The Living Gods (Godsfade #1)

By W.M. Driscoll

"hear my words, Alawi, and write them in your books...for a time of great trials is upon you."

Fleeing false charges of treason, Makiria and Volar lead a ragtag band of outcasts north to the Wood Coast of the Èrin Forest in search of a safe passage. There, they stumble upon Tome and Ketri, simple Terrans caught in the first fires of the coming conflict. When their homes are destroyed and their families cruelly murdered, the two teens are rescued by the Aeons, to Ketri and Tome, living gods as distant and unfathomable as the stars in the sky.

• Language: English
• Publisher: W.M. Driscoll
• Release date: Nov 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370969623

W.M. Driscoll

Born on the shores of Lake Michigan north of Chicago, Illinois, as a boy Will was more at home on the beaches, local playing fields or exploring the woods behind his house than in a classroom. Precocious and free-spirited, he was given to the rough and tumble of sports and other physical activities. All this changed the day he discovered what he would later call--"the magic book; the first book that made the movie go in my head"-- J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. Devouring it, the Lord of the Rings and later The Silmarillion in consecutive readings, his life-long love of fantasy and poetry began. During his high school years, now an avid reader, Will became a student of science fiction/fantasy, mythology and folklore and would seek out similar works by Robert A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Roger Zelazny, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Stephen R. Donaldson. Graduating from college with honors, he received his first awards in the genres of poetry and short fiction while, all the while, his own fantasy world was slowly taking shape in his imagination. In 1988 surrounded by family and friends he married the love of his life, rock singer and part-time journalist for the Soho Weekly News, Kelly Andersen. Together they have three wonderful children, Shae, Erin and Erik. While Will wrote, Kelly went on to a long successful third career as a restaurateur and is currently a sought-after health and lifestyle coach. Throughout his writing life, Will has always considered himself a poet having written seven books of poetry along with a number of short stories, three movie scripts and an Off Broadway play. At the same time, like some model train enthusiast lovingly shaping an H0 scale paradise in his basement, he was tinkering obsessively with his fantasy world which presented first as hastily written notes in a journal; these scratchings would later become notebooks and then computer files filled with detailed histories, maps, poetry, character sketches and stories. Twenty-two years after that first note was taken, he decided to pull it all together and began Godsfade, a high science fiction/fantasy series set in a dystopian future, The Living Gods, Awakening in the Hollow and The Dark Gate being the first three installments.

Book preview

The Living Gods

Terracom Books/November 2016

Illustrated Edition

Published by Terracom Books

A Division of Terracom Media

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are imaginary.

Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or locations is entirely coincidental.

No portion of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher.

All rights reserved

Copyright ©2016 by W. M. Driscoll

ISBN-13: 978-1-370-96962-3

[e-mail]

Table of Contents

(map)

Prologue – Morning Mist

Chapter One – Tome

Chapter Two – The Party

Chapter Three – Ashes

Chapter Four – Flight into the Forest

Chapter Five – Escape

Chapter Six – The Living God

Chapter Seven – Lee

Chapter Eight – Daggers in the Darkness

Chapter Nine – Guilt and Innocence

Chapter Ten – In the House of Honey

Chapter Eleven – To the Tribunal

Chapter Twelve – Testimony

Afterword

A Preview of ‘Awakening in the Hollow’

Aeons and their Houses

Glossary

(a – g)

(h – p)

(q – z)

(map)

PROLOGUE

MORNING MIST

You know when you’re on top of a hill, and you can see so far the horizon seems to circle you?

I guess.

This is nothing like that.

No . . . Aulrid! Come, take a look.

Aulrid lay with his eyes closed in that folded crook between waking and sleeping. After laying his bedroll under a tall pine, in a leafy concave between two roots, he had had only a few fitful hours of sleep when he felt someone shaking him.

Aulrid!

What?

Opening his eyes, he saw Knack leaning over him, with his broad wrinkled face and gray hair. He looked worried.

What is it?

The sun’s come up.

Does that about everyday this time, said a female voice dryly. It was Merla. She was tending to the dying fire. Knack’s in one of his moods, the girl added, shoveling dirt with a small spade over the banking into the fire pit. Got jumpy all of a sudden, like a frightened old hen. You’d think he’d never seen a light mist in the forest before, a woodmin with his rangings and advanced years.

