The partsfighters watched from atop the carts and the animals and people crowded in the middle. Besthand stood atop his own, watching the the many burling, bearded figures in the trees, crouched and holding knives, with meat in their hair and teeth. Wander and Melody sat beneath his place.
"It is a Goalish fallpiece," Melody said. "This weight, this noise. That is certain. That is why they have come to fight us."
"If it is so, it is a large piece I have not seen."
"The hillfaces have many kinds. Perhaps their friends have spun it in. We are not the first group to face such an attack."
Besthand descended from his post in his spinning way.
"No," he said. "But we are the first to face it in this way."
"With metal and missiles?"
"With time." He put his hands behind his back. "The hillborn attack quickly and until they are all fallen. They do not believe that that hurts them. This is a new way."
"Is there something good your carts carry?" Wander was looking at Besthand.
Besthand met Wander's gaze. He did not affirm it at once. "What would that give you?"
"If they want it, we can give it to them."
"We do not pick the carries," Melody said. "It may have metal, eating, stones, or any number of things."
"It is what she says," he said. "If there is something they would like, I do not know that your hillface would be a good kind for this work. Or twenty blades."
"I'm going."
Melody twisted his head at Wander. "You are tipped."
She looked down at the partsfighter. "I speak Goalish. I do not need friends to hurt them. And I can go without an arm, which may ease them, so that they do not attack at once."
"What a word!" he cried. "You're a big girl built from little ones. How could you hurt such a mass?"
"With my hands, my teeth, and a stone."
"You are tipped," Melody repeated. "If this is no piece, then I can really hear the voice of He."
"You can?" Besthand asked.
"Yes. All of us can."
Her look moved between them. "What have you heard?"
They were silent.
"He has said we must keep back from it," Melody continued. "He said that there will be disaster otherwise."
The partsfighters spoke in agreement.
Besthand looked at Wander, who did not heed them.
"We do not know their hands," Besthand said. "Perhaps we can wait too until the light. If you are away, they may snatch you out, or choose that moment to come in. And we would have one less friend."
-
Wander waited atop the carts with the other partsfighters. Her shoulderskin flapped in the wind. Her fellows watched with her.
There was no movement from beyond the trees, and without it, most of the other eyes could not keep up. Soon, it was only her and Melody. They saw the faraway eyes of the Goals, their wisps of smokeless flame, and the howls that stood between them, blood-covered and taller than the men.
The Bell slithered back into camp in the night. Melody unsheathed his weapon at its sight, but lowered it as Wander knelt at the edge of her cart. The Bell rose into the air and fastened herself to Wander's wrist.
"What have you seen?" Wander asked.
The Bell's grip tightened. "I have seen a plague."
"What is its work?"
"It is a loud one. You will destroy it."
She unfastened herself and descended the cart.
Melody watched her go. Wander's eyes remained on the horizon.
"You are a tricking woman," Melody said. "A seeker of smiles in age. Or that Right-Handed Blade. A firmtipper. Or isn't it so?"
Wander's gaze did not shift. "I am a keeper of He. The ones I know keep in his word."
A weapon fell back into its sheath. "I have known no one like that."
Wander's posture kept still. Melody kept looking at her.
Wander looked into The Wild.
Melody knelt down again. "I have not met many more of our type," he said. "That He should have made you a firmtipper- he does not like our way."
"We do not know what He likes."
Melody snorted. His eyes became distant.
"You look young," he said. "But when Ourland was thrown down, and when its body was wrecked apart, I was a young man. I knew all the wrongs that our lawsmen knew."
Melody held the handle of his weapon. "Now I am brought to Harmony. I do not know wrong things anymore. So they will not be destroyed again. He has brought me a better way. It has a strong body."
His gaze drifted. "I know what He likes."
The wind blew by. The brief wail of an insect began, before a chill passed through it and it went down again.
Wander pulled out a cork from her vest. "Ourland was not destroyed," Wander said. Melody looked at her.
She continued. "The Laruns did not throw it down. It is not one body. And He is not one voice."
Melody tilted his head.
Wander placed a wad of resin underneath her lip. "As long as there is a body, there is still Our Land. Every hit falls into every other."
She replaced the cork. "I take what I like from it with my hands. A body must be made. And that needs a cut."
Melody looked at her in shock.
"What kind of Right-Handed body do you mean?" he asked.
"I'm not sure," Wander said. "Most seem to move against him. There are few good heads."
Melody turned away from her.
-
Fragile sat around a campfire with Besthand and some of The Goals, who they could speak with. The Bell bound herself around his arm, and as she tightened around his bicep, he jumped. Besthand, who was sharpening his knife, looked up. "What is it, riverborn?"
Fragile looked at him. "Nothing," he said. He put his hands in his lap and kneaded The Bell's coil. "Well-"
"Yes?"
"I was wondering-" Fragile put his thumbs together. "-how you jump."
He blinked at Fragile. Fragile raised up his hands and spun one around the other. Besthand's eyes widened.
