by Dan Bilodeau
At least Soren had figured out a way, with his brother’s help, to stop the year’s Conscription for a while. He picked the boy up in his arms.
Farmers were scurrying to get out of the city, and soldiers were now rushing around, searching all the buildings nearby. Hadrian wasn’t sure why they were doing this, since everyone had seen Dalziel fly away like a blazing comet, and any trace of him was long gone.
Hadrian observed soldiers questioning a farmer named Slaig, who was also a vendor. The farmer was known for his irascible ways and was in a heated exchange with the Andals. Without warning, one of the men struck Slaig with his pike. Slaig went down to his knees, blood streaming from a gash on his forehead. Hadrian’s body tensed, then relaxed. Not yet. For now there were more important things at hand.
Hadrian began walking, carrying Soren’s body in his arms, which was no easy chore for him at his age. Deidre was busy helping the mother, as every few steps she was overcome with grief and had to be steadied. They hadn’t gone far when a single Andal soldier came up to them, seething and brandishing his sword.
“Isn’t this the scoundrel who caused all this trouble!” This wasn’t a question, and he swung the blade menacingly close to Hadrian's face, just missing him a couple of times.
Hadrian wove spirit at the soldier. The clear weaves entered the man, calming his nerves and alleviating his animosity.
“This is my son,” Hadrian said without emotion, “and I’m going to bury him on my farm. Is that acceptable to you, sir?”
The soldier hesitated for just a moment, then said, “I don’t see why not.” Lowering his sword, he used it to wave them on, and none of other soldiers took notice of the small retinue as they plodded out of town.
It took a while, but everyone made it to the farm, the boy’s mother not uttering one word during the entire trip, which took the better part of two hours. Hadrian was at a rare loss for words but decided he must say something.
“Dio rarely does things the way we want, and everything is always in His time frame,” he said after much thought. “I don’t pretend to understand why this happened, but Soren is in a better place.”
She stared at him and said, “I can only pray that’s true.” Her face reddened and she started looking around frantically. “Where is my Dalziel? He should be here.”
“He’s grieving in his own way, ma’am. Now, let us bury your beloved son.”
Hadrian asked where she wanted Soren buried, and she pointed to a spot by the barn. She gave him a shovel to begin digging, but seeing him doing this was more than she could bear, and Deidre had to take her inside the house. The girl came back to help Hadrian, and when they were finished with everything, she went to the house to get the mother.
“Dio, please guide this child home…” Hadrian began his eulogy, and finished with, “and protect him and shelter him in your hand. His worries are now over, while ours are just beginning. Dio be with us. You are the color of life. Amen.”
“Dio, please watch over my son,” Dalziel’s mother said after a long time in which she stared at Soren’s grave in silence. She knelt, brushing her hands across the soft earth atop her son’s body, and turned her tired face to Hadrian. “He was such a sweet boy. I want to thank you for bringing him home. At least he can rest now.”
Hadrian’s mouth was dry and he wiped his eyes. “He was a good lad. Didn’t deserve this. It’s my fault, ma’am. I filled his head with those stories. I should have known better.”
Despite her grief, she had piercing blue eyes that cut to Hadrian’s soul. “It wasn’t your fault. He loved your stories. It was those damn Andals, and they’re going to pay.” Her face took on a menacing look, and she raised her fist and shook it. “They’re all going to pay, the bastards.”
“They will, I assure you. And soon,” Hadrian said.
“Dalziel’s still not back yet. I need to go look for him.” She started to stand and both Hadrian and Deidre helped her up.
“Don’t worry about Dalziel, I’m going to take care of him. What I need you to do right now is grab the provisions you can carry and go to a safe place. Maybe Deidre can help you get some food and clothing together.” The girl nodded.
“My house will do just fine, thank you.” The woman assumed a posture that brooked no argument, and trying to convincing her otherwise at that moment would be futile. There might still be time for her to save herself if Dalziel talked to her, but time was of the essence. Hadrian thanked Deidre for being there for this family, and headed out across the field.
Hadrian walked as fast as he could. The field was still wet from the previous day’s rain, and he had to get close to the woods to be on more solid ground. But this also meant a more circuitous route.
Night had fallen, and he stopped and wiped the sweat away with his sleeve. He huffed as he placed his hands on his knees to catch his breath. This would be tiring to a young man, so he was pleased to find he could continue. His energy was sparked in large measure by what he’d witnessed in the market, never thinking he’d see something like that with his own eyes.
He’d been telling the histories for so long, he had almost half-believed they were fairy tales himself. It was one thing to learn about Ibernian heroes; it was quite another to see one fly away in a flame of glory. But he had to find Dalziel before the Andals, who would form search parties once they got organized after today’s debacle. And woods or no woods, they would look everywhere, and if they didn’t find him, go to the farm and interrogate the mother, likely threatening to torture her unless Dalziel turned himself in. He didn’t want to tell her, but it was for this reason, more than anything else, that he wanted her to leave right away.
