The Crow's Cry

Glenburne

Scourge of Squirreldom
Staff member
Royal Guard
A fantasy story of mine.

Prologue

Caithal wrapped his horsehair cloak more tightly over his chain mail shirt, wishing he had never left his home province. The moors of the Northland, alternately whipped by wind and flooded by rain, were miserable to a son of the more temperate Iredail, hardened scout though he might be. But Caithal was also son to a poor widow, with no way to provide a home for the family he hoped to have one day. The Baron of the North, with his wealth from the gold mines of this northernmost Axelarran frontier, possessed treasure enough to pay well for the services of an experienced spy and tracker. And so Caithal remained, unwillingly.

Tonight the autumn winds snapped the long grasses with violence, tearing at the few scrubby trees capable of growing in the soil of these northern plains. Clouds drifted like death, veiling the face of the moon. A few bright stars—always clearer in the thin moorland air—peered toward him, but otherwise the face of the heavens remained closed, promising nothing.

The barbarians loved nights like this, Caithal knew. If they emerged from their hillside dugouts, they would soon be off wandering in the wild air—doing whatever barbarians did when the blood rose high in their veins. They’ll stumble on me by accident, if they do, he thought, and that will be the end. He wondered what exactly the barbarians did to the bodies of their fallen enemies. They had never won a battle solidly enough to remain on the field, dealing the dead however they willed; and so Caithal could only make guesses. At the very least he knew that his body, slain here, would never return to Iredail.

A rough-edged plateau etched the eastern horizon, and he urged his horse toward it. Eagle-head Rock was the name on his maps, although guardsmen often called it Fool’s-head Rock in jest. His captain, Clentos, had told him that a number of soldier-myths surrounded the place, but had declined to explain further. Instead, he simply warned Caithal to be watchful, because barbarians often frequented the place. “But why—” Caithal began, until Clentos frowned. “I’ve yet to hear a reliable story about the place, lad, and most soldiers’ tales are worthless. Suffice yourself with this—the barbarians are mad.”

Mad, indeed. What human could actually enjoy these wild northern nights? A barbarian, perhaps, but no other.

Eagle-head Rock loomed blacker, thrusting its shadow toward the scout, who hunched in his saddle, wishing that the Council of Lords would outlaw night jaunts such as this. But then he remembered just which Axelarrain baron he served, and knew that while law might be fine for the rest of the nation, the Northland had unwritten laws of its own. And nothing the Council decided in Pirathol would bully the Baron of the North into submitting to a rule he opposed.

Fool, he called himself bitterly. Just find whether there are barbarians roaming around like for battle, and Clentos will be satisfied. In dark as thick as this, the barbarians will never see you if you stay a decent length off. Caithal tugged at his leather gloves, willing them not to slip and expose his fingers to the biting winds. He had never felt more grateful for the thin layer of padding inside his helmet; at least his scalp was protected from the frigid metal, although the strip of metal protecting his nose dipped to touch his face whenever Caithal turned his head.

Sighing, his breath freezing white in the air, Caithal raised his eyes to Eagle-head Rock, now staring down on him from only a few dozen yards off. It occurred to Caithal that he despised the shape of that plateau. It also occurred to him that he recognized no barbarian sign here. Relief warmed him. He had reached the farthest stretch of his scouting circuit and could return to the sweaty fires of the barracks at Jadoth.

The sound of a movement above him stilled Caithal’s gladness. Feet scuffed rock and then earth as someone, barely hidden from sight, scrambled to the top of the plateau. Caithal gasped fear and nearly choked on the cold air. He had failed in his alertness, and now his enemy occupied the high ground. Any moment a cry from the plateau’s edge would pierce the night, and the barbarians would charge from their hovels to kill him.

He wheeled his horse, intending to flee, when the expected outcry ripped through the night winds. “King of light!” a voice shouted from the rock.

Caithal, poised to gallop, dropped his jaw and stared up at the shadowy plateau, wondering whether his enemy was mocking him. He never carried lit torches while scouting: they might betray his position, and, when the night winds swept the northern moors, they were worse than useless. “Just go and—” he began to snap at the dark form above him, when the voice cried out again.

“Lord of the sky!”

The words chilled Caithal to the heart. The barbarian’s face was turned to the heavens, and he seemed not to notice the shadow of a rider beneath him. The voice was that of a boy nearing manhood, but the barbarian, outlined against the star-burnt sky, appeared Caithal’s match in size. If he so much as glanced toward the ground—

“Hear me!”

The last shouted phrase pushed Caithal beyond his limits of endurance. If that boy wants to practice his heathen magic on top of that rock, let him. But I’ve a warm barracks waiting, and I’ve got no intention of sitting here for him to look down and find. Caithal nudged the mare with his booted heels, hoping that the animal would remain silent. She did.

