The soldiers pursuing her quickly gave up, figuring that there were targets with shorter legs and less bloody swords waiting for them back at the inn.
As silence settled about her and she could hear nothing but her own ragged breaths and clunky footsteps, Fia slowed and turned to check her trail. Dim pinpoints of light winked at her in the darkness, the windows of the Braided Beard interrupted by the silhouettes of more soldiers moving in. There was nothing else to see but the hint of lights farther back toward the city of Songlen and the stars in the sky. Towering poplars surrounded her, beckoning her deeper into the forest.
But where was the rest of her party? Had no one else run west? Never mind the rest of them: Where was her honey bunny?
Fia flicked the blood away from her thirsty sword but did not sheathe it. She was still on high alert. She took one step back and then another before turning uphill to seek some shelter in which to hide until dawn. But she never got to turn around. Something tripped her up, and she toppled backward, sword in hand. She fell farther than she thought should be possible even for a tall person with a long way to go. Much to her surprise, she wasn’t just falling backward, she was falling down an incline, which meant she must have topped a hill without realizing it. She tumbled once in a backward somersault and then slammed her spine and the back of her head against something that wasn’t stone but wasn’t a pillow, either. Wood, maybe. A sharp intake of breath carried the tang of bark and leaf litter. One of those poplars, probably, and not perilous at all.
Fia struggled to clear her mind. Something had happened. Was happening. She blinked and couldn’t tell if her eyes were working. The light from the Braided Beard was gone, but she could simply be in the dark and not actually be blind. Except that the stars were gone, too. Which way was up?
Something creaked in the darkness, and Fia tried to raise her sword. Her elbow banged painfully against something unseen, and she stifled a cry of surprise.
There was a loud snap, and something groaned and shifted over the ground. Fia brought her sword up, more carefully this time, and realized that her arm had less space to move than before. She tried to get to her feet, but her head objected; it was much too dizzy, too wobbly up in there. She had really cracked it good. She needed to stay here, where things were more certain.
Gooood, someone said in a deep, rumbly whisper.
“What? Who’s there?” She couldn’t see anything. She jabbed her sword forward almost by reflex, and it traveled mere inches before it thunked into something solid. Not flesh. But not anything she’d ever stabbed before, either.
Stop that and think, the voice said. Is this not the root of all your problems? This unthinking violence? This impulsive need to strike first?
“Right now I’m thinking you should tell me who you are.”
You can call me…Pop. I’m here to help.
“Then help me up, Pop.”
That would be unwise. You’re injured, but you’re safe. Let’s just rest and think. Wouldn’t it be nice if all the people you cared about didn’t keep dying?
“What? That’s not helping. Maybe you should just go away. That would be helpful.”
But you came to me. How can I go anywhere?
Fia blinked to try to clear her vision and again failed. Still nothing to see. “Where am I again?”
With me. I sense some guilt in you, and we must work through that. You keep making choices, don’t you? And every time you choose a direction, something terrible happens. That could make a person suffer intense self-blame.
“I disagree. I think we need to talk less about me and find out what’s making that creaking and groaning noise I keep hearing. Is that you?”
Yesss.
“Well, cut it out. And stop being creepy while you’re at it.”
Perhaps my “being creepy” is really you experiencing shame. You would feel better if you addressed your issues. Who was it that died first? Your mother, perhaps?
“Hey, shut up now.”
And after her, who was it? A mentor or another family member?
Fia’s chin dipped and her shoulders slumped as she remembered what had happened in the catacombs. “Bief.”
Beef? You’re hungry now?
“No. I mean I killed Bief with an i.”
You killed beef with an eye as in you just looked at a cow and it died, or you threw an actual eyeball at it and this proved fatal?
“No, I mean my friend Bief, who spelled his name with an i. He always introduced himself that way. ‘Hello, I’m Bief with an i, nice to meet you.’ Such a sweet kid.”
I understand now. And how did you kill him?
“We were twelve years old. I was practicing my axe throwing with a hatchet, and he walked in front of my target just as I let go. Caught him right on the temple. Lodged in his skull, and he just fell over, already dead. Now I don’t throw axes anymore. I use the sword only. Or pruning shears.”
Violence again. And more recently? Who have you killed accidentally?
“Some farm boy named Worstley. He died twice.”
You killed him twice?
“Well, no. Just the once. A llamataur ate him the second time. But we might still be able to revive him, because I don’t know if the second time was really him or not, and his body—the first one—is being preserved by magic. Probably.”
I’m not sure I understand how someone can suffer multiple deaths, but I hope you can see that this pattern is destructive. You should let it all go.
Fia blinked, this time in surprise. That didn’t make sense. “Wait, what pattern? I didn’t mean to fall down on the kid or kill Bief with an i. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were accidents.”
You’re blaming the victim. They may have been accidents, but it’s your life of violence that makes such accidents possible. To bring peace to yourself and those around you, wouldn’t it be best to let the violence go? You could atone.
“How?”
Renounce violence and live in peace and bring peace to others.
“I’m trying. All I want is a rose garden where people will leave me alone.”
