Ashur brought down his axe , cutting deeper and deeper into the side of the great oak tree. Rain poured from the heavens drenching him and everyone else unfortunate enough to be out working this particular day. Rainwater mixed with the sweat from his brow and ran down his face and neck. He raised his axe again for another swing. This stubborn tree was taking much longer than it was supposed to. It towered over the men attacking the trees around it. The green leaves of the woods shown brighter against the gray of a storm that had come out of nowhere. Ashur shook his head in this part of the country one never knew what the weather was going to do.
Except Cass.
The thought made him smile tightly as he continued to chop at the tree trunk. He was big for his age though not as big as his father. His skin, like his father and his sister's, was browned from working in the elements. He glanced around briefly for his father, but unable to spot him, he returned to his task. Baron Arinna the local Land Baron wanted his laborers working rain or shine whenever they could see what they were doing. Some of Ashur's fellow workers had remarked that if the Baron thought he could get away with it they would be cutting down trees by torchlight.
The wind suddenly picked up whipping rain into his face and stinging his eyes. Ashur braced himself against it for a moment as ice-cold droplets smashed into his face. He closed his blue eyes to protect them and waited for the wind to subside. It did momentarily and he brought his axe to bear once more. His hair was jet black and, unlike his fellow workers, he cut it short in the Tursan manner. It kept the wind from whipping it in his face.
There was a time when his father had made a point of always asking Cass what the weather would be for each day. They would plan accordingly dressing warmer, or bringing a cloak, or sometimes wearing just shirtsleeves and trousers. They always trusted what she told them and she was never ever wrong.
But, not long after they had moved here, father had stopped asking her. Then he had told Ashur to stop as well.
"It would be best for all of us to blend in. And we can't very well blend in when we always know something before everyone else does," he had said.
Both Ashur and Cassandra had asked why, after all, she had a gift why shouldn't they use it to help each other? But father had been adamant. "Magic is mistrusted in this part of the world. It's better to endure some bad weather than a frightened and confused mob," he had said.
Ashur believed there was some truth to his father's words. Only a couple months ago they had heard of a young man two towns over who could make candles light just by thinking about it. Then a fire broke out. The young man was immediately blamed and run out of town, narrowly escaping a noose.
But Ashur felt there was something else his father wasn't telling them.
He and his sister had both accepted their father's counsel and his reasoning behind it, but Ashur thought that his father was trying to hide Cassandra's ability from more than just the people of Bordertown.
He didn't know what made him think this or perhaps what made him feel it, feel was a better word.
But feel it he did. His father had always been a little distant. He was a man with secrets, secrets that he refused to share with anyone, least of all his children. Ashur shook his head and hammered his axe into the tree once again. He did trust his father he just wanted to understand him and know things about him. Unfortunately, the things he wanted to know were hidden in a web of smoke and even as he grasped at them he could feel them slipping from his grasp and eluding him.
Ashur took a deep breath and shrugged his broad shoulders loosening them a little before the next swing. It wouldn't take too many more to bring down this oak. He swung again biting deep into the living wood. He hadn't always had to work like this. Oh he had always worked, just not as a hired hand providing for their living. His father had always provided plenty.
He would never forget that day when it had changed.
He had been the man of the house while his father went on his merchant trips. He had taken care of the garden and Cass. He had cleared the parts of their land that he could. His father would leave and return unexpectedly, sometimes being gone for weeks at a time. When he was home he worked along side his son, and he would always make time to do things together, just the two of them.
Usually it was swordplay, though his father spared time to teach his son knife fighting, and archery. You are the weapon, he would say, the steel in your hand is just a tool. Ashur would push himself to the limits for his father even after chopping trees or moving rocks all day, he would use the last few hours of daylight to practice with his father and he would make those hours count. At first, it was just to make his father proud. Then it became a desire to beat him at his own game. They would take the practice swords, constructed out of pieces of wood strapped together, and battle all over their land. Until one of them, invariably Ashur, was thoroughly trounced. His father would shout out instructions and corrections even as he disarmed him or wrangled him to the ground or brought the dull edge of a practice sword to his throat.
Ashur looked forward to their matches, practicing on his own when his father was away. Practicing with other boys nearby, until their parents ordered him to stop as their own children tended to return home bruised and bloodied after a few hours of practicing with Ashur.
