"There you go, girl," Cal spoke softly to the large draft horse. "Your coat is coming in nicely, huh? This cold chill of a wind won't be bothering you much now."
The large, sorrel-colored horse nodded her head in agreement, showing her gratitude for the attention he had so lovingly bestowed upon her. "Here, girl, eat up," Cal said, giving her an extra scoop of milled oats. "There is much work still to be done. You are going to need your strength."
His grooming was interrupted mid-stroke by the thin voice of the captain of the colony guard. "Groomsman?"
Cal looked up from behind one of the chestnut cavalry mounts. "Sir? Captain, yessir, how can I be of service?"
Tahd examined the line of well-kept horses, nodding in approval. "Groomsman, the governor has a new assignment that you will need to see about carrying out right away."
"A new assignment? Does the governor require me to swing a blade as well?" Cal rested his hand on the horse's flank as he walked out from behind the animal. He looked to the sorrel-colored beast, then approached Tahd with a concerned look on his face. "I am honored to serve the colony, but if you assign me to fell timber, I will not have the time to care for the animals. With all due respect, sir, they deserve—"
"What?" Tahd interjected, a bit annoyed at the rashness of this groomsman's speculation. "No, no one is taking you from these horses. In fact, you will have a chance to put your equine knowledge to some other uses here in this wilderness of a land."
The worry on Cal's face shifted to intrigue. "So you say … my apologies. I just thought-" Cal began to speak, but Tahd cut him off again before he wasted any more of his time.
"The governor and I believe that it would be prudent to explore the surrounding area," the captain said. "You are to take one of these horses here and see about scouting the lands beyond the tree line." Tahd continued to inspect the horses as he spoke. "You shall keep your groomsman duties in order as well, but I need a swift rider to discover who else it is that calls these wild lands their home."
Cal took in the words of the captain for a moment, hardly able to contain his excitement. Since arriving upon the shores of the Wreath, his days had been spent tirelessly in the service of the colony, with no time to pursue the true purpose for which he had come.
"Yes, Captain, I would be glad to," Cal said eagerly, his breath catching in his throat as the possibilities of what he might find began to fill his mind.
"I have no way of knowing what kind of dangers are out beyond the safety of our stronghold," the captain thought aloud. "You do have a blade, don't you?"
"Yes ... yes sir, I have sword," Cal answered him.
"Very well, then," Tahd said. "Keep a keen eye about you, and keep that blade of yours at the ready."
"I will, Captain," Cal replied. "You can count on me, sir." The eager glint in Cal's eyes was complemented with a resolute courage that could not be overlooked.
Tahd examined the strong, golden-haired groomsman. "Yes, I believe I can."
"What is it that our governor hopes I will find out there in the forestlands?" Cal asked. "Is he not satisfied with the timber fields here?"
"Well, that is just it, isn't it, groomsman?" Tahd replied. "We are not sure what else makes its home here, and I would rather not be taken by surprise to find out. If Wreathers inhabit the forest nearby, they may not be willing to share their shelter, or their timber, or their home," he said with a faint snarl of disdain.
Cal looked out beyond the safety of the stronghold through uneven gaps of the palisade wall. "I will see to it, Captain," he replied with an anticipatory smile.
"Very well, then. Report your findings directly to me, groomsman," the captain ordered before he turned to take his leave and return back to the oversight of the encampment.
"A scouting mission, huh?" asked a familiar voice.
"It would seem so, Wielund," Cal replied, sizing up the strong, lanky blacksmith that approached. "Hey ... would you want to ride with me?"
"Don't you think you should ask one of the others?" Wielund asked, his forced nonchalance not lost on the groomsman. "I'd wager that the cook or maybe old Captain Means would like to see something more of the Wreath. Besides ... I am not the swiftest of riders, and I have a mountain of work still ahead of me, and I would hate—"
"If the captain had wanted a cook or a sea captain to take up this task, don't you think that he would have asked one already?" Cal interrupted. "No. He asked me, and, well ... I am asking you."
Wielund stood there, his mind racing for a reason to decline the invitation.
"I can't just sneak off, Cal. What if they catch me?"
