VIII

Hours must have passed and the progress was slow. I still walked along a rutted track and the rain still beat down upon me. My temperament was perhaps at it’s lowest since I had left the safety of the wall, yet I had at least been buoyed up by the mushrooms I had consumed earlier. In addition to eating my fill, I had scavenged what others I could and placed them in a thin cotton shirt from my pack, wrapped them up, and secured them in the top of it. I at least then had the confidence - since I had suffered no ill effects - to know what to look for in future, should I come across any others like this. 

The air was still wet, the mist hanging frustratingly close. I still could not espy the mountains nor the sun and because of this I began to have my doubts as to were I was going in the correct direction. I had turned due north on to the track, that much I was certain. However with the lack of bearings I found it difficult to be sure that I had stayed north. 

Over grown fields either side, if they had ever been fields. I hoped still for sign of the farmstead I was sure must have once serviced them. Yet there was nothing on either side. 

Eventually I caught sight of more trees, moving through a more forested area, and the trail turned off to the left. Frustratingly however once I neared the bend, I noticed another track leading off from it to the right. Both branches looked equally worn and overgrown. The left hand bend lead around what I presumed to be the northern boundary of the field to my left before declining somewhat then turning off to the south. As it declined it became more waterlogged. Passage would be slow and wet - not that I had much reason to mind now seeing as I was sodden through ti the extent that I did not feel that I would ever be able to dry off again. 

The other branch lead uphill slightly and continued (hopefully) northwards. Yellowed ferns and a light scattering of birch either side kept it sheltered from the worst of the weather and the trail looked drier than even what I had been on. 

I stood there indecisively and shivered. Another shadow passing over me. I glanced behind and strained to see as far back as I could. The trail had definitely turned more than once, as this was no straight line back. I could espy roughly three or four hundred meters before a bend and the mist took everything beyond from my sight. I felt watched and not for the first time. From where I could not tell. 

There. Slight movement in the long tangle of grass of the fallow field. Something just moving out of sight. Almost imperceptibly fast, yet my eyes were keen. 

“Keen eye and a keen aim,” Corbyn had once said. He would teach archery to my brothers and I, amongst other arts. Soon enough he knew my interest to be waning and that coupled with my stuffy physique and my complacent manner meant he devoted less time to me and more to teaching his more attentive students in Ashe and Bryln. Yet there was no mistaking his fondness for me early on, beneath his brusque manner. I pretended that I could not see the disappointment when I failed time after time to attend with any degree of regular punctuality. He became a harsher teacher, impatience leading to anger before announcing that I was to be his student no more. I feigned indifference but a deep part of me was broken. It was that broken part perhaps that lead to the outcome that was, yet I couldn’t see it then. Nor before or since, although the story had been the same. 

I was not like my brothers. Had we not shared the same parentage, it would be easiest to assume I was a bastard child or more likely a stray, devoid of living parents, taken in by the king and queen in a public display of charity and humility, to raise as their own. As though I was the unwitting and unwilling recipient of a strange lottery. Yet there was no argument. I had my mother’s looks and my fathers stance. I was very much their child, the youngest boy of three. 

And the keenest eye. 

And the keenest mind. 

I threw my mind out towards the field, another first, hoping for some semblance of image, even it was the briefest whisper in a high wind. There was the suggestion of something, maddeningly close yet just out of reach. I unwittingly stretched out my hand, my fist grasping at the damp air. Teeth together in frustration. It was gone, if it was ever there at all. Likewise I had seen nothing else, save that initial movement, which already I was fancying as nothing more than my fatigued mind. 

The sun was getting low as I turned and made up my mind to follow the higher trail. I trudged forward, shouldering my pack up from where it had slipped. There was no mistaking dusk was falling, and I began to think that I should start to make camp, soaked and as ill prepared as I was. The first nights after leaving the weather had held mild and still. I had slept under the stars. After I enrolled the ranger, the weather had not changed. Only now had it become as such, and I now both regretted the haste in which I ha departed and my lack of knowledge in shelter construction, as well as resented the ranger once again for his hasty departure. He would have the skill required, and no doubt the tools. 