Does feel a bit unnatural, Kellin observed from her perch on a tall rock.

You don’t agree with him, do you Troop? Merla asked, furrowing her brow.

I’m just sayin’.

Trooper Kellin was their leader for this scout. They were Green Briers, the best of the best. She was as skilled a woodmin as any of them and not given to fancies. In fact, she was as flappable as a wrought iron bar.

Let me see, said Aulrid, sitting up and throwing open his bedroll.

Knack eagerly helped him to his feet, a look of relief on his wrinkled face.

It’s just a sense that come over me all of a sudden, he said, when the forest got quiet in a worryin’ waitin’ for somethin’ bad kind a way.

Aulrid brushed the loose leaves and twigs from his reddish-brown hair, straightened his jerkin and looked around.

Their small camp was laid out on the side of a sloping hill, in a hollow filled with tree roots and large mossy stones. From this hidden vantage the night before, they had watched the stretch of road that ran south to where the others were camped in a treeless valley, but as the dull gray light of dawn brightened in the east, a white mist had come up. Now, all Aulrid could see was the rough outline of the road in places and the tops of the tallest trees. The forest around them had fallen unnaturally quiet. There was an odd chill in the air.

Knack’s right. There’s something off here.

Not you too. Merla shook her head.

Where’d Pie go? asked Aulrid, turning to Trooper Kellin.

Kellin rose and hopped off the rock landing on a pile of brown pine needles and leaves.

I sent him down the hill. He should have been back by now.

What do you want to do, Troop? Merla asked her.

I think we should have a look around. Knack’s our best tracker. When you bring your best tracker, it’s foolish to ignore him. You finish putting out the fire, and let’s gather up our things and be off.

As they walked warily down the sloping hill towards the road, Aulrid felt the sense of wrong growing in him. He just couldn’t shake it.

Their scout party was a small band of a much larger troop, the Green Briers, who were in turn part of an even larger one. There had been reports of raiders on Hollow Rise and the woodsmin from all the local villages and cots had banded together, marching north to protect their homes and farms.

When they had reached the Rise, all they had found was a deserted camp that hadn’t been used in months and a few bands of scattered outlaws living off the land.

Everyone had been jubilant as they turned south again and marched for home, everyone, that is, except Verdin, their captain, and Captain Coletta of the Moss Barks. The two of them had convinced the other captains to send out scouting parties to flank the main body as they went along and to watch the approaches after they had made their camp.

To think I’d be stuck with a bunch of frightened old wizen, Merla muttered under her breath. Scared of a little fog.

Quiet! Trooper Kellin ordered the girl.

Through the trees ahead, they could hear the snapping of twigs; someone was approaching.

A figure emerged from the fog. It was a thin young man, pale and out of breath. Aulrid reached instinctively for his long knife.

Pie! Knack said when he saw him.

Pie was the newest member of the Green Briers, a youth of barely eighteen winters. His real name was Isfrin of Stony Ford, but everyone called him Pie because that’s all he ever wanted to eat. Pie had been sworn in at the last Spring Festival with the other recruits, only a few months back, and this was his first ranging.

Where have you been?

Shhhh. The boy staggered towards them, his index finger to his lips, waving with his other hand for them to be quiet.

They gathered around him.

What is it? Kellin asked him softly.

Riders. On the road, the youth answered. About half a dozen by the sound of them.

Who?

Don’t know. I heard them as I was coming back up the hill. By the time I doubled back, they were gone. I followed their tracks a ways before turning ‘round.

We’re a little out of the way for a riding party, Merla observed, and rightly, given that the nearest town was fifty marcs or more to the south. Could be some hunters, or maybe travelers making for the river.

No use guessing, said Kellin. We need to find out if they’re more of ‘em and where they’re headed before we report back. Come on.

When they reached the road, little more than a rough logging track, Pie and Merla were sent north to look for more riders, while the others followed the tracks to the base of the hill.

What do you think, Knack? asked Kellin.

Seven horses, he answered her, large ones, fifteen hands or better, and moving fast. Judging by the depth of the tracks, they were weighted down pretty good.

Armored riders? asked Aulrid.

Could be. Hard to tell.

Kellin nodded.

All right. We’ll cut through the woods and head back for the valley. The captain’ll want to hear this right away.

As they made their way cautiously down the hill, Aulrid strained to hear anything, any sound that was out of the ordinary, scanning the misty trees on either side as if each could conceal a hidden foe.

