Shiloh

by Helena Sorensen

  Shiloh

  Shiloh © 2013, 2015 by Helena Sorensen

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at info@brightenerbooks.com.

  A Brightener Book

  www.brightenerbooks.com

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-9964368-6-1

  Also available in trade paperback, ISBN: 978-0-9964368-7-8

  Cover design by Pear Creative, www.pearcreative.ca

  Map created by Robert Altbauer, www.fantasy-map.net

  Previously published by MyInkBooks.com in 2013, ISBN: 978-0-9880286-3-0

  Prologue

  In the beginning, there was Ram. He was alone and apart from everything, and he was great and joyful and immensely strong and good. To begin, he created the sun, round and red and gold, and he loved its brightness and its warmth. But the sun shone down on an empty world, and Ram was grieved. He looked at the void and longed to fill it with color and life.

  So Ram created other creators to help him fill the emptiness. Three sons and three daughters burst into being from the soil of Ram’s thought. Leander, Rurik, and Vali were fierce, daring, brave. Petra, Callista, and Riannon were strong, beautiful, wildly free. These sons and daughters of Ram, like their father, were not bound by flesh. They could see into one another and discern one another’s minds. And whenever one of the immortals (for so they came to be called) saw in another immortal an image that matched something in his own mind, that image came to life. Leander and Riannon shared many visions of wild creatures, and it was not long before the world was filled with soaring birds and creeping beasts. Vali and Petra shaped the mountains, great windswept peaks tipped with snow, and Riannon and Callista formed the flowers, soft purple heather, and delicate wild roses.

  In this way Shiloh was filled with life, and the immortals at times even created other immortals to share in their work. At the birth of Linden, trees spread over the land, gathering into forests and hedging the meadows, their great branches stretching toward the sky. Some of the trees were touched by Ram, and they took on a spark of the life of the immortals. At Maya’s birth, rivers cut through earth and stone, laughing and rollicking their way across the land. Ram was so delighted that he filled the waters with nymphs, shimmering creatures whose eyes sparkled in the light of the sun.

  But Rurik, as yet, had taken no part in creation. He went to his brothers, Leander and Vali, searching their minds for some vision that matched his own. It was not to be found. He went to his sisters, but neither Petra nor Callista shared any thought with him. Rurik was angry at this, for his brothers and sisters shared in their father’s work and their father’s glory, but he did not. He wished, in fact, that he might create alone, bringing into existence the thoughts of his own mind as only Ram could. It was not until Rurik went to Riannon that he discovered some trace of himself, for Riannon was the wildest of Ram’s children and she, too, longed to be free of the immortals’ one restraint. In her heart, as in her brother’s, a dark sliver of rebellion resided. Riannon was neither cruel nor wicked, but, like the wind, she could not be contained, and she hardly knew what she did when she stood face to face with her brother and brought into being the Shadow.

  One

  Amos was no more than seven when he killed a Shadow Wolf, in the dark of the Whispering Wood, no less, where wolves were as thick as the undergrowth. The story spread like wildfire. It was rehearsed in every cottage, alehouse, and market from the Pallid Peaks to the southern moors until there was hardly a person in Shiloh who didn’t know the tale by heart.

  “He was huntin’ with his da,” one man would say.

  “Aye,” another would say, “and ’e wasn’t even watchin’ out fer danger, though ’is father warned ’im of it time and again.”

  “Amos was born without the fear,” a third would interject. “He strolls through the dark o’ the Whisperin’ Wood, whistlin’ . . . as if it was nothin’ more than the lane outside his cottage.”

  “’Twas crouched in the thicket,” the first man would continue, eager to reclaim the role of storyteller. “He saw the flash o’ the wolf’s eyes and heard a growl like distant thunder.”

  “That’s when ’e came alive!” the second would say. “In the flickerin’ of a candle, ’e pulled an arrow from ’is quiver and breathed on it.”

  “And the arrow was set ablaze,” the third would interrupt. “He marked his prey and shot straight and true inta the Shadow.”