"A risk worth taking! There is a reason we were brought to the Wreath, and I do not believe that it is timber alone. Come on now, brother, ride with me on this assignment. You will be safe enough."
"What of my duty? What of my assignment?" Wielund argued. "I have seen the stocks that Pyrrhus and his men just finished, and I am the one who forged the bars for the prison hold." He wiped at his sweating brow with a dirty rag, leaving a worried smear on his pale forehead. "I do not wish to encounter whatever enemy those are intended for, nor do I want to find myself closely acquainted with them."
"Just this once, alright?" Cal reasoned. "It's not like I am asking you to wage a war … just to discover if there is, well ... anything we should be concerned with. And think of what we may find! What if we ..." Cal's voice trailed off as he reveled in the awareness of his grander calling.
"Cal?" Wielund said reluctantly.
"Come on then, that settles it! I'll ready your mount; you go see about some mail and maybe something sharp to ward off your fear," he said with a teasing grin.
Wielund slowly walked toward the smithery from the small stable yard, dumbstruck at what had just happened. Cal busied himself with tack and saddle, readying one of the chestnuts for his friend the smithy, and the dapple-grey, Farran, for himself.
Inside the seclusion of the stable, the small, strong voice of Deryn the Sprite called out to him from the rafters of the roughly constructed barn. "What great providence we have been shown, my friend!" The blue-winged sentinel dashed swiftly and silently down from his dwelling place and hovered excitedly in front of the face of his friend.
"Yes, indeed, Deryn! What if today ... what if today is indeed the day we find what we have set out in search of?"
Deryn landed atop of one of the wooden stall railings, watching Cal cinch the saddle on the large chestnut. "That may be ... though my heart tells me that our Great Father's light is not merely laying idle and undiscovered, even here in the shadow lands of the Western Wreath. No, Cal ... I suspect this charge of yours to seek His new light will take us both to the bleakest edge of darkness before it relents its hidden brilliance."
"Well, that may be so, but one can still hope, right?" Cal said playfully in reply.
"Indeed, one can," Deryn said with a placating shake of his tiny, blue-haired head.
Cal brought out his bronzed, feathered chest guard that had been a gift bestowed upon him from the Poets of Kalein. He had kept it safely tucked away in his small quarters inside the stable. Here in the torchlight, the ancient piece of armor shone with such an out-of-place majesty that even the Sprite was taken aback by its brilliance.
"You are going to wear this gift of yours?" Deryn asked him.
"Yes, I am," Cal replied as he fastened the three leather thongs on the right side of the chest piece.
"You look like a King of Terriah," Deryn said wistfully. "A rather young king, I suppose, but a king nonetheless."
"Cal? Cal! Where are you, groomsman?" Wielund shouted in a rather grumpy tone of voice from outside the stable entrance. "Are you ready to get this frightful task over with yet?"
"On my way, Wielund! Quit your complaining and prepare for an adventure!" Cal shouted back at him.
Cal slipped on his leather cloak, and Deryn shot inside the fold of its inner pocket. The groomsman secured his ancient blade in its white leather scabbard, then took the re
ins of the two horses and led the mounts outside.
"Alright then," Cal said to the nervous smithy. "Let's go see just what kind of wilderness this is that we have chosen to call home, huh?"
Chapter Three
THE TWO YOUNG MEN RODE astride their mounts. Cal's eager eyes searched the tree line as they passed unceremoniously through the timber gates of the colony's walls. The forest's edge towered roughly half a league from the newly constructed stronghold. The bright watch fires of the mighty woodcutters blazed a safe distance from the pine border, illuminating the encampment and warding off whatever dangers might be lurking beyond what they could see.
The sound of blades biting birch and pine, oak and cedar was both a welcomed and familiar cadence to the ears of the riders. There was safety—or at least a presumed safety—in the chorus of forty axes, and the enormity of the Greywood seemed somehow smaller whilst their notes rang out upon the air. For weeks, the woodcutters had been commissioned with the task of providing timber for the construction and the establishment of the colony's garrison. Finally, with the stronghold complete, their collective strength could now be focused on a harvest for the great city of Haven herself.