They had gone no farther than a few dozen yards, when he heard something, the unmistakable sound of horses’ hooves on the road behind them.

Wheeling around, Aulrid saw Merla and Pie thirty feet or so back up the road. They were running. Behind them were three riders on tall horses coming on fast. The riders were dressed in strange, tightly fitted body armor, gray and red in color, and were carrying what seemed like long sticks in their hands made of metal and wood.

They’re not going to make it! Kellin called out, meaning Pie and Merla as it became clear that they were going to be ridden down. Aim for the horses.

Aulrid slid his bow off his shoulder and nocked an arrow, as did Knack and Kellin, but before they could loose them, the lead rider raised his long stick with both hands and a loud boom like a clap of thunder echoed across the wooded hillside. It was followed by a strange whizzing sound in the air. Merla’s throat exploded with a blossom of red and she fell to the ground dead.

Another boom! sounded and a whiz-slap! Pie’s chest bowed out as if he had been struck in the back between the shoulder blades, a look of shock on his young face as he fell.

Fire! Dremn you! Kellin cried, loosing her arrow.

No sooner had she released the bowstring than a shadow swept by Aulrid faster than he could see it, bringing with it an icy chill in its wake. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

He turned in horror to see Kellin raised off the ground, kicking her feet. There was a sickening crunch as her neck snapped and she fell to the ground with a thud.

The shadow was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

What was that? asked Aulrid, terrified.

Run! Knack replied.

They turned and ran for the woods on the east side of the road but before they could reach it, a third boom! clapped the air and when the whizzing had stopped, Aulrid felt something slam into the back of his left shoulder tearing into his flesh like a red-hot poker.

He stumbled forward and would have fallen if Knack hadn’t reached out and grabbed him around the waist, pulling him into the trees.

The two of them struggled down the hill under cover of the forest, Aulrid stumbling over roots and bracken and uneven ground. The pain in his shoulder was like nothing he had ever felt. When they reached the bottom, Knack sat him gently on an old rotting stump.

The two of them froze, not even daring to breathe, as they heard the sound of horses’ hooves on the road to their right. When it had stopped, Knack went around behind him.

Let’s have a quick look, he said, removing a leather strap from his pack. Bite this.

Aulrid put the strap between his teeth and bit down as Knack probed the wound with his fingers.

Well, he said. You’re losing blood but it missed all the vital stuff. Whatever it is, its purpose is clear enough.

Aulrid groaned into the strap as Knack probed deeper.

There somethin’ in here. A ball of some sort. I think its metal.

Aulrid removed the strap long enough to grunt out a question. Can you get it out?

No. It’s in too deep, Knack answered him. We’ll wrap you up quick and sort it out back in camp.

Knack bandaged the wound hurriedly and made a makeshift sling for Aulrid’s arm, before taking back the leather strap and stowing it in his pack.

We’ll have to cross the road again, but from there we can cut through the far woods to the valley.

You go, Aulrid told him, cradling his arm. The others have to be warned. I’ll slow you.

None of that. Knack shook his head. Your legs aren’t hurt, are they? He reached out and took his companion’s good arm helping Aulrid to his feet. A little further now is all.

When they reached the side of the road again, they paused and peered out between two tall trees. They could hear the rustle of movement off to the left, coming their way.

Knack pointed to the hill, where a lone rider sat in the middle of the road on his horse. He then pointed the other direction, where two riderless horses were tied up to low hanging branches. The sun was rising in the east and beginning to burn the mist from the ground. The thirty metras or so to the woods on the other side of the road seemed more like a marc now.

It’s do or never, Knack whispered in his ear.

Aulrid nodded.

The two of them bolted from the cover of the trees running side by side, Knack with his arm wrapped around Aulrid’s waist for support.

They had barely made it halfway when they heard the dreaded boom! and whiz! from the direction of the rider on the hill. Knack grunted. One step. Two. Three. The older man’s grip on Aulrid’s waist went slack as he fell to the ground, the back of his head a concave of bone and gore.

Aulrid hunched over at the waist cradling his wounded shoulder, but he kept running as fast as he had ever run.

As he reached the eaves of the wood on the other side, he could hear the sound of horse’s hooves on the road and the call of harsh voices.

