Harbinger

by Shae Ford

  Roland smiled and let the laughter die down before he continued. “I’m too old to keep up with the hunters anymore. Trapping is in my blood, but my blood has thinned with age. If we want to make it through another winter, we need to find a younger man to take my place. I’ve got a man in mind, and he’s a man that I’ve trained myself.” He spread his hands wide. “But he hasn’t slain a deer.”

  A chorus of hushed conversations sprung up throughout the Hall. No one joined the hunters without killing a deer.

  Brock raised his eyebrows, adding to the many wrinkles on his forehead. “Are there none among the hunters who are fit to take your place?”

  Roland shook his head. “None. Trapping is a game that requires talent as well as skill. Even winter isn’t long enough for me to train another. But Kael already knows the trade, and he’s the best I’ve ever seen.”

  More whispers buzzed through the crowd at the mention of his name. He burned as a hundred faces turned to stare at him.

  “Really?”

  “Him?”

  “That scrawny one?”

  “… like a toothpick.”

  Brock cleared his throat and the Hall fell silent. “I don’t recall ever seeing Kael return with game. Are you certain he has a talent?”

  His face reddened as people laughed, but Roland was quick to defend him: “The lion slays, but the vultures do the feasting.”

  Brock shifted uncomfortably and seemed to stare at Roland in order to avoid looking at the hunter’s table — where Laemoth’s face was like stone and Marc kept his eyes out of sight.

  The elders had their favorites; there was no doubt about that. Half of what they returned with wasn’t theirs, but Marc and Laemoth looked the part. The elders would rather believe it was they who provided for the village — not a half-breed runt. And Roland knew it.

  After a very tense silence, Brock relented. “We will agree with you. We’ll accept Kael as a hunter — but only if the other hunters will agree.”

  He actually breathed a sigh of relief. There was no way Marc and Laemoth would let him join. They would refuse him, he was certain of it. And then he could step up and ask for a different trade without shame. No one would blame him for choosing another path if the hunters refused him now.

  He would have to thank Roland for this someday. He couldn’t have planned it better.

  It only took a few minutes of heated bickering at the hunters’ table for one side to win out over the other. The losers huffed and crossed their arms over their chests as Marc stood to address the elders.

  “No one can trap like Kael,” he said. “We want our pots to stay full through the winter, and the hunters can think of no man better for the job.”

  The hair on the back of Kael’s neck stood on end. He knew something was coming. He could see the smug look on Marc’s face from across the Hall — hear the dark triumph in his voice. Then it dawned on him.

  Marc and Laemoth noticed his missing bow — they must have. And they knew he would have to go to the elders eventually and stand before all of Tinnark to ask to be assigned a trade. So they’d waited.

  No, he thought desperately. He looked at Marc, searching for any glimpse of mercy in his eyes. But there was none. If anything, his smile widened.

  “But a hunter’s not a hunter — and a man’s not a man — unless he has his bow,” Marc said, his mouth twisting in a grin. “So if Kael wants to join the hunters, that’s fine with us. All we ask is that he bring us his bow.”

  Chapter 3

  The Traveler

  “What are you waiting for? Get your blasted bow,” Amos hissed.

  For a few moments, Kael had been somewhere else. He found himself trapped in the depths of every curious eye in the room, lost in the thoughts that must be bouncing around in their heads.

  What’s he doing? Why isn’t he moving? their faces said.

  His mind went numb and his legs became like lead. Slowly, he managed to turn to Amos. When he saw Kael’s face, his frustration melted into disbelief. And he groaned aloud.

  “Where is your bow?” Brock said. His voice had more life to it than it’d had in years. He was standing now, his hands planted on the table in front of him. He watched Kael’s face grow red, and frowned. “Where is it? Speak, boy!”

  “Elders,” Marc cut in, “I think I know where it is.” He nodded to Laemoth, who pulled a rucksack out from under his bench and opened it. He sneered at Kael through his freshly busted lip before he reached in and pulled out the bow.

