Medicine and Poison (Epic Fantasy in a World of Myth)

Oli cast his line and the raft wobbled beneath his knees. He reached into the throw, pulling back in time to right the little vessel before it tipped him into the river. He watched the silk thread unravel against dark trees on the far bank. It caught the sunlight briefly, a shining arc, before a gentle plop sounded from across the river. The line settled onto the surface and Oli sat back.

He waited.

If Oli was good at one thing, it was waiting. Fishing, too, if they could be considered different pursuits. Oli thought they could. Waiting for a fish was a special kind of waiting; it relaxed him in a focussed, intense way.

As he waited, eyes scanning the breadth of the river for a hint of his prey’s hunger, his ears picked up a foreign sound. From upriver came the drawl of Western accents. Traders! Hastily, he whipped back the line and pulled his raft into the thick reeds. They closed like a curtain in front of him and he peered through as a barge drifted round the bend. A man at the rear worked the pole, sweat pooling under his arms and on his back despite the cold. Oli was supposed to return immediately if he saw outsiders. Instead, he clung to the reeds and eavesdropped as the intruders passed.

“Mooring in the Republic is free now. And you can stay out of Dombarrow. There’s a trading post upriver of the city. Just another day’s journey and we could sell the lot for three times the Kingdom price.”

The man working the pole talked in a louder voice than anyone who belonged in the forest would risk.

“Good idea,” a burly woman concurred, looking up from sorting dry leaves into cloth bags. “We should pass Scursditch and spit at their harbourmaster on the way. I met a man who’d been to the Republic. He brought silver back for grain. Silver! For selling grain!”

“Silver from the godless city?” the third Westerner, with short grey hair greased neatly back stood in the middle watching the others work. In an angry bark he declared, “I’d sooner dump the cargo for hoarders to pick over.”

“We can’t afford to be picky. Times are changing, anyhow. The tower stands and all that.”

“Oi! Who’s that lurking in the shallows?”

Oli nearly dropped his rod. The woman pointed and three pairs of eyes trained on his hiding place.

“Hey, boy! Come on out. I’ve got a pouch of tobacco for half of those fish.”

Oli looked down at his basket, poking out between the reeds, and pulled it belatedly back.

“Just a wee shy one from the Sevener clans. Leave him be,” the man with the pole said.

“Look at his basket though! That’s devilish luck with nothing but a stick. How’s he doing it? Reb, steer us closer. We’ll trade him something. A bit of fresh fish would be a treat, and your nets aren’t catching anything.”

Oli rose slowly and held up his left hand with the thumb and second finger pressed into a circle.

“The Lost Daughter,” he mouthed silently.

It was the sign his mother made if outsiders spotted them. The sign of the youngest of the seven gods; of dreams, death and childish play. She said it scared them. She would only shrug disinterestedly when he asked why, as though the fears of Westerners were an irrational mystery, useful to exploit but not worth exploring.

“We keep to the river till we reach Scursditch,” the older man declared, eyeing Oli with a mixture of fear and disdain. “He’s bad luck, this one. Savages are all bad luck. Push us on, Reb.”

Then they were gone downstream, taking the last of their cargo to Scursditch, the only town in the forest and the only place where Westerners deigned, or dared, to mix with their distant cousins, the Seveners.

Oli had accepted an offer of trade once, a long time ago. With trembling hands he’d counted out a dozen herring and a great barbel as fat as his head. He’d returned proudly with a bag of sugar. The other children had gone wild, and he had experienced for the first time that heady delight of popularity. It had not been worth it. His father had confined him to their home for half a moon and his mother had told him stories every night of careless children who brought curses to their families in innocent looking packages and had to watch them die of strange illnesses. ‘We should fear outsiders as we fear ghouls and sleepers,’ she had repeated to him over and over until he had plugged his ears and turned to face the wall.

Some of the children got away with worse, Oli ruminated as he cast his line again. The twins, Koen and Kuno, could sneak away to spy on the townsfolk at Scursditch, even returning with pilfered cloth, and the adults and elders merely shrugged and exchanged smirks. And Ingo – the infallible, perfect Ingo – got away with clambering around near the hoarders’ caves and coming back with scrapes all over his arms and legs.

“Nowhere is safe in wood or glen, but a fool sets foot beyond the treeline’s end,” Elder Mildred would intone as she wagged her finger under his nose, then Ingo would produce a handful Terlos’ soap and she’d chuckle and ruffle his hair.

Perhaps, mused Oli in a spirit of self-pity, they get away with it because of who their parents are. Yet his parents, too, held weight in the clan. He knew why the rules were stricter for him – if he cared to admit it.

Tension in the line snapped his attention to the present. His hands tightened on the rod, and he tugged back gently, gauging the strength of the pull. He drew the fish closer, hand over hand. Beneath the surface he could see it thrashing, struggling to escape. In a smooth movement he yanked up the rod, caught the fish in his left hand, thwacked it against the wood and snapped the head back. To complete the process, he placed his thumb against his first finger, making a teardrop and muttered,

“Farlean, her domain is swift water, her gift is cleanliness.”

Then he appraised his catch. A sturgeon! Quickly, he checked her for eggs. He found none, but even so this was a fine prize. He gazed at the glittering body as the last twitches gave way to stillness, then he moved to stow it in his basket.

“I suppose you think that’s clever.”

Oli froze as he would if he had tripped over a sleeper root. He felt as though a jugful of winter river water had been poured down the back of his vest. There was no one else here besides him. The traders were gone, weren’t they?

“Well, it’s not clever, it’s cruel.”

The arch tone drifted from the far bank. Oli’s eyes, darting frantically back and forth, could not locate its source.

“Luring it over like that with the promise of food, and then turning on it,” the voice continued, in an accent that belonged to neither the forest nor the West. “How would you like to swim against a hook, tearing a gash in your own flesh to survive?”

At once, the speaker came into focus, and Oli wondered that he had not seen the man before. That dark patch in the buckthorn bushes wasn’t a mass of dead leaves, still hiding Spring’s new growth, but a patchwork fur cloak, pulled tightly around a slender, crouched frame. The gaunt, lightly bearded face of a young man peered out the top. His long, black hair merged into the shadows of the forest, just like his cloak in the undergrowth. His face was so pale against the leaves, though, that Oli could not believe he had missed it.

