by Sever Bronny
He scrambled to pick it them up. “Mr. Penderson, I’ll clean it right away, no need to get angry—”
“Don’t be talking back to me, boy!”
The punch was harder than usual, doubling Augum over. With it came the stench of strong wine from the man’s breath. Mr. Penderson loosened the whip hanging from his belt and wacked the animal across the snout. Meli only made a quiet whine.
“No, Mr. Penderson, please—!” but even when Augum lunged across the animal to protect her with his own body, Mr. Penderson did not stop, lashing boy and mule alike.
“You’re killing her! Stop, Mr. Penderson, stop—!” Augum kept shouting between his own cries of pain.
Mr. Penderson did eventually stop, but only because he had winded himself. “You deserve each other,” he spat, and weaved back to the house.
Augum lay with Meli, shoulders heaving. Her flank had long ceased rising.
Now there was nothing holding him there.
“I’m leaving, Meli,” he whispered, lovingly stroking her neck. “Just like we’ve always said. I’m sorry you can’t come with me.” He gently closed her eyes, rose, and turned toward the Gamber, never looking back.
He had followed that winding river south until stumbling upon the village of Willowbrook, where an old knight by the name of Sir Tobias Westwood found him lying hungry and bloody by its banks. He took Augum in, fed and clothed him, and made him his squire.
Before long, life grew routine. Augum’s hands browned from oiling and polishing Sir Westwood’s armor. His tunic was constantly soaked from scrubbing the knight’s stallion, the planks, the iron pots, the trestle table and benches. At night, he ached from the day’s riding, straw prickling at his scalp. Splinters stung his hands from training with a wooden sword. He smelled like roast chicken, turkey, rabbit, boar or venison after learning how to cook. He sunburned tending to Sir Westwood’s garden, chickens, geese and pigs. The wounds on his back slowly healed, leaving permanent ridged scars he would sometimes trace with a finger, scars that never stopped itching.
Sometimes Sir Westwood took him hunting, and Augum’s elbow would be raw from constantly catching the sinew bowstring. The old knight made Augum taste bitter and sweet plants, pointing out which ones were edible; taught him how to locate north using tree moss; tired him out lecturing about chivalry, heraldry, and the basic etiquette required of a noble in court.
But Sir Westwood had been most particular about the written word, proclaiming that a knight who could not read or write was at the mercy of those who could. Thus, Augum often stayed up late, quill in hand, fingers stained with ink, copying dusty tomes. Castle Stewardship, Arithmetic of the Treasury, On Horsemanship, The Joust, and the like. Some had sunk in, most had not.
Sir Westwood also taught him how to speak properly. “Am not” instead of “Ain’t.” “We are not” instead of “We isn’t.” The Penderson drawl was patiently but methodically corrected at every turn. It was how the highborn city folk spoke. Sir Westwood was liberal when it came to more modern youthful contractions, however, as long as they were from the city.
Remembering those happy times with Sir Westwood warmed Augum’s heart and made it easy to forget where he really was.
He stopped and glanced about. The tall yellow grass of the Tallows lashed at his hands as if possessed by the spirit of Mr. Penderson. The wind had increased during his reminiscence and he had not even noticed. Cold rain pelted his face, stinging his eyes. The clouds overhead were as dark as a Penderson heart.
Suddenly the grass flattened as a strong gust knocked him to the ground. His woolen coat shot over his head, choking and dragging him like a sail attached to his neck. He fumbled with the collar, only to discover he was too weak to undo it.
He gurgled what he thought was his last breath when there was an abrupt tearing sound. The coat ripped away, exposing his face to a torrent of icy needle rain. Gasping, he curled up into a ball, already shivering from the cold seeping through his clothes.
A mule hee-hawed. When he looked up, the Penderson brats had him surrounded, ponytails flapping in the wind, cruel grins on their ruddy faces.
“You is damn stupid, Gutter.” Garth’s wide fist reared back as Augum feebly rolled away, only to find Mr. Penderson standing before him, a giant bottle of wine in one hand, whip in the other.
