by Jenny Ealey
“Is that so? I’m pleased to hear that and pleased that you are prepared to weigh up his welfare against the needs of your sorcerers.” Waterstone sent Danton a fleeting smile, “You know, I’m beginning to think that you and I really can work together for all of our causes. In fact, we will have to. Hmm. No wonder Tarkyn is touchy about it. We have some serious thinking to do over the next few months, haven’t we?”
Part 5: The Mountainfolk
Chapter 19
Several hours sleep, a good breakfast and an hour with his hand against an old mountain ash went a long way towards restoring Tarkyn’s spirits. However, a certain aloofness remained in his dealings with Waterstone and Danton. Although they noticed it, they decided to give him some time and space before addressing it. As they approached the mountainfolk’s firesite late in the afternoon, Tarkyn kept company with Rainstorm and North Wind, laughing and joking with the younger woodmen in an effort to forget the pressures of his many roles and the difficult impending meeting.
As it turned out, the mountainfolk were quite friendly when Tarkyn and his home guard arrived. A welcoming feast of spit roasted venison and baked vegetables was cooking slowly over the fire, all ready to be accompanied by the best possible selection of woodfolk wines. The mountainfolk greeted their fellow woodfolk effusively and, although a little more reticent with the sorcerers, were courteous and friendly enough.
“Good evening, Your Highness,” said a white haired old man, bowing slightly. “My name is Dripping Rock. We have heard a lot about you and it is of great interest to us to finally meet you.”
Tarkyn contained his surprise that the old man had bowed and used his title but following his lead, inclined his head in return, saying, “Good evening. As you may know, my name is Tarkyn Tamadil and this is my friend, Danton Patronell. It is a pleasure to meet the makers of the fine wines I have been drinking. From personal experience, I can tell you that they are among the best in the land.”
“Thank you, my lord. I’m pleased they meet with your approval. I believe you have met my wife,” he said, indicating a scrawny old woman who appeared from nowhere to join him.
Tarkyn’s face lit up. “Dry Berry! I didn’t realise you belonged to the mountainfolk. This is indeed a surprise. How is your wrist?”
“My wrist is well, thank you, young man. I hear you have been busy since we last met and I am pleased to see Golden Toad and his family once more among us. I understand you had some difficulties in restoring their mindtalking ability. By all accounts both you and the forest suffered. A little careless, don’t you think, young man?”
“A lack of experience, ma’am. I will try not to let it happen again,” replied Tarkyn with a smile in his voice. “To be honest, it was not an experience I would choose to repeat.”
“So I understand. Would you like some wine?” She poured them each a glass of deep gold wine from a beautiful blue glazed earthenware jug. Tarkyn noticed that Danton and the woodfolk from his party were being served wine from more mundane earthenware flagons. He frowned in passing at the unusual preferential treatment but then dismissed it from his mind.
Dry Berry smiled at him. “I am glad you saved Autumn Leaves, even if it did put you at odds with your overzealous minders.” She patted him on the arm, “You’re a good boy, Tarkyn. You take your role very seriously, don’t you?”
“I do, but in that case it was not my role but my friendship that made me rush to Autumn Leaves’ aid.”
“And I believe you laid down the law, as you see it, to those who protested at you putting yourself at risk,” she added in a deceptively friendly tone of voice.
Tarkyn stilled. Although it was not being spoken of openly, he knew they were discussing the implications of the oath. “I wished to curtail their enthusiasm for molly-coddling me,” he said carefully. “We must all take risks in life. Otherwise we do not live…” He paused, trying to find a way to say what he wanted to without mentioning the oath, “... And without risk, we cannot give to others the full measure of ourselves.”
Dry Berry gazed at him through narrowed eyes. “And did you really say to them that you could order them around or not as you choose, but that none of them had the right to tell you what to do?”
Tarkyn, never a great one for subterfuge, gave up on subtlety. “That is the reality of the oath…Besides, other than with my sorcerer brothers, that has always been the underlying premise of my dealings with people… It is just that I do not usually state it so baldly.”