Oli remained still, dead fish in one hand and rod in the other. He could muster a response from neither his body nor mouth.

“Well?” demanded the stranger, apparently expecting an answer. Oli wasn’t sure, but he thought the man looked surprised to find Oli staring at him. Angry, even. Affronted.

Indignation cut through his fear. “Well, what do you eat around here?” Oli retorted.

He felt the pole shift in the riverbed and reached for it, without taking his eyes off the stranger.

“Nothing that thinks I’m it’s friend, that’s for certain.”

The man’s cloak was made from pieces of hide stitched together. Oli recognised deer skin, some patches of rabbit and... was that a wolf’s claw that hung on the left? Just a moment before, Oli thought the claw had been a patch of thorns. And was that a thin branch or a wicked looking, jagged spear that his right hand clasped? The melodic, arrogant voice did not match the wild figure in front of him and Oli distrusted his eyes almost as much as when the man had been hidden.

“Where are you going?” Oli asked in a hopeful tone. He really wanted to ask whether this man was going. The stranger pointed toward the mountains.

“What’s the name of those peaks?”

“Name?”

“What do you call them?”

Oli frowned and paused. The man pointed to where Ingo liked exploring, where the hoarders lived. “Um... the mountains,” he replied doubtfully. What else would you call them? Were there other mountains? Did he want the name of each peak?

For a moment the stranger made no expression, then a peal of laughter exploded from his thin lips. As it did so, his cloak fell open. The clothes underneath, though faded, displayed colours as varied as a late spring meadow. Red, yellow and even silver vied for space against a purple background on the man’s skinny chest. The tailors of Scursditch sold nothing like that. Oli pushed on the pole, dislodging the raft and moving it back into the shallows.

“Stop. You wait there a moment.” He looked angry again. He stood and pointed a bony finger at Oli.

Terrified, Oli pushed harder on the pole.

“Just answer a question.” The stranger slid down the bank as though he meant to leap across the dozen yards between them.

“What?!” called Oli, pushing away so hard he almost lost balance.

“Is it where the Beyobacks live?” the stranger shouted. “Answer me!”

“The what?” yelled Oli in return. A rock bumped beneath the raft. He could wade here but could not yet reach the mooring stump. The man shouted another question which Oli could not hear. Something about how Oli could see him. Water rippled up and splashed over the deck of the raft. Oli leapt down and began pulling it to shore until, glancing over his shoulder, he saw something he had never seen before.

The thin man shrugged off his cloak and stepped into the water. He walked right into the deep, strong current and submerged himself. Oli had seen animals swim, but never a person. For a moment amazement got the better of his fear. He waited, half expecting to see the man carried away, but soon saw his form far below the surface. As it moved toward the centre the shadowy outline appeared to be crawling along the bed like a skilled climber scaling a cliff. The stranger crossed the deep bed of the river and suddenly shot upward, bursting out, half wading and half swimming so fast the water splashed over his head. Oli dropped the basket and mooring rope and fled into the forest. His heartbeat thumped in his eardrums and, as he ran, he heard the man yelling behind him.

“Answer me you little murderer! Don’t you dare ignore me. Answer me! Come back! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, come back!”

Oli felt as though he were wading through water, though he ran faster than ever. He usually walked carefully, deliberating over each step. His capacity for getting lost was infamous. He always tried to follow the paths, but they looked different to him every time. Long ago he had begged his father to stop putting up signs along the routes he used; the embarrassment of it was too much. Now he wished the little arrows were still there. Within a few dozen paces of fleeing, he began to doubt himself.

Oli paused to look for something he recognised, standing with his back to a large trunk. He waited, listening between deep breaths. He heard no pursuit. He looked around, his head spinning, and saw the twin trunked oak, albeit from the wrong angle. Somewhat calmed, he continued at a jog. Soon the breeze carried distant noises of village life to him, and new preoccupations entered his mind. The mortal terror of an unknown man with unknown powers subsided and his chest tightened now as he thought of his parents’ reaction when he confessed what had happened. He had lingered while outsiders passed. He had abandoned the raft!

In his mind he began telling the story, embellishing the appearance of the stranger and exaggerating the danger. Surely, a person so wild and unusual could not have anything to do with the barge that passed earlier? Perhaps he should not mention the barge. As he fretted over what to say and how best to say it, he heard a cry from the village perimeter, beyond the wall of sharpened stakes.

“Oli’s here! Oli’s back!”

His sister had seen him coming. She sounded relieved, as though she knew already what had happened.

In an instant clansfolk surrounded him, shouting questions.

“What happened, where’s Ingo?” Thilo, the shepherd yelled at him.

“Look, he’s been running hard!” called the hunter Torvald to someone behind him.

“They chased him too,” “What happened?” “Did Ingo get away?”

Oli blinked and stumbled back. The crowd closed the space he’d created. He opened and shut his mouth. The bodies felt like walls closing in on him. He glanced around, looking for somewhere to run. “What’s the matter, boy, answer!” Thilo insisted.

His sister, Adalina, swept up behind him and clasped her hands in front of his chest. He felt her voice vibrate through his back.

“Be quiet! Back off!”

Oli turned his head sideways against her stomach and smelled rosemary. The aroma, and the feel of her hands, seemed to warm him from the inside and his heart stopped pressing against his ribs.

She leant round to look him in the eye, her black hair falling over his face.

“Where have you been, Oli?” she asked quietly. “Have you seen Ingo? If you’ve been to spy on the hoarders you can tell us, alright?” She asked the absurd question with a serious urgency. She must know he never risked spying on the hoarders, though other boys did. He couldn’t even find his way there.

“I’ve been to the river, that’s all, but there was -” Oli began, but he was cut off before he could finish.

“The river!” spat a tall, powerfully built man with braided brown hair. Everyone turned to hear him. “And he returns out of breath with no fish. Excuse me, Ada, but when has Oli ever returned from the river without fish?”

Heridan, Ingo’s father, knelt in front of Oli and pushed his face so close that bristles of the huge man’s plaited beard almost scraped his cheek.

“Listen, Oli, it’s a rare boy who doesn’t go looking for adventures by the mountains. We forbid it, but we know you all do it. So, speak up now and be honest. If you were there, if you know what happened to my Ingo, you tell us.”

