“Ya think so?” Simeon said. “I’ll be glad if I get in one good shot.”
“You’ll do better than that, Sim. You’ll show Ferlin what a great marksman looks like.” He smiled his easy smile and glanced in the direction of Ferlin’s camp.
Orin and Abner sat across from the boys in quiet conversation. But beyond them, from the other campfires, Amos and Simeon could hear stories being told. The Tale of Grosvenor was repeated often, and the story of how Hammond rescued his village from an army of Shadow Wolves was another favorite. Hammond, the most ancient hero of Shiloh, had been the first to learn that fire could destroy the wolves. He had built a great trench of flame around his village; he’d shot fiery arrows and thrown balls of fire into their ranks. The hunters boomed as they told the story, as though the sound of their voices would frighten away the beasts that lurked in the undergrowth. They didn’t have to wonder. They knew they were being hunted.
Early on the second day, something happened. Simeon, thinking he saw the movement of a deer, had loosed an arrow into a tangle of dark trees. A few of the men nearest him had stopped, asked him to describe what he saw, then hurried on in disgust. Even Orin had thought it unwise to go and check on his “kill.” The risk was too great.
“Lousy waste of an arrow,” Simeon had said. He’d given the ground a frustrated kick and fallen back into step with the others, not even noticing when Amos slipped off the path.
Amos had seen something as well, something that reflected the light of the passing torches. He moved quickly, silent as shadow, covering twenty paces, thirty, forty. Behind him, the hunters’ lights grew dim, but he pressed on until he came to a little rise in the land and something sticking out of the dirt. He knelt to clear away the surrounding soil and unearthed a shining, silver object no longer than his hand. Without stopping to examine it more closely, he tucked it into his trousers, hurried back across the wood, and slipped unnoticed into the line of hunters. Later that day, a man named Ingram disappeared. Whether taken by wolves or cats or merely lost in the wood, even his partner could not say.
On the third day, they crossed the river. There, the northernmost of the Three Bridges spanned the black water. It sloshed and foamed beneath their feet, reflecting in strange, fitful bursts the lights of the lanterns and torches above it. On the fourth day, someone discovered elk tracks. A large herd was moving east, toward the grasslands between the wood and the mountains.
The hunters quickened their pace. Every man and boy in that company longed to be free of the oppressive dark of the wood. Their days and nights were running together. The hours of putting one foot in front of the other, holding torches and lanterns high, peering into the featureless darkness, jumping at every snapping branch or crunching leaf, had worn them down.
But when the thick net of vines and trees came to an abrupt halt, and a wide, grassy land opened up before them, they did not step out. The seasoned hunters knew that if they could sneak up on the herd, they could take down several of the animals before they had time to react. They kept to the forest, veering away from the Hunter’s Path to creep through the undergrowth within the shadow of the trees. They used as little light as possible, the large company splitting into smaller groups, each man poised to strike at the first sign of movement from the herd.
Abner walked ahead with Simeon and Orin, bow in hand, arrow at the ready. But Amos hung back. He longed to bring down a bull elk by himself, and he had yet to match his father’s strength and skill with the bow. If he wanted a chance at a kill of his own, he would have to move away from the group.
At last, they were spotted. The herd must have been at least a hundred strong. They were grazing quietly in the grasses under the shadow of the mountains. Though the light was faint, Amos could see the bulls’ widespreading antlers moving up and down in the grass. He held his breath. And in that moment of perfect silence before the first arrow of the Great Hunt flew, Amos heard something he hadn’t expected to hear. Ahead of him and to his left, in a black tangle of trees, there was a menacing growl. Two orange-gold eyes burned through the dusky light, and they were fixed on Abner.
Time slowed to a crawl. Abner’s bow was raised, his eyes on the herd. The beast, with fangs bared, leaped into the air. Abner pulled the arrow almost to his nose, closed his left eye, and released the string. Behind him the wolf seemed suspended in midair.
