-long ride across the Northlands. We’d seen so few towns, but each one had called to me. Each one asked me to live within its warmth and steadiness. Each one gave me a sad wave with its smoke stacks and banners as we made our way through to where papa wanted to go.

“Papa, when will we be there?"

He grunted, pulling the horses' reigns to slow them. Then he cleared his throat and gave a whisper and a point to the bleak valley.

“There, Melda."

I crawled through the opening of the wagon and sat next to him. My eyes hurt with how hard i had to strain just to see it. Beyond the hill we had crested, past a frozen-over lake, small buildings jutted from the snow. The black stone and weathered wood drew in the harsh light that every other white-washed, snow covered thing around threw back out into the world.

"Voltursburg"

The name was as impressive as the village, as impressive as an old boot . But both left a bucket of briars in my stomach. There was nothing to the walls or the streets that I hadn’t seen before. It was all inside me. I didn’t understand it then; the heaviness that felt like my still sleeping brother was pulling my coat-tails back towards our old home. It was fear. It was the kind of fear that a young woman with no real knowledge of the world could never truly know until it held her down and made her wake up from her childhood. The castle was the source. I may have not been aware of what I was feeling, but that bland-grey and old blood-red fortress gave me a shiver right when I saw it.

Part of me wishes I had thrown a fit, or ran away. That part would have found me back at mama’s headstone, if I was lucky. I was old enough to be a woman, but not grown enough to really feel like I was and a dead parent can’t do anything for a child.

Then there’s the other part inside, the real part, the part that grew stronger in the days after me and Papa sat on the front bench of the wagon and stared at the town for longer than seemed natural. That part knows I had to be there, I had to find my way into that castle.

The woman, the adult in me knows I had to meet that man in the dark; the man behind the bars and the chains.

I can’t say I regret much about what happened. But I do wish the bandits didn’t have anything to do with it. I wish they hadn’t been there, waiting for passersby. I wish they had been a little lazier, or just more observant, and figured that we didn’t have anything to offer them in the way of riches. I wish I had heard the bowstring pull back. I had been told they didn’t use guns, cause of the noise and the powder. I had been listening for the strings, and watching the vantage points like I had been told. But I wasn’t watching or listening right then. I wish I had been. Maybe things would be different. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to be alone throughout everything. But, knowing how things went, if it hadn’t happened there, it probably would’ve happened somewhere between then and the next morning.

Mostly, I wish I had told Papa I loved him before the arrow flew from the trees and through his head, before he went off to be with Mama.

I had the gun in my hand before I knew he was gone. I did everything he taught me. He always said that the horses were too much of a danger to keep chained up when something happened. They couldn’t carry us out of here fast enough, but the effort to get them moving would make us defenseless. I unclasped the chain and they went bolting off, spooked by the sound of the shot I sent after them to make sure they were well clear.

It was fight there or die; no running.

I kept yelling for him, even though I had seen the blood. In the time it took me to reload the rifle after every shot, I called for him.

“Papa!”

The gun sounded again. The powder flew and the power sent the bullet through one of the men making their way across the snow.

“Papa!”

I aimed again. They had been far enough off for us to not hear them. They weren’t coming fast, afraid of the rifle. They were using rocks and trees to hide behind, so I was hitting the ground in front of the shoes poking out, they knew I could hit them. I wanted to keep them away long enough to make them think twice. I wanted to present a defense so strong they’d decide it wasn’t worth their lives and leave.

I shot again, clipping a rock.

“Papa.” I said it one more time, less wind to it, figuring out that by now he wasn’t getting up.

“Your Papa ain’t gonna help you out no more!”

 The voice had come behind a black oak two thirty degrees left. A loud, sincere laugh followed. The others joined in the joke.

After that, I just wanted to kill every one of them. 

I flicked the lever on the side of the stock and heard the motors start to churn.

Black oak, about twenty centimeters thick. Thirty meters away. I dialed the levels up with my thumb. Breathe out, Melda. Breathe out,  let fly. I felt a tear slip past when I pulled the trigger and sent the bullet through the bark, the trunk, and the son of a b***h that thought it was funny to spite a girl trained by a Royal Army marksman.

His chest no longer there, he fell to pieces in the snow beside one of his buddies. At least he had some guts. His friend was screaming like a child.

