by D. M. Almond
CHAPTER 2
Under the waning light of dusk, Elder Morgana’s words rang hollow in Logan Walker’s ears as she retold the tale of the Founding. He did not understand why the villagers were huddled around the great fire, gobbling up her every word as if it were a revelation. This was the same story she told every year during the Culhada, a celebration of the Great Crystal’s cycle of renewal, and it was a version of history that, even as a child, he could never seem to swallow. Today he was no longer a child, but a young man of twenty years, already almost halfway through his life. However, he still found that doubtful nagging feeling lingering in the back of his mind. Yet here he was, stuck around the fire pit with his fellow villagers just the same.
The Culhada was a time for merry festivities, an occasion to share the traditions that made up their culture and celebrate the splendor of their god Baetylus. Every villager eagerly awaited the festival all year long. Days before the feast, the women of Riverbell would come together to prepare for it, baking all variety of delicacies—oversized pies filled with sweet snaps, honey-baked berry fruits, cocoa paste, crescent cookies, and even candied grapes.
For weeks before, Logan could feel his stomach rumbling in anticipation, imagining all the delicious desserts awaiting him. As a boy, he had found himself at the end of Miss Greta’s switch more times than he would like to recall for sneaking into the village pantry and stealing a nibble or two. He counted his blessings that they had no idea how rarely he was actually caught. If they knew the truth of it, they would have strung him up by his toes years ago. Logan chuckled the thought. After all, he did pride himself on his devilish antics.
For instance, how much fun had it been to release a basket of mice inside the village community pantry! He could barely contain his laughter at the shrieks below his hiding spot as the women ran out half-crazed and throwing aprons at the scrambling little rodents. Or how about the time he had filled the water barrels with dye so everyone’s teeth were stained green for a week? They always suspected him, of course, but never had a way of proving it. Logan sighed, drawing a sharp look from Elise Ivarone, who was sitting by his side, fervently listening to Elder Morgana’s story as if each word were from the mouth of Baetylus himself.
Logan gazed about the village square in boredom, praying for something to occupy his mind. He thought it was funny how they called it a square. It was really more of a circle, with low, squat, wooden cabins forming the perimeter. For him, everything about Riverbell was boring. The houses were dull, the people were predictable, and everything was covered in a perpetual layer of dirt. Even their clothing was drab—rough wool breeches, beige tunics, and canvas loafers.
Looking up, he wondered, not for the first time, what would happen if one of the hulking stalactites that hung high overhead from the cavern’s ceiling came crashing down into the square. Not that he wanted anyone to get hurt. It was a morbid curiosity, to be sure, but he would never wish any of his fellow villagers any actual harm.
But it would sure shake things up around here for a change…maybe add a little excitement to all this, he mused.
“What kind of trouble are you thinking of getting yourself into now, Logan Walker?” Elise demanded, poking his shoulder and speaking to him as if he were a child who had just been caught doing something naughty. The village women and children all around them were rising, brushing off their long, thick, woolen dresses, which mustered up a cloud of dust. He had been so caught up in his daydreams that he had not even realized Elder Morgana had finished her parable of their forefather’s sins.
“Well, do you have wool stuck in your ears, or are you going to answer me?” Elise stood looking down at him with her clear blue eyes, cocking her head to one side, thick blonde ringlets falling over her shoulders, and hands resting on her hips. Her dress was surely one for the Culhada, with brightly embroidered roses stitched from the hem up toward her slender waist.
“Surely I have not the slightest inkling of what you are referring to, Madame,” Logan mocked, speaking in an uncharacteristically haughty tone. Despite herself, Elise chuckled, and Logan reached out to have her help him to his feet.
“Don’t you play the injured lamb with me, Logan. You may have spun your little tale with Elder Morgana and the hunters, but surely you don't think I’d fall for this nonsense?” Despite her reprimand, Elise still helped him to his feet.