Caithal guided her into a walk, shivering as much from the barbarian’s strange ritual as from the cold. When he first felt the throbbing beat pulse through him, he chided himself for overreacting to a pointless, if odd, heathen ceremony. But further pounding, louder, was no bodily reaction.

The barbarians were beating their war-drums to the east, and Caithal knew that his bunk would remain cold until the dawn.
 
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Prologue, continued

He pressed against the rocky side of the bluff, praying to heaven that the Northland guardsmen would retreat quickly. Their shameless forays into the Tablelands—called so by the People, though Northlanders referred to them “frontiers,” uncapitalized—had passed toleration. Already many among the People feared invasion. A little offensive action would make the Northlanders uneasy enough to return to their traditional boundaries.

“Fannag!” A voice hissed through the pre-dawn light, calling him by the People’s translation of his sign name.

He glanced over his shoulder to find Taravac frowning and gesturing frantically. “Aye?”

Taravac crept toward him, careful to keep flat against the rock. To be seen now might prove the downfall of the entire raid. “They moved their camp last night.”

Surprised, he jolted rather painfully against the rock behind him. “They had word? They’ve never done that before. Not at night.”

“Moved to the high ground—warned by a scout, most like,” Taravac answered. “Ronag wanted a change of plans, and the Elders agreed. We attack gradually—a smaller group tries to break their line first, and the rest move in while the Northlanders are distracted. We can use the cliffs for cover.”

He lifted his javelin and, checking the sling and knife in his belt, following Taravac’s careless stride. The young man was called Angal—fire—by the People, partially for his flaming hair, but more for his temperament. Taravac’s childhood rages were fewer, but years might pass before Taravac managed to finally rid himself of his rather unfortunate sign name.

They skirted the bluffs, carefully watching the rocks around them. The Northlanders had learned speed early in their coming to these lands, or they would have never survived. And eight hundred years of intermittent hostilities had taught the Northland guard enough that the two had reason to be cautious.

Ronag stood quietly as they neared him, his face turned toward the hill where the Northlanders lay sleeping. Taravac called out to him, but Ronag only raised his brown-bearded chin toward the enemy.

“He didn’t hear you.”

“The man never hears anything the first time,” Taravac muttered. “It’s not surprising.”

“Ronag!” the other called, more loudly.

Ronag turned at the voice of his young disciple. “More quietly, lad. The guard is asleep, and I’d rather not that you disturb their beauty rest.”

Taravac coughed a laugh. Ronag’s ears were as good as any man’s, but his mind, overly active since youth, had an unfortunate habit of wandering to distant regions beyond the reach of the human voice. Even now the earth-dark eyes of the man the People called Watcher seemed half buried in his thoughts. “When do we attack?” he asked, hoping that Ronag would see fit to answer him.

“As soon as everyone’s in position,” his companion said. “In a few minutes.” What miracle of nature had opened Ronag’s mind to him, not a born son of the People, others could only guess.

“When I call, the small group strikes first.” Ronag rubbed the shaft of the javelin in his palm. “That’s you, Fannag, and me. Angal, I’d have you go with the larger group—“ He raised a hand to halt Taravac’s protest. “Don’t worry, lad. You’ll have more fighting than you can handle, or I miss my guess.”

Ronag didn’t often miss.

He checked his own weapons as Taravac trudged back to the rear positions. “How many of the enemy?”

The Watcher’s right brow twitched, studying his younger companion. “Several hundred. Perhaps more.”

The usual odds. Altogether, about two hundred spearmen against the Northland guard. He glanced up the hill, wondering if Soldor still rode with his men. The thought pressed his stomach with a dread he had never explained to Ronag.

The older man’s hand brushed knowingly against his shoulder, a gesture rare for the inhabitants of the Tablelands. Even his own father, no man of the People, had never touched him that way, and the slight warmth nearly burned him. “They’re stirring, I think.”

“Spears!”

Ronag’s sudden bellow jolted him, but his legs knew their function and drove him forward, running toward the hill at full speed. He lowered the head of his javelin, preparing. The stars had promised victory in the night’s darkness: All will be well. He bore those words like a talisman against his chest.

A sentry, curled in slumber, only grunted a monosyllable as he passed. Never mind you. He ignored the sleeper, charging instead for the man’s unfortunate fellows.

A mail-clad sergeant slapped a hand toward his sword, screaming to the guardsmen. He cut the man down, jerked his spear from the fellow’s streaming throat, and thrust it into a bleary-eyed soldier.

The camp had begun its rude awakening. Captains and sergeants bellowed commands, dragging sleepers from their beds and thrusting swords into their hands. He looked from where he was struggling with a burly guardsman and saw half-clad horsemen flinging themselves onto their animals, many not even bothering to saddle the beasts.

