He topped a rise and spied a small farm on a gradual slope a league distant. “Almost your time, little one,” he whispered. “We will see how you are received today. I should not like to have to take you back. This is a one-way path for you.”
The child woke, as if understanding it was being addressed. Quiet and thoughtful the way a babe can often be, it stared up into the man’s sun-worn face.
“But we must have a discussion before we go our separate ways, little one,” the man continued. “And I will pray they have sufficient means to make the offer you rightly deserve.”
The child, still less than two weeks from its mother’s womb, looked up. For the briefest of moments it appeared to understand the words. But the unfocused eyes soon turned in a new direction, and the man refocused his own concentration on the path ahead. He possessed the discipline not to allow the softness of the child’s skin to recall to mind anything not useful in his errand. For his errand was his primary concern.
There was no equivocation in that.
Dew caught the radiance of dawn and shone back on the man a hundred points of bluish light. Long ago, in another life, he would have at least paused to consider the difference between his own life and that of the family he now approached.
He got moving again.
A small road blocked by a meager gate announced the farm he’d been angling toward. Up the path he went, the child tucked close to his chest, mostly covered by his plain, sun-ravaged cloak. Moments later he came to the back steps of the dwelling.
Always he rapped at a home’s rear door (if he knocked at all), because women and men who earned their way by the sweat of their brow rarely used their front door. Life turned on the axis of a home’s back entrance—closest to the kitchen and fire and stories. And while some did not recognize his subdued calling card (rear door and light knuckles), he felt it important that his errand be attended by the appropriate level of solemnity and discretion.
Life: traded at the back doors of the world.
There were bargains to be made.
And so today he rapped at this lintel, turning hard eyes on the yard as he cradled the child, who began to stir. No chickens scratched at the packed earth; no cattle lowed in the field nearby. He worried that these people would not have the resources to meet his demands. But then, there were many forms of payment, and that was one thing about which he felt good. For so many years …
The door drew back and a young wife dried her hands on a towel hanging from her belt before taking his hand in greeting and fingering the token of the hillfolk to identify herself. But as much as that, the look in her eye when she glanced down at the child in his arms led him to know that this woman would tend and love and teach and protect this child. To her credit, she kept any surprise or dread or gladness off her face. The man nodded to himself; her composure put her in good stead.
This may go well, after all.
The woman looked past him, eyeing the yard and everything else beyond, then stepped aside, indicating that he should enter.
So in they went, the man and the child.
He sat, resting his legs from his long journey, but still holding the babe close as he surveyed the modest home about him. Shortly, the woman’s husband stepped in, showing a wary eye: a large man with large hands. Good.
They bore one another’s company in silence for some time. There seemed no reason to speak, as the purpose of his visit manifested itself in the body of the infant he cradled. He measured the couple before him more by the appointment of their home than by anything they might have said.
Finally, the woman broke the silence. “Would you like some hot tea?”
The man with the sun-worn face shook his head at the hospitality. “No. But the child could use some milk. Have you any?”
In reply, the woman turned to a table behind her and took up a carafe. She crossed the room and waited for him to surrender the child. With interest he did so, and watched as the woman took the child in her arms, sat, and removed her towel. She twisted it at one corner and dipped it in the milk, then offered it to the babe in imitation of nursing. The child went right to it.
The man nodded his satisfaction.
Then her husband spoke. “We can offer you little for the child.”
The traveler turned to gather the man’s attention. “What is he worth to you?” The hill-man stared back, seeming to consider. But before he could speak, the traveler continued. “And be aware that payment is not always made in coin.” The intimations were many, and the man let them all hang in the air in this early morning gathering in the modest home of some remote hillfolk.
“It will have a hard life here,” the hill-man finally offered. “Many … most do not live to see their stripling years.”
“So your payment is uncertainty?” The traveler looked back at the sure hand of the woman feeding the infant.
“The child won’t go hungry,” the hill-man replied. “I’ll see to it. But beyond that, we’ve few promises here. And anything we give you will mean less to provision ourselves to care for it.”
