In the foggy highlands of a primeval land, ten children are captured and brought together for a mysterious purpose. Accomplishing their captors' goal will write them into legend, but they'll risk everything to achieve something even more important: escape.
Captives is a low fantasy novella for fans of Tamora Pierce, Brian Jacques, and Rick Riordan. It features swords, magic, riddles, and young protagonists up against immense odds in a richly imagined world loosely inspired by Iron Age Britain.
From her place seated on a pile of pelts, Anwen looks around the cluttered stone hut. Crocks and barrels line the walls, packed with fish and other winter preserves; piles of sail canvas lie waiting to be mended; bunches of fragrant herbs hang from the ceiling rafters. The smoky fire casts a flickering light over the rough woven tapestries that line the damp walls.
This space which once seemed so empty because of her father’s absence is now full to overflowing. Ffrewgí sits near Anwen; she has been showing him the different knots she uses for sail and rope repairs. Beside the fire, Anwen’s little sister Cadi is curled up on Heulwen’s lap, sleepily playing with the hound Bychan’s floppy ears. Outside, Anwen can hear the sound of Cydwag and Anwen’s old friend Siana, newly returned from a hunt. Murchadh sits at the table polishing an old sword. His arm is crippled no more; Ffrewgí had used his magic to heal him soon after their escape from the Gwaedwn. Anwen smiles as she thinks about the expression of awe and delight that Murchadh had for days afterward, and still shows whenever he finds another task that has to re-learn how to do.
Anwen’s mother bustles back and forth between the fire and the table, cleaning up after the evening meal. Her endless stream of chatter now seems pleasant, rather than grating, filling all the cracks and corners with the sounds of home.
It has been more than three moons since the children’s escape from slavery. Although many of her friends have homes they want to return to, Anwen had more hope of finding her home than the others did. Living on the coast, she knew she just had to make her way to the sea and travel south along the coast; so she invited everyone to come with her. It would be safer than wandering in the wilds with the risk of pursuit and it not being long until winter. Everyone had come—except Ainsley. He slipped away from the group the day after their escape, without an explanation or a goodbye. That grieved Anwen, but she found peace in the thought that wherever he had gone, that is where he wanted to be, and perhaps their paths would cross again someday. The rest of the group had continued on to Anwen’s village. Without a boat, the journey took nearly a whole cycle of the moon, but finally they climbed the rocky crags that Anwen knew so well, and looked down at the small cluster of stone houses that is the village of Chwythu.
The surprise at their arrival was unbounded. Anwen’s kidnapping had thrown the village into a state of chaos, but the search parties up and down the coast had not discovered anything. Finally, they had given her up as lost; so they could scarcely believe it when she walked into the village on that clear, late autumn day. Her mother screamed, and Siana looked like she had seen a ghost, but Cadi ran into Anwen’s arms.
The celebration lasted for days, as the children were asked to tell their story again and again. Homes were opened to them, and they were all given a place to stay. Anwen was not sure how the villagers would respond to the magical gifts wielded by Anwen and her peers, but that only increased the awe and respect that were shown to the children.
All of the attention and enthusiasm was a little overwhelming, though, and Anwen was glad when life began to settle into a regular routine again. Winter soon broke over the village, with its storms and bone-chilling cold. Now, everyone stays indoors, for the most part, working on repairs and small projects in preparation for the days when more favourable weather will return.
Murchadh has told Anwen that when the winter has passed he will leave to go travelling with his cousin Tyree. Murchadh was a travelling storyteller before he was captured, and longs to wander the roads of the world again—and he has told the others that as he travels he will search for their villages, so that one day they can each return home again. Knowing that one day she will have to say goodbye to her friends, Anwen enjoys every day she has while they are still with her.
Cadi runs across the room and gives Anwen a big hug. It is her bedtime, and she always says goodnight to Anwen first, then goes on to give a hug to every other person in the room. Anwen smiles as she watches Cadi run from friend to friend, leaving a trail of laughter behind her. Last of all, Cadi grabs Heulwen’s hand. “Come on!” she begs. “Tell me a story! Tell me a story!”
Heulwen lets herself be pulled along after her enthusiastic young friend, and together they disappear from view.
Soon afterward, Anwen’s mother retires for the evening, and silence settles over the small stone hut, disturbed only by the rustle of logs settling in the fire and Bychan’s snoring. Anwen feels the wind picking up outside. There must be another storm blowing in. Quietly, she sets down her work and glances around the room. Everyone seems busy and content with their tasks. Taking her cloak off its hook by the door, Anwen wraps it around her shoulders and slips outside.
A rush of cold sea air greets her and takes her breath away. Solitary raindrops sting her face, heralds of the oncoming storm. Pulling her cloak tighter, she follows the old, familiar path up to the crags.
Once again, Anwen stands on the heights, braced against the onslaught of the wind and rain. This place is just as much home to her as a stone hut could ever be. She stands with head uplifted, reveling in the moment, until the rain passes and clouds overhead tear into pieces and sail past the stars, revealing the light of a crescent moon.
Anwen turns toward a great stone, standing solitary upon the crag. Kneeling in front of it, she takes two small candles from her pocket. Carefully, she presses them down into the turf so they stand upright. With a little smile, she forms a bubble of still, calm air, just around the candles. She lights them, and their flames rise straight and tall, with only the slightest flicker, even though all around them the wind rushes by.
The warm light of the candles glistens on the stone, illuminating the ancient carvings on its face, worn almost invisible by constant exposure to the elements. Reverently, Anwen kneels before it. For two years she had refused to light a candle for her father. Now it is time.
Slowly, Anwen becomes aware of a disturbance in the flow of the wind behind her. Looking around, she sees Ffrewgí, standing unsteadily in the tumultuous wind. Anwen smiles and gestures an invitation for him to join her.
Hesitantly, Ffrewgí crouches beside her. He starts to speak, but the rushing wind carries his words away. Anwen reaches out to the pocket of calm air around the candles and enlarges it to encompass both herself and Ffrewgí. The exhilaration of the rushing wind fades into a feeling of deep calm. Anwen smiles at Ffrewgí. Now they can talk.
The candle light flickers in Ffrewgí’s eyes as he looks at her, then his gaze moves to the stone looming above them. “What is it?”
“The Great Stone,” Anwen explains quietly. “It watches over everyone who is lost at sea. When we grieve for those who are gone, we light a candle by the stone to remind it to watch over them for us.”
Ffrewgí looks down at the two small flames. “Who are the candles for?”
“My father and Alaric. I know they weren’t lost to the sea, but I like to think that the stone is watching over them anyway.”
Ffrewgí stares at the flickering candles in silence for a while before asking, “Do you think you’ll see your father again?”
Anwen lets out a long breath. “I don’t know. It’s strange to think of him being out there, somewhere. But, if I never see him again, I think I’m okay with that. I am where I want to be, and he is where he wants to be. But I still miss him.“
Ffrewgí nods thoughtfully. “Do you have any more candles?” he asks, then blushes under her glance. “I—I miss people too.”
Anwen squeezes his hand. “Next time we can come up together, and we’ll bring more candles.”
They wait in silence, watching the candles slowly burn down and sputter out in the damp turf. Shadow falls over the stone again. Anwen looks over at Ffrewgí. “Do you miss your home?”
Ffrewgí pauses. “I do. I … I want to go travelling for a season—or more—with Murchadh, if he will have me. I want to see my village, my family.”
Anwen nods. Of course Ffrewgí wants to go home. There is a catch in her voice as she admits, “I’ll miss you.”
Ffrewgí looks at Anwen for a moment. “I want to see them one more time. I want to say a proper goodbye.” Seeing Anwen’s questioning glance, he continues. “Too much has happened. I picture myself back in my home village and I can’t see a place for me there. I’m not a weaver anymore. I’m not a hunter, not a warrior.” There is a short silence, then Ffrewgí continues hesitantly, “If you will have me, I have found a place with you—with the others too—” he adds, his face reddening, “and after Murchadh and I have found my village, I would like to return here.” He looks out over the sea and smiles. “If I can get used to the wind.”
Anwen laughs in delight. When Ffrewgí glances back toward her, she adds quietly, “I’d like that.”
Anwen stands up into the wind. It has been gentling, and no longer takes her breath away. Ffrewgí stands beside her. A comfortable silence falls as Anwen lifts her eyes above the distant horizon. The wind has driven the last of the clouds from the sky and the stars shine brightly overhead.
Maybe in the spring she will learn how to sail. She does not have to worry whether the wind will blow her right off the boat, like her father always teased would happen if she was not careful. Maybe Ffrewgí could come sailing with her. That would be fun. If they become confident enough, maybe they could even try sailing at night. She looks over at Ffrewgí and grins.
Ffrewgí is staring intently into the distance. “What’s that?”
Anwen moves closer to Ffrewgí and follows his gaze as he points out across the water. In the distance, the shadowy sea glimmers with the moon’s reflection, the line of the horizon showing clearly against the starry sky. But one dark shape stands out against the stars. Anwen’s eyes trace its familiar shape. There, on the far horizon, is a sail.
“I think I finally know where I belong, Grandmother.”
Ffrewgí is kneeling by a cairn on the fringe of the woods, its stones so freshly moved they still show dirt upon their exposed sides, untouched yet by weather. It will be taken down when the new moon rises, the marker of death disassembling again into pieces of earth, symbolic of the tribe’s belief. Ffrewgí feels a breeze on the back of his neck and casts his memory back upon it to a bluff by the sea, where the wind had stilled around him and Anwen.
It was many days after their escape from the Gwaedwn, when they had at last found Anwen’s village by traveling south along the coast. The day after the escape, Ainsley had vanished—so completely that they knew it to have been his choice, though Anwen especially took his disappearance hard—but everyone else had made the journey to Chwythu. Heulwen, Anwen, and Cydwag will still be there, though it has been more than a year since Ffrewgí followed Murchadh south. They had set out to find their lost villages, last seen from the abducting arms of Gwaedwn warriors, using what details their friends could provide. Though Ffrewgí knew his own village was only five days from the Gwaedwn encampment, he had asked Murchadh to make their search for it their last.
The breeze carries Ffrewgí’s thoughts to a conversation he had had with Anwen shortly after their arrival in Chwythu. They were standing upon a cliff overlooking a wind-tossed sea. Anwen had just lit two candles for her father and Wyddryr. It was there, in the calm air created by her magic, that Ffrewgí had put voice to his plan to travel back to his village—not to stay, but to say goodbye.
Grandmother Uerichí gently takes hold of the thread of wind and draws Ffrewgí back. Breaking through the spring clouds, she smiles at him in a warm sunbeam. “I’m glad you have found your place, Ffrewgí,” she whispers in the leaves overhead.
“Thank you, Grandmother.” Ffrewgí stands, brushing dirt off of his knees. Murchadh and Tyree—Murchadh’s relative, who had followed him from the Gwaedwn village—are waiting for him in the village center. Ffrewgí had said he did not want to spend much time here. He had met his father almost as soon as he had arrived, and he had pointed the way to Grandmother Uerichí’s cairn.
“Is Talacwae playing tricks, or am I truly seeing what I think I’m seeing?”
Ffrewgí had not yet seen his sister: she had been out hunting. He turns to greet her and her party. As she approaches, he feels a shock. He is taller than she is. He can tell that she is surprised by this as well; she slows and sizes him up.
“Go along to the village. Prepare the boar,” she says idly to her companions, her eyes not leaving Ffrewgí. Doubt is written all over her face. “Ffrewgí? Am I mistaken, or are you my long lost brother?”
Ffrewgí smiles as the hunters pass him by, many of them staring. “Him, and more,” he says, and steps forward to embrace his sister. She grips him tightly, her chin just barely above his shoulder.
“I can’t believe it!” she exclaims, drawing back. “What—Where—? Your muscles!”
Ffrewgí laughs. “It’s a long story,” he says, “and I’m not the one to tell it. Come, a friend of mine has come with me. He is a storyteller.”
Ffrewgí’s sister reaches out and grips his arm. “You could beat me at an arm wrestle!” she says, shaking her head in disbelief.
“They are scars,” says Ffrewgí, rubbing his muscles self-consciously, “reminders of difficulties.” He smiles. “I look forward to becoming soft again.”
“The boar we brought in—it’s all yours! I’ll go out and get another one!”
Ffrewgí shakes his head. “I’m staying only until the story is told.”
His sister frowns. “But—you’re finally home!”
“No,” Ffrewgí says slowly, thinking of briny air and hair dancing in the wind, “I don’t think I am. But enough! Let’s head into the village, and you shall hear my story.”
His sister follows him silently. Just before they reach the dirt paths between buildings, she pulls him to a stop. “If you won’t stay,” she says, “take this. Once upon a time, you disappeared into the woods with the wrong one, and … and I don’t want it to happen again.” She holds out her hunting spear, the leather wrap down its shaft covered with the runes that mark her countless successes.
Ffrewgí takes it carefully, his own eyes filling with tears as he looks into his sister’s.
“Come now,” she says, wiping a hand across her face, “I can’t wait to hear what happened to you!” She throws her arm across his shoulders, and together they step into the village, where Murchadh has already gathered a crowd for the telling of the tale.
Ainsley stumbles along the forest trail behind the others, his lungs burning, tears streaming, both from the smoke of the fire and the recently transpired events. The image of Alaric still remains burned into Ainsley’s mind, and although it makes him miss his old friend he realizes, as he continues to run through the woods, that he is no longer crippled by anguish as before. However, he still feels unsettled, and realizes he does not wish to follow this group for much longer. They rest for a spell on an island in the middle of a river, accessed by Heulwen’s gift. Ainsley pauses with the rest of them, but makes a point to bring up the rear of the short train when they begin moving again. After a movement of the sun, Ainsley hides his image using his gift and slips off into the woods beside them.
Unsure of where he is going, Ainsley walks through the alien woods for what seems like forever, watching gnarled trunks of trees pass by him and listening to the sharp snap of branches under his feet. Despite the uneven ground, his steps become rhythmic---an untraceable pattern of quick and long beats, drawing Ainsley into a sort of trance. Around him, the trees begin to sway in a breeze that he does not feel. He begins adjusting his course after the suggestions of bending branches. Fallen twigs inform his steps. In this dreamlike state, time passes by Ainsley unnoticed. He has entered a world without day or night.
Then, suddenly, he hears birds chirping overhead, and pauses a moment to look up at the forest canopy where they flit about. The trees still, stand unmoving. Ainsley is suddenly ravenously hungry. He looks back down and squints through the darkening woods ahead. Through the trees, he can just make out a opening or a clearing. Curious, he walks towards it, and as he gets closer there is an odd familiarity about the trees he walks through. Pushing through the last few bushes, he steps out into a meadow which expands into a larger clearing, and Ainsley suddenly finds himself gazing into his own village.
In a bit of a daze, Ainsley walks slowly into the village, once again masking his image so no one sees him. The whole village seems empty until, with a start, Ainsley hears voices from behind him. Instinctively, he ducks behind a shed and peers out to see a procession of warriors, obviously returning from a battle. Held between them on a platform of their round shields lies a soldier, marred with wounds, eyes open in a strange look. A woman rushes out to meet the procession. “Can’t remember anything,” mutters one of the walking soldiers to her. Ainsley squints at the man on the shields and his face breaks into a small smile as he sees who it is. “Ast,” he mutters quietly.
Ainsley leaves the village, jar of mead in hand and stomach full of brown bread, after visiting Fundian his old friend in the mead hall. He had been quite taken aback at seeing the young boy whom everyone in the village had presumed to be dead. Fundian told Ainsley that his parents had left the village a month after his disappearance, unable to bear the memories. All Fundian knew is that they had traveled west.
Ainsley feels no connection to the worn wooden buildings or faintly familiar faces of his old village, and even the news of his parents had failed to affect him. He leaves the village’s beaten paths without a second thought, disappearing again into the woods without looking back.
* * *
Trackless wilderness, untraceable time. Ainsley travels the forests, stopping for nights in small hollows and sheltered dells, using the talents he procured from his Gwaedwn training to acquire sustenance and warmth during increasingly cold nights.
While he journeys aimlessly through the trees, he begins to feel at peace with all that he has gone through. He reflects on all that had transpired since being captured by the Gwaedwn, and moves onward from the trauma---resolution in every step forward.
Ainsley wanders through hill and dale, climbing at one time up to a narrow ridge overlooking a wide valley. He rests there, in clear, cold air, beneath familiar stars, and descends in the morning. A deep fog rolls in upon him as he enters the valley, but Ainsley does not turn back. He moves resolutely forward. Ahead, indistinct, he sees a standing stone, and another, even less clear, behind it. Ainsley walks between them, revealing more stones. Between them, forming out of the fog, rise images of his past: Ainsley, running from the warriors of his old tribe; the image of Alaric, rising from the cyclonic flames in the Gwaedwn village. As more images rise and vanish, detached, Ainsley recognizes that he is in the circle of stones that he had encountered on his first hunt for the Gwaedwn. He sees himself playing with sticks behind the stable, Skepna shouting at him. Twigs fall to the ground, Ainsley promising, “I’ll come back.”
Lost in the visions, Ainsley crouches and reaches out a hand, plucking the abandoned sticks from the foglike image. He feels their roughness in his hand. As he grasps them, they begin to grow, twirl, change. With his other hand, Ainsley removes the bronze talisman from his neck, and it joins the twisting dance of yew and maple. Ainsley stands and grips a mighty staff in both hands, its impossibly wound woods tipped and interwoven with bronze threads stretched from a once tiny blade. These metallic veins shimmer out from the pale woods, and Ainsley gazes at the staff in awe. Suddenly, the world stops spinning and the fog lifts. Ainsley is left alone in the circle of stones.
* * *
Ainsley spends many days by the standing stones, hunting and foraging in the valley. One day, weeks after he acquired his mystical staff, he feels compelled to move on, as he had felt compelled all those nights ago after escaping the Gwaedwn village. The stones have given him his share. Before leaving, Ainsley builds a cairn in their center. Then he begins to walk once again, following the shimmer of his staff.
The stars wheel above him and winter comes, but Ainsley does not suffer its cold. Many days after leaving the stones, he feels a change in the air. There is salt in the breeze, and his staff grows warm as if the place is one of contentment. Following this strange sense, he clambers up a rocky hill and finds himself looking towards a village, high on a bluff overlooking the sea that Ainsley can hear crash below. Without knowing why, Ainsley feels as if he has been invited here. He sees a flash of blonde hair caught in a wind and hears the clink of a blacksmith’s hammer as he steps closer to the village.
Murchadh struggles to wake up, swimming through the heavy darkness. All his perceptions are gone. Slowly, touch and hearing return to him, but time and sight remain elusive. He hears and feels the the twin beatings of the beast’s hearts. Murchadh slowly gets up. He is well; he is whole; girded with weapons and traveling gear. “Why am I still here?”
Still here? For your companions, you have only been gone for three movements of the sun, responds the beast in its unique language, speaking into Murchadh’s mind. Your time with me is done. I have enjoyed teaching you, young one. Now, your purpose lies beyond this space.
“Wait—we are done? Just like that, you let me go?” Murchadh looks around vainly; the darkness is still so complete that he might as well have his eyes closed. “I cannot tell where to go anyway.”
The rock directly behind you. Climb up. As you draw away from me you will be able to see better.
Murchadh is still struggling to understand where—and when—he is. “But who are you and what do you want?”
Just go, young one. Someday, you will understand more. But for now, you need to continue with your new family. They need you to guide them home.
With that, there is a strong mental push and Murchadh finds himself climbing before he knows what is happening. The presence behind him fades rapidly—much more rapidly than the rate he is climbing. Murchadh cannot make sense of his experience, but strangely he cannot bring himself to climb back down to investigate. But then … why would he? There is nothing there, anymore. No presence, no heartbeats … Was there ever anything down there? Murchadh had just climbed down this wall to find the knife he lost while hunting …
Why would he think that anything else had been down there?
His mind is full of cobwebs and confusing thoughts, but as the sunlight trickles in from the opening above, Murchadh gives his head a final shake and clears it. He pulls himself out of the narrow cave entrance and smiles at Tyree, who is waiting for him. “It’s a tight fit,” Murchadh reports, “but it opens up a couple paces in. Want to give it a look?”
Tyree gives a little shiver then smiles. “No, thank you; that’s your job. If you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit bigger than you.”
Murchadh laughs. “Sure, whatever.” He pulls out Tyree’s family blade and hands it to him. “Next time we will make sure we look for caves behind our target, eh?”
“It would have hit its mark had you not broken that twig,” jokes Tyree, and thanks Murchadh as he sheathes his blade.
Murchadh winks at Tyree. “Whatever you say, cousin.” They joke and smile as they make their way back to Ffrewgí and the camp he has set.
“So, what’s for supper tonight?” asks Tyree. “Roast or stew?”
Ffrewgí gestures at the burbling pot on the fire. “Had to make the rabbit last, so we’ve got stew tonight. No luck?”
Tyree shakes his head as he goes to his pack for his bowl and spoon. “Evening’s never as good as the morning, anyway. We’ll go back out again at dawn.”
Ffrewgí looks quizzically at Murchadh. “Did something happen out there? You feel …” He gestures vaguely, referring to his creature gift, “different somehow.”
Murchadh shrugs and wrinkles his brow. “We came across a cave,” he says, “but it was nothing out of the ordinary.” As he speaks, he has the strange feeling that he is forgetting something … but it is probably just because Ffrewgí seems concerned. Murchadh gives him a quick smile. “I’m fine.” He goes to his own pack for bowl and spoon, and the small group falls into their normal evening routine.
As he eats and laughs with his traveling brothers, Murchadh thinks back over the last two seasons. What a joy it was when Ffrewgí had healed him of his limp and withered arm! It was the morning after they escaped from the Gwaedwn, on the island in the middle of the river. Ffrewgí had apologized about not doing it earlier, but Murchadh understood that there had not been much opportunity. The healer had taken him aside from the group and, in a little less than a movement, Murchadh was healed! The process had been strange—not painful, but uncomfortable. In fact, the healing gave Murchadh his first taste of life without the constant pain of his limbs, and the relief after the process was incredible. Murchadh still is not used to it.
The days following, Murchadh had had to relearn how to move, shoot, fight, but it did not take him long to become comfortable in his new body. He is still finding new things he can do with his right arm, and he loves it. Just the other day, he traded for an old lute from a wandering merchant. He knows he will get the hang of it, though Tyree and Ffrewgí have been harassing him for the awful sounds he has been making so far. Murchadh grins as he looks over at them. They will get over it.
The group of survivors had traveled west and south to Anwen’s village. They knew they would be able to find it, as Anwen remembered traveling north up the coast and then east inland. The journey was long and cold, as autumn fell with a vengeance. They had barely arrived before winter set in for good—though Murchadh suspected the uncharacteristically warm late-autumn breezes the days before they made it were thanks to Anwen, not the kindness of Sacain.
The survivors were welcomed with open arms to the village. The villagers were shocked to have Anwen back; shocked and overjoyed. And not only did they gain a lost child, they gained two able warriors in Tyree and Cydwag, two skilled weavers in Heulwen and Ffrewgí, and a storyteller in Murchadh to help while away the long winter. Ainsley had left the group shortly after Murchadh’s healing; Murchadh figured he had his own path to tread and did not go after him.
Then the villagers found out that Ffrewgí was a healer with true magic in his skill, and there was the day Anwen turned the wind to save a fishing canoe risking the winter, and when Heulwen finished the new earthen storehouse in mere breaths … Yes, Anwen’s people were quite happy to have them. But as spring approached, Murchadh could feel his feet itching. He needed to move, to have the road flowing like a river underneath him. The reason he found to leave, that he told Anwen, was that he wanted to find the villages that the others had been taken captive from. Though what is truly weighing on his mind is that final sight he had of the Gwaedwn village, of Fuldryn slinking away to the trees on the morning of their final confrontation. If there is to be peace for Murchadh’s family, he has to find that cunning snake and … take care of them.
“Hey, don’t bring a storm upon us with that face!” Tyree jabs him with his elbow, waking Murchadh back to their camp in the wilderness. The warrior leans in close. “You weren’t thinking about Old Bloodeye, were you?”
Murchadh sighs and grins with effort. “Yeah. We’ve had no news of anyone like them in any of the villages we’ve passed, and the trail at the Gwaedwn village will be cold by now. I think we are in for a long hunt.”
Tyree smiles, “Good. I like the long hunts. More to see! Besides,” he adds, looking towards Ffrewgí, who is away from the fire rinsing out the stew pot, “we have other priorities first.”
