Lark Rising (Guardians of Tarnec)

by Sandra Waugh

  “Horses,” Dame Keren corrected.

  I had never seen a horse. I did not think any of the villagers of Merith had seen a horse. Ponies are not uncommon, but horses are the stuff of bedtime tales and children’s make-believes. A moment was needed for all of us to consider such an image.

  And then darling Min spoke once again what we each were thinking. “And they would help us, these riders of horses?”

  And, after fifty years, old. I kept this to myself. These old riders of horses.

  “Yes, Min.” Dame Keren smiled. “I believe they will.” Then to me she said, though speaking out clearly as if to inform each of us, “Lark, it is you who must bring the flag to Bren Clearing. It lies a day’s walk past the northern edge of Dark Wood, between the Cullan foothills and the hills of Tarnec. You will know this clearing by the single rowan tree that stands in its center.” She paused before saying, “The journey there should take you all of two days.

  “Once there you must scale the rowan and tie the flag to as high a branch as you can. Let it fly free. Wait there, then, by the rowan tree. It should be naught but two or three days more before you will be approached and can make your request. The Riders will remember Merith, and if not, they will still hasten to destroy a Troth.”

  “This seems no great task,” I said with forced lightness. “If I am quick about it, I can perhaps save half a day.”

  I could not fool Grandmama. I sensed her behind me.

  “Dame Keren, please,” my grandmother entreated, her voice unbearably deep. “Lark should not go alone.”

  Dame Keren answered with gentle authority. “Hume, it would be more dangerous should she be accompanied. It is their rule. You know this.”

  “I know my granddaughter,” Grandmama answered back. “She is inexperienced in any journey. She can be easily overwhelmed with the Sight.”

  But I shifted around to her and said as evenly as I could, “Grandmama, it will be all right. These are lightly traveled paths; I should meet no strangers.” I had no idea whether that was true, but I conjured a laugh, for she was shaking her head, and offered, “I can climb a tree far more nimbly than Quin.” As if agility could prove more convincing than a bound summons. As if I could prove to myself I could do this.

  “Lark Carew.” Sir Farrin had risen once more, and he moved to look down at where I kneeled on the cobbles. I rose to my feet slowly. “Lark Carew, beware these things: Stay on the path. Light no fires. And, most importantly, do not venture into the hills of Tarnec. Past Bren Clearing is not of our dominion.”

  “Then whose?” asked a voice from the crowd.

  “The hills of Tarnec belong to the Riders, and they protect their secrets. A trespasser will be killed outright. Beyond those hills are the Myr Mountains. Troth territory.” He coughed abruptly. “No one, however, would make it past the hills.”

  I watched him. We all watched him, wondering what this oldest man of our village had witnessed in his lifetime. The shepherd’s charge, the powerful bond to grass, to rain, to sun … Nature holds many secrets, but she will willingly give them up to those who are patient, to those who watch and listen.

  I wondered if Sir Farrin had ever seen the Riders.

  “Heed those three rules and your journey should be safe, young Lark.” Then, his voice rising with strength I did not know he possessed, the oldest man said, “Let us give Lark our wishes for a good and quick journey, that her venture be the first step in protecting our beloved Merith.”

  Every villager turned and made a bow to me, hand to heart, chin to chest. My gaze flew over the small sea of faces, breath catching in my throat as I saw Grandmama and Evie making the same acknowledgment as the others, this gesture suddenly separating them from me. Raif, Quin, Minnow, all of them giving me the tribute saved for our most respected. In this single moment, I felt a wave of kindness wash over me, surround me, and then let go.

  The words came out hesitant and foolish. “Do I—do I go now?”

  Dame Keren gave an encouraging smile. “The sun is but midway through the day. The sooner begun, the sooner ended, my dear.” Then, with less of a smile, she asked, “Are you ready?”

  I tucked the lark feather back into my bodice and said more firmly, however false my conviction, “ ’Tis a beautiful day for a walk.”