He looked back at his knife. "I do it by its doing, yon-brother."
"I have seen many jump before," Fragile said. "But I have not seen your way of it."
"Jumping is a smile to me." Besthand flicked the edge of the metal, and it rang. "And running. And crawling, and climbing up. Your friend could smash every kind of path." He grinned and tapped his chest with his knife. "This is the only one I need."
Fragile tilted his head. "Do you shake at them too?"
He nodded.
"Why do you show them?" Fragile asked. "Why do you- road-point?"
Besthand moaned. He dropped his weapon.
"How I wish that I did not," he said. "But someone must do it, for this."
He threw his hand around at the circled carts.
"Herdetopp has needed features," he said. "Carts carry them. When I was a boy, the Laruns took me, and I found what the papers for it – for pointing – said. So I am their best man. And because I adore their men, they can have me."
The Bell curled around Fragile's shoulders. She scratched his head in the dark.
"It is strange," Fragile said.
"What?"
He bit his lip.
"There are many things," Fragile said, "which are parts of others. And shake at other parts."
He looked at Besthand, whose eyebrow was raised.
"I am sorry," Fragile said. "I did not- you are your own one. Please look from my mouth. It does not know a thing."
Besthand slid his knife into its pouch.
"I cannot help it, yon-brother," Besthand said. "We are Goalish."
He laid down. "Your mouth knows a Goalish way."
-
The dawn came in and shined on them.
Their new enemies, the roadpeople saw, were not thrown out by the light. Instead, they entered full view. The rays fell on their teeth and arms, which were like no cane Wander had ever seen the Goals cut. They were heavy pieces of metal ripped from the soil.
The company awoke and all saw that the ugly masses remained in their place. The carts' redoubt was unfolded, and their journey continued with sweating and haste.
Soon, the muttering and guarded packs of the roadpeople broke the edge of the road. The enemies continued to follow them, melting up from the trees and the dark, but even when the Ash was covered on both sides by ranks of heavy thicktrees, they could be seen to keep a far distance from its stones. The roadpeople began to shout out at them.
"Go away!"
"Run back up your rounds, feurkuns!"
"Tip someone else!"
The enemies sent no reply except their eyes. The roadpeople travelled very far, and their fellowship began to accrue.
The first join to their company was found by a carry-wagon, passing them on the opposite way. It soon stopped, as their drivers spoke of signs and terror, and could see the hillfaces just as well.
The next to accompany were carts loaded with nivmen, and a herd of meatbearers pushed by a group of Goals. Also came a group of partsfighters and a Larun meiam, wearing no shoes and kept only by the skins of animals. Two more packs of walking travellers all gathered within the cell created by their own. All these came together, and still the enemies did not disperse. Every travellers spoke of the different kinds of feelings they had encountered, which all pushed them into fear of the massing, hillfaced force.
At one time, as Fragile and Wander walked along the rear, and the road curved and gave them the position over a falling slope, she turned her head to see a fleet of the nivmen mount their hoofs and ride down the enemies. They went very far from the road, and very close- their sticks levelled right agianst the throats of the hillfaced line. Then one was torn from his seat, and a second man, and twelve. They were driven off and apart by hands and arrows that continued to beat into them and the ground beside them, and eat them up, dragging them and their rides into the trees.
After this the fears that the roadpeople had taken were heeded without exception.
The pilots lashed their charges and the walkers clung to the carts and the animals they dragged. Fragile was thrown about by The Stonehoof; Wander and The Stronghoof carried those who were falling behind. All were wide-eyed and blinking when they looked out and back at the huge lines pressing up their horizon, who would sometimes open up their mouths. Legs stood up soon after they fell down.
"None have fell away," Besthand said. "Have you ever seen it?"
"Fear is He's lever," Melody replied.
-
There was no stop when the dark had came.
The roadpeople continued to pass by until the dawn was halfway come. When they did stop, the figures and animals and fires were no farther away than they had been at the day's beginning. The train's mass was more sizable, and there was a good mixture of talk between the different cells that inhabited it. This had the exception of the Goals, who, regardless of status, clothing, or Sprak, remained in one campsite of their own, on the parts of their fortification nearest the road.
Besthand reached out his finger. Wander followed it, and straightened her back on top of his cart. Melody stood and looked, his arms crossed.
"Can you see it?" Besthand asked.
"I can't see anything," Melody said.
Wander looked into the dark. Her eyes flickered for a moment, and she could see the mass and its frame. Among the flames and tall, loping mouths, and between the short men wearing holed shirts and shards of metal were different ones. They rose up past the Goalish type. Their shapes were wrapped in weight.
"Brysts," Wander said.
"Brysts?" Melody looked down at Wander. "On the Goals?"
"Their faces are Larun."
"They were not there yesterday," Besthand said.
"What is its cause?"
"There can be no cause," Melody said. "You must have seen wrong."
Wander looked again.