“Yeah.” Murchadh claps his hands on his legs. “Heulwen’s village next, then Cydwag’s.” The merchant who had traded Murcahdh the lute had known of Heulwen’s village—had even known her parents by name. They were only two days from it. Murchadh pulls out a map scrawled on vellum from his pack, which he had initially drawn from memory with Tyree’s help. He has been adding to it frequently. He places the map on the ground and leans over it. “After Heulwen’s village, I think our best bet is to head further south to Brifddinasoedd to see if any of the traders there will be able to point us in the right direction for Cydwag’s. She was taken in a dramatic raid, and she says her father’s weapons are sold abroad, so we should be able to pick up leads.”
Murchadh takes first watch that night. The stars are out and the moon is waxing. The forest around him is peaceful and calm; there is no danger here. Murchadh stirs the coals of the fire before moving out into the shadows. He stands beneath a clear patch of sky and finds the star Ulrick, sending up a brief prayer of thanks. Alaric’s story is told in every village they stay in, along with the tale of the Gwaedwn and their captives.
A thin shadow passes between Murchadh and the stars; a familiar outline. Murchadh smiles. “Yes. Tonight,” he whispers. “Tonight, my friend, I think I will come to you and fly.” Far off, almost beyond the reach of his nightkeen ears, he hears the call of the golden neidraig. Yes; tonight, for the first time since the captives won their freedom, he will cross the veil.
Memories spin through Anwen’s mind—every time her father left to go on a long trip, laughingly brushing off any questions about where he was going.
Voices echo in her ears—her mother saying that her father was not coming home, yet refusing to mourn as though he was dead. Did she know the truth all along? Why didn’t she tell her?
Faces swim in Anwen’s vision. Cydwag says, “Let’s go.” Anwen feels a jerk and her consciousness returns to the present moment with a gasp. Ashrille is saying goodbye, and the rest of her peers are moving off into the shadowy forest. Not the rest—Murchadh is missing. Where is he?
With consternation, Anwen realizes that she is still clinging to Ffrewgí’s arm with a vicelike grip. She lets go. “Sorry,” she mumbles, her reddening face hidden by the shadows.
Ffrewgí only gives her a quick glance—was that concern or annoyance on his face? Anwen cannot tell.
Ffrewgí leads the way through the forest, and Anwen follows last, watching the shadowy figures of Cydwag, Heulwen, and Ainsley before her. What would they say if they knew that Anwen’s father was living happily among the Gwaedwn? Has Ffrewgí already told them?
Anwen stumbles on through the forest, isolation pressing in on her. If she didn’t even know her own father, how can she pretend to know these peers she had considered her friends?
It is still the dark of night when they stop by the mouth of a cave.
“Murchadh isn’t here,” Cydwag says after a quick search of the area.
“What should we do?” Ffrewgí asks.
“Let’s leave him a message and keep moving,” Cydwag says. “The Gwaedwn will be on our trail as soon as they find Wyddryr and Ashrille.”
“We need to stop the Gwaedwn.” Heulwen’s voice is quiet but clear against the stillness of the night.
Ffrewgí nods. “They’re just going to keep capturing children. Their quest won’t end just because we’ve escaped.”
Cydwag’s shoulders sag. “I know,” she says quietly. She straightens. “We need a plan.”
Anwen takes an unsteady breath and pushes aside her thoughts of her father, her memories and uncertainties. She will help her friends stop the Gwaedwn. She can return to her questions later.
“I don’t think just telling them to stop will be enough,” Heulwen is saying.
“We have our gifts from the creature,” Ffrewgí says. “Can we use them to convince them, or frighten them into listening to us?”
“If we are going to attempt to speak to them, we should get there by dawn,” Cydwag concludes, gripping her makeshift spear. “That’s the most likely time for the whole tribe to be there.”
Anwen glances around the small circle. Heulwen and Ffrewgí look frightened but determined. But there is one person who still has not agreed to the plan. “What do you think, Ainsley?” Anwen asks in a quiet voice.
Ainsley glances over at Anwen. “I think …” he begins slowly, “we should do it. I can make something appear that will startle them.”
Anwen nods. “I can use the wind to stir up the fire and draw everyone’s attention.”
Cydwag gestures to the others. “We can make more plans as we move, but we need to leave now, if we’re going to reach the village by dawn.”
“What about Murchadh?” Anwen feels everyone turn to look at her. She swallows. “Can we leave a message for him?”
Heulwen nods. “I can carve a message in the stone here, at the mouth of the cave.”
With the message left for Murchadh, telling him where they have gone and why, the children hurry through the forest to make it back to the village in time. They arrive as the first pale light of dawn is showing above the trees.
Anwen stares at the sleeping village. She had not expected to be here again. Through the shadows she can see the tent her father was in. Is he still there? She wants to go to him, and she wants to run away. She steadies herself with a slow breath. If she and her friends can stop the Gwaedwn from kidnapping children, then she will not have to carry the weight of her father living among them.
Anwen hurries to catch up to the others, who are walking boldly toward the clearing in the center of the village. As they approach, they can see Ungant stoking the fire. When he turns and sees the children, his face turns ashen.
“What are you—”
Not waiting for him to finish his question, Anwen stirs the fire with a great gust of wind. The flames leap high and Ungant backs away.
“Hey!” someone yells. Anwen glances over her shoulder to see a charging Gwaeden warrior locked in place as his legs are encased in hardened earth.
The sparks from the fire are landing dangerously close to the tents. Anwen shifts the wind to circle around the fire. The flames leap higher and higher as more of the Gwaedwn emerge from their tents, and the hubbub grows.
With a growl, Máerl approaches the children, pulling a handaxe from her belt.
Out of the swirling flames, an image of Alaric appears, his hair blowing in the fiery breeze. As Alaric steps out of the fire, Máerl’s mouth opens in shock and she steps back.
Anwen exchanges glances with Ainsley as the image of Alaric walks between them. She knows it is just an illusion that Ainsley has created, but somehow she feels that Alaric’s courage is present with them too.
The roaring of the fire grows louder as it stretches into the sky as a flaming vortex, the wind spinning it around and around. Red light flickers across the faces of the bewildered Gwaedwn.
Cydwag stands transfixed before the vortex. She speaks, but her voice is not her own. “People of the Gwaedwn tribe, your lust for power and domination is of the earth, yet the power you seek is beyond it. You will never achieve your goal. You are a foul body, diseased and divided, and you are not a fit vessel for the spirit of the gods. Today, you will fall before it like leaves before winter, and your flesh will be removed from the wheel of life. As your ambition has been fed with nothingness, so will your graves provide no nourishment to the grass. So speaks the fire.”
The vortex flares. Silence slowly gives way to rustling and muttering among the tribespeople, but the approach of Symbre, with Fuldryn by her side, silences them all.
Symbre looks at the children with a venomous gleam in her eyes. “At last, our hunt is finished.” Without turning her eyes away from the children she calls, “Hunters! Your reward is before you: the creature has offered its gifts and now all we need to do is reach out and take—”
“Logain, no!” Asgell shouts as a sword bursts through Symbre’s chest and she sinks to the ground, dead.
Logain stands over Symbre’s body and turns to face the other tribespeople, his sword dripping blood. Though his voice is not raised, it echoes through the whole village. “Let the Gwaedwn dream die with Symbre. The creature has given its gifts, but not too us. We are finished.”
A murmuring rises among the tribespeople.
“We’ve waited years for our reward,” the tribesman Yldregch snarls. “Now it’s in front of us and you expect us to just … let it walk away?”
“I do.”
“Fel uffern,” Yldregch spits. “They’re ours.” He draws his cleaver and lunges toward the children.
Before he has taken a step, a throwing knife embeds itself in his chest and one of his legs is encased in dirt. He drops his blade as he falls to the ground. But others are following Yldregch’s example, drawing weapons and rushing towards the children. Logain steps in front of them, swinging his greatsword. Asgell stands beside him.
“Go!” Logain calls over his shoulder at the children. “Go. The Gwaedwn are done. Go now; we will hold them back.”
Anwen glances around. The tribespeople completely surround them—how can they get out? The fiery breeze blowing her hair carries the answer. Quickly, Anwen blows the fire vortex to bend down toward one of the pathways between the tents, and the Gwaedwn scatter. The fire flares with more light and heat than Anwen thought possible. She looks over and sees Ainsley’s look of concentration. He must have had a hand in it. As Anwen releases the vortex, Cydwag leads the children into the cleared space.
Ungant and Tyree step forward, calling for the children to follow them to safety.
Anwen hesitates, glancing at the chaos around her. Logain’s blade gleams in the early morning light. Asgell is fighting two brigands at once, dodging and stabbing with her spear. Where is her father in all of this? Should she try to find him?
Across the sea of faces, Anwen sees Wyddryr staring at the chaos engulfing the village. He notices her, and for a moment their blue eyes meet; a look shared as the siblings they never got to be. He will be there for their father. Anwen is free to go.
She turns to look for the others. Already, they have made it out of the central clearing, running through the path to freedom that Anwen and Ainsley had cleared. Already, the Gwaedwn are closing back in. Anwen dodges under a swinging blade, and runs after her friends. Pain bursts through her skull as she is jerked to a sudden stop, her hair caught in a vicelike grip. She screams as her head is yanked backward. The sneering face of a Gwaedwn fighter looms in her vision. Anwen twists and struggles, but cannot get free. She slams a great gust of wind into her assailant. He staggers, dragging her along with him. Gasping in pain, Anwen reaches out with her magic, ready to strike another blow, then stops. Instead, she pulls all the air away from her assailant’s face. Exultation changes to shock in an instant as the Gwaedwn gasps for air. Letting go of Anwen, he stumbles backward, clutching at his throat. Anwen lands on the ground in a heap. Drawing her feet under herself, she springs up and out of reach. She can hear gasping breaths as the air closes back around the fighter again. Her friends are already nearing the forest’s fringe, Gwaedwn closing in from every direction. Anwen runs after them. With a blast of wind, she knocks two warriors off balance, using the opportunity to dodge past them. She races on, with pursuit close behind.
An arrow whistles past her. Anwen looks up to see Murchadh standing just beyond the edge of the village, bow in hand. Anwen reaches him moments after the other children do.
“Get going! Get out of here!” Murchadh yells, loosing another arrow.
Anwen glances over her shoulder. Gwaedwn fighters swarm after them. Ungant and Tyree turn back to face them, weapons in hand.
“Go!” Ungant calls to the children. “We have taken enough of your childhood; I will not make you kill. Do not stay. Go!” He hurls himself in the path of the pursuers. Murchadh’s bowstring sings.
Anwen turns and runs into the trees. Her feet pounding the hard ground alongside the feet of her peers. Slowly, the chaos of battle fades into the distance. Anwen glances around. They are all there: Ffrewgí, Ainsley, Heulwen, Cydwag, and a glance over her shoulder shows that Murchadh is following. They are safe, and the Gwaedwn will never take slaves again.
Anwen slips her hand around the smooth stone in her pocket. Alaric is with them too. She is ready to go home.
Everybody is preoccupied when Ffrewgí and Anwen return to the little clearing in the woods. Only Heulwen stands to greet them, relief clear on her face. Ashrille and Cydwag are pacing apart; the former simply looks to see that Wyddryr is not with them. Ainsley looks up, but returns quickly to the whittled stick in his hands. Murchadh is absent.
“Where’s---” starts Ffrewgí.
Heulwen speaks over him. “Murchadh noticed activity in the village and left to cause a distraction, to draw attention away from you. He’ll meet us at the caves . . . he said you’d know what that meant.”
Ffrewgí nods. That sounds like Murchadh.
Ashrille stops pacing. “I’m going to stay,” she declares. “Wyddryr and I decided to remain with the Gwaedwn. He’ll be able to smooth things over with them.”
No one responds. Cydwag leans against a tree. She is a dim figure in the night. “Let’s go.”
Ffrewgí still looks at Ashrille. The tall girl’s eyes are impossible to read, and then she turns away.
“Goodbye, then,” she says.
“Let’s get going. We want to be far away before dawn.”
Cydwag begins striding off, disappearing too quickly into the darkness. His head fuzzy, Ffrewgí starts after her. A tug on his arm reminds him of Anwen’s grip on it. She has been holding onto him since they left the village. Since they left her father.
Anwen releases his arm. “Sorry.”
Cydwag reappears. “Let’s go. Ffrewgí, lead the way. I can’t---” She sighs.
Ffrewgí gives Anwen a concerned look before setting off ahead of the group, reading the land before him with his creature gift. He feels the others follow and leads them to the cave he had explored with Asgell, Wyddryr, and Murchadh what seems like so long ago. The activity of the trek clears Ffrewgí’s head, at least partially. When they arrive, finding no sign of Murchadh, he is no longer dwelling on Anwen’s father. Instead, his mind is full of memories---narrow, slippery surfaces above painful arguments about what he should do now.
The group gathers around the cavemouth. Its exposed rock seems alien to Ffrewgí, and not just because its slight shimmer in the deep black of the night.
“Let's leave him a message and keep moving,” says Cydwag. “The Gwaedwn will be on our trail as soon as they find Wyddryr and Ashrille.”
Ffrewgí looks around at the others. Even Cydwag seems anxious, but Ffrewgí senses it is not for the reasons she just gave. Heulwen says, “We need to stop the Gwaedwn,” and it’s like the nervous energy of the group has a name. The arguments in Ffrewgí’s head resolve.
“They’re just going to keep capturing children,” he says, agreeing. “Their quest won’t end just because we’ve escaped.”
Cydwag slumps. “I know.” Silence falls. “We need a plan.”
“I don’t think just telling them to stop will be enough,” Heulwen says.
Ffrewgí listens to the quickening heartbeats of his friends. “We have our gifts from the creature. Can we use them to convince them or frighten them into listening to us?” His own heartbeat is rapid.
Cydwag stands up straight, holding her spear before her like a warrior. “If we are going to attempt to speak to them, we should get there by dawn. That’s the most likely time for the whole tribe to be there.”
“What do you think, Ainsley?” Anwen asks.
The reserved boy looks startled by her question. “I think we should do it,” he says carefully. “I can make something appear that will startle them.”
“I can use the wind to stir up the fire and draw everyone’s attention,” adds Anwen.
“We can make more plans as we move,” says Cydwag, already beginning to walk, “but we need to leave now, if we’re going to reach the village by dawn.”
Anwen remains in place. “What about Murchadh?” she asks. “Can we leave a message for him?”
Ffrewgí feels a lump in his throat. He had forgotten about him in the face of the group’s terrifying resolution.
“I can carve a message in the stone here, at the mouth of the cave,” volunteers Heulwen. She does so, and the group sets off, retracing their steps to the Gwaedwn village.
Where they had been held captive, and where a whole tribe of adults waited.
Ffrewgí’s mind clutters again as they travel and he stumbles often in the darkness, but by the time they near the village, his gift is no longer needed: the first wan light of autumn morning illuminates the tents and rough buildings of the encampment in soft desaturation.
Cydwag strides past Ffrewgí and leads the children down a pathway to the village center, where a Gwaedwn is nursing the nights’ coals to morning flame.
“What are you---” he gasps. Then Anwen, her hair whipping about her face, strides forward and feeds the tiny tongues of fire with a cyclone of pure air. The new fuel immediately lights, and the Gwaedwn stumbles backwards as the fire roars into a swirling column at least twice his height.
They are noticed now, and Gwaedwn are approaching from all angles. One cries out and rushes towards them, but Heulwen gestures and earth forms hard around his feet and ankles, stopping him fast. The raging fire keeps the rest at bay. Ffrewgí’s own heart is pounding way to loudly for him to hear anyone else’s. He starts as someone steps around the fire within a few paces of him, and electricity shivers down his spine as he notices the form and face of Alaric, the boy taller and more formidable than Ffrewgí remembers, and wielding a sword shining yellow and red in the firelight.
Ffrewgí looks around at the Gwaedwn, who now surround the central area. Wide eyes, locked on the spectre and the towering inferno, now a stone’s throw high, reflect the scene.
“People of the Gwaedwn tribe,” comes an eerie voice. Ffrewgí whirls around to see Cydwag, her back to him, staring deep into the fire. Her orange hair is part of the flames, whipping about above and around her head. “Your lust for power and domination is of the earth, yet the power you seek is beyond it. You will never achieve your goal.” Cydwag’s voice sounds as if it is echoing against the fire, warping and deepening, taking on the crackle and roar of the raging flame. “You are a foul body,” she continues, “diseased and divided, and you are not a fit vessel for the spirit of the gods. Today, you will fall before it like leaves before winter, and your flesh will be removed from the wheel of life. As your ambition has been fed with nothingness, so will your graves provide no nourishment to the grass. So speaks the fire.” Cydwag trembles, then steps suddenly back from the flames, raising a hand to block its heat from her face.
Silence reigns in the village. Ffrewgí is stunned. What was that?
The cool voice of Symbre breaks the shocked silence. She has stepped out from the tents and is standing only a few paces from the children. Her eyes reflect the sharp edges of the fire as she looks at them hungrily.
“At last, our hunt is finished,” she mutters, then calls over her shoulder, not taking her eyes from Ffrewgí and the others. “Hunters! Your reward is before you: the creature has offered its gifts and now all we need to do is reach out and take---” The blood suddenly rushes from Symbre’s face and she turns upwards, her eyes glazing over. There is an awful noise, and the point of a sword erupts from her ribs. Blood swiftly soaks the Gwaedwn leader’s clothes.
Behind her is Logain. He lets Symbre’s corpse slide off his blade onto the ground, then turns his back to the children and addresses the Gwaedwn. “Let the Gwaedwn dream die with Symbre,” he growls. “The creature has given its gifts, but not to us. We are finished.” He turns his craggy head at an angle as a dirty tribesman to his right steps forward and speaks.
“We’ve waited years for our reward!” he spits. “Now it’s in front of us and you expect us to just . . . let it walk away?”
“I do.”
The Gwaedwn swears. “They’re ours.”
Ffrewgí hardly follows what happens next. The Gwaedwn, suddenly with a rusty blade in his hand, lunges towards them. All at once, a throwing knife buries in his chest, thrown by someone over Ffrewgí’s shoulder, hardened earth coats one his legs, stopping him short, and Ffrewgí feels himself react almost instinctively. He has a faint impression of the muscles and bones of a hand. The attacker’s short sword falls from his widespread fingers.
Overwhelmed, Ffrewgí hardly notices as Gwaedwn charge at the children from all directions. Faintly, he registers the giant shape of Logain step in front of them swinging his bloody sword, crying, “Go!” Another Gwaedwn---Asgell---joins him.
Cydwag leads the way as the children begin to move. Ffrewgí starts backwards as the column of fire suddenly bends down, a swathe of Gwaedwn clearing from an avenue as it roars into the dirt. Ffrewgí’s senses return. Behind him, he hears the clash of metal and the cut-off cry of someone dying. The pounded dirt of the path is hard and warm beneath his feet as the fire rises again and he sets off with his friends down the cleared way. The figure of Alaric joins Cydwag at the front of their little group, the two warriors driving back an attacker who had avoided the flames.
His eyes on the way ahead, Ffrewgí casts his creature sense back and grabs at whatever he feels first. He hears cries of pain behind him as Gwaedwn stumble. Ffrewgí is not even sure what he did to them, but he does not look back.
Two Gwaedwn rush into their path. “Come!” one of them cries. “We will lead you out.” Ffrewgí looks to his side and sees Anwen nod. The pair of new allies pass Alaric and Cydwag and engage new enemies as the group continues to move down the avenue towards the woods. Murchadh is suddenly there, framed by the trees, firing arrows at the attackers fighting their Gwaedwn allies!
Ffrewgí and the others slip past the melee and run towards Murchadh, then turn back, hesitating. Their two allies are greatly outnumbered. Anwen joins them, though Ffrewgí had not noticed her missing in the chaos.
“Go!” yells one of their allies, locking his blade with an opponent’s. “We have taken enough of your childhood; I will not make you kill. Do not stay.” He darts past his opponent’s guard and knocks them over with a shoulder. “Go!” he cries again, raising his blade for the kill.
Ffrewgí backs away slowly with the others, reaching out with his gift and breaking the grip of an oncoming attacker. He casts his eyes over the chaos. Without Anwen’s focus, the fire has diminished to a roaring bonfire. By it, Logain is surrounded by a press of attackers. Ffrewgí hears a familiar voice and looks past the melee to see Wyddryr, sword in hand, racing towards the village center. Máerl steps into his path, soaked in blood, an axe in each hand, but someone darts behind her and she twists, crying out in pain. Wyddryr darts past as Máerl roars out a challenge to her attacker. Asgell strides from behind a tent and drops into a fighter’s crouch.
The village is almost unrecognizable as the place Ffrewgí had been held captive for so many weeks. Where are the pits where he had first been held?
“Come on!” cries Cydwag. Ffrewgí pulls himself away from the village and follows as she and the rest of the children head into the trees.
“I’ll cover our tracks,” says Heulwen.
“Me too,” adds Ainsley. “My cover won’t last forever, but it’ll help.”
Ffrewgí looks from friend to friend as he jogs over roots and brush. Ainsley, Heulwen, Cydwag, and Anwen---Murchadh behind them, still firing arrows. The figure of Alaric had disappeared somewhere back at the village; Ffrewgí had not noticed. There is no fear on their faces, only resolution and determination. Ffrewgí looks ahead, into the dense, sunlit woods that have become so familiar to him. As he runs, he feels confident. Confident in himself, and in his companions.
They are captives no longer, but warriors, pathfinders, healers, and hunters. They have escaped.
The stick figure suddenly falls limp at Ainsley’s feet, the bronze talisman it was using as a blade clattering to the ground with a barely noticeable clink. Ainsley hears muffled footsteps behind him. It is Anwen and Ffrewgí, returning from their healing mission without Wyddryr. While neither of the two look extremely distraught, they are both evidently shaken by their experience; Anwen gives Ainsley a hollow stare of acknowledgment. Neither Ainsley, Ashrille, or Heulwen speak up to inquire further. Murchadh, perhaps the only one that might ask any questions, had left during the night to pull investigative Gwaedwn away from his friends in the village. Ainsley, still slightly behind the rest of the group’s planning process, surmises that this means they are to confront the rest of the villagers soon. Ainsley is becoming increasingly weary of this whole charade. Guiltily, he feels a niggling desire in the back of his mind just to leave.
It’s not like they would miss me, he thinks bitterly. I have no reason to stay here. Except . . . He thinks of Anwen’s invitation to stay in her village. Ainsley resigns to staying around a little longer. He reaches down to grab the bronze talisman which lies discarded on the forest floor, tying it once again around his neck. He senses the group preparing to leave---to meet Murchadh at a cave somewhere, Ainsley understands. Ainsley gathers what he had taken from the village---a blade or two, a bow and some arrows from his short time as a Gwaedwn hunter---and he is as prepared as he will ever be for whatever the group plans to do next. They set off after saying farewell to Ashrille, who has decided to reunite with Wyddryr in the village. Ainsley does not look back to catch a glimpse of his partially carved stick figure, discarded on the ground.
* * *
A few movements later, still under the cover of darkness, the group is nearing the cave---at least, according to Ffrewgí, who alone knows where this cave is. Finding himself next to the boy, Ainsley reflects on how much the group has changed. Brought to the village as terrified children, and now preparing to confront their former captors.
Ainsley is brought out of his thoughts when Ffrewgí, perhaps noticing the silence, begins to speak. “Do you know the full extent of your gift?” he asks. Ainsley shakes his head, unsure of where this conversation is going, or what prompted it. “Me neither,” Ffrewgí states. “I assume there must be,” he continues, “because . . .” he trails off awkwardly, seemingly unsure how to continue.
Ainsley’s mind clicks as he realizes what Ffrewgí is implying. With dread, he mutters, “The disguises didn’t last, did they?”
Ffrewgí shakes his head morosely. Quickly, he says, “It wasn’t a huge obstacle. They served their purpose; got us into the village. Don’t be too hard on yourself. I was just curious about our powers and their limitations, really.”
Ainsley nods, a lump forming in his throat. I knew it, he thinks, I knew I could mess up even the simplest task. Skepna would be loving this.
The rest of the group’s walk passes in silence until they arrive at the cave just before dawn.
“Let’s leave him a message and keep moving,” Cydwag says. “The Gwaedwn will be on our trail as soon as they find Wyddryr and Ashrille.”
“We need to stop the Gwaedwn,” Heulwen pipes up. Ainsley finds solace in hearing her voice, a bright sound in the dark pre-dawn.
Ffrewgí nods in affirmation. “They’re just going to keep capturing children. Their quest won’t end just because we’ve escaped.”
Ainsley swallows hard, feeling even worse about his thoughts of desertion earlier. Of course he must stay, to prevent anyone else going through what he had to experience.
“I know,” Cydwag says sadly. “We need a plan.”
“I don’t think just telling them to stop will be enough---”
“We have our gifts from the creature---”
“We should get there by dawn---”
Ainsley half-collapses to the ground, sitting back against the damp rock of the cave’s exposed flank, overwhelmed by the rapid, back-and-forth dialogue, all of it going over his head.