The faces of the assembled adults peered down expectantly. Heridan’s breath warmed Oli’s lips and he tried to sink deeper into his sister’s arms.

“There was an outsider by the river,” Oli shut his eyes. “A warrior with a crooked spear. He crawled across the bottom of the water. He chased me!”

“Oli,” whispered Adalina in his ear with a note of pleading, “none of your tall tales now, understand? Ingo left this morning to find you by the river, but he got into trouble by the mountains after noon. Did you go to the caves with him, Oli? Did he meet you? He said he was going to meet you.”

“No!” Oli could not remember the last time the older boy had wanted to play with him.

“Nonsense!” yelled Heridan, pushing himself up and spinning away, his cheeks beetroot. “Luthold, Winilind! Beat the truth out of your son before I do. And fetch a spear, man.”

“Heridan, let me...” his sister began, but the warrior was gone, and his parents now jostled through the crowd towards him. Adalina ran after Ingo’s father.

One on either side, his mother and father yanked him by the arms into their roundhouse. Oli fell to the floor. His mother closed the door so fast that bits of earth fell from the wall. His father sat in front of him and looked him in the eye, one hand on his son’s knee, the other twisting at the hair of his short, neat beard.

“Oli, where have you been? Did you meet Ingo in the woods today?”

“Dad, what’s happening? Why is everyone asking if I’ve seen Ingo?”

“He didn’t meet you by the river?”

“No!” insisted Oli, “When does Ingo ever look for me? He’s older than Ada and he doesn’t like me anyway.”

His parents glanced at one another, then his mother spoke, her wide eyes watching him for a reaction, perhaps one that would give a game away.

“He disappeared. He went into the forest this morning by the Northern path. He told his father he was going to spend the day with you. But then at noon, Joturn heard him screaming near the mountains and no one can find him now. Oli, just yesterday you were asking everyone why Ingo should be allowed to visit the mountains.”

“Why are you sure something happened? He’s always going there, and the hoarders never catch him!”

“Joturn knows his voice. Ingo is in trouble,” replied his father, “Maybe he got too close this time.” Then Luthold frowned. “Why didn’t you bring any fish back, Oli? Where’s the basket? And why did you come running?”

Adalina entered and carefully closed the door.

“He says,” she sighed, “that a magical warrior fish man attacked him.”

“I did not!” shouted Oli. They descended into bickering until Winilind thwacked a leather awning on the wall and they both fell silent. A man poked his head through the door, gave Luthold an intent look, and backed out.

“Whatever happened by the river, Oli, will have to wait. A party is going out to recover Ingo and I had better be in it.”

His father went slowly to the rear of their home, to the far side by the bedding furs, and returned with a spear. Oli and Adalina watched in silence. It was a thing of beauty, their grandfather’s old spear. One of a kind. As black as night with an engraving of Hurean’s Star that glittered brighter than bronze. But they rarely saw it in their father’s hands. Only in the depths of winter, when food was scarce and every adult went to hunt, did he go out with the spear. ‘To keep up appearances.’ He made no pretence of mastery, and no one expected him to bring in a kill. His mother rubbed Luthold’s shoulder and looked at her feet.

“Be careful,” she said in a low voice.

“Be good while I’m gone. If it was the hoarders... if we... just be good while I’m gone.”

He left and though Oli could not fathom what was happening, he was sure this was somehow his fault.

Darkness fell and still the armed party did not return. Winilind lit a fire in the centre of the house. Oli and his sister watched smoke rise through the apex of the roof, into the night sky. Oli pushed a stick around in the dust with his toes. Adalina placed a hand on his leg, and he stilled it.

“It’s not only father who’s gone. Beresa is with them. Algar and Finn too. And Heridan, of course.”

Oli shuddered. The thought of his father out in the dark with Heridan did not loosen the knot in his chest, however highly his sister thought of the man. He continued jabbing patterns into the ground and mumbled:

“They haven’t really gone to fight the hoarders, have they?”

Winilind placed a clay pot of water over the flames and sat down beside them. She smiled a broad, calm smile but Oli’s eyes were drawn to her fingers, twisting the edge of her woollen jumper.

“All the best fighters have gone, Oli. If the hoarders have Ingo, they’ll give him up. I heard about it happening before. They just kept the boy to scare him and handed him over for a sack of sheep’s bones and some bits of metal.”

“Which boy?” asked Oli.

“Um, it was before my time.”

“Elder Mildred says a hoarder killed three Hallin hunters when she was a girl. She says they mistook it for a deer through the bushes and threw a spear at it, and it slashed them all into strips with its-”

“Shush now, Oli,” his mother interrupted. “Don’t listen to Elder Mildred’s stories. She’s lived through a lot, but she remembers it poorly.”

They sat in silence around the flames as Winilind mixed anise seeds and honey into the steaming water. The sweet aroma filled the house, warming it like a second fire. A soft wind brushed the thatched rooftops, but it carried no sounds of combat – neither the shouts of men, nor the piercing roar of angry hoarders.

Oli thought of the outsider. In his hurried telling of the encounter, imagination had mingled with memory and wrought a crueller expression on the man’s face, a wilder look about his clothes. He tried now to recall the encounter as it really occurred. The look on his face before Oli fled came to mind. Imploring or demanding? Furious or desperate? Why would a wandering hunter wear such rich clothes under his cloak of hides, faded though they were? Did he rob someone? Or murder someone? He could be an exile, a criminal fled from a Western jail. He thought about the way the stranger swam. Like a river serpent, wriggling along the bed as fast as Oli could walk on land. He shivered. Adalina felt it and shifted closer, and his mother draped a fur blanket over them. He wanted to talk about the stranger again but thought better of it, not wanting to disturb the shared warmth of the moment.

“It’s not far to the mountains. We’d have heard something if they were fighting, Oli.”

“Depends who they were fighting,” Oli mumbled, “or what.”

Dawn broke and the inhabitants emerged from the cluster of roundhouses that formed their village. They traipsed across the dew to reinvigorate the central fire. Elder Mildred clucked about from one home to the next demanding any treats they had tucked away.

“Herbs, dried fruit, any eggs. Come on, winter’s over and we’ll make a feast to welcome them. Pieces of honeycomb? Don’t hide ‘em away.”

Winilind passed Mildred a small wheel of cheese and kicked Oli’s ankle to forestall his protest. She had been saving it for Maralon’s Ascent in a fortnight’s time, but Mildred was an elder, after all. One of only three among three hundred people.

