“I was invited,” he announced, “to teach the Voferen Kahago guarde how to fight the dragons.”
He paused and looked carefully around the small crowd at the faces which knew his legend and at those who had only recently learned it.
“I went instead,” he continued, “to meet the dragon I never fought.”
A small cheer of approval went up from the table of Vyck’s orphans but Hardt stared into the disapproving eyes of Stray Tor’s lord.
“I had killed the dragon’s human friend, known as a telf not a slave. I went to pay her bloodprice. The dragon’s name was…” Here he paused, looking over at the crowd of children who had crushed in around Mobious to protect him. Hundred’s tiny grandniece was in the midst, sitting on Mobious’ lap.
She stood on his knees and yelled proudly back at Hardt, “Sophie!” and then happily settled herself again.
“Yes,” Hardt smiled at the girl and turned back to the adults. “Sophie heard my whole horrible tale and after careful consideration with an elder dTur, that is dragon, for whom I also have great respect, she forgave me.”
Mobious sat up straight. He searched through the crowd and saw Ker watching him and whispering into Hundred’s ear.
Hardt went on, “She gave me no bloodprice. She extracted no payment from me. With more graciousness than any lander lord, she forgave me my murder.
“We have a bloodprice owed to the dTelfur and when they come again we must beg for forgiveness for there is not enough blood in our lands to repay their decimation. They will resurrect.” Hardt raised his voice as a few landers, and Arctege, protested. He turned to the crowd around Mobious. “Children listen, for your children must know. The dTelfur will come again and we must listen. Our ancestors took vows upon crossing the great waters. They vowed to ‘shed no blood until we are hoarse from talking.’ My dTelfur friends approved of this and added that they would listen. They vowed to listen more than they talked. Remember this and remember that they want peace and friendship with us.”
Hardt took a deep breath while some of the diners cheered and repeated the new vow. He wasn’t sure he should go on. But, looking at Hundred’s blind eyes turned with great concern towards Mobious, he spoke. “Sophie was fascinated with us. When she saw you building the Tor, she and a young friend, Nahni, came in the night and dug a dragonbed closer to Center so you wouldn’t have to trek so far for your stone.”
He let them react to this revelation and then turned to look at the only other survivors of the kyirghon hunt. “Sophie watched Getek and Brower and Gaerel and Sirte and Frair and Heigna and I as we hunted those Kyirghon. She took the wounded doe because she was afraid we’d be hurt by its dam. She was watching over us, protecting us, not hunting us. After protecting Hundred and Jaythree from exposure and wild animals when they were stranded in the burntbos, yes, Roan, everything Hundred said was true… not long after that, Sophie died trying to put out the fire some child set in Pace.” He had to pause again as this news filtered through the crowd.
“She adored us and it made her very sad that you feared her. But you didn’t know any better because, in part, I never came back to tell you. So I’m here now and in a short while I will be in Voferen Kahago to say the same thing. Taking Sophie’s example to heart; on her behalf, I forgive you.”
The crowd burst out in arguments and cheers as he stepped down from the bench. Jaythree was waiting there with Mobious and she led them away into Vyck’s cottage. A third pack had been added to the pile waiting for their morning departure. Jaythree bent down and pulled this pack onto her back, gesturing for the men to do the same with theirs.
“I’m going with you and we’re going tonight. All the foodstuffs you were going to gather at dawn are waiting in the stone shed. We’ll stop there and gather them on our way.”
“Why are we leaving now?” Responding to Jaythree’s urgency, Hardt did as he was told even as he questioned her.
“You did the right thing, Hardt. They needed to hear your truth. But it won’t take long for them to wonder where you found a son if you were living with the dTelfur right up until we killed them.”
Venoah came and helped them strap the packs on securely and lifted baby Tor into the carrier on Jaythree’s chest. She kissed Mobious on the cheek and wished him well. Then she waved wings at Hardt and unlatched the swinging back wall of the cottage for their exit. Hardt had one more question before he followed Jaythree and his atchs out.