The visitor looked up with eyes that might have appeared faded from so long under a heavy sun. His own wages in this affair were hard-won. “Your assurances aren’t grand, friend. There are others who have need of a child healthy as this one. A few days more on the road and I could return home with fuller pockets.”
The hill-man did not hestitate. “Choose that if you will. I’ve little use for quick hands to make a prize of a child. I can offer the little one my home, and the knowledge of the hills besides. I’ve no delusions; this is all meager. And perhaps not the best place for the child, after all. We will have our own questions to answer on how it came to us and from whom. These will not be easy to avoid, and the truth brings its own risks to the walls of our home, if you take my meaning.”
The man looked back at the hill-man. “I do at that. But I’ve my own balances to keep.” He stood. “For payment I will have your oath. And heed me that I will call that marker if it is broken. The child’s true parents, his origins, even me, we are all irrelevant now. No questions will you ask, or answer. And your covenant to the child will be as if your woman here bore him from your own seed.”
The hill-man took three great strides and put out his hand. The two clasped, and the hill-man wrapped his finger around the visitor’s thumb in the hillfolk token to seal his oath. The woman likewise nodded her assent. The traveler then went to the woman, whispering low, “He will grow to greatness, if treated hereafter better than was his start,” and put a hand on the child’s head in farewell.
He then strode from the room without another look at either of the hillfolk. Into the first light of dawn the sun-weathered man emerged, his darkened skin receiving the beams of the greater light as old friends. He set his feet back upon the road.
He had leagues to go.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Birth of Flight
The Bar’dyn stepped from beneath the loft, its girth massive. The fire lit the creature’s fibrous skin, which moved as if independent of the muscle and bone beneath. Ridges and rills marked its hide, creating a natural armor Tahn had only ever heard of in story—armor said to surpass the mail worn by men. It uncoiled its left arm from the blanket it held to its chest, letting its hand hang nearly to its knees. From a leather sheath strapped to its leg, the Bar’dyn drew a long knife. Around the hilt the beast curled its hand—three talonlike fingers with a thumb on each side, its palm as large as Tahn’s face. Then it pointed the blade at him.
Tahn’s legs began to quiver. Revulsion and fear pounded in his chest. This was a nightmare come to life.
“We go,” it gurgled deep in its throat. Its cumbersome, halting speech belied the sharp intelligence in its eyes. When it spoke, only its lips moved. The skin on its face remained thick and still, draped loosely over protruding cheekbones that jutted like shelves beneath its eyes. Tahn glimpsed a mouthful of sharp, carious teeth.
As his eyes adjusted to the light within
the house, he looked again at Wendra. Blood spots marked her white bed-dress, and her body seemed frozen in a position that prevented her from straightening her legs. That’s when Tahn’s heart stopped. He realized that what the Bar’dyn held to its barklike skin, cradled in a tightly woven blanket of mane and tail, was Wendra’s child.
Pressure mounted in Tahn’s belly: hate, helplessness, confusion, fear. All a madness like panicked wings in his mind. He’d had only one job: watch safe his sister through her birthing time. The horror of what he saw roiled inside him. It all came up in a rush. “No!”
His scream filled the small cabin, leaving it that much more silent when it echoed its last. But the babe made no sound. Nor did the Bar’dyn. On the stoop and roof, the patter of rain resumed, like the sound of a distant waterfall. Beyond it, Tahn thought he heard the gallop of hooves on the muddy road. More Bar’dyn!
He knew he must do something. In a shaky motion, he drew down his bow on the creature’s head. The Bar’dyn’s thick lips parted in the semblance of a smile, uneven teeth protruding at odd angles. It gave a rough, laughing snarl; its eyes and face twisted in hatred.
“I’ll take you while I clutch the child. Velle will be pleased.” It growled, and swiped its blade through the air in an impossibly wide, vicious arc. The sound of its awful laughter stole into Tahn’s heart, and his arms began to fail, his aim floundering from side to side.