Despite sympathising with her son’s chagrin, Winilind’s mouth watered when the pots over the fire began bubbling and Oslef’s nephew hauled out his uncle’s big clay oven. Oslef, another of the elders, rarely cooked these days but his gift for conjuring magic out of even the simplest ingredients had never been forgotten.

Families gathered near the watchtower or around the fire, whispering encouragement to one another and watching the preparations for what was becoming an impromptu feast day. Winilind overheard snippets of anecdotes about similar frights in the past as she wended her way through the groups to join those waiting by the tower.

“...When they pulled him down from the tree, he had enough honey for the supper of Descent! You remember don’t you, Aimar?”

“...She never walked the same after they lifted the rocks off, but she learned her lesson about pilfering from hoarders!”

“...They’re tough, Hallin children. They’ve survived worse than brushing up against a ghoul circle...”

The village had worked itself into an optimism so determined it bordered on delusional when Lien, atop the watchtower, gave a shout. Those who had been cooking, or making suggestions to the cooks, ran to the picket wall and peered past one another into the woods, each vying for the honour of being first to greet the victorious return party.

The party returned slowly, walking in single file down a narrow path. None of them spoke as they passed the boundary, and few lifted their eyes from the ground to look at those waiting in the crowd. The clansfolk watching blinked and shook their heads, as though waking themselves for a second time that morning. Could so many have failed? Had the hoarders really killed a child?

The delightful smells wafting from the fire now taunted rather than tantalised. Winilind knew this celebration had been foolish. If Elder Joturn had not been with the search party, he would have stamped the idea out. She looked for her husband in the crowd and, from the back of the line, Luthold peeled off and came to where she waited. Only when he stepped past her to first greet the children did she notice that Ada and Oli had followed her out of the house. He prised them away and looked her in the eye.

Winilind picked something more than exhaustion out of her husband’s expression. A deep well of anger, rarely tapped, swelled close to the surface. And she read a warning in the lines of his forehead. She looked to Heridan, who had flung his sword beside the fire and seated himself, head in hands, on an upturned log. The blade was clean. None of the party were injured. As though sensing her gaze he raised his head and met it coldly, then stared at her son. Oli attempted what Winilind knew to be a sympathetic smile, but Heridan spat and turned sharply away. She ushered Oli quickly back to their roundhouse, coughing loudly when she heard someone mutter about his ‘smirking.’ She realised, as they crossed the threshold, how tightly she gripped his shoulder and relaxed her hand. She could hardly punish him when he had tried to be nice. What her son wanted to say, or show, always came out wrong.

Once inside, Luthold sat with his back against the wall. His open, blistered hands rested by his side and the spear, prized heirloom of the family, lay discarded near the entrance. Adalina reached down for it, then hesitated and went to her father’s side instead. Winilind dragged over a pail of water and the two of them began cleaning Luthold’s cuts.

“Bramble and rock cuts.” said Oli flatly.

“No fighting.” Despite his exhaustion, Luthold nodded appreciatively at his son’s observation. “Climbing. Lots of climbing. Futile, endless climbing, farther than was reasonable.” He closed his eyes and forcibly changed his tone. “But if it were my son, I wouldn’t have listened to reason either.”

“You would have,” said Winilind quietly. “What happened? Did you find any tracks? Clothes? He cannot just have vanished.”

“We found tracks, but not his. Something happened out there, at the base of the mountain where they pile up their pickings. The ground was churned up. It looked like at least ten people were there, walking all over the place, coming and going without using the paths. The only tracks we could follow were the hoarders'. We followed those into the mountains. High up, into the caves.”

Winilind gasped, forgetting the wet cloth in her hands.

“We didn’t find them.”

Luthold pushed the cloth gently over the bucket and she looked down at the ring of dark earth where it had dripped onto the ground.

“The hoarders, Win. We went into their home and didn’t see a trace of them.”

She looked up and saw his confused expression. He was trying to make sense of this as much as she was.

“You should not have gone inside the caves,” she chided in a low voice. “You’re lucky. Perhaps they were frightened – because there were so many of you.”

Luthold shook his head slowly.

“Maybe,” he mused, “but you know how jealously they guard their territory. We kept going, deeper and deeper. He insisted. Every step I thought we’d be ambushed. You wouldn’t have heard us, if they’d attacked us down there. The tunnels go on and on...”

Luthold trailed off and shivered.

“You all just let him lead you along?” Winilind demanded. Her sympathy faded and anger grew that one man had led almost fifty people’s loved ones on so foolish an expedition. How did Heridan always get his way? Did the other clansfolk think the size of his head made space for better thoughts?

“He would have gone alone if we hadn’t kept him company. His son’s missing, Win. We couldn’t let him charge off by himself and start a war with them. Besides, I think some of them were glad of the excuse. I heard more whispers than I’d have expected about getting one over on them, showing the hoarders who the forest belongs to.”

Winilind shook her head and muttered, “Hallin should know better. The forest belongs to no one.”

Luthold coughed and attempted a smile. “Anyway, Joturn stopped us when the torches burned half. By then even Heridan had to admit defeat and we’re all back safely now.”

For a moment they were silent. Winilind’s thoughts turned to Ingo. If only the boy would just turn up. She glanced at her daughter, staring at the wall. Did she miss him? Was she worried? Not so long ago, Ingo never went anywhere without Ada. She almost said something to that effect but checked herself. It wasn’t the time. Whatever happened next, their first thought had to be dislodging any idea that Oli was involved. They had to kill that notion before it grew into something ugly. The problem was, they had to know first that he truly wasn’t. As though following her thoughts, Oli spoke up.

“You said there were people’s tracks going into the forest. Were there any going to the river? Isn’t that where Ingo said he was off to?”

They all looked at Luthold, who breathed out slowly and stared into Oli’s eyes.

“We need to talk about this stranger.” He said in a tone that warned each of them not to interrupt, “But you need to understand something first. Heridan thinks you’re lying. That’s serious, Oli, because right now he’s angry and scared. Do you understand?”

Oli nodded. Winilind glanced at Adalina, who shifted and opened her mouth, then closed it with a frown.

“He thinks I know where Ingo is,” stated Oli.