“You wouldn’t need to, would you, if it is understood,” the old woodwoman said dryly. She took a sip of wine but her eyes never left Tarkyn’s face. Just as he was tensing himself for the next onslaught, she smiled disarmingly and said, “But I have also heard that despite what you could demand, you usually negotiate.”
Some of the tension left Tarkyn’s shoulders. “I try, Dry Berry. I do try. It does not come easily to me and I forget to consult sometimes, but I do try.” He glanced away from her intense gaze, hoping to catch the eye of one of his woodfolk to back him up.
He frowned as he spotted first one and then another of his woodfolk sprawled out on the ground near the fire. Alarmed, he swept his gaze around the firesite as he realised that all of his homeguard were lying asleep, interspersed between mountainfolk who were alert and watching his every move. There was no sign of Sparrow and the other children. Tarkyn’s eyebrows snapped together in consternation as he turned to Dry Berry, “What have you done? Where are the children?”
“We have administered a mild sedative in your woodfolk’s wine. The children are playing with our children in a shelter not far from here. There are some things they may not wish to see.”
Tarkyn’s stomach turned over, but he maintained a front of calm which, under the circumstances, was probably not the most sensible ploy. “Such as?”
Even as he spoke, his arms were dragged roughly behind him by two strong mountainmen and bound. Tarkyn glared at Dry Berry, “If you hurt a hair on their heads, you will rue the day you were born.”
“I doubt it,” she replied calmly. “You have sworn an oath to protect all woodfolk. That includes us. And from what I’ve seen of you, you don’t break oaths.”
Tarkyn shook his head, perplexed, “If you think that of me, why are you doing this?”
A hard fist came out of nowhere and caught him on his right cheek. Tarkyn gasped and staggered as the force of the blow knocked him sideways. Blood spurted from a cut beneath his eye.
Dry Berry frowned, “Carefully. Not so hard! Now, just once more, I think, just to make sure.”
Another fist slammed into his stomach, making him double over in pain, retching and gasping for breath. Tarkyn’s mind screamed outrage, and a cry for help reverberated silently across the treetops, over the cliff faces and up into the crags of the lowering mountains.
“Right, that’s enough,” said Dry Berry sharply.
But the two woodmen ignored her. Before Tarkyn could recover, an uppercut to his jaw jerked him upright again, followed by another fist slamming into his face from the other side. A haze of blood dripped from a cut on his eyebrow, obscuring his vision on one side.
In the background, he could hear the assembled mountainfolk jeering and heckling. Only Dry Berry’s voice demanded that they stop, but heedless, another fist slammed into his side. Rough hands held him up to prevent him from collapsing to the ground as the two thugs alternated between holding him up and hitting him. The pummelling continued, with Dry Berry’s voice becoming shriller but still ineffective in the background. Her pleas to get Dripping Rock or anyone else to intervene fell on deaf ears.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, an enormous mountain eagle swooped down on one assailant, raking his back with her talons. Shrieking with anger, she held on and belted him around his head with her wings. As the mountainman cowered with his hands over his head, she launched herself off his back. He screamed in pain as her talons dug in. She flew straight at the other assailant who released his hold on Tarkyn and tried
to duck out of her way. Tarkyn, unsupported, collapsed to kneel doubled up. The eagle dug her wicked hooked beak straight into the top of his assailant’s head and flapped her black and gold wings around him. She landed on him, her talons digging deep holes into his shoulders, her great weight throwing him over backwards. Then she launched herself off him as he fell, and after flying in a tight circle, came back to land in front of Tarkyn. His two assailants scrambled out of range and stood shocked and battered off to one side. She stalked back and forth in front of the Forest Guardian, shrieking and flapping her wings to keep everyone at bay.
The watching mountainfolk were so stunned that no one made any move to attack either Tarkyn or the eagle. Before they could recover, a dozen more huge birds of prey flew in to join their comrade and landed in the surrounding trees, fixing their fearsome gazes on the mountainfolk below. Utter silence descended. Every now and then, one of the huge birds swooped across the clearing to make sure none of the mountainfolk approached Tarkyn. An attempt by Dry Berry to walk around him to untie his bonds was swiftly discouraged by both the eagle on the ground and another that swooped low over her, shrieking, and catching the end of her hair in its talon, dragging a chunk of it out by its roots.
