by Robert Beers
“I'm here.” Her voice came from the back porch.
Ethan stumbled over a chair as he raced through the cottage to the back door.
“Are you hurt?” Ellona saw him rubbing his shin.
“No time for that,” He gasped. “Gather up the children and what you can carry. We're getting the flick out of here.”
Ellona's eyes widened at Ethan's curse, but the expression on his face convinced her to begin packing.
“Children.” She called them to her. Sari and Jonas came from the bedroom rubbing their eyes, and yawning.
She picked up a canvas bag, and began stuffing food and cooking utensils into it. Ethan pulled out his packs, and started filling them with his tools.
“Why are you packing, mommy?” Sari peered into the bag as Ellona put a much-loved hand-thrown ceramic pitcher into it.
“We have to go away tonight, honey.” Ellona ruffled Sari's hair. “Now, you and Jonas need to get dressed as fast as you can, ok?”
Circumstance came into the room, already dressed. He collected the younger children, and herded them into the bedroom “Come on,” he said. “We'll make a game of it.”
Ellona's eyes followed Circumstance into the room. “Is he the reason?”
Ethan looked up from arranging the items in his pack. “I'm afraid so. Vedder's got himself a nice little mob put together, complete with torches. I passed them on the way here. I figure we've got no more than an hour.”
Ellona swept the cottage interior with her gaze. So many years filled with so many memories, and in a few moments it would all be gone because of one man's hatred.
She saw Ethan had finished his packing and was collecting his knife, bow and sword. She walked over to the bedroom door, and saw Circumstance solemnly helping Jonas and Sari play their packing game. He was making sure they took warm clothes and extra stockings.
Ethan rolled up some blankets and tied the roll onto his larger pack. “I think this is all we can handle, Ellona. How are the kids coming?”
“They're just finishing up now.” She tied the last thing on the other bag and draped her heavy wool cloak about her shoulders.
Ethan looked out the front window. A line of flickering lights was cresting the rise in the meadow south of the cottage.
He turned and gathered the children from the bedroom while settling his packs onto his back. “Let's get going. The mob is only a few minutes away, now.”
Ellona picked up her bags. “I'm going to miss this place. So much of my life is here.”
Ethan followed Ellona and the children out the back door. He was going to miss the place, as well. For the first time he could remember he had begun to feel at home here. Vedder was going to have a lot of things to answer for.
“Head straight into the forest.” He called out to them as ran over to the chicken coop. “I'll catch up with you.”
Ethan had seen mobs before, and well knew their mentality. There would be those in it who, frustrated at not having their chosen victims at hand, would kill or destroy what they could. The least he could do was give the chickens a chance.
He could hear the mob approaching. Some of the voices were louder, encouraging the others. “Vedder's paid bullies,” he thought, as he pulled the door off the coop. The chickens clucked and rustled in their sleep.
“Sorry about this, girls, but it's for your own good.” He spoke to them quietly, as he kicked the back out of the coop. A few of the hens fluttered to the ground in alarm, while most of them looked up at him in outrage. They would scatter into the trees when the mob arrived.
He looked over his shoulder as he headed across the property behind the cottage. The mob was closer, almost to the lone oak that they used as the front yard boundary. The moon wasn't out yet, and he used the darkness to cover his dash to the forest where Ellona and the children waited.
Ellona gave a small gasp of alarm as Ethan pushed through the huckleberry bushes into the small clearing where she and the children hid, then she recognized him.
“Ethan!”
“Shhh. Down. All of you. We need to get further into the forest. They'll search the fringe, I'm sure of it.” He pointed into the gloom behind Ellona and the children.
“Circumstance. You keep an eye on Sari and Jonas. I don't want to have to chase them in a moment of panic.”
“Ellona. We're going to have to both lead and follow. Can you break a trail?” He looked at her intensely, searching for signs of weakness or panic.
She surprised him by showing none. “Come, children. Follow me.” She turned and began working her way through the brush with the children close behind her. Ethan trailed Circumstance, keeping both an eye and an ear out for anything that would tell him of the mob coming their way.