Almost diving into the trees, he remained bent over, but somehow managed to keep his balance. The lip of the valley was up ahead, not far now but he could only think of one thing, his son, his pride and hope for the future. He was only eleven and had already lost his mother. How could he leave him alone?

Tome . . . , he intoned the boy’s name under his breath. Tome . . . , as much a prayer as an utterance. Gods keep you . . . .

The trees began to thin out. He could hear the sound of pursuit now closing in behind him.

Between the trunks ahead, Aulrid could see the beginning of the valley where the others were camped. He started to hope again. He was going to make it. The ten armored Warriors, even with their strange weapons, would be no match for the scores and scores of woodsmin that were camped there with their bows and blades. All he had to do was reach them in time.

At the edge of the misty valley, where the tall trees met the slope, Aulrid stopped, gazing down, and his heart fell followed by his knees, as he sank to the ground in despair. My gods!

From the northern lip, hundreds of soldiers were pouring over the rise, free blades and hirelings by the look of them, marching in ordered rows toward the ranger camp, filling the valley from east to west. Between them were riders on the tall horses in their gray and red armor, a dozen or more with their weapons aimed.

Laying his forehead on his good hand, Aulrid prostrated himself. He would join Kellin now it seemed, and Merla and Pie, and poor old Knack who had never harmed a flea in his life. The Warriors would see to that. He would join them, and everyone and everything he held dear would be put in terrible danger: his son and Fanuil, the small cabin he had built with his own hands in the forest by the meadow.

San Volar protect them! he prayed aloud.

No sooner had the words left his lips than a surging wind began to swirl through the valley, careening up the slope, blowing his hair and clothes. Aulrid lifted his head as a great purple light flared in the sky above him, causing him to turn away.

CHAPTER ONE

TOME

From the heart of the forest, the varsla will come from the people – the pebbles that start the avalanche – the stones that ripple all waters.

~a prophecy of Nebé, Chinon of the Eidour

Tomus! Aan Fan called from the front porch. Loamy and Caylee are here!

Tome lay on the old sooty rug in front of the fireplace, going through his stash of secret things. After he had finished his lunch of soup and bread, he had slid the battered tin box from its hiding place behind a loose stone in the hearth and taken inventory. In it, the boy kept all his treasures: the handful of smooth, nearly translucent stones he had found along the riverbed, a small blade with a scrolled handle carved like little suns, the silver pennii his aan had given him for his eleventh firstday.

Then there were his special things: a worn leather book with a frayed cover, no bigger than his hand, a real spyglass made of two brass tubes pushed together and a long purple sateen ribbon with white lace on it.

The leather book was a collection of verse that had belonged to his mother. The spyglass had been a present from his father. And the sateen ribbon that lay wadded in the corner of the box? That belonged to Ketrina Starr, the squirean’s daughter.

Tomus! Did you hear me? his aan called again.

Pressing the ribbon down with his fingers, the boy closed the tin box with a snap! and slid it under his cot by the fire. When it was safely hidden, he got up just in time to see his aan come through the cabin door with Mae Marwin, Fa Sherim’s cousin from the sheep farm just beyond the ridge.

It’s right over here, she was saying to her taller companion. Watch that step.

Aan Fan was a small woman with short black hair and brown eyes. She had a kind face and an infectious smile, when she wasn’t being stern or strong. She wasn’t really Tome’s aan. His father had told him to call her that. Her real name was Fanuil, Fa Jonquin the dressmaker’s daughter. She’d come to live with them from the town across the river.

Marwin, by contrast, was a gamey old Northford bird with hard gray eyes and a hawkish nose and silver hair she kept neatly in a bun. Unlike his aan’s simple ranger clothing, Marwin was dressed in her go to visiting clothes, the same go to visiting clothes she always wore when she went to visiting: a serviceable gray dress, sensible shoes and a tiny matching hat she was constantly adjusting, tilting precariously on the top of her head.

I’d been meaning to stop by sooner, to look at the room, said Marwin frowning impatiently as she pushed past Tome, and straightening her hat. But with things as they are, and Sherim useless when it comes to anything important, and with all the troubles. You understand.

Of course, I do.

Tome watched them walk beneath the loft into the sun porch, the one his father had built when Fan had moved in (she let Tome call her Fan when his father wasn’t around).

The walls are crooked, Marwin remarked, gazing about. The glass work’s shoddy. Aulrid sleeps in here? she asked inquisitively.