“He does.” Her husband loosened a bit, perhaps relieved to hear their son cooperating. “He thinks you’re hiding something to protect yourself, because you don’t realise what’s at stake.”

“We’re not friends. He never comes to help me anymore. Why would he come today? And they all know I never go with him to spy on the hoarders.”

“I know, Oli. But Ingo told Heridan he was going to meet you today. It sounds believable. He wanted to talk about...to ask you about...”

Luthold glanced briefly at Adalina, who finished the sentence for him and then looked away.

“He wanted to talk about me.”

Luthold gave the slightest nod, and Oli turned his mouth up in mock disgust. Luthold continued. “It’d be different if you’d returned with a basket of fish and said you hadn’t seen him. But this story about a lone hunter attacking a child. Someone who can swim under the river... but somehow you got away?”

“Well, he didn’t really attack me,” admitted Oli sheepishly. “He just looked like he might. He looked crazy!”

Luthold nodded and asked in his gentlest voice,

“What else can you tell us?”

“I was fishing. Earlier a barge passed. The men on it spoke to me.” Oli paused, looking from his father to his mother. Neither Winilind nor her husband reprimanded him. They needed to hear the whole story. Oli leaned forward and continued.

“They asked to trade, but I made the sign of the Lost Daughter and they carried on. Then a bit later I pulled up a sturgeon and someone spoke to me. They spoke, but I couldn’t see them. I looked at where the voice came from and then I saw someone right in front of me. Someone who’d been there all along but looked different, like part of the bushes.”

A short gasp escaped Winilind before she could master herself. She looked away from Oli and stared at the wall, hoping she had not put him off. He showed no sign of having noticed. She would rather have heard the story was made up and he knew where Ingo had gone after all than think about the shadow and memory she forced out of her mind.

“He told me I was cruel for catching fish, but his own coat was made of hides. He wanted to know what we called the mountains. I didn’t understand. I told him we call them mountains too and he laughed at me. He had a spear, I think, but it looked wrong. I got scared then. I tried to get away. I tried to get to the bank, and he just walked right into the water and...”

Oli began to cry.

“He’s white as a cloud!” Winilind exclaimed and drew him inside her own cloak, caressing his soft brown hair and cupping his pointed chin in her hand. His body shivered beside hers.

“I think he really saw something,” whispered Adalina.

“They’ll take me for a fool if I bring this to the elders,” said Luthold, shaking his head. “I must know more, Oli. What did he do in the water?”

“He swam like a snake, through the current, right to the other side. When he took his robe off, he had a colourful shirt on, better than anything from town. It had purple and silver on it. He looked about as old as Algar. And he kept asking about the mountains... He asked if that’s where the... something-backs lived.”

“Beyobacks?” asked Luthold, looking up, his eyes glinting with interest.

Oli nodded vigorously.

“Beyobacks... purple shirt... young man.” Luthold repeated, as though chewing over words that tasted good. He looked at Winilind and announced with a smile of relief.

“He’s a Westerner.”

There was a hint of a question about his tone though. He needed her agreement to bury those thoughts, the same that had troubled her.

“A Westerner.” She agreed, convincing herself of the theory. “Beyobacks is what the rich ones call the hoarders. They have a lot of silly notions about them, don’t they? He was probably a young adventurer from a wealthy family.”

As she spoke, Luthold nodded along, his own conviction evidently growing. The shadow of fear flitted away, and Winilind felt foolish for having entertained it at all. This made sense.

“Maybe there’s a few of them. That would explain all the mixed-up tracks. A gaggle of clumsy Westerners traipsing through the forest. Of course, you said they ignored the paths!”

“Come to gawk at the savages of Saltleaf and their feral neighbours,” added her husband. “Perhaps Ingo got mixed up with them. Perhaps he got talking to them? Yes, I’ll take this to the elders. Joturn will track them in no time.”

Luthold squeezed Oli’s shoulder as he rose, and Winilind began disentangling her son’s gangly arms and legs from her body.

“What about appearing from thin air and swimming under water?” Adalina chimed in, stony faced. “Do Westerners do that?”

Winilind winced. Her daughter’s words punctured the relief, but she did not allow any room for doubt. The implications were too great for a possibility so small. If something about this did not fit their theory, if some details reminded her of forbidden stories and buried memories, she pushed them aside. After all, her son had a vivid imagination, and there was no place in those stories for Western words or colourful shirts, or for people who did not follow the paths.

---

Winilind listened while Luthold relayed Oli’s story to Elder Oslef, and the embarrassed cooks shared out the extravagant meal. She could not read anything from Oslef’s expression, save that he did not feel the same relief as she and Luthold had. She waited until as late as possible before she roused Luthold and watched him prepare to leave with the next search party. She watched him approach Elder Joturn by the fire and turned to her children.

“We need to clean and pack our winter clothes. There’s talk of moving the village this year.”

“We’re not going to move,” Adalina replied with tired certainty.

“If the gods invite us to, we will.”

“Pasha says the gods don’t answer the oracle anymore,” quipped Oli, “She says the elders have forgotten how to ask them.”

“Nonsense.” Winilind cut him off. “Elder Oslef is reading this year. He read the stones last time we moved, before the river flooded the old village site. He read them years ago and brought us South of the ridge, right before the Sullin started raiding again. Oslef knows how to read the stones – he knows how to get the gods’ attention.”

Her voice softened and she looked up from the basket of summer clothes that she had brought out to sort.

“It’s exciting, moving the village. A fresh start. We’ve lingered here too long. We need new paths to learn and new places to name.” Her voice turned wistful, and she spoke to herself as much as to her children. “It could be this year, with Oslef reading.”

“Maybe it will be this year,” said Adalina, flashing her an emollient smile.

“Some of these need stitching.” Winilind threw a pile of clothes their way and Oli groaned as she produced needles and thread.

“Get to it.”

She disappeared inside the hut and busied herself cutting and sorting some parchment Aimar had made. She worked and kept an ear tuned to her children’s conversation. She hoped to catch Oli talking as he sometimes did with Ada, relaxed and unguarded. Perhaps they sensed her attention because they barely spoke at all as they worked the thread, fixing the lighter clothes for the months ahead.