Besthand turned away. "They do not lay down. The pool of them comes from two skies. If Sett is kind, they do not come because they see us so tall."
Melody rubbed her face. "And if they do not?" she asked.
"Then they are having fun, and we are waiting for them to bore. Because when they do come, kontor, we will all be sent to that chamber, where sit those voices that you so enjoy."
-
Another watch was held. Fragile watched many of the partsfighters take bottles of clear fluid from a carriage they had found, and smear it within their gums. Their eyes were open after that.
The morning came again. The roadpeople peeked out from between their wagons and groaned when the light revealed their foes again. They moved back to their beds and coverings, tying them up with heavy, scratching coils of Larun rope. As they did so, they began to mutter to one another.
"Where has it gone…"
"The shade. That is not the shade.
"My skin."
"My skin." An older man in a Rootcliff band whispered it again, to his young companion.
"I have heard it," the other said.
The Rootcliff looked around, and removed his feet from his boots. They were smooth, and their bottoms free of callouses.
The Rootcliff's companion balked as he had them kicked in his face. "See! Look!"
"Ich! Get away from me!" His companion's protests ended. "What happened?"
"I don't know."
"Does it hurt?"
"No! But it should!" He scratched the sole, which was gentle and young. He replaced it in his boot.
"I'd like to move soon," his companion said. "This is all right-handed work."
"All and all of it. All and all of it."
"All and all of it."
One of the Rootcliffs moved from their party and looked toward The Wild. She opened her mouth and started screaming.
Wander and Fragile paused from loading on The Stronghoof, their heads turned.
When Wander had passed over The Rootcliff woman's encampment, she found the victim slumped over, held by another.
"It is my house," The Rootcliff cried. "My housepoint."
"What of your housepoint?"
"Can't you hear it?" she cried. "She is saying I must not come. She is telling me – ‘keep going, keep going'! She says, ‘find something new'!"
"There is no one speaking," her friends consoled.
"What sort is this?" one asked. "What work of He?"
"It is awful."
"An awful mark."
The woman would not be consoled. His screams continued until Melody stood up on his cart, over the crowds now looking at the sight, grabbed a piece of metal and beat it with a club. Its bangs were sharp and they held their ears.
He lowered the weapon. "Shut your mouths," he said. "Does the song disagree with us? No? Then what is the problem?"
"This is the road," one Larun said. "The Ash Road! A Left-Handed place!"
"It is a road," he said. "It has kept us well. When we reach Herdetopp, that is when it will stop speaking."
"How do you know, partsfighter?"
"Because that is where it ends. Load, and create the line."
There was more weeping as the knots and producers followed her command, hoisting the Rootcliff to his feet. He looked at The Wild and shrunk from it, covering his ears. The carts rattled back on to the path and over the stone. Then Fragile and Wander walked alongside Melody's cart.
As they did so, Fragile's gaze shifted. "Has eldsister spoken to you?" he asked.
"A little," Wander replied. "But not of the problem."
He crooked his head and looked at the rope around her waist, it was as cold as something regular.
Fragile removed the doll from his bag and held it. "Where do you believe he went?"
"I don't know."
Fragile paused. "He is not a right one."
"Besthand?"
He nodded. "He is afraid. He believes we will feel like them. The ones you found." He pressed on the doll. "He does not know of your push. Or what it has pushed out."
Wander kept her eyes fixed on the road.
"He knows less than we," she said.
-
They walked day and night and through till morning.
At the first glow of dawn which was bright enough to give them sight, it could be seen that the skin of the roadpeople had taken on a youthful shade. The flecks of dirt had been taken down from their legs and faces; the wrinkles on their coats and robs and leathers shirts and coverings had smoothed; the layers of sweat filling those things had gone. It did not smell as it had. To Wander, it appeared as though they existed cut frm the world, in a place that was completely different in its shape, which was untied from all the hurt of which they had been composed.
She saw this first on Fragile, so it was only on looking at the other roadpeople that her brow rose. One of the pilots, a man in the cart before theirs, jumped out from his place. The hoofs whose leads he carried kept moving at the same pace without his grip or presence.
There was a soft babble from the lookers as he went forward, kicking around in the dirt. "My feet," the pilot said. He spoke up. "My feet. My feet are light. Everyone, my legs are quick. What is this? What is this?"
The other roadpeople, seeing the pilot's exclaim, began to adventure toward him, and found the same in themselves. Their bodies too had shifted; the arms of the men had grown, and when they smiled she saw that some of them had had teeth filled in. Their sunburns had disappeared.
The sun was full over the horizon and Fragile rubbed his eyes, and he was able to see. He looked at Wander, and did not look away.
His gaze touched her after a time and she turned to ask why. He was looking at her own body, and she looked to find parts that were not her own. It was smaller and less torn. Her arms were smaller and her shoulders less broad. The wind brushed thin fibres against her head. She mounted her scalp with a finger and, tracing the edge of it, found the beginnings of a hairline.
