Advent of the Roar (The Land Old, Untouched Book 1)
Page 7
Without stopping, Logan gathers the tent in a handful, Bernard and Sanet grab the remains of their camp. They thrash back through the thick brush, regrown since their yester trek inward. Adrenaline forces them to stagger into the bramble, which cuts their clothes and skin.
“Shnite!”
Fearing the smith is close, they turn to see Brute charging directly at him, skipping the stairs and scaling the tree.
“Brute, what are you doing!” Bernard calls back.
Marking the rushing creshwillow, Tunston unexpectedly changes emotion from a furious rage to a puerile scream. He retreats into the shop, slamming the large wooden door as Brute launches toward it, scratching and making a noiseless whimper. The scene prompts the three to hold their run, with little control over their breathing. Between heaving breaths, Bernard speaks. “I think this draws Brute and I straight.”
Chapter 6
AN UNWELCOME DRUM AT BOMWIGS
Bomwigs Ale is the last tavern before the northern Radiba and southern Carvinga border, and it’s around here that the forest canopy begins to open, allowing the cloudless pale-blue sky to make its first appearance. On the full day’s trek north from Smith Tunston’s shop, the three friends hike down from the mountain on rocks and large boulders that act as a natural staircase out of the Highlands.
Eventually, they come to an overlook. Below on the valley floor, the large entrance to the Carvinga Tunnels can be seen where faraway figures and friends mingle within and without. Ahead waits Bomwigs, built hundreds of years ago with simple sticks and stones and mud. Smoke rises from its chimney, and a flamboyant commotion pours out from its dirty windows. After the day’s trek, the only thing the three friends can talk of is a refreshing pint and a soft bed to rest in.
They enter through a wooden door mantled in little carvings of bomwigs, so many that they make more a knotted pattern than an accurate depiction of the little freks. Warmth, humor, and an uncouth behavior permeate the guests of Bomwigs, which is usually populated by friends from all over the Highlands. Regulars and travelers alike descend upon the little tavern for nights of drinking and, in the sleeping rooms below, a bit of debauchery.
Bernard leads the three to an empty table near the hearth. As they sit, a barman walks up to them, scrawny, unshowered, and stains of ale covering his shirt. “What is it then?”
“Four Bomwigs Ales, of course, and some fried jellies as well.” Logan points to Bernard and Sanet to see if they’d like to double anything. They shake their heads. The barman scribbles on a small pad and walks away.
Bernard takes in his hands again, noting a disconnected feeling in them. Though he can see his fingers, move them, when he concentrates on how they feel, there’s only a cold press of stone from tips to knuckles.
Overheard conversations revolve mainly around the extended Peace Hours. Numerous bets on when the storm will pick up again are placed between a pair of rough-looking Radibians, while a sweet made couple seems to think that in fact it will be the last tormisand to pass through Radiba.
Bernard rolls his eyes and turns to the others. “Tormisands have no calendar. No watch, no schedule. Soon enough it’ll return and probably be as fierce as ever.”
“I’m sure of it,” Logan doubles.
In a distant corner sits a family consisting of a father and mother along with their young son; their demeanor, when compared with the rest of the room, morose. The father’s head is dressed in a bandage, which Bernard assumes is a result of the fires from nearly three days ago. Jame has been gone three days. He closes off the thoughts as the barman returns with four ales, dark and muddy in color, and a bowl of square fried jellies that he plops down before them. Brute hops onto the table and sniffs at the bowl before sneezing and turning away back under the table, curling in Bernard’s lap.
“Four?” Bernard asks.
Logan replies, “For Jame. He won’t mind if we drink for him, you suppose?”
Bernard presses his lips into a smile. He then grabs the first jelly and pops it into his mouth—red brackleberry—while overhearing some merry chanting behind him.
“The advent of the Roar. The advent of the Roar. The fires here we celebrate, the advent of the Roar.”
Bernard turns and sees a group of men dressed in crimson and each with a small cape. One of them, the one with his back to Bernard, has a cape much longer than the others. Around them, patrons watch in annoyance. Though friends alike, they seem out of place here, as is their slurring, jarent celebration chant. Another barwoman walks past them, and they grab at her.
