The tall man nodded to her. “Keep any ears from our door,” he instructed her.
She turned her back, standing before the doorway, fists coming to rest on her hips. She glanced over to Sten. The captain backed a full two steps before seeming to collect himself.
Brant instantly warmed to her and closed the door.
Behind him, a voice boomed a bit. “Who are you lot?”
Brant turned and hurried after the three men into the greeting hall of his chambers. The giant rose up from where he had been sitting cross-legged by the fire. He stood in his wool stockings, worn through at the toes, and had shed his greatcoat. He had a greasy turkey leg in one hand.
At his feet, a black nose retreated into one of his boots, dragging a worn snippet of bone. It seemed the whelpings had found a den for the night. A thready snarl flowed out of the boot, as wary of the intrusion as Malthumalbaen.
“It’s all right, Mal,” Brant said. “If you wouldn’t mind taking the whelpings into the next room and shutting the door. Where’s your brother?”
The large man pointed his turkey leg toward the back. “Had to use the privy, if that were all right?”
“Of course.”
“You say that now,” Mal answered jovially. “But wait ’til you go in there.”
“I must have a word with the regent,” Brant said, nodding to Tylar, who had bent a knee to peer inside the boot, drawn by the curiosity.
Mal shifted straighter, eyes widening again. “Ach, then I should be joining Dral.” He stepped toward his occupied boot. “If you’ll excuse me, ser.”
So much for Oldenbrook’s surprise.
“Cubbies,” Brant acknowledged and stepped forward. “To be presented to you and the warden after the knighting ceremony.”
“Fell wolves, are they not?” Tylar asked, sitting back, a measure of surprise in his voice. “Handsome creatures. How did you come by them?”
“I rescued them from the same storm that besets us this night.”
“Might near killed himself doing it,” Malthumalbaen added.
Brant felt his cheeks heat up.
The regent shared a glance with his bearded friend and stood.
Brant motioned to Malthumalbaen, who bent down and scooped up his large boot, earning a few sharper growls. The giant carried them toward the back room. “If you need me, Master Brant…”
Brant took some solace in the giant’s support. Once they were alone and the door shut, he faced the others. “How may I be of help?”
Tylar’s brow remained furrowed, crinkling the topmost stripe tattooed at the corner of his eyes. “First, tell us more about your rescue of these cubbies.”
“And the storm,” Rogger added.
Brant stared around the room. The tall stranger stood with one hand resting on the stone mantel of the hearth, the other on the hilt of his sword. It bore a distinct serpent’s head carved from silver, not the black diamond of a shadowknight’s sword. Still, there was something vaguely familiar about the blade.
Avoiding this one’s eyes, Brant cleared his throat and briefly told the story of his search for the abandoned cubbies, of the strange nature of the storm, and of its deadly cold.
“So the storm was gathering force as it swept south,” Rogger said. “Sucking the life’s breath out of the land.”
“I warned Lord Jessup, but once the storm had passed, there was little to discover, swept under a blanket of snow.”
Tylar nodded and mumbled as he paced one length of the room. “It seems this storm has swept all of us here for various reasons.” The regent turned on a heel and again faced Brant. “But what I need to know more is what swept you here.”
“Ser?”
Tylar asked the question that Brant was loath to ever answer. “How did you come to be exiled, Master Brant? What swept you up on our shores?”
Stunned by the strange turn of the inquiry, Brant stumbled for words. “I don’t see how-?”
“You’d best answer the question,” Rogger said from the other side, balancing the tip of a dagger on a finger. Brant had failed to note the man slip it from any sheath.
“And what do you know about a skull?” the ominous stranger asked by the hearth. “The skull of a rogue god.”
Brant fell back a step as the world shifted under his heels. “What…?” The back of his legs struck a chair. He sank down into it. A hand rose to the scar on his neck, a warding gesture.
Three pairs of eyes bore down upon him.
A keening wail filled his head, threatening to drown him away.
“Tell us,” Tylar demanded.