The time came for the next groups to depart, but Luthold returned to the house, entered and deposited the spear on the ground at the back. Winilind shot him a quizzical look. He ignored it and pulled the knife from inside his shirt, leaving that as well. She reached for his arm as he passed her, but he intercepted it, squeezed her hand gently and left without meeting her eyes. Joturn has always been cautious, she told herself, it is a good thing. But she remembered the elders’ impassive looks when Luthold had relayed Oli’s story. She prayed for her husband to make a swift return.

“Look!” Winilind heard Oli exclaim as Luthold walked away, “Father is going with Elder Joturn and Torvald. Good job he’s not with Heridan.”

“Heridan’s ok,” Adalina responded, a hint of hurt in her voice. “Elder Joturn should be getting some rest though.”

“Why?”

“He’s quite old you know, Oli. He should be looking after himself.” Her daughter’s attempt at a mature tone brought a smile to Winilind’s lips.

“Joturn’s not old,” Oli replied

“He’s older than grandfather was, when he died.”

“Yes, but he’s not old old.”

Winilind heard Adalina chuckle. She knew what Oli meant. Elder Joturn had the vitality of a cat.

Before noon, Winilind found the summer clothes piled and folded by the doorway. She was about to step outside when she heard Oli whisper. She pressed herself against the wall beside the entrance and strained to hear.

“What are you doing here?” her son hissed at someone.

“You’re in trouble, aren’t you?”

Winilind recognised the high voice. Pasha, the daughter of Otmer and Beresa, was the closest thing Oli had to a friend. A couple of years his senior, she had never quite been herself after a summer of sickness left her housebound. The two of them had bonded, in their odd way, shortly after. Oli called her the most annoying girl in the clan, but she was the only child he played with.

Oli replied hesitantly. “I’m not sure.”

“I knew it! You saw what happened to Ingo, didn’t you?”

Winilind’s body stiffened, and she shut her eyes. When Oli answered, though, relief flooded her.

“I don’t know anything about Ingo,” he insisted, adding “And I’m not in trouble!”

She stepped outside and feigned surprise at the sight of her friend’s daughter. Pasha was always a little wilder than you remembered her. The unkempt straw-coloured hair seemed to point in every direction and those black eyes darted around as she fidgeted and shuffled.

“Oh, hello there, Pasha. Why don’t you play with Oli this afternoon? He’s just finished his jobs.”

The girl inched out from the side of the house, eyeing him suspiciously.

“You mean he’s not in trouble? Everyone says he’s in trouble.” She sounded disappointed.

“You’d like to play with Pasha, wouldn’t you?” Winilind addressed her son, who nodded. “The two of you can play in the house.” Oli’s face screwed up into a scowl and Pasha’s erupted into a triumphant grin.

“I knew it!” she declared to Oli, “You are in trouble.”

“He’s not in trouble at all,” Adalina interjected, “Mother, they can play in the fields, can’t they?” In a lower voice she added, “People will only be suspicious if he’s cooped up in the house all day.”

Winilind frowned. She wanted Oli where she could see him until Ingo was found but knew her daughter was right. Besides, it would leave her alone with Adalina. They needed a talk that was overdue. One they probably should have had before Ingo went missing.

“Alright, but-” she started. Instantly, Pasha scampered away toward the sheep paddock, taunting Oli to catch up with her.

“Stay out of the forest today!” she called after them as they both ran away.

“I will.” Oli yelled back as he disappeared.

Winilind watched them race out of view and sat outside beside her daughter. Adalina picked up a folded shirt that Oli had stitched, inspected it closely and re-folded it. Winilind watched as she picked up another.

“Ada.” She said gently.

“What?” Came the sharp retort. Then she looked up with an apologetic smile and added, “You could get some rest if you like, Mother. I’ll let you know when Father returns.”

“Ada,” Winilind said, “If Ingo...when Ingo turns up... are you two still...?”

“No.” Adalina returned her attention to the mended clothes. “I hope they find him soon and I hope he’s ok. But no, we’re not.”

“What happened?”

For years her daughter and Heridan’s prodigal son had been inseparable. She and Luthold had resigned themselves to becoming family with the thick-headed leader of the clan’s warriors, a man who differed in interests and temperament as much from them as he did from his son. Despite their differences, their rivalry even, the match did not displease them. Ingo would make a fine son-in-law.

Yet, from the night the clan accepted her as an adult, Adalina had refused to see him. Neither she nor Luthold had been able to learn what happened. When Adalina did not answer, she persisted.

“Was Ingo disappointing? Was he too shy? Was it embarrassing when you were alone? You know, it’s often awkward in the beginning. With your father and I -”

“I know. You’ve already told me more than I want to know. We didn’t spend any time alone.”

“Why not?” Winilind was nonplussed. “Didn’t you want to be married?”

“I didn’t want. I don’t want...” Adalina mumbled and glanced in the direction Oli had run.

“You didn’t want what?” Winilind leaned forward.

Adalina put down the clothes and stared into the distance.

“I didn’t want what comes after. It's my earliest memory, you know. Listening to Oli coming. I never heard anything like it since. I didn’t think you would survive. Nobody thought you would survive. I only wanted to put it off, but he got upset and kept asking me why and what it meant. He thought I led him on for all those years. And now maybe I put it off forever.”

Winilind shuddered at the memory her daughter had summoned. She recalled the sound of her own cries, heard as though being made by someone else, and the certainty she was losing both her own life and the child. She remembered holding Ada’s hands afterwards, as the blood congealed around her and her vision faded and telling her that she must look after the child if it had survived. But she could not let her daughter live in fear of so unusual a birth. She moved round to look in Adalina’s eyes.

“Oli’s birth was not ordinary, Ada. Listen to me. You were there when Lien delivered. You helped Oslef to snip Beresa when Pasha’s little brother came. Even that wasn’t as bad, was it? Oli came out sideways and all tangled up. He got lost on the way out, the way he’s got lost ever since. That's not what it’s like for every mother. I don’t remember any birth being as hard as that.”

“What if it runs in the family?”

“If it ran in the family, it would have been the same for you. But go and ask Elder Mildred how your birthday went. I was on my feet the very same evening.”

“Is that true?”

“Ask Mildred. You know she’ll turn anything into a horror story if she can.”

They sat in silence for a while, and Winilind watched her daughter’s face change to relief, and then back to anxiousness.

“He’ll turn up, won’t he?”

Winilind smiled.

