The Dark Tide

by Dennis L McKiernan

  "Wull, all as I can say," replied Gaffer Tom from his customary chair in the One-Eyed Crow, "is that the 'Walkers is got a fight on their hands if we're dealing with Modru's Vulgs. Them archers had better learn to shoot true."

  And shoot true they did, for not only was Old Barlo a good teacher, but Warrows, once they set their minds to it, learn quickly. Over the past six weeks, Old Barlo had had them shooting in the bright of day and in the dark of night, in calm still air and through gusting winds, through blowing dim snow and across blinding white, from far and from near, at still targets and at moving ones, on level ground and uphill and down, in open fields and in close brambly woods. And now they were learning to shoot accurately while breathless and panting after sprinting silently for a good distance. And the young buccen Warrows had learned well, for the shafts now sped true to the target, most to strike in or near the small circle. But of all of Barlo's students, two stood out: Danner was tops, with Tuck a close second.

  "All right, lads, gather 'round," cried Old Barlo, as Hob Banderel, the final shooter, came puffing back from collecting his arrows. "I've got something ter say." As soon as the students were assembled around him, Old Barlo continued: "There's them as says there's strange doings up north, and them as says trouble's due. Well, I don't pretend to ken the which of it, but you all know Captain Alver asked me to train as good a group of bow-buccen as I could, and you was selected to be my first class." A low murmur broke out among the students. "Quiet, you rattlejaws!" As silence again reigned, Barlo went on: "You all know that more Thornwalkers is needed in the Wolf Patrols and for Beyonder Guard, them as can shoot straight and quick. Well, you're it!" Barlo looked around at the blank faces staring at him. "What I'm trying to say is that you're done. Finished. I can't teach you no more. You've learned all I can show you. No more school! Class is dismissed! You've all graduated!"

  A great yell of gladness burst forth from the young buccen, and some threw their hats in the air while others joyously riddled the Wolf silhouette with swift-flying arrows.

  "Did you hear that, Danner?" bubbled Tuck, jittering with excitement. "We're done. School's out. We're Thornwalkers—well, almost."

  "Of course I heard it," gruffed Danner, "I'm not deaf, you know. All I can say is, it's about time."

  "Hold it down!" shouted Old Barlo above the babble, as he took a scroll from his quiver and began untying the green ribbon bound around it. "I've got more ter say!" Slowly the hubbub died, and all eyes turned once more to the teacher. "Wag-tongues!" he snorted, but smiled. "Captain Alver has sent word," Old Barlo waved the parchment for all to see, "that Thornwalker guides are to come and take each and every one of you to your companies. You've got one more week to home, then it's off to the borders you'll go, to your 'Walker duty."

  To the borders? One more week and away? A thick pall of silence blanketed all of the students, and Tuck felt as if he'd been struck hard in the pit of his stomach. One week? Leave home? Leave Woody Hollow? Why of course, you ninnyhammer, he thought, you've got to leave home if you're joining the Thornwalkers. But, well, it was just that it was so sudden: one short week. Besides, he had only thought about becoming a Thornwalker, and he'd not really envisioned what that meant in the end, leaving his comfortable home and all. Tuck's spirit rallied slightly as he thought, Oh well, after all, a fellow's got to leave the nest sometime or other. Tuck turned and looked to Danner for reassurance, but all he saw was another stricken Warrow face.

  Tuck became aware that Old Barlo was calling out assignments, posting Warrows to the Eastdell First, and the Eastdell Second, and to other companies of the Thornwalker Guard; and then his name was being shouted. "Wha—what?" he asked, his head snapping up, recovering a bit from his benumbed state. "What did you say?"

  "I said," growled Old Barlo, stabbing his forefinger at the parchment, "by Captain Alver's order, you and Danner and Tarpy and Hob are posted to the Eastdell Fourth. Them's the ones what are up to the north, between the Battle Downs and Northwood along the Spindle River, up to Spindle Ford. The Eastdell Fourth. Have you got that?"

  Tuck nodded dumbly and edged over to Danner as Old Barlo resumed calling out assignments to the other Warrows. "The Eastdell Fourth, Danner," said Tuck. "Ford Spindle. That's on the road to Challerain Keep, King Aurion's summer throne."

  "Like as not we won't be seeing any King on any kind of throne, much less the High King himself. And we won't be doing too much Wolf patrolling either, if we're stuck at the ford," grumped Danner, disappointed. "I was looking forward to feathering a couple of those brutes."