“A goddamn Krasticov!”

They knew the weapon. They knew they couldn’t hide in between shots anymore.

Bennet was crying. He was too old to cry, but lord if I didn’t want to join him. He hadn’t seen Papa fall and I wouldn’t let him come out of the wagon enough to see the body and the blood on the ground. He hadn’t grabbed his pistols like he’d been taught. I looked back to scold him, to shock him out of his wailing. I saw something else he hadn’t done. The back door of the wagon was jittering in the wind.

“D****t, Bennet! You know to close the latches!”

I shut the front, hoping the armor plates would hold them out. I secured the door behind me. Bennet sniffled and pulled his sheet up. I threw his holsters into his lap and tugged on his ear.

“Load’em up, boy. I love you too much to let you go without fighting.”

He nodded and grabbed the handles. He was a better shot than me, but he still had the fear of the blast in him.

I set the rifle down and grabbed the back hatch. I wasn’t as strong as the man on the other side, pulling opposite of me. I fell out onto the snow in front of him. He grabbed my arm and jerked me up. My back nearly split when he pushed me against the wagon.

“Got her!”

He was smiling, staring at me with one blue eye. The other was covered by a thick leather patch, branded with the old cross of the Romans. I spit in his good one and took the chance to send my skull into his jaw.

I guess I really was as soft-headed as Bennet often called me. He wasn’t phased, but my face was cut up and I could see three or four of everything. I barely heard the blast. I saw four of the same man fall to the ground without a head. I felt a pair of hands grab under my shoulders and guide me back into the wagon. For the life of me, I mistook Bennet for Papa. And then I was out.

***********************

The heat woke me. Maybe it wasn’t the heat as much as the surprise I had at being hot. It wasn’t a sensation you would feel often in the Northlands.

As long as I was laying down, I was fine. But when I tried to move anything at all, even my eyes, I felt like a bear was standing on my head. It took me a while to get the pain of blinking under my belt. Then I spent a bit of time forcing my eyes to look around. It was dark. Thank goodness for that. Had we had any lights beyond the old soft glows along the top, I think my head would’ve burst.

Bennet was sitting against across from me. He had put me on the hammock after he shot the bandit. His first kill. Ever.

Papa had meant to take him out for rabbits or a deer, but then Mama took ill and nothing came of the planning. His first takedown was a man. Might as well have been an animal to me, the way the bandits were. But by his drooped head and slumped shoulders, I figured he didn’t share my opinion.

I meant to say something first, to calm him, to make him smile. But he had something waiting for me. He had a question I didn’t want to answer.

“Papa’s dead, ain’t he?”

I swallowed nothing through a dry throat.

“Yeah, Benny. They got him before he knew it.”

I tried breathing deep, but it was so stifling it felt like nothing was coming in.

“They still out there, Benny?”

He laughed; not a happy one, but relieved. It sounded good to me.

“They left a while ago. After I pulled you in, they started beating the walls and cursing at themselves. They’d never come across a coach like this, I guess. But I haven’t heard nothing for a long while now.”

I coughed, it sent sparks through my brain and made me wince, which just repeated pain anyway. I held my head. I was sure that if I could get a good breath going through my body, I’d be able to hold myself against the agony.

“Why is it hot as hell in here, Ben?”

He wiped his brow and went to the door.

“I don’t know, maybe all the commotion got us heated and we’ve just been building up the heat with the doors closed? I’ll let some chill in.”

“That doesn’t make sense. It’s never hot in here, even with Papa.”

And then it did make sense. My eyes shot open and I jerked my head up. I ignored the white flash and the hammer bursting out through my skull.

“Benny, don’t open the door!”

He stepped back, raising his hand as far away from the latch as he could, like it would bite him. He looked at me, not curious, but afraid.

“Why? What’s wrong, Melda?”

I reached up for the shelf and used it to roll over. I opened my hand and laid it on the floor. I could only touch it for a second before I pulled back.

Hot. Too hot.

I sat up, fighting the spinning of the world in my head.

“They’ve got a fire under us.”

He went back for the door. I leaned over and grabbed his hand.

“We gotta get out of here!” He wasn’t getting it.

“Benny, we open that door, we’ll get their arrows before we could get a shot off. I bet they have us surrounded, bowstrings drawn.”

Benny didn’t flinch. He opened his mouth and said the first thing that came to him.