The guardsman growled, shoving his blade aside. He kicked at the man desperately and swung his weapon back in time to block what might have become a killing stroke.

A rider kicked at his mount and drove it straight toward him. He tried to leap back from his adversary, out of the rider’s path, but the guardsman made a last slice at his head, and he took a precious second to duck before stumbling backward.

A hoof caught him in the side, flinging him down. His knife—he had dropped his knife. Blindly, he stretched his hand out, feeling about the clumping grass.

“Spears!” The battle cry echoed faintly from the base of the hill.

A boot drove down upon his arm, streaking pain from wrist to shoulder. He gulped at air and tried to roll.

Another boot slammed into ribs already bruised by the horse—twice, three times. Choking, he raised his head.

He never saw the sword butt as it cracked above his ear. He only saw the stars, burning above the Tablelands. All will be well. Laughing, they veiled themselves within the thickness of midnight.
___________________________________________
 
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Superb scene-setting and action description! This illustrates what I often tell young readers: don't just SAY "Caithal needed work, so he served as a scout," spend enough time describing Caithal's circumstances that the reader is drawn inside the story WITH Caithal.
 
“They brought Arran in last evening.”

Startled, Anlaida jerked, causing the brush to tug painfully in her waist-length hair.

“Careful,” chided Nollis, but Anlaida scarcely heard her attendant’s caution.

“Arran’s come home?” She twisted about to see Nollis’s face. The widow-woman had to be teasing for a reaction of some kind. Her young half-brother had disappeared four years ago. Neither she nor her elder brother Soldor, nor any of her three married sisters, had heard news of him since.

“I—wouldn’t say come, exactly.” The hesitation spoke of truth, and Nollis’s eyes looked as clear a grey as ever. Anlaida’s hands dropped heavily.

“What below the sky do you mean?”

“Stand straight, or I’ll end up pulling your hair again.”

Anlaida pulled her shoulders back at the attendant’s warning. Nollis had come into her service the year before, newly widowed and needing money to care for her young daughters. The arrangement had worked well thus far, but that Nollis took fewer pains with tangled hair than Anlaida’s childhood nurse. Anlaida’s scalp frequently felt the effects of that difference.

“He’s been with the barbarians, Anlaida.”

Coldness slid through her veins. “I always thought he’d gone to the Midlands—handled horses for one of the Axelarrain, or some such.”

“No,” Nollis said, pulling the brush through the brown strands for the final time. “The last battle against the barbarians?”

“We lost; or had to retreat, at the least. They attacked at dawn.” She stepped toward her canopied bed, suddenly wanting to sit down.

Nollis returned the brush to the dresser. “He was with them—fighting. Was captured just before our men had to pull out.”

“How—” Anlaida pressed her lips together. “I can’t imagine what he’s been thinking. It’s a shame to the family.”

“I wonder if he cares,” Nollis murmured. “As to what he’s been thinking, you’ve not seen him for years. He was only thirteen when he left; he should be seventeen now. Much happens in those years. I married at sixteen myself.”

“He’s not married.” Anlaida gripped the bedpost, turning her back to her attendant.

“Was taken to the dungeons last I knew. But I’ve heard nothing more.”

Anlaida picked at the woven vines on her bedspread. “These threads are worn. I think it’s time that I buy a new one.”
__________________________

The voice broke through his dark dreams and woke him to a darker cell. “Clentos, I know what I’m about. Can you blame me for tradition? Unlock the door.”

The door cracked, and a line of torchlight began to widen on the wet limestone floor. A man stepped inside, his face obscured by the blackness. The confidence of his stance seemed contradicted by a slightest hesitation in his gait.

Arran quickly dropped his eyelids, but, despite the poor light, the man had seen that telltale flutter.

“Look at me.”

Arran opened his eyes wearily, willing his nausea to seep into the stones. Violent pain stabbed through his ribs with every breath. The fingers on his right hand lay stiff at the end of a swollen forearm. Even his capture had been easier than facing his half brother like this. Stands—so tall. The flicker of thought flashed through his throbbing skull and died.

“You’re a fool, you know that? A fool.” His brother stepped closer. “I’ve got the right to hang you.” He paused, studying Arran with thoughtful eyes as he pulled his cloak against the subterranean dampness. “Be thankful for tradition.”

A dead man’s laugh barked from Arran’s throat. “Soldor.”

Soldor glared down. “Yes, tradition. Something you wouldn’t care about.”

Arran smiled bitterly. The less fortunate consequences of tradition had driven him from this place.

Soldor glared at the smile. “ You’ll be confined to the limits of this castle. You understand? This building. Not the courtyard, and definitely not anything past the gate.”

