The Winds of Crowns and Wolves

by K. E. Walter

  “His son” was a phrase that perplexed Asgall. Though this boy shared no blood connection with him, it felt in his heart as if they were bound at the soul; a connection that met at the very fibers of their being and was an impenetrable barrier, defending their relationship against external forces.

  It would need to be done, he thought. For the sake of his son’s accomplishment, he reserved himself to the fact that it would need to be done the following day, at the earliest.

  Time had gotten away from them. All of the stars were now visible over the valley and he saw Neach to his left connecting them with his finger.

  “The sky is beautiful at night, it’s a shame that we couldn’t make a pattern with these stars and bring them back to town with us for all the people to see,” Neach claimed in amazement.

  He had always been fond of the stars and the moon, and everything that could be found in nature. He felt at home amongst the natural order of things. Some nights, Asgall wondered if his son slept in the grass outside of the hut. This affinity, which could not be shaken, was the very reason the two men remained at the top of the hill, gazing deep into the abyss.

  “The people will be waiting for us,” Asgall proclaimed. In the town after every new found man’s ceremony, a feast and dance took place around a massive fire in the center.

  From their vantage point, hundreds of feet above, a crowd could be seen gathering. The faint sound of a lute being played traveled up to the two men, and caressed their ears with memories of the summer, which had passed so quickly. Summer in the valley was a lovely time filled with bountiful harvests, music and the love of the townspeople on a nightly basis.

  As the music continued in the valley, Neach stood up beside his father and grasped the axe in both hands. With a silent nod of approval, Asgall watched as his son made his way toward the large yew they had been sitting under.

  With a defiant thud, the first strike of the axe bore itself into the tree and the ritual began. It was customary for the father to begin a period of prayer and not conclude it until the tree had been completely dislodged from the ground.

  Swing after swing, thud after thud, the brilliant old yew swayed in the light winter breeze. Its branches looked feeble and it bore no fruit, but its trunk was thick. This tree had likely stood in this spot for thousands of years and today, Neach would claim it as his own.

  Nearly half an hour had passed before the poignant sound of cracking wood filled the air like an angry collection of bees. In an instant, the tree went from a tall standing bastion of significance, to a destitute heap of logs. It crashed to the ground with relentless fervor, and it could be heard around the valley. A dull roar emanated from the town below.

  He had done it. As he walked over to the tree, he used his father’s axe to claim a branch off of it for remembrance. The years that had come before had seen this tree used as a form of shade by weary travelers and the townspeople.

  Branch and axe in hand, with sweat building up around his brow, Neach looked up at his father who had tears in his eyes.

  “It took you that long to cut down that little old tree?” he choked through tears with a sort of comical cynicism.

  His good natured spirit was refreshing to Neach. Not only had he gained the respect of the community, but he had gained the respect of his father. Asgall embraced his son in elation, and they walked toward the town.

  The valley created a basin near the edge of the hill where a small river had cut through and left its mark in the landscape. As the two men reached the bridge that would connect them with Spleuchan Sonse, a crowd of people gathered at the end of the walkway. Looks of joy spread across their faces, as Neach raised the branch he had removed from the tree in his right hand, and the axe in his left.

  Like a calm, serendipitous, weathered, old man, Neach took the praise in stride. He strolled across the bridge with an air of confidence so thick, that it nearly suffocated those who awaited him on the other side. Yet this was exactly what they wanted, a man to show his superiority in the face of adversity and come out as the victor.

  A new found glory resonated within the very foundation of his body, and a feeling he had never experienced before permeated his bones. Could it be that he had already been jaded at such a young age? He wished, in a strange series of events, that the effect of this event were more lasting and profound. The feeling, which he had never felt before, was emptier than anything previously felt.

  But the façade was erected, if not for the benefit of the townspeople, for his father’s own sanity. He could not have him see that this moment, which he had looked forward to his entire life, had culminated with an unsatisfying crescendo. Neach had a mind which was far older than it let on.

  Upon their arrival, a collection of men carrying torches knelt down in front of the gates, allowing Neach the ability to pass through the aisle they had created.

  He treated it as if he was supremely impressed by the extravagance of the events which were unfolding before him, but in his mind he knew that he was not content.

  He entered the town hall, which, the night previously, had housed the gentlemen of the town in a festivity of mead and food. Neach walked into the hall accompanied by his father, and inside he saw the rest of his town congregated.