I kept walking, yet took in my environs and began to imagine what I could to. The ferns were large, and some of the trees old. It wouldn’t be too out of the question to take some dead branches and fashion them into a crude frame, before layering on the ferns until it was waterproof and wind resistant up to a degree. I would be wet and cold, but I wouldn’t get any worse whilst I slept, and after searching in my bag I may even locate some dry clothes, possibly the ones most closely wrapped around it.

This thought pushed me on, and I waked with renewed enthusiasm, getting ready to detour from the path into the small copse of trees ahead on my right, protruding from the ferns.

I saw it then. Nestled in amongst that very copse of trees. The track I had been following took me right there as it moved round the copse and then behind it, to the small single storey house made from dark wood and mossy stone. It skulked there, behind the trees, it’s empty window frames - one either side of door - black and accusing. It was asking me a question insolently. 

Where have you been.

And another. 

What kept you so long. 

I had hoped to come across such a place as this, but hadn’t dared to believe it. So unappealing the thought of fashioning a shelter had been, it had taken root in my mind and I had decided on such a course of action, however unhappily. 

I drew nearer and the light faded further with every step. I prayed it would long enough for me to familiarise myself and explore well enough to find a spot within to bed down for the night. It was abandoned, or did a just enough impression for me to be satisfied. I could see the low wall of the boundary edge of the steading. A small dilapidated gate that was half swung open and held fast with weeds. The outlying woodland had encroached on what I presumed to have been an orchard, such were the trees so neatly and fastidiously arranged in rows. What fruit they once bore I could not tell, for they were long dead. Soon I was stepping through he gate and I could see well enough however. Apples perhaps, or plums. Mayhap both, but all were dried, withered and long gone, as were the trees they had fallen unattended from. 

A small rodent of sorts rushed part from the hollow base of one of the trees, causing me to startle. I exclaimed slightly and stepped back, waiting to see if there would be any more. Stillness was resumed and with it, silence. The rain had ceased, at long last, and I hoped the night and following day would bring no more. I surreptitiously glanced around and once more thought I caught sight of something beyond the wall behind me. Through the gate and back along the trail towards the fork. Something slyly moved out of sight. I had two options. I could either convince myself once more that it was nothing, and I was alone, or I could believe it, and be on my guard. I opted for the latter yet pretended I was reacting in accordance with the former. 

I whistled as lightly and as nonchalantly as I could. Perhaps it was too obvious a move, yet once I had begun I found it helped ease my own fears, and so I contained, a court song that we learned when we were very young. I approached the doorway, devoid of any remnant of door, the lintel sagging, cobwebs as old as the rest of the decay hung like a witch’s hair. I paused there, suddenly hesitant to move inside into the dark. A momentary hesitation and nothing more, and I shook myself, whistling louder now as I entered. 

It was a simple dwelling with the doorway leading directly into what I presumed would have been a rudimentary kitchen. There was a large cauldron of sorts wedged into the remains of a fireplace. Mangled lengths of twisted iron surrounded it and I presumed that it had once been held into position above the fire, yet the brickwork had decayed and the metal secured to it had fallen with the cauldron into the dust. There was a simple food preparation and consumption table that was missing one of it’s four legs and sinking into the warped floorboards underneath. Two or three wooden cupboards, doors hanging open exposing empty contents. Apart from that, the area was devoid of anything else. I moved into the living area to find a small hearth in the centre of the room, four box beds arranged around it in a square. I was most surprised to find that the small window still contained a glass pane and the roof seemed to be intact, from what I could see beyond the beams. The light was dim and the room mainly in shadow. I could make out nothing else, however my relief at finding the steading coupled with my joy at the fact this room seemed to be dry and - dar I say - almost warm due to the fact it still seemed sealed caused me to increase my whistling by some volume. 