"Partsfighter," she said.
Melody had already begun to approach her, grabbing his companions and walking toward their place. "Yes, we will conference. Where is the roadpoint?"
A great mass of the walkers was assembled, with Wander and Melody at their front. Runners were sent, but they returned empty-handed. A looking soon began for Besthand and his cart. Where Wander knew it to have been stowed the night before, at the center of their circle, she stepped over only a doused fire, a gap pulled open in the carts, and an empty set of tracks that wound out of their keep and away from their camp.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
She walked to the edge of the circle, just outside the road. The enemies in the distance leered as her feet stepped from it. She crouched down and folded her hands. Her eye followed the path of the tracks as the roadpeople gathered, whispering. Some of them began to move toward her.
"Partsfighter," said one Rootcliff to her back. "Do you know where is the roadpoint?"
Wander stood. "His piece has cut into The Wild."
Their whispering rose. A gasp and groan came out from the crowd.
Some dispersed among Besthand's camp and the other, searching for items or messages that would bring back the guide. Wander stood with Fragile by Melody's cart.
The partsfighter came to them.
"I count twenty gaps," she told Wander. "Goals all. I see them kept in the second cart he took."
"Was it loaded?"
She nodded.
"It would be a crowded one."
Melody removed her cap and wiped the sweat from her face.
"You many new friends," Fragile said in Sprak. "Is it okay, Point?"
She looked at him.
"That's not my hurt, hillface," she said. "I never should have written with him. I did not see this blow. And that is a blow to my sight. He must have been moving this way since we left Partplant."
"I don't believe that." Wander looked out into The Wild where Besthand's tracks led. It was large and brushless, kept only by the light of the fires and the creatures that stood in it. "It has no aim. There is nothing in this part. No shells."
She turned back to Melody. "I'm still going to Herdetopp," she said.
The partsfighter put her cap back on and tilted it. "We all are."
-
The other carts and groups of travellers that their mass had collected was big. Soon, the size of their conference was pared back, with ones from each section delivered to their council, among which were many Laruns, Rootcliffs, Moats, Shamars, and a Freeman.
"This work," Wander said, "which now addresses us- which puts itself into our skin and eye, and raises beasts against us, is a part of plague. It is all a fallpiece."
The roadpeople whispered.
"Even our sights, goodpoint?" one of the Laruns asked.
"Yes."
"How do you know?"
"She's a Blade."
The group turned to Melody. Wander looked at her without blinking.
"A Right-Handed kind," Melody continued. "The firm tipper that the kontor spoke of. Tell me that it is not the path."
Wander looked at her and the rest of the roadpeople.
"I am a Blade," she said. There was a buzz of chatter. "I like only what is left-handed. This cuts on that sort."
"Sett told it," one Rootcliff shouted.
"Is it her? Did she call these fighters on us?"
"A murderer!" one Moat said. "He hurts us! It is his way! We are protecting a murderer!"
"Why did Besthand protect you?" Melody asked. "Have you read papers, in Makarland? What kind is this?"
"In neither place am I equipped to know," Wander said. "I have read papers, but a fallpiece is not my property. I break bodies. This does not have just one. That is why we must take care, and not heed its word any further."
"What about him?"
One of the walkers pointed. Wander followed his finger, and found it led to Fragile. Fragile looked around as the eyes fell on him and gulped.
"The Goal!" the walker cried. "He has not been changed! You have his place, firmtipper. You see it!"
"Yes!" an old Rootcliff said. "He is the way he was."
Wander did not look at Fragile, but the talk conjured him in her eye, and the portraits that she contained confirmed their accusation. The Sixbraid's gaze moved between each one who shouted at him with words he only half-grasped. He made himself smaller.
"If he has not been changed, that is not a work of his," Wander said. "He is not a plague. Its work is right-handed."
"What do you suggest?" Melody asked.
"To remain in this place," Wander replied. "Send a single man on the road. Not to Herdetopp. Back a way, to seek a matam. I will test its blades. I could drive them out."
"Seen," the Freeman said. The word drew spitting from one of the Laruns nearby. "We have already met its metal with ours. My friends were strong. They are now hurt."
"I have hurt your friends, too," she said. "My try may not be as simple."
The Freeman's eyebrows bent sadly, and he frowned.
"Our best way is to Herdetopp!"
One of the Rootcliff men tore his hair. "There are certainly matams there with work for it. Even if this tipper's word is good – by what path is that not our own?"
Wander looked at him. "There is a work in our own assembly," she said. "We do not know what other changes will come. I believe they will. And we will continue to bring in new ones. Its voice has spoken; it would like us to move."
"How would remaining still keep us safer, firmtipper?" a Larun asked. "If it is a plague chasing us, would we not be favored by more friends, and more blades?"
Others spoke the same. Melody looked at Wander. "His ask has eyes."
"These enemies are not in papers," Wander replied. "Its works and paths are not uncovered. And we know that many blades cannot keep it out."