“Why is Jaythree going with us?”
Venoah smiled, “She knows how to get there… and how to send messages back to Hundred who is very very proud of you.”
Nine
∞
They were only two moons out of Stray Tor when Hardt fell ill. Judging from the massive swelling of his right foot, Jaythree and Mobious agreed that the man had stepped on something sometime in the night. They couldn’t find anything dangerous when they looked around the camp. Not knowing the poison Jaythree tied off the blood flow at the leg and looked for a puncture wound on the foot which might tell her how to reduce the swelling. For three suns they battled the poison with whatever mendicants they had to hand, testing first one and then another, but mainly allowing his fever to rage uncontrolled in the hopes that it would burn the toxins from his system.
On the dawn of the fourth day a grizzle-bearded man stumbled upon them as he searched for wild roots. Mobious recognized the man.
“You were at the battle.”
The man replied calmly, “You haven’t grown much.”
Jaythree stared uncomprehendingly at Mobious, “You were at the battle? The Lost Battle?”
“He was up in a tree, watching the foolishness as I was.” The man stepped closer and knelt down by Hardt’s unconscious, fevered body. Laying a hand over the patient’s heart, the stranger stared at Hardt’s face. “My name is Faite. What’s yours?”
Mobious and Jaythree were each about to answer when Hardt opened his eyes and responded weakly, “My name is Hardt.”
“A Hardt meets its Faite.” Laughing deep in his chest, the stranger wiped the sweat from Hardt’s brow with his long sleeve. “I’ll invite you and your friends back to my home, but who leads? Will they follow fate or their heart?”
“Your question is easily answered. They’ll have to carry me and only you know the way.” Hardt felt his breath coming more easily even as his mind cleared of the fearful visions of his dreams.
Mobious and Jaythree quickly packed up the camp as Faite chatted with the rapidly improving Hardt. By the time they were ready to go, Hardt found himself able to stand and walk slowly on his own. Faite offered him an arm and Mobious stayed close at hand, but Hardt walked the short way to the stranger’s small hut on his own swollen foot.
“Sit at the table, all of you. Pull up the most comfortable chairs and I’ll put on a kettle. Do you like the place? I have several homes like this across this small section of the countryside we landers have chosen to inhabit.” Faite bustled about the place like a man not used to having guests. “You’re lucky I was coming this way just now. Your Hardt here wouldn’t have lasted much longer. Here, here, it’s not comfortable for your hip, but still prop your foot up on the table and let me have a look.”
Mobious watched the boiling kettle and wondered at the hospitality of hot drinks on a summer day. But he was distracted by the sparseness of the furnishings. Each of the four chairs they found had to be cleared first of parchment and cloth covered in writing, mostly with words and characters Mobious did not recognize. The room was clean, but cluttered. Even the small bed was covered with drawings and books. It was the familiarity of the space which most disturbed Mobious. He realized that it reminded him of the Vize Bower back in the village.
“Are you a mage, Faite?”
The man’s motion ceased. He looked up from removing the bandages on Hardt’s right foot and raised one eyebrow at the boy. “I could tell you were smart.”
That was all he said until he’d plastered Hardt’s foot with a concocti
on mixed with the hot water and cooled to a solid cast. The hot drinks he’d served them were refreshing. It drained their vigilance from them with a warmth that soaked into their muscles and their minds. By the time Faite had finished with Hardt he had to wake Mobious to help clear the bed and settle Hardt on it.
“Now, you three rest yourselves out. I’ll wake you with dinner when I see you need it. Sleep. Tor and I will clean up from lunch.”
And so saying, Faite strapped the baby to his chest with some large dishtowel and turned away to the indoor sink. None of the three needed more encouragement than his confidence and they each sunk into deep and restful dreams.