The farmer took a long swig and wiped his mouth with an oily sleeve. “You done wrong, boy.” The whip uncoiled like a viper.
“I ain’t done nothin’ …” Augum pulled on the grass, scrambling to get away, only to stumble across Dap’s bloody body. A black-armored soldier stood just behind, wielding a spiked ball and chain flail, face obscured by a pot helm.
“No …” Augum tried to move back, but a great stallion blocked his path. It snorted and reared up, exposing a rotten ribcage, and bony thorns where there should have been hooves. The Penderson brats closed in from his left. Their father, whip snaking, from Augum’s right. Behind Augum came the whistle of a flail. He raised his hands in defense and screamed, until exhaustion overcame all sense and he collapsed, succumbing to nightmares as turbulent as the rain.
It was pitch-dark when awareness returned. The grass whipped his numb face as the storm raged about him. His soaked tunic snagged on the dirt as the enemy dragged him along the ground.
“Please, sir, just leave me alone …”
The wind moaned as Augum felt his body suddenly lighten. Had the soldier thrown him? His stomach lurched from the weightless sensation, yet the anticipated crash back to the ground did not come.
Lightning burst across the clouds, fanning out like a great spider web, making visible something Augum struggled to make sense of—yellow grass far below him. The ensuing crack of thunder rattled his innards and amplified the nausea.
It’s only a nightmare, he thought frantically, it’s only a nightmare … yet every subsequent flash confirmed the unbelievable—that he was indeed flying.
Then, amidst the spearing flashes, he glimpsed an enormous mass of jagged rock, the top of which disappeared in cloud. The wind increased to a shriek as he hurtled towards the behemoth, slowly losing consciousness from tumbling end over end. With the tunnel of darkness closing in, Augum felt a final searing light illuminate his entire being. A warm glow settled over his heart, and as it faded away, so, too, did he.
Mrs. Stone
Augum startled awake, forehead beaded with sweat. Feeling soft linen sheets beneath him, he sighed in relief, thinking what a vivid nightmare that had all been. He should probably get up and feed the horse …
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, yet when his vision adjusted to the dim light, nothing looked familiar. He lay on an old bed in a cave-like room, dressed in a patched nightgown. Opposite was a heavy door with an iron handle. Beside it, a battered chest of drawers. Shelves stuffed with books and scrolls towered along the walls. Candles flickered from hollows in between. The scent of earth mingled with the smell of old books.
He searched his mind, trying to piece together where he was and what had happened. Like a moth, his eyes kept returning to the candles.
Fire …
Gods, no … Willowbrook burning, the journey across the Tallows, the storm—it had all been real! Maybe the Unnameables took him and he was in some kind of afterlife. He pinched himself and felt pain; inspected for signs of trauma—no cuts, no bruises.
Augum went still. “Hello—?”
Other than his thundering heart, there was only silence. He nervously chewed on a finger, an old habit neither the Pendersons nor Sir Westwood had broken.
“Hello? Anybody there—?” A candle sputtered as if troubled by his voice.
Shuffling came from the other side of the door. He tensed as the handle turned with a squeak. A hunched woman in a sparkling white robe entered. One hand clutched a withered candle, the other a wooden staff capped with a crystal orb. Long silver hair fell around a face creased with a hundred years of time.
She stood examining him with bright blue eyes, grunted
, and approached. Her robe shimmered with embroidered silver lions, birds, a castle, and lightning—did the bolts just flash?
Augum shrank away as she took a seat beside him on the straw-filled mattress.
“Well now, my child, I see you have awakened. How do you feel?” her voice sounded like wheezing bellows.
He eyed the door and gulped; he could make a run for it if he had to.
“Manners, child, manners. Surely you can speak.”
“I …”
Her silver brows rose. “Hmm?”
“I feel better, my lady … I think. But where am I?”
“You are in my home, and I daresay you are one lucky boy. Or perhaps … unlucky, as it were?” She leaned in a little and he caught the faint scent of rosemary. “And just what was a boy like you thinking, travelling in such unkind weather, hmm? Trying to get to the other side of death, were we?”