"How is that?"
"The nivmen and their column."
"That fire was their own. That was your word."
Wander was quiet.
Melody turned to the greater assembly, whose noise had become less. Their eyes set on him.
"We do not know what has happened to the roadpoint or those others," she said. "We only know that they have not come back. I do not say that we should try their way. We know that we shall find help in Herdetopp, and safe in one another. There is no force can break the Otiseran's might."
The roadpeople looked at themselves, and there were noises of assent across their body.
-
Wander and Fragile stepped over the road. At the front of the train, where the partsfighters' wagon now dragged, they could see that it path had begun to curve, breaking from the long straight it had entertained previously. The assembly tread up behind them, dispersed; Melody's knives settled in lines of the their own around the walkers, keeping sure nobody would stray, and watching the enemy, which kept in shadow.
"What did you mean?" Fragile asked.
Wander replied, "What word has moved you?"
"You said I was not a plague."
He looked at her. He raised a hand to his throat and rubbed it before he looked forward again. His brow was raised and his eyes were exposed.
"You shake at their pointing," she said.
He looked at her. "I do not see why their way is wrong."
"It is wrong because you are not a beast."
Fragile wrapped his arms around his waist.
"We know very little," she said. "They do too. They say it because they are shaking. This plague has moved on us. That its every one has not met you is not a heavy word."
He clung to his sleeves. "You said that I had something wrong."
She paused.
"You kept your water," she said.
"Is that good?"
"A plague has no water." She paused. "They have the shine you've seen."
She extracted a cork of residue from her vest, gestured to it, and replaced it.
Fragile blinked. "Then what is Eldsister Bestplace?"
"That is a different kind. A written kind. The kind in Withoutwind was unwritten. We know no path between it and you."
Fragile held his sleeves.
"Wander," he said.
He paused.
"If I am a plague," he said, "I wish that you would do what is told."
She looked at him.
He continued, "I hear what you have said. But I do not want to breath, if others will not."
"I have never done otherwise." She looked forward.
"You are not a jewel, Quiet Feet," she said. "If your break is needed, it will be had."
He pursed his lips and nodded.
-
The assembly occurred in the evening, and all stayed. All were eager to reach the place, and the enthusiasm enabled them to walk through the night. Their new path through the rounds remained easy the next morning.
The noises of the mark had gone silent. The roadpeople, their stores as full as their eyes, soon grew sated, as they could eat comfortably even at their new, fantastic pace. A cheer was heard. The chatter of every moment rose.
"How little we knew!" a group of Laruns said. "Maybe this has some good. A Left-Handed way. Maybe this is a tell of Sett. Or Sett's friend."
"And, too, those ashes were the Otiser's. The Firm likes to hold everything in its hand."
"Yes everything."
"Everything.
"Everything, in their carts and walls. Perhaps this was one kind they could not keep."
"Yes- or a kind that would not be kept!"
There was nodding.
A Rootcliff spoke. "It was all Freemen we saw. Freemen… by the tell of their kontor, each would cast himself into a pit. A fearful thing is that, and any man with its like, and shaking such as this."
"That kontor was rough, and fearful."
"Fearful!"
A chill passed through The Wild, but Fragile's coat kept open, along with that of the other walkers. The biting gusts ate only the trees and roots they passed. Animals in the night ran from them. The gentle rains that came were flown away by the wind. They pressed through another night, and there was still no crying for it. The chatter continued and grew louder in the dark. More carts joined their brigade, and more walkers. The roadpeople grew closer to one another. The paths grew tighter.
One thing did affect them, to which all did turn, and grow silent- this was the lighting of the torch.
At the rear and fore, all could see it. In the black, when clouds covered up the stars and nobody but she could know, light bloomed from each of them and around the Wild, a great fire atop the wall of carts. The was fear again.
"I can see!" one said. "It is like day!"
"There is nothing hidden," cried another.
All the walkers shook themselves and one another. The Bell was the only feature of them that remained silent, still, and unmarked.
"What can you hear of this?" Wander asked. She gave no answer.
Wander looked down at pinched her waist, then tugged at The Bell. She could not displace her.
She looked at Fragile, who looked at her.
"You could speak with her another way once," Fragile said. "That I could not hear. Is it still?"
She looked back at The Bell. Her legs did not stop or slow as she closed her eyes.
Speak to me, Wander said.
Can you remember?
…
Can you remember the call?
…
Have you left it back? The Bell asked.
That is not possible.
This place is breaking into you. And its kind… you must know your call.
I do.
You are commanded.
I am.
Then please, the Bell said, do the work, Joyous One. I am told it is what is best. Mine is nothing but what is best. Without this call, I am nothing.
I'm trying.
The Bell did not speak again.
She opened her eyes.
-
She felt Fragile's eye on her. He had retrieved the littlcane from his hoofleather bag and brought it up an inch, tilting his head.
"Maybe," she said. "If I need it, I'll ask."