Cal smiled brightly as he and Wielund spied the northmen in the dim shadows on the edge of the forest.
"And just where are you off to on this fine day, groomsman?" a large, bald, mountain of a man shouted out to Cal between the swings of his axe. "Hunting, I hope?"
"Goran! Why is it that the only thing that seems to be running through your mind is food?" Yasen shot out in feigned annoyance.
"Well, it's more pleasant to dream of stewed rabbit and spitted boar than the endless growth of this damnable darkness!" Goran replied matter-of-factly.
"It must be more than dreams, brother. It appears that the darkness is not the only thing growing around here!" Yasen said, pointing the blade of his axe toward Goran's plump midsection.
Goran's cheeks reddened with the beginnings of laughter, and he affectionately patted his large belly. "Ha ha! Perhaps I have been doing a bit more than dreaming! Well played, North Wolf, well played indeed."
Cal and Wielund joined in the laughter of the woodcutters, and there in this shadowy wilderness, the brothers of the North relaxed the rhythm of their burden for a moment of lightheartedness.
"So if you are not hunting then, what are you doing? Why do you ride out here in the Greywood?" Goran returned to his question of Cal.
"Scouting," Cal said. "I've been given the task of searching the woods that surround our stronghold. Somebody has to make sure that you poor, defenseless woodcutters are kept safe out here!"
A wry smile split the beard of the large man, and soon a deep and good-hearted laughter erupted once again. "Oh, if Oskar were still here!" Goran said, shaking his head and wiping the laughter from his eyes. "He would have ..."
"He would have liked that one, eh?" Cal finished the sentence for his friend.
"Aye," Goran nodded, still humored by it all. "Well, watch yourselves out here in these wilderlands, boys. It wouldn't do to diminish our company much further. We have already lost more than we can spare." Goran patted Cal's horse gingerly as he peered into Cal's eyes with meaningful intent.
"We will return safely and soon enough, don't you fear," Cal said kindly.
"Well then," Yasen spoke up. "We must be back to work. Mind that you two keep a sharp eye about you." The North Wolf turned to survey the thick, dark shadows that hung heavy in the undergrowth of the Greywood. Though he wore a leather patch over his wounded right eye, he still possessed a keenness of sight both in his vision and his intuition. Though I do not feel any danger at the moment, Cal ... I do not believe that we are alone," Yasen told him.
Just then, the silver-coated Farran let out a loud whinny, piercing the stillness of the forest with a jolt. Wielund spooked with a violent fright, not expecting the sound to erupt from the animal. His abrupt movement startled his own horse into action, and the large chestnut jumped forward, nearly throwing the young blacksmith from the saddle.
"Never you fear, brothers, for I have brought with me the brave Wielund to accompany me on my quest!" Cal said with exaggerated formality.
The woodcutters joined in laughter once again. Goran nearly doubled over in throes of amusement. "Indeed you did, groomsman! Indeed you did," he bellowed.
Wielund struck Cal's arm with a brotherly blow. "Alright then, you have had your fun ... just remember who it is that sharpens your steel and shoes your steeds! Huh?"
Cal shook his stubbled face at the embarrassed smithy, and a moment of mutually understood camaraderie passed between them. Although Cal knew the calling he had from the Oweles, and still felt the pull and gravity of his ultimate purpose, it was good to not be alone out here on the edge of the world. "Come on, then," he told Wielund. "Let's be on our way."
They bade goodbye to the woodcutters and the two young men rode off; the pounding hooves of their mounts littered the air with dirt and grass as they rode out of sight of their friends. Cal and Wielund went deeper and deeper into the Greywood, away from watch fires and woodcutters, away from the sounds of the stronghold and the singing axes at the tree line. This ancient forestland was a sight to behold, here in the outer shadows of this darkening world, and one could only try to imagine what grandeur it must have displayed in the youth of the light of the great tree.