Logan stood tall at five-foot-eight, almost a full foot taller than Elise, with broad shoulders and chiseled features. His eyes shone mischievous and emerald-green, down at her, giving stark contrast to the walnut-colored mop of short-cropped hair atop his head. Elise thought he would truly be a handsome man if only he took some care to groom himself a bit more from time to time. Logan was nearly as large as his brother, Corbin, her fiancé, and capable of taking on most of the men his age in a grappling match. She frowned slightly at the idea that all this muscle was wasted on Logan’s silly pranks and loafing about.
Looking as if his pride may truly have been wounded, Logan said, “Now that is not fair, Lisie. You know I hurt myself pretty bad when I fell.” He faked a pout, glancing at his left foot for sympathy.
“Well, if you weren’t being a peeping little smurf, it would never have happened in the first place, eh? Maybe then, instead of trying to spy on ladies in the nude, you could be out doing your part in the great hunt,” Elise scolded, though she knew each word fell on deaf ears. In fact, they both knew Logan had zero interest in hunting. It was not that he could not hunt, because he happened to be very skilled at tracking and better than most with a bow. Elise had often overheard Rimball, the village trainer, lamenting the wasted potential of the boy with the men of Riverbell. However hard they pushed him, though, Logan always claimed he was built for life in a real city like the capitol, filled with the hustle and bustle of society. Villages like this were no place for such laziness and vanity.
Riverbell was a close-knit community where families worked hard to survive. Their goods came chiefly from farming and hunting the land, which produced bountiful crops and furs that they traded with the capitol of Fal and nearby town of Dure. Once a year they celebrated the great Culhada, a time when their god, the great floating Crystal Baetylus high in the cavern above their heads, would snuff out his light for three whole days, regenerating for a new year. A month after this, the city traders would come, bringing silks, chocolates, and ever precious oils for burning and energy—all the goods the village needed.
But when everyone else was hard at work, Logan was to be found daydreaming in the gardens. When he should have been working the fields, it was not uncommon to find him hidden away in the tall grass, napping.
“Aww, come on Lisie, that’s not what happened. I already told you, I thought I saw a sand snake climbing the wall and wanted to catch it before any of the women were given a fright!” Logan said, though his blush belied a guilty conscience.
No one believed him about the snake. It began innocently enough, with him trying to catch the tiny serpent. Except the sneaky thing went slithering straight up the costume building wall, forcing Logan to climb a stack of crates in his pursuit. Once he reached the window sill, the snake slithered inside, and Logan found himself staring through the pane at three giggling women, naked from the waist up while trying on costumes for the upcoming celebration. How was he expected to look away from something like that?
When the crates gave way and fell out from under him, it was all he could do to hold on to the old window frame. When the women saw what they believed was a peeping tom, they broke into shrieks. Logan quickly tried to explain about the snake, but then the popping sound of the wooden frame coming loose told him he was in real trouble. When he hit the ground, broken crates all around him, he wanted only to run and hide, but the flames of pain shooting up his left leg would not allow it.
Elder Morgana decided his injury was punishment enough. She had said she knew her boy better than to think he would peep on women. However, she also forbade him from being a part of the upcoming hunt
.
“If you know I wasn’t being a pervert, then why are you punishing me?” Logan had asked, though he couldn’t care less about being left out of the hunt.
Elder Morgana had looked at him shrewdly. “What was the snake for?”
“Huh?”
“You say you were trying to catch a snake. What was it for?”
Logan had grumbled. She had him there. Catching the snake to let it loose in the dining hall would have been a fun prank, and there was no use in trying to make something else up. Morgana would see right through it. So in the end he wound up with a sprained ankle and a week off from village duties. In Logan’s mind that was a great bargain to pay for a little embarrassment.
While the hunters were out providing for the feast, he was stuck here with all the women and children. Logan actually felt that this was a reward. So much so that he neglected telling anyone his ankle had gotten better three days before the celebration. Instead, he worked the limp with dramatic flair whenever anyone was watching.
