Shiloh

by Helena Sorensen

  Amos was beginning to feel foolish, but he gave the answer his father would have given. “Who ya are. And what lies beyond the Shadow.”

  Mordecai smiled. “I don’t think even you knew who you were before today, Amos.” He continued the methodical sharpening of his dagger. “And it’s only madmen who believe in some mysterious world beyond the Shadow.”

  Amos bristled. “My da was no madman!”

  “Have you ever seen it, Amos, this ‘sun’ Evander spoke of? Have you seen bright lights in the sky, these so-called ‘stars’? Have you ever spoken to a man who saw them?”

  Amos shifted on his feet, wishing he had some other answer. “No,” he admitted.

  “Did Evander ever find what he was looking for? Or the sons of Burke?” Mordecai paused before dealing the final blow. “Was there anything but Shadow for your father?”

  The muscles in Amos’s jaw clenched.

  “It’s past midday, Amos. Take a look around you. What do you see?” The thick dark of the wood surrounded Amos on three sides. His eyes could discern only the nearest of the branches and shrubs that crowded together in the dusk. To the south, where the wood ended, the meadow was obscured by gray haze.

  “I see darkness,” he said at last. “Shadow.”

  “Of course you do. That’s what is. Your eyes don’t deceive you, Amos. You see Shadow because the Shadow is all that is real.”

  “But what about before the Shadow fell?” he argued, remembering his father’s words about the Cataclysm. “Wasn’t there a time when things were different, when men didn’t live in darkness?”

  Mordecai’s voice was calm, his words sounding steadily over the ring of metal on stone. “There’s no before the Shadow, Amos; no beyond the Shadow.”

  No before the Shadow . . . no beyond the Shadow. The phrases were heavy. Sharp as iron, hard as stone. They filled the stretching silence and Amos slumped to the ground, overcome by weariness.

  The hairline fracture in the foundation of his life was broadening. He felt the shifting, the shaking of all he had once held sacred.

  It seemed a great risk, now, to argue with Mordecai. This stranger had an air of such confidence, such certainty. But Amos ventured one more question.

  “Have ya been ta the watchtowers, Mordecai? Or ta the other side o’ the Black Mountains? How do ya know there’s nothin’ beyond the Shadow if ya live right in the heart of it?”

  Mordecai’s eyes flashed a brighter, fiercer green. “I’ve traveled far, boy,” he said, as he rose to his feet, pocketed his stone, and sheathed his dagger. “I’ve lived longer and seen more. And I won’t waste breath on a mad whelp, no matter what his gifts.” He took two steps away from Amos before turning and speaking again.

  “If you hold to this madness, you’ll come to the same end as Abner.” He paused, raised his brows, and said, “You’re more than that, Amos. Don’t waste your time, your power on some fool’s hope. Let it die with your father.”

  Seventeen

  Echo grew into a fine horse, and Isolde spent many an hour braiding her shiny black mane. To Echo, she told everything that she could tell no one else. All that lay unspoken in her heart found a voice in the quiet of the little stable, where the chestnut mare stood twitching her ears and nickering softly. Whenever the atmosphere within the cottage became unbearable and the weather prevented her from summiting the hill, Isolde fled to Echo’s side, leaning against her neck and feeling the animal’s warm breath in her hand.

  In the winter of Isolde’s seventeenth year, not long before she was to come of age, the snows from the Pallid Peaks swept down on the village of Fleete. Hunters kept to their cottages, and lean times became starving times. Still, the sisters sat before the hearth and braided each other’s hair, talking of the coming-of-age celebration, the gifts, the blessing.

  “Do ya think they’ll bring weapons?” Isolde asked, half teasing. Weapons were not traditional gifts for a girl coming of age, but she would prefer them to pots and blankets and shifts.

  “No decent woman o’ marriageable age would carry them,” Rosalyn answered back, smirking.

  “I’d be glad of anything, so long as it’s not another wretched shift.” Isolde yanked at the long gray gown, pulling it up into a wad above her knees.

  The two sat listening to the wind tear through the village, screaming around the corners of every cottage and stable and shop. Isolde could sense that Rosalyn was troubled.