“He’ll turn up. He’s a smart boy. Whatever pickle he’s got himself into, he’ll get himself out of it. And when he does, you put these fears out of your mind.”

Luthold followed behind Joturn and his nephew, Torvald, as they tracked Oli’s footsteps under the grey morning sky, back from the village to the river. A little rain had fallen in the night, but the deep prints confirmed at least a part of his son’s story. He had fled hard and fast back to the village. No doubt flustered; he had even deviated from the familiar path on his journey South. Fortunately, he had stumbled across a new one which even Joturn looked surprised to see.

Luthold peered into the gloom around them and shuddered. The colourful shirt and the Western words he had shared with everyone. They’d nodded to each other and tutted about outsiders and Heridan had looked hopeful.

Fearful of leaving omissions, he had told the odder aspects of Oli’s story to Oslef. Luthold was close to Oslef, and he had relayed the extra details with a whisper and a chuckle, as though to make a joke out of the things a child could imagine, but Oslef had stared at him coldly until he fell into an embarrassed silence.

Later that morning, Joturn had announced he would lead the search to the river and then he told Luthold and Torvald in private to leave all weapons at home. Out here, with trees so close it seemed like twilight, the idea of clumsy western adventurers abducting forest-born children felt less credible. The darkness lent itself to the notion of more sinister threats. It did not help his nerves that Oli’s story, the full version, had given the elders pause for thought. He did not know how much Joturn had told his nephew, and he did not ask him.

Joturn broke Luthold’s reverie, speaking as he measured the gap between prints with his spread hand. “Someone scared your boy,” he muttered in his direction, “he’s rarely in such haste.”

“Hmph.” Torvald grunted in agreement.

Luthold did not answer. He’d heard worse taunts than that and something caught his eye on the edge of the path.

“Here,” he called, “Are these boot prints? A man in pursuit?”

Joturn closed the gap between them in a single leap and bent his face to the ground.

“It’s a boot. Probably a man, running hard... and then it stops and then... it turns... off the path.” Joturn dissected the stranger’s movements of a day ago, gently pushing undergrowth aside as he danced lightly from one print in the earth to another.

“Both come from the river,” added Torvald.

“And only one child,” Luthold pointed out.

“Only one child returning,” Joturn corrected. “Going out, we see neither Oli nor Ingo. Could have been one or both. Light tracks, gone by now. We may find answers at the river... or more questions.”

Luthold and Torvald set off down the path.

“Wait,” called Joturn. They turned back and saw that he had not moved. The old hunter stood with his eyes closed, his face raised, and the wrinkles of his skin tightened in concentration. The only part of him that moved were the ends of his long hair that drifted in the breeze.

“What is it?” Torvald asked.

“Shh.” He held up a hand. They waited.

“Perhaps my ears are not what they used to be, but I can’t hear the village from here.”

The others closed their eyes and sought through the noises of the forest, the cracks and rustles and cawing of birds, for those strands of sound belonging to human beings; children shouting, pots banging, the sharp chop of axes.

“I hear nothing,” said Torvald.

“Me neither,” added Luthold.

Joturn shook his head slowly.

“Why break off such hot pursuit just here? He could not see the village, nor could he hear it. How did he know that Oli would soon arrive there? That is, unless he knows the forest very well.”

Luthold swallowed and looked again into the thick darkness around them. As much to break the silence, perhaps, as anything, Torvald ventured “He grew tired?”

“Pfft,” scoffed Joturn. “To the river now.”

---

Oli jogged around the perimeter fence to a gap at the far end of the fields. The Hallin didn’t keep a lot of livestock, but what sheep they tended for wool and milk ambled around inside an enclosure on the South side of the village. He clambered through the small gap in the picket fence, against which the enclosure was bounded, and circled outside the village to where Pasha would be waiting.

The outer ‘fence’ resembled a sort of stretched-out porcupine tail encircling the roundhouses. It was formed of stakes of varying length driven into the ground and angled outwards. The larger ones were supported by poles arrayed in the opposite direction. Climbing over them would be difficult but not impossible. A determined force would have to be deterred by spears as well, but the picket fence was not really meant to defend the village from other humans. Root sleepers, despite their strength and speed, would struggle to drag their bulbous bodies over the sharp points. And if they tried, the wood could be set alight.

As Oli ran, he jumped over the supporting poles, challenging himself each time to edge closer to the sharp points and leap higher.

A shout broke his concentration, and his foot caught on something. The fence whirled upside down and his body, a moment earlier free, now spun around a new fixed point; his ankle.

A moment later, he heard a ripping sound and his body fell free. His stomach would have sunk if it knew which way was down. His hands, moving on instinct, found the ground before the crown of his head hit it. Nothing could save his pride though as he heard the giggles.

Lifting his head, still dizzy, he saw Kuno and Koen, the twins. He must have jumped right past them. They stood behind him, beside one of the poles he had cleared.

“Oli’s chasing his sweet-heart,” drawled Koen. Oli’s face, already hot from running, could not redden anymore. Kuno took up the chant. “Oliiis chasing his sweeeaat heeeeaaart.”

“Get lost,” hissed Oli, regretting his inability to compose a sharper insult. So much of childhood depended on that skill he lacked. He turned back and kept walking, his torn trouser leg flapping about his calf. The two younger boys followed, repeating the chant until a better idea struck Koen.

“He’s leading her off into the woods,” he whispered to his brother, just loudly enough for Oli to overhear, “I bet he’s taking her where he took Ingo!”

Oli kept walking, the heat rising into prickles on his skin. The twins repeated the accusation, louder and bolder. Oli could not run away from two boys three years his junior, nor did he dare turn to confront them. He could have insulted them, if he had the wits. Something whistled passed his ear and Kuno yelped, falling to the ground.

“Haha! Kuno looks like a dirty hoarder!” Pasha’s voice rang from behind the fence.

Kuno sat up and brushed the clump of earth off his head.

“Not fair, Pasha,” protested Koen, arms folded.

“Why, ‘cos he’s ugly?”

Kuno’s bottom lip trembled, and Oli shifted uneasily.

“It’s ok, Kuno,” he mumbled, “it’s not your fault your face is all wrinkled and weird.”

Pasha roared with laughter. Kuno’s eyes opened wide, tears welling as he blew a long raspberry at them, and the two boys scuttled away. Pasha sat down, her back to the pole, and patted the ground beside her.