That would include the cemetery. Arran’s lips grew hard.

“Get up.”

Arran gingerly rolled to the left, hoping to spare his injured forearm, but the pain drove through his ribs and forced him to his back, wheezing. He pulled his elbow underneath his body.

“Arran.”

He only managed to push himself up a few inches with that elbow before his stomach roiled violently. Retching, stomach slamming into his hurting ribs, he lay his face to the side and fought the fading of the torchlight.

“Have one of the men fetch a physician, Clentos.”

Voices echoed meaninglessly from the high stone walls as Arran slipped from darkness to twilight and back again. He could scarcely tell which words were real and which had been carried on the North Wind.

“Baron, it was treason! To stay your hand now—”

“To stay my hand is my affair, not yours. I can hardly blame you for failing to understand the tradition; your father was of the Denna, after all, and the men of Denaton hardly know what Axelarre is as a whole. They can’t be expected to understand the traditions of one northernmost province.”

“My mother was Northland born.”

“I’d never have you as captain were it otherwise. But the tradition prevents my executing a Second Heir for anything—even treason. I’d lose the barony. Kalon my father’s half-brother would be sure of that.”

Callused hands prodded Arran’s right side, and he choked for breath.

“I can’t examine him without more light. Have the guards take us…”

The few coherent words disappeared into echoes of yesterday, and Arran welcomed the darkness as it fell.
 
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I think that before you go much farther, it might be good to chart out for your readers who's who and what's where. If you have good graphics capability, a map would not be amiss.
 
This story is great! It drew me in right away. Usually, I have to plug through the first several chapters before I can care about anything that's happening. :p Although the adventure looks exciting, it's the subtle insights into the characters that spark my curiousity and keep me reading.
 
Thanks, MissReepicheep!

I think that before you go much farther, it might be good to chart out for your readers who's who and what's where. If you have good graphics capability, a map would not be amiss.

Unfortunately, I don't have the software I'd need to upload a map of Axelarre and its surrounding countries. If I get the capability, then I will definitely post one. But--if explaining in plain writing is any help--Axelarre is a fairly large country made up of a number of provinces: the Northland stretches over the northern region of Axelarre, Iredail (which covers a large region on the western border) is another fairly good-sized province, and a number of smaller provinces fill the rest of the country. To the east of Axelarre and on the coast is Denaton, which rules a large empire across the eastern sea. To the west is Orrinshad, a hilly country ruled by various clans. South of Axelarre are the Southern Downs, a grassy area peopled by a few horsemen and cattle herders. North of Axelarre--meaning north of the Northland--is a region unknown to this geographer. Assumedly, it is too cold to support human life.

There are other countries on the continent, which is called (right now) Roharra, but they don't come into this story as much, and the above information is probably confusing enough.
 
I'm a little confused with all the different people, but I'm sure that as you go on I'll be able to straighten them out. Anyway, I like it!
 
I added a sentence close to the beginning of the last section to help explain part of Anlaida's significance as a character. Hopefully that makes things a bit less confusing.
 
A noodle slipped from Soldor’s spoon, landing in his soup bowl with a splash that sloshed brown liquid onto the tablecloth.

“I just had Ulma change that cloth this morning,” Anlaida said. The two were seated in the small family dining room--emptier than it once had been--that opened on west end of the great hall, Soldor across from Anlaida at the far end of the table.

He fished for a pea as if finding it was the highest occupation in the Northlands.

“Soldor—”

“Mmmmph.” He drew the pea up toward the rim of the bowl, struggling to push it onto his spoon. The pea, too, landed on the ivory tablecloth.

“Soldor!”

He finally glanced toward her. “What?”

She gestured wordlessly toward the mess her older brother had made.

“I told you I didn’t care for this kind of thing.”

“Eating?” she asked dryly.

He bit at the corner of his mouth. “Noodles are for Midlanders. If they want their food to look like worms, then they’re welcome to it.”

“Midlanders are our countrymen.”

“Midlanders,” he countered, “are prigs. They’ve got no idea what we face every day—cold and barbarians and mine cave-ins and isolation. But they think they’re the treasury of Virtue compared to us.”

Anlaida swallowed a noodle rather pointedly. “All the more reason to behave well. How else can you prove them wrong?”

Soldor glared openly at her, the gesture only making the two look more alike: waving brown hair, their mother’s intense eyes, and their father’s height. Even his scowl resembled hers. Were it not for the ten years between them, they might have been mistaken for twins.

But he’s clueless, Anlaida thought with a trace of her childhood’s fire.

“We’re not Midlanders.” With his eyes, he drilled her as if she were a vein of ore. “I’ll eat noodles when they start wearing horsehair cloaks. The rest of the world has no moral compunction to bend for their every whim. The sooner the Midlands understand that, the better.”