He put it away.
Their host had continued to gather mass throughout the day, and now the column's torch produced a beacon that could be seen by many in the dark. The roadpeople gathered around it in clumps and tangles of shifting bodies, assembling in like, and making offerings of words to names.
The Spraks spoken by the travellers crossed over each other, swimming out from different places across the Laruns' Harmony. Each one made different, sweeping gestures, dances, and deliveries. They ate up large blocks of dried meat or burned it. With knives, some took a measure of their water at altars, with which they surrounded the torch. Others removed fingers and put them there. A jumper was gutted, and its water and ears were arranged and devoted to the light. A wagon carrying jugs of grain was broken open by its keepers and given to a group of Moats who asked for it. It was then poured into a vessel which each Moat washed with and drank from, scooping it out with their hands and saying more words. The different liquids spilled everywhere on the road underneath, which the fire shined on as they left and gleamed a great trail into which was sent the way they'd came.
Speaking began as the members of the host touched and were touched. Wander heard whispers in their rear.
"A sight?" one Larun asked.
"Yes!" another cried. "When I closed my eyes – three towers, by the Otiseran's house."
"What is the word there?"
"Sett calls to the three firms that oppose our kind. He says there is great danger. He would have us remain on our course."
In the later day, some Rootcliff members of the host looked up at the sky.
"Where is the wing star?" one asked.
There was a shout of surprise, drawing looks from the Laruns and the Freemen and the Moats.
"It is gone!" they cried. "It is gone! The sky has changed its look!"
"For what does that ask?"
"The call!" an old man answered. "In the call, when the star vanished, the fighter knew that he had to keep his line. It says we must all go forward!"
And there was further exclamation.
"It is my producer," one Moat wept. "She speaks. She says we cannot move from this road."
"It is my house! She breaths only in the ice-covered chamber!"
"It is my higher one."
"It is my little one.
Fragile looked with wide eyes and tugged on Wander's sleeve as a roothead leapt out from The Wild. It called out in a language he did not know, and only a small group of Rootcliffs cried out at the sound. The other walkers twisted their heads.
Water rose up from the ground, spilling out from the soil. The roadpeople watched as it rushed onto the road beside them, flooding the stones by the foreigners. Fragile jumped away from the water; it washed onto and past Wander's boots.
When Fragile's gaze rested on its shimmer and sparkles, letters traced themselves in the flow. He got down on his hands and knees, drenching them, and drawing Wander's eye. The letters soon faded, and he scrubbed his finger through the water, but nothing else came of it. He gasped, swished it around.
"Fragile?" Wander asked.
He placed his face in the muck.
Her hand reached out and gripped his coldover, seizing him out of it, and dragging the two of them back to where the other roadpeople had retreated from the flood. Flecks of water threw up and out into the dirt, shining in the light.
Wander looked back into the water, but its ranks were already receding. They leaked between the fissures in the stone and dripped down.
She released Fragile.
"Why did you do that?" she asked.
Fragile scrubbed his face on his robe. It was still dripping wet.
"It named itself river ruler," Fragile said. "It carried words. From my birthman."
Wander looked back at the stones. "What were they?"
Fragile held his arms.
"I do not know." His eyes kept on the deluge, which continued to flush. "It said that it did not."
Even from their place at the head of the column, Wander could hear every word spoken and every cut produced. She looked at the last drops of water, and they sparkled in the sun.
"It is just a plague," Wander said. "Do not look at it."
They moved further.
In time there rose up a shouting, and Fragile's head flinched back at the group. His hairs lowered when it was followed by laughter; some of the devoted had begun to dance.
"What are they doing, Wander?" Fragile asked.
"Offering."
"Why would they offer to a plague?"
She looked at him. "You did not know of it before my say. And it has not often changed out your work."
Fragile pursed his lips and rubbed his hand.
Wander's hair fell onto her face and she threw it back.
"And they do not offer to the plague. It's gone ones they call. Some of names. And some of greater work."
Fragile's brow rose. "What is it all for?"
"Each has a different ask. There are many groups among them.
At Fragile's expression, she threw her hand forward. The valleys and flats and the shadows of the hills, exposed by the torch, weree covered in one spanning fledge of rock.
Fragile looked at it. "They cannot see it?"
"Some may. But a tree does not look a seed. The Ash is not a lonely work. There are many that carve paths. There are many that work its way, and give out your spot, and trace your due. The due is inside the seed, and its trees too, so I expect that they will find it."
"Where is the due in roads?"
Before Fragile could reply, their attention was caught by a groan of the watchers. The road, which had been pointing straight on toward Herdetopp, now took a sharp curve to match the path of a gaping river of ice as wide as the road itself, its body wrapped around crooked blackrock spines. After the ice was a second road. It was foreclosed by thick trees and bushes that had grown over it. There was a gap in the enemies there.
The front cart continued to follow the turn, moving on a distant bridge, but soon Wander halted the pilot.