Brant shook his head-not refusing, but attempting to stop his slide into the past. He failed.
It had been a wet spring in Saysh Mal, when the jungle wept and moss grew thick on anything that risked stopping in one place for too long. Such did not describe the three boys that day as they lit out down the soggy forest path, enjoying the warming day that held the promise of a long summer to come in the streaks of bright sunlight cutting through the canopy.
Flitters buzzed the ear and nattered the skin, requiring the occasional slap to neck or arm. A pair of squabbling long-tailed tickmonks caterwauled from the trees, stopping only long enough to pass on a scolding howl at the boys running below before continuing their argument.
“Brant, wait for me!” shouted Harp. He limped after the faster boys, encumbered by a weak leg, a birthing kink that could not be cured with any manner of Grace.
Brant slowed their pace, though Marron ran another few paces before stopping, swinging around with a wide smile. “If we’re any later, we’ll miss seeing the match!”
They had been released early from Master Hoarin’s class on mushrooms and molds to attend a marksman contest to be held at the midday bell. But to make it in time, they still had to hurry.
Marron’s uncle had won the third match yesterday and this was the last spar. Half the villages had emptied out for the yearly culmination of hunting skills, to be held at the Grove. Wreathed crowns had already been handed out for skill with spear, dagger, and snare, for the most fleet of foot, for the most silent of step. This day ended with the crowning Hunter of the Way, the man or woman who had shown the most skill over the course of the four-day challenge. The Huntress herself usually granted this crown, but she had missed many such appearances over the past several moons, falling more and more into solitude and gloomy silences.
All hoped to see her again in her usual shining manner.
If only for the one day.
Perhaps this reason more than any had drawn a larger crowd than usual. If the boys wanted a good view of the final event-a display of marksmanship of bow and arrow-they’d need to hurry.
Harp huffed up to them, limping heavier.
“Take my shoulder,” Brant said.
The boy, younger by two years than the others, nodded his thanks, leaning his weight on Brant.
Ahead, Marron all but danced with his excitement. The family of the winner would be on the dais for the crowning. Marron had been chattering about meeting the Huntress over the past two days as his uncle rose in the rankings.
They took off again for the Grove.
Harp moved faster now. “You’ll be on the dais one of these years, Brant. ’Course, after you cross fourteen.” Brant knew the younger boy held his hunting skills in esteem, mostly because Brant let him come along on a few forays.
Few extended such invitations to the hobbled boy. His manner was odd, and whatever ailment had left him with a shrunken leg at birth had also sapped his strength. He was thin-boned and hawkish of features. And in a realm where swiftness of foot and skill with spear and arrow were valued, few found him a desired companion.
But Brant also knew that behind that weakened body hid a keen mind and a generous heart. There was a reason the boy had advanced two years in schooling. Sometimes Brant noted how his eyes seemed lost in some other place, gone off to somewhere deep in his mind. And a part of Brant envied his escape.
“Y
ou’ll definitely be Hunter of the Way one day. Surely- girly,” Harp said. It was one of his strange habits: rhyming when he was excited. Several of the boys taunted him about it, but Brant knew his friend couldn’t help it.
“Your father was crowned, wasn’t he?” Harp continued, rushing and gasping. “Twice, right?”
Brant felt a sharp pain, puncturing his joy and draining it away. It had only been a little over a year, and the loss of his father still tore like a fresh wound. He fought back the melancholy that filled so many of his days and even more of his nights. He wouldn’t let it ruin this day. It was too bright for dark thoughts. Still, a shadow followed him. It felt like dread.
Ahead, Marron ran faster when the murmur of the crowd flowed to them, sounding like the great rustling of dry leaves. “I’ll save a spot!”
Fleeing his dark thoughts, Brant hurried after his friend, almost tripping Harp. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
They rounded a bend in the path, and the Grove opened ahead. It was a great natural hollow in the forest, ringed by ancient pompbonga-kee trees. They were the great sentinels of the cloud forest and grew no place else in all the Nine Lands. Their wood was iron strong but light as the mists that crept through the cloud forest. It was from such wood that all the keels and ribbing for Myrillia’s flippercraft were hewn, enriching the realm.