Ethan need not have worried about that part of it. Upon finding the cottage empty, they began destroying anything breakable. One of them tipped a lamp onto the floor. Its oil took fire from the wick, and the flames spread across the floor, licking at the dry wood.
They watched the flickering light of the burning cottage as they crouched behind the underbrush, and Ellona began to cry.
Ethan reached out to comfort her. “I know it's hard to see it burn, but I'll build you another cottage in a place where there are no Vedders.”
Ellona clung to him as she sobbed. “It isn't the cottage. It's that beautiful spinning wheel you made for me.”
He looked down at her. “I can always build another wheel. I could never build another you.”
She looked up into his eyes. She saw no anger there. All she saw was adoration.
Ethan stood and took her by the hand. “It looks like that will satisfy them. Come on. We can make a few miles more before we'll have to sleep. I think we'll travel East this time, over the mountains.”
“I'm tired, Mommy.” Jonas dug his heels into the rocky soil of the path.
They had begun this stage of their journey Eastward at dawn. It was now only an hour or two untill midday, and the two youngest, Jonas and Sari, were beginning to show signs of fatigue.
Ethan smiled to himself at a wandering thought that passed through his mind. Give a child a couple of good friends and a few toys, and the play will go on till nightfall. Give them a few miles of trail, and they're worn out in less than half the time.
He slowed a bit, and scooped Jonas into his arms. “Can't stop now, little man. We'll never get there if we don't put one foot in front of the other. Here, you can ride me for a while.” He put Jonas behind his neck, with the boy's feet dangling onto his chest.
“Weeee. Giddyap!” Jonas tried using Ethan's hair as reins.
“No, no, Jonas. You don't pull Ethan's hair.” Ellona put a restraining hand on the boy.
“Mommy, I wanna ride Ethan, too.” Sari tugged at her mother's skirt.
Ellona smiled down at her daughter. “I'm sorry, dear heart, but Ethan can only carry one of you at a time. Maybe later.”
“Oh, poo.” Sari pouted, and a small tear glistened in the corner of her eye.
Circumstance stepped forward from his place at the rear, and picked up Sari.
“Weeee!”
“Circumstance! No! You'll hurt yourself.” Ellona reached out to stop him.
“No, I won't. She's light. Lighter than Jonas.” He calmly placed his little sister onto his shoulders, and continued to walk.
Ellona touched Ethan's arm.
He turned to look at her as he continued to walk. “You're worried about Circumstance.” It was a statement, not a question.
She nodded.
He looked back to see the boy carrying his stepsister. Circumstance was smiling broadly, showing his pointed canines. He didn't look to be staggered at all by his little sister's weight.
He turned back to Ellona. “Don't be. He's having fun. It's one of the few times I've seen him smile.”
She turned her head. “He is, isn't he?”
They walked along together for a while in silence, listening to the sounds of the wood and the Firth River runni
ng alongside it.
Ellona sighed.
Ethan glanced at her. “What is it?”
She gave him a small smile. “I was thinking about the future. About where we're going to live. What I'm going to do. What the children are going to do. Things like that.”
“All good reasons for a sigh.” He nodded in agreement. “As far as the children are concerned, I wouldn't presume to tell you not to worry. You're their mother. It's natural.”
“As far as what you're going to do, I'd like you to consider doing more spinning. You like it, and you're good at it, almost as good as my mother, and she's known as one of the best of the Wool Coast. Where we're going to live is another matter. One of the Wandering Folk came through Bantering a couple of weeks ago. He passed along the usual news about world events in their typical crazy quilt fashion.
“One of the items struck me. The Earl of the town where I first became a watchman died suddenly, leaving no heir. That means Berggren could become a nice place again, and I like the idea of the mountains being between us and that priest.”
* * * *
Charity reined in her horse before the gully. The small creek running through it had had centuries to do its work. The gully walls were far too steep for the horses, and the gap between them was too wide to jump.