  As Danner and Tuck chatted, two other Warrows made their way through the crowd and joined them: Hob Banderel and Tarpy Wiggins. Of that foursome, Danner was tallest, standing three feet seven, with Hob and Tuck one inch shorter and Tarpy but an inch over three feet. Except for their height, as with all Warrows, their most striking feature was their great, strange, sparkling eyes, tilted much the same as Elves', but of jewellike hues—Tuck's a sapphirine blue, Tarpy's and Hob's a pale emerald green, and Danner's, the third and last color of Warrow eyes, amber gold. Like Elves, too, their ears were pointed, though hidden much of the time by their hair; for, as is common among the buccen, they each had locks cropped at the shoulder, ranging in shade from Tuck's black to Hob's light ginger, with Danner and Tarpy both being chestnut-maned. Unlike their elders, they each were young-buccan slim, not yet having settled down to hearth and home and four meals a day, or, on feast days, five. (But, as the elders tell it, "Warrows are small, and small things take a heap of food to keep 'em going. Look at your birds, and mice, and look especially at shrews: they're all busy gulping down food most of the time that they're awake. So us Wee Folk need at least four meals a day just to keep a body alive!")

  "Well, Tuck," said Hob, "it's the Eastdell Fourth for us all."

  "Four always was my lucky number," chimed in Tarpy. "Fourth time's the charm, they say."

  "No, Tarpy," put in Danner, "third time's the charm. Fourth time is harm."

  "Are you sure?" asked the small Warrow, fretting. "Oh my, I hope that's not an omen."

  "Don't let it bother you, Tarpy," said Tuck, aiming a frown at Danner. "It's just an old saying. I'm sure the Eastdell Fourth will be good luck to us all."

  "Well, I think it will be the best Thornwalker company of them all," smiled Hob, "now that we're in it, that is."

  At that moment, Old Barlo again called for quiet, interrupting the babble among the graduates. "Well, lads, you're about to shoulder an important duty. One week from now you'll be on your way, and I wish I was going with you, but I've got to stay behind to get another group ready. Besides, the 'Walkers needs them as is spry, which I ain't anymore. So it's up to you, Thornwalker Warrows, and a finer bunch I've never seen!"

  A cheer broke out, and there were scattered shouts of Hooray for Old Barlo!

  "There's just a couple of more things I've got to say," continued Old Barlo when quiet returned. "We meet in the Commons at sunrise next Wednesday, and you'll be off. Pack your knapsacks well; take those things we talked about: your bows, plenty of arrows, warm boots and dry stockings, down clothes, your Thornwalker-grey cloaks, and so on. The 'Walker guides will bring food, and ponies for them as needs 'em for the faraway trips." Old Barlo paused, looking over his charges, and before their very eyes he seemed to grow older and sadder. "Take this week to say goodbye to your friends and family, and any damman you may have about," he said quietly, "for like as not it'll be next spring or later before you'll be to home again."

  Once more Tuck felt as if he'd been kicked in the stomach. Next spring? Why, he wouldn't even be home for Yule, or Year's End, or… or…

  "Cheer up, lads!" Old Barlo said heartily," 'cause now it's time for your graduation present. We're off to the One-Eyed Crow, where I'll set up a round of ale for each and every one!"

  Again there was a cheer, and this time all the young buccen shouted Hooray for Old Barlo! three times. And they tramped away, singing rowdy verses of The Jolly Warrow as they march
ed down from Hollow End toward the One-Eyed Crow.

  The week was one of poignant sadness for Tuck; he spent the time, as many of his comrades did, saying goodbye. It was a goodbye not only to his friends and acquaintances, but also to the familiar places he'd frequented throughout his young life in and around Woody Hollow: the Dingle-rill, now rimed with ice; Bringo's Stable, with its frisky ponies; Dossey's Orchard, where many a stray apple had come into Tuck's possession; Catchet's Market, full of the smells of cheese and bread and open boxes of fruit and hickory-cured bacon hanging from overhead beams; Gorbury's mill, grumbling with the groan of axles and the burr of wooden-toothed gears and the heavy grind of slow-turning water-driven millstones; the Rillbridge, under which was some of the best jiggle-bait fishing in the Boskydells; Sugarcreek Falls, where Tuck's cousins from Eastpoint had taught him to swim; and the High Hill on the Westway Trace, from which all of Woody Hollow could be seen. These places, and more, Tuck visited, moving quietly through the snow to stop at each and fill his being with its essence, and then after saying goodbye he would sadly trudge on.