Three suns they stayed in Faite’s hut. He continued to be a quiet, amusing man who cared little if his jokes entertained any but himself. Mobious was invited to inspect all of the papers but was given no assistance with the strange characters. He found the documents impenetrable. On some, he could understand words but no meaning. On others, he felt he would understand the drawings if he only knew the context. But Faite would not respond to his questions and he soon quit asking.
Hardt made a recovery which Jaythree would have considered remarkable had not most of it occurred within an hour of Faite’s touch. He was clearly a mage of great power and learning. But he shared nothing of his skill more than how to make the paste he slathered on Hardt’s foot twice a day.
At dinner on the third day, Faite told them that he was leaving for Forte in the morning and invited them to join him or remain in the hut for as long as they wished. As Forte was on their way north and both Hardt and Mobious had a desire to see the place again, they decided to travel with the odd mage.
The hike lasted barely a week of days and when they arrived at the new gates of Forte, Faite announced that he had changed his mind and was heading on to another destination. He wished them luck, kissed Tor, and told Mobious that he looked forward to their next meeting. This sudden departure left all three speechless, but Jaythree found her voice before he’d gone too many steps.
“You’re not even going to come in for a night?”
Faite turned, frowning at the question and then suddenly popped up the corners of his mouth in a half-second grin before he responded. “I only came to make sure you’d stop here. You should stay the winter.”
“Voferen isn’t that far. We can make it by winter.”
Faite’s eyes flickered over to Hardt and back, “He can’t.” His gaze turned on Mobious. “Magic does not solve problems, it only gives you more options.”
Hardt conceded, “I will take care of myself, Faite. We’ll stay a little while.”
“Yes,” Faite nodded at the older man sarcastically, “You mean you’ll stay the night. But in the morning you’ll feel differently.”
Without another word of farewell, the hermit mage hitched his bag higher up on his back and walked away, quickly disappearing in the thick forest.
They stared after him until a rough voice behind them remarked, “What a very odd creature.”
Turning as one they found a plump woman with white hair tucked behind huge ears standing in the open gateway. She wore an apron with dozens upon dozens of pockets and was weaving some kind of fur which she pulled from a deep pocket down her right thigh into some kind of fabric which hung over her left shoulder. Her hands were moving like lightning so it took each a few moments to look up at her ruddy, smiling face.
“Kivress!”
“Have we met, young man?” A look of confusion crossed the woman’s face as she looked closely at Mobious.
“Once,” Mobious stuttered, “a long time ago.”
“Well now it couldn’t have been so long. You’re not half as old as my youngest. Ah well, so many people come through here. Hurry along now, we’re missing the feast.”
“Feast?” Jaythree asked as they were rushed in through the outer wall gate and across a bridge spanning the moat to the gate of the inner wall which was closed behind them by two very large men with sour expressions. Kivress thanked them cheerily as she passed.
“They would have greeted you, had I not been running late and seen you from my window.” She gestured randomly over her shoulder at the many leveled tower which Hardt remembered had been half its current height when he was last in Forte. “They’re banned from the celebration. Most punishments are modified for Forte night so that everyone gets some kind of reprieve from daily life and the elders have too much fun with it. We have a guy was caught flinging his night waste out a window into the moat. A lazy crime, right? He’s in charge of cleanup. Gets him out of the fertilizer pits and gives him a chance to hear the tales and watch the dancing even if he is working.
“But Jae and his brother there at the gate beat a man into the ground for hurting their sister. The man isn’t well enough to go to the feast so the boys don’t get to go either.”
“And since they want to protect people, they get to guard the gate.” Hardt guessed.
Kivress clapped her hands at his cleverness. “You’ve got it! My bond, Mowden, firmly believes punishment should educate the perpetrators as well as recompense the victims. Although the sister claims her brothers owe her reparations as well for A, taking her revenge and B, leaving her bleeding while they took it. The female elders have some serious ideas on punishment for the man and the brothers but hopefully cooler heads will prevail in time. Ah well, whatever punishment is doled out in hearings next week, those boys will get no peace from their sister. Here we are.”