“No!” Amos screamed. He pulled an arrow from his quiver, fitted it to the string, and let it fly. It burst into flame as it covered the ground between Amos and the monster. But it was too late. The wolf had descended on Abner and enveloped him in twilight. Its fangs sank into Abner’s neck, its claws into his back. He struggled, thrashed, then shuddered and fell beneath the weight of the beast. By the time the arrow found its mark, Abner’s lifeblood was spilling out on the ground.
Amos reached his father just as the fire consumed the Shadow Wolf and it blew away in fume and smoke.
“Da! Da! I’m here.”
Abner lay in a heap. His son gently turned him on his side and stared in horror at his ravaged body.
“I’m sorry, Da. I’m so sorry. I should’ve stayed with ya.”
Tears slipped from Amos’s eyes. He shook his head in disbelief. He could not understand. In his mind he heard the echo of Hadrian’s voice. I know what waits for you in the Shadow. It was not the dragons, not the cats, not even the wolves. This was a darkness more vast and deep than any of those small foes.
“No, m’ boy. Don’t be sorry.” Abner’s breathing was labored, ragged. “Tell yer ma I love ’er. Tell Phebe never ta stop ’er singin’.”
Amos crouched over his father with one hand supporting his head. The other hand rested on his father’s chest. He could feel the feeble beating of his heart. Amos’s own heart felt shattered into a thousand bloody pieces.
“Amos,” Abner looked his son square in the eyes. “Ya mustn’t forget who ya are. There’s more than Shadow. Don’t forget.”
Long ago, Amos had promised that he wouldn’t forget. But this time he couldn’t speak. With all his remaining strength, Abner placed his hand over his son’s and squeezed it lightly. “May the light shine upon you, m’ boy,” he whispered. His eyes closed, and he was gone.
Amos threw back his head and screamed his agony at the ashen sky. The awful, throbbing pain that racked his body, his mind, was spewed out into the heavens. But there was no answer from the darkness above him. No light broke through the cloud. No stars shone through the night. No help arrived. Nothing happened. Nothing. There was only silence. And the cold indifference of the changeless gray sky.
Fourteen
Amidst a blaze of torches, a silent procession made its way south.
Abner’s body, spread out on a makeshift cot, seemed to float through the twilit country, for he was carried on the shoulders of four strong hunters. Orin was among them, and nearby were Simeon and Amos. The soft padding of leather boots on grass and stone, the faint crackle of the torch fires, and the heavy breathing of the men were the only sounds that could be heard, but a soundless scream echoed out from Amos’s heart as he made his slow way home.
He remembered nothing of the journey, only the jolting realization that he had reached the lane leading up to the cottage. To his right was the split-rail fence, half covered with the dead remains of the summer jasmine. To his left, looming larger and closer in the gathering dark, was home. He had always thought of the cottage as a living thing: a warm, breathing part of his family, but now the dead dark of his father’s eyes spilled ahead of him, spreading down the lane, threatening to extinguish the fragile glow of the cottage.
There was no way to postpone that meeting, no way to avoid being seen. The women, no doubt waiting anxiously for their return, would be watching the road. When they saw the torches, they would know. Amos felt his muscles tense, his hand working against his will, his jaw set tight. Then he heard it: Phebe’s cry. It burst from the ope
n door of the cottage and filled the meadow, clinging like mist to the brown rushes. More terrifying still was his mother’s silence. She stood like stone in the doorway, the drop-spindle hanging limp in her hand.
The procession continued. Those men who did not carry the body gathered branches and stones as they passed. A hundred paces south of the cottage, in sight of the windows where light still shone, they set up a mound, piling stone on stone and branch on branch. Even Amos, the blood cold in his veins, lifted wood onto the mound before Orin and the others hoisted Abner’s death cot to the top. It was tradition. Someone set fire to the wood. This, too, was tradition in Shiloh. Without pause, without ceremony, the dead were “given back to the light.” What light, none could have said. The phrase had lost all meaning, drifting down from some forgotten past.