The nine mighty trees that circled the hollow were known as the Graces. It was said they were planted by the Huntress herself when she chose to build her castillion here at the edge of the hollow, in the bower of the most ancient of all the forest’s trees, a great behemoth that was already ancient when she settled this realm.
Brant led Harp out into the edge of the Grove. The giant pompbonga-kee trees circled the hollow, their branches forming a wreath of green over the natural amphitheater. In the center, it was open to the sky. The midday sun blazed down upon the center of the hollow, turning the green meadow below into an emerald sea.
Spreading up the slopes were crowds of onlookers, many with blankets spread, enjoying the spring warmth as much as the games. Down farther, ringing the center field, the crowd was packed shoulder to shoulder. Out here at the fringes, many had climbed into the branches of the Graces, where balconies and stands had been built long ago. Drapes of spring flowers decorated the levels and twined up the stair railings.
Brant craned upward. It seemed not a seat was open.
“The whole world must be here,” Harp whispered, breathless with the excitement.
A low roar swelled around them. Down below, flags fluttered, marking clans and families.
“Over here!” Marron called to them off to the left, waving an arm. “Hurry! My brother has a free bench held up here!” He pointed to the stairs that led up to into one of the Graces.
Brant ran toward him.
Farther ahead, his eye caught upon the castillion of the Huntress, perched and tiered in the tenth and greatest of the pompbonga-kees. It rose at the easternmost edge, where the rising sun would first touch its green crown. What once had been crafted and constructed within the branches had long been swallowed as the ancient tree continued to grow. The castillion was no longer built in the tree but was part of the tree. It was a sight that humbled any eye that fell upon it, proof of the power of root and leaf, of the force of loam.
There was no more fitting home for the god of their realm.
Brant searched the high balcony of the castillion. The Huntress usually watched the games from such a vantage. But presently it appeared empty. Maybe she would appear when the competition began.
Brant reached Marron with Harp in hobbled tow.
“How…how high must we climb?” the younger boy asked, plainly winded.
Marron pointed his arm straight up, earning a groan from Harp. “Don’t fret. Brant and I’ll carry your bony arse to the top if we have to. Let’s go!”
Marron was in exceptionally good cheer. He often had little patience for Harp, but this day, nothing could squelch his fine spirit. He led them toward the stairs at the base of the towering pompbonga-kee.
As Brant followed, he noted a cloaked shadowknight by the foot of the steps. She was inked in darkness, half-melded into the shadows beneath the giant tree. She must be one of the Huntress’s own knights, come to view the games.
Brant searched around the curve of the hollow. Another knight stood at the base of the next tree. Had there been another at the tree behind them? He glanced back. It would’ve been easy to miss someone hiding in the deeper shadows.
Straightening forward, he almost ran into the chest of the knight. The woman had flowed so silently out of the shadows.
“Pardon me, ser,” he said shyly, starting to step around.
She blocked him. “You are the boy named Brant, are you not?”
To find his name uttered by the likes of a shadowknight unnerved him. He lost his tongue.
“Yes- mess, ” Harp rhymed, eyes huge on the knight. “He is, ser.”
An arm smoked out of the darkness and gripped Brant’s shoulder. “The school said you were headed here. We were sent to fetch you.”
“Why?” he asked, finally freeing his tongue. “I-I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Never said you did. And I can’t say why you’ve been summoned. Only that you have been.”
“Summoned by who?”
“By the Huntress herself.”
Brant was drawn away with the knight. His two friends gaped after him. Harp looked on with awe, while Marron wore an expression more confused.
Shock silenced Brant all the way around the curve of the hollow. The knight gathered another two of her cloaked brethren, falling into step with him.
Brant heard them mutter behind him.
“What does she want with the boy?” one asked.