  “The man I told you of, he’s been hangin’ around the cottage again. Yesterday, I nearly cried out when I saw ’is face in the window.”

  “The window?! So close?” Isolde whipped around to face her sister, and the half-finished braid slipped from Rosalyn’s fingers. “Let’s be rid of ’im, then! He’ll flee ta the peaks, ta the arms o’ the dragons themselves when I have done with ’im.”

  Rosalyn gave a sad smile and rose to peel the few potatoes that would serve as their evening meal. It was dangerous to be beautiful in Shiloh. Her dark, flashing eyes, full lips, and luxurious curling hair were more a curse than a blessing.

  “I have ta marry some time, Isolde. It’s been three years since I came of age.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “Never thought I’d make it this long.”

  “It isn’t graven in stone! You don’t have ta marry!” Isolde wanted to shake her sister, to break her thoughts out of their familiar tracks.

  “It’s no more than our own mothers did. We can’t all break with tradition, Isolde.” She diced the now-peeled potato into little squares and scooped them into the kettle. “And I know what you’re thinkin’. But ya can’t protect me. There’ll come a moment when you’re not here, when you’re not lookin’. And someone will come fer me.”

  “But what if you’re carried away south o’ the wood or inta the western villages? What then?!”

  “Oh, you’ll find me, daughter o’ Valour.” Rosalyn touched the sun charm that hung on her neck. The door swung open, and Sullivan stumbled in.

  “It’s no use. There’s nothin’ left ta kill, and I couldn’t see it if there were. The valleys fer miles ’round are full o’ snow and ice.” He sat heavily in a chair in front of the hearth and said no more, while the girls busied themselves with boiling potatoes and keeping the fire fueled with dry logs from the dwindling stack in the stable.

  The blizzard roared and howled through the streets of Fleete for days before Sullivan made up his mind to butcher the horse. By then, his stomach was tight with hunger.

  “No! Not Echo, Da. Ya can’t!” It had been some years since Isolde had taken the risk of defying her father. In seconds, she remembered why. The man moved with remarkable speed and agility when he wanted to, and before she could draw her dagger, Isolde’s neck was twisted back at an awkward and painful angle. The lovely red hair at the back of her head was wadded in her father’s clenched fist.

  “It’ll be you, Isolde, if not the mare.”

  There was no anger in his voice. Just the still, cold certainty of his resolve. After a moment, he released his grip.

  “Now go and make some use o’ yourself. Get some wood from the stable.” He drew his knife from the sheath on his belt and pulled a whetting stone from the pocket that hung on his other hip. He would slit Echo’s throat, hack her lovely coat to bits, and feast. He would do it without the smallest thought for the animal, for his daughter’s feelings, for anything but the need of the moment.

  Isolde threw a cloak over her shoulders and stepped into the cutting wind. She had just the briefest start, just the tiniest window of opportunity. And she took it. Echo was saddled in record speed, and the two companions pressed out into the white-dark.

  To the north of Fleete were the Pallid Peaks. To the east and west, hill country. Isolde rode south, pushing Echo as hard as she dared through the blinding snow.

  They traveled hour upon hour. Isolde’s legs ached and burned with cold and weariness;
her cheeks were chapped from the fierce wind. Echo’s mane and lashes were coated in ice when they saw the faint lights of the first village to the south of Fleete. Girl and horse huddled against the wall of one little cottage, beneath the overhanging roof, and rested for a while out of the wind. But Isolde had made up her mind to take Echo beyond her father’s reach. And when the blood had just begun to flow, hot and pricking, into her legs and feet, she mounted and rode on.

  Next morning, the blizzard came to an abrupt end, and they soon passed through towns untouched by the storm. By midday, they had reached the village of Dunn on the northeast corner of the Whispering Wood. Isolde hoped that her father would never venture this far in search of an animal he would have butchered without a thought.

  She left her lovely chestnut mare with a wizened old stable keeper, giving her mother’s dagger in exchange for Echo’s lodging and food. It was all she had to give, though far too valuable for what the aged man would expend on the horse’s care. He wrapped some dried venison, a hunk of soft cheese, and a skin of water in a bit of rough cloth and handed it to Isolde with a little reassuring pat on her shoulder. She said goodbye to Echo then, rubbing her neck and stroking her nose.