Ashur had long suspected that his father's job as the guard for a merchant caravan was more than he made it out to be. His father never said what they were selling or where they were going beforehand. He would just leave. When he came home he would tell about where he had been and his adventures getting there and he would make a remark about selling wool or lumber or whatever, but Ashur did not believe him.
One night, after putting Cass to bed, he took Ashur outside. This particular time his father had returned looking haggard, his face was lined and weather-beaten. He walked with a slight limp and gray bandages were wrapped around his right forearm and across his chest.
His father had looked up at the stars for some time before speaking. His hair was dark brown and iron gray and the gray seemed to shimmer in the dim light. He turned, his pale blue eyes piercing into Ashur's own. His father held that penetrating gaze for a moment and then spoke, softly, but with an intensity that seemed in total opposition to his weary exterior.
"You've been asking a lot of questions about what I do," he said.
Ashur nodded not sure what to say.
His father looked away, "You are right."
"Right about what?" asked Ashur.
"I haven't told you everything," he turned and looked his son in the eye again. "I need you to trust me, son."
"I trust you," said Ashur immediately.
His father nodded and looked up at the stars again. "We are leaving tomorrow," he said.
Ashur nodded slowly and asked, "How long will we be gone?"
"We are leaving tomorrow and we are not coming back," said father. "We are going to a place called Bordertown. Have everything ready before noon."
With that, he left Ashur stunned and standing in the moonlight, and walked back into the house. Ashur stood outside for a time trying to process what his father had just told him. Leaving? Why? Why Bordertown? Where was Bordertown? How would they sell their house and land? How could they possibly pack everything by noon tomorrow? How would they transport everything? They didn't even own a wagon. He walked back into the house in a daze. He entered his room and sat on his bed. Leaving?
His father suddenly materialized into the doorway. Ashur looked up at him completely speechless.
"I am sorry I can't tell you everything right now" his father whispered. "But I promise someday I will."
Ashur stared at the man as though he were a total stranger. Someone who had come out of the night to strip away his life.
"I need you to trust me," said his father for the second time.
"I trust you," whispered Ashur hesitantly.
And they had left.
His father had procured a cart from somewhere and they had packed it with a few of their possessions. They had traveled for days before finally coming to the edge of civilization and beyond that to the place called Bordertown.
The only people who lived in Bordertown were people with no home at all. All were rugged and had the look of people at war with the world. Most wore rough buckskins.
People in Bordertown had all come a long way to get there; some were running from the law, some were running from the past. To these people Bordertown was a safe haven, a place where you could stay a stranger to those around you and where any pursuit of you was destined to fail.
Ashur and his father had joined the working crews right away clearing trees and building roads. The king was determined to extend civilization to the conglomeration of broken down old shanties and log cabins on the Eastern border. His Majesty hoped to stamp out an infamous bastion for fugitives and miscreants in the process as well.
Ashur finally felled the tree. Methodically he began hacking the branches from the oak one by one. Other workers would come by to dice the cut limbs into firewood. He shouldered his axe and walked over to his next task. It was a maple, not especially thick, and it wouldn't take long to bring down. Time moved quickly as it usually did when he was chopping. It was taking out the stumps that took the real time and effort, on those days the sun seemed frozen in the sky as they pulled and hacked the last markers of the piece of forest they had cleared.
When the sun had sunk into the red clouds crowding the horizon, Ashur shouldered his axe once more and turned away from the woods towards home. The foreman, who had been working with the saw, nodded his head in acknowledgement as Ashur walked past. He started out on the road that he had helped construct. He didn't bother waiting for his father. His father never waited for him either. They always caught up with each other on the road. His thoughts drifted as he mechanically placed one foot in front of another.
He thought of his future. At one point he had assumed that he would follow his father into a life of guarding merchant caravans. Then he had thought that his father would eventually tell him his secrets and teach him to become whatever it was that his father really was...or had been.
But now his father seemed chained to a life of road building and land clearing. That was another thing about Bordertown; once you chose to live here you would never leave. Newcomers would sometimes spin tales of dreamed up goals and say things like, "this is only temporary" and "we shouldn't be here too much longer." But everyone else knew that they could lie to the world and themselves 'til the day they died but on that day they'd be buried in Bordertown soil.
Father, to his credit, had never been one of those people. He seemed to have accepted all the conditions of this place before coming, despite coming here with no apparent preparation or planning.