You don’t need a rose garden to be at peace. True peace can be achieved anywhere. If you do not try, who else will you hurt? Someone you love? A new love, perhaps, who trusts you?
The creaking and groaning resumed, and the air changed subtly. Something wasn’t right about Pop, Fia thought. But not just the noises he made or that she couldn’t see him. Argabella did seem to fear her at times and Fia worried that she would scare the bard away eventually, but she would never, ever hurt her, and Argabella had told her that in spite of her moments of ferocity, she understood and trusted her. And it was her so-called life of violence that had brought them together in the first place. Perhaps she’d not always chosen the wisest path, but she’d become the product of her choices, and she really liked her current trajectory.
Which meant Pop’s counseling was worth less than week-old tuna left on the docks.
Time to get away from Pop, whoever he was. He might mean well, but he really didn’t know what he was talking about. Walking the world as a pacifist sounded great, honestly, but some people tended to take one look at Fia and start a fight simply because she dared to be taller. Living a peaceful life wasn’t a luxury she’d ever be able to enjoy.
She thrust her sword forward again and immediately met resistance. A twist of the wrist to test the sides and the blade met something there, too. Scratchy solidity at her back as well, which she realized now must be tree bark.
“I’m boxed in?” Fia said, slowly processing what that meant. “How? I was on the hill in open air.”
You were. But now you’re with me and you’re safe. You can relax. It’s for your own good.
That didn’t sound safe or relaxing to Fia at all. She struggled to get up again, fighting through the dizz
iness, and realized something had snaked around her right foot at the ankle, keeping her from shifting her weight properly. An actual snake? No. She brought her sword down on it and the sound and feel of it was just like the wooden thunks she’d heard before. It was a tree root. She was somehow inside a tree, and that tree was trying to get inside her head, fill it with doubt, and then kill her while she flailed in self-recrimination, all the while telling her it was here to help.
Pop was slowly killing her while urging her not to kill.
So much for preaching nonviolence.
Hey there, settle down, Pop said. You’re sabotaging yourself already.
“I think you’re the saboteur here.”
She chopped down more forcefully on the root a couple of times and succeeded in freeing her ankle. Metaphorically swollen on blood, the blade kept a sharp edge. Or perhaps on some level, if it had any sentience, it realized that if Fia was trapped in here, it would be, too, and there was definitely nothing juicy to hack at inside a tree. Sensing the sword’s willingness to do damage, Fia laid into the obstacle in front of her with everything she had, again and again. It was like chopping an unripe squash that wouldn’t shut up.
There’s no need for that. This is counterproductive, Pop said with increased urgency, but Fia ignored him and kept up the attack despite a growing sense of nausea and a pounding headache.
You can’t accomplish anything like this, Pop said. You’re going to hurt yourself.
She’d already hurt herself by waiting so long to get started. Pop had surrounded her and strengthened his defenses against the inevitable moment when she tried to escape, but he’d delayed her alarm as long as possible with his mind games. It was doubtless a strategy that worked most of the time. But Fia was beyond most humans. She didn’t just have muscles. She had those supermuscles, those things, those doodads, what were they called again…?
“Thews!” she cried, suddenly remembering. “I have mighty thews!”
Though she wondered if there were, in a practical sense, any other kind. People never spoke of their weak or mediocre thews, which implied that one simply did not possess thews that were anything less than mighty. The phrase itself gave her a boost, and Fia set her mighty thews to work, hacking and kicking at Pop as she ignored his pleas to calm down and discuss this like civilized beings and focus on her breathing. She worked up a sweat as she toiled, thinking that in the daylight she’d be able to admire her glistening thews as they strained, maybe see if Argabella was into thews. No point in having mighty thews if you didn’t strain them and make them glisten along the way when a thew admirer was nearby.
It was impossible to see her progress in the dark, but she knew she must be making some headway because she heard splintering after a while instead of dull thuds, and a cold blast of fresh air proved she had punched through to the outside.
You’re only hurting yourself, Pop shouted in her head, by carrying on like this. It’s not healthy! You’ll never find love if your only answer is violence.
“I think I know when the answer is love,” Fia grunted. “And you’re no honey bunny.”
If you keep fighting, you’ll have to be restrained, Pop said. Stop that this instant!
But Fia could tell that she was winning by the fact that his cloying kindness had turned to demands and threats.
Pop’s powerless whining filled her with triumph, and she kept hacking away and widening the gap in front of her. Eventually Pop stopped talking altogether, and she saw the stars again. That renewed her vigor, and she was able to kick at the edges of the cleft she’d created until it was wide enough for her to squeeze through into open air.
Her eyes, hypersensitive to light now, were able to see by starlight that Pop was the first of an entire stand of noble trees that had to be the aforementioned Perilous Poplars. Their trunks and branches were perfectly normal, but their roots were swollen and twisted, stuck through with graying bones. Fia understood why no one came here now. Not only did they have some aggressive ideas about self-care, they also wrapped you up in their hollows, got into your head, and talked you into resting until your body fed their roots. Someone should come out here with a torch and set the whole lot of it on fire—before the poplars could talk them out of it.
