by Ellyn, Court
He felt small and unimportant then, as he felt when he dived into the illimitable depths of the sea.
By the time he reached Brimlad, he calculated he could’ve walked from Sandy Cape to Rystia and back again three times. Dusk approached, and a chilly clear night. The city lights hugged the coastline as if desperate for water and desperate to keep out of it. High atop the buttresses of a rocky hill, a castle overlooked the busy streets and bustling piers. Barges and merchanters navigated between the banks of a wide river that spilled yellow into the sea, and though Rhian didn’t know it, the flat green land on the other side was another kingdom altogether. Inside the city gates, a swinging sign boasted a foaming tankard. His legs gave out inside the tavern’s door, and he sank stiff-kneed and grateful onto a barstool. He cared not one lick about the regulars staring from their favorite tables, but indulged in a sigh as his spine and hips relaxed.
“Well, well, drifter, you look as worn as the ‘eel of me stocking,” said the woman behind the bar. “You need a cold beer.”
Rhian shook his head. “No money.” He raked his hair from his face and glanced up at the woman.
“Ooh, lovely.”
He turned his eyes down to the bar. Get used to it, eejit. Everyone will be a stranger from now on.
The bar wench cast him a gap-toothed grin and pushed a mug toward him. “This one’s on me, then.”
Feeling foreign and exposed, he curled his hands around the mug as if it were as steady as an anchor.
The woman leaned on the bar, her arms pressing her bosom up in ivory mounds. “Anything else ol’ Mirnah can do for ya, love?”
“Well,” he began, glancing at her through his lashes and making use of the eyes he hated, “I haven’t ate a thing since last night.” He let one of his hands fall to the bar and brush her arm. “I was shipwrecked, see? Been walking all day, so I have. Lost everything.”
“Oh, that storm last night! You poor thing. That musta been terrible frightening.” She grabbed a bell from the counter, shook like it was her holy duty, and bellowed toward a side door, “Trini! Bread and mutton. Double ‘elping!” A kitchen wench whisked through the door, both hands full of bread trenchers and mutton stew. She plopped the food down on the bar and the barmaid slid it down to Rhian. “There now,” she said, propping up her bosom again. “Anything else?”
Rhian just wanted to devour the food in peace, but he didn’t dare snub the woman now and lose her favor. He set aside the wooden spoon and tried to look pathetic. Couldn’t be too hard, as sea-tossed as he felt. “Maybe a place to sleep? And information.”
She squirmed with excitement. “Information about what?”
“About an avedra named Thorn?”
“Drifter, you get more interesting by the minute. And I think I can ‘elp ya there, too.” She put her forefinger and thumb into her mouth and let loose a piercing whistle. Silence plunged through the tavern, and Mirnah waved to one of the dozen faces turned her direction. “Ahmis, come over ‘ere. Tell ya story to me new friend.”
A barrel-chested man with a grizzled beard hanging halfway to his belly rose from a far table. He jostled aside a crowd of dice throwers and sat at the bar beside Rhian. “What’s that, Mirnah?”
“Me friend ‘ere asked about Thorn.” She spoke the name as though it were sacred.
Ahmis’s furry eyebrows leapt high, and he took a slow measure of the drifter. “Oh, ‘e did?”
Rhian escaped the man’s scrutiny behind a long pull from his mug. “You know him?”
“Know ‘im, ‘ell!” Ahmis exclaimed. “I seen ‘im in action, I ‘ave. I were a archer, see. Under ‘Is Lordship, Davhin of Vonmora. In the last war. Reckon you weren’t even born then, lad.”
Curse this beardless face, Rhian thought. “It’s two I was when it ended, sir. A cousin of mine was captain of one of the Evaronnan blockade ships.”
“We be allies then,” Ahmis declared, clapping Rhian on the back with an arm still mighty enough to draw a heavy-pound war bow. “Mirnah, get ‘im another beer.”
Smiling crookedly, the proprietor set a pair of mugs in front of both men.
Ahmis gulped down half his beer, slammed down the mug. “Aye, Thorn Kingshield, then. At Little Bridge, it were. We was marchin’ to Tor Roth, last days of the war, when King Shadryk ‘isself comes marching over the ‘ill at us, leading ‘is army of Flaming Shavers and their Dragons. Fire-breathin’, they was, and tall as towers. Wings that stirred up a mighty storm—”
“Now, Ahmis,” chided Mirnah.