“What do you think, Ainsley?”
Taken aback, Ainsley looks up from his seat on the floor. Four pairs of eyes are fixed on him, reflecting the dim light of the very early morning. Ainsley swallows before answering Anwen.
“I think---” he pauses, “---we should do it.” Head spinning, he latches onto the pieces of the plan he overheard. “I can make something appear that will startle them.”
Anwen adds, “I can use the wind to stir up the fire and draw everyone’s attention.”
Cydwag once again takes the role of leader. “We can make more plans as we move, but we need to leave now if we’re going to reach the village by dawn.”
“What about Murchadh?” Anwen asks. An awkward silence falls upon the group, and Ainsley sees why. Murchadh has left them again. He was supposed to meet them here, and has not shown up. Ainsley cannot help but wonder if he has done what Ainsley was afraid to do.
“I can carve a message in the stone here, at the mouth of the cave,” offers Heulwen, once again a positive voice in the darkness both physical and not.
With that done, the group departs back for the village.
As dawn breaks, Ainsley, Ffrewgí, Anwen, Heulwen, and Cydwag reach the edge of the village. Down a straight avenue between tents, Ainsley can see the central fire, just coals glimmering in the dim light of morning. Ainsley looks at his counterparts---his friends---as, without hesitating, they set off towards it. Although they appear to be confident and fearless, Ainsley cannot help but to notice the clenched fists and furrowed brows of his companions, signs that show they feel much the same as he does. Ainsley looks around at the village where he was once held captive. As he looks around some of the Gwaedwn stare back with wide eyes. The group marches to the fire, which is being tended to life by a Gwaedwn.
“What are you---” the tribesman begins to say, but before he gets a chance to speak, Anwen begins her portion of the plan. A wind picks up from all around them, swirling at their feet and feeding the fire. The wind stirs the fire until it grows into a huge vortex, swirling and crackling in the center of the village, causing Ungant to stumble backwards in shock. It acts as a beacon, and soon, the children are surrounded by a circle of tribespeople. One of them charges, enraged, but stops short, his legs suddenly held fast in pillars of earth. Heulwen looks grimly at the others, who approach more slowly, drawing weapons. Running on instinct alone, Ainsley takes a deep breath and stares into the fire, summoning the first image that comes to his mind. Alaric steps out of the flames, larger and angrier than anyone had ever seen, his single eye blazing with the light of the fire behind him, a fearsome blade in his hand. This spectre causes the Gwaedwn to pause, some recoiling in fear. Not even sure if he is controlling it, the image of Alaric steps beside the other children. Ainsley averts his eyes from it, looking back at the vortex of fire. He notices Cydwag looking intently into the raging column. Suddenly, she begins speaking with a voice quite unlike her own.
“People of the Gwaedwn tribe,” she begins, the tribespeople growing silent, “your lust for power and domination is of the earth, yet the power you seek is beyond it. You will never achieve your goal. You are a foul body, diseased and divided, and you are not a fit vessel for the spirit of the gods. Today, you will fall before it like leaves before winter, and your flesh will be removed from the wheel of life. As your ambition has been fed with nothingness, so will your graves provide no nourishment to the grass. So speaks the fire.”
Ainsley gapes at her. A part of him thinks, What does that even mean, while another part marvels at this girl’s bravery and obvious gift, regardless of any interaction with the creature.
Amidst the awed silence, Symbre steps forward with a glint in her eyes. She mutters something just barely indiscernible to Ainsley before raising her voice and shouting, “Hunters! Your reward is before you: the creature has offered its gifts and now all we need to do is reach out and take---”
She never gets a chance to finish. A blade suddenly appears, sprouting from her chest, and behind her is Logain, face muted by the shadows thrown by the fire. Symbre’s eyes fog over, and she collapses to the ground. Logain’s sword drips with her blood. Chest heaving, he says, “Let the Gwaedwn dream die with Symbre. The creature has given its gifts, but not to us. We are finished.”
Ainsley is shocked, a feeling evidently shared by nearly everyone in the crowd. A surly Gwaedwn takes issue with Logain’s statement. “We’ve waited years for our reward,” he snarls. “Now it’s in front of us and you expect us to just . . . let it walk away?”
Eyes turn to Logain. Ainsley thinks back to when Logain seemed to be the leader of this small group of bandits, and how he thought there could be no one more cruel. Now Ainsley is surprised to be in alliance with the gruff man.
“I do,” he says, simply.
“Fel uffern,” snarls the Gwaedwn. “They’re ours.” Drawing a cleaver from his belt, he charges towards Ainsley and his friends. Others are quick to follow suit---Though not all, realizes Ainsley, as he steels himself for battle, drawing a blade from his own belt. His short sword looks eerily similar to his bronze talisman, the blade that has caused him so much grief, but he spares it no second thought. As quick as they had come, his companions are leaving---running back down the straight avenue towards the woods. Ainsley follows. He casts an eye over his shoulder and reaches into the fire, augments it with his gift, draws it down towards the ground. This stops a few attackers in their tracks.
Logain spares a word for the retreating children. “Go. The Gwaedwn are finished.” Then he is engaged in furious melee with multiple opponents.
Sounds of battle and death rage all around Ainsley. Two friendly warriors lead the children through the village, but the group is brought to a stumbling halt as five enemy Gwaedwn block their escape route. Without warning, one falls to the ground, an arrow protruding from their back. Ainsley looks up in shock to see Murchadh standing in the trees beyond. Ainsley feels a small smile grace his face as the rest of the enemy are finished off by Murchadh and the two allies. Before they have started off again, the sounds of approaching enemies from within the village cause them to turn around to face the new threat.
“Go!” shouts one of the friendly warriors, and the children heed his command, racing towards the woods. Finally, they make it out of the village, running into the solace of the forest. The other Gwaedwn ally joins them, hustling them along. Ainsley spares one glance back, seeing the friend left behind fall. Beyond him, Ainsley catches a glimpse of Alaric’s image giving him a subtle nod before turning to face a series of attackers. The image erupts in a pillar of fire and Ainsley turns away for a final time, eyes wet with tears that soon mingle with the sweat on his face.
Murchadh is heading back to the caves. It is hard. His legs do not want to respond. He has been pushing hard for quite a few days now. He had hardly rested on the hunt with Wyddryr and Ashrille, and Murchadh only managed a few spans of rest between that and the excursion back to the village to heal Wyddryr’s father. Now, he has been running all night. The others have likely left the village with Ffrewgí and Anwen, arrived at the cave, and moved on from there already, but Murchadh is still hoping to rest there for a few measures before taking up their trail and catching up.
The sun is just starting to light up the sky when a sudden flare catches the corner of Murchadh’s eye. He looks towards its source, the Gwaedwn encampment, which he has been generously skirting from atop a ridge to the north. There is a large column of fire rising from the center of the village.
Murchadh curses silently. They could not wait. He is instantly alert and rushes with new energy toward the village. He loses sight of the fire almost immediately as he moves onto terrain level with it, but he can hear raised voices. He picks out Asgell’s voice, shouting---too far away to understand. Steel rings on steel. He is sprinting into the tall grass of the grazing fields when the column of fire above him bends---yes, bends---down, until only the flickering tongues of its flank are seen above the tents before him.
Murchadh adjusts his course and comes to a stop in the exit of an avenue between tents. He assesses the situation with a quick eye. Before him, with their backs to him, stand three Gwaedwn with weapons drawn. Behind them and approaching, Murchadh sees Tyree and Ungant, also with weapons out, slowing as they come upon the three tribespeople. Murchadh’s companions---Anwen, Ainsley, Ffrewgí, and Cydwag, are coming up behind Tyree, the bending column of fire scorching the ground at their heels.
The scenario is clear to Murchadh. Tyree’s eyes flicker to meet his and a slight smile lights his face. Murchadh knows what is needed. He has not removed his archery brace since using it in the night, nor has he unstrung his bow. He draws it now as Tyree and Ungant engage the enemy Gwaedwn. As they clash, Murchadh releases his first arrow, striking into the tangled hair of the center enemy’s head. They fall with a cry, grabbing at the arrow’s shaft.
Tyree and Ungant are quick to dispatch the others, surprised at their companions sudden fall.
Murchadh’s friends race towards and past him, but he does not look at them. Another group of aggressors are racing down the avenue, feet raising charcoal dust from where the fire has retreated. Ungant and Tyree turn beside Murchadh.
Ungant yells over his shoulder. “Go! We have taken enough of your childhood; I will not make you kill. Do not stay. Go!”
Then the new group of attackers are upon them. Tyree and Ungant hold them bottlenecked in the avenue.
Murchadh turns to his peers, makes sure they enter the trees. “Go! I will aid here until I need to leave.” Heulwen opens her mouth to argue, but Murchadh speaks first. “Don't worry about me. I just spent all night giving Máerl and Asgell the slip. This bunch will be easy. I will catch up by tomorrow evening.”
Heulwen turns and follows the others. Murchadh does not hesitate, whirling back to face the melee. Two Gwaedwn are already down in front of Tyree and Ungant. Murchadh adds a third, and another skulks back in retreat with an arrow lodged in a rib. Murchadh suddenly spots Fuldryn dart between two tents behind the melee. He picks them up again nearer, parallel to the avenue, traveling towards the trees.
Murchadh casts an eye at his allies and sees them fairly engaged, then draws and pivots, firing an arrow at the escaping Fuldryn. He has to fire quickly, just as the Gwaedwn appears between the peaks of two tents, so his aim is just off. The arrow tears through a tent just by Fuldryn’s head. They drop into a crouch, look up at the torn tent fabric, then swiftly find Murchadh. They stare at him with venom. Murchadh smirks and draws back a second arrow, but Fuldryn knows their disadvantage, and does not allow Murchadh the chance: they dart out of view.
With a grunt, Murchadh turns and releases the arrow solidly into the chest of a tribeswoman pushing Tyree back, dropping her out of the fight. Dispatching his own opponent, Ungant turns to Tyree. “Follow the children,” he says. “Take Murchadh. Make sure they get away safely.”
Tyree hesitates, looking down the avenue at a trio of Gwaedwn, approaching cautiously but steadily.
“The children are our priority, Tyree,” says Ungant fiercely. “I want to know they will be safe.”
Tyree clasps forearms with Ungant before turning to Murchadh. “Come on, cousin. Others might have found another route to them, we should catch up.”
Murchadh looses an arrow past Ungant’s shoulder, piercing a Gwaedwn in a wrist thrown up in quick defense. He nods to Tyree to go; he will follow. After Tyree has passed him, Murchadh backs with quick steps into the trees.
In the avenue, Ungant has thrown himself into the oncoming attackers. His wide-bladed iron sword flashes in the bright dawn, streaked red. A Gwaedwn steps past him and rushes at the forest. Murchadh plants an arrow in his chest, piercing a lung. He drops to his knees, coughing blood.
Another Gwaedwn presses past Ungant, who takes a spear-thrust to the side in that moment. Murchadh’s arrow passes through the oncoming woman’s thigh, the shaft snapping as she falls onto her side, grabbing at it.
Ungant is fighting from his knees, and this time two Gwaedwn are rushing down the avenue towards Murchadh. More will be pressing soon. Murchadh flicks his eyes over the whole scene. Asgell and Logain are fighting near the village center; they are back to back, corpses strewing the ground around them.
The enemy Gwaedwn outnumber the allies greatly. Murchadh does not let this affect him. He coolly draws an arrow to his jaw, sends one of the approaching Gwaedwn to ground with a shaft in the hollow of the throat. Another arrow follows it, sinking into the other’s stomach.
Then Murchadh turns, hooking his bow over his shoulder. He scans the ground at his feet; either Tyree or one of his peers has done well: they have left no trail. Murchadh steps carefully in the direction they had been heading.
He comes upon them too quickly; they are hardly out of earshot of the village. As if they had been waiting for them, their pace increases as soon as he joins them.
* * *
The children and Tyree are resting on a small, muddy, shrub-covered island in the middle of a river. The sun is near its zenith, and there has been no pursuit. Ffrewgí and Murchadh have circled back a few times just to make sure. With her creature-gift, Heulwen has been removing their tracks and called the path of stepping stones that allowed them to walk across to the island. The river rushes past on both sides of them. The stones vanished, they are relatively safe and hidden from view under the island’s large shrubs. Helped by Ffrewgí’s uncanny sense gifted by the creature, Ainsley has been able to spear a few fish to cook on their small, smokeless fire. Having fed, now it is time to rest. Tyree stands watch as the others sleep.
Murchadh lies back on the cool earth, reflecting. After this rest, a free life! Even more incredible is the offer Ffrewgí made to him on one of their trips back down their trail. After this sleep, Murchadh will be made whole! He can hardly believe it. At first, he does not think he will be able to sleep, but as soon as he closes his eyes exhaustion pulls him under.
As he succumbs to the darkness of rest, he feels a familiar presence on the edge of his mind: the neidraig. It tries to speak. Murchadh instantly throws up his walls. The creature scratches at them, trying to enter. Murchadh forms an armoured door in his mind and goes to it, opening the slot. “What do you want?”
“To speak to you,” states the neidraig.
“I do not wish to talk.” Murchadh places his hand back on the slot-cover.
“Be assured I am not here to make demands.”
Murchadh pauses before pulling the cover closed.
“Please open the door. I will not force you into submission. I just need to speak to you.”
Murchadh slowly closes the slot, then, after shrinking the door to a size too small for the golden creature outside, Murchadh unbolts and opens it. “Speak.”
The neidraig nods to the small entryway. “You have grown a strong in mind, young Guardian, stronger than I have trained you. Where did you . . . ?” It shakes its head. “But that is not why I am here. I miss your companionship, old friend. I know I treated you unfairly, failed to tell you what you risked by spending your time here. But,” the neidraig hesitates, its gemstone eyes rising to meet Murchadh’s, “there is a way to find balance.”
Murchadh has wondered about this. The neidraig and the creature of the Gwaedwn---both had given him only one side of the story.
“As long as your heart, your soul, dwells in your waking world,” continues the golden creature, “you are in no risk of losing yourself to this one. I have traveled long to discover this. That is why you were at such risk before, young one. But I have reason to believe . . .” The neidraig trails off, gazing meaningfully at Murchadh.
“I will have to think about it.” Murchadh pauses. “You were my only friend for a long time. I trusted you, and you did not trust me. You did not count me as a friend but as a weapon. That needs to be fixed, somehow---but to be honest, I do not know how.”
The neidraig nods. “I understand.” It turns to go, but cranes its neck back to regard Murchadh again. “I do miss your companionship. I look forward to speaking again. Call for me when you have made up your mind---and heart.” With that, it leaves Murchadh’s mind, and Murchadh sinks into a deep, restful sleep, finally at peace.
I will be linking the final MASTER POST ( <- right there ) shortly. It will contain the final word on the events of this chapter so that everyone can know exactly what is happening in their narrative.
Further inquiries or concerns should be forwarded directly to me via Tumblr to keep the master post pristine.
Ainsley is in a forest. The trees are walking. Great, gnarled legs break through the surface of the earth and branches wind together to create mighty arms. Knots and whorls in the bark spiral and flow until they form the shape of old, wizened eyes with a strange sense of ancient power about them. Ainsley feels a growing sense of dread as he sees that the trees are dividing into two sides, evidently preparing for conflict, as they have done so many times in his dreams before. On Ainsley’s left, a bent maple, with bright orange leaves adorning its strong brow, and to his right a slender birch with smooth, snowy bark. The animosity between the two is clear and, as the tension builds, Ainsley feels as conflicted as ever. He does not know which tree to align with. Neither makes any sudden move of aggression, but they seem to lean in closer, a red anger hovering over the entire forest. Ainsley hears a twig snap beneath his foot, and the trees suddenly turn towards him. Backing away, Ainsley tries to protest, but the advance of the forest is unrelenting. Reaching out with tendrils of rough bark, they converge on Ainsley.
* * *
Ainsley wakes up and, for a moment, fears that his dreams have become a reality. Dirty roots are clutching at his forehead. He opens his eyes to see nothing but chinks of light through soil and rotting wood. He feels nearly suffocated by the forest.
Then Ainsley remembers the events of the past day and relaxes. At least, as much as someone who has run away from their only known shelter can relax. The group---Cydwag, Anwen, Heulwen, Ffrewgí, and himself---had managed to escape their captors, with Ainsley and Heulwen combining their creature-gifts to divert the pursuing Gwaedwn off their trail. They had hidden in a hollow beneath a partially-uprooted tree in the forest until deep night, and then proceeded to scramble even deeper into the forest until Ainsley felt like his legs might fall off. Eventually, they had found another small hideaway, where they all fell silent, if not asleep---if Ainsley’s night was anything like the others’, they had slept restlessly if they slept at all. In the morning, after the children have spilled from their grotto, Anwen’s voice breaks through the patchy darkness:
“I think we should try to find the others, before we get too far away from the village.”
Ainsley waits for someone else to respond. He does not have to wait long. Cydwag speaks up quizzically, “Others?”
“Murchadh and Ashrille and Wyddryr. They were missing, remember?”
Cydwag clearly does not share Anwen’s concern. Her bright red hair illuminated by a shaft of light, Cydwag begins to argue with Anwen about the group’s next move.
Ainsley ignores them and slips into the trees beyond their little clearing. Ffrewgí passes him, returning, and as he joins the others the planning begins in earnest. Ainsley sits down next to a tree a little ways from the others. Far enough out that he does not have to be involved in the argument, but close enough to hear their planning.
After debating for a while, Cydwag begrudgingly agrees to assist in their search for Ashrille, Murchadh, and Wyddryr. Despite his resolution to hear the plan, Ainsley finds himself ignorant of its specifics. Running through his mind are images of the forest fire, and of Skepna laughing in it. But the group has determined upon a course of action regardless of his oblivion, and he resolves to accompany them. He has hardly interacted with the three missing children, but his desire for companionship is too strong to form an opinion against the group’s intention to find them. For the moment, Ainsley is content to simply be with his companions.
He follows the group as they make their way west, which takes them all day, though the time passes numbly for Ainsley. When they stop, he takes his knife and disappears into the forest, where he fashions a few game traps and lucks out stumbling across a fat pheasant, which fails to fly faster than his thrown blade. When he returns and the bird is cooked over a low, smokeless fire, Ainsley remains to himself. He notices that Heulwen, as well, is outside the dynamic center of the group, though he can tell she and Anwen share a bond.
Back when he had first become a Gwaedwn, Ainsley would have been demoralized by this, but he is much more relaxed now. He is starting to see his purpose---or, at least, has a growing sense of it. He feels fulfilled by being the group’s hunter, and almost feels pride when he walks the border of their camp that night, obscuring it with brush both real and gift-created.
He has not forgotten Skepna’s words, though. Even if his old master is gone for good, his words still haunt Ainsley in still, quiet moments.
* * *
Early in the morning, Cydwag and Ffrewgí disappear, enacting what Ainsley assumes is the first stage of the plan, and Heulwen, Anwen, and himself are left at what has become their base camp. Heulwen, who had been on last watch, falls asleep next to Anwen and Ainsley begins to carve, and although he still is not an expert by any means, the figure he carves is slowly becoming discernible as a warrior of sorts.
Anwen interrupts Ainsley’s train of thought. “Are you okay with what we’re doing?” Her voice has an undertone of urgency about it, almost as if she is desperate to break the silence, and her voice trembles slightly in the crisp morning air.
Ainsley pauses, thinking over his answer to this very open question. He answers honestly, “I’m not really sure. Half the time, I’m not even sure what I’m doing.” He chuckles inwardly. He has been so in and out of things recently, and it humours him to think that others might still value his opinion. Thinking it over more, he is shocked to realize how indifferent he is becoming.
Anwen continues---not so much talking to Ainsley directly anymore, but wondering aloud, “I was so sure this was the right thing to do, but … what if something happens? What if Ffrewgí and Cydwag don’t come back? What if we get captured again? It would be my fault.” Her voice becomes increasingly strained, and Ainsley feels sorry for her. She has taken on an incredible burden to lead their little party, and he can see that the stress is getting to her.
“Cydwag and Ffrewgí, they know what they’re doing,” Ainsley says in response, hoping to bolster Anwen’s confidence.
Anwen then says something that surprises Ainsley, “I’m sorry we didn’t try to find out what you wanted—when we were deciding what to do. That wasn’t right.”
Ainsley takes a moment to mull over Anwen’s implications. At least someone has the decency to apologize. Taken aback by his own thought, he realizes he has been holding back some bitterness towards the others, jealous of their assumed roles in the group. Then he slows down, and is touched by Anwen’s apology. “It’s alright. I’m just glad to be with you all.”
“I’m glad you’re here, too.”
Ainsley does not know how to respond. “Thank you,” he mutters. He hopes that marks the end of the conversation---but at the same time, he appreciates Anwen’s friendship.
She soon speaks up again. “Do you know what you want to do, when all this is over?”
Ainsley looks up from his carving, but does not yet return Anwen’s gaze. He mulls this question over in his mind, and is disappointed to realize his answer is more or less the same as all his others. “I … haven’t really thought about it.” Ainsley wonders what Anwen is leading up to.
“You’re always welcome to come to my village,” Anwen says suddenly, “if you want.”
Ainsley mind reels. The question is a punch to the gut. Where does he want to go? Would there be a future for him? Right now, it feels as if the entire world is constrained to the small area of forest explored by the Gwaedwn. He has barely thought of his old village in the time following his capture. It is not as though he has many fond memories of the place. Sadly, he realizes that he once again has no idea of how to respond. “Oh,” he begins. “I guess I could. I’ll---uh---think about it.” Skepna would have called me a useless lump for that, he thinks.
“I guess it could be a while yet, depending on what Cydwag and Ffrewgí find …” Anwen trails off, worry etched across her face once again.
“They’ll be fine,” Ainsley murmurs. A sense of guilt suddenly descends over him. He has barely given any thought to the predicament of Ffrewgí and Cydwag. What a horrible friend I am, he thinks. If they even call me a friend.
“Thanks,” Anwen says, and this seems to bring their conversation to a close at last.
Ainsley is conflicted, feeling both encouraged and guilty, validated and belittled. He struggles with his feelings as he retreats into himself and his carving.
Some time later, Cydwag and Ffrewgí return, accompanied---much to Anwen’s relief---by Ashrille, Wyddryr, and Murchadh. Ainsley looks up from his carving, but is unsure if he should say or do anything.
“Tell your tale,” begins Cydwag, sitting down, and Murchadh obliges.
Still wrestling with himself, Ainsley does not give his full attention to Murchadh as he begins, but he captures the general gist of the boy’s story. Wyddryr’s father is apparently deathly ill, so Murchadh and the other two had set out on a hunt to kill the creature and acquire its healing blood. They were unsuccessful. Murchadh adds that Wyddryr was a spy for the Gwaedwn---this confuses Ainsley, as Wyddryr was treated the same as anyone else, and what could he have reported to the Gwaedwn, anyway? That the captives were unhappy?
“They are already planning another set of recruitment raids,” says Murchadh. Ainsley spares a look up from his carving: Murchadh’s statement has struck a chord in the group. He looks around and sees the shocked looks of his companions. He shares their shock.
Ffrewgí breaks the silence asking for more details, and Ainsley fades out of the conversation once again as Murchadh describes his experience on the hunt.
Then Ffrewgí is demonstrating his creature-gift, healing a wound on Murchadh’s chin. Then Ashrille and Wyddryr arrive in the circle, though Ainsley had not noticed them leave.
“Your chin is looking … remarkably healed,” observes Ashrille.
Ffrewgí explains that he had healed Murchadh with a gift from the creature. Before Ainsley knows it, he is displaying his gift to the group as well. He sets down his carving before summoning an earth-brown snake, which twirls around his legs before fading into the ground beneath him.
Heulwen and Anwen demonstrate their gifts after him, but Ainsley notices that Wyddryr is fixated on Ffrewgí. After Anwen’s wind fades away, he asks Ffrewgí directly to heal his father.
Ainsley mentally retreats again as that prompts a debate. It has become too much for him, the others’ constant debating and planning. Eventually Ffrewgí does agree to help Wyddryr, and the conversation turns to how to do it. Ainsley builds his resolution and forces himself to contribute---these are his friends.
The plan is to sneak Ffrewgí and Wyddryr into the village, burning a building to pull attention away from where they will enter. Ainsley volunteers to disguise the two as Gwaedwn hunters.
That evening, he conjures the disguises before they leave. Ffrewgí, Anwen (who is starting the fire), and Wyddryr leave to the north. Ainsley follows the others to the south, where Ffrewgí and Anwen are to rejoin them after their tasks.