“I’d very much like to be at peace, Pop,” she said. “But until that day arrives—until I can hack my way there, I guess—violence works for me.”
Turning back to face the lights at the bottom of the hill, she ran.
Poltro flew through the night in much the same way that time flies: unwillingly and without really thinking about it and maybe with some future regrets. She tripped and fell on top of what felt like approximately half a dwarf, which was better than landing on most other things, especially pointy ones. As it actually was the bottom half of a dwarf, it wasn’t even able to complain. She stood quickly and skulked into the bushes before whoever enjoyed cutting people in half realized she was still whole.
“What to do, what to do?” she muttered. “Cor, Lord Toby would suggest I think first, but I’m betting that’s a mistake. What good did thinking do him, anyway? He was a thinking man, and now he’s big frog-flavored worm food. It’s obviously better not to think. I’ll just follow me instincts.”
Thus, when she heard the sound of yet more soldiers thumpity-thumping toward the inn, she took off to put more distance between herself and that noise. She had no idea what direction it was or what might’ve lain in wait for her, but she was pretty sure that as long as no one was brandishing something slicey toward her midsection, she was doing rather well, considering. Doing better than all these dwarf bits, anyway. The farther she skulked, the fewer gutted dwarves she encountered, which also seemed like a good sign for those who wanted to remain ungutted. The bushes gave way to scrawny trees, buxom copses, and the sorts of hills that would’ve seemed wavy and rolling and picturesque had the rogue not been running up them as quickly as her still-somewhat-asleep legs could take her in the middle of the night.
About halfway up the hill, she remembered two things: for one, that she had left all her friends behind, and for two, that without her three nonrectal potions and the guidance of Lord Toby, she was screwed. She stopped and looked down the hill, hoping for a sign of some sort. In Poltro’s life, signs were usually obvious things. They ranged from Lord Toby sending her on a faraway quest right after she’d broken her brother’s very favorite chamber pot to people with swords threatening violence and therefore giving her a direction in which not to go. When she looked down the hill toward the Braided Beard, she hoped for such a sign. Her friends calling for her, perhaps, or someone conveniently shouting, “Well, that nasty fight is over. Let’s partake of fine cheeses!”
What she got was the flash of moonlight on armor and the twinkle of a torch as well as a man calling out, “You, there. Stop running!”
“You’re not the Dark Lord, and I don’t have to do what you say or pay back my student loans to you!” Poltro shouted before doubling her hustle up the hill. Judging by the grunting in her wake, the soldier wasn’t going to catch up. In addition to her stealth, which she’d always considered healthfully stealthy if not exemplary, Poltro could be very quick when it came to not getting chopped in half.
The lights of the Braided Beard faded behind her, and she stopped hearing the soldier shout further requests that she stand and be slain, so she had to assume that whichever direction she’d chosen was a fine one. Licking her thumb, she held it up and slowly spun in a circle. She didn’t know what said gesture did, but she’d watched Cutter perform that action multiple times, and he seemed rather adept at avoiding being chopped in half, so she figured it was worth a go. The only real information the action brought her was that the cheese she’d eaten had been very garlicky, and that her thumb still smelled of troll even after the bath, and also that the night was a shifty and windy thing that, much like chickens, could not be trusted.
“The marmoset said she would meet us, but where?” Poltro asked the wind. “Or maybe she was talking about edible meat? So squeaky, it’s hard to understand what she meant.”
The wind, wisely, said nothing.
“Well, people do say onward and upward, so it sounds like those two things are related. Upward it is.”
The wind yet again refrained from comment. Poltro took this as acquiescence and retuned to climbing the hill. There were rocks here and there, poking out of the scrubby grass like goose eggs on a rather large scalp. When the hill got too steep, she used the rocks and the twiggy trees growing around them to pull herself along. All this time, she didn’t encounter any people or animals, which also seemed like a good omen. There were no animals to tell the people that Poltro was here, which meant she could remain unhalved by sharp blades.
“I do miss the goat, though,” she told the wind. “He gives me focus. I focus on wanting to eat him, and that’s invigorating. Not as invigorating as ham jam or running for your life, but it’s better than hanging around someone else’s tower with no goals. Or goats.”
When at last she crested the hill, she tripped and unceremoniously sat down, which didn’t feel like sitting down should. There were mushrooms everywhere, bright red ones with white spots. When she hopped up and felt of her fundament, she found it covered in maroon goo, probably from the mushrooms. In revenge, she ate a few of the dratted things. Which meant that Poltro had won.
Her stomach slightly more satisfied and her lips oddly numb, Poltro meandered about the hillside, wobbling around trees and patting boulders, telling them to sit and stay. The stars were more unruly than usual, swirling about and playing hide-and-seek with the moons, of which there were two. When had Pell acquired a bonus moon? Considering this to be a rather odd thing, Poltro found a well-behaved boulder and squatted on it.
“Meat here?” she asked. “Must be overcooked, if you ask me.”