Please, take a seat. Fan gestured, politely ignoring her. I’ll pour you some caffa.

As she went to take the pot from the hearth, Tome saw a worried look on her face.

Loamy and Caylee are playing outside, she told him. Go on now.

He knew that tone. Yes, ma’am.

Leaving the women to their caffa, Tome walked slowly out the cabin door, down three gray rickety steps and into the dirt yard overlooking the wide meadow between the woods. The sun was shining on the grass there.

Not seeing Loamy or Caylee, he went around back through the scrub.

He found the two under a tall scraggly pine tree by the mulch pile, Caylee crouched down in her white and yellow flower print dress, Loamy Sniggers bent over beside her, giggling.

Loamy was seven, four years younger than Tome, the son of Fa Sherim’s foremin Kasa and Mailda who trimmed the sheep. They named him Loamy for his rich brown hair but the children called him Sniggers because he loved to giggle. The boy would giggle at anything.

Caylee, his constant companion, was five with long strawberry blond hair, freckles on her face and ice blue eyes that twinkled when she smiled. These were staring intently at something on the ground in front of them.

What are you doing? asked Tome.

The two of them turned and seeing him, smiled broadly.

Caylee found a bluebird, look! explained Loamy between giggles. By the sun porch! Must a flown into the glass there.

Leaning over the little girl’s shoulder, Tome spied a bright blue bird with a gray spotted underbelly lying on a bed of dry twigs and leaves. Though it was still moving with twitchy jerks, it was clear that its neck was broken.

In a blackened hand caked with soil, Caylee was holding a plump red worm with a bulge near its end. She was dangling it on the dying bird’s beak as if she expected it to eat.

Here, said Tome, taking the wriggling worm from her fingers. He laid it on the leaves.

Let’s put this here for when he wakes up, so he can find it. If we stay and watch, he won’t eat, and he might hurt himself.

Ya think so? asked Caylee, squinting up from beneath her strawberry bangs.

That we should let him lie here like this?

Yeah, Tome told her.

Leaving the bird where it lay, the three children walked back around the cabin, Tome planning to return later to bury it. Caylee stooped to wipe her hand on a patch of scrub grass. Loamy Sniggers began to giggle again.

When her fingers were cleaned to her satisfaction, Caylee grabbed Tome’s wrist and pulled.

Play with us! she said eagerly.

Yes! agreed Loamy. Let’s play a game!

I’ll sit and watch, he told them.

You never play with us anymore, Loamy complained. Not since . . . . He stopped.

Not since Tome’s mother had died. That’s what the little boy was going to say.

Tome looked at Loamy then Caylee, who was staring up at him with pleading in her clear blue eyes.

All right, he said. What do you want to play?

Draw a round circle! Caylee suggested excitedly.

Yes! Loamy seconded.

The little girl stepped in front of Tome and pointed a tiny finger at him. Shut your eyes and turn around, she ordered, and no peeking.

He turned and closed his eyes. As he did, Tome felt her fingertip tracing a circle on his back as she chanted the ritual words. Draw a round circle. Shade it in purple. Guess who taps. The poke that came next was so light and quick that it could only be Caylee.

Loamy, he answered.

Wrong! the girl squealed with joy. You’re it!

Tome listened as the two of them ran off to hide, then began his count. When he reached forty, he opened his eyes again. Gray clouds were beginning to form in the western sky and the air was still as he set off to find them.

Caylee, more often than not, hid behind the gorse berry bushes by the weathered door to the root cellar; Tome spotted her bright yellow and white dress between the branches as he passed.

As he turned the corner, he spied Loamy’s rich brown hair peeking out from under the porch steps and managed to tag him before the boy could squirm away.

Aiy-yai! Aiy-yai! Loamy called out.

Caylee came running around the cabin. I win! the girl cried, beaming. You’re it!

The children played twice more, Caylee and Loamy each winning once. On the fourth try, when he had finished his count and was setting off to find them, Tome saw two figures on foot to the east, descending the bald ridge beyond the meadow. Even at that distance, he recognized the taller one right away. It was Fa Sherim.

With his curly black beard and hands so huge things disappeared into them, Sherim was the tallest man in Aino, taller than any of the rangers, Tome’s father or Joss the Bull or even Knack the ironmonger’s son. He was looked to as the unofficial leader of the Northford. Whenever anyone was in trouble, they went to Fa Sherim.