Ainsley cannot help feel like a coward, waiting uselessly while Anwen and the other two enact their dangerous roles. That Ashrille, Heulwen, and Murchadh are waiting with him does not affect how he feels. All he did was provide disguises, and Ainsley is not even sure they will last as long as they are needed. Does he need to consciously maintain a grasp on his illusions, or do they disappear if he thinks of something else? He has a sick feeling in his stomach as he wonders, with an ever growing horror, if he has let the group down. The simplest task, and Ainsley manages to screw it up. It would be just my luck, he thinks bitterly.
Ainsley looks down at the figure he has been carving for what seems like days without stop. He has barely paid attention to his own work, going about it with the numbness that has pervaded his every action recently. The basic person-figure he has carved is about two hand’s-breadths in height. The wood is pale, and the only unique mark is a knot on the right side of the uncarved face. As Ainsley continues to gaze at it, the carving gains more and more specific features. Intricately carved fingers sprout from the ends of the arms, which in turn bend and flex as if testing their own limits. Shocked, Ainsley drops the figure. It lands with a knee bent, sending a shockwave rippling through the ground. It stands up straight, one arm reaching behind its back. Horrified, Ainsley sees it pull out from behind its back the bronze talisman he had found during his first hunt. Ainsley touches the scar just above his left eye and gasps audibly. He is suddenly alone. The carved figure raises the weapon and points it towards its own head, the tip of the blade just touching the knot over its eye. Ainsley touches the cord around his neck, and he feels nothing there.
The stick figure raises the blade, preparing to strike.
We have come to the climactic chapter in the lives of your characters. Please read, weigh in, and contribute to our newest (and perhaps last!) group Doc. Comment on the Doc or message me with any questions or concerns.
They move quickly through the night, halting only for a short rest in the last few movements of the stars. Murchadh offers to keep watch. Uneasy around the unpredictable Wyddryr, and with the wound on his jaw aching, he could not sleep even if he tried. Wyddryr lies with his back to him. Ashrille remains sitting, then moves to Murchadh.
“Here, we've stopped,” she says, and gestures to his chin, “let me tend to that. You won’t be able to help anyone if it gets infected.”
Murchadh relents, knowing she is right. “I have some basic herbs in my pack if you need more,” he says, “I never travel without them.” He sits silently while she works, thinking and trying to pay attention to the night around him. Ashrille’s hands are deft and practiced, and soon enough she is done and wrapping a bandage.
When she is finished she packs up quietly. As she turns to leave, Murchadh whispers, “Thank you, it feels better now.”
Murchadh lets her sleep for a movement, then he wakes them up and they continue their trek through the forest. They travel at a constant, sustainable pace, only stopping briefly to eat or take a drink from a passing stream. They travel in silence.
They are nearing the village when Murchadh notices that the forest is still, and he can feel himself being watched. At that moment he hears a low whistle. It is the same one the guides used to signal each other during their training. Besides himself and Wyddryr, only Ffrewgí and Asgell should know of it. Murchadh prefers meeting either of them over moving blindly into the encampment, so he changes course with hesitation. Wyddryr must have heard it, too, for he does not protest.
The noise originated from a cluster of cedars on a nearby hill. Murchadh is approaching them when he Ffrewgí and Cydwag step out. Murchadh asks quietly, “What are you doing out here?”
Ashrille and Wyddryr come up behind Murchadh.
Murchadh surmises that the two captives are not here with Symbre’s permission. Something has obviously happened to the captives that has separated at least some of them from the tribe. Murchadh is surprised to find them so close to the village.
“Looking for you, actually,” Ffrewgí says.
Murchadh looks in the direction of the village. “You’ve escaped.”
Cydwag levels a suspicious look at Murchadh and the others and moves to cut off their path to the village. Murchadh considers her distrust to be wise. He does not trust his companions either.
“Why did you leave the village yourselves?” asks Cydwag.
Wyddryr responds sharply, “Our business is our own.”
“Hunting the creature,” says Murchadh at the same time. He turns to Wyddryr. “If you want their help, there will be no secrets.”
Cydwag rests against a makeshift spear, clearly ready to bring it to use in a breath if need be. “You were unsuccessful?”
Murchadh shrugs. “In a manner of speaking.”
Wyddryr gets in Murchadh’s face and hisses, “We don’t have time for this. You said your friends could help him.”
Murchadh puts his hand near the hilts on his belt and snarls, “Keep your distance. They’ll help if they want to help.”
Ffrewgí looks confusedly at them. “What are you talking about?”
Murchadh glares at Wyddryr until he backs off before turning to Ffrewgí. “His father is dying,” he explains. “We went out on the hunt to collect the creature’s gift to heal him, but there was no way we’d have caught it, because they meant to kill it, and the creature only gives its gifts to those pure of heart.”
“Then . . . none of you had a dream or vision from the creature?”
“I have lots of dreams and visions.”
Wyddryr steps aggressively in front of Murchadh. “Have you got a gift?” he asks Ffrewgí. “If the creature gave you its blood, you need to come with us.” Wyddryr’s voice is desperate, something that Murchadh now associates with danger. His hand rests on his best throwing blade---ready.
Ffrewgí stutters, “I . . . How do you know it gave us gifts?”
Murchadh quickly attempts a distraction, moving up the hill. “Come on,” he says, “take me to the others. I’ll explain on the way.” His hand never leaves his knife. He is ready. There is no way he will let Wyddryr attack Ffrewgí.
“Hold on! We’ve got to get to my father with the cure!”
Good, Murchadh muses, his anger is now on me. “We don’t know what form the gifts took, Wyddryr!” he responds, trying to keep Wyddryr’s attention on him. “And since the others have escaped, I don’t think there will be a welcome party set out for us. We left at just the wrong time on your hunt.”
Wyddryr is about to respond, but Ashrille steps forward and confronts him. “Wyddryr, your father will be alright for another day. Murchadh’s right, even if he’s being blunt. We’re suspect now, likely lumped in with the others. Let’s meet up with them and make a plan.”
“Come on then,” Cydwag says, setting off ahead of Murchadh, “let’s not waste words where they might be overheard.” Ffrewgí follows quickly behind her.
Murchadh nods to the wisdom in this statement. He is pretty sure Cydwag has guessed what is going on.
They find Anwen, Heulwen, and Ainsley waiting in a small clearing some distance away. As soon as the parties have joined, Cydwag turns to Murchadh, saying, “Okay, it’s time for you to tell your tale.” She puts down her spear and sits on a mossy log.
“Of course,” says Murchadh with a weary smile; it has been a long stressful trip with little sleep, but he feels great relief at seeing them all safe, “but you’ll all need to share yours as well.”
“Okay,” says Anwen.
Murchadh is unsure how much he should reveal about Wyddryr’s actions while he is present, but eventually just starts at the beginning, telling them the whole story up to their meeting with the creature. “It can’t have been anything else,” he says, “but none of us really remember the experience. Oh,” he adds, shooting a look at Wyddryr, “and he finally admits to being a plant from the beginning, to spy on us.”
The others react in surprise.
Wyddryr protests, “That’s not the whole---”
Murchadh cuts him off. “I’m not finished. Keep your blade sheathed.”
Ashrille breaks the tension, standing up and gesturing to Wyddryr. “Let’s gather something to eat.” Wyddryr follows her reluctantly. “Don’t start on your side of the story until we’re back,” she says in parting.
Murchadh is glad for the tall girl’s interjection. It will make it easier for him to reveal all the details of Wyddryr’s story. “Wyddryr was a slave with his father and they were rescued by Logain on a recruiting mission,” he continues after the two have disappeared into the woods. “I’m not sure why. His father is deathly ill, though, so he recruited me to help him hunt down the creature.”
“Why not wait until another official hunt is organized?” Cydwag asks.
“Because a third hunt wasn’t going to happen.”
“They were going to kill us?” asks Anwen with a shocked look.
“Probably just keep you as slaves,” says Murchadh, “and those that took the pact as just a step above. They are already planning another set of recruitment raids.”
“So what happened on your hunt?” asks Ffrewgí after that sinks in.
“We found the creature, though I can’t remember what it was,” says Murchadh, fighting to recall it clearly. “I almost remember an image of Archora . . .”
“That’s what I saw!”
Murchadh nods at Cydwag. “You meant to kill it, too, didn’t you?”
“I guess so. Didn’t we all?”
“No,” says Anwen gravely. “When I encountered it, it was... it was so beautiful. So innocent.” She struggles for words; clearly the experience had been deeply impactful. “I couldn’t have---I couldn’t have even wanted to kill it, when I saw it.”
“But I didn’t even see it. I just . . .” Cydwag grasps at memories, “well, I don’t remember what I did see, but it wasn’t any sort of creature.”
“It’s a magical being. It can appear to us as it wills. And if you’re not pure of intention and heart, then you won’t see it.” Murchadh looks around the circle, at his friends who he is increasingly sure did meet the fantastic creature.
“Go on,” prompts Heulwen.
“When that idea occurred to me,” Murchadh continues, “I knew that the creature won’t give its gift unwillingly, and that it must have given it to one---or some---of you. Ffrewgí, you mentioned a dream. Anwen, you met it.” He looks at the others. “This is the end of my story; tell me yours.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for Ashrille and Wyddryr?” asks Heulwen.
Cydwag interjects. “Hold on. If you didn’t meet the creature, how’d you get injured? I know you enough to know you aren’t careless in the woods.”
“Right. Wyddryr gives me this nice mark on my chin because I couldn’t drag the creature from the dream world. If I hadn’t moved, it would have been my neck.”
“Ffrewgí, can’t you take a look at it?” asks Anwen. “You could heal him!”
Ffrewgí seems startled. “I guess so,” he says, “if you want me to, Murchadh.”
Murchadh is bothered by their reactions. He has just told them that Wyddryr tried to kill him and they are not even acknowledging it. “You were given the blood? Or something with the power to heal?” he asks, struggling to not get lost in his disappointment and confusion. Do they even care about him? Maybe they are just uncomfortable with the fact that one of their peers did something so awful and are ignoring it for their own comfort. Murchadh suddenly realizes that Ffrewgí has answered his question, and responds off the cuff. “Were you the only one?”
“The---the only one like that,” stutters Ffrewgí.
“We should wait until the others are back to tell our whole story,” says Anwen.
“Here, let me take a look at your wound.” Ffrewgí takes a few steps over to Murchadh and kneels next to him. Murchadh undoes Ashrille’s bandage. He is not sure what to expect, but Ffrewgí does not come nearer. The boy closes his eyes, and suddenly Murchadh feels a tingling, ghostly sensation on his chin, then a strange pulling and itching. Then, nothing. No pain---not even an ache. “Amazing,” he marvels. He touches his chin with a finger. “Not even a scratch left.” An idea pops in his head. “Do you think you could fix my back? It hurts all the time. Or, maybe, make my arm whole?” Then suddenly he remembers himself and apologizes for his outburst. “Sorry,” he mumbles, “just thinking out loud. Forget that.”
Ffrewgí looks like he is about to respond when Ashrille and Wyddryr arrive. Ashrille drops a branch into the little circle; Murchadh notes that it is full of ripe elderberries.
“Not sure what breakfast you’ve all had,” she says, “but we found an elderberry bush.” She smiles wryly as Ffrewgí picks up the branch. “I figured it’d be quicker than picking them all conventionally.”
Ashrille looks at Murchadh as she sits down. Her brow furrows. “Your chin is looking... remarkably healed.”
“That was me,” says Ffrewgí. “I was visited by the creature and received the gift of healing.”
Murchadh watches Wyddryr lean forward intensely. He places his hand on his dagger.
“I can make things appear,” says Ainsley quietly. Murchadh’s eye is drawn to a snake slithering through the grass by his feet. Murchadh has never seen one with its markings---nor has he seen one curl up so quickly and perfectly, as this one does just before disappearing.
On another day, Murchadh might have been impressed by Heulwen’s demonstration of her gift, lifting herself up on a column of earth that rises solid from the grass, or by Anwen’s, casting a breeze about the circle and then having it break the fog in its center and freeing a beam of sunlight to shine down upon her, but today Murchadh is disturbed by Wyddryr and his friends’ lack of reaction, and his experiences in the dream realm form a callous over his wonder.
“My father is in the village,” says Wyddryr, his eyes fixed upon Ffrewgí, when the breeze dies away and fog covers the sun again. “He is dying, and you have the ability to heal him. Will you help me?”
Ffrewgí swallows nervously. Cydwag comes to his rescue. “We can’t just traipse back into the village,” she says.
“Then what do you suggest?” asks Wyddryr, standing up angrily.
Cydwag stands up also, and Murchadh sees her put her foot beneath the shaft of her spear, ready to flick it to her hand. “I suggest you figure it out yourself, spy.”
Murchadh slowly draws his blade part way out.
“What could I have told them that they didn’t already know?” says Wyddryr, stepping towards Cydwag. “Was I treated any better than you? Did I eat lamb while you fed on sparrow and cornbread?” Wyddryr’s shoulder slump. “My father is dying,” he says, and turns back to Ashrille, who has risen behind him. She guides him back down to the ground.
He is not going to be violent this time. Murchadh replaces his dagger fully as Wyddryr adds, imploringly, “We were slaves just like you.”
Ffrewgí breaks the ensuing silence. “We’ll need a plan. If you can sneak me in, maybe.”
“Or we sneak your father out,” says Anwen.
Wyddryr sniffles pitifully. “I’m a Gwaedwn. Can’t I return? I can explain it . . .”
Murchadh snorts to himself, knowing the pact was meaningless.
Ashrille puts a hand on Wyddryr’s knee. “We can’t do that to Ffrewgí. He isn’t of our tribe, and he did escape.”
“But we can bring him in, can’t we?” returns Wyddryr. “And then help him leave when my father is well.”
Ashrille turns to Ffrewgí. “How long does your healing take?”
“I don’t know,” he replies. “Not long, though, I think.”
“We can use our gifts to help get you in and out. And Murchadh, you know the watches and ways to slip in and out without attracting attention, right?” Anwen looks at Murchadh expectantly.
“I suppose,” says Murchadh, feeling sick. “But the watches are likely to have changed since you escaped.” He is not happy with this. They will do anything to help Wyddryr, without addressing that he tried to kill Murchadh. They are just like everyone else. They only tolerate him because he is useful, not because they actually care about him. He loves them still, but as soon as they are safe somewhere, he will leave them. He does not want to wait around to be hurt again.
“Any of our gifts can provide a distraction,” Anwen is saying. “It just depends on what sort we want.”
“What sort of things can you make appear?” Ashrille asks Ainsley.
“Anything, really,” says Ainsley with a shrug.
“A fire is always a good lure,” suggests Murchadh.
“True,” Ashrille agrees. “And that way we wouldn’t actually be doing damage to anything. Right?”
Ainsley does not look up from his whittling. “Not sure.”
Murchadh hopes it does do damage. The Gwaedwn deserve it, for the pain they have caused. He dwells on his anger and confusion as the others change tack and decide to start a real fire at the latrine building. Ainsley will disguise Ffrewgí and Wyddryr as Gwaedwn, and they will sneak into the village.
“The rest of us can wait at the edge of the woods in case anything goes wrong,” says Murchadh after the planning is done.
“This evening, then?” Ashrille asks.
It is agreed, and the circle dissolves to rest, plan, or gather: Murchadh asks Anwen to accompany him foraging. He needs to speak to her alone.
“Thanks for coming to get us. How are you doing?” Murchadh says, trying hard to hide the loneliness he is feeling.
“I'm doing alright.” She looks over at him. “I'm really glad Ffrewgí found you.”
Murchadh nods. It hurts to look at and listen to her. She sounds so genuine, but he cannot trust her intentions anymore. After this is all done and she is home safe, he will probably just fade out of her life. Not from cruelty or meanness, but just because he is less important. His gut aches. This is going to be hard; how can he keep from being disappointed and hurt again? All he knows is that he needs to help them. “How are the rest doing?”
“They're okay, I think,” Anwen answers. “They were pretty nervous about coming back.”
“They should be. It is not the safest thing.” He pauses. He needs to make sure Anwen, at least, understands the danger. “Especially with Wyddryr in the group.” Anwen looks at him with concern on her face and he elaborates, “He’s not bad per say, but can’t think straight. Things don’t go his way? Well, kill the person who seems to not be doing what he wants. So, if Ffrewgí can’t heal his father … I think it would be a good idea if someone checked up on him.” He intentionally downplays how serious he regards Wyddryr’s risk, as the others seem more loyal to him than to Murchadh.
“I'll make sure Ffrewgí is okay,” responds Anwen seriously. “And I'll make sure he gets out of the village, too. I'll blow down every tent if I have to.”
Murchadh hopes that will be enough. She seems to have taken his warning to heart. “Thanks.” He rubs his eyes, and when he takes away his hand he notices there is moisture on it. Is he starting to cry? What is going on? He takes a deep breath. “I don't know what I would do if either of you didn't get out.” Despite himself, his concern is deeply honest. He reaches out and touches Anwen’s shoulder, then suddenly turns away and crouches by a bush or sorrel. He is confused: where is all this sentimentality coming from? For a long time he has only felt fear, annoyance, hot anger, and cold hatred. Why this---why now---why here?
The two gather silently for a while. Anwen speaks again first. “Um, Murchadh?” she asks. “Do you have a flint I could borrow? For starting the fire.”
Murchadh is relieved to be asked something practical. “Oh right,” he says casually, “you will probably need that.”
“Thanks,” says Anwen with a smile. “I told everyone I’d start the fire, then I realized I didn’t have any way to start it.”
Murchadh feels uncomfortably warm under that smile and turns away. “I didn’t know if that was part of what you could do,” he says. Memories flood him, sensations of air rushing past his face. “It must be amazing … can you fly? I love the feeling if flying … I miss it.” Murchadh begins to fade out of reality. The neidraig flies using magic, like Anwen would. His unbidden memories are bittersweet, and he kneels back down and plants his mind in the ground of this world, pressing his hands into damp loam to pluck stems of sorrel.
“I can fly,” responds Anwen. “Well, I flew across the river, but I could probably go farther...” Murchadh looks up when she asks, “You've flown before?”
Battling confusion and conflicted memories, Murchadh responds without thinking. “Yes. When I dream … well, it is not really a dream, I cross the veil and have a different body there. I used to have a friend there who would have me ride on his back while he flew. I’d also jump on the back of winged enemies, and when they took off to try and kill me—well, I would get a different type of ride. But still fun.” A smile fades from his face as he comes back to himself, shocked at his openness. “But now,” he adds soberly, “I am not sure if I can ever fly again.”
“Why not?” Anwen asks softly.
“He hid knowledge from me,” answers Murchadh, “that if I kept spending every night in that realm my body on this side would fade to a ghost.” He punches the ground staring into nothingness with burning eyes. The hurt of betrayal wells up within him. He knows the neidraig is immortal while he is just a breath on the wind---but had been called a friend! A friend would not have treated him like that, yet Murchadh cannot help but still think fondly of his golden companion. “I was needed:” he continues heavily, “my friend’s rival, a giant winged cat, and its followers, were slowly winning a battle—until I came. I could drive them back without fear. If I had known what would happen—well, then I wouldn’t have been there as much. My life and presence here is a sacrifice my friend was willing to make, so I left. He is not happy.”
Anwen’s hands are still; she is turned away from her bunch of sorrel. “You're not going back?”
“Not until you are home safe.” And Symbre is neutralized, Murchadh adds silently. “And I have no idea what the reception will be. I do know I will not trust anything there for a while.” He pauses. “It will be hard. There I am whole: unmaimed and unstoppable. Here, I am weak and a liability most of the time. And the neidraig won’t trust me not to leave him again.”
“You’re staying here because of us,” observes Anwen.
“Well, yeah—why else would I stay?” says Murchadh bitterly. “I have a purpose there. Here? Well, until recently, I was barely alive, and usually just to spite those who said I should die or that I was useless.”
Murchadh is overwhelmed by her sincerity, but cannot trust it. Can he? He certainly wants to. He turns back to his gathering.
“I’m glad you’re not fading away,” adds Anwen a while later.
“Me too,” Murchadh says, and he means it. Despite everything, he still hopes to one day matter to someone. Properly. “I am not quite ready to leave this plane yet,” he adds, and for the first time in years the statement is true.
“It's hard being here, though, isn't it?” Anwen says softly.
“Yes, very hard. I long to be whole—without pain. To be normal and not scorned.” Murchadh stares sadly at nothing, wondering if Ffrewgí could really heal him.
“I haven’t even thought about your arm or your leg in ages. That doesn’t matter to me!” declares Anwen suddenly in a strong voice. “I care about you. You're my friend. And I'm glad you're here.”
Can she actually mean that? It seems so, but the real question is, can he trust that she will not slowly forget about him once she is safe? “You're the first person that's said that since my father died,” he tells her. Anwen regards him silently, emotion welling up in her eyes. Murchadh turns away. “If people ever seem friendly, it’s just because I’m useful to them. As soon as I’m not useful anymore, they try to get rid of me. Like my golden friend, Symbre, Wyddryr, and those in any place I travelled through.”
“That must be really lonely,” says Anwen.
Murchadh inclines his head, struggling for calm and control. A losing battle.
Anwen breaks the silence with a quiet voice. “I lost my father, too. He disappeared more than two years ago, and he never came back.”
Murchadh reaches out to her, literally and figuratively. “It is rough isn't it?” he asks, placing his hand on her shoulder. He knows the pain. He wishes she could know how deeply he knows it.
Anwen nods, tears in her eyes.
It does not take much longer to gather all the sorrel, and with it they have a decent harvest. They travel back to the others in silence, for which Murchadh is thankful. He is feeling raw, vulnerable, and uncertain. As soon as he deposits his foraging, he finds a place away from the others, lies down, and sleeps.
* * *
In the early morning, Murchadh seeks out Wyddryr. He finds him sitting against a log beyond the kids’ little camp, fidgeting anxiously. Murchadh waits for the boy to notice him.
“Why are you here?” Wyddryr asks, not looking up from his hands. “To demand an apology?”
“No,” says Murchadh. Then, “Do you and Ashrille wish to stay with the Gwaedwn?”
Wyddryr looks up at him. “Yes.”
Murchadh nods. “Then there are two things you need to figure out.” He holds up a finger. “One, how is Ashrille going to get back into the camp? That was not discussed. Two,” Murchadh holds up a second finger, “what story will you tell to explain away your father’s healing without casting suspicion on the escaped captives having received the creature’s blood?
“Ashrille and I have already talked about the first,” says Wyddryr. “Can I not just say that my father got better on his own? And why do you suddenly care?”
Murchadh frowns. “I care about my family. And do you really think that Symbre will just accept that your father ‘just got better’? No, she will see the truth in it and will hunt us.” Murchadh is sure that Anwen and the others would be able to use their gifts and their training to evade capture, but it would not be easy. Murchadh continues, “You owe it to them to do everything to make this as easy on them as possible. They are risking their very freedom to save your father. They do not need to; it is purely out of mercy and care for you and your father. They owe you nothing, but they are still helping.” Murchadh raises a hand to stop Wyddryr from responding. “Trust me, they’re not doing it because they feel they owe you. They are giving you a special gift . . . and I am jealous.” He looks intently at Wyddryr. “I want you to return the favour.”
“How can we remove the suspicion?” asks Wyddryr, compliant.
Ashrille comes up behind Murchadh; she has been hovering there for a while. “We could say we were successful in our hunt,” she says. “At least, partly. We could say the creature blessed a few berries just for his father.”
“But then,” starts Wyddryr, looking at Murchadh, “how come you are not returning to the Gwaedwn with us?”
“I tried to take the berries for myself, so you killed me and rolled me into the river,” Murchadh says. There is a pregnant pause. Wyddryr’s mouth opens to speak, but Murchadh cuts him off. “It’s always easier to sell a story with some truth to it. You did try to kill me and I will be running off with the ‘berries’.” He nods back to the other children.
“I’m---” starts Wyddryr.
“Don’t worry,” interrupts Murchadh, “I’m not holding a grudge.” He does not want to hear a false apology. He has heard enough lies from the neidraig and the Gwaedwn.
Ashrille and Wyddryr agree to the berries story. Murchadh leaves them feeling like he has done what he can, hoping it will be enough. He believes that Ashrille will carry out the plan, but as he turns away from Wyddryr, the skin between his shoulder-blades tingles; he has no faith in the blue-eyed boy.
* * *
It is evening, and the group’s plan is now in motion. Disguised by Ainsley’s gift, Wyddryr and Ffrewgí appearing as brutish wanderers head off for the village. There is an uneasy knot in the pit of Murchadh’s stomach. Nothing ever goes as planned. Something is going to go wrong. He runs over the possible scenarios in his mind.