“Another round, sur.”
“I think we’ve had enough, don’t you?”
“Another! And another for the whole proshing place!”
At this liberality, the tavern erupts into its own gleeful cheer. Bernard turns back around. “Well, jarent friends can always be counted on serving too many.” Logan and Sanet raise their mugs and drink to the adage as the tavern returns to its normal clamor.
“How’s the hand, friend?” Logan asks later.
Bernard lifts his west hand for display, rotating and squeezing it in the hearth’s light. “They’re not my old fingers, but they’ll do.”
“Do you feel as strong?” Sanet asks.
He takes the mug into his hand and squeezes without effort. It immediately shatters, surprising everyone. The Bomwig Ale sprays across their faces and shirts.
“Lincoln,” declares Sanet.
They laugh as onlookers shuffle slightly away.
After a few more rounds, the day’s events seem weeks away. They laugh again at the image of the charging creshwillow and raise an earnest toast to the lonely smith.
“ . . . And his doubled cock.”
The full moon approaches as the tavern gradually empties. Logan and Sanet plan to sleep in a single room while Bernard keeps to his own. After an exchange of coin for their room and board, the crimson friends begin their chant again: “The advent of the Roar. The advent of the Roar. The fires here we celebrate, the advent of the Roar.” The chant, on and off for the past few hours, has grown tiresome among the patrons. On this recent round, the father of the corner family stands up, having worked up what appears to be jarent courage from a few pints of ale.
“Your celebrations are unwelcome here, friend. Friend and family died in those fires, and it was a nasty tragedy. Not a celebration for some new found Roar.” He remains standing, if not wavering.
The din quiets against his anger, leaving only the crackle of the hearth. A major passes, then one of the crimson men stands. A man with dark, unkempt hair. Because his back was turned throughout the night, when he turns to Bernard’s view, Bernard sees a surprising set of deep scorch marks that jacket his older face, nearly the same age as his. The jovial nature of his chant washes away. Replaced now by vehemence.
“Your witlessness is what saves you, friend,” the man hisses in a slight lisp. “I assume your words have come from the bottom of that pint you’ve drunk.”
The father swallows, gathering his wits. “You’re monsters. Shnite inconsiderable monsters.”
Silence.
Waiting.
And then the burned man replies without melody, his eyes never losing the father’s, “The advent of the Roar. The advent of the Roar. The fires here we celebrate, the advent of the Roar.”
He swallows as he finishes. The others he sits with smirk and huff, each licking their lips with hinted-at bloodlust. When the burned man speaks again, he walks closer and closer to the father, while still addressing the others of the room. “The Roar . . .” the burned man sermonizes, “the advent of the Roar is upon us. Found three days the yester. His coming will bring the union to these divided states. It is the will of the Land. Seven from the advent of the Roar.” His last sentence is said inches from the father’s face.
In response, the others at the man’s table call out, “Seven from the advent of the Roar.”
And a few others in the tavern now call out, “The advent of the Roar.”
His wife reaches for his arm. “Henrick, don’t.”
The burned man turns to the tavern. “Your lives do not matter. You’ve lived generations and generations apart from the union. You are all festatars upon us. We set the fires to show the Land that the war is coming. That soon the plague of being priced, of separation, shall come to an end.”
These friends sent Jame left. Bernard grips the side of the table, barely holding his composure. It cracks.
The father punches the burned man in the back of the head. The man tumbles across a table, spilling mugs and ale.
Henrick’s wife holds him back. “Please, Henrick. Stop.”
Bernard and Sanet stand as the burned man recovers, wiping blood from his nose. “You’re pushing tragedy, friend.”
“Please, Henrick, let’s go.”
The father takes deep and uncontrollable breaths, his fist bloodied and closed, but ultimately, he gives in to his wife’s request. She leads them out of the tavern, their son in tears in tow. The bar lies in a quiet major as the burned man returns to his table, ruffling his crimson cape across the back of his chair.