The Bar’dyn laughed again and stepped toward him. Tahn’s mind raced, and fastened upon one thought. He focused on the mark on the back of his bow hand, visually tracing its lines and feeling it with his mind. With a moment of reassurance, his hands steadied, and he drew deeper into the pull, bringing his aim on the Bar’dyn’s throat.
“Unhand the child,” Tahn said, his voice trembling even as his mouth grew dry.
The Bar’dyn paused, looking down at the bundle in its arm. Again it showed its hideous teeth. The creature then lifted the child up, causing the blanket to slip to the floor. Its massive hand curled around the baby’s torso. The infant still glistened from its passage out of Wendra’s body, its skin red and purple in the sallow light of the fire.
“Child came dead, grub.”
Sadness and anger welled again in Tahn, and his chest began to heave at the thought of Wendra giving birth in the company of this vile thing, having her baby taken at the moment of life into those wretched hands. Was the child dead at birth, or did the Bar’dyn kill it? Tahn looked again at Wendra, pallor in her face and sadness etching her features. He watched her close her eyes against the words.
The rain now pounded the roof. But the sound of heavy footfalls on the road was clear, close, and Tahn abandoned hope of escape. One Bar’dyn, let alone several, would likely tear him apart, but he intended to send this one to the Abyss, for Wendra, for her dead child.
He prepared to fire his bow, allowing time enough to speak old, familiar words: “I draw with the strength of my arms, but release as the Will allows.”
But he could not shoot.
He struggled to disobey the feeling, but it stretched back into the part of his life he could no longer remember. He had always spoken the words, always. He did not release of his own accord. He saw in his mind the elk of his afternoon hunt. Neither should that life have been taken; yet the man in the black cloak had suffered it to die, had made certain Tahn saw him end a life that should not have ended.
Tahn relaxed his aim and the Bar’dyn howled in approval. “Bound to Will, and so will die!” Its words came like the cracking of timber in the confines of the small home. “But first to watch this one go,” the Bar’dyn said, and turned toward Wendra.
“No!” Tahn screamed again, filling the cabin even as the sound of others came up the steps. Tahn was surrounded. They would all die!
Just then the Far woman shot through the fallen door, a sword in each hand. Close behind her came Vendanj, a look of determination on his face that frightened Tahn. The man came to the center of the room, placing himself between Tahn and the Bar’dyn. The Far—Mira—moved so quickly that Tahn could scarcely follow her. At the door, Sutter and Braethen filed in, each brandishing a short knife.
“Hold, foul!” Vendanj commanded, his voice a deep horn.
The Bar’dyn whirled, and Tahn thought he saw a worried look pass across its thick features. But it did not hesitate. It tossed the child onto the bed and lunged at Vendanj with a speed Tahn did not think it possessed. Vendanj prepared to take the blow, but before the Bar’dyn reached him, Mira stepped in, crouching low and driving her swords up in a sharp thrust. One blade bounced harmlessly off the Bar’dyn’s thick skin; the other made a small cut in its chest. The beast came on, swinging its knife—as long as a man’s sword—in quick back and forth motions. Mira had no problem avoiding the knife, but the Bar’dyn forged a path toward them, causing Vendanj to retreat. The creature from the Bourne was coming for Tahn. Helpless, he dropped his bow.
A whistling sound grew. He turned toward the sound and saw that Vendanj’s hands had begun to rotate. The man raised them in a swift gesture and pounded one fist into the other. Mira dove out of the way, and a streak of light shot into the chest of the Bar’dyn, driving it back. The smell of burning flesh immediately filled the room, attended by a horrible shrieking. At the sound, far out into the wood, a chorus of shrieks could be heard above the din of the rain. Tahn and Sutter looked to the door, half expecting a band of Bar’dyn to crash in. None came.