Hadrian was moving at a steady pace. He had been blessed with a good sense of direction and had a decent idea of where Dalziel had landed. To the west, not far from the lad’s farm. With a little luck, he could reach him by sunrise. Hang on, boy, I’m coming.
SEVEN
He was a child again. The sun beat down on Dal’s face as he looked up, squinting. He was on a farm, but it wasn’t his. It was Deidre’s. Dal remembered this day. It was the first time the two had met. Dal’s father had brought him along to discuss some big plans of his with Deidre’s father. From what Dal could tell, his father was trying to enlist Deidre’s father for help of some kind. His father kept saying hard times were coming. Maybe this meeting had to do with the hard times.
Deidre was down by the creek, and soon they were attempting to skip stones into a small group of pebbles she had set up as targets. Dal wasn’t very good at the game, but Deidre couldn’t miss.
“Another one for me,” she squealed in delight.
Dal crossed his arms. A girl was beating him, and that wasn’t okay. Or was it? He was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be good at this kind of thing, but Deidre was not like the other girls. She acted like a boy in some respects and didn’t seem to care what anyone thought of her. She always had a quick smile, and Dal didn’t know why but he got a warm feeling when she looked at him. She was special for some reason, he knew that much.
Dal came closer but missed. “Nice try!” she said. She was also a better sport than Dal.
“Dal, are you ready to go?” Dal turned to see his father coming toward him. Despite losing the game miserably, he didn’t want to leave.
“Not yet, Dad. Can I stay, just for a little?”
“Okay, just for a little,” his dad said and winked.
He skipped a few more stones but couldn’t beat her. “Let’s see how good you are at this,” she said and handed him her bow. Dal focused on a narrow tree 50 yards away and had begun to pull the string back when he heard Deidre laughing.
“What is it?” he asked. She kept laughing. “What?”
He was starting to get angry, when he looked down and saw he was naked. “Oh, no!” he yelled.
Dal opened his eyes. He wasn’t sure why being naked in front of Deidre would make him scream. He hoped he wouldn't, and he started to chuckle as got up
from the soft ground where he’d landed. Then it hit him. Soren was dead. The thought brought him to his knees as he realized to his horror that he wasn’t dreaming. Dal quietly whispered his brother’s name over and over again.
He looked around. He was in the woods, not near his farm but not so far away that he couldn’t make it back by nightfall if the fields weren’t too wet. He steadied himself and headed toward the sun, which would eventually take him to his house. Then he thought about the stone. It held a low hum, and its color was a pale red. He tried talking to it, hoping he could energize it to sprout wings again and fly home in no time, but after fifteen minutes of trying every phrase he could think of, nothing happened. So he started walking.
The fields had dried out enough that Dal reached his home with some sunlight left in the day. He heard a lullaby coming from inside his house. It sounded like his mother. She was cooking potatoes and singing almost in a whisper. He entered the kitchen unseen, and she switched to the one song that always lulled him to sleep when he was a baby. Through the window he could see that the sun was now starting to set. The last rays danced across the fields, creating sharp shadows. It might have been beautiful in another lifetime, but he was convinced that nothing would ever be beautiful again.
He waited, thinking she would look up sometime soon, but she didn’t, so he cleared his throat. She let out a shriek. When she realized it was Dalziel, she embraced him so tightly that he was surprised she possessed such strength, and covered his face with kisses.
“Praise Dio, you’re safe, my son. I was so worried about you. Where have you been?” She released him and tears streaked down her face.
Dal winced. “Why are you crying?
“You know why, son.”
His mouth went dry and his head started to spin. He thought he was going to throw up. “Soren, you… about Soren?”
She gasped and sat down on the kitchen floor. Dal knelt with her. “Yes,” she said. "Hadrian buried him out by the barn, with Deirdre’s help.” She wailed inconsolably, but regained her composure after a while. “He was just a boy. I can’t believe it. Why would anyone want to hurt my baby?”
Dal was choking back tears of his own. “You saw what happened.”
“Yes, I saw him throw the rock and hit the magistrate in the face. And I saw Soren run. But that’s all I remember. Deidre said I fainted. She said you were very brave, and then some fantastic story about you turning into a flaming bird and killing Andals with a fireball. I know she was just trying to make me feel better, but I wish people wouldn’t make up stories like that.”
For a moment, there was a deafening silence between them, Dal debating with himself whether or not to tell her the truth.
“My baby, my…my baby’s dead,” she started repeating in a way that sounded like a song of its own. Dal put his arms around her shoulders to give her what comfort he could, and then rose from the floor and brought her up with him. She looked weak and defeated, and all Dal wanted to do was to take her pain away.
“It’ll be okay, Ma, it’ll be okay.” He didn’t know what else to say. Tears streamed down both of their faces.
“Did he suffer?” she asked.
“No, Ma,” Dal said softly. “It was quick. He didn’t feel anything. By the time I reached him, he looked like he was sleeping.” The lie was too hard to bear. Dal sobbed as intensely as his mother had earlier. The tears were burning his face. How can you be so cruel? Taking my father wasn’t enough, you have to take my brother too?
