Reaching slowly to the earth beside him, Dormael fumbled around for a new stone to use as a projectile to take the proud stag down. His hand alighted on one, and he opened his Kai and brought it floating up to eye level with him, poised for the kill. Dormael steeled himself and readied the necessary energy.
It was at the precise moment that he was about to fire the stone that the stag’s eyes met his own once again. They were black as midnight, and the moonlight reflected off of the wet orbs and gave the impression of pupils there. Perhaps it was that subconscious impression of human eyes that made Dormael stay his hand, or perhaps not. He sensed something about the beast – a strength that emanated from it in waves and a pride that shouted defiance at its enemies. It was enough that the beast came to the stream in bold challenge, unafraid of the human that had entered his domain, to convince Dormael that this was a true master of the forest.
Dormael let the stone fall to the earth, and, as if that had broken the strange spell that lay over the scene, the hart turned and bounded off into the forest. It wasn’t a fearful run, however. It was the natural movement for something free and strong. Dormael resisted the urge to run, not after the beast, but with it.
“Go,” Dormael muttered under his breath, “May you have long years and a great brood of fawns to follow you.” He felt odd as he stood to make his way back to the campfire and the dinner that he knew D’Jenn would be preparing. He knew that no one would believe his story about the stag, but he also knew that he really didn’t want to tell anyone. Besides, he knew that D’Jenn would only ridicule him for leaving that much food to run off back into the woods. The meat was no big loss, anyway. There would always be another chance to hunt.
****
Chapter Fifteen
Crossing Spears
Harlun Homestead appeared on the afternoon of the next day. After the sun had reached its zenith and began its slow trek toward the western horizon, the companions reached a fork in the muddy road that led northward into the Runemian Mountains. Without hesitation, D’Jenn turned off to the right and headed up a narrower track that led over a few hills to the northeast. The evergreens closed in around them and they began to tread on a heavy carpet of brown needles. The trail was clearly marked by ruts in the earth, the evidence of cart tracks, and soon after entering the forest the party came across a sign that read “Village of Pinedale – 6 miles” and underneath that “Harlun Family Vintners – 2 miles” with an arrow pointing down the cart path.
“Harlun Family Vintners?” Shawna asked, regarding the sign with a raised eyebrow and a pursed lip.
“We told you that my mother runs a vineyard,” Dormael explained, “She and my father make wine. Firewine too, and I’ve heard that my father has tried his hand lately at brewing.”
“Is that so?” D’Jenn spoke up from his position slightly ahead of them, “I didn’t know Uncle Saul had started making ale.”
“From what I heard it’s decent stuff. Dark and malty, though I haven’t been home in over a year, so I haven’t tried it myself,” Dormael said.
D’Jenn began to smile mischievously, “I foresee a night of drinking in our future.”
“Your powers of divination astound me cousin,” Dormael smiled back.
“Men,” Shawna muttered under her breath, but the smile on her face gave the comment a light – hearted tone.
Dormael began to grin and couldn’t keep the look off of his face. He was going home for the first time in a while, and it would be good to see his family again. His assignments kept him abroad for long periods of time, and while he actually lived at the Conclave in Ishamael, Harlun Homestead would always be home to him. He started to hum an old Sevenlander folk song, and after a minute D’Jenn heard it and started to hum along with him. Slowly but inevitably, the two wizards began to sing the words to the old song.
“Up Alicia’s skirt is a bird, a bird
Up Alicia’s skirt is a bird
Inside my trousers I have a worm
In my pants there’s a worm…”
“Stop!” Shawna’s expression was one of shocked horror, “That song is deplorable! A little too bawdy for certain ears, don’t you think?” Shawna indicated Bethany with one of those gestures meant to go over children’s heads, but inevitably only make them prick their ears up.
“My ears aren’t certain!” Bethany objected with her lower lip pouting, “And it’s only about a bird…and a worm.”
“Right dear,” Dormael managed to get out between bouts of uproarious laughter, “only a worm!” D’Jenn couldn’t even speak he was laughing so hard. Shawna snorted and shook her head.