  Evie packed food for the journey in the small, thickly stitched satchel, which Grandmama had taught me to sew on: bread and cheese, a handful of hazelnuts, and dried apples. Grandmama poured a tiny bottle of the honeyed mead. “Just in case,” she said. My cloak was shaken and brushed and folded; it would do well as a sleeping blanket. I added a small knife and a water flask to the pack, and changed into my light walking sandals. Then Kerrick Swan arrived at our cottage, bearing the flag that I was to raise for the Riders, a long, trailing banner Carr’s great-grandmother had spun in a radiant hue of deep rose. “I imagine that it can be seen even at night,” I said, focusing on detail rather than departure.

  “All the best berries and fruit skins would have been brewed for so brilliant a color,” Kerrick replied more gravely than usual, and brushed his long, age-worn fingers once over the cloth.

  Too quickly, it was time to go. I kneeled down and buried my head in Rileg’s soft fur. “Be good,” I whispered to him. “Take care of Grandmama and Evie.” Rileg whined. He wished to follow me; I wished I could let him.

  I looked up at Evie; both of us were pretending not to be worried. “Watch for the ghisane, will you?” I asked. “They’re sneaky little things.”

  She nodded. Then she held out what she had in her hands for me to take. “Carr whipped this up with her needle. I know you hated losing your other one.”

  It was an apron. Like my ruined favorite, it was of finely spun cotton and dyed the softest color of moss green.

  “I was going to give it to you on your … on our birthday,” she said. “But …”

  But on our seventeenth birthday, I wouldn’t be here.

  I pulled the new apron over my head and tied the ribbons at the sides. It covered my frock, a slightly darker shade of moss. “There, now.” I grinned. “I’ll be most presentable to these elderly Riders.”

  “I’m thinking that your favorite color can at least hide you among the trees or what, if you—” She took a breath. “If you ever have need to hide.”

  “Then it is lucky that you were not summoned.” I pointed at her brilliant turquoise dress.

  We both laughed honestly at that, and Grandmama came to surround us with her Healer arms. “Fewer than seven sunrises and we’ll have you back, Lark, and Merith will be safe from harm.”

  Then she pulled away to look me deep in the eyes. “Trust that you can do this, Lark. No doubt you were summoned for good reason.”

  Good reason. To that I had no answer. I hugged her goodbye.

  As paths go, this was a pretty ribbon of trodden dirt, kept smooth and open with communal help from Merith and neighboring Dann. Bordered by Dark Wood, it ran the short distance between our villages, along the pastureland, and then farther on and into the Niler marshes. After that, I did not know, but the road at hand was open and untraveled, and I could skip upon it, which I did to make the length go quickly. I had companions. Song sparrows were always ready to serenade from the outstretched limbs of the Wood—those boughs that still reached for light—and in the growing fields were the villagers who’d returned to work after the Gathering. They waved at me, a long sweep of arm over their wide-brimmed hats.

  But I did not expect the two figures that I spied in the distance resting in the grass. My breath caught, anticipating a too-soon encounter with strangers, then released in a relieved sigh as I heard the faint trill of Quin’s flute. The figures rose to greet me when I neared—one short, one tall—and I laughed before reproving: “You should not be here. I journey alone, remember?”

  “Who implies we accompany you?” asked Raif serenely as they fell into step. “Do you, Quin?”

  “Nay. Raif has remembered an errand in Dann, and needed my ass
istance.” Quin grinned his sunny grin. “It just so happens we’ve met you on the way. No one will think it wrong that we had to share the path.”

  “But now you’ll miss an afternoon sighing at Nance’s window.” I laughed back, adding to Raif, “Evie put you to this.” They’d not admit it, but I was sure it was true.

  And then Raif was grave. “We can only go so far as Dann. It cannot be farther.”

  It was easier to pretend I was not scared now that I had company. I squared my shoulders to look taller. “Well, Dann has people and the path does not, and encountering people is the worst of it. ’Twould be silly if I could not accomplish the rest on my own. They’d hardly choose to bind a ninny to a summons.”

  Quin said with all seriousness, “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve heard ninnies are in great demand.” And then he jumped out of the way before I could punch his arm.

  The path went quickly—too quickly—with these friends. Despite Quin’s humor, we were not quite jovial; Raif’s reserve was heightened by his grandfather’s death, a sadness palpable even to Quin. But we walked comfortably side by side, and I was glad to be with them.