  “I’ll come back, ya know. I’d stay, but I can’t leave Rosalyn. Not now.” Echo stamped and tossed her head, snorting.

  “You’ll be safe here.” Isolde swallowed hard. “Goodbye, my friend.”

  The journey home took the better part of four days. It was only the mercy of the gods, or perhaps the thick-piled snow, that kept the Shadow Wolves away. But Isolde trembled to think what punishment awaited her.

  When she stepped across the threshold, foot-sore, weary, and aching with hunger, Sullivan rose from his seat before the fire. He took his daughter’s flame-red hair in his hand and drew his sharpened dagger from his belt.

  “Da, NO!” Rosalyn grabbed his arm. Sullivan thrust his elbow into her face and knocked her to the ground. Isolde had no strength to wrestle free from his iron grip, but she cried out when he cut the shining hair from her head, gouging into the tender flesh on the back of her skull. He tossed the silken mass into the fire and stalked out. The reek of burnt hair filled the cottage.

  Rosalyn clambered up to embrace her sister, and the two wept as the blood dripped down Isolde’s neck. Rosalyn cleaned the wound and bandaged it. There was nothing else to be done. The ragged remnants of hair were too wild to be tamed into a braid.

  As it happened, the next day was Isolde’s coming of age. She should have been richly dressed, in a white shift embroidered with the sign of the Sun Clan. Her hair should have been braided and adorned with flowers. The villagers should have come throughout the day to flood the cottage with gifts. They should have returned in the evening to see Isolde receive the blessing. They should have gathered in the square, feasting and dancing into the close black hours of the night.

  But the hard winter and the blizzard had left them all in want. There was nothing to trade for the white wool to make a coming-of-age gown, no one able or willing to offer a blessing. Two or three villagers tapped lightly at the door, left some small token, and hurried back to their cottages. But the ceremony and the feast were forgotten, impossible. Isolde was left to enter womanhood in silence, bearing the wounds of her father’s brutality and the grief of her people’s neglect. Far into the night she sat at the summit of the hill, staring into the immense, unknowable darkness, searching for flashes of dragon fire and dreaming of Valour’s Glass.

  Eighteen

  When Amos came through the door, he found his mother distraught. She paced back and forth between the windows and the hearth, wringing her hands and shaking her head. Her eyes were wild. “She’s gone,” Wynn said when she caught sight of Amos. “They came and ya weren’t here, and she went out inta the night. She’s gone.” She had the look of a frightened, abandoned child. “Ya weren’t here,” she repeated. “They came back, and ya weren’t here ta protect us.”

  “Who came, Ma? What happened?” Amos asked.

  But Wynn could only shake her head and mutter, “Ya weren’t here.”

  Amos glanced around the cottage and felt his heart skip a beat. There was no sign of Phebe. He spun around and raced back through the door.

  He scanned the lane, the fence, the meadow, the garden, frantically seeking some sign of his sister, but his eyes told him nothing. His ears spoke more clearly, answering his questions with what they did not hear. The wind was still, the sheep silent. Oh, no . . . no, no, no . . . not the cats. Is it the cats who’ve come and gone? Where is Phebe?! He turned, running toward the sheepfold with more speed than his legs had ever known. And there was his sister, kneeling on the ground, her shift soaked in blood. No! his heart screamed. Not her. Not Phebe, too!

  “Phebe!” he shouted, dropping to his knees beside her and grabbing her by the shoulders. In the torchlight, he could see her face, wet with tears and pale with exhaustion. Her head fell onto his shoulder, her body shaking with sobs.

  “They came back, Amos.” She gestured toward the fold, littered with the half-devoured remains of the sheep. The cats had wiped out their entire flock. On the ground beside Phebe was a little lamb, its face distorted by bloody gashes. The pitiful creature made a gargled, strangled cry, twitched, and was still. It was the lamb’s blood that stained Phebe’s shift and not her own. Amos sighed with relief.

