Introduction Part Six
Ilan cupped his hands into a stirrup while Tojon took his father’s left hand over his own upturned palm. Stepping onto his son’s laced fingers, Hurgen grabbed the saddle’s horn and the two boys lifted him onto the gray mare as easily as if he were a child. Ynna balked at the unfamiliar weight, dancing a semicircle in the loam, but Brenjar’s hand on her reigns and his soothing voice quickly calmed her.
“How is it,” Hurgen asked of the ranger as Ilan handed him the maul, “that you can resist the song without blocked ears?”
Brenjar’s dark eyes flicked at Tojon, but his face held no blame. “Pain helps,” He handed the horse’s reigns to Hurgen. “And enchantments flounder once broken. Likely, you don’t even need those rags anymore.” He turned to lead them away, his lean face grim, his hair and hand mangled reminders. “Though you may not enjoy it.”
Hurgen nodded as he urged Ynna into a walk. She snorted and stamped a hoof, but followed Brenjar. Ilan and Tojon walked on either side. Ilan touched the rags in his ears. Briefly looking as if he was going to remove them, he then grimaced. He mouthed
no and shoved his fingers hard in his ears to seat the cloth deeper, drawing a short gasp of pain. Tojon was looking, and turned to his father, concern on his face. Hurgen cut off his question.
“We will talk of it lat…” Ynna lurched under him, choosing a different path around a tree than he had intended. The old carpenter leaned and nearly fell, but Tojon had a quick hand out to steady him. He then held an open hand out to his father. Hurgen sighed and handed Tojon the maul, freeing his right hand to grip the horn.
The sounds of the wailing settlers faded as they traveled thourgh the greengold west. Ynna kept up easily with Brenjar’s quick pace, but his boys were nearly running. Soon, all they seemed to hear was the saddening song as it wound multi-headed through the canopy shadows. Even their tromping feet and hooves couldn’t match its gentle persistence. Hurgen found his mind returning to it again and again as he rode. He needed distraction.
“Brenjar?” Hurgen called. “How is it you know where to go?”
“Do you know what a ‘shouting’ is?” Came the reply.
Hurgen thought for a moment, forehead creasing. “No.”
“It’s a place where loud gets louder.” Brenjar’s eyes were on the trees around them. He found a tall evergreen, the top of which reached beyond the canopy. He signaled for a stop. “
Walls like arms fling horn and call.” He looked up, examining the tree’s heights. “
Thranesmen heed and pass to all.” Brenjar looked to the boys and held up his left hand swathed in bandages. “We need a heading. I can’t climb. Not safely.”
Tojon was quick to step up, and his mouth opened to volunteer, but Ilan cut him off. “I’ll do it. You’ll likely snap the tree at its roots.”
“You aren’t a gnome, yourself.” Tojon’s tone was derisive. It was plain that he felt this a matter of debt. Besides, he was right. While Tojon was the largest of the boys, it wasn’t by much.
“No, but I’m the safer by a tenpound or two.” Ilan was also right. The boys looked at each other defiantly.
“Enough. Ilan, go up.” Hurgen spoke, and it was settled.
“What am I looking for?” Ilan asked as he began to climb. He leveraged himself onto the lowest boughs, and then put his chest to the trunk. The acrid smell of sap opened his nose, and he sneezed. Tojon rubbed at his own nose in unconscious sympathy. Ilan’s head craned back and he looked for the best route.
“There are highlands to the west,” Brenjar answered, “they may hold a rockface. Look for that first. If you don’t see any, sight us towards the roughest hills.”
Ilan nodded, and his path chosen, he made for the top. Hurgen’s face creased with worry. All boys were tree-climbers, but this was a boy in a man’s body, and this tree was twice the height of any he had climbed for play. Should he underestimate his weight on a limb…
“Take care, boy.” Hurgen called after him. “Keep your feet in the joinings.”
“I will, Papa.” Ilan was soon barely visible, then not at all. “Brenjar’s chosen a good one.”
Hurgen waited, listening for the call of his voice, praying the creaking and rustling of the tree wouldn’t change to a cracking, splintering harbinger. The tree swayed in greater arcs as the sounds of Ilan’s ascent receded up and out of Brenjar’s hearing. All of their eyes followed.