“Soldor—”

“And the point of this is—I hate noodles.”

Anlaida heard the wryness in his tone, but she chose not to push the topic. Her brother would be served noodles enough if he attempted more business dealings with the Midlands, his current goal. “Nollis told me—”

Soldor shoved a noodle to the side.

“That—Arran was found?” She despised the awkwardness of her voice.

“And you think that’s a better topic of discussion than noodles.” Gagging, Soldor swallowed another.

Anlaida blushed.

Soldor saw. “The physician took care of him. He’ll be up before long.”

“He really went with the barbarians?” she asked softly.

Her brother nodded. “He did.”

“How could he? Doesn’t he realize what people will think?”

“Anlaida—” he sought her eyes—“To the Midlanders, we’re all barbarians up here. They won’t care.”

“But Retaine’s husband. Thessalim’s. Mostaras’s. They know better. They’ll find out, and tell, and—”

Soldor raised an eyebrow.

“Why would he be such a fool?”

He tipped his bowl in the wrong direction, and it landed facedown on the floor, spilling all of the unfortunate noodles.

“Soldor!”

“It was an accident,” he protested lamely.

“You’re twenty-nine. It was no accident. Ulma will have to clean that floor.”

“I’ll clean it myself,” he shrugged.

Anlaida stilled. “Don’t you know why?”

“No. He’s hurt. Couldn’t even sit on his own. It was no time to have a warm half-brotherly conversation. Ask him later if you’re interested.”

“And you’re not?”

Soldor shook his head. “I know what he did. That’s enough.” He grabbed for a napkin and bent to lift his bowl from the soup-splashed flagstones.
 
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“The fever’s broken. He’ll be waking before long.”

“Will you remain until then?”

“I can.” Metal clanked against metal.

Growing consciousness stirred the cauldron of headache inside Arran’s skull. He sensed a presence beside him. Don’t want—

“You may as well go on, Baron. I’ll have a servant inform you should anything change.”

“Good, then.” Footsteps padded across a carpet—the carpet—and onto hard stone. The hall.

Arran wondered dimly where he was, but he dreaded to open his eyes. If he remained unconscious, he was purely Soldor’s problem. If he awoke, he would become his own.

A hand fitted itself behind his neck and lifted a cup to his lips. Arran sucked thirstily at the liquid in the cup, although it tasted faintly of medicine. The hand laid him down again and began examining him, breathing, temperature, muscle tension. When the probing fingertips strayed too near his eyes, Arran growled almost inaudibly. But the physician—that was who Arran assumed the hand belonged to—noticed the sound, and he began to pry one of Arran’s eyelids open in an attempt to check his pupils.

Arran struggled with his right arm, attempting to strike the invader of his privacy. But the hand took hold of his arm. “Stop it, boy. You’ll break that arm again.”

Arran blinked at the pain throbbing in his arm, his ribs—everywhere—but held his lips clamped tightly together. The dark bookshelves taunted his queasy stomach. He turned his gaze to the physician, the gray, hard-palmed man that had tended his father before him.

“Well.” The physician pulled back. “That took you time enough. You’ll recover before long if you don’t try whacking anyone else.” Tolar was his given name, but no proper sign name had ever been attached. Arran remembered the servants’ speculation on that account.

Arran recognized the place as if from a dream. His old bedroom, hardly changed since the night his mother had died and he had fled without taking the time to retrieve even his clothes. His dresser was still decorated with the emblems of his boyhood: unusually shaped rocks, an animal skull, and several frayed lengths of cord. The bookshelves still bent under the weight of the volumes that his father had purchased for the purpose of furthering his education. Even the green patterned bedspread was unchanged.

“Can you talk, boy?” the physician asked gruffly.

Arran licked his lips and mumbled a yes. Tolar set a cup of water against his mouth, and Arran sucked the water eagerly.

“Know your name?”

Arran gave the physician an odd look, and the man shrugged. “You’ve got a concussion. I had to be certain the knock you took didn’t knock your memory with it.”

“Memory’s—fine,” Arran said, wishing the opposite. His head throbbed. He closed his eyes against the pain, and the world slipped into the distance.
_________________________________________________

Arran recovered slowly over the next week. Bruises he did not remember, coupled with a knee wrenched when he had fallen, joined with other injuries to keep him mainly on his back. To make matters worse, the books his father had left on his shelves were ones he had always hated. Architecture of the Axelarrain, Gold Mining: Methods, and Effective Roads were books his father had thought thirteen-year-olds should digest, and that Arran had wished a mongrel dog would ingest. But he hadn’t been fool enough to actually destroy the things. Burning books was not an activity one generally undertook in Uliath’s house.