“You two should really watch what you’re teaching her. Next she’ll be kicking up her heels like some tavern wench.”
“Nothing at all wrong with tavern wenches, Shawna,” D’Jenn countered, “Not that I’d want Bethany doing that sort of thing, of course.”
“Of course,” Shawna’s narrowed eyes met his intense blues, and for once D’Jenn looked away first.
“We’re only excited, Shawna,” Dormael said, waving a dismissive hand, “We haven’t been home to visit in such a long while. Just recalling some old tunes we used to sing as children.”
“You two must have had a much uncivilized childhood,” Shawna snorted.
“Of course we did. That’s the only type to have,” Dormael shot back, smiling. Shawna, seeing Dormael’s smile, couldn’t help but relent and return it warmly. “You can’t tell me that you never learned a dirty song or limerick as a child. Everyone does.”
“Of course I did.”
“Well then let’s hear one.”
“I’ll not be sharing them with the likes of you two. It would be…”
“Uncivilized?”
“Precisely.”
Dormael laughed again, but Shawna simply pointed her chin high and rode on in silence.
The trees passed by more slowly, since the cart path stuck to the lower parts of the terrain, and seemed to meander almost without a purpose. Sunlight shone through the canopy of tall evergreens in patches, and cast hazy, golden rays through the background of green. Dormael smiled and felt his excitement grow with each passing minute as they came closer to the home of his childhood.
The slow rumble of wooden wheels and the creak of an ungreased axle sounded through the quiet of the secluded forest lane. After a minute or two, an old weather-beaten cart appeared heading in the other direction. A pair of old, fat donkeys pulled the cart, heads bobbing and legs stepping lazily to the task. There was an old man slumped on the simple wooden driver’s seat, reins resting in his lap and only just touched by his wrinkled hand, as if forgotten. He wore a heavy fur-lined blanket wrapped around his body, and a wide brimmed hat, popular to the rural regions of Soirus-Gamerit, and as his cart rumbled slowly down the path, it was all of his head that Dormael could see. It appeared as if the old man was napping.
D’Jenn glanced behind him to Dormael and Shawna and shrugged, making as if to ride slowly by the old man, but as the cart came abreast of D’Jenn the old man suddenly raised his weathered face and started as if he didn’t know where he was. D’Jenn pulled Mist up short, and Dormael and Shawna followed his lead. There was a moment that passed in confusion as the old man reached out from his blanket and hauled lightly on his reins to slow his pair of old donkeys, who gave no objections to stopping, and Dormael got the shifting train of remounts and pack horses under control. Finally, as the clamor settled down, the old man made to rise from his seat and kicked over a bottle of what Dormael guessed was firewine from a hidden spot under his blanket. Muttering curses under a gravelly voice, the man beat at the reddish brown spirits that stained his blanket and spread across the seat of his cart as if they were afire and were going to burn down the old contraption. Finally righting the bottle and getting the spill under control, the old man turned a bleary eye on the travelers and placed his right fist across his chest and bowed as much as his creaking back would allow him to do.
“Pleasure to
be makin’ your acquaintance good masters and misses,” the old man grunted in his harsh voice, “My name is Pelt - Pelt Gylin, Old Pelt to me friends.”
“The pleasure is all ours, wise one,” D’Jenn replied as he and Dormael bowed back, mimicking the customary Sevenlander gesture, “I’m D’Jenn Pike, this is my cousin Dormael Harlun, and that’s Shawna. The little one is called Bethany.”
“Wise,” Old Pelt snorted, “Old, you mean.” D’Jenn made to smile and protest, but the old man waved a wrinkled hand in dismissal, “It’s no big thing, though. No big thing at all. These days old and lucky are right about the same thing in my reckoning, and Old Pelt is still kickin’ hard, for sure.” Dormael smiled at the backwoods wisdom. He always liked talking to people who were well advanced in their years. “Harlun, you said?” Old Pelt asked, squinting a bloodshot eye in Dormael’s direction, “Harlun as in ‘Harlun Vintners’? You’ve the look about you, you do. Like that Saul, you’ve his eyes and his jaw, boy.”