Flynn and Neely pulled up beside her. Flynn's draft horse pawed the ground, and wuffed through its nose.
“He's eager to be on.” Charity looked over at the big man. Astride that horse, he appeared to be of normal size.
“Aye, miss Charity, that he is. I ‘spect this is more fun than pullin’ a cheese cart day in an’ day out.”
Neely leaned forward in his saddle a squinted at the gully. “How in th’ bloody pit are we gonna get th’ horses over that bleedin’ thing?”
Charity turned in her saddle, and looked toward the forest that ran alongside their path. It had been their constant companion for days now, ever since the Wayfarer House. Neely called it the Long Wood. It was supposed to grow from Black Ben Mountain all the way to the headwaters of the Ort River, nearly thirty-five hundred miles to the south.
The gully appeared to narrow as it approached the forest. She turned her horse, and started to walk alongside the gully.
“'Ere now!” Neely called out to her. “Where you goin'?”
“To find a narrows, of course,” she called back. “Where else would I be going?”
“But, but there's ... oh damn!” Neely jerked his horse around, and followed her. “C'mon, Flynn. We'd better keep up. The way this trip is goin', we'll be sharing our supper with a pack of wolves next.”
“Flynn eased his huge horse around and followed Neely. “Oh good. I likes wolves.”
Neely muttered unmentionables under his breath as he followed Charity.
The gully continued to narrow as they followed its path into The Long Wood. The exposed ground below the long grasses at the gully's edge showed more and more rock mixed into the soil. The ground was just a little bit tougher for the water to cut into.
Tree roots started to show through the soil of the bank, and they found their path curving away from the gully as the trees grew thicker along its edge.
“We're being forced deeper into th’ wood.” Neely looked over his shoulder at Flynn. “There's wolves this far in.”
“We'll be ok, Neely.” Flynn pushed a branch away from his face. “We're makin’ a lot of noise. I imagine any wolves'd be scared away long before we'd see ‘em.”
Charity had to rein hard to the right to skirt a thick copse of Alders. The sun created a patchwork of light and shadow as it fell through the leaves. Frogs croaked at the horses as they passed by the Alders and moved into the Cottonwoods and Oaks.
A family gathering of sparrows exploded out of the trees, and caused the cat to look up and mnaaack at them as they flew by overhead.
Flynn laughed. “Hwaammphh! She wants ‘em to come down an’ play, she does.”
“Shhhh!” Neely looked around at the forest around them as if expecting shadowy gray forms to come hurtling at them from out of the green.
Charity looked back at Neely, and shook her head at his case of nerves. She'd always liked the forest. This one reminded her of the one backside of Aunt and Uncle's place.
“Down this way.” She turned her horse left, and followed a widening between the trees back towards the creek.
The Cottonwoods and Oaks soon gave way again to Alders and the croaking of frogs. Daffodils, and Skunk Cabbage with its distinctive sour smell, appeared and became more numerous. The horses’ hooves now left small depressions that filled with water as they passed.
“Our creek's become a swamp, fellows.” Charity called out to them from her position on point.
“Hope it's a shallow one.” Neely looked down at the black water with apprehension. Small bubbles rose up and popped on the turgid surface, releasing the scent of decay.
Small amphibious eyes watched them as they worked their way through the swampy ground. The croaks of the frogs quieted as they approached, and began again behind them like they were passing through a curtain of sound.
Flynn took advantage of the widening of the space, and moved his horse alongside of Neely's. “Well, we knows where the creek comes from.”
“That's a fact.” Neely replied. “Gotta be a bunch of smallish springs here ‘bouts. Bet this swamp goes on a ways, too.”
“Seems shallow enough.” Flynn considered the water.
Neely clicked his tongue at his horse. As much as he disliked admitting it, he was finding horseback more and more enjoyable.
“Dry land ahead!” Charity's call echoed around the swamp, silencing the frogs. A hooting birdcall sounded in the treetops ahead of them.
“Blue Fisher.” Neely said. “Probably after the frogs.” He nudged his horse's flanks with his heels to catch up with Charity.
