SSS Primeval Devourer: Every Path I Devour Becomes Mine

The creek track had become a rope bridge, three broken planks, and a line of people trying not to look down.

Water hammered through the ravine beneath it.

ROAR!

The first wagon could not cross. Its front wheel sank between two warped planks, and the mule hitched to it began to pull backward, whites showing around both eyes.

"Hold its head," Nyra told the driver.

The driver tried. The mule kept backing.

Vhar stepped beside the wheel, put one hand under the axle, and lifted until the wagon rose clear of the split boards. The bridge bowed under his boots but did not break. He set the wheel on the far plank one inch at a time.

Wood complained beneath him.

CREAK! CREAK! CREAK!

"Move," he said.

The driver snapped the reins. The mule lunged. The wagon crossed, shuddering from wheel to wheel until it reached solid ground.

Nyra was already at the next cart, using Thronebreak as a handrail for an old man who had frozen halfway across. Her grip around the spear shaft was steady. Her eyes were not.

Vhar noticed the letter only when it slipped from the inner fold of her coat and struck the wet planks beside his boot.

The House Severin seal had been broken.

He picked it up after the last passenger reached the far bank. "You read it."

"This morning." Nyra took the paper from him. "Between the wagon and the bridge. Good timing from all of us."

"What does it take?"

She looked at the river instead of the letter. "My family seal no longer opens Severin waystations east of the provincial border. No bed, no food stores, no relay horse, no guard detail. The letter tells every steward to refuse me if I arrive with you."

She held the page out. Vhar read the line beneath the steward’s seal.

`Nyra Severin travels in voluntary association with Vhar Blackvein. Deny both persons Severin shelter, stores, relay access, and armed escort until further family instruction.`

Her name came before his. The order named her beside him and shut both of them out of Severin stores because she had stayed.

The bridge groaned again behind them. A child began crying on the western bank, frightened by the sound more than the water.

Nyra folded the letter until the seal cracked down its center.

"That was yours before the letter?" Vhar asked.

"It was mine because I was born to them." Her mouth pulled once, not quite a smile. "Apparently that has terms."

The old man who had crossed with her sat on a flat stone, trying to slow his breathing. His daughter knelt in front of him, rubbing warmth back into his hands. Around them, route workers carried food sacks away from the bridge before the river could rise again.

Vhar watched Nyra watch them.

"The west road is open," he said. "Take it if you want your House more than this fight. I will not hold that against you."

Her head came around sharply. "You think I am standing here because you asked me to?"

"They took Severin shelter, food, and guards because you stayed beside me. I will not decide for you whether that price is too high."

Nyra looked down at the letter. The paper was expensive, thick enough that the river mist had not softened it. The words had been chosen by somebody who would not have to sleep outside because of them.

"They did not tell me to come home," she said. "They told their stewards not to let me in. That is different."

"It is."

"And if I go home now, I walk into a room full of people who decided I would leave you before asking whether I wanted to." She tucked the broken seal into her palm. "I dislike being predictable for other people."

"You should not have to lose food and a bed for it."

"I know." Her eyes lifted to his. "I am paying it myself. They do not get to push me out and call it concern."

The bridge gave a sharp crack.

SNAP!

One of the remaining planks split down the middle. A woman on the western bank stumbled back from the rail with a sack of grain against her chest. Two children stood beside her, trapped between the ravine and the rise behind them.

Vhar turned for the bridge.

Nyra caught his sleeve.

"The center rope is still holding." She pointed with Thronebreak. "I can pull a second line tight above it while you bring them over one at a time."

"The planks will not take both of us."

"They do not need to."

She ran uphill, drove the spearhead through the fork of a cedar, and pulled the bridge’s loose guide rope toward the trunk. Her shoulders locked. The rope went tight between her hands and the old bridge rail.

TWANG!

"Now!"