Bernard and Sanet sit down again, Sanet placing a calming hand on Bernard’s mitt. The little finger on his west mitt dampens with blood.
Logan drinks, then says, “There’s no reason to pick fights. Especially with union proselytizers.”
Bernard is incensed. He chugs the last sip of his ale and slams the mug down. “I need rest. Come, Brute.” He heads to the staircase leading to the sleeping rooms below. Brute hops after him.
“I think we all do,” Sanet says, following his lead.
❖❖❖
Bernard doesn’t sleep. Brute has long since slipped out into the night, and he lies alone on his bed. Jame’s absence pulls over him. He turns to his side, hugging one of the pillows, in lucks to have it hold a hint of Jame’s smell. When he performed the final arrangement for Jame, a painful and awkward affair without fingers, he also attempted to find a keepsake of their haynest. Something he might use to hold as memory, yet everything was burned. Nothing smelled the same. Nothing looked the same. It was no longer their haynest.
A creak in the hallway. Bernard rises to his elbow, listening. The footsteps are faint, as if not to be heard. Above him, the tavern has calmed. Bernard tosses off the blanket and grabs a hanging shirt. He creeps over to the door and slowly inches it open.
There, Henrick ambles. Hunched over with a small dagger in hand. What are you doing, friend? Bernard slips out of the room and follows Henrick as he turns a corner. He steps along and peers down the hallway.
Henrick extends his hand to a knob, looking both ways before touching it. Bernard leans back out of sight. He counts in his head before looking back down the hall. Empty. Shnite, that man is going to send him left.
Though no laws in Radiba prohibit sendlefts, the proper morality of Radibians has kept the state civil, that and the guilt of sending someone is taught to be worse than being sent.
Reaching the same door, Bernard finds it cracked open. He presses forward into the room and finds Henrick on his knees before him. Bernard looks ahead at the burned man sound asleep. Still alive, approsh Lincoln. Henrick turns to Bernard and silently gasps. Bernard hushes him, four fingers to mouth. He then motions for Henrick to leave with him. For a minor, Henrick looks as if he’ll entertain his act of bloodlust, but instead he follows Bernard.
Returning to his room, Bernard pulls a few green brackleberries from his rucksack and hands them to Henrick.
“Green berry?”
“For calming. I usually smoke them but haven’t had a chance to grind and roll.” Bernard pops a few for himself and sits on the bed. “You would have regretted that, Henrick.”
“I know. They were so callous. They’re monsters.” Henrick takes a seat on a chair near the door.
“I don’t disagree. They,” he hesitates to bring it back up, “they sent my husband left as well.”
“Then they should pay. Shouldn’t they?”
Bernard contemplates for a major. Maybe they should. At this, Tunston’s question, “Are yous a good man?” crawls through his mind. “But bloodlust is no way to enact justice,” he says, settling the debate.
“There is no justice in Radiba. This lawlessness only works if you’re civil and kind. These aren’t friends. They acted in selfishness. With—without empathy.” Henrick stands, heated, chewing a few more berries.
Bernard finds it hard to answer. “Were you taught about the tallingstones?” he asks after a minor.
Henrick shakes his head and returns to his seat.
Bernard continues, “The tallingstones were a passive drum of freks who lived contentedly in the forest. Each tallingstone, as you know, subsists off the nutrients from a single mineral. Some eat stone, some wood, some leaf, and some subsist on water. And as a drum, tallingstones dwelled happily, living peaceful lives. And even though they shared that single forest, they lived off it as individuals. And it came one day that the wood tallingstone took a sip of water. And it found that water to be the most delicious thing it’d ever had. And so, it began to drink it every day. It drank and drank and drank. And this made the water tallingstone grow angry, for what was once only for itself was now being violated by another. In retaliation, the water tallingstone attempted to eat wood but found it to be completely inedible. So, they began to rival with each other, drinking more than they needed each day. When one saw the other drinking, it drank as well. This went on and on and on until all the water was gone. The streams and ponds dried. In the meantime, the wood around them grew thick. And it made the area the dirt tallingstones lived on uninhabitable. The leaf tallingstones could no longer climb the wood to reach the canopies. The entire drum was in disarray.