The man glowered into his mug. “Well, maybe they didn’t have wings.” Rallying, he tossed up his hands in the manner of a true showman. “But there they was, flooding the valley below while we ran to take up position.” He swept up the salt dishes and set them on the bar just so. “We covered these ‘ills, we archers did, with the Zhiani Shavers charging between. Our arrows were many, but we couldn’t bring down all those mercenaries or pierce the dragons’ hides. And ‘ere, on this ‘ill, waits the War Commander, cool as you please, and he points to Thorn Kingshield and says, ‘Stop their advance, brother.’ They’s brothers, you see, the War Commander and the avedra. So off he goes, and we got the best seat in the ‘ouse, we archers. All by ‘isself, Thorn marches down that ‘ill and stares those Shavers square in the eye. My mates and me, we were sure they’d run ‘im down, make mincemeat outta ‘im right quick. But then ‘is arms rise, just like this, and fire comes sweepin’ outta the sky, a cyclone of fire, so ‘elp me Goddess! Then all of a sudden, the cyclone thunders toward the ground, and storms of fire flood the valley, sweeping over those Shavers and bursting the Dragons’ bellies. What Zhianese weren’t burnt up turned tail and fled back to Zhian, never to be seen on these shores again.
“And their prince? Thorn gives him special regard, aye, so ‘e does. A great ring of fire springs up around that cowardly scut. He screams and begs for mercy, but the fires close like two hands coming together, whap! and leave nothing of the prince but ashes and wind. We won the war shortly after.” Ahmis ended with a single sharp nod as if it were his seal of guarantee.
Rhian’s eyes felt as big as oyster shells. He remembered to blink and breathe. Shoving a spoonful of stew into his mouth, he also remembered the net-maker’s warning to be careful about what he believed.
“Aye, Thorn Kingshield turned the tide in our favor, for sure, but I never got the chance to thank ‘im. Shame, that.”
“What do you mean? He’s not dead, is he?”
The man shrugged massive shoulders. “Dunno. He were a young fella then. Still is compared to me, I s’pose. We ‘ear about ‘im on occasion, traveling the eastern parts. ‘E don’t come this way though.”
“I don’t guess you’d know how I might find him?” Rhian asked, nonchalant.
Ahmis’s big hands hugged his mug, and his booming voice lowered to a gruff whisper. “Who can say these days, what with the vanishings?”
“Vanishings?”
Mirnah grunted disapproval; her towel-swaddled hand dug inside a mug, polishing away the water spots as if they were as offensive as gossip. “Don’t talk about it, Ahmis.”
“Why not, woman? It’s a fact. What’s not fact,” he added, turning back to Rhian, “is that Thorn is connected with it. He’s a lecher who leaves women in a bad way, but he’s not evil.”
“Someone’s accusing him?”
“Folks is blaming all Magics. Folks say the evils of Avidan Wood are finally stealing forth and nabbing folks. By sunlight, moons’ light, young and old. But don’t believe everything you ‘ear, lad. I ‘eard of these things ‘appening as far away as Fiera and the Drakhans, so the Wood can’t be to blame. You’d think King Rhorek would order the trees cut down if that were the case, now wouldn’t ya?”
“Oh, certainly,” Rhian replied, though he was hardly familiar enough with local lore and the ways of kings to know what to think.
“So if you seek Thorn Kingshield, ‘ead east.” Ahmis cast him a mischievous grin. “Can’t promise you’ll
find him though. Folks only find him when he wants ‘em to. That’s the rumor. Best of luck to you, lad.”
After Rhian had emptied the two mugs and finished off both trenchers of stew, Mirnah complied with his other requests and lent him the use of her tub and bed. Neither did she let him want for company. In the morning, she sent him off with the smell of soap and perfume in his hair and a burlap sack stuffed full of more bread than he could eat in a week. Friendly people, these continentals. But then, anything was better than neighbors trying to hang him.