Cal had never seen a canopy of green such as this. The plumage of these massive trees began nearly one hundred hands high and rose almost beyond the reach of his sight. The young forests of the northern territory were dwarfed in comparison to this ancient, grey-barked timberland; neither man nor horse needed to bow his head as they rode through the trees. The flame of Wielund's torch flickered and danced in the wake of their riding, and though he trusted Cal's leading, he grew nervous each time it nearly disappeared. He did not question his brave friend, but he did wonder why this groomsman in the strange and beautiful bronzed armor did not carry a torch with him.
League after league of majestic timber disappeared behind the riders as they rode westward in search of something, anything, to report. "Well, one thing is for sure!" Wielund called out as the two of them stopped to water their horses at a small pool deep in the heart of the forest.
"Oh? What is that?" Cal asked.
"That there is enough timber here on the Wreath to light a hundred Havens for a hundred years!" Wielund mused aloud as his eyes scanned the shadowed tree line.
"Well, you might not be too far from the truth there, Wielund." Cal smiled at the smithy.
"Have you ever, in all your time in the northern forests, ever seen such green?"
Cal froze, his mind unexpectedly racing back to the memory of the green-eyed shadow cats and the blood-thirsty demon bear. While Wielund was wondering in amazement at the green of the imperial oaks and stately birch trees, Cal was overwhelmed with thoughts of the other kinds of green that lived in the forest.
"Cal? Cal … you all right, brother?" Wielund asked, concern coloring his face. "Cal?"
"What? Oh ... forgive me," Cal said apologetically as he rubbed his stubble. "I was ... just remembering something. A memory from another life, almost, yet it still feels so real, so-"
The unexpected sound of stone against metal cut off his very words, and Cal quickly put his finger to his lips.
Wielund's eyes went wide in anxious surprise, but he heeded the silent warning of his friend. The horses looked up from their drink. The large chestnut began to stomp and snort restlessly, and Farran, the iron grey, stared off into the shadows across the small pond.
"What is it?" Wielund asked in a worried whisper.
"I don't know, I can't quite see it," Cal whispered back. "Do you have your blade?"
"Yes, I do," Wielund answered.
"Come on then, let's have a better look," Cal said, gesturing towards a small outcropping of stone there on the bank of the clear pool.
The two of them crouched low, swords in hand, and moved as quietly as they could m
anage. Cal's breathing was controlled, for he trusted the instinctual response of Farran. Though the horse seemed to sense that they were not alone, he did not seem to detect any immediate danger. Wielund however, was nervous, and his breathing reflected his anxieties.
"Would you calm yourself, smithy?" Cal whispered in annoyance. "I can't hear anything beyond your panicked wheezes."
Wielund nodded his head apologetically.
"Wait here," Cal ordered. "I want to have a better look."
Wielund nodded once again, and Cal began to climb atop the large, moss-covered stones in hopes of discovering the source of the strange sound from a higher vantage point. The boulder was no taller than the size of a grown man, and Cal quickly reached the top and peered out from behind its protection.
What he saw lit his heart in wonder.
"Wielund!" he called down in an excited whisper. "Come up here, you must see this!"
The smithy reached down and kissed the flint that hung from around his neck, then began to climb the large boulder, torch still in hand, to see what it was that had his friend the groomsman so enraptured. Wielund's eyes finally crested the peak of the moss-covered rock. He strained against the flickering glow of his torch, and what he beheld made his jaw drop in wonder. "Is that what I think it is?" he asked his friend.
"Well, we won't know for sure until we get a closer look now, will we?" Cal said with an excited gleam in his eye.
"You want to go ... in there?" Wielund said nervously.
"Yes, come on! We are a scouting party, remember," Cal chided him. "This is the first thing we have found worth reporting, so let's see what exactly it is we are supposed to report!"
"But-" he tried to protest.
"Oh, come on!" Cal said with feigned annoyance.
The enthusiastic groomsman jumped down from the rock with little regard to the noise he was making. Wielund held his torch high above his head, and strained against the shadows to survey his friend's movements. When he was satisfied that all seemed safe enough to continue on, and that nothing was lurking in the immediate vicinity, he nodded his reluctant agreement and followed Cal down from the rock to the opposite side of the bank.
The Ravenous Siege (Epic of Haven Trilogy Book 2) Page 3