Abandoning their game, Tome ran across the yard, up the gray steps and into the cabin eager to tell Fan and Marwin the men were coming. As the boy approached the doorway to the sun porch, he stopped, hearing them talking together in hushed voices.

. . . Mae Scairlin was put out last Ormsdei, Marwin was saying. That’s the fourth family evicted since the spring. Sherim’s offered to take her in, her and her little one. That man’ll have everyone in the Forefarrows living with us before he’s through. There won’t be a place for a body to breathe.

Why was she put out? asked Fan.

Same as the others. For taxes, and the general good, at least that’s what they said. They’re taking all the homesteads beyond the Roars by hook or crook and when they have them, they’ll clear-cut the trees and ship ‘em downriver to the mills. We sent another petition to Lee when we heard; that’s the third since the mound.

The mound was Oren’s Mound, a hill of grass to the north of Aino with old tunnels underneath it and a bad reputation. Last summer when it had been overrun by outlaws, rangers from the surrounding cots and villages had banded together to drive them out. Tome’s mother had gone with the Green Briers, as had his father and Fan.

The Thane has to answer it this time, Fan said adamantly.

He doesn’t, Marwin replied, and that’s the problem. A meeting’s been called at the farm tonight. Ham’s due back from Whitebridge. We could hear something by then.

Should I come?

No. Take the boy to the New Summer’s Festival as his father wants. He’s been through enough already.

At her mention of the boy, Tome leaned around the doorjamb and peeked into the room. He saw Marwin sitting in a plain wood chair with her back to him, straight as a board. Fan sat beside her holding the caffapot with a thick cloth, pouring her another cup.

I’m worried, she said, placing the black pot on the wood table between them. After Mireen died when Aulrid asked me to live here, I thought it was too soon and said no. Then when I saw what was happening, I agreed. Much good it’s done.

Pah! You’ve been a godsend for both of them.

Aulrid, maybe. Fan sighed. But I don’t know what to do about Tome. He won’t play with the other children anymore, not even Aram. After they closed the bridge and he couldn’t go to the town school, he started sneaking off into the woods by himself. He won’t say where he goes. Aulrid caught him coming back from the river one night last Mirid. He admitted he’d been to Miika’s Kirk in town. His father was furious with him.

The boy’s always been curious, Marwin replied, sipping her caffa. I was against sending them to the town school you know, him and Aram. They teach nothing but rubbish there. Sherim and the boy’s mother, rest peacefully, wouldn’t listen to me. They should have made them stay at home and learn something useful, instead of putting ‘em in with those wretched people.

I’m one of those wretched people, Fan reminded her coolly.

I didn’t mean you, of course. Marwin sniffed, taking another sip from her cup.

Remembering why he had come, Tome took a few tentative steps into the room. Sensing him, Fan turned then stood.

What are you doing there? she asked suspiciously. I told you to go outside!

Fa Sherim’s coming over the ridge, with Loamy’s da I think, Tome answered her.

Maybe there’s news, said Marwin.

The two women left their cups on the table and hurried through the cabin and out the door; Tome followed behind them sheepishly.

By the time the approaching men had reached the rusty gate and started up the path through the dirt yard, Loamy and Caylee had come out of hiding with questioning looks on their faces, joining the others waiting on the porch.

Hullo! said Fa Kasa, raising his hand in greeting. He had the same rich brown hair and dimpled smile as his son.

Hello, Fan replied hesitantly.

The two men stopped near the bottom step. Loamy’s father broke into a smile when he saw his son but Fa Sherim stood there towering beside him, stone-faced like a statue.

Won’t you come inside? Fan asked them.

No, we can’t stay. Fa Sherim shook his head.

There’s news, said Fan hesitantly, as if once uttered the words couldn’t be taken back.

There’s news, the large man replied, finally breaking into a broad grin. The reports of raiders were false. When the rangers got to Hollow Rise, all they found were a few scattered outlaws. The Green Briers march south as we speak with the others. They’ll be home in a couple of days. I thought you’d want to know.

The look of relief on Fan’s face was unmistakable; still she met his gaze unflinchingly. It was my place to go with them but Aulrid wouldn’t hear of it, the stubborn ox! she said. I should have been there!