  Dark Wood tracked our route—it followed the path to the very end of the Niler marshes, the sun-splashed fields to the right sobered by the dense mass on the left. Nothing was harmonious about Dark Wood; it was Nature’s tantrum. Stepping beyond the boundary was to be lost in a choking, furious tangle of growth, swallowed in a cloying mist that crept into one’s chest and under one’s skin. Villagers did not exactly fear it—Merith had Dark Wood at its doorstep; grew up with it in sight, in mind, and in legend—but accepted that it was best left untouched. Only one path ventured into Dark Wood from our village, only one from Dann, and I could name the two men and one woman of our time who chose to travel within the chaos—one being Ruber Minwl.

  I caught Raif staring at the Wood, as if he could peer through the impossible, snarled mess. “Did you ever go in there with your grandfather?”

  He shook his head. “I did not follow his trade. I prefer work in the orchards to the labor of a tailor, and he understood that.”

  There was wistfulness in Raif’s tone, which made me sorry I’d asked, but Quin broke any awkwardness. “Lark tried her hand in Dark Wood once. She didn’t fare well. She’ll call in the soldiers from Tyre to accompany her next time.”

  Raif actually laughed, while I scowled at Quin’s returning grin. When we were quite young, Quin had dared me to run ten paces into Dark Wood, and of course I dared. It took four men from the village to find me an hour later, pulling me from inside a hollowed tree where I’d taken refuge. I had not stepped much beyond the ten paces, but I’d frozen from the maddening sensations that bombarded my mind, my soul. Whatever turmoil others might feel in the Wood was a hundredfold greater with the Sight. Grandmama spent much of that night pulling the frenzy from my mind with the bay dust, and I never dared anything after that.

  “Next time go in yourself!” I challenged lamely. Quin threw his arm around my shoulders and whistled a small teasing note through his flute.

  Dann was a happy little village, somewhat larger than Merith, known for the riotous colors of the border roses that enclosed the town square, and for the Danns’ mastery in ale brewing. The Troths had never attacked them—a good thing, since they, like Merith dwellers, abhorred violence and had no experience in battle. The people of Merith wondered at the Troths’ choice, why we should reap their ire and not another. We planted rosebushes, thinking they were perhaps a natural defense. But our roses grew in hues of cream and honey and apple blossom—we could not draw out the vibrancy of Dann’s petals—and the Troths came. If color, then, was the proper deterrent, we flew brilliant flags of cherry, and pink, and poppy in the market and on our rooftops. It did not matter. The Troths were making their way again to our town.

  It was best not to upset the Danns with portentous tales, we three had decided. They would learn of this soon enough at market. A pause only for a drink and to fill my flask from their well in the square. Their water was sweet, from the same river as ours, and I might not find as good a source later on.

  “Ho, what’s this?” Raif murmured as we turned into the square. A small crowd was gathered by the well. Even from this distance their energies buzzed along my skin, excited and anxious; little goose bumps shivered down my arms in response. Quin tugged my sleeve to keep me back—but I’d not have allowed myself to be surrounded.

  “Maybe they’ve already learned of the Troths,” he said, sobering.

  But that was not what drew the crowd. As we skirted the group to reach the well, a shift of bodies showed us a piteously ugly little man in their midst claiming their full attention. That he was a journeyman was obvious—his grizzled beard was untrimmed; his clothes were worn and grimed from travel. I’d seen such in Merith. But he wore an odd-pointed, sky-blue cap on his head, which I’d never seen.

  Raif had. “He was in Crene a fortnight back. He’s called Harker. Someone said he was banished from his home, forced to wander. Rather a seer of some sort, I think. He was telling fortunes.”

  “And that cap is their distinction?” I asked.

  Quin murmured to that, “Distinction? It makes him look more like a dunce.”

  “Nothing to worry; they spread tales of wonder for money,” said Raif. “People like to come and hear such fantasies, but seers only pretend trances and their stories are made up. Hold here, Lark, fill your flask.”