  But the place to which Tuck turned the most was The Root, his home, with its warm, cozy burrow rooms, the smell of his mother's cooking, and all the familiar objects that it seemed he'd never really looked at before. And to his mother's surprise he actually straightened his cubby; and without bidding from his father, he split a cord or two of wood, laying in a good supply outside the burrow kitchen door before he was to be off. Each evening he sat before the fireplace, having a pipe with his sire, Burt, a stonecutter and mason, while his dam, Tulip, sewed. And they quietly talked about the days that had been, and the days that were, and the days that were yet to come.

  Tuck spent some time with Merrilee Holt, maiden Warrow, dammsel of Bringo Holt, the farrier, and his wife, Bessie, who lived four burrows to the east.

  Merrilee and Tuck had chummed together since childhood, even though she was four years younger. Yet in these last days, Tuck saw for the first time just how black her hair was, and how blue her eyes, and how gracefully she moved; and he marvelled, for it seemed to him that he should have noticed these things before. Why, back when he had first begun Thornwalker archery training, and she had insisted that he teach her, too, he should have seen these things about her—but he hadn't. Instead, they'd laughed at her struggle to pull an arrow to the fullest. But even when she became skilled, using Tuck's old stripling bow, still at the time he'd seen only her accuracy and not her grace. And why was it only in this last week that he realized that she alone really understood him?

  "You know that I'll not be here for your age-name birthday," Tuck said on the last wintery forenoon as they tramped through the snow on the Commons, trudging toward the Rillbridge. "I'm disappointed that I'll miss your party when you officially become a young damman."

  "I'll miss you, too, Tuck," answered Merrilee, sadly.

  "Well, be that as it may," said Tuck, "here, I've a present for you. Early it is, yet likely I'll still be at the Spindle Ford when you pass from your maiden years." Tuck handed her a small packet, and inside was a gilded comb.

  "Oh Tuck, what a wonderful gift," beamed Merrilee. "Why, I'll think of you every day—every time I use it." Carefully Merrilee put the gift away in a large coat pocket, saving the paper and ribbon, too. They both stopped and leaned over the rail of the Rillbridge, listening to the churn of the millrace and watching the bubbles of air darting under the ice, seeking escape but being carried along by the fast-flowing stream.

  "What are you thinking, Tuck?" asked Merrilee, as the bubbles swirled by below.

  "Oh, just that some people go through life like those bubbles down there, caught in a rush of events that push them thither and yon, never able to break free to choose what they would. I was also thinking that many of us are blind until we've but a short time left to see," he answered, then looked up and saw that Merrilee's eyes had misted over, but she smiled at him.

  The week had fled swiftly, and now it had come to the last hours of the last day. Once more Tuck found himself with his parents before the fire at The Root.

  "Merrilee and I went down to the Rillsteps today," Tuck said, blowing a smoke ring toward the flames, watching it rend as the hot draft caught it and whirled it upward. "Thought I'd give them one last look before leaving. Danner was there, and we talked about the times we'd played King of the Rillrock. He always used to win, you know. No one could dislodge him from that center stone, Rillrock. He'd just knock us kersplash right into the Dingle-rill, shouting, 'King of the Rillrock! King of the Rillrock! Danner Bramblethorn is the King of the Rillrock!'"

  "His sire was like that, too," said Tulip, looking up from her stitchery. "We used to think that he was glued to that rock. Many a time your own dad was tumbled into the Rill by Hanlo Bramblethorn."

  "Hmph," grunted Burt Underbank, pausing in his whittling, inspecting the edge of his knife, "that's right. He did. Fought like a cornered badger, he did. Against all comers and all odds. Harrump! Took us all down a peg or two. Seemed to think that rock was his own personal property instead of part of the east public footway across the Dingle-rill. From what I hear, Danner's even better at it than Hanlo was."

  "What makes Danner that way, Dad?" asked Tuck. "I mean, it seems he's always got to be the best at what he takes up. Why is he that way?"

  "Like sire, like bucco, I always say, Tuck," answered Burt.

  "No, Dad, I mean, what makes people the way they are? What makes me," Tuck paused, then found the word he was searching for, "easygoing, while Danner is, uh…" Tuck couldn't seem to come up with the appropriate word.