“Brenjar?” Hurgen’s voice was tight, but steady.
“I can see him, Hurgen.” The ranger answered from where he stood under the tree. He didn’t seem bothered by the light shower of green needles and bits of bark Ilan was knocking loose. “He’s fine, and nearly there.” They waited in silence again.
The tree’s swaying became gentler, and Brenjar turned and nodded to Hurgen. Ilan had reached the top. His voice came down, thin through the cloth, and from so very high up. Hurgen couldn’t make it out, but he saw Brenjar nod approvingly, and heard his shouted reply.
“Good! Come down!” The guide’s right hand beckoned Ilan in large arcs. After a moment, the tall evergreen increased it’s swaying again. Hurgen tried to tell himself that the hard part was over, that every step down was one less broken bone, one less bruise. It didn’t help, and he didn’t breath easy until Ilan hit the ground on both feet, his grin quickly fading in the song-filled shadows.
Brenjar didn’t waste any time. “Tell me.”
Ilan oriented himself, looking at nearby trunks. It took him a minute, but he finally pointed. “That way.” He unconsciously imitated Brenjar’s clipped speech. “A rockface, like you said.”
Brenjar studied the direction for a moment, his eyes focused on some distant landmark. He clapped Ilan on the shoulder and without another word began walking. Hurgen grunted as Ynna followed, grateful now that he had a hand on the horn. The mare had found a compromise it seemed: Hurgen could ride her, but she was determined to take her cues from Brenjar, whether given or no. Hurgen shrugged and let the reigns go slack, though he didn’t release them. Ynna relaxed, given her head, and they continued through the forest with both of Hurgen’s hands on the horn.
The land tilted up as they moved, and soon the heavy breath of boys and mare competed with the sounds of heavy steps and hooves. The weight of song increased, growing steadily louder as they climbed. It swayed as they switched back and forth up steep slopes. It followed them in furrows and haunted them in hollows. Insanely, everything Hurgen saw reminded him of Elaana, or rather, his loss of her. The shadows were as empty as his bed, the sunlight as tasteless as the food in a lonely breakfast. The tall trunks of trees tilted to become the logs of the lodge they had shared. How had he survived? How had it not done him? How?
A hand on his knee. “Papa?” Tojon’s panting voice cut through the veil. Hurgen lifted his head to bright sunlight. Blinking, he was surprised to find tears running down his face. Ynna's reigns had slipped from his hands and Ilan now held them. “Papa? Are you all right?” Between his words, Tojon’s breath entered his body in great rushes. The song had a single head now, and it butted Hurgen between the ears. He reeled, but didn’t fall, neither off the horse, nor into morbid memories.
Then Hurgen understood. He clamped a gnarled hand over the one on his knee, hard enough to make even Tojon gasp. “Papa! What’s wrong with you?”
Hurgen hadn’t been alone at breakfast.
“Throw the maul.”
“What?”
“NOW. Ilan, your hatchet, too.” His boys instantly complied; though it was plain they thought their father might be mad. The tools sailed away to thump in the grass.
“Help me down.” They came over, and had him off the horse as easily as they’d had him on it. He took one of their hands in each of his own. “Where’s Brenjar?”
“He said he had to heed nature. He’ll be back soon.” Ilan’s voice was strained and his face wore worry. They were standing at the bottom of a low hill, clear of trees, and close enough to the slope that they couldn’t see the top. One thing was perfectly clear: whatever was making the song; it was at the hill’s top.
“I doubt he meant what you think. Did he have his knife out?”
Ilan’s eyes widened. “Yes, Papa. I thought he needed it for cutting leaves or something…” The ranger’s mad cries cut him off, and they all looked to the woodline, not far away.
“I don’t understand, Papa.” Tojon said as Hurgen began walking them up the hill.
“It’s
this,” Hurgen answered, shaking their hands, never taking his eyes off the top of the hill.
“But we weren’t…” Ilan began, but was nearly yanked off his feet in Hurgen’s hurry and frustration.
“
Think, boy. It’s a song of loneliness. This,” he shook their hands again, “reminds us that we are not alone.”
Holding each other’s hands like children, they crested the hill into the gale of song.