I placed my pack on the bed farthest from the door, and quickly searched around the walls of the room, scrabbling in the dark for a suggestion of another window or a door. The walls were cold which gave the impression of dam, yet nothing came away on my skin, which decided me on he matter of where was going to spend the night. 

The sun had truly deserted me by the time I moved back into the kitchen, yet my minded formed it’s thoughts now on what it must do. The remains of the table would be a makeshift barricade between the kitchen area - which had the front entrance, and a shuttered door to the rear of the room thus rendering it unsafe - and the living area. I would take the remains of the cupboards off the wall as best I could manage and splinter the wood by any means I could do so. I would need to venture outside for suitable stone for a makeshift flint but if I could not locate such, then I still thought I knew best how to fire start with wood only. 

I continued whistling as I dragged the table over towards the doorway, pleased to find that it was heavier than it first appeared, and would therefore be suitable for it’s purpose, or at least save to slow down my pursuer should he 

it

decide to make some sort of gambit whilst I was sleeping.

It had crossed my mind of course that sleep would elude me regardless, but such as that was. To even rest next to some warmth would be a fine thing. 

I broke into song, the lyrics following the tune, whistling no longer enough to keep myself in high spirits. 

“I cast my net, I tilled my fields,

The sun sets down oo-er the hill,

Soon be time to come and kneel,

And give is thanks for barley and mill”

A simple song, and innocent. I was a child again, in the hall of the chorus on River Day. The sun was steaming through the stained glass, resulting in a kaleidoscope of shape and colour. 

I thought of myself at home, and I thought of myself now. 

Such a queer thing that I was never a one for the comforts of the palace, and such also was it that I did not miss them once I had left. I found myself - although inept - quite at peace with the fact I had to lay down amongst earth and weed, under an open canopy. I wondered perhaps if there had been the hint of something in a former life, something of the woodland to me. Perhaps I was never truly comfortable sealed in stone as I was closet to nature. 

The irony of this line of thinking as I prepared to bed down inside a stone structure didn’t elude me, and I found myself almost chuckling at my wandering mind. 

I took myself to task removing the cupboards from the walls. They came away easily, the wood soft and wormy. The cupboards themselves were empty save for one which contained the remnant of a birds next. That was also dry and crumbled beneath my grip when I took it. It would make good for starting the fire, and so I made a point of taking it through first, placing it in the centre of the small hearth and surrounding it with the smallest broken shards from the cupboard.

Finished with that task, I went outside into the gloom. The song had been buoying me onwards, filling me with humour and energy, however when I stepped beyond the dwelling I had a sudden flash of memory. I wasn’t the only one who liked this song. 

He stood before me, humming it as he buttoned up his shirt. A charcoal etch against the dawn window. 

I couldn’t move, something had my wrists tight. 

I was alone in the orchard. The grass wet underfoot. 

For a suitable stone, I walked lightly over to the wall, all previous good humour long departed. Unwelcome memories. It didn’t matter that the man in them hung from the fallow until his tongue went black, he lived on inside my mind’s eye. A trusted man. He had been a figure in my life since birth. His misdeeds only discovered by a housekeeper, one of low birth yet he had chased her down, leaving me on the bed. I could hear her gasping for air from down the corridor. 

This had broken something in me. A horror too far. The fear that the same would befall me wouldn’t keep me in check, and when he had released me, filling my pockets with sweet confections, I had run to my mother. I had told her everything. 

The housekeeper had never been found, not completely, yet human bones were discovered in the dog pen. His hunting dogs. Foul beasts with dead eyes and too many teeth. After he had been taken to the fallow, the had all been put to the sword, I wouldn’t not relent until my father had made it so. Bryln had done it, Ashe too compassionate. Not so my oldest brother. Bryln had his own score to settle with the beasts after a hunt to which he was invited as a young observer had ended with one of them going for him. He still had the scar on his leg. I did not weep for the hounds, or for him. Him least of all. 