  "Pugnacious," said Tuck's mother.

  "More like quarrelsome," said his father, "if he's anything like Hanlo was."

  "Well, all I know is that he always wants to be King of the Rillrock at anything he does," said Tuck, puffing another smoke ring at the hearth.

  "I think people are born to their nature," said Mrs. Underbank.

  "I think it's the way they're raised," said Tuck's sire.

  They sat and gazed at the fire for moments as the flames twined and writhed and danced, casting flickering shadows throughout the parlor of The Root. Burt threw another log on the pyre. They watched as sparks flew up the chimney, and the flaming wood popped and cracked as it blazed up. Then the flames settled back, and once more the quiet was broken only by the faint creak of Tuck's rocker, the snick and slice of Burt's knife against the whittling stick, and the pop and whisper of Tulip's needle, puncturing cloth and pulling bright floss through taut linen stretched drumhead tight within the embroidery hoop.

  "I saw two more strangers today," said Burt after a moment. "More Thornwalkers, I think. Went riding down to the stable, each leading a string of ponies. That's seven, no, eight so far." Burt stopped his whittling and leaned forward to tap the dottle from his pipe against the hearth. Then he settled back, stuffing the warm clay into a pocket of his unbuttoned vest. "You all set, Tuck?" he asked for perhaps the tenth time that day and the fiftieth time that week. "Tomorrow's the day."

  "Yes. I'm ready," answered Tuck, quietly.

  The sound of Tulip's sewing stopped, and she sat in her chair by the soft light of the warm yellow lamp and looked down toward the needlework in her lap. But she stitched not, for she could no longer see what to do through her quiet tears.

  Dawn found grey-cloaked Tuck wandering through a milling, chattering crowd in the Woody Hollow Commons. It seemed as if the entire population of the town had turned out in spite of the cold to see the Thornwalkers off. A lot of folks had come up from Budgens, too, for a few of their buccoes had been trained in Old Barlo's class and would be off to Thornwalker duties this day, also.

  Tarpy and Hob had managed to find Tuck, and now they were looking for Danner. But before they could find him, Geront Gabben, the Woody Hollow Mayor, standing up on the Commons' platform, rang the fire gong for quiet. As soon as he got it, he sallied forth into a speech of indeterminate length.

  "My friends, on this most auspi
cious of occasions," he began, and such a beginning should have tipped off most of the Warrows that Geront was in a talkative mood. But perhaps because this was a farewell parting for the Thornwalker young buccen, the Warrow citizenry only thought that this was a "fare-you-well" speech, and Warrows do love speeches—short ones, that is. And so, some in the crowd cried out, Tell it to 'em! and Hear! Hear! and Mayor Gabben, encouraged, pressed on. Tuck listened intently for a while, but finally his attention began to stray. It seemed that the Mayor couldn't decide whether this was a sad and solemn occasion or a happy, ribbon-cutting ceremony as he swung back and forth between the two and droned on and on. But when folks in the crowd began to call out, What's your point, Geront? and Let's get on with it! and other not so subtle notices of restlessness—to the extent that the Mayor began to feel somewhat chivvied—Geront, puffing and fuming, rambled his speech down to an unsatisfactory ending; and at last he introduced Old Barlo, which brought on such a loud and prolonged cheer of relief that it left Geront with the grand delusion that in some mysterious fashion his speech had been a smashing success after all.

  Old Barlo mounted the platform and got right to the matter at hand. "Folks, it's time these here brave lads," Yay!—he was interrupted by a lengthy cheer—"time these brave lads were on their way. There's no call to delay them further, 'cause the Thornwalkers (Hooray!), the Thornwalkers has got crossings to guard (Rah!), borders to protect (Rah!), and Wolves to repel." Hip! Hip! Hoorah! Barlo waited for the cheering to subside, and, casting a gimlet eye at Geront, he continued. "And they can't do them duties if they've got ter stand around here listening to speech making and cheering crowds!" Rah! Rah! Old Barlo! Then Barlo pointed to the first Warrow in a line of eight strangers standing quietly to one side, all dressed in Thornwalker-grey cloaks. "Them as is assigned to the Eastdell First, there's your guide." The first Warrow raised his hand. Barlo then pointed to the second grey-cloaked 'Walker. "Eastdell Second," Barlo called out, and that Warrow held up a hand. "Eastdell Third," came the next cry, as Barlo continued down the line.