Tide of Shadows and Other Stories by Aidan Moher Page A

dawn’s light, watching my trial with ancient disinterest.
    The morning was silent. No birds sang. No breeze whispered through tree limbs. The rising sun was a kindred soul, a companion in my time of mourning—but so much stronger than a weak boy crying for the forgotten dead.
    A chop of my sword shattered the silence. The frozen ground was hard as stone.
    I looked at the first corpse. He had the slanted eyes and amber skin of an islander from the Sinking Moon Islands. Dandelion, we called him, though we really meant "Dandy Lion." He was a fop and always talking of heroes and villains, knights and dragons—no head in the real world. Not one of our original crew, but a brother just the same. His throat was slit and blood caked his chest, dark and frozen now. He looked confused—and so young.
    Not that it mattered anymore.
    The grave was less than a foot deep, not enough for a body. Piled stones alone might do, but the dead deserved better.
    It would have been easier to burn the bodies, but that is not the way taught to my people. We come from the earth, and to its cold embrace we must return. Hell is hot; the ground is cold.
    Despite the chill air, I began to sweat. My bloody shirt stuck to my back; my brow dripped. I prayed for the sun to heat the ground, to lift some burden from my shoulders.
    I dug. My blade broke, so I picked up another. The northern sword felt strange in my hands: the hilt too long, the balance unusual. I dug until the hole was deep enough for the body.
    I gathered a pile of stones. It was a relief to walk around, to stretch out the screaming muscles in my arms, my neck, and my back. I did not know how many stones to collect, so I gathered all I could find. When I was done, the sun was past its peak, descending back toward the dark promises of night.
    I rolled the body into the grave. It landed face down. With my hands, I poured the first of the black soil over the corpse.

    Dandelion watches the dark with tired eyes. He's drawn the worst watch—during the deepest part of the night, when the red face of the sun is a far-off dream. Not that it's much better even at midday. Still freeze-your-balls-off cold. At least he'll be able to feel his feet once the sun's up and they started walking again.
    Oh, the things we'll do for the clink of two coins in our pocket. It isn't the first time he's had the thought, and likely won't be the last, either. People say he’s daft, but he just likes to point out the truths in life—the way things are, not the way you think they should be. Ain't no daftness in that.
    Not that any of it matters much up here in the cold, endless north. There weren't no art in the tundra. No theatre. No music. Least none that the Northmen didn't make themselves—even the best of them singin' was hardly music. It was too bad his lute was broken. Now, that instrument made some damn fine music. "Bastard tagalong Northman, breakin' it over his knee," he mutters to nobody. Northmen don't know music, and that's one o' those truths to life.
    Dandelion plucks at invisible strings, a phantom lute his only companion. Just a simple melody of silent notes to keep the ghosts at bay.
    And why keep postin' a guard every night? It's been days or weeks since they've seen another soul besides themselves—feels like years, even. There was the buck they shot a week back. Pity to leave all that meat steaming in the snow. It'd sure feel mighty fine now, resting in the pit o' his belly. Better than stringy dried rabbit. But who's he to argue? Tahir said they needed to watch for northern ghosts, watch out for anybody on their trail. Dandelion certainly wasn't gonna fight him on it, put his neck on the choppin' block. Tahir’s the boss, Dandelion thought, and they'd be nowhere better if it weren't for him.
    "Probably in hell. That’s where we'd be without him,” Dandelion mutters, though the watchman isn't supposed to make a sound. "Precautions," Tahir had said. "They keep you alive up here."
    At least it's