With some help from Mobious, Kivress dragged open the tall doors of a building which stood where the farm had been on their last visit. They had crossed through a large garden which filled the area in front of the new building and though both Mobious and Hardt had looked they’d seen no evidence of pumpkins. The majority of the farm had been covered with this wide building. However, as they stepped through the doors to find dirt still beneath their feet, they realized the building was simply four walls and a ceiling enclosing a gaming area which had been converted into a feasting hall for the night with long trestle tables and benches and at the far end, one table raised on a dais run perpendicular to the other tables.
A woman stood on this dais, pacing in front of the table, making a great effort to speak loud enough to be heard over the ocean of people trying to be quiet. She looked like a very strong woman who’d spent much of her life so far lifting heavy things outdoors. Her blond hair was braided and twisted about her head with flowers and beads but the attempt at beauty was hindered by the sturdy practicality of her clothes even as it was accentuated by the bright smile and roaring laugh that accompanied her speech.
“That’s my daughter,” Kivress sighed proudly. “Donem, second lord of Stray.”
As the three murmured words of congratulations, a young man with a charcoal-darkened peach-fuzz mustache approached them. “Kiv, you’re late.”
“Ah, it’s my fifty-eighth Forte Night, dragonbait. I’ll come when I wish.” She tousled his hair, clearly aware of the embarrassment she was causing him by treating him so young, especially in front of a young woman like Jaythree. “Can you show these folks where they can store their bags and then find them seats near someone friendly, maybe with Stere’s brood, please. They have a couple really young ones to play with this little fella and some teens for… Oh dear crossing! I haven’t even gotten your names! You know me, I’m Kivress and this handsome young man is Tiront.”
Tiront took their bags as they introduced themselves. He tucked them under a tarp along the side of the room. Kivress herself took them over and pushed people around until there was room for them all amongst the family descended from Stere, apparently a pre-castle inhabitant of Forte.
The feast which Jaythree eventually found out was a yearly festival in anticipation of the depression of winter was fantastic. It was better food than Mobious had tasted in his entire life. He mentioned to Hardt that it was all as tasty as pumpkin, a concept which made them both nervous. Each time a dish was served, Mobious and Hardt would each ask intently if
it were pumpkin. This amused Stere’s family and as more and more dishes were passed around, more and more voices were heard exaggeratedly asking the person passing if it contained any kind of pumpkin until it was revealed that Kivress had tired many frseason ago of her husband’s affinity for pumpkin and had the patch accidentally uprooted by a few young unicorns every spring. Eventually, Mowden quit replanting.
Throughout the feasting, tales were called about the people and the history of Forte. In fact most of those eating at the raised table were traveling callers who had been invited specifically for this evening. Eating was also interrupted by dancing and singing. An ongoing game of tag dashed around the tables at all times, occasionally joined by even the more respectable adults of Forte. Jokes and laughter were the order of the night though sad tales were rewarded with as much raucous approval as happy ones. The people of Forte seemed only to care that it was their life that was being called.
During a scary tale which captured the attention of every member of Stere’s family for once, Hardt pointed out to Mobious the beautiful tapestries hanging on the cold stone walls. Both were most interested in a huge blue and yellow tapestry of the sun setting behind Forte as a green dragon flew overhead inaccurately breathing red, orange, and gold flames.
“She was quite an artist.” Mobious remarked in a whisper.
Hardt replied, “I wonder if she’s still around somewhere.”
“Let’s not find her.”
Hardt smiled at Mobious’ tone.
The reveling wore on through the night with no end in sight. So when Jaythree turned to pass a sweet tray to Hardt and found him snoring on the table she went in search of Kivress, who grabbed Tiront to carry Hardt’s bags and settle them in a room crowded with sleeping bunks.
The next morning, flooding rains began falling. As any true old dTelfur, Hardt felt the bad flying weather deep in his muscles and he awoke with no desire to travel. Instead, he allowed Jaythree to bring the Forte healers to cluck and confer over him.
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