  The string dangled off the end of Laemoth’s finger and the two broken halves clattered together as he waved it around for the whole Hall to see. Gasps rang out, Amos groaned again and dropped his face into his knobby hands. Across the Hall, Roland looked as if someone had kicked him in the gut.

  Brock’s mouth hung open, but the expression was forced: the O of his lips bent slightly upwards as he fell back in his seat. “What does this mean?”

  His question was directed at Marc, who was only too happy to oblige. “I left the village early this morning to track a deer,” he said, holding the grin off his face long enough to assume a more serious tone. “Along the way, I stumbled upon Kael. He’d broken his bow and then tried to hide it in the bushes. But I retrieved it. The good people of Tinnark deserve to know the truth, after all. And Kael certainly wasn’t going to tell it.” He shook his head amid a fresh wave of murmurs. “He lied to us, though it pains me to say it.”

  Kael leapt from his bench and stepped out into the aisle. He was no liar — and he was going make sure the people of Tinnark knew it. He’d filled his lungs with the first angry words when Roland’s voice cut him short.

  “Is that true, Kael?”

  He wasn’t smiling. His shoulders were slumped forward and his mouth sagged into a miserable frown. The defeat in Roland’s eyes knocked the fury out of him, and Kael realized, in one heartbreaking moment, that his wasn’t the only dream that had died that day. He hadn’t only failed himself, but he’d failed Roland as well.

  And it was that sorry realization that snuffed his fire out.

  “Yes.” The word came from his mouth louder than he meant it to. It bounced off the ancient pine beams of the Hall’s roof and filled the air with murmurs. “It’s all true. And I’m sorry.”

  He left. Even when Brock yelled at him to turn around and face the elders, he didn’t turn back. There was nothing they could do to him that would be worse than the look on Roland’s face.

  A pair of torches hung outside the Hall’s front doors. They were meant to serve as beacons — so that if a fog rolled down from the summit, the villagers could still find their way to food. Tonight, they would serve a different purpose: they would lead Kael as far away from Tinnark as his legs could carry him. He grabbed one of the torches and ran.

  The night was cold and still. With every breath the fresh scent of rain filled his nose. In the back of his mind, he knew he shouldn’t wander far from the village. He could freeze to death in less than an hour if the rain fell. Part of him knew this, but the part that drove his legs pushed him on. It wasn’t long before he found himself in the middle of the woods.

  Night made two of everything. The torch bounced from the motion of his jog and the trees danced along with their shadows. Wind raced down from the icy tops of the mountains. It cut through his skin and made the leaves rattle like dry bones. A lonesome wolf howled up the trail — his eerie song rode the wind and sent chills down the back of Kael’s neck.

  Still, he thought he’d rather risk getting eaten than go back to the village. He could survive in the mountains. He knew how to build a shelter and hunt for food.

  Yes, it would be better if he stayed on his own.

  A loud boom sounded above him and when he looked up, a snake of lightning flexed across the sky. That one glance, that second of distraction, was all the opportunity the mountains needed. Before his mind could grasp it, he was falling.

  He smacked his knees against the rocks and heard his trousers rip.
His torch flew from his hands and he had to scramble to catch it before it rolled away. Cursing whatever rock or fallen branch had tripped him, he turned to kick it aside — and froze.

  The thing jutting onto the path was no root or stone. In fact, it shouldn’t have been in the forest at all — not this hour of the night. He had to step closer to be sure, but when the light crossed it, there was no denying what it was: a pair of human legs stuck out from the brambles.

  The boots were caked in mud and the pants were so dirty he couldn’t tell what color they actually were. He tried to think if the hunters had mentioned anyone getting lost in the woods at dinner. He was sure they hadn’t. So if this man wasn’t a Tinnarkian, he must be a traveler.

  Or he must have been a traveler … the legs were laying very still.

  “Hello?” Kael said, and he felt foolish saying it. There was almost no question the man was dead. “Are you all right?”