"Stop for a moment," she said. The Larun looked back at her with his head twisted. She approached the cart and scaled it with two grabs. "They're going across.
The pilot looked farther back with wide eyes as that took place. The night and its offerings had not delivered any change, and the long line of carts now bumped and rolled back onto the dirt and, after a heavy stone's brief test, driving over the white.
Wander's eye found Melody, who stood to the side, watching as the travellers clung to the wagons in fear. Melody caught her gaze.
"We'll use knives," he cried. "And fire. We have enough for it. He has said it." She raised her arms.
Wander's gaze remained fixed.
"He has said it," Melody shouted. He turned away.
She climbed down. The pilot and Fragile looked at her, with grit teeth and open mouths.
"Are we going with them?" Fragile asked.
Wander looked at the pilot.
"You should take this cart," she said. "I don't know how much worse it's going to get."
"It could follow me anyway."
She looked away. Fragile foot scraped forward softly.
"We are a unity, now," Fragile said. "Not a company. We lift each other in the work. I made this promise."
The sound of the rattling carriages continued and began to peter out as the river was crossed and the trees cut in. Soon Wander was looking across the ice, cart wheeled around and creaking across, at the back. The ice cracked underneath The Stronghoof's pack, and Stonehoof licked at it.
As the sun rose, the new road gave way to a wet, muddy gulch, where a thaw had taken completely. Wander watched the mass before them, and found none of its color in their boots.
-
The light was high enough when the cry came.
"Partsfighter. Partsfighter."
They looked forward to the clamor. A man rushed up toward the partsfighter captain, holding a gleaming chunk of rock.
"Parts!" he said.
The partsfighter captain took the chunk. "From where?"
"This morning-" The man pointed breathlessly. "A stab! A stab in it! It emerged on its own, right at our feet! I was told it would come, by the Lie in Trees. I was told!"
Another cry came up.
Wander went over to it. All were walking past a mess of dead animals that had been laid along the roadside.
The roadpeople were collecting the bodies. Some butchered them.
"These are a gift from my birthwoman," one said. "She told me."
Soon it was past and they were travelling further to The Wild. Their speed had not diminished.
Fragile looked up at Wander. "Maybe we will reach Herdetopp after all."
Wander shook her head. She looked down at the wheels of their carriage.
"Fragile," she said. "Step away from the cart."
Fragile followed her gaze and found what she was looking at. Rocks and dirt that would obstruct their passage were turned out. The stone railed and cut up, such that the wheels could turn into it easily.
Fragile stepped back.
"What's happening?" he asked.
"I'm going up," she said. She advanced and he followed, clutching The Stronghoof's lead.
They climbed the body of the train, towards Melody and his partsfighters. When they came into view from the crowd, one of the roadpeople stumbled and fell to the ground. His posture was caught by the stone, which moved him back into his step.
The experience was echoed on the path up to Melody. By the time they had arrived, a crowd of roadpeople lay before them, ducking their heads.
"There is movement, Firmpoint," one Rootcliff said.
"Firmpoint, there is movement."
Wander tilted her head.
"Everyone should quiet," Melody said.
As soon as it was said, all the whispering and chatter died, and the crowd's eyes and ears turned toward him.
"The signs say that we must get to Herdetopp, quickly." Melody pointed up at the stars. "We'll curve, and meet the road again soon. We will reach another mass of houses before the great one. We will gather further parts and hands for this work and day of ours, enough to drive back any attack."
The crowd muttered.
"Do not shake at it, friends," Melody said. "He has the way. He has given me his mouth. None of you will fall. Go back to your spots, and keep in. He has said- do not let the problems touch you."
They dispersed slowly, around and between Wander and Fragile. They approached Melody from behind.
"What is it, firmtipper?" he asked. "I heard that you were lost."
Wander's mouth was closed. Fragile looked at her.
"What is it?" Melody asked again.
"Do you see the condition of your carts?" Wander returned.
"I do. They're moving."
"Do you see what has happened to their wheels?"
"Yes. They're moving."
Wander looked at her.
"It's as I said," Melody continued. He hefted her weapon onto his shoulder. "We'll reach a breath-heavy place soon. We will be able to show it to the majams there."
"What has touched you is a plague," Wander replied. "It is not your way."
Melody turned around, enabling them to see his face. Pieces of gold had wrapped themselves around Melody's arms and armor. A thin layer of gray had begun to fix itself on her skin.
Melody's feet moved swiftly and easily as the moved backward. He looked back at Wander.
"I don't know what is a friend," Melody said. "What I know is that I know where I am. He has kept us from disaster."
Melody's gaze was sharp and held on her. Wander pulled Fragile back and the partsfighter soon returned, moving to lead her friends in front of their cart. When they had retreat to the rear, they made a considerable distance from the other roadpeople, who, as they followed down the line, continued to be moved by the stone.
-
Wander and Fragile walked and the sky darkened. The noise from the roadpeople became long and confused.