“The same,” Dormael nodded, “Saul would be my father. I’m the eldest son.”
“Hah!” Old Pelt clapped his hands together, wheezing a laugh from deep in his chest, “I’ve always had the eye, I have. Eldest, indeed, boy. Try saying ‘eldest’ when you’ve lived as long as I have, then you can go and brag about your years, alright. I’ve had seventy-eight, and Gods willing I’ll still be dandling the ladies at seventy-nine!”
“I’m sure you will,” Dormael smiled, “The question is will they dandle you back?”
“Damned right they will, this old bastard still has life left in him for sure,” Old Pelt laughed and reached down to take a long pull from his half-spilled bottle. He made a pleasured sigh and corked it off, then threw it at D’Jenn without asking, who caught it and uncorked it himself to take a long drink of his own. The bottle started making its way around the group. “Just ask that pretty redhead you got there,” Old Pelt smiled, gesturing drunkenly in Shawna’s direction, “What do you say, girlie? Want to come on back to Old Pelt’s cabin and spend the night on my knee?”
“I don’t think you could handle me, old man,” Shawna giggled, though her cheeks turning a rosy color almost spoiled her attempt at brusqueness.
“Like you never got handled before, surely,” Old Pelt shot back, wheezing another laugh. “So, you boys headed towards the Vineyard, then? Just came from there myself. Gots me another month’s supply of your mother’s apple firewine. Good stuff, that. That young Saul tried to sell me a bottle of some sort of black ale, but I’m too old to start drinking that heady shit again.”
“I’d heard he got into brewing recently,” D’Jenn commented, “I haven’t had the chance to try it myself.”
“Well, I always said that if you was gonna drink, better damn well drink strong. Apple firewine, boys, that’s the way to go. Sweet and sour at the same time, and it’s got a kick like a raging mule, it does. Not like the pair of these lazy good-for-nothin’ asses.” The old man spit at his donkeys and missed. The donkeys flicked an irritated ear, but offered no other comment.
“Would you happen to know if my brother was visiting?” Dormael asked, taking a pull of the tart firewine, “He’d look like me, only with more muscles.”
“Aye, the young champion. Your brother, you say? He’s there, alright. Young little fucker tied me axle to the ground with a stake, he did. Almost threw me out of me cart, the little trickster.”
“Hah!” It was Dormael’s turn to laugh, and D’Jenn was snickering himself. Shawna only looked scandalized. “That sounds like Allen, alright.”
“He got me back, for sure. Last time I was here I paid one of your mother’s working men a copper penny to dump a load of the grape offal over his head. I’m guessin’ he remembered,” Old Pelt snickered at the memory.
“I guess he did, at that. Allen’s not one to forget a good prank, or let the opportunity for one to pass by,” D’Jenn said.
“Aye, he’s a good enough boy, alright, for a young limp-peckered bastard. I like him, I do,” Old Pelt laughed and caught the bottle of firewine as Dormael tossed it to him. “Well, I kept you boys long enough, I have. When you get to the Vineyard, tell your brother I said to bugger off, and you boys have safe travels. Old Pelt will have a drink for you, he will.” Old Pelt clucked and cursed at his two fat donkeys, and they began to step off with a slow gait. He waved back at them from the seat of his cart as he went out of sight around the evergreens.
“It’s good to be home,” Dormael sighed, and nudged Horse into a walk again.
“Who would tie an old man’s cart to the ground like that?” Shawna asked, her face a mask of confusion, “Elders should be treated with more respect.”
“Bah, he likes the pranks, I’m sure. It probably makes him feel young to play back and forth that way,” Dormael replied.
“Still…,” Shawna disagreed, shaking her head.
“Well, in all fairness, Old Pelt started it,” D’Jenn said over his shoulder.
“Men!” Shawna snorted.
The cousins laughed once again and Shawna clamped her mouth shut.
