Dare Two by the River

[Josai]

Swift current pushed against red wooded hull, as practiced hands worked steady rhythms with wide paddled oars held firm in grip. Arms pumped smooth. Sure. In tandem as sharp eyes shaded beneath wide blue brim looked beyond the shimmer of cloud-muted sunlight come off ripple and break along the surface. Frogsong in the air, bug wings buzzing in the ear, all just a whisper above the river's rush and flow.

"You're from round these parts, ain'tcha Sai?" asked one long snouted oarsman.

"I'm from the mud, dependin on who you ask, Bartus," Josai gave answer. A play at a smile there at the crook of her lip, nose angled so to her fellow. Arms ever-working.

"Hoo," Bartus let out the low vowel. "Regular reed-skipper?" ears perked up, and his lips peeled back to show his houndlan toothed grin.

"You best not be trying to slack now," she said from the prow of their pack laden craft. "Some hours yet before we make it to the next village,"

"Can't blame an old hound for wantin a word,"

Josai's lip curled the more. Chuffed a laugh. "Can if it means my arms'll do more of the workin," she pulled her oar back to emphasize the point.

A click of teeth there before a laugh. "Suppose you ain't wrong on that," the rhythm went steady. A warm quiet between them, as the river rushed on, and all the wind whispered hiss through tall blades of grass, whistled through gaps in stones and logs. Swallows dipped and dove chasing all manner of fly. "But you are from these parts then?"

A distant slap against the water, loud as a bough break off a tree.

Josai nod. "Done told you," she showed teeth, and kept her eye steady on the river ahead. "I'm from the mud itself," pride there in her voice. Like a catfish sure in the water.

---

Come the landing, and Josai was the first off and into the shallows. A billow of blue robes, and a bob of her hat's proud steeple top, a wobble of her wide brim. Didn't stop her none from pulling the cannoe by the nose. Guide it up unto the soft silt. Free of rocks and downed trees. Bartus stayed in the craft, used his oar to push this way and that as the long boat did glide onto the river bank.

"You really are a mud-cat, Sai," Bartus said with warm tease in his voice.

Josai shook her head. "Where would we be if we were both afraid of a little mud, Bartus?"

A little laugh. Guilty as stealing a cookie. "Back at the monastery, I do think,"

"Back at the monastery," she agreed, not giving him the satisfaction of a laugh. "And where would that leave the good people we've come to aid?"

Tuts of the tongue as he feigned thought to the low croak of a singing toad, and the bright chirp of fiddler crickets. "Up shit creek, I reckon,"

"No doubt they'll still be there, even with us being here," Josai confessed. "Might we help them get through it with some sweetness to all the bitternes,"

A click of teeth. "Might we be so helpful," he said as he cast his eyes out over the tall grass.

"Now," Josai said sure. "Be a dear, Bartus, and get your ass down here so we can hide this craft," she said as she pulled it up and snagged against the slick earth.

Smell of long dead plant matter thick in the air. Dead everything. A gut turning sweetness that burned its way down like a wine gone long to vinegar. Bartus slipped his boots off. Rolled his pants up. Hopped unto the shallow bank with a squelch.

Josai gave a laugh. "Took your sweet time,"

Bartus grinned as he sloshed down to the back end of the canoe, braced the boat's rear. "Had to make sure I was good and ready,"

They heaved.

---

A child's cry pierced the room, and an old woman bounced the babe up and down best she could against her bare breast. Spat out by the late summer child.

Josai kept her eyes on the glassy eyed young woman before her, hair just as dark as her own. Cheeks too boney while Bartus stood outside the ramshackle home. "I will be here to see you through it, Ghabriel, you've my word as a Knight,"

Ghabriel's gaze looked down to her hands. Braided fingers there upon her lap. Looked back to the vial, corked and held out in honest offer. The liquid the color of midnight, and when it moved, she could almost see stars shine there inside the inky aubergine. "Will it, will it hurt?"

Josai's face changed none at all. Her tall medicine box close beside her, her silver winged spear rest against the door of the house. Silver bell, obsidian sphere, and white jaw bone all hung beneath its head. "It will cause a fever, and discomfort," she let it be known. "The how much, differs between people,"

Hesitation was writ across her face. But the child's cry, rang louder, drawing her eye to her mother. "You've no choice but to do it, Gabbi, think of yourself, think of all of us, we barely have nuff as it is, and my teets might as well be loosen dust for m' third grandchild here as it is," frustration full with desperate concern.