Arran had one book of which his father had not known, but he had been careful to leave that book in his father’s library, where the book could be safely lost between the titles on geography and alchemy. But the library was in the east wing, and Arran was in no shape to track down anything located there. So he read about architectural styles and stared at the ceiling.

Laying in the four-poster bedstead that had once been his pirate ship unsettled Arran’s stomach. Other than the physician Tolar and the occasional sullen servingmaid, he saw no one. Four years had passed since he had last slept here, but they might have been eternity.

Soldor’s words from that dungeon lay crumbled like crackers in back of his mind. Can you blame me for tradition? Get up. Soldor would come in again, Arran knew, and lengthen his previous lecture. The thought throbbed through Arran’s head whenever it came, and Arran would close his eyes against the pain. The concussion had dimmed his recollection of everything following the charge up the hill.

Either the stars had been wrong in their message—which was unthinkable—or his interpretation had somehow skewed itself, although how the latter event could have occurred was beyond Arran’s understanding. These star-signs had seemed clearer than any he had previously read. Ronag would know the answer, but Ronag remained in the Tablelands, a free man.

Memories tormented him, the scuffing of his feet on Eagle-head Rock, the warm earth of Ronag’s dugout. He had run from the house of Uliath and never looked back. Now he was among his Uliath’s people once more, and his father’s last words to him burned like poison in his veins.

By the seventh day, Arran was spending more time sitting up in bed than lying on his back. Tolar seemed to think that to be quite an accomplishment, even if Arran was unimpressed with himself.

“You were always my worst patient,” said Tolar, smiling. “I still remember when the entire household took fever ten years ago, all of you sick as gold-starved miners, and then you—yes, you!” he insisted, noticing Arran’s right eyebrow quirk. “Your head was hot as a brick, but you slipped out to go riding—riding! Fainted out on the moors, and some ne’er do well peddler carried you home.”

Arran remembered the peddler’s wares, and said nothing in response. Tolar had indeed known him in his boyhood, but that boyhood seemed long past, and the graying physician nearly a stranger.

Tolar noted Arran’s silence and shook his head. “You’re too young for that, boy.”

The physician’s familiar manner grated against him. Arran flung up his head, defiance sparking in his gaze. Ronag was the only man alive who had earned the right of such familiarity. If he’s alive.

Shaking his head, Tolar probed at the bandage encasing Arran’s damaged ribs. Arran braced himself, gritting his teeth, as the physician’s offending fingers pushed against his side.

“Well, you’re not quite as tense as last time I tried this,” Tolar said dryly. “Be sore for a while, but at least there’s no infection.”

Arran spoke. “I’m fine.”

“And that’s your way of telling me I’m not needed. Well, I’ll leave you to yourself, then.” No offense marked itself in Tolar’s bearded face as he unfolded his long frame from the bed and stepped toward the doorway. “Day after tomorrow, boy.” He left.

Arran could only assume that, following Tolar’s examination three days hence, then physician had a short conference with Soldor. His older half-brother, handsome in a dark blue jacket, exhibited a less-than-handsome expression as he stepped into Arran’s room.

Arran’s hands clenched white on the business guidebook he held, but he refused to shift from his position on the edge of the mattress. “Nice to see you too, Soldor.”

Soldor’s eyebrows arched. “If you’re well enough to sit up, you’re well enough to eat supper like a civilized human being.”

“Does that mean no more of those stringy things from the kitchen?” Arran asked, swallowing a ruder retort.

“Noodles,” Soldor half-muttered, rubbing at the corner of his coat. “It means you will be eating at the table from now on. Supper is at six, and I’ll expect to see you there.” He turned on his heel and disappeared into the hall.
 
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The walk downstairs jarred his ribs and left his stomach throbbing. By the time Arran limped into the small dining room that branched off the Great Hall, the others were already seated: Soldor, still in his dark jacket; his half-sister Anlaida, grown to a beautiful woman; and a guest, probably a horse trader, from the looks of his clothing. Uliath’s pride had been his horses, and Soldor seemed to be following their father’s example.

The trader hardly reacted to Arran’s appearance, and Soldor, facing him, could not have known when Arran entered the room; but Anlaida saw, and grew nearly as pale as the tablecloth. The vibrancy of her dress—a tone somewhere between orange and yellow—only emphasized her sudden whiteness.

Arran almost ducked his head. The clothes he had been given, an unbleached linen shirt and brown trousers, were someone’s cast-offs, not even as well-made as the trader’s clothing, and certainly not comparable to Soldor’s. Soldor—the legitimate heir—was showing mercy to the half-bred prodigal. Sudden anger burned in the pit of Arran’s stomach, and he dropped carelessly into his seat across from Anlaida, nearly daring Soldor.