With an enormous effort Tarkyn, in his own private world of pain, dragged himself up from his knees to stand upright before them. He backed up to lean against a gnarled oak, gasping for breath, unable to hold himself up unaided. All the time, as the mountain eagle patrolled up and down in front of him, the prince fought against the pain and reaction from the beating, holding himself rigidly upright against the oak and drawing a trickle of strength from it as he stood there.
After what felt like an eternity to Tarkyn but was actually only a few minutes, the effects of the drugged wine began to wear off and his home guard slowly opened their eyes to a very strange sight.
As they looked around them, they tuned into the shocked disbelief on the faces of the mountainfolk. Then their eyes were inevitable drawn to their forest guardian; hair matted and hanging half over his face, clothes torn, and face bruised and bloodied, standing with his back against the twisted oak. Stalking back and forth in front of him was a feisty mountain eagle standing almost as tall as Tarkyn’s thigh, ruffling its feathers, occasionally flapping its wings and sweeping its golden glare across the surrounding woodfolk. In very short order, the home guard galvanized from drowsiness to outrage.
Waterstone and Rainstorm jumped up, staggering from the after-effects of the drug but propelled by a surge of adrenalin.
“Tarkyn, what have they done to you?” demanded Rainstorm, as he rushed forward.
Waterstone ran unhesitatingly around behind Tarkyn, ignoring the eagle who merely ruffled her feathers, jumped a little to one side and kept her sharp golden eyes trained on him. Waterstone tried to untie Tarkyn’s hands, but Tarkyn had strained against the knots so much that the ropes had cut into his wrists and the knots were stuck fast. The woodman drew his knife and sliced through the rope.
“Thanks,” croaked Tarkyn and cleared his throat.
Unable to focus clearly enough to heal himself, Tarkyn rubbed his wrists where the ropes had cut in. When his circulation was sufficiently restored, he pushed his matted hair back and wiped the blood out of his eyes with the heels of his hands. Only then was the full extent of the battering to his face revealed. There was a sharp intake of breath from his home guard and a groundswell of angry muttering spread among them.
Tarkyn drew a deep, shuddering breath and, with a visible effort, pulled himself together enough to speak. He raised his hand and the woodfolk fell silent as he addressed Dry Berry.
“So this is the honourable way mountainfolk treat their guests, is it?” asked Tarkyn scathingly, his voice starting as little more than a rasp. He glowered at Dry Berry, “You may not remember this, but I am your kin, just as they are.” He turned his smouldering gaze upon the stunned mountainfolk, “You would not have allowed any woodfolk to be hurt as you have just hurt me. And don’t give me any rubbish about testing out the oath. You could have done that without hurting me. Waterstone damaged the forest just by threatening me. Those two hit me brutally right from the start and none of you came forward to intervene. In fact, you cheered them on. Only Dry Berry tried to stop them.” The woodfolk of Tarkyn’s home guard glared at their kin in disgust. Tarkyn took another shaky breath, “I had thought woodfolk were above enjoying the spectacle of a public beating, but apparently not.”
Feeling Tarkyn’s anger, several of the birds of prey in the surrounding trees took off and swept low over the gathered woodfolk, coming to land protectively around him. A black hawk landed on his left shoulder and glowered down on Waterstone, causing Tarkyn to stagger under the unexpected weight. On the other side of Tarkyn, Rainstorm stood firm as fearsome birds of prey strutted around him. A large black kite, a whistling eagle and a tawny owl landed in the oak above Tarkyn’s head, ruffled their feathers and proceeded to glare out across the crowd.
Dry Berry had recovered enough from the shock to find her voice. “Tarkyn, I did not realise those men wouldn’t stop. I only wanted to check whether we were subject to your oath.”
“I know that,” said Tarkyn bleakly. “It is the only reason you will live.” He pushed his hair back again and looked in distaste at the blood on his fingers. “I also know that you condoned two men, whose calibre you must have known, to have free rein with me. You may have tried to stop them but you allowed them to start.” He took a laboured breath. “Raging Water told me that the forestals could not help their kindred to betray the oath because you are all one honourable people. Clearly there are nuances in woodfolk society that I have yet to learn.”