Rhian struck out into the sunrise, just as the seal suggested. The farther from the sea he walked, the more surreal his encounter with the seal seemed. If only he were the drinking type, he could explain it away. But wine wouldn’t make the encounter less true or less troublesome.
The King’s Highway followed what he learned was the Avidan River, curving through villages and muddy tilled fields. The lengthening days provided plenty of time to make good headway, and travelers were numerous. Every one of them had a different truth about Thorn Kingshield. “He died at the end of the war.”
“The king sent him to Fiera years ago, to spy on all them cattle thieves.”
“He conquered Zhian singlehandedly! Living posh in a golden palace there.”
“I don’t care where he is. He’s avedra and a menace, and good riddance.”
Rhian stopped walking only when it was too dark to read the next town’s welcome sign. He found the livery and climbed into the loft. The warm smell of horses and manure overwhelmed his nose; already he missed the salt scent of the sea. The wild ride on the seal’s back had sucked off his shoes, and his feet throbbed with stone bruises. He propped them up on the sheaves of hay and, staring up into the pigeon-infested rafters, he muttered, “What in hell am I doing here?” He didn’t know where ‘here’ was, nor where the road was leading him, and he decided he didn’t really care. Sleep came easily.
Halfway through the following day, the Highway veered northward toward the mountains while the river meandered south and east through rich farm country. Rhian chose to follow the narrow cart lanes that clung close to the riverbanks. The muddy, leafy scent of the water eased him more than the dry, dusty, lifeless smell of the road. His path took him through two villages before dark and in both he heard more strange tales of people vanishing. A raven-haired girl from Leania, an old man with only one leg, a set of twins from the river mill. And everywhere he looked, Rhian met glances rife with suspicion. A man even stopped him in the middle of the lane and asked, “What’s in the bag?” Mud caked his fingernails, and he carried a sharpened scythe over his shoulder. He seemed almost disappointed when Rhian showed him half a dozen loaves of stale bread. Maybe he hoped he’d find a child tucked inside and get to use that scythe on something besides grain.
Rhian found no accommodations that night. Or the night after. Travelers being too rare so far from the Highway, the taverns served cheap ale but had no rooms to rent; the cottars lodged their own mules, so there were no liveries to hide in for a wink of sleep, and two farmers slammed their doors in his face when he asked for room and board. They even refused his offer to help with chores to pay for it. The people of Brimlad, he gathered, had felt secure in their numbers, but those living on isolated farms had lost their trust in strangers, if they’d ever had it.
A budding hedge provided a roof and a wall at his back, and the stiff loaves made adequate pillows. A frigid gale woke him before dawn. Frost fell from the sky, and low clouds swept over Thyrra’s silver crescent. He saw no sunrise this morning, just a dull fading from black to gray. He started walking to keep from freezing to death. His faded sleeveless shirt and sailcloth pants did little to protect him from the icy wind. The clouds spat sporadic rain as though taunting him, urging him to walk faster, find shelter before it was too late. He seemed to have passed through the last village, however. The lanes became narrower, overgrown, rutted. Did no one pass this way anymore?
The lane finally petered out at the broken gate of a neglected sheepfold. A wooden fence ran perpendicular to the lane, barring Rhian from going any farther. Despite the cold that numbed his face, he laughed. His chosen path ended nowhere. He doubted the seal had dumped him on a foreign shore just so he could turn back. He climbed over the fence and trekked across open country. The Avidan River swirled past, brown and sandy on his right. Rivers meant life. There had to be a farm ahead, a town, a sheep shed, something. He only hoped he found it before the blood froze in his veins.
Near what may have been noon, the rain stopped taunting him and fell in earnest. Sheets of the coldest rain Rhian had ever felt. He dumped the bread, stuffed a loaf in each pocket, and flung the burlap bag across his shoulders like a cloak, but he was soon soaked through. Even in the dark depths of the oyster beds he hadn’t felt this cold, and he feared it might actually snow. “It’s in dire trouble I’ll be if I don’t find a roof by nightfall,” he told the river. The river whispered back, but he did not speak its language.