  When a long moment passed and the traveler didn’t move, he stepped closer. He pushed the brambles aside and held them back with his shoulder. “Don’t be alarmed. I’m just going to —”

  And he nearly dropped his torch.

  He’d been expecting a to see a man — a big fellow with a scraggly beard and leathered skin. Or one of the wild men from the summit perhaps, or at the very least someone who’d been dead for a while. But that wasn’t at all what he found.

  A girl. A girl lay on the ground in front of him. She looked young — close to his own age. Her hair was the color of a raven’s wing. It fell past her shoulders and covered the ground near her head in waves. Twigs and leaves were tangled in it, like she’d been crashing through the forest at full tilt. He followed her red lips up the straight line of her nose — and arrived directly at the fist-sized gash on the side of her head.

  Days-old blood covered the wound and matted the hair near it. Brown streaks stained her face: tracks from where drops of blood had rolled down her pale cheeks while the wound was still fresh. Kael knew there was no way she could still be alive. No one lost that much blood and lived.

  He’d seen plenty of death, and learned long ago that there was nothing he could do to stop it. Still, he thought it was a shame. The girl’s clothes were filthy, but her face was remarkably beautiful. Why had she been in the woods? Where was she headed?

  Something about her attire seemed strange. He reached out and touched the material of her leggings with the tip of one finger. It wasn’t leather, of that he was certain. It felt more like iron, but it wasn’t as cold as iron ought to have been. Then he scraped some of the dirt away and saw her clothes were made of tiny, interlocking pieces — almost like chainmail.

  What in Kingdom’s name was a girl doing in armor?

  Then his heart flipped when he saw the weapon strapped to her leg. It was a sword, curved and sheathed in black. He reached out, prepared to grip the smooth hilt and draw it from its sheath —

  Thunder clapped above him, startling his hand away. As much as he wanted to look at the sword, he knew the rain would start falling soon, and he knew he needed to find somewhere dry to spend the night. He thought briefly about taking it with him, but Roland always said that to steal a dead man’s weapon would bring no end of bad luck. And that was the last thing he needed.

  He turned to leave, but couldn’t stop himself from glancing back at the girl one last time. As the light touched the gentle curve of her neck, he thought he saw something. He paused for half a breath, staring. Then it happened again — this time unmistakable: a vein throbbed below her jaw.

  She was alive!

  He dropped on his knees and drove the torch into the dirt next to him. “Miss? Can you hear me?” He placed his fingers on her neck and felt her pulse. It was weak, just barely thrumming. She needed Amos’s help — he had to get her to the hospital.

  He looped one of her arms around his shoulder and got his legs beneath him. Great mountains, she was heavy. He pushed and strained until he was out of breath, but there wasn’t enough meat on his legs to get her off the ground. Perhaps he could run back to the village, get some of the hunters to help —

  Thunder roared over his head, and then rain started to fall. Drops that were more ice than water lashed his skin. They came down in blinding sheets, billowing up as the wind ripped through them.

  He tore his shirt off and stretched it over the brambles above them. He couldn’t move fast enough to save the torch: it sputtered out, leaving them in darkness. He knew his shirt could only keep them dry for a few minutes before the rain would leak through. When that happened, it would only be a matter of time before the cold took them.

  He pulled the brambles tighter overhead and tried to fashion some sort of roof by tying them together. “It’s going to be okay,” he said to the girl while he worked. “We’re probably not going to freeze to death … but we might. I’m not going to lie to you, we might.”

  Amos was always better at comforting people. Kael had a tendency to read the story the way it was written.

  Water started leaking through their roof and he shielded her with his body. He put an arm and a leg around her, forming a sort of lean-to over her wound.

  A few minutes later, his lips were in danger of freezing shut. He tried to keep them moving.

  “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever really talked to a girl before — especially not one as pretty as you. But I don’t suppose this counts, does it? You aren’t exactly talking back.”

  Thunder clapped — he jumped.

  “— ael!”