“You shouldn’t make fun of how Kuno looks, Pasha. Mum says it’s not ok.”

“Ha! Says you! That was so funny. ‘It’s not your fault your face is all wrinkled and weird.’” She imitated Oli, putting a cruel slant on the clumsy words he had meant to be conciliatory and fell about laughing again.

“I wasn’t... oh, never mind. He can’t help that he got ill as a baby.”

“Well, look at his twin brother. He wasn’t going to turn out handsome anyway. Not like Ingo... or you.” She winked and watched him with her inquisitorial eyes. Oli stared at a wisp of cloud, watching it dissipate and hoping her attention would do the same. For once, it did.

“What’s going on, Oli?” she asked in a hushed tone, “Everyone’s saying you know what happened to Ingo.”

“I don’t know why. He always makes up excuses. He never came to meet me. But...”

“But you do know something, don’t you?”

“Not about Ingo. Or maybe. It wasn’t the hoarders. My Dad says half the stories about them are made up.”

“What about the other half?”

Ignoring her, Oli continued. He was thinking out loud, articulating for the first time his thoughts about what happened without the pressure of grown-up ears straining to hear a version that appealed to their interests.

“The hoarders have always been there, and they’ve never taken Ingo. But someone is in the forest who shouldn’t be.”

He looked at Pasha and saw the eager curiosity on her face flicker momentarily into doubt. Her big, black eyes scoured their surroundings and the nearby tree line, and she edged back deeper into the fence.

“Your monster. Mother says you made it up, but she won’t let me go into the forest today.”

“It was a man, not a monster. But he appeared from nowhere. He crossed the bottom of the river. He had a cloak made of wolf hides and a twisted spear. My parents think it was a Western adventurer, but I know they’re wrong. Even they know they’re wrong.”

She gulped and shivered. Oli knew he was scaring her, but it felt so good to talk that his words tumbled over each other. “I think that man got Ingo. My Dad's gone to the river. What if he gets my Dad? He wanted to know about the mountains. I think he wanted to find the hoarders. I should have told him how to get there. Maybe he found Ingo and forced him to be a guide?”

“You’re not lying,” stated Pasha, regarding him intently and holding her cloak tight. “But you told the grown-ups, didn’t you?”

Oli half nodded. “I told my parents.”

Pasha smiled and patted his leg. “Well then, there’s nothing else you can do. My dad says there’s no one as clever as your dad, apart from Oslef, of course. Come on, let’s play.”

Oli heard the rattle as Pasha pulled out a pouch and emptied it on the ground. The wood and stone disks clicked together as they fell into a pile. Oli beamed and reached for the nearest stone.

“Ah, ah,” Pasha chided, “you always win when you play the gods. I’m trying your tricks today. Here, spirits.” She took the stones for herself and pushed the wooden disks across to him. Oli smirked. He had plenty of tricks for playing spirits, too. He arranged his pieces in order, stopping momentarily to admire the engravings. They were far better than those on his parents’ set.

“A gift to my mother from Aimar,” said Pasha in a low voice. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they? She gave them to me and said not to let dad see.”

Oli was always drawn to the sleek abstractions of the gods’ signs etched into stone pieces, but most people judged the maker’s skill by how they carved the spirits. The spirits in this set were particularly arresting. The aspect of the Bear seemed to capture its size, despite being contained in an oak disk a thumb’s width across. The Sleeper Queen stared malevolently at him, as though she would jump out and bite him if he looked too closely. The Sea Raven disk somehow contained the whole expanse of the sky and made Oli wonder what it must be like to soar so high above the world in any direction he pleased.

“Come on, your turn.” Pasha’s voice drew him from the pictures. “I played Hurean on the North stack.”

“Bear on the West,” Oli replied automatically as he placed the disk.

“Terlos on the South.”

“Too fast,” Oli commented under his breath as he claimed the East stack for the Sleeper Queen.

“You know you sound about forty years old when you play,” teased Pasha. “Lost Daughter above Terlos.”

“Sea Raven above her.” Oli didn’t care about her jibes when they were playing Sevenstones. He settled into the same calm that washed over him in the moment after he cast a line. Whenever he started playing, he just relaxed and knew he was going to win. He usually did.

Pasha hesitated. She’s already wasted a good attacking piece, thought Oli. She bit her tongue between her lips and swapped the stone in her hand for another, reaching for the South stack. Before Oli could see what she had played a shout went up from the village and his head snapped round. In the next moment, the sound of dropped tools, flapping doors and hurrying feet came through the fence. Oli’s heart swelled in his chest. Fierce hope and a powerful dread whirled through his body, and he was grateful when he felt Pasha’s sticky palm against his, tugging him toward the gap. Abandoning the game, they pushed themselves through. Oli saw that a crowd had already formed around the watchtower and Lien atop it was shouting and waving her arms for quiet.

They dashed to the edge of the crowd, weaving their way between houses and bodies until they could hear.

“It’s coming from near the mountains,” Lien yelled to the crowd, which erupted with questions. The tall shepherd, near whose sheep Oli and Pasha had just been playing, was leaning at a nauseating angle from atop the watchtower, holding on with one hand and shielding her eyes with the other as she scoured the treetops. With her back to the crowd she added, “not the hoarders. Farther North. Much farther.”

Oli looked round. “What’s near the mountains? What are they talking about?” he asked Pasha, who shook her head and gestured at him to be quiet.

“Where?” a loud voice demanded. “Where exactly?” impatient men and women repeated the question.

Suddenly, Pasha gasped and nudged him in the side, pointing up beyond the watchtower. Oli finally saw it. A great column of smoke rose in the distance, billowing into an unnatural cloud that hung in the clear sky above the forest. Had it come later in the year it could have been a clan leaving its old home in search of new paths. In early Spring, though, it could only be a sacking. He could not tell how near or far it was.

Lien turned and even from a distance, Oli saw incredulity in her expression. She had stared long and hard without answering their questions, he realised, not because she could not see where it came from, but because she did not believe what her eyes showed her.

“It’s coming from the Sullin Fort,” she announced. The onlookers fell silent. When a village was sacked, it was sacked by the Sullin for refusing payment. Sometimes villages managed to defend themselves, but nobody ever retaliated. Oli heard her ask in a trembling voice. “Who would attack the Sullin? Who could? ”