  I did, and my two friends formed a barrier before me, though the villagers had paid no interest to our arrival. The visitor had riveted the crowd; they called to him: “Harker, tell me!” “Good sir, what is my …?” Will I marry? Will my gout ease? Will my son grow strong? Will the crop yield early? All the wills that could be crowded into this circle, so eager was the desire to know the future. And the ugly little Harker hopped about the crowd, pointing and obligingly spouting bits of fate like gossip: “Your tankard runs dry too quickly.” “Your hair falls out by first snow.” He made them laugh or shriek, and they dropped coins in the funny cap he held out.

  But the crowd went expectantly silent as the cap fell to the stones and the seer froze in the center of the circle. Then, shriveled and awkward as he was, his voice rang out rich, and deep, and foreign-toned: “Beware! Earth weeps! She groans in agony—great rifts and yawning caverns upturning whole villages! Mark me: Crene splits, and there! Haver sinks beneath the sea!”

  “Now comes an end-of-the-world vision,” Raif scoffed under his breath.

  The voice was building in volume: “Watch the water; beware the skies. Night takes day, and terror moves with sudden force! Ruin! Ruin! You will march into doom; you will cry for mercy!”

  “Troths couldn’t improve on this,” Quin murmured, straight-faced.

  “They like to be scared.” I could feel the crowd’s delighted horror well enough, like a drone of bees tickling inside my skin.

  Raif added softly, “And better to be scared by things unreal.”

  I stuffed the water-heavy flask in my pack and drew close behind Raif and Quin to watch. Harker was a rigid pole now, with face upturned as if he pulled his story from the sky. “Woe to those who do not believe. Beware them that come! We will drown in madness!” He reached his hands above his head and clasped them, confessing, “My blame! My blame!” And then, reversing the piteous cries, he spit at us with furious insistence, “I share this to save you!”

  His hands fell hard and his feet began to move: one step, then another, stumbling in a lopsided circle like a string puppet. I swallowed, anxious. Above the crowd’s warm excitement, I could sense this stranger, his energy hollow and lonely and bitter. I did not wish him to come close.

  “What?” Harker gulped in a convulsive jerk as he neared our side of the crowd. “What?” And then his eyes rolled up a little to show the whites, and he screamed so that we all jumped: “Lady—she is here. Power and hand … Where? Where?” His own hand reached long from his tattered sleeve a finger, pointed up to the sky, and t
hen dragged a circle with it as if he would pick one of the crowd. A tremor ran through his body, narrowed, and shot down his arm straight through that finger. My breath caught.

  “Step back, Lark,” Quin said.

  I did, and Quin and Raif closed ranks as we withdrew. There was a titter from the crowd; the old seer must have pointed to someone, and he was crying out, fainter now, “Those of the circle cannot hide. Those who are cannot run! Come forth! Help us!” And then, with cringing sobs, he screamed, “Do not force me away! I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry.…”

  “He makes no sense.” We’d taken the north lane away from the town’s center. My laugh was loud and nervous in the sudden quiet.

  “It is a pretense of visions,” Raif said. “The more wild his tales and reactions, the heavier the coin tossed to him.”

  “Still,” said Quin, “better he not choose you for his stunt.” He flashed a grin and tugged a strand of my hair. “Lady,” he mimicked.

  I grinned back and nudged him with my shoulder, but he wasn’t fooled. He sobered. “The old man didn’t upset you, Lark, did he?”

  “No.”

  Raif studied me for a moment. “Troths are at hand, but he told of earth rifts. He’s more a fool than a seer.”

  It was suddenly over. We were at the end of the lane, the end of the little village. Raif and Quin could accompany me no farther, and I could not dawdle. We looked at one another silently.

  “Good luck to you,” Raif said at last, giving me a tiny and unnecessary bow. We’d not touch; he would pass too much pain.

  “Here,” said Quin, handing me a sprig of fern, a little crumpled from being in his pocket. “The protection of friendship.”

  I could hug Quin, which I did. “I hope I don’t need it.”

  He nodded. “You’ll get to Bren Clearing quickly and signal the Riders.”

  “And be quickly back to fend off any Troths,” I finished for him. I would. I had to.

  But Raif said, “I wouldn’t mind a little battle with the Troths.” To our surprised stares he answered lightly, “One of them scavenged my grandfather’s ring. I want it back.”