by Shae Ford
He recognized the axe immediately: it was the same weapon Gwen carried … wait moment. The bearded men’s axes had two heads — Gwen’s only had one. He glanced down at her belt and saw there was ragged nub where the second blade should’ve been.
Before he could ask what had happened to it, Gwen spoke: “That’s Cadwalader, our first Thane. And my father, Thane Evan,” she said, pointing to the carved warriors. “They were the greatest dragonslayers in our history.”
Kael snorted. “There aren’t any dragons in the mountains.”
“Have you been to the summit?”
“Well, no —”
“Then you ought to keep your mouth shut. Otherwise, people might figure out how stupid you are,” Gwen retorted. “There are dragons in the mountains — well, I suppose they’re more like the frost-breathing castoffs of dragons. But they’re the closest things you’ll find on this side of the northern seas.” She arched her chin at the images carved into the doors. “Wynns is what we call them. They’ve lived in the mountains for so long that they’ve lost their wings. Their breath bites like winter and they’ve got these great heavy claws they use to burrow through ice.”
Roland had always said there were monsters living at the summit. Still, Kael had a difficult time believing they were wingless, burrowing dragons. “Are you cert — would you stop that?”
He tried to move away, but Gwen stepped on his heel. “Fate’s fingers, you walk too slowly. Move, mutt!”
She clomped on his heel again, and Kael was tired of playing. He outran her easily, reaching the Hall doors several paces ahead. He stopped to open the doors — but Gwen didn’t. Instead, she lowered her shoulder and smacked into him from behind.
There was a loud crack, a roar of cheers, and the next time Kael blinked, he was lying on the floor inside the Hall. His limbs were splayed in every direction; a large chunk of the door was trapped beneath him. Splinters the size of his fist ringed his body in an arc. The wildmen seated around the many tables grinned down at him though their beards.
Kael heard steps clomping up behind him and flipped over quickly. “What,” he howled, “in Kingdom’s name is wrong with you?”
Gwen leaned against the man-sized hole in the door, her bluish-black lips pulled back from her teeth in a grin. “How was your trip, mutt?”
“You could’ve killed me!”
“Are you dead?”
“No —”
“Got any scratches? Bruises? I bet you’re not even sore.”
Never, in all of his life, had Kael wished to be wounded. But Gwen was right: he’d just been launched through several inches of pine, and he had absolutely nothing to show for it. “Well, still … you’ve ruined that door.”
Gwen shrugged. “The craftsmen will have it rebuilt before you’ve finished sobbing about it.” She ducked through the hole, and the Hall fell silent. “Do you know why you’re not hurt, mutt? Because you didn’t have a chance to doubt it, this time. You didn’t have time to see it flying towards you, didn’t have time to fret about how badly it would hurt. Fate shoved you through a door —”
“You shoved me through a door.”
“— and your warrior strength protected you. I don’t know what those lowlanders taught you, but it wasn’t whispering.” She stepped over him — nearly crushing his fingers as she went — and marched to the back of the room.
Most of the wildmen returned to their cups immediately, but a few stared him down. And rather than simmer under their gazes, Kael got to his feet.
Heavy tables ringed the Hall, their legs carved into the coiling shapes of beasts. The fire pit that used to sit in the middle of the room had been pushed against the back wall. Dishes piled high with mountain fare sat in rows stretching to either end of each table. Empty plates circled the dishes, waiting to be filled.
The wildmen seemed to quickly forget that Kael had just erupted through their door. The air came alive with chatter as they handed the plates around, piling them with food.
Kael went for Kyleigh at a stomp. “I know what you’re up to.”
She was the picture of innocence. “Me?”
He frowned at her. “You knew the wildmen were around. Don’t tell me you couldn’t smell them,” he added when she started to protest. “You knew very well we were headed straight for their camp.”
“You’re right. I did.”
He hadn’t expected her to admit it so easily. “Well, just … why, then?”