With the others, he moves to the southern foot of the village, where he offers to keep watch at the treeline, where he slips into his archer’s brace. Bow in hand, he watches as a column of black smoke grows from the latrine house, where Anwen has started the fire. Murchadh’s gut twists as he listens to the activity in the encampment. Trusting his intuition, he leaves to monitor the fire, leaving word with Cydwag for the others. “If I’m not with you when Ffrewgí and Anwen return, tell Ffrewgí to leave me instructions by the cave. He’ll know which one,” he says in response to her raised eyebrow. “If you are able to wait, I will meet you there.
When Murchadh arrives at the other side of the village, the Gwaedwn have nearly put out the fire and Anwen is nowhere to be seen. She must have gone into the encampment to warn Ffrewgí.
“. . . not a natural fire,” Murchadh hears Fuldryn say across the distance. “ . . . search the . . . nothing else suspicious . . .” He hears enough. They will search the place and find them. Murchadh needs to buy them more time, if only by drawing some hands away from the search.
But Wyddryr and Ashrille’s story has him dead . . . He will have to risk it. He moves closer to the edge of the woods and steps on a dry twig. He is confident he can stay out of sight. He curses loudly for the benefit of the Gwaedwn, throwing disguising gravel into his voice.
Máerl’s deep voice barks out an order. Murchadh waits only until he sees her begin to move towards him before snapping a branch back from a nearby tree for added measure and slipping into the woods. They took the bait. Now, the game is on, and Murchadh just hopes he pulls enough of them away from searching the camp.
The forest is evening-dark, and Murchadh sees torches in his periphery as he looks back. They will require the light to track, which will be to his benefit, as their eyes will not be adjusted to the darkness through which he moves, almost as comfortable as he would be during the day. He has done this many times before.
Occasionally, he breaks a twig and mutters a curse to continue stringing them along.
It is the dead of night when a unique opportunity presents itself. Murchadh hears it first: a body rushing rashly through dense growth. Whoever it is, they are frustrated and leaving their companions behind. Murchadh snaps a twig to direct their heedless charge and pulls back an arrow. He hesitates when the fletching brushes his cheek. What if he kills the Gwaedwn? Murchadh searches for the reason for his unfamiliar conscience and the face of Anwen comes up before him, shaking her head “No”. Murchadh growls, but holds his shot until he can see the oncoming hunter clearly. It is Máerl. Luckily she is a large target and holding her torch ahead of her. She does not see the arrow coming, though Murchadh is only a dozen paces from her and leaves his cover to aim.
His arrow goes where he directed it, and Máerl falls back a few steps, grabbing at the shaft in her shoulder and letting loose a roar. As she sweeps her torch back and forth in front of her, Murchadh slips away in a new direction.
From a new vantage point, Murchadh watches Asgell, Ungant, and two other Gwaedwn join Máerl’s torchlight, adding their own light until the whole space is hotly bright.
Máerl snaps the haft of the arrow from her shoulder. “They’re playing with us,” she growls, staring into the darkness where Murchadh had been.
“They are proficient in woodcraft,” says Asgell. “We are at a disadvantage in the dark. You will be no help here,” she says to Máerl. “You should return with Geran and Breaca; see if anything has been discovered in the village. I will send Ungant back at daybreak with the trail.”
Máerl concedes the wisdom of the plan and follows Geran and Breaca whence they came. Even when the light of their torches has disappeared through the trees, Asgell makes no move to continue her pursuit. Instead, she looks out generally into the darkness. “I know it is you, Murchadh.”
Murchadh does not respond, but he is not surprised.
Asgell tosses a stick to the ground. “Broken by hand.” She moves a few paces forward and brushes a patch of moss. “You cannot disguise that you favour your right leg.” She turns around slowly. “I am unarmed. Ungant is, too. Will you speak to us?”
“You taught me well, teacher,” says Murchadh from the darkness. He has an arrow nocked on his string.
“Obviously too well,” says Asgell with a wry smile, fixing Murchadh’s location. “I assume you have met up with the others.”
“Yes, on our return to the village.”
“And your hunt?”
“We found the creature,” says Murchadh, “though only on its terms. It gave Wyddryr a handful of blessed berries when Wyddryr begged it for his father’s life.”
“That’s it?” says Ungant incredulously.
“Why the merry chase?” asks Asgell.
“I was a distraction to allow Wyddryr to sneak into the village with the berries. We knew Symbre would claim them as her own, so planned for it.”
“And you will rejoin the others, or do you wish to remain a Gwaedwn?”
“Wyddryr and Ashrille will remain,” explains Murchadh, “but I do not trust Symbre and the pact. I will join the others shortly and see them to safety.”
Asgell reties her hair in its familiar tight bun. “I see.”
“Wyddryr and Ashrille will tell of my death,” Murchadh says. “Let their story be true. Wyddryr did try to kill me on our hunt.”
“Is Anwen safe?” asks Ungant.
“Yes,” says Murchadh. “Safe and free.”
“That is good enough for me,” Ungant responds. He rolls his shoulders back and turns to Asgell. “Shall we return with the bad news?”
Asgell peers cuttingly into the darkness around Murchadh, then relaxes with a tight smile. “Yes,” she says. “So regrettable, that we lost the trail. In the morning, we shall send our search parties north to take it up again.”
This last was said for Murchadh’s benefit. He thanks her silently. Out loud, he calls, “Tell my cousin not to worry. I still guard the skies. May the gods smile on you.”
“And on you,” Asgell murmurs, then turns and follows Ungant into the trees.
Murchadh is not going to take any chances. He treads carefully onward until he reaches the river, which he travels down for a ways before turning back to dry ground and the south, setting his feet towards the cave, where he hopes to find his peers by dawn.
“If they want to find us, then let them! But unless we want the Gwaedwn---the adult Gwaedwn---to find us, we need to keep going.”
Ffrewgí returns from relieving himself to a familiar argument. Anwen and Cydwag have been butting heads since the group woke up tucked under the cover of a giant rotting tree. Ffrewgí is unsure which side to take. An emptiness that is not hunger in his gut tells him he would regret leaving the missing children behind, but Cydwag’s arguments resonate in his mind. They are not safe. Even this morning Ainsley had heard the sounds of a search party when he went to forage a quick breakfast. Soon enough, the Gwaedwn’s search will have extended to cover the whole circumference of the village a half day’s-journey out. If Ffrewgí and the others are not out of the area before then, they will be recaptured.
But what if Ashrille, Wyddryr, and Murchadh return to the village? What if they were just out hunting, or were escaping themselves? Ffrewgí cannot comprehend why Murchadh would leave the rest of them---in fact, why any of them would want to escape is beyond him, as they all took the oath. But still---maybe. Maybe they would return to the Gwaedwn and feel betrayed and abandoned.
“I think we should at least see if they’ve returned,” he says aloud. Anwen and Cydwag look at him; he had cut them off, though lost in his own mind he had not heard what they were saying. Ffrewgí continues, “If we leave without . . . Well, if we leave without knowing for sure---knowing why they left, or whether they intended to return---if we---” He is struggling to form his gut instinct into words and starts anew. “We should check the encampment. Before the search circle reaches all around it and we lose our chance. Maybe they have returned, maybe not, but at least we tried.”
“And we can check for tracks!” says Anwen eagerly. “Maybe we can find where they went when they left!”
Cydwag starts to argue, but Heulwen pipes up first. “I think that's a good idea. We were all captured, once. We all lived in those pits. We trained together. We should try.”
Cydwag lets her argument go in a sigh. “Fine. But if we find nothing, we need to leave the area.”
“But if there are tracks---” starts Anwen hotly.
“If there are tracks,” returns Cydwag. “A big if---then we can discuss what to do when we find them. But we need to do this quickly if we’re to do it at all.”
The children look to one another, and resolve is firm in each line of mouth and bright eye. Ffrewgí’s heart is hammering.
Cydwag takes control of the plan quickly. “We should all circle around to the west. They’ll be searching from the grazing fields where we were seen first. I’ll take the risk from there---I’ll get near the village and check for signs of the others.”
“I’m going with you,” announces Anwen. Perhaps she does not trust Cydwag’s eye to see what it does not wish to see.
Cydwag clenches her jaw, then relaxes it. “Good. You can make sure we remain downwind, right?”
Anwen nods.
“Good. The rest of you will remain in a hiding place and wait for our report. But for now,” Cydwag begins rustling fresh fallen leaves over the compressed bed under the tree, “let’s do our bests not to leave a trail and make our way west.”
The children fall into activity. Heulwen gives the area a last look-over with her new sense and tells the others she will follow up the group as they move to remove their trail in a ground made dangerous by a rain that had just ceased to fall.
“I’ll lead,” volunteers Ffrewgí. “Make sure we don’t run into anyone.”
Cydwag joins him up front, and the group sets off, traveling circuitously north- and westwards. Traveling with extreme care, the trek---hardly half a day’s-journey in distance---takes them until the depths of evening, when a fresh rain sends them searching for shelter both from the rain and any prying eyes. Heulwen and Anwen provide a dinner of wet tubers and mushrooms.
Still better fare than the cornbread and sparrow, thinks Ffrewgí, though he misses the dense satisfaction of the former in his stomach. Anwen approaches him as they prepare to sleep for the night.
“Ffrewgí,” she begins, “I was thinking about what Cydwag said, that there's not likely to be any tracks. And I was wondering if you … well, you trained with Murchadh, and you know more about tracking than any of the rest of us. If there is anything to find---any tracks or signs of them---I think you'd be more likely to find it than I would.”
Ffrewgí is not sure how to respond, but nods. Anwen gives him a relieved smile, then turns to her own nighttime preparations, leaving Ffrewgí alone. To avoid his apprehensions about the coming morning, he looks over at Ainsley. The boy is silent, lost in his own thoughts. Ffrewgí wonders if he regrets escaping with them. He can still see the white line on his palm where the Gwaedwn blade had cut.
Cydwag approaches him. “Anwen tells me you’re coming with me tomorrow.”
Ffrewgí inclines his head.
“We should figure out our approach.”
“I can be lookout,” says Ffrewgí. “I can sense if anyone is coming near.”
Cydwag tugs on a lock of dirty red hair. “Good, that’ll be helpful.”
She pulls him aside, and as the wan light of the sun grows saturated and then finally disappears, they talk over their plans for the morrow.
Later, Heulwen’s whisper slips into Ffrewgí’s dozing ear.
“We’re making the right choice, right?”
Ffrewgí blinks himself into fuller wakefulness and considers the question, the same one he has been struggling with all day. “I think so,” he says. “Even if we’re caught . . . I’d regret being captured, but I don’t think I’d regret making this choice.”
“Me neither,” responds Heulwen after a moment.
“Why didn’t you take the pact?”
Heulwen does not respond. Ffrewgí turns his head and catches a tiny glimmer in her eyes---all that he can see of her in the deep autumn night.
“Sorry,” Ffrewgí says.
“Because that would have meant accepting it,” whispers Heulwen suddenly. “Accepting my captivity.”
Her answer unlocks Ffrewgí’s own understanding and he feels agreement well up like relief in his throat.
“It would have said, ‘This was okay’. And it wasn’t. It isn’t.”
Ffrewgí feels emotion block his throat. “Yeah.”
A long moment passes. The rush of rain fills it. “Do you think they’ll just capture more kids?”
Ffrewgí closes his eyes and feels moisture run down his temples, picking up the tiny drops of misted rain that decorate his skin and then disappearing in his hair. “We can’t just look for the others,” he says in a choking whisper. “We have to stop them, don’t we?” He feels a small hand fit into his hand and squeeze: the only answer Ffrewgí can bear.
Rain leads him into a sleep dense with incomprehensible dreams.
* * *
He is awake before Cydwag touches his shoulder, but her cold fingers still give him a shock. He follows her from their shelter, adjusting his uncomfortably damp pants as he stands outside it. The fallen tree, enhanced by a thatch of evergreen boughs, had kept out the falling rain, but the creeping wetness was impossible to avoid, and he had woken up in a puddle. The dampness embraces his entirety as he stretches; the rain turned into a dense morning fog.
Cydwag nods towards the village and Ffrewgí follows as she slips into the grey. He follows her heartbeat more than her shape, which appears and disappears in coils and walls of fog as they press onward. Soon---too soon---he can sense the living warmth of the Gwaedwn in the distance. He and Cydwag come together before Ffrewgí sets off, slowly, in the lead. Their plan is to probe the border of the encampment searching for either a sign of their missing companions or, if not that and as a last resort, then a safe avenue inside. Ffrewgí silently thanks the fog as he creeps forward. His bare feet are no longer sensitive to the cold softness of moss or the rough bark of exposed roots.
Suddenly, he stops. Just beyond a slight rise, wrapped in the roots of a tangle of cedars, he senses a fresh wound and the signature of three people. He looks over his shoulder and sees Cydwag’s alarmed eyes looking at him for an explanation. He holds up three fingers and gestures towards the cedars.
Cydwag flexes her fingers on the thick shaft of a makeshift spear she had rubbed a semblance of a point onto last night and takes the lead.
“They’re heading in the direction of the village,” Ffrewgí whispers as she passes, his voice dull in the dense air. Cydwag nods and moves up the hillock in a crouch, her feet pressing silently from root to root. She stops partially behind the ribbed bark of a tree, her gaze fixed ahead and her muscles taut. As Ffrewgí approaches low and peers into the fog, he sees why: heading at some speed toward the village are Ashrille, Murchadh, and Wyddryr. Murchadh is a distance ahead of the others, a bandage wrapped around his head stained red at the chin.
Ffrewgí looks at Cydwag, who gestures with her head for Ffrewgí to take the lead. The expressions on Murchadh’s and Wyddryr’s faces cause him to hesitate, but he calls Anwen to mind and pushes through his apprehensions and gives a low whistle. Murchadh immediately locates the source of the noise and, without waiting for his companions or signaling them in any way, adjusts his course up the small hill and approaches Ffrewgí and Cydwag.
“What are you doing out here?” he asks quietly.
Ffrewgí and Cydwag step out from behind the trees as Ashrille and Wyddryr come up behind Murchadh.
Ffrewgí flicks his eyes to Cydwag, whose face is stony. “Looking for you, actually,” he says.
Murchadh looks in the direction of the village. “You’ve escaped,” he says matter-of-factly.
Cydwag levels a suspicious look at Murchadh and the others and slowly circles behind Ffrewgí, cutting off their path to the village without attempting to be subtle about it. “Why did you leave the village yourselves?” she asks.
Ashrille looks quickly at Wyddryr.
“Our business is our own,” he says shortly.
“Hunting the creature,” says Murchadh over him. He shrugs and looks back at the pale-eyed boy, a manner of frustration obvious in his eyes. “If you want their help, there will be no secrets.”
“You were unsuccessful?”
Murchadh looks at Cydwag. “In a manner of speaking.”
Wyddryr steps up close to Murchadh and speaks sharp and low. “We don’t have time for this. You said your friends could help him.”
“Keep your distance,” says Murchadh coldly. “They’ll help if they want to help.”
“What are you talking about?” asks Ffrewgí.
Murchadh and Wyddryr share a look. Murchadh shifts his gaze to Ffrewgí. “His father is dying. We went out on the hunt to collect the creature’s gift to heal him, but there was no way we’d have caught it, because they meant to kill it, and the creature only gives its gifts to those pure of heart.”
Ffrewgí cannot help but look over at Cydwag, in whose eyes a fire is burning. “Then,” he starts, looking back at Murchadh and the others, “none of you had a dream or vision from the creature?”
“I have lots of dreams and visions,” replies Murchadh.
Wyddryr pushes in front of Murchadh, whose face glows red as he stumbles back. “Have you got a gift? If the creature gave you its blood, you need to come with us.”
“I---” starts Ffrewgí, then stops. “How do you know it gave us gifts?”
Murchadh is limping up the hill into the cedars. “Come on,” he says, “take me to the others. I’ll explain on the way.”
“Hold on!” cries Wyddryr. “We’ve got to get to my father with the cure!”
“We don’t know what form the gifts took, Wyddryr!” responds Murchadh angrily. “And since the others have escaped, I don’t think there will be a welcome party set out for us. We left at just the wrong time on your hunt.”
Wyddryr is about to respond when Ashrille and Cydwag both take steps forward. Ashrille’s step is more direct; she strides between Murchadh and Wyddryr and faces Wyddryr fiercely. “Wyddryr, your father will be alright for another day. Murchadh’s right, even if he’s being blunt. We’re suspect now, likely lumped in with the others. Let’s meet up with them and make a plan.”
There is a tense moment of silence. Cydwag breaks it, striding up after Murchadh and overtaking him. “Come on then,” she says, “let’s not waste words where they might be overheard.”
Ffrewgí follows quickly behind her, not wanting to be left between Wyddryr and Ashrille.
They make short work of the journey back to the fallen tree and the other former captives. Anwen’s face visibly relaxes as she sees them all arrive. Heulwen smiles at Ashrille, who sits down heavily next to her, keeping her eye on Wyddryr. Ainsley hardly looks up from his seat, a pile of wood shavings by his feet revealing his morning’s activity.
“Okay,” says Cydwag without formality, “it’s time for you to tell your tale.” She casts her spear to the ground and sits next to it on a mossy log.
“Of course,” says Murchadh, “but you’ll all need to share yours as well.”
“Okay,” says Anwen.
Murchadh struggles to begin, but eventually settles into a rhythm. He tells them that Wyddryr had begged him for help in hunting the creature, desperate to harvest the creature’s blood to heal his father. Their hunt was unsuccessful, though Murchadh tells them that he believes they encountered the creature. He does not elaborate, and ends, looking sharply at Wyddryr, by saying, “and he finally admits to being a plant from the beginning, to spy on us.”
Anwen gasps, and even Ainsley looks up in surprise.
“That’s not the whole---”
Murchadh sends a withering glare towards Wyddryr. “I’m not finished. Keep your blade sheathed.”
Ashrille stands and gestures to Wyddryr. “Let’s gather something to eat.”
Wyddryr flares his nostrils and gazes hotly at Murchadh, but follows as Ashrille moves off.
“Don’t start on your side of the story until we’re back,” she says over her shoulder.
Murchadh visibly relaxes as the pair disappears. “Wyddryr was a slave with his father and they were rescued by Logain on a recruiting mission. I’m not sure why. His father is deathly ill, though, so he recruited me to help him hunt down the creature.”
“Why not wait until another official hunt is organized?”
Murchadh shrugs at Cydwag. “Because a third hunt wasn’t going to happen.”
“They were going to kill us?” asks Anwen.
“Probably just keep you as slaves, and those that took the pact as just a step above,” explains Murchadh. “They are already planning another set of recruitment raids.”
“So what happened on your hunt?” asks Ffrewgí. He wonders whether Murchadh’s resentment toward Wyddryr is founded in his deception. He is surprised to find that he hardly feels affected by what should have been a shocking reveal. A spy or no, Wyddryr has had to suffer the same training and imprisonment as them all.
“We found the creature,” continues Murchadh, “though I can’t remember what it was. I almost remember an image of Archora . . .”
“That’s what I saw!” exclaims Cydwag.
Murchadh looks knowingly at the redheaded girl. “You meant to kill it, too, didn’t you?”
Cydwag shrugs. “I guess so. Didn’t we all?”
Ffrewgí finds himself unconsciously shaking his head. Anwen speaks for them both: “No,” she says quietly. “When I encountered it, it was . . . it was so beautiful. So innocent. I couldn’t have---I couldn’t have even wanted to kill it, when I saw it.”
“But I didn’t even see it,” says Cydwag. “I just . . . well, I don’t remember what I did see, but it wasn’t any sort of creature.”
“It’s a magical being,” explains Murchadh, “it can appear to us as it wills. And if you’re not pure of intention and heart, then you won’t see it.”
Ffrewgí looks across at Anwen, whose eyes are full of the same remembrance that floods his own mind’s eye: a soft light, an incredible voice.
Heulwen prompts Murchadh to continue.
“When that idea occurred to me,” he says, “I knew that the creature won’t give its gift unwillingly, but that it must have given it to one---or some---of you. Ffrewgí, you mentioned a dream. Anwen, you met it. This is the end of my story; tell me yours.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for Ashrille and Wyddryr?” asks Heulwen.
“Hold on,” cuts in Cydwag. “If you didn’t meet the creature, how’d you get injured? I know you enough to know you aren’t careless in the woods.”
“Right,” says Murchadh with a sour look on his face. He gestures to his chin. “Wyddryr gave me this nice mark on my chin because I couldn’t drag the creature from the dream world. If I hadn’t moved, it would have been my neck.”
“Ffrewgí!” says Anwen eagerly, “can’t you take a look at it? You could heal him!”
Ffrewgí starts. “I---I guess so, if you want me to, Murchadh.”
“You were given the blood?” asks Murchadh. “Or something with the power to heal?”
Ffrewgí shakes his head. “There was no blood. Just . . . just a gift. I can sense things and---and I can change them. Bodies, skin, veins.”
“Were you the only one?”
“The---the only one like that,” says Ffrewgí.
Anwen interjects, “We should wait until the others are back to tell our whole story.”
Ffrewgí pushes himself to his feet and moves over to Murchadh. “Here,” he says, “let me take a look at your wound.” Murchadh unwinds the bandage and Ffrewgí looks at the angry cut on the boy’s chin. Ffrewgí closes his eyes and reaches out with his new sense, feeling the torn skin and the severed blood vessels, taking them delicately and weaving them all back together.
The little camp is silent when he returns to himself. Murchadh’s eyes are wide. “Amazing,” he says, running his fingers along his unmarked chin. “Not even a scratch left.” Suddenly he seems energized. “Do you think you could fix my back? It hurts all the time. Or, maybe, make my arm whole?” A bashful look grows on his face. “Sorry,” he mumbles, “just thinking out loud. Forget that.”
Ffrewgí does not know how to respond. Luckily, Ashrille and Wyddryr arrive from the woods at that moment. Ashrille tosses a berry-laden branch into the middle of the kids’ little circle. “Not sure what breakfast you’ve all had, but we found an elderberry bush.” She gives a wry smile as Ffrewgí gingerly picks up the fruit-heavy branch. “I figured it’d be quicker than picking them all conventionally.”
Ffrewgí runs his hand down one of the twiggy ends and collects a handful of berries, then passes the branch across the circle to Cydwag. The overripe berries leave dark stains on the palms of his hands.
Ashrille and Wyddryr sit down together. Ashrille cocks her head at Murchadh. “Your chin is looking . . . remarkably healed.”
Ffrewgí swallows a sweet berry. “That was me. I---” he looks around the circle, “I was visited by the creature and received the gift of healing.”
Wyddryr leans forward intensely.
“I can make things appear,” says Ainsley quietly. A snake slips from around the rock he is sitting on, coils into a perfect spiral, then vanishes. A chip of wood replaces it on the loam as Ainsley returns to his carving.
Heulwen and Anwen chime in with their new abilities. As they do, Ffrewgí is uncomfortably aware of Wyddryr’s eyes upon him. Anwen’s demonstrative breeze disappears, the fog creeping back into the clear air it leaves behind, and Wyddryr speaks in the ensuing silence, still looking directly at Ffrewgí.
“My father is in the village. He is dying, and you have the ability to heal him. Will you help me?”
Ffrewgí swallows. How could he say no?
“We can’t just traipse back into the village,” says Cydwag with a twist of her lip.
Wyddryr stands, his fists clenched. “Then what do you suggest?”
“I suggest you figure it out yourself, spy,” snarls Cydwag.
Wyddryr steps toward her, growling. “What could I have told them that they didn’t already know? Was I treated any better than you? Did I eat lamb while you fed on sparrow and cornbread?” Ashrille stands up behind him, a hand half-raised. Wyddryr wipes his eyes with the back of hand and when he looks up his eyes are glowing with tears. “My father is dying.” He turns and shares a look with Ashrille, and then they both sit back down. “We were slaves the same as you,” he says in a voice hoarse with tears.
“We’ll need a plan,” says Ffrewgí in the following silence. “If you can sneak me in, maybe.”
“Or we sneak your father out,” suggests Anwen.
“I’m a Gwaedwn,” whispers Wyddryr. He looks desperately at Ashrille. “Can’t I return? I can explain it . . .”
“We can’t do that to Ffrewgí,” says Ashrille softly. “He isn’t of our tribe, and he did escape.”
“But we can bring him in, can’t we? And then help him leave when my father is well.”
Ashrille sends Ffrewgí a questioning look. He presses his lips together and shrugs. “How long does your healing take?” she asks.
“We can use our gifts to help get you in and out,” says Anwen. Heulwen nods beside her. “And Murchadh, you know the watches and ways to slip in and out without attracting attention, right?”
Murchadh shrugs noncommittally. “I suppose. But the watches are likely to have changed since you escaped.”
Anwen shoots him a reproving glare. Ffrewgí, too, wonders at his new aggression, remembering how helpful he had been during the first days of their training. It cannot only be that Wyddryr attacked him---and Ffrewgí starts to wonder whether Murchadh had told that story properly.