  Someone yelled his name, right at the end of the peal. “Here! I’m over here!” he shouted, forcing the words through his chattering teeth. A long moment passed and no one replied. Maybe the ice in his ears was making him hear things.

  “Kael!”

  Now he was certain he heard it. Someone was looking for him. He crawled out of the shelter and stood in the middle of the path. “Here! Over here!” he said, as loud as his voice would carry.

  “I hear him!” someone bellowed.

  He shouted until his throat went hoarse. He waved his arms and jumped up and down. His bare chest burned from the cold and he couldn’t feel his nose. Just when he thought he might be stuck as a frozen, waving statue forever, a lantern bobbed up the path.

  “I found him!” His hood shadowed his worried face, but Kael recognized Roland’s stiff gait as he limped forward. “What were you thinking, boy? We all know Marc is given to tell tales, why didn’t you stand for yourself?”

  Before the light could touch him, Kael quickly crossed his arms over his chest. He forced himself to meet Roland’s eyes. “Because he was right. I broke my bow and I tried to hide it.”

  Roland’s smile was kind, even in the eerie glow of the lantern. “Well, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same myself. The good news is that the elders have agreed to meet with you tomorrow. And don’t you worry,” he clapped a hand on Kael’s shoulder, “we’ll think of something. In the meantime, you’d better put this on.”

  He took the oilskin cloak Roland handed him and immediately tossed it over the brambles. “There’s a girl, and she’s wounded pretty badly,” he said in answer to the question on Roland’s face. “We have to get her down to the hospital.”

  “A girl? Are you sure the cold hasn’t got to your head?” He stuck his lantern into the shelter, and his mouth dropped open. “Well my beard, there’s a girl under there. Amos! Hurry those old legs along — we’ve found a wounded woman!”

  Now it was Kael’s turn to be shocked. What was Amos doing out in a storm? He was going to kill him.

  It wasn’t long before Amos hobbled up the path, a handful of hunters close behind. “What did you say? Kael’s wounded?”

  “No, Kael’s fine —”

  “Not for long, he isn’t!” Amos roared as he caught sight of them. “What are you thinking, dancing out in the rain without a shirt on? You aren’t a wood sprite —”

  “And you aren’t young,” Kael lashed back. “What were you thinking, runn
ing out into the forest in the middle of a storm?”

  Roland stepped between them. “We all need to stop thinking, and start doing.” He nodded to Amos. “There’s a girl in the brambles, and she’s hurt pretty bad.”

  Amos shoved past them and held his lantern up. He blanched when he saw her, and Kael knew her wound must have been more serious than he’d thought.

  “What do we need to do?” Roland said, but Amos didn’t respond. “Amos?”

  He tore his eyes away from the girl. “Eh? What was that?”

  “I asked what we needed to do.”

  He squinted through the rain at the hunters. “I’ll need a litter — quick as you can. And if one of you boys has an extra oilskin, give it to Kael.”

  Someone threw a cloak at him and he fastened it around his shoulders, pulling the hood over his head. He made sure the folds of the cloak covered his chest.

  They placed the girl gently on their makeshift litter and started the climb back down the mountain. The rain made the rocks even more slippery, the cold even meaner. While the hunters did the brunt of the work, Kael and Amos walked sideways with the litter between them — keeping the spare oilskin stretched over her like a roof. Roland led the way, lantern in hand.

  It was slow, dangerous work, but they eventually made it back to the hospital. The beds were empty that night — which meant they would be able to work in peace.

  “Stoke the fire,” Amos said.

  Kael didn’t need to be told twice: he was surprised he had any teeth left, after all the chattering.

  With the hearth blazing, Amos chased the curious hunters out the door. “I’ll let you know how she’s doing in the morning,” he said, shooing Roland away.

  “Fair enough. And Kael,” he looked up to see Roland pulling on his hood, his face serious beneath it, “don’t run off just yet. The storm comes, but the grass is all the greener for it.” His smile was reassuring as he ducked out into the violent night.

  With the hunters gone, Amos went straight to work. “Fetch a pail of water, will you?”