Ashur's mind was still wandering when his father suddenly appeared behind him and clapped him on the shoulder. Ashur almost jumped as his thoughts scattered into shards of panic. He was proud of himself for not crying out as he turned to glare at the man behind him.
Abdiel smiled at his son. They both looked up at the sound of a thunderclap and rain began to fall. Rainwater dripped from Abdiel's dark, gray streaked, hair and trickled down his careworn face. His clothes were soaked and clung to his large heavily built frame.
Ashur wondered briefly if he looked as wet and bedraggled as his father did. He decided that he probably did.
Abdiel's piercing blue eyes locked onto his son and he murmured, "Best get moving before we drown out here, boy."
"Sure," said Ashur and they both walked faster. The rain let up for a moment, but the sky remained a gloomy gray.
They walked in silence, side by side. Their eyes wandered across the road and up to the darkened horizon. They walked past the occasional cabin or shack nodding at the occupants they recognized. As they neared their own house Abdiel began abruptly listing off the things that they still needed to get done around the house when they had the chance.
The horses were too crowded in the little stable they shared with the cow, they would have to extend it sometime. The fence in the back was still broken, wasn't Ashur supposed to have fixed that three days ago? Ashur garbled something and his father continued. They would have to start plowing soon, the season was approaching and if this rain continued it would soften the soil considerably, and on and on.
Ashur quit listening when his father mentioned that he shouldn't forget to sharpen his axe after chopping all day. Ashur wanted to point out that he had been working this job as long as his father had and knew perfectly well when his axe needed to be sharpened, but he held his peace and let his mind wander instead. They closed in on the house, Cass was out front waiting for them, and she smiled and waved. She always looked so happy to see them and they both couldn't help but smile and wave back.
Their home wasn't all that big but it was big enough for the three of them. It had two shuttered windows its walls were made of thick oak logs cut from their own land. Heavy cement, that Abdiel had gotten from who knows where, plastered the logs together making the structure completely water tight. Most local cabins were sealed with mud that needed to be touched up constantly.
A stone chimney rose up through the solid oak roof. The local cabins used thatch but Abdiel wanted his roof as solid as the walls. The result was a structure impervious to any type of weather. The floors were made from wooden planks set on slabs of solid rock that Abdiel said he had obtained from a friend. The rock slabs were not native to this part of Tasura. They were harder and heavier than anything Ashur had ever seen, placing them had been a nightmare, plus it had delayed the completion of the rest of the house while they had waited for it to be hauled up here because Abdiel had wanted the whole structure to be built on top of it.
As they got closer Cass ran and jumped into her father's arms, he lifted her as though she weighed nothing, held her for a moment and sat her back down again. Then she turned and jumped onto Ashur who did the same thing. It was a ritual that they went through every time they came home. She looked up at them still smiling, "I made soup!" she said brightly and opened the door, instantly the smell of mixed vegetables and bits of beef curled out of the house. The soft warmth of a fire spread over them enticingly. Both started forward but Cassandra stepped in front of them with her hands on her hips,
"No! You are not coming through this way with all those wet clothes. Go around and come in through the stable I have two towels out there and a change of clothes for each of you."
Before either of them could protest she went inside and closed the door. Abdiel and Ashur looked at each other then started around the house to the stables.
Abdiel was smiling ruefully when Ashur glanced up at him. They both walked into the stable finding the promised towels and clothes. Wordlessly they stripped off their wet clothes and changed, shivering slightly, into the dry ones. Abdiel paused after changing to pull horse blankets over his big black stallion whom he called, "Champion," and the smaller workhorse that Cass had named, "Dependable." (it was the longest word she had known at the time.)
Ashur tossed some hay and oats into the horse's and the cow's feeding boxes, then father and son walked through the door into a warm room filled with the smell of Cass's soup. Ashur's stomach growled as he and his father found their places at the little table. Cass tapped her father on the shoulder and asked him to carry the black soup pot to the center of the table, which he did. She produced a loaf of bread to go with it, and then they all ladled the concoction into bowls and began to feast. Neither Ashur nor Abdiel spoke a word as spoonful after spoonful of the warm soup was shoveled into their mouths. Ashur's once worn and wet body now felt warm and relaxed as the warmth of the soup slowly filled his stomach. It didn't get much better than this, he thought.