“Any of our gifts can provide a distraction,” offers Anwen. “It just depends on what sort we want.”
“What sort of things can you make appear?”
Ainsley shrugs at Ashrille. “Anything, really.”
“A fire is always a good lure,” volunteers Murchadh.
“True,” Ashrille agrees. “And that way we wouldn’t actually be doing damage to anything---” she turns back to Ainsley and cocks her head. “Right?”
“Not sure.”
Ffrewgí suddenly gets a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “But,” he starts, “if they discover the fire isn’t real, won’t they suspect---? They’ll think we’re nearby, and have the creature’s blood.”
Sober looks fall around the circle.
“We could start a real fire,” suggests Heulwen quietly. She speaks up as eyes turn quickly towards her. “Not something too dramatic, but enough to draw attention. And then, Ainsley . . . could you disguise Ffrewgí and Wyddryr?”
“We could burn the latrine house,” says Cydwag. “It’s made of wood, so it’ll be dramatic, but it’s far enough away from the tents that there’s low risk.”
Ainsley waits for her to finish, then says, “I can give disguises.”
“I’ll start the fire.” Anwen clenches her jaw. “I can make sure it burns by feeding it air.”
“The rest of us can wait at the edge of the woods,” says Murchadh. “In case anything goes wrong.”
Ffrewgí looks across the circle at Wyddryr, who is regarding him with wide eyes full of an obvious tumult of emotions. Ffrewgí looks away. The plan made, silence falls over the group.
“This evening, then?” asks Ashrille.
There is quiet assent.
*
“Are you sure I look different?” Wyddryr lifts his arms and looks over them.
Ffrewgí looks at his own body and wonders the same.
“If I hadn’t seen your shape disappear and this one take its place,” marvels Cydwag, “I’d think you were never there at all.”
“We look like Gwaedwn?” asks Ffrewgí.
Ainsley shrugs. “I just made you into dirty-looking hunters.”
Cydwag gives a dry laugh.
Ffrewgí looks over at the disguised Wyddryr. The pale boy has become a weathered adult with dark, shaggy hair, dressed in rough leathers. “What about me?” he asks, looking down at his pale, shirtless body.
“You look like you could arm-wrestle Máerl,” says Ashrille wryly, and the children in the circle all nod their agreement.
“We’ll just have to trust them,” says Wyddryr. “Come on. We’ve wasted enough time.” He turns abruptly and leads his little troupe into the darkness of the woods, Ffrewgí and Anwen following his furred shoulders.
Despite their disguises, they approach the village using all the skills of woodcraft at their disposal. Near the edge of the woods, they split up, Ffrewgí and Wyddryr going one direction and Anwen the other, straight for the lavatory hut to start the fire. Ffrewgí’s stomach knots as he watches her go, but he is hardly given a moment’s glimpse before Wyddryr is hustling him along.
“We need to get around the field,” he says. “Remember? We don’t want to enter the village right beside the fire.”
Ffrewgí nods and follows.
From across the field, they watch as a column of smoke grows from a tendril over the latrine. Ffrewgí hopes Anwen is already vanished back into the forest. As a hubbub grows in the Gwaedwn encampment, the two boys, trembling in their incorporeal disguises, slip in and head for the tent holding Wyddryr’s father.
They are rounding the corner to its front when they hear the thump of a hand pushing open the stiff flap, and Logain steps into the evening air. Ffrewgí and Wyddryr hold their breath, but the large Gwaedwn’s attention is drawn to the smoke, and he sets off towards it.
The boys slip into the tent. The air inside is thick with herbal incense and unlit. It takes Ffrewgí’s eyes a few moments to adjust to the darkness, and even when they do he sees only the grey silhouette of Wyddryr bent over the shape of a raised bed.
Wyddryr is whispering over the bed, “Father, I’m here.”
Visually, Ffrewgí can barely make out the man’s shape, but with his creature-gift he observes every detail. The man’s lungs are filled with foul liquid, and Ffrewgí knows that his body is hardly fighting it anymore. His breath is hardly audible in the dense silence, and his lungs draw in nothing but a whisper with each intake.
Wyddryr’s eyes are glowing with tears as he turns his face up to Ffrewgí. “Well?” he says in a choking voice, the demand broken in his throat.
“I’ll try,” is all that Ffrewgí can say. He kneels on the packed dirt beside his companion and reaches out with his gift. He is lost for a moment among the branches and webs of Wyddryr’s father’s lungs, then withdraws with a gasp.
Wyddryr is looking at him with desperate expectation in his eyes. “Is he---” he starts.
Ffrewgí shakes his head. “There’s water in his lungs,” he says. “I can take hold of his muscles, help him breathe, but I don’t know how to expel the water without choking him.”
Wyddryr is stupefied in despair. Eventually, he whispers, “There’s nothing . . . There’s nothing you can do?”
Ffrewgí feels the heaviness in the space. He cannot do anything but shake his head, and another silence falls.
Too silent, and then there are footsteps right outside the tent, and Fuldryn’s voice. “. . . wasn’t natural; couldn’t have been, in this weather.” A rasping voice replies, “Who do you think started it? Someone expressing frustration about the failure of the hunts?” The clap of a tent flap cuts off Fuldryn’s response.
The fire must already be dealt with. Ffrewgí and Wyddryr look at each other, their own survival pushing out other thoughts. It had not lasted long enough for them to slip out. And---
“You look like you,” says Ffrewgí hoarsely.
Wyddryr’s wide blue eyes are fixed on Ffrewgí, telling him the same thing.
“What do we do?” asks Ffrewgí.
Wyddryr turns back to his father. His words come out too choked to mean anything, and he remains turned as tears begin to glimmer on his cheeks.
Ffrewgí is searching for something to say when he hears light footsteps outside the tent. They stop by the door, and he hears the faint sound of a hand against the flap. In his panic, he forgets his new sense until the last moment, and so the sensation of clear air accompanies the familiar feel of a friend as Anwen slips into the tent’s dark interior.
“Ffrewgí?”
“I’m here,” he replies.
Anwen comes nearer the bed. “They have the fire under control now;” she explains, “I don’t think it will distract them much longer. Are you finished?”
“Nothing’s worked,” says Ffrewgí softly. “Wyddryr’s father has water in his lungs, and I can’t think of any way to . . .” He trails off, a coolness still creeping over his skin from the air Anwen let in from outside, an idea crackling alongside it. “Do you think you can give him air?” he asks excitedly. “While I draw out the water, can you feed in breath?”
Anwen takes in the scene at a glance and responds with a firm nod. “I can do that. Can we get a bit of light?” she asks. “It would make it . . . feel easier.”
Wyddryr, his hands trembling, lifts up a bowl from beneath the bed. He tries to form words to explain, but does not find his voice. Instead, he brings the bowl up to his mouth and blows upon it gently. A faint orange glow rises from it, along with a fresh tendril of pungent smoke. “It’s gonna smell,” he says in a cracking voice, something almost like a smile appearing on his face for a breath. He deposits a handful of leaves upon the coal and breathes upon the bowl again. This time a few tongues of flame come to life, and the tent is dimly illuminated in dark orange.
Anwen gasps and freezes, but collects herself in a moment, moving towards the bed with purpose that dissuades Ffrewgí from asking for the reason of her reaction. She looks at him and he nods. They both turn towards the person on the bed, the warmth of the orange light belying the illness Ffrewgí feels in the cells as he reaches into the body.
There is a scare at first, when Ffrewgí’s water forcing upwards reaches the throat and hits Anwen’s air coming down. Wyddryr’s father’s diaphragm suddenly fights panicked for air, his body shaking on the bed. Delicately, Ffrewgí and Anwen navigate their substances past each other’s, and a dribble of liquid traces down the patient’s cheek as his chest rises with a breath. Ffrewgí continues to pull up the liquid and the man continues to breathe Anwen’s air. The harsh smoke of the burning coal becomes welcome as the sickly smell of the pus collects in the closed environment, though Ffrewgí only vaguely notices it. When the lungs are as clear as he can make them, he withdraws with a shiver, and coughs.
Wyddryr is wiping the liquid from his father’s face. He looks up at Ffrewgí and Anwen, and Ffrewgí nods. Wyddryr’s father breathes with an easy rhythm. Wyddryr turns back to him and puts a shaking hand on his breast. Ffrewgí steps back, not wanting to loom over the private moment.
“Thank you,” chokes Wyddryr through tears.
Anwen suddenly steps backward as well, colliding with Ffrewgí. She spins to face him, her eyes wide and pale blue, even in the smoky light.
“Are you okay?” Anwen does not respond. A sudden noise from outside the tent reminds Ffrewgí of their peril. “We need to go. Now.”
“Yes,” says Anwen weakly, “yes, we should go.” Her eyes drop, avoiding his. “You go on ahead. If we go one at a time it will . . . be safer.” She takes a step away from him. “I’ll come soon.” Her eyes find his again. “Please, go on. I’ll come as soon as I can.”
There is something behind her eyes that is not connected to their escape from the Gwaedwn village, but in the fore is raw desperation. Ffrewgí reluctantly accedes to it, and moves to the tent flap. He listens at it for a moment before turning back to Anwen, who is still gazing his way with wide blue eyes. Then, hearing nothing outside, he slips out low to the ground.
Night has fallen and the avenues of the village are empty. Ffrewgí can see the orange of the central fire flickering on the sides of tents a distance from him, and sets off at a crouch in the opposite direction.
He reaches the trees without drawing notice, and waits behind a thick trunk for Anwen, his heart hammering at his ribs. An interminable amount of time seems to pass and Anwen does not show. At first, Ffrewgí credits the sensation of ages passing to his anxiety, but eventually he has to concede that something is not right. Perhaps Anwen has had to adjust her exit path and is waiting for him elsewhere along the forest’s fringe. Perhaps she has already returned to the others.
Ffrewgí shakes his head. He must have just missed her entering the woods a few trees from him; they had agreed to leave the village traveling south, away from the fire. He slips through the trees to the west, then returns and travels to the east. No Anwen.
The night is silent. If she had been caught, he would have heard her cry out. Something is not right; Ffrewgí has been feeling it since Anwen had entered the sick tent. Why had she asked him to leave? The village is asleep; they could have made it out together, and it was unlike her to send him away. Ffrewgí wipes a sheen of cold sweat from his forehead and leaves the cover of the trees, his bare feet making no noise upon the packed dirt of the village paths.
A Gwaedwn staggering from her tent, eyes bleary with sleep, is all that Ffrewgí needs to avoid on his way back to the sick tent. The glow of the fire down the way has faded. Hearing voices from that direction, he does not hesitate but pushes through the flap---
And nearly butts into the unmistakable untreated furs on Logain’s lower back. Ffrewgí is frozen in fear as the giant man turns slowly around.
Anwen is suddenly before him. “Ffrewgí!” she cries, and takes his hand. Unresisting, Ffrewgí is pulled deeper into the tent. “This is my father,” she says, gesturing to the man, now sitting on the bed. Then, to the man, “Father, this is Ffrewgí. He’s the one who healed you.”
Wyddryr’s father. Anwen’s father? Ffrewgí looks from Anwen to Wyddryr, still kneeling by the bed, his hands around one of his father’s. Their father’s. The man rises to his feet.
“I’m glad to meet you, Ffrewgí. Thanks for the cure; it’s nice to be back in the land of the living.”
Not sure what he---and Logain---had been told, Ffrewgí does not know what to say. Finally, he forces out, “I couldn’t have done it without Anwen.”
The man places a hand on Anwen’s shoulder and looks past Ffrewgí to Logain. “I believe my life is indebted to a lot of different people.”
Anwen steps away from her father and joins Ffrewgí facing him. “Father, I really missed you. And it has been wonderful to see you again. But---” her voice wavers, then grows stronger, “my friends are in danger here, and they are waiting for me.”
“Of course,” her father responds, smiling. “You want to make sure your friends are okay.”
Ffrewgí feels Anwen’s fingers pry open his hand and slip into it. “I’m leaving, Father,” she says. “This is the place where Alaric died, and where my friends and I were slaves. I can't stay here. I want to go home. But I think that you and Wyddryr will be happy here. And I . . .” her voice trembles, “I hope that I can see you again, someday.” Without waiting for a response, she turns away, pulling Ffrewgí towards the tent flap. She is pushing through it when Ffrewgí hears Logain’s deep rumble behind them.
“I will make sure they get out of the village safely.”
Ffrewgí does not want to wait for him to lead them. Tears are coursing down Anwen’s face. Ffrewgí still cannot wrap his mind around what went on in the tent, but he knows Anwen needs her friends, and needs to be out of the village. Without taking care for Gwaedwn who might be up and about, Ffrewgí, with an arm about the shaking form of Anwen, guides her to the forest and all the way back to the other children.
What happened to Murchadh? Anwen wakes with the question burned into her mind. It does not make sense—why would he disappear from the village like that? And why did he have to disappear just now? She did not get to say goodbye.
Her peers stir into wakefulness around her, silhouettes in the clammy darkness of their hiding place.
“I think—” Anwen speaks her thought aloud, “we should try to find the others, before we get too far away from the village.”
Cydwag looks around, a slight frown on her face. “Others?”
“Murchadh and Ashrille and Wyddryr. They were missing, remember?”
“Why does that matter? They’re part of the tribe now. They can be missing if they want to be.”
“It matters because they’re my friends, and I don’t want to just leave them.”
The expression on Cydwag’s face makes Anwen’s heart sink. The children forage a quick breakfast, but any attempt at discussing what to do next quickly devolves into an argument between Anwen and Cydwag.
“We need to get out of here,” Cydwag says, not for the first time. “It’s only a matter of time before one of their search parties finds us. And that will not end well.”
“I’m not leaving without saying goodbye.”
“Why? It’s not like they care. If they did, they wouldn’t have disappeared without saying anything.”
“They do care! Well, Murchadh does for sure, but I think the others do too. They’ve all been there for me before, and I don’t want to just disappear and leave them wondering what happened and whether they’ll ever see us again.”
“That’s exactly what they just did to us. And anyway, if they really care, they will be glad that we escaped while we could.”
“But what if they want to leave with us? We can’t just leave them behind. We need to find them!”
“If they want to find us, then let them! But unless we want the Gwaedwn—the adult Gwaedwn—to find us, we need to keep going.”
“But we should at least try to look for them.”
“Why are you being so infernally stubborn?”
Anwen feels her face get hot. That was what her mother used to say—every time Anwen refused to give up on her father.
“Because I care about something other than my own skin,” she snaps.
Cydwag’s eyes flash angrily. “Of all the—”
“I think we should at least see if they’ve returned,” Ffrewgí interrupts.
Startled, Anwen and Cydwag both turn to look at him.
“If we leave without … well, if we leave without knowing for sure—knowing why they left, or whether they intended to return—if we—” Ffrewgí stammers, stops, then begins again with more confidence. “We should check the encampment. Before the search circle reaches all around it and we lose our chance. Maybe they have returned, maybe not, but at least we tried.”
“And we can look for tracks!” Anwen adds eagerly. “Maybe we can find where they went when they left!”
Cydwag opens her mouth to protest, but is interrupted by Heulwen’s soft voice. “I think that’s a good idea. We were all captured, once. We all lived in those pits. We trained together. We should try.”
Cydwag sighs. “Fine. But if we find nothing, we need to leave the area.”
“But if there are tracks—” Anwen interjects quickly.
“If there are tracks,” Cydwag retorts, “a big if—then we can discuss what to do when we find them. But we need to do this quickly if we’re to do it at all.”
The others agree.
Cydwag quickly takes charge. “We should all circle around to the west. They’ll be searching from the grazing fields where we were seen first. I’ll take the risk from there—I’ll get near the village and check for signs of the others.”
“I’m going with you,” Anwen says firmly. It is not a suggestion. Two sets of eyes will be better than one.
Cydwag glares at her for a moment, then decides not to argue. “Good. You can make sure we remain downwind, right?”
Anwen nods.
“Good. The rest of you will remain in a hiding place and wait for our report. But for now, let’s do our best not to leave a trail and make our way west.”
The children quickly remove any signs of their presence from their hiding place, and get ready to set out.
“I’ll follow last,” Heulwen offers, “and clear any tracks we leave behind.”
Ffrewgí nods. “I’ll lead. Make sure we don’t run into anyone.”
Silently, they set out on their course, to circle around to the far side of the village. Cydwag has joined Ffrewgí in leading the group, and Anwen watches them as the children make their slow, careful way through the forest. She is thankful that Ffrewgí spoke up in favour of going back for the others. Hopefully this works—Anwen is quite certain that Cydwag will not agree to trying again. But what if Murchadh and the others have not returned to the village? What is the likelihood of finding any trace of their passing? Not high. Murchadh is too skilled in the forest to leave an obvious trail. Anwen’s heart sinks. They only have one chance to find them—what if that one chance is not enough? She watches as Ffrewgí pauses to find the best way forward through a particularly tangled thicket of trees. He knows a lot about pathfinding. Of course—he trained as one of the guides. He trained with Murchadh! The seed of an idea forms in her mind as they continue on their trek.
By late evening, they have reached their destination, as nearly as they can tell. As they take shelter for the night, Anwen approaches Ffrewgí with a question. “Ffrewgí, I was thinking about what Cydwag said, that there’s not likely to be any tracks. And I was wondering if you … well, you trained with Murchadh, and you know more about tracking than any of the rest of us. If there is anything to find—any tracks or signs of them—I think you’d be more likely to find it than I would.”
Ffrewgí’s face pales, but he nods in agreement.
Anwen smiles her thanks, and goes to tell Cydwag about the change of plans. Their meagre meal of tubers and mushrooms does nothing to relieve the hollow feeling in her stomach. She is giving their one chance its best hope of succeeding, she is sure of that, but at the same time she feels uneasy—she is sending her friend to do the dangerous work of scouting, instead of doing it herself. She sleeps fitfully that night.
Anwen is awake when, in the damp fog of early morning, Ffrewgí and Cydwag slip out of their shelter and set out for the Gwaedwn village. As their footsteps recede into the distance, the silence seems quieter.
Time drags by slowly. The fog lightens, but does not disperse. Anwen and Heulwen forage a little. Finally, they just settle in to wait. Heulwen curls up on the moss. Ainsley sits and whittles a piece of wood. Anwen fidgets with a small twig, rubbing it back and forth between her hands until it is worn smooth. With nothing to think about or do, her anxiety grows and grows. What if something goes wrong? Will Ffrewgí and Cydwag be okay? Maybe Cydwag was right all along and they should have escaped while they still could.
Anwen looks over at the others. Heulwen is asleep, breathing softly, her damp curls clinging to her forehead. Ainsley is focused on his work.
“Are you okay with what we’re doing?” Anwen asks, desperate to break the silence.
Ainsley’s hand pauses. “Honestly, I’m not really sure. Half the time, I’m not even sure what I’m doing.”
“I was so sure this was the right thing to do, but … what if something happens? What if Ffrewgí and Cydwag don’t come back? What if we get captured again? It would be my fault.”
Ainsley shakes his head. “Cydwag and Ffrewgí, they … they know what they’re doing.”
Anwen nods and bites her lip. Ainsley is right. She needs to trust in Ffrewgí and Cydwag. What is done is done, and everyone agreed on the plan. Well, everyone who had spoken agreed on the plan … but not everyone had spoken.
“I’m sorry we didn’t try to find out what you wanted—when we were deciding what to do. That wasn’t right.”
Ainsley shrugs. “It’s alright. I’m just glad to be with you all.”
Anwen smiles. “I’m glad you’re here, too.”
“Thank you,” Ainsley mutters awkwardly.
Anwen watches as Ainsley continues carving the wooden figurine in his hand. Beside them, Heulwen continues to breathe peacefully. Anwen, too, is glad to be here with them. All of them—Ainsley, Heulwen, Ffrewgí, even Cydwag, have come to mean so much to her. But she has risked the safety of these friends, because she cares about Murchadh and the others, too. Why did valuing her friendship with some mean risking her friendship with others? If, in the end, they had not agreed to try searching, what would she have done? How could she have stood up for some of her friends if it meant losing her friendship with the others?
Anwen’s breath catches as she realizes that is exactly what she had done at home. She had been so determined to stand up for her father that she had completely lost her relationship with her mother, and endangered her relationship with her sister. Tears come to Anwen’s eyes as she realizes how badly she wants to go home—not to stand on the crags overlooking the sea, or to watch for her father’s ship to return, but to see her mother and her sister again.
A shaving of wood lands at her feet and she looks over at Ainsley. From what he had told her before, it did not sound like he had any sort of home to return to. Without thinking, Anwen speaks her thought aloud. “Do you know what you want to do, when all this is over?”
Ainsley stops carving and sits silently for a moment. “I … haven’t really thought about it.”
Struck by a sudden thought, Anwen offers, “You’re always welcome to come to my village, if you want.”
“Oh …” Ainsley seems taken aback. “I guess I could, yeah. I’ll think about it.”
Anwen nods. “I guess it could be a while yet, depending on what Cydwag and Ffrewgí find …” Clouds of worry starts to gather in her mind again.
“They’ll be fine,” Ainsley says, responding to her unspoken thought.
“Thanks,” Anwen says quietly, and silence descends once again.
Anwen, Ainsley, and Heulwen are sitting in silence when, some time later, a distant rustling tells them that something is approaching. They glance at each other nervously as the sounds grow nearer, but it is Ffrewgí and Cydwag who step out of the fog, and with them is Murchadh, Ashrille, and Wyddryr. Relief sweeps over Anwen. Not only have her friends returned safely, they were successful! Now she can be free to return home without carrying that burden.
“Okay,” Cydwag says, turning to Murchadh, “it’s time for you to tell your tale.”
“Of course,” Murchadh replies, “but you’ll all need to share yours as well.”
“Okay,” Anwen agrees readily.
Murchadh has a bandage wrapped around his head, but Anwen does not notice any other signs of injury. She listens intently as Murchadh explains that Wyddryr had begged him to help them hunt the creature, seeking its blood to heal Wyddryr’s father who is deathly ill. “And he finally admits to being a plant from the beginning, to spy on us,” he adds wryly.
Anwen looks at Wyddryr sharply, remembering the mistrust that she and Alaric had felt toward him during the first part of their hunt. So he was a spy of the Gwaedwn all that time. But she had also felt like they came to trust and care about each other during the trials that had followed. Had all of that been an act?
Raised voices return Anwen’s attention to the conversation. Ashrille and Wyddryr stand and walk away.
“Don’t start on your side of the story until we’re back,” Ashrille calls over her shoulder as they disappear from view.
Murchadh turns to the others and continues his story, “Wyddryr was a slave with his father and they were rescued by Logain on a recruiting mission. I’m not sure why. His father is deathly ill, though, so he recruited me to help him hunt down the creature.”
“Why not wait until another official hunt is organized?” Cydwag asks.
Murchadh shrugs. “Because a third hunt wasn’t going to happen.”
Anwen’s eyes widen. “They were going to kill us?”
“Probably just keep you as slaves, and those that took the pact as just a step above. They are already planning another set of recruitment raids.”
Anwen’s heart sinks. More recruitment raids? How could she go home knowing other children were going to face what they had endured?
“So what happened on your hunt?” Ffrewgí asks Murchadh.
“We found the creature, though I can’t remember what it was. I almost remember an image of Archora …”
“That’s what I saw!” Cydwag says.
Murchadh turns to look at her. “You meant to kill it, too, didn’t you?”
“I guess so. Didn’t we all?”
“No,” Anwen says quietly. “When I encountered it, it was … it was so beautiful. So innocent. I couldn’t have—I couldn’t have even wanted to kill it, when I saw it.” She glances around at Ffrewgí, Heulwen, and Ainsley, knowing they experienced the creature in the same way she had.
As Murchadh explains what he has learned of the creature, Anwen begins to understand—the quest of the Gwaedwn is futile. The creature’s gift cannot be taken by force. Instead, it only reveals itself to those who are pure in intentions and heart.
“Hold on!” Cydwag’s voice cuts through Anwen’s reflections. Cydwag is looking shrewdly at Murchadh. “If you didn’t meet the creature, how’d you get injured? I know you enough to know you aren’t careless in the woods.”
“Right,” Murchadh says, gesturing to his chin. “Wyddryr gave me this nice mark on my chin because I couldn’t drag the creature from the dream world. If I hadn’t moved, it would have been my neck.”
Anwen’s eyes widen. Wyddryr tried to kill Murchadh? “Ffrewgí!” she says, turning towards him, “can’t you take a look at it? You could heal him!”
“I—I guess so,” Ffrewgí stammers, “if you want me to, Murchadh.”
“You were given the blood?” Murchadh asks eagerly. “Or something with the power to heal?”
Ffrewgí shakes his head. “There was no blood. Just … just a gift. I can sense things and—and I can change them. Bodies, skin, veins.”
