“This isn’t going to work,” she said in the silence. “You all know it. It doesn’t matter what time of day you go out, or how many weapons you take, or what kind of traps you try to set. Death can’t be killed, only temporarily staved off.”
“Then what do you suggest we do?” Godric the blacksmith asked. “Stay here until the food runs out? Until the firewood is gone and the cold takes us? We can’t leave or the wargs will kill us.”
“The wargs shouldn’t be like this. In the old stories, they were guides. Helpers. Not killers. They attack because we’re afraid. Only while we fear Death are we in danger. We have to banish this fear, and the village will be safe again.”
“How?”
“We celebrate Yule.”
The howl of wargs cut through the sudden silence.
“Celebrate?”someone called from behind Wenzel. “We’re supposed tocelebratewhile Death is tearing at the doors?”
“We’ll let our guards down and the wargs will get in!” someone else said.
“And the village gifts,” cried a small voice from the edge of the room. “The gifts will be left on the edge of the forest.”
Wenzel turned, looking for the child in a sea of clamoring adults. The village gifts were a donation from an unseen friend, and they appeared each year at the far edge of the forest, where the road left the protection of the trees and continued into the world beyond. Small toys for the children and wrapped parcels of meat, bread, pies, and other foods for the annual village feast. The innkeepers had once been the ones to fetch the gifts. The feast was held in the inn common room and lasted for several days and nights. Since the innkeepers had passed on, the responsibility had fallen to Wenzel. The gifts would be waiting.
“I can go,” he said, though no one seemed to hear him except for Heike. She spun in her chair so quickly she groaned and had to hold her head. “I’ll go to the edge of the forest to retrieve the village gifts,” he repeated.
This time others heard him, and the room quieted once again. Frowns crossed faces. Some began to protest. Ulrich stepped toward him. “Wenzel, the gifts can be set aside for now. They aren’t important. You can’t risk yourself on the road.”
Wenzel gripped the back of Heike’s chair. “Theyareimportant.The feast is important. We celebrate a new year, and hope it brings us good fortune and prosperity. We remember what brings us all together. Are any of us thinking of a future right now? Are any of us looking at one another and remembering what binds us? We’re all gathered here. We’re together, not alone. Wouldn’t you rather see the children playing? Wouldn’t you rather have roast boar and hot pies to fill your stomach?”
Mutters rose. Ulrich glanced at Gabi, who had her palm to her forehead. The tension in the room had been reduced to a low simmer, tinged with new questions.
A hand settled on Wenzel’s. Heike looked up at him. “You’re too important. I can go.”
Wenzel laughed. “I’mtoo important? Heike, you’re... I’m just an innkeeper. And it’s my duty, anyway. And besides all that, you almost died. You can’t even turn in your chair without getting dizzy.” She looked like she wanted to argue more, but her face was turning green, and she clamped her mouth shut. Wenzel raised his voice and spoke to the room. “I’ll go by horse. I believe Heike that Death won’t be able to take me as long as I’m not afraid.” And before they could ask how he would defeat fear, before they could guess whether he had even ashredof doubt inside him, he smiled and said, “I’ll think of all of you.”
Two
Wenzel had always been afraid. When he was very young, in those earliest memories that surfaced in his conscious mind only rarely these days, he had been afraid of his father, and raised voices, and the leather sting across his back. He had been afraid of darkness, the calls of mourning doves, and the looks of exasperation and annoyance he got whenever he began to cry. He became afraid of crying.
But as he dressed and gathered what he needed to journey out on the road, he fought fear off with the thought of things that made him happy. New stories for his collection. The crackling of the fire in the inn’s common room. The excited squeals of children chasing each other across the village square on fine-weather days. The contentment on Heike’s face when he brought her a warm bowl or mug to wrap her cold fingers around. He was going on this journey to save those things. That would keep him brave. And when hereturned, he’d have his own story to tell.
Gabi checked and rewrapped Wenzel’s bandages before he put on his shirt. The cuts weren’t deep, but he wasn’t looking forward to the pain he’d have if he burst Doctor Death’s stitches. He thought of the tall doctor, slumped against the wall. Disappearing. He wondered if the doctor was out in the forest now.
“You should be able to lift the sack of gifts onto the horse,” Gabi said, “but anything more strenuous than that and you’ll open yourself up again.”
He didn’t plan on doing anything more strenuous. It had always been a simple task, and he would think of it as that now. A nice ride down the road, the pickup, and the ride home.
Heike sat on the edge of his bed, looking peaky, while he dressed. She twirled the linden bloom between her fingers. “Not that one,” she said as he pulled a rough work shirt from the tall wooden armoire. “The one I made you last week.”
“But you just made it,” he said. “It’s so nice.”
“Wear it,” she said. “It’s for a reason.”
He returned the shirt and pulled out the other. Plain, bleached white, and still soft. He pulled it on over his head and immediately felt a little warmer. He finished dressing—coat, scarf, gloves, hat—and when he finally turned back to Heike, he found her, grabbing her boots from the floor.
“You need to take these, too,” she said.
“I think my feet are too big.”
She gave him a withering look and began tying the ends of the laces together. She motioned him closer and tugged his sleeve to get him to bend down, and then she looped the laces over his neck so the boots hung against his chest. “I know it’s strange. Just take them.” Then, before he could rise, she took hold of his scarf where it was knotted beneath his chin. Exhaustion hung under her eyes, but her gaze was intent, and her voice was strong. “I want you to do this, and I want you to return, and I want you to remember that when you desired to do something noble for Greymist Fair, I did not try to stop you.”
She didn’t let go of his scarf. The knuckle of her thumb was cold on his chin. He nodded and said softly, “I’m sorry, Heike. I was selfish.”