  The hall was made of the finest oak trees that could be found in the valley. Generations earlier, the men of the community had banded together to craft perfectly shaped and cut logs to use as the frame of the building. Inside, the smell of burning wood and a fresh roast infiltrated Neach’s nostrils, as he headed for the table where his mother and brother sat.

  “Welcome home, man of the village,” his mother offered sweetly, “we are all very proud of you.”

  His demeanor was always softer and kinder when he spoke to his mother. He responded to her statement with a faint smile, as to not show weakness. As he looked around the hall, the jubilation was running rampant around every orifice of the building. Some of the men, who had been drinking since the middle of the day, were singing songs of battles past, and the women they had been with. Others sat quietly with a bemused smile upon their face, as they watched the festivities commence.

  The hall was decorated in a lavish, at least for their community, display of precious metals, which danced as the flame of the fire licked at their precipices. An extravagant occurrence, fit for the new gentlemen, as they began a new life filled with hard work.

  Neach rose from his table, after indulging himself, and headed to get fresh air outside of the hall.

  The air was crisp and cold, as the winter chill seeped deep into his bones. He walked out, toward the bridge he came in over, and sat down at the bank of the river.

  It was times such as these that Neach longed for. A silent time where he could ponder life’s greatest mysteries, by himself, next to the solace of the flowing stream below him: he embraced it. It was as if time stopped, and all that existed was himself and the beauty surrounding.

  The cold river cut through the base of the hill, like a wrinkle etched into the face of a weary old man. It bent and stretched, narrowed and expanded, and the rustic lack of homogeneity made him feel at home. He had always felt as if he were different from the rest of his family. A different wiring of his brain, he presumed. But with a limited knowledge of anything to prove that, he muddled through his day to day life, in search of an answer of some sort.

  As he sat on the river bank, he heard a rustling in the brush next to him. It was not uncommon for an animal to hide in the brush before scurrying away, but tonight’s temperature was cold, and most animals had gone into a form of hibernation.

  He ignored the sound and fell back into the deep thoughts he had only recently concluded. Before he could drown in his own mental riptide, he heard the rustling again, this time much closer to where he sat. With a quizzical look upon his face, Neach stood up and ventured toward the brush.

  Curious, yet anxious, he approached the brush and picked up a stick he found nearby.

  When the nature of th
e beast that lurked inside of that brush showed its true face, he realized the futility that the stick he held in his hand offered.

  Nestled in the edge of the brush, asleep, was a full grown grey wolf. With a gasp and a stutter step backward, the realization of the situation struck Neach like a full grown man running head on.

  What was he to do? He couldn’t let this majestic, yet carnivorous, creature maintain a home so close to his community. It was his duty as a man to rid the town of the beast. After recovering his senses and mental clarity, he crept toward the sleeping wolf. As he got within arm’s length of it, it opened its eyes. Large orange orbs stared back into Neach as if they were two microcosms of the very sun which gave the Earth life.

  With a disgruntled growl and a calm ascendance to its feet, the wolf slowly exited the brush. Armed with only a stick, Neach was unsure what it was that he should do next. Out of instinct, he dropped the stick.

  The wolf turned slowly toward him, and instead of a menacing growl, let go an ear piercing howl that seemed to reverberate within Neach’s soul, if only for a moment. As quickly as it had come, the wolf had disappeared into the darkness beyond the brush and vanished.

  From out of the hall, Asgall and the other men of the village came running as quickly as they possibly could. To their surprise, they found Neach standing by himself, staring off into the distance.

  “What happened son; we heard a wolf!” exclaimed Asgall.

  “It just-it just ran away, it looked at me and ran away,” Neach stated in bewilderment.

  He wondered why it hadn’t simply killed him. His life was within the animal’s grasp. With nothing to protect himself except a stick, which he had promptly dropped, he was at the wolf’s mercy.

  Asgall lead Neach back toward the hall with the rest of the men so the festivities could resume. After a slight pause in the music, it came back to life with the passion of a collective of bards.

  The merry gentlemen maintained their drunken stupor throughout the ordeal, and never batted an eyelash. Their voices carried through the nooks of the hall and echoed for what seemed like an eternity. Neach spent the rest of the night contemplating his near-death experience, and wondering why it was that the wolf had simply let him go.

  As the night drew to a close, sleep beckoned. The soft exterior of his bed cocooned him like a newborn butterfly, and it prevented him from spreading his wings.

  III

  Neach was an odd member of his family.

  Born with vivacious auburn hair, which had waves like the sea to the west, he stood out as a stark point in his family, which boasted a darker skin and dark hair. His complexion gave off a pasty glow in the sunlight, which perplexed him even more.