Flynn kept with him, and they soon saw what Charity had called out about. A spot of dry land rose up above the waters of the swamp. Daffodils grew in clumps along its curve, and bundles of sword grass ringed the sides. A few of the grasses sported elaborate seed fronds. Some of them were being used as a handy perch for sweet-songed Redwings.
Charity reined her horse to a stop, and climbed down. She massaged her bottom as she looked around the patch of dry ground. The surface of the knoll was covered in a mix of short grasses, fragrant ground hugging herbs and wild flowers.
The horses took advantage of the rest, and began cropping the ground cover, jerking mouthfuls of the sweet mixture away from the soil with sharp twists of their heads.
Flynn and Neely followed Charity's example, and unhorsed, allowing their mounts to nose about the knoll for select morsels.
“Nice bit of ground here.” Neely plucked a small blossom from a wildflower, and sniffed it.
“Aye, it is.” Flynn deposited his bulk onto the soft ground with an audible thud.
Charity saw something in the soil, and motioned Flynn and Neely over to where she knelt. The cat was sniffing the spot, and puffing slightly. A ridge ran the length of her back, and her tail was larger again by half.
Neely knelt by Charity, and took a look at what the trouble was. “I told ya. I told ya both. There's wolves about!”
“Can you tell how long ago they were here?” Charity ran her hand down the cat's back, trying to soothe her.
Neely peered more closely at the tracks. There was a line of them leading to the East. The edge of the forest could be seen from where they knelt, with the horizon showing the rolling lands beyond.
“Strange.” Neely murmured.
“What?” Charity asked. Flynn looked to both of them, expecting another story.
“These tracks say th’ wolves headed east, out of th’ forest. Wolves don't do that Miss Charity. They live here, in Th’ Long Wood and up north in Wolfwood. They don't move out into th’ plains. Passin’ strange, it is.”
“Do they say how long ago this happened?” Charity did not like the idea of a Wolf Pack vis
iting her while she slept.
Neely studied the tracks again. “Ummm, ‘bout three, maybe four days ago. There was six ... no, seven cubs with ‘em, an’ a pregnant bitch.”
Charity looked at Neely with new respect. “You got all that?”
Flynn chuckled. “Said he was a tracker, he did. Didn't say how good, though. Neely's a natcheral at it. Reads the ground like a book, he does.”
“I'd say so.” She looked up at the sky. “Looks like we've about another three or four hours of daylight. I'd like to get out of this swamp, if we can, and put a few more miles under these horses before we camp.”
Neely groaned to his feet. Now that he'd a chance to be out of the saddle for a bit, his bottom had decided to start complaining about the abuse.
“Aye, miss. Might as well, but me bum's gonna be callin’ me names from here on out.
Flynn suggested a few.
Neely's ears burned a bright red under Charity's giggles and Flynn's guffaws as they splashed their way out of the swamp.
Chapter Fifteen
“It's so big.” Ellona's eyes grew huge as she tried to take in all of Berggren at once.
They arrived at the city gates on market day, and the streets were crowded with carts, stalls and wagons filled with goods coming into the market.
People thronged the Market Square and the streets feeding into it. The shouts of merchants and crafts folk competed for the ear of passers by.
The air was filled with the smells of cooking and spices as well as that of droppings left by the draft animals.
The combined clamor of the merchants, crafts folk, shoppers and animals was nearly deafening.
Jonas tugged at Ellona's skirts. “It's noisy, mommy.”
Sari chimed in. “Yeah, too noisy. Too crowded, too.”
She looked up at Ethan. “I wanna go home.”
Ethan knelt to look into Sari's face. “We are home, dear. This is our new home. Give it some time, and I'm sure you'll like it here.”
“It's too noisy. I want my old home.”
“Ethan! By Bardoc's beard, it is you. Ethan, my boy, you've come home!”
Ethan stood at the sound of his name, and turned to see an old man, slender, with sparse white hair and a short, full beard pushing his way through the crowd towards him.