Of course you should have, said Fa Sherim winking and nodding to Fa Kasa while tugging mischievously on his thick black beard. One of you had to stay, though. Sometimes it takes more courage to remain behind, he added. Here, he glanced down at Tome.

Aulrid’s the one who’ll need courage, when I get my hands on him, Fan said crossly, but Tome didn’t think she was cross at all.

Well! Fa Sherim clapped his great palms. We have to make ready for our meeting tonight, and these good people have a festival to go to. I’ve received assurances that we’ll hear from Lee any day now. The troubles will soon be over, gods willing.

As the two men turned to leave, Tome spoke up.

Is Aram coming to the festival tonight? he asked them.

The young master’s across the river in the Southford, Fa Kasa answered him, a guest of the squirean’s son.

He’s at Farrowfield for New Summer’s Eve? Tome asked with astonishment.

That he is.

Fa Sherim gave his foremin an odd look and Fa Kasa fell silent. San Volar watch over this house, and all in it, he said.

And you, and yours, Fan answered.

Come, children, Marwin said to Loamy and Caylee, straightening her tiny gray hat again. We must be going.

Please, ma’am! said Tome excitedly. Can Loamy stay? Just a bit longer? We have something to do, something important. I’ll walk him home straight away.

Marwin frowned and looked at Fan, who nodded. Still, the woman’s frown was not nearly as fearsome as little Caylee’s, who showed her displeasure at being left out of the boy’s plans.

Very well, agreed Marwin, taking the little girl by the hand and leading her away. But I expect him back by supper.

When the two of them had gone, following the men towards the ridge, Tome grabbed Loamy by the shirtsleeve practically yanking him off the porch.

Come on! he said.

Quit yer tuggin’, the boy complained. I’m comin’!

The two boys skirted the meadow, heading north, and entered the cool eaves of the forest. Tome put his hands on the younger boy’s shoulders. You wait here, he said. I’ll be right back.

Are we going to the rope swing finally? Loamy asked, suddenly excited.

Just wait!

Running back along the fence as fast as he could, Tome spied a crow perched to the left of the rusty gatepost. It flew away as he got close.

Bounding up the steps, he rushed into the cabin and took the tin box from beneath his cot. He grabbed the ribbon and spyglass, slipping the first into his pocket, the second into his belt, then turned to go. Through the doorway to the sun porch, he saw Fan sitting alone looking out one of the windows, a half-filled cup of caffa on her lap, her short black hair tucked behind her ears. I’m going, he announced. When she didn’t reply, Tome walked towards her. Is everything all right? he asked. Fan turned and looked at him as if she hadn’t realized he was there. Is everything all right? he repeated.

Yes, she answered with a sigh. I think everything’s going to be fine now.

Good! I’ll be back then! said the boy, bounding out the door again.

Don’t be late! Fan called after him. And don’t forget to bring in the water!

I won’t! he yelled back over his shoulder.

When he reached the trees again, Tome found Loamy Sniggers waiting expectantly.

Are we going to the rope swing? the little boy asked again.

Later. Come on!

Taking him by the hand, Tome pulled him up a dim forest path running between steep banks covered in pinecones and crunchy brown leaves.

Where’re we going? asked Loamy curiously, but Tome was in no mood to answer him.

By way of a shortcut through the trees, they soon reached the westernmost pasture of Fa Sherim’s farm. Across the field, a large gray barn stood in the distance beside a yellow and white farmhouse. A flock of horned sheep huddled near the tree line. They had been shorn of their wool leaving them small and scraggly.

Colm, one of the shearers, was out pretending to tend them with Taina, a young herder. The two of them separated quickly, blushing and buttoning their clothes as the boys cleared the edge of the forest and stopped there.

What are we here for? Loamy complained. You said we were going to do something.

I can’t now, Tome told him.

Why not? the little boy asked suspiciously.

I’ve someplace to go and you’ve got to help me.

Where ya goin’?

Tome hesitated, not wanting to answer him at first, then thought better of it.

I’m going across the river to Farrowfield, he said.

Whatcha goin’ there for?

I’m not sure what I’m going for, said Tome. Aram’s there. I just want to go see.

But how ya gonna get there with the bridge closed? asked Loamy. We’re not allowed on the other side of the river now, the squirean said so.

Loamy was right. The latticework bridge that joined the two halves of Aino,