The swift movement had been a mistake. Pain tore through Arran’s middle. He ground his teeth and forced himself to reach for the platter of beef.

Soldor’s hand stopped him. “I’ll serve you,” he said, smugness tracing at the edges of his words.

Arran pulled his hand back silently.

“After all,” Soldor added, “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself again.” He smiled and laid a slab of the beef on Arran’s plate.

The horse trader was beginning to look at them curiously, and it was Anlaida, pale as she still looked, who saved the moment. “I noticed the gray you had out in the yard.”

“He’s a stallion, Miss,” the trader explained, fitting a spoon of stewed carrots underneath his drooping mustache. “A nice lady like you might be best with another—have you seen the black mare—“

At being referred to as a “nice lady,” Anlaida seemed to stiffen. “I assure you, I am more than capable of handling a stallion. My father taught me—”

Soldor interjected. “She would love to see the mare, wouldn’t you, Anlaida?”

If Anlaida’s eyes had been spearmen, Soldor’s funeral might have become the week’s social event. In any case, he quickly turned back to the trader, who was looking rather like a man who had eaten a piece of bad meat. “Perhaps the stallion could be gelded, Baron, if it would please the young lady—”

“Actually, I was interested in the roan,” Soldor said. “Bred from pure Island stock, did you say?”

“The Qalidian Isles, yes,” the man replied gratefully.

With thanks to the minor dispute between Anlaida and her older brother, Arran was safely invisible for the remainder of the meal. Soldor, deep in discussion with the horse trader, failed to notice when Arran made his limping exit.

Limping down the stairs had been difficult, but Arran’s return up them taxed him very nearly to the breaking point. More than once he found himself on his knees, panting and dizzy, with no memory of how he had fallen. His ribs jolted pain with every shift of his torso.

Arran found himself staring blankly at the door to his bedroom. Like a blind man, he felt for the doorknob and swung the door open in front of him. He took several faltering steps toward the bed, stumbled, and nearly fell.

Hands suddenly touched him from behind, gently supporting him until he collapsed onto the bed. The face of a housemaid, almost sympathetic, wavered beside him. Don’t know her either. Sleep fell over him.
 
Soldor’s announcement could hardly have come at a more inopportune time for his younger sister. “I’m inviting Corath here to discuss business—”

“What business?” Anlaida asked rather testily, nearly flinging the shuttle through the piece of cloth she was weaving.

Soldor sighed and rubbed at his leather belt. “I sell him gold at a reduced rate if he supplies me with men to subdue the barbarians.”

“’Subdue the barbarians’,” Anlaida mimicked grumpily. “Does he eat a lot?”

“Corath? No, but I’m told his sisters do.” Soldor leaned an elbow on her shoulder, and Anlaida shook him off.

“His sisters are coming?”

“Belaine and Avess, aye. You’ve been complaining about a lack of females around here.”

“I meant that I wanted to visit Mostaras and Bryn in Iredail, not that I wanted you to bring me guests to entertain!” Anlaida’s eyes crackled like a Orr’s-day fire, and Soldor shrugged.

“They’re females. Are you telling me that’s not enough, sparrow-foot?”

“I’m not laughing, Soldor. I have rooms to prepare, cleaning to finish—when will they be here?”

“Two weeks.”

Anlaida nearly dropped the shuttle. “Two weeks?”

Soldor raised an eyebrow at her. “I would think that’s plenty of time to get a few rooms ready.”

“How would you know?” She flung the shuttle through again. “You’ve never managed a household. I can’t be ready in two weeks.”

“The invitation’s already been sent, Anlaida.”

“You’re irresponsible.”

“How was I supposed to know you would fuss like this? Retaine could prepare for something like this in two days.”

“Retaine never did the type of cleaning I do. Just because she is my sister does not mean we manage a household in the same way.”

“In which case my not having managed one is irrelevant—isn’t that right?” Soldor asked almost lazily, rolling a strand of her hair between his thumb and forefinger. She swatted him away.

“Mostaras and I took longer to prepare.”

“Because you were helping her.” Soldor stepped back. “Just do your best, Anlaida. I’m sure Corath won’t complain. He hardly notices that sort of thing.”

“Corath is not the only one you invited, dear brother.”