His mother was now the one holding him. “I’m so glad you’re safe, Dalziel, I love you so much.”
“I love you too, Ma. It just hurts so bad.”
“I know son, I know it does.”
His mother prepared a meal and they ate, and they were sitting together at the table afterward when Dal heard a knock. He was alarmed at first, but if it had been Andals, they would’ve dispensed with any courtesy and just broken down the door. When he opened it, he was met by Deidre.
“Dal, thank Dio you’re safe!” She had a bow and two rabbits draped over her shoulder. She threw off everything and embraced him.
“I was worried about you.”
“Me? We were all worried about you. I was hunting for dinner for my family, and I thought I’d check up on your mother. I didn’t know where you went. What happened to you?”“To be honest, I’m not quite sure myself. But I can’t talk about it now.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Ma doesn’t know. I woke up in the woods this morning and got here as fast as I could."
Deidre told Del’s mother that the farmers were all getting together in the morning at the church for a special service to pray for Soren. The church was secluded, and the farmers were certain that no Andals knew it existed, because if any of them had been aware of it, the church would’ve been destroyed by now.
The next morning, Dal and his mother set out for church. Several families joined them along the way, everyone walking in silence, and when they reached the building, the entire congregation followed Dal and his mother inside.
The church was a large wooden cabin that was very plain, and kept this way not to attract any accidental Andal attention. The only part of the structure that stood out, if someone knew where to look, was a wooden tower. Cloaked by trees, it rose twenty five feet in the air and housed a large bell with a cord attached. Father Adeon loved pulling the rope with great zeal, letting the bell call out brazenly to his parishioners.
Today he was wearing a flowing white robe, frayed on the edges, but sparkling clean, and void of any form of decoration. Although the farming community as a whole was poor, they were devout believers, and they gave to support the church, even if they had virtually nothing to spare.
Dal was horribly saddened that the bells this day were tolling for Soren. He wiped away his mother’s tears as well as his own as they made their way along the rows of wooden pews that went up to the altar. Also made of wood, it was rectangular, and centered above it a sun was carved. It had light-colored twigs affixed to it to give the impression that radiant sunbeams were reaching out to everyone in the congregation.
Dal recognized many of the people in the church. Slaig was in the corner, looking curmudgeonly as usual, and not helped by the big bandage on his forehead. He also sported a wicked-looking bruise on the side of his face and a black eye. At least he was alive. The congregation was louder than usual this morning, as people were having animated conversations throughout the building. Dal could guess what they were talking about, most likely his incident at the market. He could only pray that nobody knew it was he who had caused all that damage and devastation.
Deidre and her father came up and sat with Dal and what remained of his family. Deidre’s brother Roland was absent. After they were seated, she leaned toward him and whispered, “Today?”
“Today what?”
“Archery lesson, you and me.”
He had to get his mother out of the house, permanently, but this wasn’t going to be easy or quick, so maybe some time away to think would ease some of strain of having to break it to her that she would risk prison or death if she stayed, with the latter the more likely outcome. However, he was not going to let either happen, and of that he was certain.
“Okay,” he said. “When?” Dal was happy to see that Deidre’s father was ignoring their conversation, or doing a good job at pretending this was the case.
“Come to the woods on the west side of our farm two hours after the service. That will give you enough time to go home and eat lunch. I’ve got several bows you can try, so just bring yourself.”
All the chatter in the room halted as Father Adeon came down the aisle and stepped behind the altar. The choir followed him, taking its customary place behind him and singing a hymn to Dio. The rest of the church joined in. When the song was finished, Father Adeon raised and lowered his arms in a gesture for the congregation and the choir to be seated.
“Today,” he began, “we give thanks to Dio for all that we have. We are not rich
in the flesh, but we are rich in spirit. We take a moment now to remember our young brother who has joined Dio and become one with the earth. Please watch over Soren, your beloved son. May he rest in your light, O Lord.”
Dal lowered his head and wept unashamedly along with his mother. He held his mother’s hand, and she squeezed his hard. And for the very briefest of moments, everything seemed better.
Father Adeon continued, “Dio, we beg You to end the earthquakes that have plagued our lands over the past few years. We cannot understand things as You do, but we beg You to show us mercy. We do not live by what is seen, but what is unseen. Dio, You are the color of life. Please bring an end to this occupation that has cost us dearly in the lives of our parents, children and friends. Amen.”
“Dio be praised,” Dal said along with everyone else.
Father Adeon then said what he knew for himself and what he’d heard from others about Soren’s good points, of which there were many and caused Dal and his mother more tears. He asked if they would like to say anything to the congregation, but both were unable to talk about Soren this soon after his death, so after a closing prayer by the priest, the service concluded.
“Now, keep your arm straight,” Deidre said. Dal was sweating, trying to concentrate. She had already corrected his stance a dozen times. He shouldn’t bend his knees too much. Or stand so upright. He needed to widen his base. He could go crazy following all of these requirements.