"It will only last a night, Ghabriel, and I will see you through it," Josai assured.

Ghabriel looked unto the vial once more.

---

"So what'n you's a knight?" a gaunt cheeked boy asked. Dark skinned, matted hair. Eyes as big as eggs.

Bartus clicked his teeth and gave a nod. "Reckon I am,"

The kid looked him up and down. "You don't look like any knight I've seen,"

A laugh. A shake of the head. "Come in all shapes and sizes, we do,"

"Like them over there?" the kid pointed off yonder hill.

Bartus went squint eyed and point his snout that way. Went wide eyed when seeing the Rampant Rabbit of Rodhan, prancing in the wind. Armored men atop their monstrous steads there beneath. "Shit,"

 

[Ronja]

A witch’s work. Two girls on their pretend errands had whispered of it, walking arm in arm, glances stolen past shoulders at that one particular house. No disapproval, just— fact? Wonder.

A bit of fright? Ronja had bowed her head when they passed, the almost black fabric of her cowl hiding her stares and eavesdropping. She was sat outside one of the other huts on a red little stool, mere slivers of its vibrant legs visible past the long drape of her robe. A thanks for her own work was on her lap, neatly set on a square cloth — a quarter loaf of the softest bread, a long stick of butter, a sliver of some bird, gamey. The boiled brown egg she’d been given already lay pocketed, picked apart from the rest like the special treat it was.

She tore a little wisp of the bread and dabbed it on the butter, her ears straining to hear the conversation betwixt boy and one of the two chrysantemum come from the river. Perfectly amicable, only— Her eye sought the hilltops in tune, picking out the bright rays upon a banner as they winked to view betwixt the trees. The glower of sunflowers on something red — like blood. Or wine.

She slipped the bread in her mouth and folded the rest away. With one hand stashed in her pocket and the bundle held in the other, low dangling, she made approach. Steady instead of swift, keeping up the appearance of a leisurely meander. The sheath of a little knife at her belt, decorated with ceremonial beads and a wheel of carved silver, bounced and clicked on every step. Keeping rhythm.

“ The men ride, to impose their levies. Who deserts or dies always needs a replacement. “ She spoke, softly. “ They’ve no respect nor regard for you and your gifts, Anathaeum. In here— “

Her look indicated the village, then the boy whom she gave a warm smile. A fleeting thing, to take the grave edge away from the words and the dread come upon them on a procession of horses.

“ It bodes none well to hold their head high. As you do. “

Back to the woodland knight, the remark with no spared fondness. Perhaps even admiration.

“ Will you hide? “

 

[Josai]

A long snout pointed down at the little lady, lookin up at him. Something like stars in her eyes. Or maybe that was just a play of the sun hanging high over the lot of them.

Climbing higher still.

Bartus hawked a gob of spit onto the damp earth.

The kid looked up to him, then down at the gob, sinking as it did, into the dark soil. Summoned up his own stuff, and spat it onto the soil, right there next to the first.

Bartus laughed, a low rumble of a thing. "Hide?" his eyes looked back to the dappled woman. "No, can't say that would sit too right with me," he rapped his knuckles against the door.

A long knock. Pause. A short knock, a long knock, a short knock. Pause. A long knock, three short knocks. Pause. Short, long, short, short, short.

Trouble.

How hard he knocked said the rest. With a capital T.

He shoved off, and set his eyes unto that hill, and the bloody rabbit that snapped its way down toward the village and all its thatch roofed huts. A hand on the handle of his sword as he swaggered through the street.

---

Come the hard knocks against the door, and Josai turned toward the door, sharp breath held tight in her lungs.

Ghabriel had already taken the vial into her hand, her tired eyes wide with worry as she saw the blue witch stiffen.

"Do not worry," Josai let the home know, eased down some "We are with you, come what may," her eyes turned back to Gabbi, and a smile, sure with all its practice, softened the cold lines that had gripped her. "Wait before you take it," Josai looked to the mother, who bounced the crying babe upon her hip. "You will make sure to tell me when she does?"

A moment of dumbstruck. She looked to her daughter. Back to the witch who hefted her medicine box onto her back. "Aye, I will,"

A nod from Josai as she strode to the spear by the door. Hefted it up and cracked open the door. The sunlight poured in to the dusty home, so full of children and hunger.