“You wanted the challenge of that stallion, didn’t you? This is another challenge.” Soldor quickly exited the room, leaving Anlaida with one fist clenched white around the shuttle. Mostaras could have handled Soldor. But her sister and confidante had wed Bryn and abandoned the Northland. Soldor needs me here to manage this place. He’ll never let me leave Jadoth Rock for somewhere respectable until he has found a wife—and no wise father would ever arrange his daughter’s marriage to the scion of the Northland.
_________________________________________

“Are you really there?” Arran muttered, gingerly raising his left arm to pull a book from the shelf in his late father’s library. The room was as large as the Great Hall, with several thousand books, some dating back five generations, lining the heavy oaken shelves. Most had been printed in the university at Axtaroth, three hundred miles south in Bonarvaid province, but several hundred had been printed in Denaton, to the east. The Denna-books were less costly than those printed in Axelarre—Detaton’s numerous territories included several with vast amounts of the forest needed for paper, which printers in the mother nation could buy at far lower prices than the Denna were willing to grant to Axelarran printers. Still, Axelarre’s books were worth their price for their engraved covers, detailed illustrations, and clear print. Even the best of Denaton’s printers could not compare to the masterpieces produced by the three great Axelarran universities. Uliath had kept the Denna-books for their content, not their quality.

With the Axelarran-made Chronicles safely in hand, Arran carefully lowered himself into a horsehide chair to read. Several days had passed since his first unpleasant meal in the family room, and he could navigate the castle with less pain, although he still moved slowly and as little as possible. Bored with the books in his bedchamber, he had returned to his childhood haunt and found it much the same. New horsehide furniture, an added writing table, and the changed position of a hanging map were the only changes he could see. Presumably Soldor still put little emphasis on books, although everyone still said Soldor was so clearly their father’s son.

Horses and books and the moorlands, that was what he liked, Arran thought, frowning. And those were the things that Arran had liked so long ago. Returned to Jadoth Rock, he was again following his father’s footsteps.

But who cares what he liked? He’s got no hold on me. I rebelled—I did! he insisted to himself, the sickness rising in his stomach. No you didn’t, something said. You ran away like a little boy. That was what you did. Rebellion? Ha!

“Where are you?” he said aloud, and dropped his face toward the Chronicles in his hands.

That year would be numbered 1 by the inhabitants of the Northern Countries, and it would haunt memory for generations. Cattle froze in the fields during the warm season. Snow fell up to a three-mens’ height even in the first days of the summer. Even the Denna-king, the most powerful man in all the Northern Countries, was unable to leave his palace for the greatness of the snowfall. The Axelarrans and the Oran fared worse in their respective countries, for the ocean’s moderate currents carried some warmth to the coastal Denaton. Axlarrain lords starved for want of food, and chieftains of the Oran died struggling to provide firewood to their people. Survivors would name it the Great Cold. Such a title hardly seems to fit its terrible ferocity or deadly power. The Murdering Winter, perhaps, would better befit that year of nightmare.

He had once valued this history book of his great-grandfather’s more than any in the library save one. But it was too high for him to stretch now. When his ribs healed, he could pull it down.

Chronicles was several hundred years old now, written by Callan Robin—a minstrel of Iredail, by most accounts. Iredail had been taken from Orrinshad in war over a thousand years before, and the mixed blood of its people unsettled even working Axelarrans, to say nothing of the noble Axelarrain. “A man of Iredail and a mad dog are alike,” was the saying. “One moment they pace peacefully at your side, and the next, they rend you.” Iredail’s immense size—second only to the Northland—prevented an overabundance of such insults, but Chronicles would never be considered a university text.

Still, it was one of the best books that Arran had ever read.

A sudden pressure against his outstretched foot, accompanied by a hard thump into the imported green carpet, jerked Arran’s attention away from the book and toward his half-brother, who lay gasping on the floor. Arran gingerly pulled his leg back, afraid to open his mouth.

Soldor must have been winded by his hard fall, because he required a full minute of rasps and gulping noises before he managed to voice his aggravation. “What in Virtue’s name are you doing in here?”

Arran meekly lifted the book in his good hand, wincing as the movement pulled at his ribs.

Soldor stumbled to his feet. “I’ve got business to tend to, and I don’t have time to spend tripping over you!” He sucked in another breath, jaw working in frustration. “Stay out of here from now on. Understood?”

Arran had not planned on challenging his half-brother, but the words came unbidden. “I don’t have anything else to do! I’m not allowed outside, and I’ve read every single book in my room, even though I hate them all. If I wasn’t here, I’d be wandering the halls and getting in everyone’s way. Do you want me doing that?”

Soldor’s eyes suddenly brightened, and Arran, though he and Soldor had hardly spoken even before Arran’s leaving, knew that the expression boded nothing good. “Fortunate—you have nothing to do, and Anlaida is complaining that she has too little help—fortunate.”

“Soldor, my arm’s broke. I can’t do anything.”

“Well, you can talk to Anlaida about that.” Soldor’s lips were turned in an almost cheerful expression at the prospect of pairing his two greatest problems. “Now get out.”
 
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Soldor is the hero of this story. Anyone with the determination to make a teenage boy help with housework is a hero.

*rethinking that*

On second thoughts, Soldor could be a fool.
 
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