The evergreens opened out onto a flat expanse of ground sometime later, and the cart path turned slowly further to the east. Carpeting the small plateau from near the cart path to a low mountain face to the north were grapes. Lines and lines of grapevines laid out in orderly rows, surrounded by a low wooden fence. Further off to the east, Dormael could see patches of trees that marked out small orchards. Apple, orange, and pear trees all separated into organized square patches, and beyond that were rows of small plants that Dormael knew to be strawberries.
They rode along the cart path still, paralleling the low wooden fence until a finely crafted arch came into view in the distance. There was a man there hammering on the arch, holding nails in his mouth and grasping the arch with his free hand. Dormael’s grin grew even wider as they neared the arch that marked the outermost boundary of his boyhood home.
The man hanging onto the arch looked up at the sound of their horses and started, then climbed quickly back onto the ground. He was wearing a loose-fitting white shirt, unlaced at the neck, and covered only by a brown leather vest. Around his waist was a belt which had various carpentry tools hanging from it: nails, a hammer, a roll of string and other implements that Dormael was unfamiliar with. His pants were sturdy leather, not unlike Dormael’s own.
It was evident as he turned towards them that the man was leanly muscled. He moved with a surety, a grace that demonstrated clearly he was no simple carpenter. His feet were set easily upon the ground, his hands hanging more ready than relaxed, and he seemed constantly poised. His body bespoke a thinly controlled violence, like a snake coiled to strike. For all the wolfish grace he possessed, his face was open and friendly, his eyes smiled right along with his mouth as he grinned openly at the companions as they approached, and they held the slightest glint of ready mischief. His hair was the same color of washed wheat as Dormael, and the stubble that covered his face was a dark, ruddy red.
“Allen! You bastard!” Dormael exclaimed, coming off of Horse with a quick, smooth movement and striding towards his brother.
“Dormael, still as worthless as ever, I see.” Allen smiled back at his brother, the two of them not quite mirror images, and they clasped forearms roughly before pulling each other into a one-armed embrace. “And D’Jenn! Thought you were chasing split tail in the east somewhere!”
“I was, until just recently. Came to steal all the women from you,” D’Jenn shot back, climbing down from Mist and embracing his cousin.
“You’ve got a pig’s chance of bedding a cat to do that,” Allen spat back, clapping D’Jenn on the shoulder as they parted. “Who’s the youngling?” Bethany held her hands out for Dormael, and he lifted her from the saddle and sat her on the ground at Allen’s feet.
“I’m Bethany,” she said very seriously, and offered her hand.
“Well then, pleased to meet you Bethany,” Allen replied in a serious tone of his own, and shook the tiny hand
offered to him. Bethany seemed gravely satisfied, and she moved off to stand by Dormael’s leg.
“This,” Dormael announced, holding a hand out to Shawna as she stepped down from her horse, “is Shawna Llewan. Shawna, meet my brother.”
“Allen Harlun, at your service,” Allen announced, giving her the formal Sevenlander bow. Shawna mimicked the gesture.
“Pleased,” she replied.
“I’m sure you are, getting to meet a handsome man like myself,” Allen smirked, raising one eyebrow and shrugging.
“The arrogance of this family never ceases to amaze me,” Shawna muttered, shaking her head. Allen only laughed along with Dormael and D’Jenn, and even Shawna was smiling a little. Bethany had an open grin on her face. Allen always had that effect on people, even when the two of them were growing up. He could say almost anything and get away with it on account of his easy going charm. Dormael was glad to see him. It had been years since their last meeting.
“So, retiring from the Ring and taking up carpentry?” Dormael asked, sliding Allen’s hammer out from the place at his belt.
“Hardly,” Allen snorted, snatching the hammer back and sliding it into the loop in the carpenter belt, “Just trying to help our mother out. So much to do, and you know how disorganized she is.”
“Indeed.”
“On top of that, I think she’s adopted every dog and cat in the tribelands. Can’t find any place on this Vineyard anymore without some floppy-eared puppy following you around, and the house is just chocked full of cats,” Allen huffed.
“She always had a soft heart for animals,” D’Jenn commented, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Aunt Yanette without some sort of four-legged companion.”
The Sentient Fire (The Seven Signs) Page 46