“Why? Because it was the right thing to do. You see, I’d been so very bad to them for so many years. And my poor heart could barely hold the guilt —”
“Come off it, Kyleigh,” he growled at her.
And just as he’d suspected, she grinned. “All right, maybe I missed them.”
“Missed them? They’re completely insane!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Would I keep friends who were in any way unstable?”
“Those seem to be the only sort you keep.”
“Then what does that say about you?” She smiled when he glared. “Oh come now, they’re not all that bad. Once you get used to the frivolity —”
“Is that what you call it? I just got launched through a door!”
“I know,” she bit her lip, but couldn’t stop the corners of her mouth from turning upwards, “I saw.”
Kael didn’t think it was funny. Not in the least bit.
Chapter 17
A New Beginning
It turned out that Gwen was serious about putting him to work.
Kael had spent the night on the Hall floor, curled on top of his bedroll and surrounded by wildmen. He hadn’t slept very well: the wildmen seemed to get up at all hours of the night. The front doors creaked open and gasps of cold air whipped in, chilling him nearly every time he was about to drift off.
Then at dawn, Gwen woke him with a sharp kick.
Kael groaned and clutched his side. “What was that for?”
“You looked peaceful,” she said with a shrug. “It was making my breakfast come up a bit. Now get out and get moving — we’ve got a village to rebuild.”
Kael didn’t know the first thing about building houses. Tinnark’s carpenters had always taken care of that sort of thing. He was sure he wouldn’t do the wildmen any good.
Gwen dogged him the whole way out of Tinnark and into the woods, stepping on his heels each time he slowed. It wasn’t until they’d arrived at the base of an enormous tree that she finally relented.
Kael had climbed this tree once as a child, and he remembered it well. He’d been focusing so hard on the limb just ahead of him that he’d lost track of time — and of where he was. He wound up climbing much higher than he’d ever meant to.
When he’d thought to look down, the earth spun beneath him and the houses of Tinnark looked like toys. Fear froze him to the branch he perched on. He’d wrapped his arms and legs around it and shut his eyes tightly, trying to forget where he was, regretting that he’d ever climbed so high.
It was evening before Amos finally came looking for him. When he saw Kael’s plight, he’d been less than sympathetic. “You got yourself up there, so you can get yourself down,” he’d said.
Though he refused to help, Amos hadn’t abandoned him: he’d sat beneath the tree, tending to a small fire he’d built as darkness closed in. The moon was full that night. Kael had been able to see the next branch a mere arm’s reach beneath him.
He knew that once Amos put his foot down, that was the end of it. If he ever wanted to touch solid earth again, he’d have to get there on his own. “You got yourself up here, so you can get yourself down,” he’d whispered as he stretched for the nearest branch.
He’d taken the tree one limb at a time, inching his way down. He forgot about the height and the spinning earth beneath him. He’d put all of his concentration into the climb, into reaching the next branch. When his boots finally touched the solid earth, he’d collapsed in relief.
“See? I knew you could do it. Though it would’ve bee
n a blasted lot easier if you’d done it in the daylight,” Amos had grumped from across the fire.
The tree had only grown taller with the passing years. Now when Kael craned his neck to search the highest branches, the view made him dizzy. He brought his eyes back to earth and saw handful of wildmen crouched beneath its evergreen arms.
Gwen swept a hand at them. “These are our craftsmen. They’ve been hard at work repairing this miserable little village —”
“Tinnark,” Kael said.
She raised a brow. “Tinnark? That’s a stupid name.”
“No, it’s history. This village was settled years ago by a man named Tinn,” Kael explained. “His house had a large, pointed roof that was simple to build and could bear the weight of snow. As more settlers arrived, they called the sloping roof Tinn’s arch. So the village became known as Tinnarch. But after a few generations, people began confusing the arch with ark. They said it wrong for so many years that it just wound up being known as Tinnark.”
Kael had thought it was an interesting bit of history — but Gwen must’ve thought otherwise. She rammed the butt of her axe into his middle with such surprising force that he lost his breath.