“S**t.”

“Yeah,” there was nothing more to say back.

They were cooking us out. For all they knew we had great, expensive things in the wagon. Gold and silver was just as good hot as cold. Anything they could burn, they didn’t care much about.

Benny sat down again. He was thinking, staring off at the wall. We stayed like that, sitting like statues in a giant kiln, for a good long while before he asked me another question I didn’t want to answer.

“We’re gonna be seeing them soon aren’t we?”

I nodded. I didn’t know if he was talking about the men outside, or Mama and Papa. It didn’t matter. We were likely to see the first and then the other before the night fell, if we ever got out of the oven the bandits made for us. If not, then we’d definitely be seeing the big steps up sooner than later.

He tried to accept it. I know he did. I was watching his face. He nodded, then stared again, but something nagged in him. He couldn’t agree. He shook his head, slow at first, but then harder and faster.

“No, no we ain’t. Melda, get up.”

I guess it was his time to fight. But I was tired. The day caught up with me and I wasn’t quite understanding what he was saying. I just gazed at him, blank as the unbloodied snow outside.

“Get up, Melda.”

He sounded like Mama. He’d have hated if I told him that then. He loved Mama, but every boy wanted to be like the man of the house. Problem was, Mama was the speaker. Papa was to doer, but when we needed told something, Mama did it. She could have told a she-wolf to suckle a lamb and it would without a hesitation.

“Get up.”

I got up.

Bennet pulled me over to his wall.

“Now, we’re gonna run as fast as we can and hit the other side as hard as we can.”

It took me some time and thought, but I got what he was trying to do. He smiled and finished my train of thought for me.

“You remember Mr. Wolgram’s barn door? We’re gonna tip this sum’b***h over.”

I nodded. My mind was coming back. I was coming back. We had helped our old landlord break down a busted barn on his property just last year in that exact same way. Wolgram was a strong man himself, but he was kind and he knew we were young enough to believe he couldn’t do it himself. 

We readied ourselves and went forward, shouting out as we went.

The wagon was built far better than the old barn door. That had given on the first strike. The coach rocked from side to side, but didn’t do much more.

We tried four more times. Each push was harder, each push sent us further. But we weren’t heavy enough to move the whole thing. There was too much weight keeping it down on the other side.

And that was it. I stopped Bennet from going for the fifth try. I grabbed pots and pans and books from the wall behind us and threw everything on the hammock. He joined me. We might a right mess of the place. When there wasn’t anything left that wasn’t nailed down, we pulled out the clawed hammers and ripped the shelves and the boards off. We got right down to the metal armor, which was hot enough to blister the wood touching it. We tossed everything against the other wall. The hammock couldn’t hold, it fell about halfway through. We started getting smart about it, making sure we had a path to throw ourselves against the wall when all was done.

Behind us was grey, radiating metal. The wood had been keeping the heat off. We were sweating, but without any wind, that wasn’t doing much good. We only had one good push left in us. One chance at maybe getting out of this alive.

We didn’t look at each other. We bumped the back of our fists, a habit we had come to when we were young. Then we tossed ourselves.

The wagon moved, our world moved with it. It lurched away from our attack. But it slowed, teetering on the edge of two wheels. We pressed ourselves against the wall, not wanting to risk stepping back. But it stopped, the momentum was gone. We were left to ask which way it would topple.

The weight we had put on the wall started to shift. The planks and pans and other parts of our lives rallied and collapsed down on us. The coach was pushed further back, away from the fire. The natural order of things took over and the heavy armored wagon slammed down on its side.

The winds must have been whipping, or maybe we were just relieved. Either way, it felt cooler practically as soon as we hit the ground.

Me and Bennet took one look at each other and just started laughing. We laughed and cried. We laughed for us. We cried for Papa, and Mama, and Mr. Wolgram, and the man Bennet shot. I grabbed him, my baby brother who had just begun to grow taller than me that spring. I held him tight and we cried into each other’s shoulders. More than anything, we cried because we still weren’t safe. They were still outside. But we kept laughing too. We kept laughing because we were still alive.

***********************

I tapped Bennet on the shoulder. It was his turn to watch the door. It was his turn to listen for the men outside. We’d both gotten through a watch period, which meant we had both also gotten to sleep while the other stood guard. He let me have the first rest. He said I had done more than he had. I was too tired to argue.