  At this point in the story, a boy would inevitably burst in on the gathering, brandishing his bow and arrow and shouting the words Amos had spoken to the wolf. “You’re no more than shadow and smoke, beast! Be gone!”

  Then the men would laugh, shooing the boy back to his play, and finish the tale, their voices hushed with wonder. “And the demon blew away like vapor on the wind.”

  It was not unheard of for a man’s breath to set something alight. For that matter, it was not unheard of for any number of extraordinary things to happen in Shiloh. It was just rare. And as year followed year, in an endless line of unbroken darkness, it had become increasingly rare. Nearly fifteen hundred years had passed since Hammond had learned the secret of fire and wielded it in battle against the Shadow Wolves. He had founded the Fire Clan, but, despite its name, the clan could boast no more than a handful of men and women in its long history who shared Hammond’s gift. That is why Amos was special.

  He would have been openly revered by his clansmen, would doubtless have risen to become the Light of the Clan, if it weren’t for the stories. If only he and his father didn’t speak so often of what lay beyond the Shadow. There was nothing but darkness in Shiloh. In the Shadow they lived and moved and breathed. It was the sky above them, the night enclosing them, the darkness blinding them, and the power hunting them. It was what they had always known, all they had ever known. And only the most foolish had ever dreamed that anything lay beyond it.

  Wynn finished mending the gray, woolen tunic and folded it neatly, laying it on the cot in the corner. She sat down at the kitchen table, its wood surface worn smooth from years of use, and began to chop the potatoes that waited in a basket on the floor nearby. Other than the cots and the table where Wynn sat, there was little furniture in the stone cottage. A wooden trunk, bound with iron and bearing the sign of the Fire Clan, sat against the wall, and two chairs rested on a woven rug near the fireplace. No curtains covered the windows, for light was scarce in Shiloh, and the candles and the fire did little to brighten the interior of the cottage.

  Outside, gray sheep grazed in their fold. Across the lane, night-blooming jasmine hung thick over the fence that bordered the meadow. On warm days its fragrance was heady and sweet. Wynn loved it above all things, and she often wove its flowers into her daughter’s hair.

  Her eyes filled when she thought of Phebe, and she cut her hand with the knife. “Curse it!” she said.

  “Ya alright, Ma?” A girl of four, dark-haired and dark-eyed, sat on the rug near the fire and played with a little rag doll.

  “I’m alright, little bird. Just clumsy is all,” Wynn answered, her eyes hardly grazing Phebe’s face. It was still too new. Only a few months had passed since the attack, and the angry red gash stretching from the girl’s forehead to her jaw line was still too much of a shock. What if Amos hadn’t been there? The question haunted Wynn in the quiet of the nig
ht, when visions of green eyes and cold fangs and the echo of her daughter’s screams drove away the sweet oblivion of sleep and awakened older, darker terrors.

  Amos walked into the cottage with an armload of firewood, and his sister jumped to greet him. He set his load by the hearth and scooped her up, placing her in his lap as he sat on the bench next to his mother. Playfully, he tugged at strands of Phebe’s dark hair. Wynn looked him over. His tunic and trousers were stained, as usual, his red-brown hair awry. Though he hadn’t been hunting that day, his arm guard was firmly in place, and his quiver and bow leaned against the wall beside the door, ready at a moment’s notice. The cat’s claw hung around his neck on a leather cord. Wynn didn’t like to look at it. What if he hadn’t been there?

  “Couldn’t ya use another candle, Ma? How can ya see ta do yer cookin’?”

  “I can see just fine, Amos.” She reached over to smooth the boy’s hair and pinch his chin. “You work on yer arrows fer a while, and dinner’ll be ready soon.”

  Phebe went back to her rag doll, and Amos sat cross-legged on the floor, pulling stalks of river cane from a nearby basket. He notched the ends of the cane stalks with his knife, then fitted them with small pointed stones. He was just beginning to wrap the ends of the arrows with sinew when Abner came through the door.