“We are not dishonourable,” protested Dry Berry hotly. “We have not sworn your oath, so we were not sworn to protect you. We did not allow your woodfolk to betray their oath. That’s why we drugged them. So they could not be held responsible. And we,I did not intend to hurt you so grievously. We only wanted to find out where we stood.”
“So now you know,” said Tarkyn slowly, “You are not under oath. Do I presume that your joy at finding yourselves to be free caused you to indulge in a frenzy of cruelty? Or did your attack on me spring from fellow feeling for the oathbound woodfolk who could not attack me themselves?” He glanced at Waterstone and Rainstorm, standing stalwartly on either side of him, “I’m sure they will be most grateful.” Waterstone was relieved to hear sarcasm underlying this last remark.
Dry Berry looked at Dripping Rock, and then went out of focus. For long minutes, there was an uneasy silence. Tarkyn stood silently before the mountainfolk, flanked by loyal woodfolk and guarded by deadly birds of prey, never more clearly the guardian of the forest. He could feel waves of fear, shame and anger sweeping back and forth among the mountainfolk that rose to a crescendo and then dissipated, although ripples of resentment still emanated from little hotspots here and there around the firesite.
Dry Berry took a deep breath and addressed Tarkyn, “When we last met, I observed that you could get exactly what you want without the oath, as your mastery over these powerful lords of the sky so clearly proves.”
Even through the haze of pain, Tarkyn had time to be glad that the birds of prey could not understand what Dry Berry said. He knew that these fearsome birds would never call anyone their master.
Then Dripping Rock bowed obsequiously and spoke, “Your Highness, we are truly sorry that things have gone so badly awry and would make you reparation.” He glanced fearfully at the predatory birds glaring down at them, “We yield before your power. You are indeed Lord of the Forest. And so, we have agreed that we will take your oath.”
Tarkyn raised bloodied eyebrows and replied disdainfully, “I do not want your oath. I have never wanted it and I particularly do not want it now. I would not want the safety of our forest dependent on your honour and goodwill.”
There was a shocked intake of breath. Shamefaced mountainfolk glanced surreptitiously at each other or lowered their eyes. No
ne of them could meet the eyes of Tarkyn or the home guard.
But Tarkyn did not relent. “In my society, it is an honour to serve a prince. You do not deserve that honour. And for me, it is an honour to have such fine people as these,” Tarkyn swept his hand around his home guard, “as my liegefolk. I would not feel honoured to have you as liegefolk.”
Beside him, Waterstone let out a long slow breath of consternation.
Still Tarkyn had not finished. “And you will certainly make me reparation but not on your terms, on mine. Danton,” The name came out as a croak. He coughed and tried again, “Danton. Come here, please.”
Danton steeled himself to approach the fearsome eagles. As he made his way up to stand beside Tarkyn, a buzz of conjecture spread through the crowd.
Tarkyn, Prince of Eskuzor, pushed himself away from the oak and stood tall. He sent out an imperious order for silence. The mountainfolk blanched, never having experienced his mind-images before. Even his own woodfolk were shocked.
Tarkyn waited until all eyes were turned to him. He cleared his throat again before pronouncing, “The penalty for attacking a member of the Royal Family of Eskuzor is death.” His voice became stronger. “On some occasions, clemency may be granted.” Tarkyn let his amber gaze travel across his audience. “This is not one of those times.”
To Danton by his side, Tarkyn pointed out his two assailants who had now moved around to the other side of the fire where they stood with their arms folded, clothing ripped and bloodied, but having recovered enough to be looking aggrieved by the eagle’s treatment.
“Those two,” was all he said.
Before anyone had time to react, two knives flicked fifty feet across the clearing and embedded themselves deep in the mountainmen’s chests. The thugs died with looks of surprise on their faces. A horrified silence fell like a curtain on the gathered woodfolk. Then a babble of outrage and anger broke out around the firesite. In the branches above, the gathered birds of prey shifted their positions and ruffled their feathers uneasily.