Simeon wept little boy tears as Abner’s body burned; Orin put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed tight. Phebe, too, shed silent tears as her father and protector disappeared in smoke. But Wynn was mute, and Amos as well. He stood thinking about light, about sun and stars and whatever light his father’s burning body was being transferred into. It all seemed thin, foolish even, when cold eyes melted in hot flames. His father, his hero, was fading away forever. In moments, only ash would tell the tale of Abner’s existence. That man’s great strength would be utterly consumed by the power of those relentless yellow-orange flames. Their hunger was never satisfied. They could lick up a man’s body and his life and his hope, and still they would keep devouring.
Phebe’s voice, small and tremulous, broke the weighty silence with a strange lament.
Whither, whither little maiden?
Whither light and laughter gone?
Wherefore would the
Darkness take thee
From the warmth of Mother’s arms?
Inta Shadow
I must follow,
Inta twilight, inta death,
Though immortal gods oppose me,
Though I find no place of rest.
Ever onward,
Never homeward
’Til my heart be whole again.
Whither, whither
Little maiden?
Come ta me, my Imogen.
And that was all. One by one, the hunters scattered, fading into the dark of the countryside. Simeon walked home with Orin’s hand still grasping his shoulder. Wynn and Phebe stood long at the pyre before returning to the cottage. But Amos stayed all through that night, in the light of the devouring flame, until the very last ember cooled to black and the fire was gone.
He woke and waited in the quiet, without opening his eyes, allowing his mind to surface slowly from the depths of exhausted sleep. He had a vague memory of stumbling over the threshold, of falling into his cot; and someone must have covered him, for he could feel the weight of wool blankets against his chest. His left hand ached, his fingers clenched around something long and stiff. Then he remembered the belt. One of the men had thought to remove his father’s leather belt, the one with the sign of the Fire Clan branded into the pouch, before the pyre was lit. Amos had seen it resting near the mound and brought it inside. I shouldn’t have it, he thought. Not yet. It should’ve been a gift for my coming of age.
Soon Amos was aware of the sounds in the cottage: the slow, rhythmic creaking of the rocking chair where he knew his mother sat gazing into the fire, the dull thudding of a knife slicing through potatoes into the surface of the table, the groaning joints of his cot when he shifted his weight. It was all so familiar. Except for the void of sound that should have been filled by Abner. There should have been a shuffling as his father carried firewood to pile on the hearth, or perhaps the rough scratching of his father’s hand over his stubbly chin. There should have been a smooth rustle of an oiled cloth on a wooden bow, and someone should have been telling tales to his “dear ones” as he rubbed the knee of his leather trousers.
Amos took the risk, the immense risk, of opening his eyes and surveying the cottage. As he had guessed, his mother sat in her chair by the fire, mechanically gathering and hooking tufts of raw wool with one hand. The other hand dropped the spindle with a flick, and wild clouds of gray were twisted and tamed. She dropped the spindle again and again before wrapping up the newly spun yarn and starting over. There was a strange sort of comfort in the work. The rhythm and repetition were like a heartbeat pulsing through the cottage. At the table, Phebe steadily chopped potatoes, long strands of hair spilling over her thin shoulders and arms.
But there was no one else.
“Awake at last, Amos?” Phebe had noticed his movements.
“Aye,” he answered, unable to say more when he looked into her red, swollen eyes.
Wynn turned to face him, pausing briefly from her spinning. “We could use more firewood, Amos. Are ya up ta choppin’ some today?”
“Aye,” he said again, grateful for an excuse to leave. He sat up awkwardly, tucking Abner’s belt under his tunic, and made for the door. He ran past the sheepfold and the mound, through the trees to the little glade, where his old target still hung on the tree. When his feet reached the brim of the lake, he pulled his father’s belt from beneath his tunic. He touched the worn leather, running his finger over the branding on the pouch. A scrap of wool was caught in the belt. Amos tugged it loose. It was caked with blood.
