Harbinger: Fate's Forsaken: Book One (9 page)

They’d all had
to make sacrifices — most resulting in their deaths. If it had been Brock
or Marc or Laemoth lying sick, he wouldn’t have thought twice about turning on
his heel and putting Tinnark to his back forever. But it wasn’t. It was a
traveling girl — a girl who very likely didn’t deserve to die.

“Help me bring her
back,” Amos implored him, latching onto the struggle in his face. “Once she’s
healed, you can leave. You don’t even have to wait for the snows to come.”

“Fine.” Kael
tossed his half-filled pack onto a nearby table and went to go scrub the mud
off his clothes. Even though it killed him to stay, he couldn’t sentence an
innocent girl to her death.

But only until spring
, he told himself.
As soon as the snows came and cleared, he’d leave Tinnark for good.

*******

The next month
was nothing short of torture. The elders decreed that Kael wasn't allowed in
the Hall, which meant someone had to volunteer to bring him his meals everyday.
When he opened the door that first morning, he was surprised to see a hunter
carrying his breakfast.

The man tried
rather lamely to mask his laughter with a fit of coughs, so when Kael dug his
spoon in, he knew to look carefully. Alongside the raspberries and turtle meat
was a number of floating black things. They were about the size of pebbles and
when he used the edge of his spoon to break one open, his worst suspicions were
confirmed: deer droppings.

He went without
breakfast.

Marc brought his
lunch, and there was almost more droppings than broth. "Eat up," he
said, shoving it roughly into his chest.

Kael replied by
emptying the bowl on Marc's boots.

"So, the
Bow-Breaker is ungrateful,” Marc said, his voice splintered with rage. “Well,
I'm sure the elders won't mind not feeding you." And his boots made a wet
squishing noise as he stomped away.

Kael made no
mention of it to Amos. He chewed on herbs as he worked to keep his stomach from
growling too loudly, and tried to keep himself busy. Just when he’d resigned
himself to a slow death of starvation, Roland showed up with dinner.

"I hope you
know the trouble you caused, dumping that stew on Marc," he said as he
handed the bowl over.

Kael didn't even
mind that it was fish and dandelion — he dug right in.

"Don't
worry, I got yours from the clean pot."

The food stuck
to the roof of his mouth. "The clean pot?"

"Yeah, your
hogshead of a grandfather put blackroot in the others."

Stew nearly came
out his nose. Dried and powdered, blackroot was useful for all sorts of stomach
ailments. But more than a pinch of it, and a man would likely spend his whole
night in the latrine. And knowing Amos, there'd probably been a good deal more
than a pinch.

"It'll be
extra work for him, but he says everyone'll just blame it on the cooking."
Roland slung his pack onto the ground and began digging through it. When he
found what he wanted, he glanced over his shoulder before he tugged it free.
"Here."

In his hand was
a bow. It was a simple short bow, well worn and made of yew. "Roland, you
know I can't —"

"Oh, sure
you can. What the elders don't know won't kill them. Or better yet, maybe it
will." He grinned and thrust it at him again. "Go on, take it. It was
my great grandfather's — brought it with him from the lowlands when the
King's men chased him up here. I put a new string and grip on it, but the wood
ought to bend nicely."

Kael couldn't
help himself — he took it. The bow was sturdy and felt good in his hand.
Just above the new grip a number of shallow marks cut into the wood like rungs
on a ladder. He grinned when he saw them.

Roland’s
ancestors were bandits: wild men who made their living raiding villages all
throughout the Grandforest. Though he refused to talk much about it, Kael
figured out the markings from some of the drawings in the
Atlas
. A score that was a single line meant his great grandfather
had killed an enemy. The ones cut into an X meant he'd lopped off his head as a
souvenir.

It was funny to
think a man as kind as Roland had come from such a bloodthirsty family. And
Kael was surprised at how well the bow was made: he pulled on the string and
marveled when it slid easily back to his chin.

"It's
different having one that's broke in, eh?" Roland was watching him, his
voice getting gruffer by the second. "I was going to give it to ole Tad,
but …"

But he'd been
killed.