Vendanj’s blow threw the Bar’dyn back into the nook beneath the loft. The beast got to its knees quickly, and reached onto the bed between Wendra’s legs, snatching the child’s body. Mira rolled out of her dive and came up prepared to strike. But the Bar’dyn stood and, with a great howl, rammed the wall with its arm and shoulder. The wood gave and the beast tumbled out through the sundered wall into the rain. Vendanj rushed forward, Mira a step ahead. Tahn finally found his legs, and came up between them at the hole in the cabin wall. Together, they stared into the stormy night. The Bar’dyn, cupping Wendra’s babe in one hand, moved incredibly fast, following a path to the closest tree line. Lightning flared once, illuminating the Bar’dyn’s hulking form as it barreled away. When the flash vanished, so did the Bar’dyn, and only the sounds of rain and receding thunder could be heard.
Mira began to step through the hole, as though to give chase. Vendanj put a hand on her shoulder. “Patience.”
Tahn turned from the ruined wall of his father’s home and rushed to Wendra’s side. Blood soaked the coverlet, and cuts on her wrists and hands bore testament to her failed attempt to ward off the Bar’dyn. Wendra’s cheeks sagged; she looked pale and spent. She sat up against the headboard, a pillow propped behind her head, crying silent tears.
Sutter brought a bowl of water and some cloth. As Braethen cleansed her wounds and wrapped them, Tahn sat at her bedside wordlessly reproving himself. He tried more than once to look at Wendra, but could not meet her eyes. He had stood twenty feet away with a clear shot at the Bar’dyn and had done nothing, while the lives of his own sister and her child hung in the balance. He’d silently recalled the old words and known the draw was wrong. He’d followed that dictate over the defense of his sister. Why?
It was an old frustration, and a question to which he had never been able to find an answer.
It haunted him—had haunted him all his life, or what he could remember of his life.
Vendanj spoke softly to Mira. Tahn could not hear his words, but the Far listened close, then jumped through the same hole the Bar’dyn had used. Vendanj came to Tahn’s side, looking down at his sister. “Anais Wendra,” he began, using the old form of address rarely heard in the Hollows, “was your child born still?”
Sutter gasped at the question.
“Hasn’t there been enough—” Tahn started to ask.
“Silence, Tahn, there are things I must know.” Vendanj never looked away from Wendra.
She put a hand on Tahn’s shaking fingers, and squeezed them warmly to reassure him. Tahn silently
marveled at her strength. Her long, dark brown hair was still stuck to the side of her face from the exertion of labor, and her deep blue eyes were half shut in pain, yet she meant for him not to worry.
Her voice strained and hoarse, Wendra managed to say, “Yes, the child came still.”
A dark look touched Vendanj’s face, and he raised a hand, placing it over Tahn and Wendra’s own. Finally he said, “You must leave the Hollows with us.”
“She can’t ride, Vendanj,” Tahn argued. “After what she’s just been through, how will she manage a horse? And I thought we were leaving the Hollows to protect our families. If she comes, she’s in more danger.”
Vendanj held up a hand to silence Tahn, then looked directly at Wendra. “Anais Wendra? Will you come?” She nodded. “Good. Sutter, gather the horses. Make them ready.” Sutter stared, uncertain. “I’ve no time to wait, root-digger! Now go!” Sutter took halting steps backward toward the door, finally turning and darting into the rain. Outside, the horses whinnied loudly at another crack of thunder.
Vendanj went to the broken wall and stared out into the night, his face cast in shadow, though Tahn could still see the man’s furrowed brow and clenched jaw. Without turning, Vendanj said calmly, “There is no time left to us.”
The rain continued as Tahn aided his sister into a loose pair of his trousers and a heavy coat. He helped her pull on a pair of boots, but before she tried to stand, she reached beneath her bed and took a small wooden box from a hidden shelf. Wendra then tried to get up. She grimaced as she put weight on her legs and fell into Tahn. He shot a worried and angry glance at the tall man still watching the night, but Vendanj seemed not to notice. Why was he making Wendra come with them? A shrill cry erupted from somewhere in the woods.
Sutter hurried through the door. “The horses are tethered out front. But I don’t think they’ll be good to run far.” He pulled back his cowl and brushed the water from his nose. Still, Vendanj did not turn. Tahn gave Sutter a fretful look, and nodded toward Vendanj.
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