 

[Ronja]

Two spat, in baffling sequence. Through it Ronja kept her stare, slaying the indignance that threatened to crease her brow and cool her look. Still, she cursed her blood for that it should’ve ever ran gentle, listening to the laughter and the strange pattern of knocks on a door. Meant nothing to her and even less to the boy that remained next to her, with that stupid look of awe about his face as the big chrysantemum took off and away with his sword.

Steps sounded from beyond the door, words too, muffled by so much old wood and the sound of hoofbeats. Men were calling now.

“ Return to your mother, child. “ Her words landed firm and cold, the flat of a sword upon the shoulder of one who owed. The boy cocked his head, defiant to it.
“ Why? “

They met eyes. In her throat boiled a tale of what trampling hooves and wanton swords did to small, worthless bodies, but then— the boy spat again, with so much gusto. And she struck with the palm, a dull thwack across a dirty cheek, all to the cheerful click of her bracelets. Wooden beads, one for every verse she’d recite at night to atone for the horrible things she’d done.

Evil eye. Word askance. Some other struggle.

The boy huffed through his nostrils, lips pressed and the furies in his look for the sting, pinpricks of pain rippling the whole side of his face. Ronja’s breath was held, proud in the chest of her dark habit.

“ They’ve come for your brother. “ She said. This justified nothing, deepening the silence as the boy glared at her so directly as to put the fear of curses in her. Devils into the walls of her chambers at night.

“ Already did. Last year. “

The voice that came from him was as dull and unaffected as hers had been. Only in a deeply unjust world did children sound like this. And for it, she had nothing more to say.

How long the woman had been present in the doorway, bespeared and beladen with her healer’s effects, mattered none. Ronja straightened a little, chin inclining imperiously.

“ Your friend has left you, Chrysantemum. “ She offered, indicating down the muddy street where the man had gone. Interrogation sparked in her stare, for what his words had been.

“ Is there strife in your company? “

 

[Josai]

"...Chrysantemum."

The witch's eyes followed there in the wake of the priestess' own. Saw all that rippled betwixt them and the shrinking figure of Bartus down the road. Going up that hill.

"Bloody idiot," she cursed.

"Is there strife in your company?"

Her eyes, like dragonflies, glid toward whom the voice belonged. "Well, strife is a strong word, isn't it sister?" she smiled, easy as the leaves bent in a breeze. "Difference in tact, I would say," she busied herself as one did before a great move. Small, precise fidgets of hand draped in the blue billowing bell sleeves of her robe. Felt something where it should be. The silver bell, tied to its cereulean string about the haft of the spear chimed gentle against the flame hardened cedar. "You never saw me," she said running the trace of calloused fingers down across the hem of her robe. Up again in a zip. Set the blue fabric to shimmer.

Like ripples of water disturbed by the skip of a stone.

The robes were there, then not. Bending and flowing, like so much tranquil water, nestled betwixt the world around them. A puddle, gathered in a formless gap of the shroud.

She grinned at the priestess, magicked hand still tingling at the fingertips, reached up to the brim of her hat, and ran it across its lax frilled edge. The proud blue blossoming shroom steeple too, shimmered and transluced.

Up the disembodied hand went, revealing arm and sleeve as the water mirror cloak spilled back. Fingers cocked, thumb locked the coiling spring of middle set to flick. Flick! Nail clinked against the silver wing of her spear's head. The bell chimed soft there against the shaft. A little secret, just between the two of them, and the silly looking boy. Eyes full of a fight that might yet be spared.

The runes and lines of art born ley, pulsed a gentle azure hope. Mist hissed from those lines. Like clouds wisped by unseen winds, and gone was the spear from site.

"Right then," Josai said. Mostly gone from site. Practically a floating head, standing there before the sister and the boy who now gawked with eyes as big ass freshlayed eggs. "Wasn't here," she reminded them with a tilt of her head that made her turn to just a pair of smiling lips, and a rogue curl of hair, dark as rain soaked earth. What was left of her bobbed. Stirred. And was gone behind the cover of magicked robes and silver spells.

Bartus was still marching up the way. Smart enough to loose his hand from his sword before he made it to the Rabbit's men. "Hail, sons of Rodhan," he called out. Voice a hoarse snap, near violence all its own. "What brings you to fair Tilhilli?" he grinned, as he set on his heels and leaned his weight back.