  “Good evenin’, m’ dear ones,” Abner greeted. His wife was the only one to notice when his eyes reached Phebe and his smile faltered. He placed a small quail on the table. Wynn took the tiny bird, plucked and cleaned it, and stirred it into the kettle with the potatoes and a handful of herbs. As she worked, she listened to the chatter of her children and exchanged meaning glances with her husband.

  “And what song do ya have fer me today, little nightingale?”

  Phebe sat on her father’s knee and smiled up at him. It was not her old smile. This one was smaller, favoring the wound that still pained her. But she sat up straight and tall and proudly announced, “I’ve learned a new one, Da.”

  “Aye? Well, ya must sing it fer me then.”

  The little girl opened her mouth, and when the first clear note rang out, everything else in the room seemed to dim.

  She sang:

  “Far, far away

  In the crystal teardrops

  Hangin’ from the branches o’ the silent trees

  Gone, gone away

  Ta the Hall o’ Shadows

  Peerin’ through the mist with eyes that cannot see

  Shine, shine away

  Keep the lights a’ burnin’

  Never let the embers o’ the flame go out

  Run, run away

  For the Shadow Weavers

  Come ta take a trophy ta their Master’s house”

  When she finished, the cottage felt colder. Wynn resumed her work, wondering how it was that children could make a playful sing-song out of such a dark reality. It chilled her blood to think of it.

  “Where did ya hear that song, Phebe?” Abner asked.

  “The children in the village were singin’ it,” she said, “last time we took the vegetables ta market.”

  “Don’t sing it anymore, little bird, alright?”

  “She doesn’t know what it means, Da,” Amos chimed in.

  “Still,” Abner said, looking his son in the eye. “Still, I’d rather she didn’t.”

  Phebe’s eyes grew large, and her chin quivered. “I didn’t mean to, Da. I won’t sing it no more. I swear it.”

  Abner wrapped her in both his arms and stroked her hair. “Hush, now, little one. It’s alright.”

  The cottage filled with the smoky-green smell of herbs and potatoes, and the family sat down to a dinner of bread and cheese and rich stew. They spoke of their day’s adventures and misadventures, of the progress of the garden and the health of the flock, and soon Wynn was clearing the dishes and tucking the children into their cots.

  “What will I dream of tonight, Ma?” Phebe asked. She had been captured of late by the tale of Maeve, who dreamed of a great light in the sky.

  Wynn kissed her cheek tenderly, careful to avoid the angry scar. “Well, little bird, perhaps you’ll dream the meadow is filled with wildflowers in colors you’ve never even imagined.”

  Amos sat up in his cot. “I’m goin’ ta dream o’ the Pallid Peaks. I’ll be huntin’ fer Sirius, the great black dragon.”

  Amos, Wielder of Fire, Wynn thought to herself. She bent to kiss his forehead, resting a hand on his wayward hair. There’s no end to the boy’s ambition, no limit to his courage. Her mother’s heart twisted with pride and pain.

  Of course, none of them dreamed, and that was a mercy. Dreaming was strange, a rare gift. Dreamers were treated with suspicion and fear, and they often came to bad ends. No mother would wish dreaming on her children.

  Phebe’s small, clear voice broke the silence, bidding goodnight with the familiar phrase.

  “May the light shine upon you.”

  “And you,” they each replied.

  Two

  The mighty River Meander was the heart of Shiloh, and most villages were situated on one of its many branches. From its headwaters on the eastern side of the Black Mountains, the river’s main channel flowed due west, bending south toward the moors when it passed the western limit of the Whispering Wood. Nestled in that crook of the Meander, less than an hour’s walk from the cottage, was the village of Emmerich.

  Amos would have liked to go to the village more often. He would have liked to play with the other boys, who wrestled with each other, spent hours practicing their marksmanship, and swam in the black water of the river. He would have liked, at the very least, to gather the shiny, black stones that littered the riverbank. Those stones made the best arrowheads. But the river was strictly forbidden. Abner would have none of it.