“Don’t bore me again, mutt,” she warned. “I don’t care if you’re a Wright. You’ll still be expected to do chores. Nobody sits idly in my village.”
“It’s not your village — you didn’t even know its name!” he gasped.
She smirked. “Well, I’ve given it a new one: Misery. Rather fitting, don’t you think?”
Kael was about to tell her exactly what he thought when Gwen shoved him roughly to the side. She strode towards the craftsmen, and Griffith followed along in her shadow. He shot Kael a quick grin when his sister wasn’t looking.
“Stand tall, craftsman. The Wright’s going to get you a fresh tree.”
The craftsmen scattered at Gwen’s command, tittering excitedly to each other.
Kael was wondering just which tree he was going to be expected to fell. “All right. But I’ll need an axe.”
Griffith frowned. “What for? All you have to do is knock it down.”
Kael couldn’t believe it. “Knock it down? With what?”
“With these.” Gwen spread her fingers wide. “They’re the only tools a whisperer needs.”
They were joking. They had to be joking — either that, or the wildmen were even more cracked than he’d thought. He looked all around the craftsmen, but there wasn’t a hint of a smile on any of their faces. They were being completely serious.
“It isn’t possible. I can’t —”
Gwen clamped a hand around his throat, tightening until he could hardly squeeze out a single breath. “Don’t tell me you can’t — not when you haven’t tried. Take that tone with me again, and I’ll stuff your tongue so far down your gullet that you’ll be talking out your gut.”
Kael believed her.
When she released him, he went reluctantly to the tree. Though he was certain it was going to be a complete waste of time, he threw his body into its calloused side. He slammed up against it a few times, bruising his shoulder and rattling his skull. But the tree didn’t budge. “There. You see? I told you it couldn’t be done.”
Gwen shook her head as she stalked past him. “Worthless.”
For some reason, the craftsmen were staring at him as if he really had knocked the tree over. Their mouths hung out the bottom of their painted faces and they exchanged wide-eyed looks.
The skin on either side of Griffith’s stripe of hair burned red at their mutterings. “You have to try harder,” he whispered to Kael.
“How do I do that?”
“I don’t know. You just …”
Griffith reached inside one of his furry pockets and drew out a blue stone. It was perfectly round and rather small — perhaps only a quarter the size of his palm. Kael watched in amazement as the stone rolled between his fingers, weaving over and under in complicated patterns.
“You have to be stronger than the tree.”
“Believe me — I’d like to be stronger than the tree. But I’m not,” Kael said.
“You are,” Griffith insisted. “I know you are —”
“Why don’t you show the Wright how it’s done, brother?” Gwen called. Sometime while they’d been talking, she’d started to climb. Now she was perched high in the branches of the tree, feet balanced one behind the other and arms stretched across the limbs on either side. She looked as comfortable as if she reclined in one of Lysander’s cushy chairs.
Griffith’s face brightened immediately. “I can? Really?”
He whooped when she nodded.
As Griffith marched up to the tree, Kael crossed his arms. He was determined not to fall for it. Sure, he’d seen Gwen kill a bear with a rock, and she had sent him flying through the Hall doors. But the idea of a child knocking down a monstrous tree was completely different. He was certain it was altogether impossible.
Griffith looked tiny beside the tree — hardly any larger than the scales of its bark. He took a deep breath and stretched his arms out in front of him. For a moment, he held them poised before the tree’s trunk like a knight guarded against his opponent. Slowly, the craftsmen stopped their tittering and fell silent. Then with a cry, he lunged.
His palms slammed into the tree and he bounced back hard. Kael expected the wildmen to give up their joke. But instead, Griffith lunged again. Three times he struck the tree, and three times he was knocked away. Then on the fourth blow, something strange happened.
There was a rustling sound as needles began to tremble across its limbs. His next blow shook the smallest twigs. Soon the air was filled with groaning as the branches rocked back and forth. The tree’s top waved as the thunder of his blows traveled up the trunk.