“Who can say? Of late, there’s no predicting her mood. Even her Hands have been whispering of her irritable dispositions and strange, prolonged silences.”
“What’s so strange?” the other said with a snort. “Sounds no different than my wife.”
They reached the ancient tree and passed through an arched opening between massive roots. Sunlight vanished. The knights melted into the darkness on the stair, fading into whispering shapes. But once they passed up to the first level, sunlight returned, dappled and in a thousand shades of green leaf. The rising levels from here seemed to have grown out of the wood itself: stacks of balconies, hollowed rooms, snaking staircases that wound through the open air or delved deep through the outer layers of the trunk. It was hard to separate what hand had hewn and nature had grown.
And none more so than the High Wing.
Here in the canopy of the very world, the crown of the castillion appeared like a carved flower atop the tree, all surrounded by a wide terrace, whose polished planks of pompbonga-kee glowed with a molten warmth. A delicate railing framed the balcony, sprouting leaf and tendril, while the High Wing itself had been sculpted into curves and archways, appearing more like petals. Here straight lines had given way to more natural arcs. Even the rooms and halls bulged out of the central trunk as though they were born of the wood itself. Only when very close could the lines between planks be seen.
Brant traced a finger along one as they climbed the last stair to the upper terrace. It reminded him of the curve of a flippercraft’s bow. Was it from this example that the ancient wrights had learned to craft the mighty airships of Myrillia? Brant intended to ask Master Sheershym, the chronicler of Saysh Mal.
When at last they reached the great terrace, Brant caught a glimpse of the Grove below. Flags fluttered and cheers rose. The games had begun. But Brant had all but forgotten them.
“This way,” the knight ordered.
Brant was led through a great carved archway into the High Wing proper. Even after they crossed the threshold, the sunlight seemed to follow them, flowing through windows and reflecting off mirror and crystal. The air almost danced with the spring light. Brant inhaled the spiced air, heady with the natural oils of the pompbonga-kee.
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Despite the beauty and wonder of it all, Brant’s legs had begun to tremble. He was not worthy. He grew acutely aware of his poor attire: leggings patched at the knees, a loose jerkin that was missing two hooks. Even his soft boots, gifts from his father two years ago, were scuffed to a dull brown. He combed fingers through his hair, working away some old knots. At least he had bathed two days ago.
He lost track of the turns through the High Wing.
Suddenly he found himself before a set of tall doors, carved like a single leaf of the pompbonga-kee, but split down the middle in an S-shaped curve, following a vein in the leaf.
The knight pulled a twined rope of leather and a bell rang beyond the door. Moments later, a thin woman, wearing an ankle-length white dress sashed at the waist, pushed open one leaf of the door. Her eyes, pinched at the corners, glanced over them, then she bowed them inside. Only Brant and the lone knight, the woman, stepped through.
“Matron Dreyd,” the knight said. “We’ve come with the boy your mistress asked us to bring.”
“Thank you, Ser Knight. The mistress will be pleased.”
The matron’s words were spoken staidly, as if she doubted them herself. Brant noted how she glanced out the door as she closed the way, almost as if she weighed fleeing through it and away.
Still, she turned and offered a wan smile of welcome.
The chamber here was lit by an arched window to the sky. It shone down upon the floor, where the graining was so fine that Brant could not discern the individual planks. Smaller archways branched off the hall, some open, others sealed.
“My mistress has instructed that she would like the boy to join her in the Heartroom.”
“Truly?” the knight said, unable to mask her surprise.
A nod answered her.
The knight stepped back. She placed a palm on Brant’s back and gently pushed him. “Go. Do not keep the Huntress waiting.”
Brant tripped a step, then followed his new guide, Matron Dreyd. She led him straight down the hall to another set of doors, a smaller version of the ones through which they had entered. The matron led him through those and deeper again down a narrower hall. Here lamps flickered on wall hooks as the sunlight was left behind. The spicy scent of tree oil grew stronger.
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