Elise wagged her finger at him dangerously. “I have known you all your life, and I can see right through these childish games! I can tell when you’re acting the part, which seems to be most of the time lately, so don’t you try fooling me.”
Logan hid a smirk. He could see that glint in her eyes that told him she still secretly found his antics amusing. As a child, Elise found herself laughing with him more than once at the trouble he so easily found himself in. Back then, she took almost as much pleasure in his pranks as he did.
Holding his hands up in mock surrender, he said, “Okay, okay, you got me. I never fell from the window.”
At this, Elise wrinkled her nose and boxed his ear. “Oh quiet! You are a wool-headed mule after all. If only you had your brother’s integrity, then you wouldn’t need to be sneaking peeks at women’s underskirts.”
Logan grunted at her reference to her relationship with his younger brother. The three of them had been inseparable friends as children, but in the last three years she and Corbin had become much more than that. He did not like to think about his brother holding Elise that way; it felt weird. Not that he held any resentment toward the couple—quite the contrary. Logan was very happy for them and thought they made a great pair. They made sense. He just did not like the reminder their coupling represented. The thought of having to settle down with one of the girls from the village terrified him, though he knew the womenfolk were cooking up plans for him to do just that.
Once Morgana and her flock of mother hens decided who was a good fit for him, meaning which girl would put up with his nonsense, there would be little he could do to avoid that fate. He knew in their eyes a good woman would take care of his mischievous nature and tame him into a respectable member of the village.
Which was why Logan had every intention of leaving Riverbell this year when the traders came after the festival. He had told no one, only hinting it to Corbin when they ate their meals. It was off to Malbec for him, to roam the city and start a life of adventure.
“Well, here comes your Knight of Integrity now, milady,” one of the village boys who had been eavesdropping teased, tugging at Elise’s skirts.
All eyes were already on the gates of the seven-foot wall of sharpened wooden stakes that encircled the small village, protecting it from the roaming beasts of New Fal.
Logan perked up to see the hunters returning through the gates with all the women swarming around them in excitement. Elise grabbed him by the sleeve, happily running toward the hunters. His ankle only lightly throbbed, making him a match for her speed. Year after year he had watched the men come back with their meager catches during the Culhada and never did he understand the need for all the fuss. Their bounty was rarely different from the regular hunts.
There was one festival when the game had been larger, back when his father was still alive and had helped four others take down a bull of enormous proportions. The beast had wandered into their territory, virtually stumbling across the hunters’ path as they were tracking a wild boar. That Culhada feast was more than plentiful and everyone swore it would be a wondrous year, filled with good fortune. Logan did not believe such rubbish. That was the same year he lost both of his parents.
Logan and Elise made their way through the gathering to watch as the men paraded into the village with their prizes. Some had nothing but a smile to offer, while others carried bags of tree squirrels for stews or cages of sand snakes for roasting. A few hunters had actually caught a baby boar, carrying it hung on a spear with prideful smiles.
Günter, Elise’s father, was walking by with one such trophy when Elise tackled him, smothering him with hugs and kisses. “Now, now, my little rose, careful you don’t stain that pretty dress,” he laughed jovially, hugging her back.
“Pa, where is Corbin?” Elise asked, eagerly searching the group for some sign of her fiancé. “I don’t see him anywhere. Did we miss him coming through?”
Günter gave one of his boisterous laughs, his large stomach bouncing. “That boy is something else! He said he was tracking the truffle thief and nothing could get him off that trail. I expect he will probably keep on it until he gets the game. Don’t fret though, pumpkin; that Corbin can certainly take care of himself. I’m sure he’ll be back soon enough.”
Elise pouted and crossed her arms as her father patted her cheek lovingly, while Logan looked out through the gate into the wilds.
What can my little brother be up to out there all alone?