Vhar stepped onto the first plank. It bent under him. He did not put his full weight down until his fingers had closed around the overhead rope Nyra held taut.

The woman handed him the smaller child first. Vhar tucked the boy under one arm and crossed back over the gap. The broken boards knocked against his shins. Water threw cold spray against the ravine wall.

He set the child down on the east bank, crossed again, and carried the second child. The woman came last with the grain sack held against her chest.

The planks broke as Vhar lifted her clear.

KRRASH!

The bridge dropped into the river, rope and wood whipping downstream beneath a sheet of white water.

Nyra released Thronebreak from the cedar. The rope burned a red line across her palm before it fell loose.

Vhar took her hand. "Let me see your palm."

"It is a rope burn."

"Open it."

She opened her hand. The skin was split across the base of her fingers, bright against the dirt. Nothing that would slow her spear. Enough that he could see it had hurt.

He poured water over it from his flask. Nyra let him. Vhar reached for a strip of cloth at his belt. Nyra took it and tried to wrap her palm one-handed. The cloth slipped. Vhar caught the loose end and tied it tight.

Neither of them spoke until the knot held.

On the west bank, the woman with the grain sack had put both children under an alder root and was dividing dried fruit between them. She gave the larger piece to the boy who had cried when the bridge broke. He tried to hand half back. She closed his fingers around it.

Nyra watched the small argument for a moment. "A Severin steward would have made them sign for that food."

"Do they always?"

"Some do. Enough that people remember every time." She flexed her bandaged hand. "The letter tells strangers to shut their doors when they see me."

"And where are you standing?"

Nyra looked toward the culvert the boy had found. "Here. Until I say otherwise."

"There is something I need from you," Nyra said.

"Say it."

"Do not decide I am safer without you and leave me behind without telling me. Say what you see. Let me answer before you walk away."

Vhar looked at the ruined bridge and the people moving their food up the bank. He had made that kind of decision before. He had called it protection because the other word was harder to carry.

"If I see danger coming for you, I tell you what I see. You choose with me."

Nyra studied his face, testing the exact shape of it.

"And you?" he asked.

"Same promise." She folded the House Severin letter once more. "No disappearing into a family room, a message, or an old obligation and calling it mercy afterward."

"Good."

The word came out rougher than he intended. Nyra’s eyes dropped to the cloth around her hand. She bumped her shoulder once against his upper arm, light enough that he could have pretended it was the uneven ground.

He did not pretend.

"You can keep the letter," he said.

"I was going to."

"I know."

She slipped it back inside her coat. "The ridge is still east."

"It is."

They took the long way around the ravine with the travelers behind them, moving through alder roots and wet stone until the sound of the river faded. Near sunset, a boy from the first wagon pointed to a narrow culvert half-buried under leaves.

"That pipe goes under the old road," he said. "My father used it when the spring washed the bridge out last year. It comes up by Kessendrel’s drainage ditch."

Nyra crouched beside the pipe. Mud filled half its mouth, but the upper curve remained open.

"How far?" she asked.

"Far enough that you crawl." The boy wiped his nose on his sleeve. "The ditch is behind the mill sheds."

Vhar looked east, toward the ridge hidden beyond the trees.

Corvain had closed the main roads. He had not closed the ground beneath them.

The travelers made a low camp under the alder roots. The route worker warmed thin stew over three hot stones, and the woman with the grain sack passed Vhar and Nyra wooden cups.

Nyra drank with her bandaged hand around the cup. "Cold enough to offend both the living and the dead."

"Warm enough to keep them walking," the woman said.

The boy pointed toward the culvert. Nyra set down her cup. "We move before the ridge gets a lamp on that ditch."

Vhar told the old man from the bridge to stay with the wagons. He nodded at the pipe. "I have no wish to crawl after a spearwoman and a man who catches wagons."

The route worker handed two boys dry grain for the west trail. Vhar and Nyra entered the culvert side by side until it narrowed and forced them single file.

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