Ahead, the shadows of trees blocked his way. A forest canopy was as good a roof as he was likely to find. He ran toward the alders and andyrs, but the closer he came, the more he disliked the look of the forest. It might have come straight out of a guilty man’s nightmare. Murky darkness cloaked black, twisted trunks, and vines strangled bony branches. A dank, swampy smell oozed from coiling mist, and thick briars spiked with thorns tangled across his path, eager to draw blood. Rain pattered on leaves that looked like the curled hands of dead men, and it was not the lively sound of a natural rain, but a dreary thunking, as if even the rain wished it landed elsewhere. No reasoning man enters Avidan Wood, day or night, the old netter had said. This had to be the place. But how big could a forest be? Maybe he could walk around it and find shelter on the way. Beneath the skeletal trees, however, the ground looked enticingly dry.
Rhian eased through the briars, carefully picking his shirt free when the thorns snagged it, and stumbled into another world.
A hum tickled deep inside his ears, and the nightmarish murk peeled away. Grand trees, straight and bright and as broad as ships’ hulls, reared into the clouds. Nothing nightmarish about them at all. The vines that looked like strangling serpents were just vines; they drooped heavily under the weight of their spring burden of red blossoms. Even though the twilight of the storm swaddled the wood, a pale green light descended through the branches, and the leaves sparkled with rain. The scents of damp earth and centuries of leaf litter, clean and crisp, swirled around Rhian with every step. Talking seals and enchanted forests. If it weren’t for the stinging cuts on his feet and the hunger in his belly, he’d tell himself he was dreaming, sure to wake up to Shark’s nagging and his mother’s worried face.
He rounded up fallen branches, leaned them against the base of a giant andyr, and piled armfuls of leaf litter on top to keep out most of the rain. Climbing inside, he decided he’d be perfectly snug if only he had a fire. He’d never made one without a flint striker, yet this Thorn could supposedly make storms of fire by waving his arms about. What would Rhian trade for such a skill? He shivered so hard his shoulders cramped.
Mounds of leaves, dragged into the shelter with sweeps of his arms, warmed him enough that his feet started to thaw out. The cuts and bruises shrieked. Ah, for a bottle of mother’s ointment and her warm, caring hands. For an ale and a bowl of chowder and Vella’s steamy bosom.
A light flickered through the branches. A lantern? No, this light burned differently. Beams, like the sunrise breaking through clouds, radiated from a dark center like the pupil of an eye. An enormous eye, and it approached Rhian’s shelter. Dragons and such, the netter said. Evils!
Did it see him? He ducked down deeper among the leaves. Pass by, leave me be. But the light stopped a dozen feet from the shelter and stared at him. A second appeared in the ferns beyond; a third in the branches overhead.
A twang, a whistle, and a thud, and Rhian saw an arrow sprout from the ground between his feet. He scrambled from his shelter, knocking half
the branches down around him. Grabbing a hefty stick on his way, he ran for the open meadow beyond the trees. Half a dozen lights appeared ahead. Rhian swung his club, struck one of those eyes in the pupil. It cried out with a voice more human than beast and winked out.
Searing pain lashed through Rhian’s thigh. His leg refused to carry him farther. He tumbled into the briars. Thorns clawed his face, his throat, his hands. Reaching for the pain in his leg, he felt the shaft of an arrow, saw the black iron head, shiny with blood, sticking out of the sailcloth pants.
The lights pounced. Hands he couldn’t see flung him down on his belly, pinned his arms behind his back. Angry voices spoke words he couldn’t understand. No continental accent this, but a language he’d never heard before.
“Please,” Rhian grunted and spat musty earth from his mouth. Could these glowing eyes understand him? The hostile chatter ceased. “I meant no harm. I was freezing to death! Please!”
A pair of soft leather boots approached, so lightly that they barely stirred the wet leaves. Rhian raised his head to see his attacker, but a hand shoved his face to the ground. “Kulyah lau, duínovë!” roared a voice.
Rhian tensed for the final blow.
The one who wore the boots crouched nearby. A slender hand, shimmering as if made of moonlight, lowered a dagger in front of Rhian’s eyes. “Your reason for trespassing had better be damn good, duínovë, or I’m going to cut your throat.” A woman! Even angry, her voice fell like silk on his ear. Lurching around, he nearly saw a face, but his shaggy hair fell across his eyes and the hand pushed his head down again. “Well?”