  Unlike his ancestors past, his eyes were blue like a cold mountain stream, translucent almost, but with caricatures of mountains etched into his iris. He stood out, undoubtedly, but he embraced the differential between himself and his family.

  He rose from his winter slumber as alert as when he had gone to sleep. The events of the prior night plagued him through his rest, and he couldn’t quite understand why.

  A particular vision he witnessed in a dream depicted the wolf as nearly human, remaining on all fours, but speaking to him in a language he could understand. It seemed preposterous looking back on it, but in his dream there was communication.

  With a shudder, Neach disbanded any thought of the wolf in his dream, and ventured toward the center of the hut.

  The sun had yet to rise, but it was customary for the men of the village to rise before anyone else. There, he found no sign of any of his family. It was likely they remained asleep, except for his brother Ealar, who awaited him outside.

  Ealar had assumed partial role of his duties in the community, and now that Neach was also a man of the community, their father Asgall was able to turn in his tools for good, to the next generation.

  The air was thick with a fog that seemed to sprawl over the hills, and nestle itself comfortably in the valley. The newfound men leisurely strolled toward the plot of land, which their family called its own.

  Once weekly, Neach and his father had ventured out to the plot with Ealar as a sort of training lesson. Asgall showed him how to till the land and cultivate it, in order to receive the highest crop yield possible. True to his father’s form, he led by example, not by words. Though he rarely spoke, his contributions were always well thought out and meaningful.

  The sun had yet to rise, as was typical when the plot was tended to. Darkness cradled the village in its palm, as if it were a play toy. Rolling fog infiltrated its every corner, and provided an iridescent filter for the moon, which still shone high above the hills. The brothers reached their destination as the first hint of sunlight could be detected in the increasing brightness of the night sky.

  As they came within a few feet of the family plot, something struck Neach’s eye that had never before done so. In the farthest expanse of the field, a black rock sparkled with the light of the moon. Intrigued and uninterested in tilling the land at the moment, he rerouted his path to coincide with the location of the rock.

  “I’m going to see how the potatoes are doing at the edge of the field”, Neach stated, with a new found authority.

  In silent agreement, Ealar parted ways with his brother, and set off to attend to the near side of the field. The glistening of the rock seemed to increase as he got closer. From afar, it appeared that it was a piece of stone that must have been tossed around in the ocean and brought downstream, and found its way to the field. But as he knelt down beside it, an inscription could be read.

  Scrawled with what appeared to be a rudimentary writing device, was something which nearly knocked Neach off of his feet. The black rock, the one which shimmered in the moonlight, which appeared to be an out of place piece of Earth in their crop space, bore his name. Written in its entirety, something which hadn’t been used since his youth was the name “Coinneach”. Baffled, Neach sat down in wonder.

  It took nearly twenty minutes for Ealar to notice that Neach had failed to begin any kind of work on the far side of the field. Instead, he was propped against a large oak tree, with a blank look upon his face. Incredulous and sleep deprived, Ealar approached his brother with an intensity he had never seen before.

  “What do ya think yer doin’! Ya haven’t done a damned thing since we got here! Yer going to need to pull yer weight if you want us to survive this winter, Neach!” an overexcited Ealar exclaimed.

  Without so little as a word uttered, Neach gestured toward the discovery he had made only minutes earlier. At first perplexed, Ealar comprehended the motion and ventured toward the rock. Suddenly understanding his brother’s quiet and inactive nature, Ealar turned back toward Neach with a look that most closely resembled horror.

  “How in the-wh-where-WHAT?” he yelled.

  The response which met him was a simple nod of the head by Neach. This cold winter’s morning, two village men sat stunned beneath the cover of a large oak tree. In an inexplicable series of events, a common day, which was meant to deal with crops, now provided a much more fertile dilemma.

  The men agreed to not speak of this until their work on the plot was done. For the next few hours, they tilled and groomed the land for the next planting, and checked the progress of the already planted crops. The potatoes seemed to be growing well, as their flowers poked out of the ground. A speckling of pinks and white scattered throughout the field proved to be a telling sign of a high crop yield in the years passed.

  In many situations, it was commonplace to add a combination of ground up roots to the soil to ensure healthy growth. The winter was in full swing, and any extra measure which could be taken to make sure that the crops survived was vital.

  For what seemed like a century, the brothers worked in silence, focused on the goal at hand. As the day came to a close, and the sun began to slip below the hill’s crest, Ealar and Neach found themselves in possession of blistered hands, and an inkling of curiosity about the rock whic
h they had found earlier.