Griffith kept pounding. He slammed himself into the tree until his skin was red with the effort. The craftsmen watched silently, their eyes burning as if they willed him on. Gwen held tightly to the branches as the tree shook harder, the white edges of her grin cut out sharply against the swirling lines of her paint.
Griffith timed each blow carefully. He forced the tree to tremble harder, catching it at just the right bend. When the weight of its top put too much strain on its bottom, the tree could hold itself no longer. At last, it fell.
A sound like the sky splitting into two cracked across Kael’s ears. He watched, breathless, as the tree bent too far backwards and the trunk snapped in half. He threw an arm over his face as jagged bits of wood spewed from its flesh. The tree groaned the whole way down; its branches seemed to grasp helplessly at neighboring trees — trying one last time to catch itself. But nothing could stop its fall.
Gwen let out a wild cry and wedged herself into her perch, holding on as the force of the earth tried to rip her free. With a rumble Kael felt in his chest, the tree crashed to the ground. Black clouds of birds erupted from the woods. A storm of dust, rocks, and shattered limbs exploded upwards before raining back down, leaving nothing but silence in its wake.
Dust hung thick in the air; the murky tendrils curled away like curtains as they settled. The quiet was so thick that Kael could hear little bits of soil tinkling as it rolled down between the scales of bark. When the dust finally cleared, he saw the great tree lying on its side — felled, with spines broken all down its back.
And he could find no words.
Gwen stepped out from behind the curtain of dust. She walked along the massive trunk with the steady legs of a pirate at sea, eyes bright behind her paint. She swung from the branches and landed among the wildmen without a sound.
Kael could hardly think to speak. “How …?”
“Because nobody ever told him he couldn’t,” Gwen said simply. “Children are dreamers, but men have doubts. If you shut your mouth and try, you might grow to be one-fourth the warrior my brother is.”
Kael bit his lip. He remembered the days when he’d been able to do extraordinary things simply by imagining them. Now it no longer seemed possible. The po
wer he’d once had was gone — not quite lost, but misplaced somehow … as if he knew where he ought to go, but could no longer recall which path to take to get there.
Perhaps Gwen was right: perhaps he had too many doubts. When he tried to untangle his thoughts, dark memories flashed behind his eyes — Bloodfang’s dying gasps, Thelred’s screams … the wings of the black beast …
Kael wasn’t sure when his doubt had begun, but as he stood staring at the toppled tree, he could feel it sitting heavily in his limbs. “How did Titus beat you?”
Gwen’s smirk fell into a hard line. “He didn’t beat us — he merely pushed us back. When the time comes, we’ll stomp him.”
“You could stomp him, now. You could shove down his walls, smash in his gates —”
“Let me worry about the Man of Wolves, mutt. For now, your only concern is rebuilding my village.” She shoved past him to clap Griffith on the shoulder. “That was well done. Get some of the warriors together to help with the lifting — I’m going on a hunt.”
“Yes, sister.” Griffith waited until Gwen had clomped out of earshot before he snatched Kael by the shirt and whispered: “See? If I can do it, you can do it.”
Kael didn’t think he could. In fact, he didn’t even know where to begin. But before he could say as much, Griffith darted back towards the village — leaving Kael alone with the craftsmen.
They’d fallen on the tree the moment it struck the ground. Now they hacked busily at the branches and peeled the tree’s skin away in curling strips. He watched them for a long moment before he realized that they weren’t using any tools: the wood split, cracked, and chipped beneath their bare hands.
Kael was so entranced by the rhythm of their work that several moments passed before he realized that none of the craftsmen spoke. Not a word, not even so much as a grunt or sigh left their lips. Instead, the noise of their work filled the woods like a song.
For some reason, the craftsmen’s song drew him in. His hands itched madly as he watched them work — as if they knew which notes came next, and wanted very badly to join in. He’d taken several steps forward before he managed to catch himself. “How are you doing that?”