Both of Roland's
sons had been hunters. Tad was the eldest, and Hammon the youngest. The same
bear had slaughtered them both: a seven-foot tall monster with teeth as long as
a man's finger. Roland was heartbroken when he discovered their mangled bodies,
but he never wept. Instead, he spent five seasons tracking the beast through
the woods, waiting for the perfect shot. And when it came, he struck the bear
in the heart with an arrow.

Roland later
said that he thought it was the animal in him that gave him strength. He
believed that men once knew the forests as well as the animals, and a little of
that wild spirit was left in every one of them. As the bear lay dying, he said
he saw blood before his eyes and felt nothing as he flung himself upon the
beast.

He drew his
dagger and in pure rage, sawed off the bear’s head while it yet lived. Only
after the anger faded and he collapsed, did he realize that the beast had
slashed his back to ribbons.

Amos healed him,
and months later he was able to walk again, but the angry red and white lines
never went away. He showed them to Kael once because he begged to see them, and
bile rose in his throat when he saw there was more scar than skin.

The bear’s head
sat on a stake out in Roland's yard. Though the fur was long gone and the bone
bleached white, Roland spat on it every time he came home. He said once that he
could spit on it every day for a thousand years and the score would never be
settled.

"If Tad
can't have it, then I think you ought to. A man shouldn't be left alone with no
way to defend himself." Roland pulled out a quiver and handed it to Kael.
It was so packed full of arrows that he wondered if he'd be able to get one
out. "Yeah, you ought to have it," Roland said again, and then he
smiled. "Especially since I'm so close to taking the walk —"

"I don't
want to think about that," Kael said. He felt a wall go up in his heart at
the very thought of it. "Can't you just stay here with us? We'll take good
care of you."

Roland laughed
from his belly and slapped his knees. "I know you would — and keep
me alive a lot longer than I ever should be. No, I want the woodsman's death. I
know you don't agree, but that's what I want."

In Tinnark’s
earliest days, a man who was too old to provide for his village would often
choose to die rather than continue eating out of the pot. He'd take his bow and
a quiver of arrows and walk out into the woods alone, prepared to accept
whatever death the mountains gave him. They called it the woodsman's death.

But those were
the old days. Now Tinnark had a healer, now the pots were full. There was no
reason that a man shouldn't be allowed to die in the comfort of his own home.
But Roland refused to listen.

"Let's find
a place to hide that," he said quickly when he saw the set to Kael's chin.
"There's probably a loose plank around here that'll do the trick."

They found one
under a cot and stuffed the bow and quiver into the hollow space beneath it.
"Thank you —"

"No, don't
even." Roland pulled the hood of his cloak up and prepared to step
outside. "Amos told me you were planning to leave in the spring and I just
thought you ought to have a proper bow, is all. Good night."

*******

The Day of the
Last Leaf came in early morning, when the elders stepped outside and declared
that every tree in sight was bare-limbed to the roots. That afternoon, the air
froze over and the clouds turned a heavy, ominous gray.

Roland came late
with dinner, his cloak tangled about him and his beard stiff with cold.
"We're in for it now, boy," he said as he set the stew on the table.

There were two
bowls: one for Kael, and one for the girl who refused to wake up. Both were
stone cold, so he dumped their murky contents into a pot and hung it over the
fire to warm. Since he was bound to the hospital anyways, Amos had tasked him
with the responsibility of feeding the girl every evening, coaxing the broth down
her throat by the spoonful. It was a tedious duty, and it was beginning to wear
on his patience.

“Why are we in
for it?” he said as he stirred the broth around.

“Well, I left
the sacrifice this morning in the same spot as always. But when I checked it just
now," Roland’s eyes went wide, "it was still there. Not a bite taken
out of it. What sort of under-realm omen do you think that is, eh?"

Another reason
the people of Tinnark hated him was because the year Kael was born, a monster
moved into the woods. It would leave deer carcasses strung around the village
— picked clean, and not a bone had been broken. Every skeleton was
perfectly intact.