Yet he was still there. Within my thoughts. 

I had gathered what stones I could find that were suitable. I had doubts they would work but had my backup. 

Back in the living and sleeping room I found that the stones caused a spark easily despite their dampness, and was soon seated beside the small fire I had made. I worked quickly to bring the box beds closer around, removing my sodden clothes after taking what was dry from my pack. I hung the damp garments from the sides of the beds and was quite pleased at the fact this would also serve to diffuse the light from the fire to make it harder to be seen externally. Futile perhaps, as the smoke was drifting up and out the small chimney in the centre of the ceiling, and besides, my follower already knew I was here. 

The atmosphere was pregnant with anticipation, but for want of nothing more to do I feasted on the remains of the mushrooms I had also removed from my pack. I began to feel nauseous with the taste but my hunger was overriding. 

I added a few more broken shards of wood to the fire where it crackled noisily. I knew that this would mask any sounds of an intruder but, again, I had little choice. With no fire and sodden clothes I would soon take ill and then there would be no way of continuing. I did have something with me that may pose my follower to halt and take stock momentarily however and I now reached in to my bag and took it from where I had secured it within a hole I had made between the inner and outer lining. 

The blade was rusted yet sharp. My assailant had kept the edge keen if nothing else. I had only been half a day’s travel from the wall of the kingdom when he attacked me from behind, making almost no noise. A reflex more than anything put me to one side, swinging my pack over over my shoulder and knocking the short and filthy man to one side. I rolled after landing on the woodland floor, the breath knocked out of me but adrenaline dictating my actions unconsciously. I had received not just training with the bow, but also rudimentary defence and combat - both armed and unarmed. Whilst I may have been soft and clumsy, I wasn’t completely without wit or skill. I stood quickly, the breath from me in ragged gasps, my side aching where I had landed. He was slower to rise than I, and I had chance to appraise him. 

He had clearly chosen stealth because of his diminutive stature and advanced age. Notwithstanding his portly shape. Yet there was no mistaking the desperation and rage writ large in his face. I breathlessly asked him to stay down, to cease his attempt on my life and to walk on from whence he had come. Yet this was not to be, for soon as the words had left my lips did he right himself, brandish his wicked blade out before him and come at me a second time. 

What happened from that I could not say, yet in no time at all I had emerged the victor - purely by chance than design. I recall deflecting with my arm - the one in which I still have a wound upon that still requires attention yet until I can do so I do my best to ignore (Ashe always said there is only a housemaid’s low daughter who sees fit to churn about such minor physical ailments) - and then moving to the side as I was once more thrown from my centre by the determined assault. I fell towards him this time and we landed and tussled. I reached for the knife and with all strength I could muster wrestled with him for it. 

Then he was stuck and bleeding on the ground, eyes glassy and prayers to unknown gods of the earth on his soon to be still lips. 

I said my own prayer for him then dragged his body into the undergrowth. It was surprisingly heavy (or I surprisingly weak, I am not sure which) and made for slow dragging hence I did not put it far from sight. I prayed I wouldn’t be seen but as this was the first individual past the patrols I didn’t think it likely. This one looked as though desperation had driven him that close to the wall. 

He had nothing of value on him (I despised myself then, going through the meagre possessions of a corpse, yet in truth I was hoping for something that could tell me more about this new world I found myself in over anything else) so I took the blade to defend myself. I had seen more more living creature until the strange plague ridden goblin type creature and the other lone stranger I feared would attack me.  By that stage my bottle had gone for the blade and I had secured it within the open seam of my pack. In hindsight a foolish move, yet we know how that scenario played out. It was a relief afterward that not everyone in this land were so quick to attack me, despite the fact that this one had also obviously considered it. 

Now someone (or something) else was considering it. 

I heard it. 

Above the pop and crackle of the fire. 

I had just begun to undress the makeshift bandage on my arm, wincing as I did so. The noise from beyond the small window caused me to start, despite how much I was expecting it. 

I reached for the knife.