“With no water left, the wood tallingstone returned to eating wood and soon things were as they had been, except for the water tallingstone. It searched the forest for more water that it might drink, but the water never returned, and eventually the water tallingstone died. Over time, the other tallingstones asked the wood tallingstone why it had drunk all the water when it could easily have had its own abundance of wood. It replied that in truth, after only a few sips, it had had enough. But when the water tallingstone reacted so feverishly, it was afraid that it might not ever be able to taste water again. It only continued to drink because the other tallingstone wouldn’t stop drinking. It told them that had the water tallingstone let it have those few sips every now and again, it would have quickly tired of the water and gone back on its own.”
Henrick sits quietly for a major before asking, “Are you’re telling me I should accept my daughter’s sending?”
“I’m only saying that escalation leads to ruin. You sending that man left would mean that the others would send the rest of your family. And perhaps you. And then they’ll go off and continue with their fanaticism, and what will have come to you?”
Henrick is quiet. He holds back emotion and then can’t. He cries in his hands. Bernard leans over and hugs the friend, who easily returns the embrace.
The sound of whistles come, breaking the hug.
“Lincoln, the winds are back.” I hope Brute will be wisnok. Bernard looks outside and sees the valley trees still.
Henrick stands, wiping his eyes. “I need to shelter my family. Approsh, friend. I don’t know if you’re correct, but hopefully, in the end, justice commands its way.”
Bernard nods. The howls of wind draw his eyes to the window. He watches as squalls rip through trees, branches, and leaves, pulling horizontally, and then bring rain.
Henrick has left the room. Bernard hesitates to close the window in case Brute makes his way back. The rain splatters inside, and so he takes the blanket from the bed and rests himself in the chair, curling up as the storm gathers in size, the squalls squealing in pitch and the walls of the tavern grumbling at its rule.
A knock comes at the door before Sanet enters. “Your storm is back.” Bernard looks back to her. “And your window’s open.” She points.
“Waiting for Brute.”
“Aren’t you always?”
Bernard huffs.
Sanet grins. “Well, grats moon.”
“Good morrow.”
Sanet closes the door. Bernard looks back to the window, the wind whistling in the open crack before a flash of lightning and boom of thunder. Six days ago, he was in this storm hunting the neox, the biggest venture he’s had in years, and now he sits on the border of Carvinga embarking on a trek to Lands he’s only kiptaled of. In search of . . . what? A young man’s adventure.
Brute hops in. Wet and angry. He shakes himself on the bed and buries himself under a blanket.
“Good frek,” Bernard says, standing to close the window.
He returns to the bed, consciously tired but unable to sleep. The story he told Henrick replays in his head, a parable for children to teach them of placidity. To show that slights of the Land are not worth a futile reaction. Jame was sent left by that man. Bernard’s desire to stop Henrick was in proper morality; he had a family, and any retaliation against these crimson men was sure to be amplified with interminable wrath.
But I have no family.
The thought sticks. He lies in bed for a major. Then doesn’t.
Bernard digs through his rucksack and pulls free a dagger before leaving his sleeping room. In the hall, he looks in both directions. Quiet. The staircase to the east sits in the soundless dark. He creeps forward, walking to the west, turning the corner, and stepping up to the burned man’s room, where he places his ear to the door. Quiet.
He turns the knob gently, watching the hall, and then slips in silently.
The man remains asleep, this time on his side with a pillow over his head. Outside, the winds wail, this side of the tavern taking the brunt of the storm. Occasionally, twigs and tiny leaves slam with diminutive thunks into the glass. Bernard edges softly to the side of the bed. The burned man stirs and Bernard holds his breath and stops. The burned man shifts, causing his blanket to reveal intricate tattoos imprinted across his entire nude back. Tattoos of flames and barwolves, words and sentences from an old language. All his tattoos appear older than his more recent burn scars. The burned man stirs again, flipping onto his back and revealing a tattooed chest. One catches Bernard’s eye: a black throne.