He roared in rage and grief and hurled his father’s belt and the scrap of fabric into the lake. The belt sank. The bloody fabric floated on the surface of the water.
He tossed a stone at the scrap and missed. He tried again and missed. “By Ulff! Sink, ya cursed thing!” he screamed. And the scrap of wool caught fire.
He had never sworn by the Shadow Lord before, and a little nagging voice at the back of his head told him his father would not approve.
His father. Da.
The thought struck him again, hard. Abner was gone. It was as if Hammond had never beaten the wolves, as if Grosvenor had never slain the dragon. The story had gone wrong. The hero had fallen.
The lonely hooting of an owl drifted down from the branches overhead, and Amos turned to go. His foot bumped against something, and looking down, he noticed the silver tube he had slipped into his trousers during the hunt. Like so many other things, it had been forgotten, but now he picked it up and examined it closely. It shone bright and smooth, much like edanna but without the red-gold hue. The tube was no longer than his hand, but it could be extended to more than twice that length. He stretched it to its full span, noticing that each section was smaller than the last. On each end was a circle of glass, and engraved on the side were these words: “Until the day breaks, and the Shadows flee away.”
Amos wasn’t interested in the origin or the purpose of the glass. He had no heart for it. When he returned to the cottage, he tossed the thing into the trunk against the back wall.
“What o’ the firewood, Amos?” Wynn asked.
Phebe stopped her chopping and looked at him carefully. “Are ya alright?”
“Aye,” he said to his sister. “I’ll get it now, Ma.” He hoisted the axe over his shoulder, left the cabin, and set to work, pounding out a desperate rhythm of his own.
Fifteen
Simeon was at the door the next morning, nearly collapsing under the weight of a large slab of meat and a heavy sack.
“Ma sent the bread and potatoes,” he explained, emptying the contents of the sack onto the table. “The meat’s from Orin. The shop was busy today, or he’d have come.” It was a whole side of venison, salted and dried.
Simeon had thought long, on his journey from Emmerich, about what he should say to Amos, or to any of them. The image of the wolf in his dream still haunted him. Its eyes had so resembled those of the monster that killed Abner. He wondered now if he shouldn’t have told someone about the dream. Then, it had seemed such a risk. But what if his dream had been sent as a warning? What if he’d been intended to
speak up, to warn Abner, to change the dark course of events that had unfolded in the wood?
He sank onto the bench by the familiar wooden table and waited, his eyes flickering from Phebe, who was carding wool in a corner, to Wynn, who worked her spindle silently by the fire, to Amos, who sat on his cot, stripping the bark from a pile of branches. Only Phebe looked back with a smile. It was pained, but kind.
“Ya must thank them fer us, Sim,” she said.
“’Twas kind o’ yer ma, Sim, but Orin needn’t have bothered.” Wynn lifted her eyes from the fire and paused in her spinning to nod in her son’s direction. “Amos is as fine a hunter as ’is father.”
Amos froze. His dagger waited halfway down the side of what would soon become the shaft of a new arrow. Simeon could see the tremble in his hand, the hesitation. He saw the blank, unfocused eyes, the lips slightly parted. He saw the pulse race in his friend’s neck. It stopped him cold. Not in five years of danger and adventure and conflict and darkness had he seen Amos like this. Amos was afraid.
And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the look of fear passed. Simeon watched as Amos’s expression changed. His eyes narrowed. His mouth closed, the muscles in his jaw contracting fiercely.
“You’d have me go back inta the Whisperin’ Wood, Ma?” he said.
“You could go south,” she replied.
“There’s not enough large game ta the south, not enough ta feed us through the winter,” Amos countered.
“East then.” Her words kept time with the creak of the rocking chair.
“Toward the Black Mountains?” The dagger dropped from his hand. “Why not send me ta fetch dragons from the Pallid Peaks? Perhaps I could storm the gates o’ Shadow Castle on the journey home? Would that please ya, Ma?!”
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