“The Legion burned my village, my lady, so I escaped across the Tallows. Then I was caught in a storm and … and …” His eyes unfocused trying to piece it all together. The memories were so … unbelievable. He remembered soaring through the air, flashes of lightning, and something huge, darker than the night.
He should have died out there, he realized, if not from smashing into the ground, then from starvation or from the cold. He looked into her eyes, wondering if she was the reason he was alive.
“I’m … I’m grateful. Thank you.”
Her wrinkled face remained impassive.
He tugged at the frilly sleeve of his nightgown. “What happened to my tunic?”
“Burnt to a crisp and quite beyond repair, I daresay. But never you mind that—let us begin with names.”
He blinked. Burnt? Why burnt?
She gazed at him expectantly.
“Augum, my lady. My name is Augum.”
Her brows rose slightly. “Augum. Indeed. And what is your surname?”
“Orphans don’t have last names, my lady. I was squire to Sir Westwood in Willowbrook—before it was razed that is.” He scratched his head. “If that even happened, I’m not quite sure what’s going on …”
“I see. So you were training to become a knight.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Enough of this ‘my lady’ business—Mrs. Stone will do just fine.”
“Yes, my—err—Mrs. Stone.”
The candle sputtered out. She glanced at it as a mother would at a misbehaving child and it immediately flared back to life. “And what do you know of the Legion?” she asked, still staring at the candle, perhaps daring it to disobey.
Augum recalled standing from afar, face hot from the heat of the blaze; the willows burning, their tendril branches flailing as if in agony; embers swirling like fireflies; black-armored men chasing screaming people. The smell of oil and thatch and animals …
“They’re butchers led by a man who calls himself Lord Sparkstone …” a man rumored to be doing unspeakable things, ancient rituals testing the bounds of life and death; dark witchery the peasants feared and only whispered about.
“How old are you, child?”
“Fourteen.
“Two years from a man.”
“One year and a couple of months.”
She groaned, used her staff to stand, and padded to the door. There she stopped, face concealed in shadow. “Once again our brittle kingdom falls under the spell of ambition. King Ridian was old, perhaps unable to keep up with the many youthful intrigues that follow kings like flies follow lions. The royal court has always been a dangerous place.”
She sighed and faced him. “You have been through much, child. I present you a choice—I can take you on to the next village, or—”
“Or—?”
“Or you can stay here with me, help around the home and, should you show the proper attitude … become my apprentice.”
What did she mean? Apprentice in what?
“It is rude to gape.”
Augum closed his mouth, but the puzzled expression remained.
Mrs. Stone grunted and left. “No need to choose right away,” she said from the corridor. “I find decisions are best made on a full stomach. Come. Breakfast.”
“Breakfast? Is it morning—?”
Lightning
Beyond Augum’s room was a roughly hewn rocky corridor. The right led to another bedroom, the left a cavernous living room where Mrs. Stone shuffled past what appeared to be a mountain of books and scrolls. He entered to find her fussing over a kettle.
A small fire crackled in a rocky hearth to his left. Cookware and large copper ladles hung on the wall above. A rustic rocking chair sat in front, a thick book and pair of spectacles on its seat. Embedded into the far wall was an iron-fitted oaken door, flanked by a pair of round, leaded-glass windows.
In the middle of the room sat an old carved settee, pieces of parchment strewn on its faded rose cushions. Two armchairs sat opposite, along with a low tree-trunk table, inkbottle and peacock quill on top. Candles flickered in sunken hollows between shelves of all shapes and sizes. The shelves overflowed with hourglasses, stoppered vials, dry herbs, scrolls, books, and what appeared to be jars of multicolored drying sand.
He eyed the peacock quill and concluded she had to be a scribe.
Mrs. Stone pushed aside a pile of cloth and pulled open a small door, revealing a pantry filled with an abundance of carrots, onions, garlic, leeks, radishes and potatoes. Sacks of beans, lentils, and various grains sat lumped together. There were dried meats, hanging herbs, and jars of roots and spices he did not recognize. It was a rich stock; she had to be a wealthy scribe.