The hunters
thought it must have come from the summit. Everybody knew that monsters lived
at the top of the mountains — and the great clans of summit people often
chased them downwards. The elders wanted to hunt and kill it before it started
feasting on people, but Roland didn't think it meant them any harm. So as a
sign of good faith, he killed a deer and left it a mile outside of Tinnark.

“If it’s a beast
of any thought,” he reasoned, “it’ll understand that we don’t want it hunting
on our grounds.”

The next
morning, a whole group of men went out to inspect offering and found it'd been
picked clean in the same bizarre way. After that, the carcasses stopped
appearing, and it became a tradition for Roland to leave a deer for the monster
every year on the Day of the Last Leaf.

"What do
you think it means?" Kael asked, trying to keep the lumps of meat from
sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Roland shrugged.
"Kingdom if I know. It can't be good, I'll tell you that. Maybe our truce
with the monster is up."

"Maybe it's
gone back to the summit."

"Maybe
…" Roland stared into the flames for a moment, the hot embers reflecting
back in the dark of his eyes. "I had a dream last night, Kael. And it was
a bad one."

"What was
it about?"

"Wolves,"
his voice was barely a whisper, "wolves with iron teeth. They tore us up,
they ate the entire village.”

Chills rose
unbidden across Kael’s arms. Some of Roland's dreams were nothing, but some
came true. Kael had long suspected that he had a bit of Seer in his bloodline.
“It was probably only a dream,” he said, more to convince himself than anybody.

Roland’s smile
didn’t quite reach his troubled eyes. “Yeah, probably.” He stood stiffly. “I
ought to get back to the Hall. And before I go — do you have a spare
oilskin around here? Amos swears the snows aren’t coming tonight, but I know
they are. I can feel it in the crick of my toes.”

Kael fought back
a smile as he tossed him a cloak. They always wagered over when the first snows
would fall. While the rest of the village wrung their hands, Amos and Roland
made a game of it.

When he was
gone, Kael stirred the pot a few more times before he went to check on the
girl. They were alone in the hospital that night, which meant he could talk all
he wanted to without getting in trouble.

They’d wedged
her cot between the wall and the front side of Amos’s desk. If Kael turned
sideways, he could edge his way back to the chair in the corner — which
he’d situated right by her head. Amos insisted that lowlanders weren’t used to
the cold. So even though her skin was warm, they had a mountain of pelts draped
over her body.

“The stew should
be ready in a few minutes,” he said as he sat. He knew she couldn’t hear him,
but it was still nice to have someone his own age to talk to.

Her face was
smooth as she slept, her full lips bent almost into a smile. He wished he knew
what she was dreaming about. What sort of dreams did lowlanders have? Most
likely they were good ones. He doubted that she dreamt of wolves chasing her,
or bears ripping her limb from limb. She’d probably never even had a nightmare.

“Do you want to
hear a story while we wait?” He pulled the
Atlas
out of his pocket and flipped it to a random page. “
Scarn Who Wouldn’t Die
, this is one of my favorites …”

He read far too
long, and soon the potent scent of burning meat wafted in from the main room.
Swearing, he dashed out to save the stew. But it was too late.

About three
inches of it was caked completely onto the bottom. He scooped up a spoonful of
what was still liquid and grimaced as the horrible flavor burned his nose.
Perhaps if he added a little water to it, and maybe some herbs …

His body knew
before he did. The spoon froze halfway to his lips and his teeth stuck
together. Every little sound magnified itself in his ears: the low whistle of
the wind, the scratching of trees on the roof, the creaks and moans of the
walls around him. The noise made his heart beat faster — but what he felt
stopped it short:

Someone was
standing behind him. Watching him. Waiting.

And he was
fairly certain they meant him harm.

He felt a breath
of air leave the room as the predator inhaled. If Roland were there, he’d say
to listen to the animal part of him. And right now it whispered to remain
perfectly and completely still.

But his mind
knew it wasn’t a monster behind him; nothing that waited to rip his innards out
and string them across the floor as his body might have him believe. No, he
knew the thing behind him was probably only Marc, perhaps even Laemoth.