“Were you the only one?”
“The—the only one like that,” says Ffrewgí.
“We should wait until the others are back to tell our whole story,” Anwen adds, remembering Ashrille’s parting comment.
Ffrewgí moves over to Murchadh. “Here, let me take a look at your wound.”
Anwen watches with fascination as Ffrewgí uses his magic to heal the wound on Murchadh’s chin. She knew he could do it, but watching the flesh come together and repair itself before her eyes is incredible.
“Amazing,” Murchadh says, after Ffrewgí has finished. “Not even a scratch left.” His eyes light up. “Do you think you could fix my back? It hurts all the time. Or, maybe, make my arm whole?” He catches himself and looks down. “Sorry,” he mumbles, “just thinking out loud. Forget that.”
Just then, Ashrille and Wyddryr return. Ashrille carries a berry-laden branch from an elderberry bush, which she offers to the other children. Then she looks at Murchadh keenly. “Your chin is looking … remarkably healed.”
Ffrewgí speaks, “That was me. I—I was visited by the creature and received the gift of healing.” He looks around the circle, and Anwen’s eyes follow his gaze. They are all here together—all of the children who were captured, except for Alaric and the girl who ran away. Somehow having the remaining children all in one place again makes Alaric’s loss that much more bitter.
Anwen realizes that both Ainsley and Heulwen have demonstrated their new gifts. “I can control the wind,” she adds, causing a wind to circle around the group, rushing up into the sky and blowing back the fog. A circle of blue sky appears above their heads and a beam of sunlight shines down, illuminating Wyddryr. The way he is staring at Ffrewgí makes Anwen nervous.
As the sunlight fades and the fog closes back in around them, Wyddryr speaks, still staring intently at Ffrewgí. “My father is in the village. He is dying, and you have the ability to heal him. Will you help me?”
“We can’t just traipse back into the village,” Cydwag cuts in before Ffrewgí can respond.
Wyddryr stands and clenches his fists. “Then what do you suggest?”
“I suggest you figure it out yourself, spy,” snarls Cydwag.
“What could I have told them that they didn’t already know? Was I treated any better than you? Did I eat lamb while you fed on sparrow and cornbread?” Ashrille stands as if to intervene, but Wyddryr’s voice breaks and his eyes glimmer with tears. “My father is dying,” he says brokenly, and sits down again. “We were slaves the same as you.”
Silence falls over the group.
“We’ll need a plan,” Ffrewgí says softly. “If you can sneak me in, maybe.”
“Or we sneak your father out,” Anwen suggests.
“I’m a Gwaedwn,” Wyddryr whispers, looking at Ashrille. “Can’t I return? I can explain it …”
“We can’t do that to Ffrewgí,” Ashrille says gently. “He isn’t of our tribe, and he did escape.”
“But we can bring him in, can’t we? And then help him leave when my father is well.”
Ashrille turns to Ffrewgí. “How long does your healing take?”
“I don’t know. Not long, though, I think.”
“We can use our gifts to help get you in and out,” Anwen suggests. “And Murchadh, you know the watches and ways to slip in and out without attracting attention, right?”
Murchadh shrugs. “I suppose. But the watches are likely to have changed since you escaped.”
Anwen deflates. “Oh. But any of our gifts can provide a distraction,” she adds hopefully. “It just depends on what sort we want.”
Ashrille turns to Ainsley. “What sort of things can you make appear?”
Ainsley shrugs. “Anything, really.”
“A fire is always a good lure,” Murchadh offers.
“True,” Ashrille agrees. “And that way we wouldn’t actually be doing damage to anything—” she looks back over at Ainsley. “Right?”
“Not sure.”
“But if they discover the fire isn’t real, won’t they suspect—?” Ffrewgí interjects, a worried look on his face. “They’ll think we’re nearby, and have the creature’s blood.”
“We could start a real fire,” Heulwen suggests timidly. “Not something too dramatic, but enough to draw attention. And then, Ainsley … could you disguise Ffrewgí and Wyddryr?”
“We could burn the latrine house,” Cydwag adds. “It’s made of wood, so it’ll be dramatic, but it’s far enough away from the tents that there’s low risk.”
“I can give disguises,” Ainsley agrees.
“I’ll start the fire.” Anwen offers. “I can make sure it burns by feeding it air.”
Murchadh nods. “The rest of us can wait at the edge of the woods, in case anything goes wrong.”
Anwen glances over at Ffrewgí with a grim look in her eyes. He will get out of the village safely, she will see to that. If any Gwaedwn so much as touches him, it will not just be the latrine that is burning down.
Since there are still several movements until dusk, the children disperse to rest while they can. Murchadh asks Anwen if she could go foraging with him. Anwen is happy to oblige.
“Thanks for coming to get us,” Murchadh says, after they have walked for a while in silence. “How are you doing?”
“I’m doing alright. I’m really glad Ffrewgí found you.”
Murchadh nods. “How are the rest doing?”
“They’re okay, I think. They were pretty nervous about coming back.”
“They should be. It is not the safest thing.” He pauses, then adds in a low voice, “Especially with Wyddryr in the equation.”
Anwen glances over at Murchadh, who sees the question in her eyes.
“He’s not bad per say, but can’t think straight. Things don’t go his way? Well, kill the person who seems to not be doing what he wants. So, if Ffrewgí can’t heal his father . . . I think it would be a good idea if someone checked up on him.”
Anwen nods. “I’ll make sure Ffrewgí is okay. And I’ll make sure he gets out of the village, too. I’ll blow down every tent if I have to.”
“Thanks.” Murchadh draws a deep breath, then adds in a quiet voice, “I don’t know what I would do if either of you didn’t get out.” He places his hand on Anwen’s shoulder for a moment, then turns quickly away to investigate a small plant growing by his feet.
Anwen watches him thoughtfully. She has never heard Murchadh sound nervous like that before. He has always seemed so … confident, always sure of himself. Maybe underneath all of that he is just as unsure and afraid as the rest of them.
In a small clearing they find a few scattered patches of wild sorrel. As Anwen works, she thinks through the plan for that night. “Um, Murchadh? Do you have a flint I could borrow? For starting the fire.”
“Oh right, you will probably need that.” Murchadh gets back to his feet and pulls a flint out of his bag.
“Thanks.” Anwen grins. “I told everyone I’d start the fire, then I realized I didn’t have any way to start it.”
“I didn’t know if that was part of what you could do.” Murchadh smiles. “It must be amazing … can you fly? I love the feeling if flying … I miss it.” The smile fades from his face and he turns away, kneeling by another patch of sorrel.
Anwen watches him work. “I can fly. Well, I flew across the river, but I could probably go farther.” Her voice grows gentle. “You’ve flown before?”
“Yes.” Murchadh’s eyes become absent. “When I dream … well, it is not really a dream, I cross the veil and have a different body there. I used to have a friend there who would have me ride on his back while he flew.” He smiles. “I’d also jump on the back of winged enemies, and when they took off to try and kill me---well, I would get a different type of ride. But still fun.” The smile fades from his face. “But now I am not sure if I can ever fly again.”
“Why not?”
“He hid knowledge from me, that if I kept spending every night in that realm my body on this side would fade to a ghost.” Murchadh slams his fist into the dirt. He stares at the ground with burning eyes. “I was needed: my friend’s rival, a giant winged cat, and its followers, were slowly winning a battle---until I came. I could drive them back without fear. If I had known what would happen---well, then I wouldn’t have been there as much. My life and presence here is a sacrifice my friend was willing to make, so I left. He is not happy.”
“You’re not going back?”
“Not until you are home safe. And I have no idea what the reception will be. I do know I will not trust anything there for a while.” Muchadh takes a trembling breath. “It will be hard. There I am whole: unmaimed and unstoppable. Here, I am weak and a liability most of the time. And the Neidraig won’t trust me not to leave him again.”
Anwen looks at him thoughtfully. “You’re staying here because of us.”
“Well, yeah---why else would I stay? I have a purpose there. Here? Well, until recently, I was barely alive, and usually just to spite those who said I should die or that I was useless.”
“Murchadh …” Anwen waits until he looks up at her. “Thank you.”
Murchadh looks down awkwardly. Anwen kneels beside him and helps harvest the sorrel.
“I’m glad you’re not fading away,” she adds after a while.
“Me too. I am not quite ready to leave this plane yet.”
“It’s hard being here, though, isn’t it?”
“Yes, very hard,” Murchadh says quietly. “I long to be whole---without pain. To be normal and not scorned.” His shoulders sag. His withered arm hangs limp at his side.
“I haven’t even thought about your arm or your leg in ages,” Anwen says earnestly. “That doesn’t matter to me! I care about you. You’re my friend. And I’m glad you’re here.”
Murchadh is silent for a moment, then says quietly, “You’re the first person that’s said that since my father died.”
Anwen watches Murchadh with tears in her eyes, seeing for a moment what he had always kept hidden—that he really is just a kid: tired and lonely and scared, left alone to find his way in a cruel world. No wonder he always keeps his guard up.
Murchadh sighs. “If people ever seem friendly, it’s just because I’m useful to them. As soon as I’m not useful anymore, they try to get rid of me. Like my golden friend, Symbre, Wyddryr, and those in any place I travelled through.”
“That must be really lonely.”
Murchadh nods. Silence descends over the forest.
“I lost my father, too.” Anwen says quietly. “He disappeared more than two years ago, and he never came back.”
Murchadh places a hand on her shoulder. “It is rough, isn’t it?”
Anwen nods. They finish their work in silence.
* * *
That evening after the light has faded from the sky, the children stealthily approach the village. Ainsley has cloaked Ffrewgí and Wyddryr with illusory disguises, making them appear as dirty-looking hunters—a common sight in the Gwaedwn village. Anwen does not need a disguise; after she lights the fire she will stay safely out of the way and feed the fire from a distance. The others will wait farther away, ready to cover their escape if something goes wrong.
As soon as the village is visible through the trees, they split up. Anwen heads straight for the latrine, moving as quietly and cautiously as she can. The latrine is set apart from the tents of the village, but is still too close for comfort. Anwen holds her breath as she tiptoes towards it and kneels in its shadow. Reaching into her pocket, she pulls out the flint and some dry tinder that she had collected. The tinder quickly catches fire. Anwen nurses the small flame until she is sure it will stay alight, then she carefully slips away, making sure not to step anywhere that would leave a footprint.
Anwen finds a sheltered place where she can see the latrine and watch the corner of the village where Ffrewgí should emerge. Steadying herself with a breath, she begins to feed air to the fire. Soon flames are lapping up the side of the latrine. A shout rises up from the village, then another.
“Fire!” someone calls. “Fire!”
Shadowy figures run from the village toward the latrine; the light from the flames flickers across their faces. Máerl. Ungant. Logain. Anwen swallows nervously, even though she knows they cannot see her. Soon a bucket chain is formed. Half of the latrine is in flames now, but it does not take long for the Gwaedwn to get the blaze under control. Anxiously, Anwen keeps glancing toward the village. Ffrewgí has not emerged yet, and soon the fire will be out. Abandoning her hiding place, Anwen sneaks toward the village. She had heard Wyddryr explaining to Ffrewgí which tent is his father’s. Slipping from shadow to shadow, she finds the tent, pushes the flap aside, and lets it fall into place behind her.
Stuffy darkness envelops her senses. “Ffrewgí?” she whispers cautiously.
“I’m here,” Ffrewgí’s voice replies. Anwen can see his dim outline—no longer disguised—as her eyes start to adjust to the darkness.
“They have the fire under control now,” she tells him in a low, urgent voice, “I don’t think it will distract them much longer. Are you finished?”
“Nothing’s worked,” Ffrewgí says softly. “Wyddryr’s father has water in his lungs, and I can’t think of any way to …” His eyes widen. “Do you think you can give him air?” he asks eagerly. “While I draw out the water, can you feed in breath?”
“I can do that,” Anwen agrees. She looks at the figure lying just beyond Ffrewgí, barely visible in the darkness. “Can we get a bit of light?” she adds, apologetically. “It would make it … feel easier.”
Wyddryr carefully lifts a bowl and blows on it. The orange glow of coals rises and fades. “It’s gonna smell,” he whispers as he puts a handful of dried leaves onto the coals and blows again. The leaves ignite, releasing a pungent odor into the air, and casting a dim, flickering light over Wyddryr’s tearstained face.
The light flickers over the man lying deathly still on the bed. Anwen turns to look at him, and freezes. She knows his face. That face that she had only seen in her dreams for two long years. This man, lying sick on this bed, is her father!
The world swims in Anwen’s vision as she tries to comprehend what she is seeing. “How—” she stammers, but can find no answer. Her father is here. Her father is here! Why is he here?! And her father is dying … she forces herself to look over at Wyddryr and Ffrewgí. They are staring at her. Unable to explain herself, she steps toward the bed. Ffrewgí steps forward with her and together they kneel beside the sick man. Anwen tries to still her trembling hands. Her father is dying, and they need to save him.
Gently, she guides a breath of air into his lungs. His chest rises and falls. Anwen nods to Ffrewgí and she feels him reaching out with his magic, into her father’s lungs. As Ffrewgí works, Anwen continues to give her father breath after breath. She watches as his muscles begin to relax—the expression of pain across his face fades away as a trickle of liquid traces down his cheek. Finally, she feels Ffrewgí withdraw his magic. Trembling, Anwen releases the air she had been feeding to her father. His chest rises and falls on its own—deep breaths in a peaceful sleep.
Anwen stares at her father, transfixed. Then she notices that Ffrewgí has stepped away and that Wyddryr is kneeling over the sleeping man, tears running down his face.
“Thank you,” he whispers brokenly.
Confusion clouds Anwen’s mind. Blindly, she stumbles back, bumping into Ffrewgí. She whirls to face him.
“Anwen, are you okay?” he asks, concern in his eyes.
Anwen opens her mouth, but no words come out.
A sound from outside the tent draws Ffrewgí’s attention. “We need to go. Now.”
Anwen’s mind clears enough to recognize the urgency in Ffrewgí’s voice. “Yes,” she stammers, “yes we should go.” But she knows that she cannot go. Not yet. “You go on ahead. If we go one at a time it will … be safer. I’ll come soon.” Ffrewgí needs to get out safely. She will be okay, as long as Ffrewgí gets out safely.
Ffrewgí does not look convinced.
“Please,” Anwen says desperately, “go on. I’ll come as soon as I can.”
Perhaps responding to the urgency in her voice, Ffrewgí relents. Moving carefully toward the doorway, he pauses, glances back at her, then slips out into the night.
Taking a shaky breath, Anwen turns back toward her father. He is awake, and he and Wyddryr are holding each other. Wyddryr is crying.
Anwen stands nervously, not sure what to do, but her father looks up and his blue eyes widen. “Anwen?”
Trembling, Anwen takes a tentative step forward, and is engulfed in her father’s embrace. Her father is here! Anwen can’t stop crying. Two years. Two long years of being told that he was dead, that he was never coming home.
“What are you doing here?”
Anwen looks up, sees the confusion in her father’s eyes. “What are you doing here?” she asks. A feeling of dread grows in her stomach. This does not make sense. She pulls out of her father’s embrace. “Why are you here?”
“What’s going on?”
Anwen turns to see Wyddryr staring at them incredulously.
Anwen’s father wraps an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Anwen,” he says turning back to her, “I’d like you to meet Wyddryr, your brother.”
Anwen and Wyddryr stare at each other in shock.
“What … how …?” Anwen stammers.
Her father reaches his other arm around her. “It seems like I have a story to tell.” He smiles at her. “Hear me out, then you can ask as many questions as you like.”
Anwen and Wyddryr exchange nervous glances. If anyone was to find her here … but she needs to know what is going on. She needs to know.
Anwen’s father begins his tale, explaining that, many years ago, he had fallen in love with two women from different tribes. Unable to choose between them, he sailed back and forth between their villages, visiting each of them in turn. Time passed, and each of the women had a child: Anwen and Wyddryr. He did his best to spend time with both his children and help provide for them and raise them. “Wyddryr knew about this,” he says, looking down at him. “It didn’t take long for his mother to figure out where I was going on my long journeys away from their village. They came to accept that, though, because I really did love and care about them---just like I love and care about you.” He kisses Anwen on the forehead. “But then one time I left to go visit Wyddryr and his mother, and I found their village burned to the ground—destroyed by raiders. I had to find out if they were still alive, so I tracked the raiding party and found that they had taken Wyddryr and his mother as slaves. That night, I tried to free them, but I was caught, and … well, that was the start of a really hard time for us. We were beaten and treated horribly. Wyddryr’s mother—she didn’t make it.” His voice breaks. “It was awful. And I knew that all that time, I had two little girls waiting for a daddy that never came back.” He holds Anwen tight. “But then, one day a traveller named Logain came to our captors’ village. He spoke with our masters, but he spoke with me, too, and was concerned about our situation. That night, he staged an escape, and somehow we managed to get away. He brought us here, to his village. But by that time my health was so broken that getting here was all I could do. Logain has been so kind, taking care of us, doing everything he can to help me recover—and that about brings us up to where we are now. Wouldn’t you agree, Logain?”
Anwen nearly jumps out of her skin. Standing right in front of them is Logain, as large and intimidating as ever. She shrinks back onto the bed, but Logain’s eye is not on her.
“Bevan, you are well.” Surprise and relief show on his scarred face.
“Yes.” Anwen’s father smiles. “I’m guessing that’s because of one or both of these wonderful children of mine, though how it happened is a story that still needs to be told.” He looks down at Anwen. “But first I want to know how in the world you came to find me here!”
Anwen stiffens and looks at Logain’s shadowy form. “I suggest you ask Logain about that,” she says coldly.
Logain leans forward. His voice rumbles, but his one good eye looks at her kindly. “I suggest you tell that story, Anwen. He asked for your story, not mine.”
“What if someone finds her here?” Wyddryr asks nervously.
Anwen shivers, glancing around the tent, but her eyes are drawn back to her father’s face. Speaking quickly, she tells him about the moonless night so long ago when the raiding party appeared in their village and kidnapped her. She tells him about the pit, her friends, and their training. As she speaks about the hunt, Wyddryr joins in, and together they tell their father about the flooding river, the terrifying fire monster, Alaric’s awful injuries, and their narrow escape. In a quiet voice, Anwen tells her father about Alaric, and the beautiful night with the dancing lights, and how much it hurt to watch him slowly die.
There are tears in her father’s eyes as he holds her close. “Oh Anwen,” he whispers, “you have been so brave. I am very proud of you. I am proud of both of you.” He draws Wyddryr into his embrace and holds them both.
A wave of peace washes over Anwen, followed by a sharp pang of loss. She looks up at her father and sees the look he exchanges with Logain. Somehow, she knows—he is happy here. Her father and Wyddryr have found a place to belong, here with the Gwaedwn. But Anwen cannot stay. She will never stay.
Her father smiles down at her. “What happened after that?”
Anwen blinks back her tears. Looking over at Wyddryr, she chooses her words carefully. “The creature we were hunting found me—me and my friends. It gave us what we needed to escape. But then Wyddryr asked us to help him, so we came back.” She looks up at her father. “I didn’t know that the person we came back to save was you.”
“I am very glad you came back.” Her father smiles and brushes her hair behind her ear.
The tent flap moves—Anwen freezes, but to her surprise it is Ffrewgí who slips cautiously into the tent. He stops short as he takes in the scene before him.
“Ffrewgí!” Anwen says quickly before anyone can do anything. She reaches out her hand toward him, then gestures to her father. “This is my father,” she says quietly. “Father, this is Ffrewgí. He’s the one who healed you.”
Ffrewgí looks from Anwen, to her father, to Wyddryr, and back. His mouth hangs open.
Anwen’s father rises to his feet with a smile. “I’m glad to meet you, Ffrewgí. Thanks for the cure; it’s nice to be back in the land of the living.”
Ffrewgí swallows nervously. “I couldn’t have done it without Anwen.”
Anwen’s father squeezes her shoulder and grins. “I believe my life is indebted to a lot of different people.” He looks over at Logain.
Anwen slips out from under her father’s arm and goes to stand beside Ffrewgí. “Father,” she says with a trembling voice, “I really missed you. And it has been wonderful to see you again. But my friends are in danger here, and they are waiting for me.”
Her father smiles. “Of course. You want to make sure your friends are okay.”
Anwen holds Ffrewgí’s hand to steady herself. “I’m leaving, father. I can’t stay here. My friends and I were slaves, and Alaric died, and I … I want to go home. But I think that you and Wyddryr will be happy here. And … I hope that I can see you again, someday.” With tears stinging her eyes, Anwen turns away.
Behind her, Logain’s voice rumbles, “I will make sure they get out of the village safely.”
Anwen can hardly see through the tears blurring her vision. Blindly, she follows Ffrewgí’s lead, holding tightly to his hand, out through the village, and into the woods beyond.
Murchadh sinks through familiar blackness that quickly materializes into the fields and hills beyond the veil. His golden friend is nowhere in sight. Confident that his friend will soon appear, Murchadh sets out at a brisk walk toward the nearest hill to gain a better view of the area.
Reaching the top of the hill, Murchadh scours the midday skies and soon spies a familiar serpentine shape above the horizon. With a grim smile on his face, he waits as the shape grows larger and nearer. Just a few breaths later, his golden friend alights gracefully just in front of him. Before Murchadh has a chance to open his mouth, the neidraig speaks. “There you are. I had hoped you would return before now. There is urgent business that needs our attention in the north. We must set out immediately.”
Murchadh is not distracted from his purpose. “I am here because I have a question to ask you. I have heard that it is not possible for someone to live on both sides of the veil but that, in the end, he must fade from one side or the other. Is this true?”
The neidraig looks at Murchadh with a guarded expression. “Who told you such a thing?”
“I am the one asking questions at the moment. Is it true or is it not?”
The creature looks at Murchadh for a long time before responding. “It is true.”
Murchadh raises one eyebrow. “Well, in that case . . .” The sunswept hills around him start to fade.
“What do you think you are doing?” His golden friend’s voice cuts through the air and the hills jolt back into focus again.
“Leaving,” Murchadh says simply.
“But I told you we have an urgent task before us. We must fly immediately.”
“I’m not staying here if that means fading away from the other side. That is where my family is, and they need me. Anyway, why should I stay here with you when you won’t even do me the courtesy of being honest with me about the repercussions of my coming here?”
“I have told you what you need to know when you need to know it. This does not need to concern you.”
“It concerns me a lot, if it dictates where I will spend the rest of my life! And I’d much rather spend that with friends who actually care about me instead of that which treats me like some mindless pawn!”
“This is your destiny, Murchadh. It’s in your blood. You are meant to be here with us.”
Murchadh’s anger boils over. “What if I don’t want to? What if I’m tired of being used and only told things when it’s meant to manipulate my behaviour? You’re no better than Symbre and the rest of her lot! I’m not going to be her pawn, and I’m not going to be yours, either! Goodbye!” Without giving his golden friend any time to respond, Murchadh throws himself into wakefulness. But instead of materializing into the shadows inside his tent, the swirling darkness becomes darker and heavier. He feels a force pulling at him, trying to prevent him from passing. Murchadh struggles against it, but the weight of exhaustion drags him deeper and deeper into darkness.
Suddenly, he feels a hand shaking his shoulder. He opens his eyes to see Wyddryr leaning over him.
Murchadh struggles to form words; shapeless sounds form but finally he manages to recover control of his tongue. “What is going on? Did someone die?”
Wyddryr, looking slightly surprised, whispers urgently, “No one yet. I need to speak to you quickly, and not here. Please come!”
“I just got back from my hunt. Can it wait?” Murchadh asks, now fully awake.
Wyddryr is confused. “This is your second night back.”
Murchadh wrinkles his brow and shakes his head. “But I just . . .” The creature’s warning echoes in his head: for verily our kind cannot dwell fully in two worlds at once. His dream with the neidraig must have held him within the dream realm for a whole day. To Wyddryr, he says, “Never mind. I will come.” He gets up and follows Wyddryr out of his tent.
It is a moonless night and a heavy fog hides the world and mutes all sound. They navigate by memory through the encampment. Once outside it, Murchadh follows Wyddryr through the woods a short distance until they enter a small natural grotto formed under a large fir tree. Under its branches they are hidden from all eyes. Ashrille is there and looks up when they enter.
Wyddryr speaks almost immediately. It is clear to Murchadh that Ashrille has already heard what he has to say. “Thank you for joining me. I—we need to go back out there. We need to catch the creature. We are so close; I know it. Ashrille, I know you’re with me; Murchadh, I’m sorry to ask it of you, but I know your skills, and we could use you. Your skills in the woods and … and in the dreams.” Wyddryr’s large eyes are filled with fear and hope.
Murchadh nods his head as he processes. “Why is this so urgent, and why are we meeting in secret to discuss this?”
