Chapter 60: Free To Go
Grey-haired man lowered head, hair falling forward hiding eyes, grey hair white in firelight, light making deep lines on face deeper than before, shadows in lines deeper than mountain cracks, age showing all at once, like dam breaking. He looked older than this morning, lot older, like mountain had added years in day, like Mirebeast had taken not prisoner but his years as toll too.
"That’s all I can do for you, kid. There’s nothing more I can do. I took you far as I can. Past wolves. Past pass. Past that thing. That’s far as my road goes."
His breathing grew heavy, ragged, not from cold, from something inside chest, not lungs, something heavier. He paused, pressing hand against chest as if weight of everything they had endured had finally caught up with him, finally sitting on chest, finally too heavy to carry another step. Mountain. Wolves. Prisoner trying to trade boy. Mirebeast lowering head. Running that never seemed to end, never flat, never warm. Choices, cutting tendons, feeding man to thing with teeth that spin. He pressed hard, like trying to hold something in, or push something out, knuckles white, hand shaking against ribs.
It was strange thing to see. Grey-haired man had always looked like he could keep going, like legs did not get tired same way other people’s did, like cold did not get to him same way, like he was made of different stone than others, old stone. Now he looked like man who had carried something too far and had finally set it down in wrong place, and back hurt after, and hands could not pick it up again, and he was sorry but also relieved to set it down.
Danny stared at him, fire between them small, making two islands, making two faces that were same color orange but different.
For moment he did not understand. Free to go sounded like good thing. Should have sounded like good thing, freedom. Prisoner had talked about being free, free to go, free to see flat land, free to get away from cart. Free to go should have meant choice, road, future, Fort Haven. But it landed like being dropped, like man was cutting rope that tied them together, not giving road, like being put down, like being left at crossroads with no sign.
"You mean you want me to leave the cave? Right now? At night? In dark with Mirebeast still out there? In dark with wolves?"
"No. I mean in morning. Whenever you want. You can stay tonight. Borrow hole tonight." Grey-haired man finally looked up, eyes tired, red from smoke, but something else, wet that wasn’t smoke, that was older. "I will go one way. You go other. Better chances. Mirebeast was tracking blood. Two trails is better than one. Predators follow one, other gets away. That’s logic. That’s how you survive when big thing hunts."
It was logical. It was also lie, or half lie, logic covering something else. Danny could hear lie under it, could hear shake in logic, could hear what wasn’t said: I’m slowing you, you’re slowing me, I can’t protect you twice, I already killed for you once and can’t do it again, I don’t want to choose again who lives, I am tired.
Then, without warning, Danny burst into laughter, short, sharp, broken, sound that surprised even himself.
"Ah... ah... ahahaha!"
Sound echoed through cave, strange and hollow, almost like laughter of madman, not boy, not twelve, not thirteen, not whatever age papers said. It bounced off back where they could not see, where drip came from, where dark was thicker, and came back thinner, as if cave itself was laughing with smaller mouth, mocking, as if mountain heard joke and repeated it.
Grey-haired man raised head, looked confused, maybe hurt, eyebrows up, hand still on chest. He had not expected that, expected crying, expected shouting, expected begging like prisoner, expected anger. Not laugh.
Danny kept laughing, couldn’t stop right away, shoulders shaking, hands covering mouth then not, chest shaking same as old man’s but different reason. It was not funny, opposite of funny, which was why it came out like that, like pressure valve when pot too full, like laugh that comes after you almost die and realize you are still going to die later anyway. Eyes watered from smoke and from something else that wasn’t smoke, that was hot, that burned different.
Damn it.
After everything he had survived, after escaping getting sold off at Ravenfall, after monsters on road, mountain, wolves chewing horses while he watched, Mirebeast swallowing man whole with soft crunch, was this really how it was going to end? Not with teeth, not with claws, but with quiet fire in cave and man telling him he could go, like he was letting dog off rope, like he was being kind, doing favor, freeing?
Man who had promised to take him back to Fort Haven was telling him to leave, to split up, to make two trails, to be free.
Fort Haven. Danny had held that name in head for days, like charm, like warm stone in pocket he could touch when cold. When cold, he thought about its walls, stone walls not like mountain, safe walls with guards. When prisoner talked about lots, about trading boy, he thought about its gate, guards who would listen, monks who would write. When Mirebeast lowered head, he thought about street that led to barracks, soup smell, bread. It was only place where someone might still be waiting for him, where old man said he would be safe, where he would be more than Guilty number. And now only person who knew way there, only person who had walked it before, was saying he was free, which meant alone.
Free to do what? Walk in dark? Die little farther from this fire instead of close to it? Go back down mountain alone with dead man’s knife and no map and broken boots and no fire and no way to know north? Go be eaten alone instead of with someone?
He wiped face with sleeve, laugh stopping as fast as it had started, leaving hollow, leaving cold that fire couldn’t fix, leaving shame of laughing when nothing funny.
And worst part? True worst part under all?
Danny didn’t even know where to go. No map, no north, no Fort Haven direction, only up and down, and both looked same, white and black, rock and snow and ash falling. Without grey-haired man, he had no north, had no Haven. Free to go was free to be lost, free to wander until empty cave was not empty anymore, until borrowing ended.
Fire cracked again, small, asking for more wood they didn’t have, asking for more oil they didn’t have, asking like they were asking each other for more than they had.
Danny looked at grey-haired man across fire, old man who had saved him and killed for him, now saying nothing more, hand on chest like heart hurt, eyes looking at fire not at boy because looking at boy was too hard after choice, and thought: is this what being saved costs? Being left again? Is this what choice means, you get saved then you get left so you can be saved again by someone else?
Night outside kept falling ash, covering their tracks already, covering two trails before they even made them.