In Fragile's view, the road began to dissolve. He could feel something in the air exploring his eyes, and wondering at what it found there.
The ground became dressed in thicktrees and wingtrees that peeled out from between the sun's last glare. A large amount of woodland surrounded him and the roadpeople, and their carts rolled through it rather than over stone. Their wheels crushed up its grasses and their arms brushed against and turned its branches.
At the center of the rounds was a tall cliffside in front of them, which they approached. Fragile's eyes bubbled up at it.
"Wander…" he whispered. But Wander did not hear him.
As she walked, the road in front of her began to shift. It grew covered with bodies and surrounded by flags bearing the signal of the Otiseran. White fire moved across the sky. Light impressed itself then, and the soil yellowed with it, and the distance became filled with a haze. The ground turned to sand, and then to snow. It was covered with broken chains and footprints full of blood.
Wander was carried through each road with greater speed and impulse. With each change the desire to move forward grew stronger. The energy built and built, until she opened her eyes.
The visions changed when she stopped walking. The light descended, and all was dark.
A light showed on the horizon. The head of a large windshape reared up from it.
"Come!" it said. "Come and follow, daughter of Onn!"
Wander did not reply.
"Please!" the shadow pleaded. "Remember to heed the path. I have been told. It is the only way you can be praised and kept. Everything else is full of knives! It all tells me of itself. It was made to be moved from. There is no use in still."
The stone split beneath Wander's feet, shaking the entire train, but she did not move forward.
Fragile halted. He flinched and turned back to see Wander's hands raised up to the hair on her brow. Her fist clenched, and her forearms pulled.
Pars' voice bubbled and strained. "What are you doing?" he asked. "I do not know what issued that kind to you. But look at what else you have been given! It is all some great gift, whatever its first spot. If you give it up, you will be adrift again, and surrounded. Do not let me see you there, again."
Wander could feel something held tight to her breast begin to writhe and choke. A noise, the thing that was not a cry or a scream, broke out from her gut. The crowds of roadpeople, which were shambling and muttering and whispering to themselves, were shook out from their movement, even though none stopped it. The color of the torch that lit their train switched from orange to bright blue.
Wander's scalp tore free. A mound of it fell to the stone beneath her, and dissolved into links of shining white.
Pars wept, as did the rest of the roadpeople. Some of them buckled at that moment. The carts skipped and shrieked as they swerved.
Wander grit her teeth and blinked. She found Fragile gripped in her hand. The Stronghoof and The Stonehoof continued on without them, the stone and their hooves churning and mixing together.
The roadpeople began to recover from their shock. They got to their feet and looked at the ones who had stopped. A mass of them limped toward the two.
"Why have you stopped?" one asked.
"You must come," another said. "Come, firmtipper! Come, feurkun!"
"They wish to lay down. Carry them!"
"Bring the firmtipper!" one cried.
"Bind them if you must! Bind them!"
"They will carry it in! It is told!"
"They will carry it in!"
Wander's fist swept the nearest Larun out, pushing him through a lot of them. His neck jumped back when she pushed it and forward when he began to move, hanging loosely on his body when he had stopped tumbling and settled on the stone.
The Star's skin split open, bleeding white shine, as her arms and legs cut themselves out from twisting, smoothed confines, toward the hands and snarls that the roadpeople crushed at them with. Her grip swallowed the bite of a partsfighter's niv; residue flowed from her bicep as she bent the metal.
She created a right angle from the partsfighter's arm, and her blow placed him in the ground. Her hand did it next to two others, seizing one by the throat and another by the mouth.
The beast groaned and cried as each man was thrown. A Larun's heart burst, and she heard a cry, "Stop! Stop! Please stop! They must breath! This is not why it was made!"
Her hand sped up. The speed with which her fist moved through them left those who approached shaking and limp.
The roadpeople held their ears. They babbled and began to retreat to the carts, leaving the dead twisted and behind. Soon it was only Melody, who turned his head as the carts faded into the distnce. It left a trail and piles of dead animals, and chunks of gold, which waited in the wake as the partsfighter called back.
"We will return for you, Onnsdaughter," she said. "He says he cannot help you now. I hope you are right, and that he is wrong."
She turned back and moved away.
Wander took Fragile, who was still crawling forward on the stone. She dragged him back and sat down, and the cliff retreated from his eye. He muttered quickly and breathlessly.
The light of the torch faded. As it did, the trees and bushes slipped around them. Wander looked out.
Fragile blinked his eyes and opened them to the world again. When he did, he saw many men, short, and their teeth bared and stained red and shaped like daggers. They were surrounded by Laruns, who stood twice as high, howls who stood above the two, and the Laruns' garment, which was made of gray metal that blew in the wind like cloth.
They remained in a circle around the pair, unmoving. Wander stood.
"Wander," Fragile said. "What-"
"Fragile," Wander said. The fire in the hand lit up and smouldered, sending up smoke. "Do not move from this spot.
He did not.