But then it was my turn. I took the rifle and Bennet took his pistols back. We thought there was no point in not having both of us armed, even if only one of us was awake to do anything about it. I watched until the long timer ran out again. The chime had brought me out of sleep. But Bennet, the amazing slumberer, just snored through it.

So I tapped him. And then I punched him in the arm. He woke up with a dash of what he would have done and said before all this happened. He snarled and opened his eyes. He moaned at me and almost asked if Papa was going to stop the carriage so he could go to the bathroom. He’d forgotten about everything while dreaming. That was the gift of sleep. But it wasn’t permanent. He woke up to a world where Papa wasn’t with us anymore, where we didn’t have luxuries like sleeping all day. He woke up to a world where we had to search through our possessions to find a pot to piss in.

He took my rifle and I laid down. His pistols were in their holsters next to me. I didn’t know why Papa gave them to him. They had been in battle, with him in the war, they had honor in their barrels. My rusty old rifle had belonged to my Pawpap, and further back in our family beyond him, it wasn’t fit for military use. But those pistols, they were works of art with inlays of ivory and gold. Sometimes I would take them just to pretend they were mine. I put my finger on the handles, the inset patterns on the wood felt like a maze and I followed it, drifting to sleep.

“MELDA!”

My name was followed by a loud bang. I thought of gunfire. I grabbed the pistols and sat up, pulling the hammers back and scanning the wagon. Bennet held the rifle up, taking aim at the door, but there was no powder. I couldn’t smell the sulfur and smoke of a shot. No gunfire.

The loud noise rang through the wagon again. The walls shook. The hatch bubbled in towards us.

“Bandits!” Bennet held the rifle too high to his face. I could barely hear what he said. I grabbed the stock and pulled it from him.

“Give me that, you’re going to bust your eye if you fire it like that.”

We traded weapons and I was back with the antique again. At least I was comfortable with it. I held it up, took aim at the door, and switched the lever on the side. The engine whirred. If they were busting through, I was going to take a few of them out first. I just wanted to make sure they were in the way.

I waited.

BANG!

The hatch bubbled again. Bright white light came through the cracks. The air rushed in. We hadn’t realized how hot it still was inside. We didn’t have much water left to sweat out. The wind caused a shudder in both of us, but we held fast. Bennet’s barrels never wavered. Mine only trained in harder.

BANG!

More light. We could hear shouting. An older voice was hurriedly giving orders. We couldn’t make out much except one word.

“NOW!”

BANG!

I saw a shadow cover the door. The armor was an alloy, steel and something else I couldn’t remember. I sent the dial on the Krasticov all the way until the stopper did its job. Whatever force was needed, that would do it.

“NOW!”

BANG!

We heard more from outside.

“Come on boys, we need to get them out!”

Yeah, you’ll get us out alright.

The shadow came again. I waited anxiously, my finger catching on the trigger just enough to hear the grind of the spring inside.

“NOW!”

I fired before they could hit the door again. The gun screamed and the sound echoed, but it was music to me. It was the loud crash outside that wracked my ears. The the whole ground shook. The hatch fell in, clear of the thick latches. Men were yelling and cursing and the old man groaned in pain.

I reloaded as quickly as I could. Bennet took point and held his pistols higher.

I set a cartridge in and pulled the chamber door back. I primed the overdrive engine again. But I never pulled the rifle back up. A man’s hand went through the door, holding a small leather pouch with a bit of metal on one side. Bennet almost shot it off. I pulled his arms down.

The old man shouted as loud as he could.

“CEASE FIRE! This is the Voltursburg Constable, for the sake of all things holy! We’re here to get you out!”

I looked closer. The badge held the sigil of the Royal Knight’s Council. The gold sent light flickering along the walls. The tiny spots of yellow brightness washed over me and Bennet. We were finally able to see more than just shadows and blurs. We were filthy, covered in blood and dirt and sweat. Bennet breathed hard, wondering what to think, what to do.

I pulled his guns from him and put our weapons on the ground.

“We’re ready.”

The hatch opened, sending the brightness of the outside into our tiny, restricted world. I took a breath and grabbed Bennet’s hand. He held on tightly and we took our first steps towards the door.

Author's Note

chapters posted as they are finished, no editing