“You were asleep all of yesterday,” Wyddryr explains. “Brân is here; he thought you were having a creature-dream, or something. They were going to wake you in the morning. Anyway,” he shakes his head, “I needed your help, so I waited—but I couldn’t wait any longer; I needed to wake you up before Brân got to you.”
Murchadh narrows his eyes slightly. “Why? What is so important that you need to go ahead of Brân and Symbre’s timing?”
Wyddryr looks at Ashrille, who shrugs imperceptibly. “Alright, well,” he says, turning back to Murchadh, “here it is—there’s no use hiding anymore. I wasn’t captured, Murchadh. My father—my father and I were slaves of a tribe to the southwest—doesn’t matter who they were. We were beaten, abused. The tribe made their living off a local quarry; we worked there day and night. The Gwaedwn—Logain, on a recruiting mission—he liberated us, all on his own. This was almost two years ago; seven or eight seasons, I think. He set a fire, burned down much of the village …” His haunted eyes flicker to the ground. “That’s how he got his scars, you know. Freeing us—freeing me.
“But my father became sick, awful sick. He’s dying. Logain has brought witches, mystics, but nothing has helped.” Wyddryr’s eyes burn as they turn back to Murchadh. “I need to kill the creature, Murchadh. I need its blood. For my father.”
Murchadh gives a short nod, processing slowly. His face does not change, but inside him emotion rages. He understands Wyddryr more now; they are quite alike. Murchadh would do anything for his father, even put up with abuse and pretend to be a slave. He would do more than that to save his father. He would betray the only tribe who accepted him---betray his saviours . . . Yes, Murchadh understands Wyddryr, and decides to do what he can to help him not go through life like he himself had: without a family. “You know, I don’t know why you hide your past,” Murchadh says, musing more to himself than to anyone else. If he had known sooner he would have helped more. “There is no shame or harm in it.” All the captives he knew would have helped. Anwen had lost her father, as well as Alaric.
“I wasn’t captured, Murchadh,” repeats Wyddryr. “I was planted among you. I was supposed to be a spy, to keep you in line. You think there’s no harm in that?”
“There’s no way the others would have helped him,” says Ashrille.
Murchadh pauses. “I will help you achieve the healing of your father,” he says. “I can probably help you find the creature.” But there is more Murchadh needs to know: “Why not get Symbre and Brân’s blessing? I can’t see why they would stop us. I have no great love for Symbre, but I have even less for the thought of being hunted by Asgell,” he adds with a smile.
Wyddryr’s eyes harden. “They’re not sending us out for a third hunt. We’ve failed them. In a couple days, recruitment missions will start heading out again. It’ll be spring before the hunt resumes and—” his voice breaks--- “and I don’t think my father has that long.”
Murchadh is stunned to silence. Fear for his friends fills him. His face must betray him, for Ashrille speaks reassuringly:
“Your friends won’t be killed.”
“They’re slaves, or members of the Gwaedwn,” says Wyddryr. “As long as they’re useful they’ll continue playing their roles.”
Murchadh releases a shaky breath. They will be safe; they will not be killed; he does not have to choose between them and Wyddryr. Maybe he can buy their freedom if he can bring back the blood or other gift of the creature. He looks piercingly at Wyddryr, studying the odd boy’s bright eyes. There are still things he needs to know. “Why did Logain free you and your father? I don’t imagine Symbre told him to; she doesn’t seem to have much compassion for slaves.”
Wyddryr replies with a shrug, “Because he is a good man.”
“That explains nothing,” responds Murchadh angrily. His thoughts---and frustration---is focused on Logain, on Symbre: on their refusal to let him into their motives. “I want to help you, but you can’t hide anything!” His head brushes a branch as he turns away from the others, and jewels of water rain down on his hot skin. He directs his eyes towards the village, off in the darkness, and fire burns in them. In a lower voice, he continues, “From what I have learned of the creature, everything matters: your history, your motives, your intent, who you associate with . . . You have to tell me.”
Wyddryr responds in anger. “What do you think I am hiding? Do you think I know every thought that crosses a man’s head? Logain came to the village, spent a day there with our masters, spoke with my father once or twice, and then in the night we woke up to fire and Logain telling us to run! Maybe he loves my father, maybe he just hated our masters. Ask him, not me!”
Murchadh realizes that he has misread his anger. He only feels compassion for him, it is the others who make his blood boil.
“Wyddryr …” Ashrille murmurs.
Wyddryr takes a deep breath. “I’ve told you everything I know. I’ve broken my trust with the Gwaedwn. Now, will you help me or not, because I have no more time to waste.”
Murchadh calms his voice. “I have told you, already, I will help you acquire what you need to heal your father. I just need to get my pack. It will only take a little while.” At their worried glances, Murchadh reassures them. “I will not be caught. I have passed unseen by the watchmen almost every morning since Alaric’s death.”
Ashrille looks at Wyddryr. There is a moment of silence. Finally, Wyddryr responds, “Thank you, Murchadh. We’ll be here.”
As he makes his silent way back to the encampment, Murchadh ponders what he has learned. He doubts the creature can be captured for Symbre’s purposes; from his research, he suspects it only grants its gifts on its own terms, to those who seek to help others.
Murchadh slips down the alleys of the village and ducks into his tent, where his gear is as he had left it after his hunt. As he gathers it up he continues reflecting on what he knows of the creature, and comes to suspect it has done everything for a purpose: in all the legends, it helps the helpless. If it exists---and his experience in the dream world assures him it must---then Murchadh, and Wyddryr and Ashrille and all the others, are just the kinds of people he knows it will help. Perhaps not directly through him, but through those innocent of bloodshed.
Murchadh exits his tent still deep in thought---so deep that he does not notice Asgell and Tyree until he nearly runs into them. Asgell takes him in at a glance: his resolved look, his pack and gear. She does not speak.
“I must go,” explains Murchadh. “I have dreamed of the creature. It has summoned me. I know its intentions. I know I will find it. Wyddryr and Ashrille travel with me. We are each of the Gwaedwn; we go hunt. There is no reason for concern.”
“Symbre will not let you go,” says Asgell. “You are Gwaedwn in name only.”
“And in blood!” cries Tyree.
Asgell continues without looking at the Gwaedwn warrior, “You are little more than children to our leader, without the freedoms of a blood-member.”
It is as Murchadh suspected. Yet, “I must go,” he says. “We must go.”
Now Asgell shares a look with Tyree. For a breath, Murchadh almost thinks he sees a flash of aggression flash across his cousin’s face. Then it resolves, and Asgell turns back to him. “We will not stop you. Be swift, and careful.”
Murchadh nods, flicks his eyes to Tyree’s, then turns and leaves. He slips into the shadow of the trees and is gone.
Before he reaches the hiding place under the fir, Wyddryr and Ashrille join his stride from the darkness.
“We couldn’t wait any longer,” Wyddryr explains. Murchadh nods in response. He draws his knife and cuts a branch from a nearby evergreen to use in obscuring their tracks, then gestures for Wyddryr to lead them north. His golden friend had said there was urgent business to the north; it was as good a direction to start out in as any.
As he sweeps their tracks, Murchadh keeps his eyes peeled in the darkness for any signs of their passage that cannot be brushed away; he straightens bent twigs and removes bruised foliage. But Wyddryr and Ashrille leave very little trail; they are as much one with the woods as any Murchadh has traveled with. Their going is slow during the night, but by morning Murchadh estimates they have put at least a quarter of a day’s-journey between them and the village. They had stopped covering tracks after following a creek upstream for a movement sometime in the pre-dawn. That had led them onto a rocky spine, which left no traces of their passage.
The company stops midmorning in a clearing. As rays of light dance through a mist that refuses to dissipate, Murchadh sits on a rock cushioned with moss and meditates, drawing in the spirit of the forest. It enters him, dwells within him. There is no question: he is a creature of the woods again. He is home. He feels the life of the forest flow around him, ebbing and flowing in noise and scent and touch.
For a moment, his golden friend is before him. It is pierced through by black arrows that turn into smoke as Murchadh’s eyes move past them. The neidraig cries out as the fine black particles hiss about its scales, but Murchadh knows that the gritty smoke is not dangerous. The golden creature is trying to lure him into the dream-world, but---
“Why didn’t you help me?” cries the neidraig. It throws back its head and the scales of its throat suddenly burst from the flesh, shatter in the air, and fall about Murchadh as a shimmering mist.
“Leave me be,” Murchadh declares. “I have made my choice.”
“This world is still within you!” says the golden neidraig, its voice a barrage of images and power. Murchadh looks down at his chest to see the beast’s claws pierce his clothes, sink in---but he does not feel their pain, and banishes their image with an angry growl.
“I have made my choice!” he cries, and wakes up to the startled faces of Wyddryr and Ashrille, who have turned to look at him from their relaxed places upon the grass of the woodland clearing.
“A creature-dream?” asks Wyddryr.
Murchadh does not respond. He can tell without looking up that the sun has climbed higher in the sky than his internal measurement of time allows. It is nearly midday. No wonder Brân is incapable of speaking clearly---dreams are a dangerous place. Murchadh will have to be careful. He gestures for the others to continue on.
Above them, clouds gather, and rain heralds the onset of the afternoon. It is cold and miserable, but Murchadh is thankful. Tracking them will be nearly impossible now. They travel in a silence that stretches out into the forest around them. Silence, except for the relentless crashing of rain. For a moment, Murchadh imagines that he hears a great creature flying high above the canopy. A pang runs through him---loss, grief, anger . . . something like that. Murchadh banishes the feeling to a distant place in the back of his mind. He cannot focus on that. Feelings endanger survival—that is what his years of wandering have taught him. Shut them away. Focus on staying alive, on completing the task before him. He will not fail Wyddryr.
As night falls, the trio sets up camp in a relatively dry spot in a grove of thick firs. Murchadh sets a few simple traps for the morning, and they dine on a chewy but flavourful bark Ashrille pulls out of her pack.
“We need watches,” says Murchadh after his stomach is satisfied. “I will take the last one. You two can decide which you want.”
Ashrille volunteers for the first. Murchadh sets himself up against a tree just outside of the small circle of firelight. Not without trepidation, he allows himself to sleep, and sleeps the light sleep of the wary traveler, absent a single dream.
The rain is heavy when he is wakened by Wyddryr for his watch. Through his watch, he notices from time to time the glint of light off the boy’s wide eyes. Murchadh is not surprised he cannot sleep. He does not disturb him. He is reminded of his angry outburst earlier, when his fury towards the Gwaedwn had boiled over. Wyddryr and Ashrille had not deserved that. His anger is for Symbre and her circle, no one else. Their plans have been flawed from the start, from their idiotic and cruel recruitment missions. Why, Murchadh figures many of the captives would have joined free of will had the choice been presented them: he himself had no other prospects. He is sure they could have found willing participants, children who would have offered loyalty and passion as well as the necessary innocence. The blood-pact had been too little, too late.
Wyddryr interrupts his thoughts. “I’ve told you my story,” he drawls, still lying in his place near the coals of the fire. “I’ve heard you’re a storyteller.” He puts his hands beneath his head as he stares up at the canopy above them. “Your turn.”
Murchadh cannot see any harm in fulfilling his request, and relates to him his story from birth to capture, finishing with the revelation of his relation to Tyree.
Wyddryr shifts slightly on his mat of needles. “So you have found family again?”
Murchadh smiles. “Yes, but I found it with Anwen and Ffrewgí first. Tyree came after. If he does not help me earn their freedom, Tyree is no kin of mine.”
A long moment of silence is filled only with the constant beating of the rain on the branches above and the ground around them. Wyddryr lets out a dry whisper of a laugh and asks, “Why are you always so stubbornly inquisitive?”
Murchadh leans forward. “According to the tales, intention plays a significant role in the success or failure of the hunt. I needed to be sure you are doing this for your father, not for wealth or power as the other Gwaedwn.”
Wyddryr yawns. “Right.”
The two of them fall silent, and Murchadh watches as Wyddryr’s eyelids flicker and then rest closed as the boy falls asleep.
In the morning, they cook a rabbit caught in one of Murchadh’s traps and head out into the rain after they have broken their fasts. Through the morning the sun makes headway against the clouds and the company passes through dappled shade as they walk, passing in and out of quick showers and beams of golden light, in which moisture shines like jewels and passing mists glitter. The forest thrums with energy, and Murchadh hopes the good portents point towards the success of their venture. In the back of his mind, the glimpse of a golden scale accompanies the temptation to receive guidance from the dream realm, but he rejects it, turning his thoughts towards the glory around him.
The sun is beginning to set when they crest a hill. Below them and to the left, in the crook of a stream, is a jut of rock sticking like a finger into the air. The trees in the valley are clinging to the last of their leaves and a coloured carpet decorates the space around the stone.
“This seems like a good place to camp,” suggests Ashrille.
Murchadh has a sudden urge to hunt, but suppresses it. He must help the others set up. The company moves down the gentle slope towards the stone and as they do a crawling feeling creeps down Murchadh’s back. Something is not right. He can tell the others feel the same way: they all slow and take careful steps forward.
Then Murchadh sees a shape slip out from behind the rock and grip its side to climb. In the sunset shadow, the figure is impossible to make out. Murchadh and the others creep closer, moving in a slight arc to come at the stone perpendicular to the line of the stream.
The sun slips below the forest, leaving behind a sky filled with colours. Murchadh’s breath catches. Archora is sitting upon the stone, smiling happily, with both hands folded on her lap. Joy brims up in Murchadh, but also unease. Something is not right.
“I saw that it was you,” says Archora. Murchadh studies her. She is covered in dirt and her hair is tangled with moss and twigs. She looks as if she has spent many days alone in the woods.
Murchadh does not speak. An indefinable feeling gnaws at him. He looks at Archora’s hands, clasped in her lap. Two hands.
“They didn’t catch me.”
How did she know what he was thinking? Murchadh blinks, and in the darkness of his eyelids---in that infinitesimal moment before he looks again at Archora---he sees the whole scene as if his eyes had never closed, but on the rock stands a white stag, exquisitely bright. On its head rises a single antler; the other corner of its skull is pure, as if another antler had never grown there. Behind the stag coils Murchadh’s golden friend, and with it coils a dark snake of smoke.
“You chose your family,” Archora says.
Murchadh breathes in deeply, the image already disappearing from behind his eyelids. “Yes. Thank you for the warning. It was appreciated. Now,” he continues, “we don’t have much time. Will you give us what we need to heal a dying man, and to free those who are unjustly captured?”
The little girl upon the rock spreads her arms. “I have nothing more to give you.”
Murchadh feels it would be futile to look over at his companions. Somehow, he knows that they are there and not there---that he would not see them, or that he would not be able to look. He sighs. “Then we will leave without your help and try to find another way. I will write a legend telling of how you turned us away empty.”
Archora winks. “Was I not part of your family?”
“Archora was,” says Murchadh, but suddenly he understands. Family. Nothing more to give you. He was not the only one to go on a hunt for this creature. Anwen, Ffrewgí, the others---they are innocent of bloodshed, and it is not in their natures to hunt to kill. Maybe, just maybe, they have already met the creature. Suddenly, Murchadh feels urgency press against his chest. He turns to Wyddryr and Ashrille, who are standing dazed beside him.
“Can you travel?” asks Murchadh. “We must head back. Your father’s life may depend on our speed.”
“What happened?”
Murchadh flicks his eyes to the stone. It is empty, and he can no longer remember what had occupied its seat. But he knows he must return to the village. “It was the creature.”
Wyddryr’s hand is immediately on the hilt of his falcata and a cold gleam shines in his eyes. “Where did it go?”
“Back through the veil,” assumes Murchadh.
“Then you will follow it,” growls Wyddryr, turning towards him aggressively. “You can enter the dream world. Bring it back.”
“That’s not how dreams work,” says Murchadh.
“We need its blood!” Wyddryr’s voice is low and cold.
Murchadh speaks calmly, though he is no longer filled with the confidence of a few moments ago. “We don’t need its blood. We need . . . we need to go back.”
“The legends say blood!” Wyddryr persists.
“Intentions and innocence,” mutters Murchadh to himself. “We will not be able to capture the creature,” he says to the others, “for we mean to kill it, or have already shed blood. We must trust in our family. They have been in the forest, they have gone on their hunts. If the creature has given its gift, it must have been to one of them.”
“How can we be sure the creature has given anyone its gift?” asks Ashrille. Concern for Wyddryr is painted across her face. Wyddryr himself is breathing heavily, unmoved from in front of Murchadh. His eyes are burning into Murchadh’s.
Murchadh can hardly hold his gaze. He lies, “It told me it gave me everything I needed in my family. They have what we need. Now we go.” He hopes the conviction in his eyes is as strong as the anger in Wyddryr’s.
Ashrille lays a hand on Wyddryr’s arm. “We brought him along for a reason,” she says.
Wyddryr flexes his fingers off the hilt of his falcata. “If we cannot get the creature’s blood . . . If my father dies . . . I will take the price from your blood.”
“How dare you threaten me! Heal your father on your own terms, then.”
Murchadh has lived enough on the knife’s edge of survival to move instinctively when Wyddryr, in a hissing flash, draws his falcata in a cutting arc. It is barely enough to save his life. The blade bites deep into his chin, hacking off a piece of bone as Murchadh falls backward, his bum leg betraying him in his moment of surprise. Then Ashrille is on top of him, and he is not sure if she is protecting him or holding him down for Wyddryr to finish the job. He fights against her hold, but she is whole of body and in her role as a village witch had experience holding down protesting patients.
“Stay, Wyddryr!” she cries.
She does not want him dead. Murchadh ceases his furious attempts to free himself, but does not relax. He can hear Wyddryr breathing heavily above them.
Ashrille’s hair falls upon his face as she turns to him. “Murchadh, apologize.”
“What for?” asks Murchadh spitefully, pain starting to course from the jagged wound on his face. He feels blood run down either side of his throat.
“His father is dying, you obstinate fool!”
“And I told you his health depends on us returning to the village---to our friends!”
“Well, your health depends on cooperating with us,” says Ashrille. “You’re losing a lot of blood.”
Murchadh pulls back his lips. “I have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I’m not gonna kill him,” says Wyddryr. “Let him be.”
Murchadh wrenches free from Ashrille as soon as she slackens her grip. When he stands, faintness almost overcomes him. He lifts his tunic to his chin to slow the flow of blood. He forces himself not to wince as he applies pressure. The pain is great, but he knows that the wound is not serious.
“Here,” says Ashrille, shrugging out of her pack and withdrawing a bandage. “I can make a poultice, if we rest here.” She looks up at the darkening sky.
Murchadh clings stubbornly to his earlier instinct. “We need to return.”
Anger is still burning brightly in Wyddryr’s eyes, but he sheathes his falcata and gestures. “Then lead on.”
“We should really deal with that wound . . .”
“It’s fine,” says Murchadh shortly, and turns to go, hardly caring if the others follow him. “My family needs me,” he says to himself. He can address the wound---and Wyddryr---later. Out loud, he says, “We must run on the night breeze, for our family---both blood and bond---they need us.” Murchadh sets the pace, as fast as his leg will allow, and he hears the sounds of the others’ footfalls behind him.
“You take your thumb and jab it into the middle of its back,” explains Meg, “then pull to one side to lift the carapace, revealing the goodies inside.”
“Can’t you just get them from the belly?” asks Ora, pressing the tip of a finger against the metallic chitin of the giant beetle in her lap. “The shell is so hard.”
Meg shakes her head and lets out a cackle. “Absolutely not. The belly may seem softer, but it’s stretchy and tough. You’d never get through. Here, watch; it’s easy.” The magpie flips her own insect onto its belly, and before it can wriggle away she brings her beak down with a sharp crack against the middle of its back. She flicks her head and a tearing sound accompanies the lifting of one side of the beetle’s armour.
Ora is not convinced, but gives it a go. She succeeds only in breaking her thumbnail and cries out, putting her dirty digit in her mouth.
Meg sighs. “Take this one.” She flips the beetle over to Ora, who catches it and greedily pinches out the meat from within. “Toss me yours.”
Ora does so, and the friends chatter aimlessly as they eat.
The small girl has lost count of the days since leaving the village of her captors, but it has been at least a fortnight now since meeting her lifesaving friend, whom Ora calls Meg. The magpie has shown her which leaves collect rainfall to drink, which burrows contain meat and which contain animals she does not want to meet, and has instructed her in the ways of insectoid charcuterie, though Ora has yet to pick up on many of the techniques used by the bird.
What Meg has not done, of course, is converse with the child in such an easy manner as above described. Meg is a bird, with the mouth, tongue, and brain of a bird, and is incapable of intelligible conversation. Ora, on the other hand, is capable of not only independent thought and internal dialogue, but has developed the ability in recent days of dialoguing independent of her own consciousness. Thus, she has been happily social with her feathered companion over the last week. This has not seemed to bother the magpie in the least; on the contrary, the bird has hardly left the girl’s side since giving her those first caterpillars so many days before.
They have been travelling in a gentle spiral pulled out of symmetry to tend their path gradually to the south-east, and the lack of civilization or change of landscape has not bothered the two friends at all, though the weather has begun to. Also tending southwards, if certain idioms are applied to, the weather has not been kind in the last days. Torrential downpours are keeping Meg virtually grounded and northern winds are biting deeply into Ora’s uncovered skin, though she has recently been stitching together a cloak of witch’s hair and ground moss. A warm cap of these substances is also, beneficially but unintentionally, woven into her thick hair. Regardless, Ora is cold, dangerously so, and her head aches.
"How come you’re clutching so tight?” asks Ora, shifting the moss on her shoulder so that Meg’s claws are not digging so far into her collarbone.
“Something’s not right,” responds the bird.
They have been walking now for some time since their feast and a thick drizzle has driven Meg to perch on Ora’s shoulder.
Ora pushes a wet branch of hair out of her eyes and blinks away a torrent of water. “I don’t see---” She does not finish the thought; a dozen paces away, basket on their shoulder, is a person stepping out of a doorway.
For a time, the doorway is the only part of the house that Ora can make out, but as the pause lingers she discerns the greenery-covered walls, the sod roof.
“Forest spirit,” whispers the person in a dialect unfamiliar to Ora. “Daughter of Grauffyd.”
“What’re they saying?” Ora asks Meg. It has been a long time, longer in her perception, since she has heard proper words.
“They are paying us respect,” croaks Meg.
Indeed, the person is slowly laying down their basket. “I was going out to collect mushrooms,” they say. “Would you come and bless the garden?”
“They want us to eat their mushrooms,” whispers Meg into Ora’s ear.
“I understood them this time,” returns Ora. She gestures with a hand and the person picks up their basket and, with a hesitating look over their shoulder, walks around the house to a shallow pit dug under a massive stump at its rear.
“Here they are.” The person motions for Ora to survey the densely packed fungi in the pit.
Ora moves sedately towards the pit, crouches down, and plucks a mushroom. She eats it and smacks her lips. “It’s delicious,” she says to Meg. “Try one.”
“Not keen on mushrooms,” says Meg with a flutter of her wings.
Ora turns to the person. “Do you have any grubs for Meg?”
The person blanches and falls back onto their haunches. “She speaks our language!”
In case it was missed, up until this moment Ora has been conversing with Meg in language primarily sealed in her mind, though supplemented by bestial chirps and croaks.
Ora repeats herself: “Do you have any grubs?”
“Are you---” starts the person. “Are you just a child?”
“Meg wants some grubs,” insists Ora.
“You poor thing!” cries the person, and rushes forward. Meg cackles and flutters her wings on Ora’s shoulder, arresting their advance.
“Ssh now, Meg,” says Ora. To the person, she says, “The mushrooms are great, but Meg would prefer a caterpillar or beetle.”
“Of course. Let me . . .” The person turns away and bends down by a small pile of chopped wood. “There are usually---Ah, here we are.” They turn back to Ora and Meg with a thick centipede pinched between two fingers. The person moves a bit closer and holds the insect up. “For . . . Meg.”
The magpie crows and snatches it up, throwing her head back to swallow. “Delicious!” she declares.
“Delicious,” translates Ora.
“You’re very welcome. Feel free to have more mushrooms, too.” The person watches as Ora turns back to the cavity under the stump, the tiny girl’s shoulders shifting back and forth as she picks and eats her fill.
“Do you have a home? Parents who are missing you?”
Ora’s back remains turned. “No.” Shitrech does not even cross her mind; nor do her captors and their village.
“Would you like to stay here for a while? I have some turkeys---maybe we can have some eggs for evening meal. With grubs for Meg.”
“Okay.”
Meg croaks her assent, too.
* * *
When Ora wakes later that evening, her belly is full, her hair is dry, and she is wrapped in a soft, leaf-fibre blanket. Beside her, perched on the bedpost, Meg opens one eye as Ora props herself up on her elbows.