  “And Da wasn’t here . . . he’s not here,” she continued. Behind them, the ruin of the mound hovered, ghostlike, on the edge of sight.

  “What’re we goin’ ta do?” Phebe sat up and looked hard into her brother’s face. Her eyes begged him for some flicker of hope.

  Amos held his sister’s eyes for a moment, aching for her. He lifted a hand to her cheek, brushing his thumb lightly over her scar. Phebe reacted automatically, jerking away from his hand and turning her face to the shadows. She took a shuddering breath before looking back at him.

  “Please, Amos. What’re we goin’ ta do?”

  Amos gripped the claw that hung around his neck. Once, it had been his trophy of battle. Now it mocked him. The boy who slew the Shadow Wolf was not strong enough to shoulder the burdens of this dark, new world. That Amos could not survive in a world where Abner was dead, a world where winter was closing in and his family was without meat, without wool, without protection. He would have to become someone else, someone stronger. He would have to be wildly powerful and utterly fearless.

  “Don’t fret, little bird,” he said. “I’ll take care o’ ya.”

  He thought he heard a voice, a whispered plea from the burial mound. There’s still hope, Amos. Ya mustn’t forget. But Amos saw only one path before him, and Mordecai waited on its threshold. So, with determined fingers, Amos extinguished the shining flame of hope that had lit all his boyhood years. He yanked the cord from his neck and tossed it out into the brush. His choice was made.

  Next morning, Mordecai was waiting for him. Nothing else was said about Amos’s choice, about his father, about anything before or beyond the Shadow. All that was laid to rest, and Mordecai resumed his training.

  He began that day by reviewing with Amos the skill required to focus his mind, his energy on calling up fire. At first, Amos had to breathe deeply, and wait long, his muscles tensed in anticipation. But as the days passed, Amos progressed. With hardly a thought, he could send the flames shooting up from his palms or sprouting out of his fingertips.

  Late one evening, Mordecai took his instructions to a new level. “Can you see the shrub over there? The one just this side of the thicket?”

  “Aye.”

  “I want you to focus all your energy on that shrub and set it alight. Have your bow and arrow at the ready.”

  “But I’ve never burned anything that way before,” Amos protested. “I need ta have my hand free.” He had forgotten about the arrow that killed the wolf on the last day of the hunt. It burst into flame in midair, though Amos’s
breath hadn’t touched it. He had willed the arrow to burn, and it had obeyed.

  “No, you don’t. The power doesn’t lie in your hand, Amos. Now burn it.”

  “Mordecai,” Amos asked, “why don’t you have power over fire? Ya know a great deal about it.”

  “Wielding fire is not my particular gift,” he answered.

  “Then what is yer gift?”

  “Call it adaptability. Now . . . focus, Amos. Set fire to the shrub, and have your arrow ready.”

  Reluctantly, Amos dismissed Mordecai’s cryptic reply and pulled an arrow from his quiver. With all the easy grace and skill of a master bowman, he fitted it to the string and gripped it lightly with three fingers. Then he lowered the bow and fixed his eyes on the shrub’s dark leaves. They looked as if they’d been burned already. He took a deep breath and held it.

  An image of the Shadow Wolf, dissolving in vapor and smoke, conquered by the light of one fiery arrow, came to Amos’s mind. He remembered the fading glare of the cat’s eyes as it succumbed to fire and drifted away. And then he saw his father’s body, licked up by insatiable tongues of flame. That bright, hot force was master of the wolves and cats, stronger even than his father. And Amos was master of the flame.

  He let out a controlled breath, and as he did, he saw a worm-like curl of orange on the tip of a black leaf. It spread, until the whole leaf was glowing, then another, and another. The bush was burning! Flames overtook it, and something scurried out into the open. It was a small brown rabbit, escaping the desolation of its cozy home. Suddenly, Amos understood. He knew what Mordecai was expecting him to do. He killed the poor creature without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Well done!” Mordecai said.

  Amos gave him a half-smile, then grabbed the rabbit and threw it over his shoulder. At least we’ll eat well tonight, he thought. He took no pride in such a kill, but that mattered little now. He would ignore the sinking sensation in his belly, for what other choice had he, really?