  “There’s evil in that water, Amos,” he would say. “I’ll not have ya goin’ anywhere near the river.”

  Amos had argued the restriction just once with his father, and Abner’s stern reply, with his brow furrowed and his jaw set, had told Amos that he had no chance of changing his father’s mind.

  “It makes ya forget, Amos,” Abner had said, “and ya mustn’t ever forget.”

  “Forget what, Da?” Amos had asked.

  “Who ya are, and what lies beyond,” his father had answered.

  “I won’t forget, Da. Never.” Amos had not asked to go to the river again.

  This morning, they traveled north toward Emmerich, through fields and meadows dotted with dark trees. Wynn walked with a sack strapped to her back, and Abner carried Phebe on his shoulders while Amos led the way, holding aloft an iron lantern to light the path. It was midmorning. Just a few hours would pass before Shiloh lay in full daylight, but even then, lanterns and candles were a necessity, for the Shadow lay like a dense and suffocating blanket over all that country. Its misty fingers stretched from behind the Black Mountains in the east to the very ends of the western horizon, and the brightest light of noonday was no more than a gasp in the breathless darkness.

  Amos knew they were nearing the village not because of any clear view of its cottages or stables. It was the lights that distinguished Emmerich from the land around it. There, lanterns hung from iron hooks in dozens of doorways and along the path that led to Market Circle. The flickering glows of many fires lit the village still more, shining from cottage hearths and from the blacksmith’s furnace. Best of all was the open fire just behind the brewer’s shop where he cooked, in an enormous iron kettle, the potatoes and cherries and huckleberries he used to make his beer and ale. Amos loved the smells that came from that great pot, and he loved the lights of the village. He puffed out the lantern’s flame as he led the family past stables and a few outlying cottages into the heart of the village.

  Men and women bustled about, buying roots and herbs from the apothecary, having their jugs filled with ale, or co
mmissioning work from the town’s craftsmen. Many stopped to stare at Abner and his family, their eyes drawn first to Amos and then to the girl with the scarred face. Orin, the blacksmith, stopped his work to nod in Abner’s direction. His was the first shop on the street, and this morning he was hammering away at a horseshoe. Abner nodded in return just as Caedmon, the carpenter, spoke.

  “And what brings the Clan o’ the Madman ta the village today?”

  A cackle sounded from across the street, where Lark leaned in the doorway of her shop. These two gave them no respite. The broad, hairy carpenter had a special loathing for Abner, and the chandler was no better, though her malice was more often directed toward the rest of the family.

  “What? The whole clan’s ’ere? You’ve even brought the girl?”

  Amos took a step forward, his hands clenching into tight fists, but his father raised a hand to his chest and stopped his advance. Caedmon’s mocking grin faded as Phebe’s face came into view.

  “Careful,” Abner said. “You’ll not speak o’ my daughter again.” It was not a request, and the carpenter knew it. He kept silent and turned back to his work.

  “I’ll take ’er ta see Darby,” Wynn whispered to her husband. He nodded once, and Wynn and Phebe hurried off to the weaver’s shop.

  “Amos, can ya wait here a while?”

  “Where ya goin’, Da? I’ll go with ya.”

  Abner sighed, his shoulders sinking. “I’m goin’ ta the apothecary’s shop ta see about somethin’ fer Phebe. Can ya wait here, just fer a bit?”

  “Aye.” Amos looked around Market Circle as his father moved away. Today was not market day, and the few stalls that surrounded the circle stood empty and forlorn in the dim light. Beneath Amos’s feet a wide stone mosaic marked the village as belonging to the Fire Clan. Its three tongues of flame, laid out in black stone, stretched inward from the edges of the circle. There they met and twisted around a smoothly polished chunk of edanna, which glowed red-gold in the light of the lanterns. Across from the circle, near the river, stood the magistrate’s hall. Amos listened for the sound of the latest village dispute, but the voices he heard came from the southern corner of the hall, a poorly lit portion of town out of sight of the villagers’ cottages. He moved in quietly, eyes and ears alert.