“As you have probably gathered,” she said over her shoulder, “I have not received a guest in some time. Take a seat at the table.”
He realized she meant the mountain of books and scrolls, and pushed some of it aside, uncovering a battered round table. As he fought the pile for a chair, something on the wall caught his attention.
“Mrs. Stone, what’s that?” He pointed at a short sword and scabbard hanging by a window. It sparked occasionally, a most unusual thing for a sword to do.
“None of your concern, child,” she said without turning around.
He marveled at the blade, imagining striking a black-armored villain with it, until his wandering eyes rested on a tome sitting high on a shelf. It was bound in vivid blue leather and ornately gilded, as if made for royalty—probably the most extravagant object he had ever laid eyes on. Sir Westwood had quite a few books, but nothing like this one.
Just as he was going to inquire about it, Mrs. Stone turned around with an armful of red radishes, carrots, apples and a loaf of bread.
“Perhaps you could stop being so curious and give me a hand.”
He rushed to take them from her, placing the food on the table.
She gestured at a particularly grumpy-looking carrot. “These are from Antioc.”
Augum was too hungry to care and began wolfing it down. He had always been a fast eater anyway, learning that the longer he sat with the Pendersons, the higher the chance of garnering their attention.
“Slow down, child, and you might taste something.”
Augum made a show of patience, yet as soon as she turned her back, he gobbled down an apple and two chunks of bread. Midway through an eye-watering radish, a strong gust of wind rattled the windows. Shadows danced as candles flickered in response. A flash lit up the room, followed by the low rumble of thunder. It brought distant yellow grass to mind along with the stomach-churning sensation of falling.
He dropped the radish, no longer hungry.
Mrs. Stone glanced at the tempest through the leaded glass. “By all rights that storm should have killed you.”
He stared at the table, unsure how to reply.
“Humph.” She fetched the kettle from the hearth, fixed two mugs of lemon and honey tea, handed him one, and sat down in the rocker by the fire. The pelt of rain increased against the windows.
Augum took a sip, savoring the bittersweet taste. He gla
nced about; the place could feel like home, and a scribe’s life had to be better than a wandering orphan’s. Besides, where else was he to go?
“Mrs. Stone—?”
“Mmm?”
“I think I’d like to stay with you.”
She rocked slowly. “So be it.” Her gaze did not leave the fire, though he thought he saw the corner of her mouth briefly twitch upward in a smile.
“But Mrs. Stone, um, what did you mean when you said I could become your apprentice?”
“Mercy, needlessly daft,” she muttered. “Have you not figured out why your clothes had burned, yet you yourself remain unharmed?”
Augum flinched as a bolt struck close by, illuminating the cavern. The crack of thunder rumbled through the room. He saw himself tumbling; a final bright flash …
“Can’t be …”
“Oh, it can, my dear child. It is rare, but a person’s talents can awaken like that. Few could be struck by lightning and still live, yet you do not have a mark on you.” The rocker creaked as she turned to fix him with a piercing gaze. “You may be predisposed to a discipline, though it may not be knighthood as Sir Westwood had hoped. Tomorrow morning you will take the first of three tests. Should you pass them all, I shall consider your apprenticeship in the warlock element of lightning.”
Augum felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. “Lightning …” he whispered as thunder trailed distantly. He had always believed there was more to life than tilling the land, or wearing armor and swinging a sword—but was she talking about witchery? In the isolated places he had grown up—the Penderson farm and Willowbrook—people never saw witches, tricksters or magicians. They only accused others of the practice; or in Augum’s case, used the term as an insult. The Pendersons said it was all parlor tricks, while Sir Westwood, a proud knight attached to the way of the sword, stayed quiet on the matter.
Although Sir Westwood held nothing but disdain for peasant superstition, he nonetheless alluded to other forces in his stories. When Augum asked him to elaborate, the knight answered with, “Some things are better left unsaid in small villages.”
