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Carl stopped as the Silver Hills came into full view, majestic and snow-covered in the distance. The South Road ended at Silver Road, which skirted the northern foothills of the mountains. Carl had seen the Silver Hills from this perspective a half-dozen times, but they had never struck him as they did now. When he had left Brocland five years before to join the service, he was not in the right mindset to appreciate their beauty, but now he felt he could stare at them until the sun went down.
“They seem so close,” Sinnie said. “But I bet it would take weeks to reach the foot of one of the snow-covered mountains.”
“At least,” Carl said. “And you’d have to be a lot better equipped than we are.”
Their eyes remained glued to the hills as they rode west down Silver Road. The hot sun was counterbalanced by a steady cool breeze that seemed to bring puffs from the snow-covered peaks to their faces. Several smaller roads branched off wherever there was a village or a mountain pass, like Hollow Road, which they would reach the next day. They saw relatively few travelers on Silver Road, but horse, foot, and cart tracks were plentiful. They camped in a copse of cedar that night, enjoying a clear, starry night without disturbance.
Early the next afternoon they came to the point where Hollow Road branched south from Silver Road, and Carl studied the crossroads before they continued. Hollow Road led along the Snake River valley, punctuated by smaller valleys, three of them containing villages, the last of which was Brocland. There were only a few recent tracks coming from Hollow Road, which was not a good sign, but it suggested that at least Kelsey, the first village, still had folks coming and going. It would take the better part of two days to reach Brocland, and he knew a blacksmith in Kelsey who could put them up in his work shed for a night. That would mean one night sleeping out of doors past Greenvale, the second village.
The weather was cooler but still quite pleasant as they followed Hollow Road into the pine forests leading up to the Silver Hills. Legend said these forests were inhabited by woodland spirits, some of them malevolent. He had never put much stock in such things, but the news, or lack of news, from Brocland, had put him on edge. He had asked Sinnie to keep her bow handy just in case, and she seemed eager for action, though her attention tended to wane after a time. Her performance under pressure with the boar had given him confidence, although he wondered if she would be able to shoot at a person, if it came to that. She was no fragile flower, but he knew firsthand it wasn’t easy for anyone, no matter how much training or bravado they possessed.
Finn seemed to alternate between meditation and endless prattle. After riding silently for an hour or more, he would pull up alongside Sinnie, or occasionally Carl, and start conversations on any number of things, no matter how little response he got. Carl appreciated Finn’s energy, but it tended to distract him from watching the road and forests ahead, so he tried to discourage it while they were riding, to little avail.
When they stopped for lunch, Finn slipped off into the woods for his usual routine of odd poses, while Carl and Sinnie shared some of the boar, which had been salted to slow spoilage. It would be good for one more day, then have to be jettisoned, but it had served them well, and they savored it. Sinnie didn’t say much while they ate, her eyes drifting off down the road toward home.
“Looking forward to seeing your folks, I imagine?” Carl asked.
Sinnie gave a half-nod as she chewed and swallowed. “Sure, I mean, yes, kind of, more or less.” She nibbled on a bit of journey cake. Carl knew Sinnie’s father had worked in the mine when they were still open, and that he did some prospecting, going off for days at a time to some secret spots he had. Her mother raised sheep, and could often be seen taking her flock off to graze in the meadows near Brocland, her blond hair tied back in a ponytail. They were hard-working folk, on the serious side, and they would have been hard-pressed to understand Sinnie’s choice of profession.
For his part, Carl had no family remaining in Brocland now that his mother had passed, but he did have fond feelings for the village, and some of the people in it. He looked forward to seeing Mr. Massey, the retired army captain who ran the Village Guard, who had encouraged him to join the service after he had washed out from study. Massey would be getting up there in years, but he had always seemed ageless, and Carl surely would have heard if he had died. And he looked forward to seeing Elder Gummache, the old priest who sometimes gave the kids bread and sips of mead, and showed them the church relics when they helped him take care of the grounds.
When they started getting ready to saddle up again, Finn still had not returned. Sinnie called out to him, but he did not respond. Carl stood up, drew his sword, and gestured to Sinnie, who quietly retrieved her bow and arrows and followed him. He moved from tree to tree, slow-stepping in the direction Finn had gone. He saw Finn slumped against a tree about fifty yards away, and moved toward him, crouched low, watching the silent forest for movement. As Carl and Sinnie approached, Finn stirred, but his eyes remain closed. His hands were clutching thick tufts of moss that grew along the roots of the trees.
“Finn,” Sinnie said in a half-whisper. “Finn!” she said, a little louder. Finn’s eyes fluttered open, though it seemed to take him a moment before he saw them.
“Hey,” he murmured. “Hey,” he repeated, turning to Carl. “I guess I must have...” He sat up, rubbing his face, then putting his hands on his knees.
“Maybe your long watches are taking a toll on you.” Carl had never seen Finn lose control like this.
“No, I’m fine, it’s just...wow.” He looked down at his legs, his hands, the roots, and the moss. “I feel like I just had a conversation with this tree.”
Sinnie looked up at Carl, her face stuck between smiling and disbelief. “What, are you a druid now?” she asked.
“No, and I can’t really explain it, it’s just...I had this dream, but it was so real.” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I was doing a seated skywatch pose, like this—” He touched his feet together, his knees sticking out at what looked like a painful angle, leaned his head back until his eyes were facing up. “I was looking up the trunk into the branches, and everything got kind of...spinny, narrow somehow, like I was staring into a swirling tunnel, and then I saw this warm green light, kind of pulsing, real slow, and...” He stopped, turned his head back to face them. “I think the tree was trying to tell me something.” His brow furrowed and he stood up, put his hands to the tree, and looked up into the branches, then down at the roots.
“Like what?” Carl asked. Finn’s mind had always been always sharp, however flippant he might act. Maybe it hadn’t been a dream; maybe the tree had talked to him. It was said those with the gift could sometimes commune with the natural world, though Carl had never felt anything like that with the small gift he had once possessed.
“Actually, it was trying to give me some pointers on how to sit up straighter, how to use my legs to anchor me,” Finn said, his voice soft. “Like roots,” he murmured.
“Well that’s...kind of creepy, actually,” Sinnie said. “Maybe this is a sign we need to get our asses out of this forest.”
“I agree.” Carl touched Finn on the shoulder. “The sooner we—”
“Give me a moment.” Finn gently removed Carl’s hand as he stood up. “I just need to...” He put his hands on either side of the tree, closed his eyes, and touched it with his forehead. Carl and Sinnie exchanged puzzled looks, but neither dared to say anything. After a few seconds, Finn released the tree and walked past them back toward their horses without a word.
“Should we be worried?” Sinnie asked.
“I don’t think so,” Carl replied. “But you’re right. We need to get our asses moving.”
†
THEY REACHED KELSEY about an hour before sunset. The town was alive with the sound of saws, axes, and hammers taking advantage of the last bit of daylight. Carl hadn’t been to Kelsey more than a couple of times, on business with his father, but he found Hoyle’s shop easily enough. He left Finn and Sinnie with the cart and approached the shop. A boy about twelve years old, presumably Hoyle’s son, was scraping coals into a large metal bucket. He wore a leather apron, boots, and long gloves, all of which looked a bit too big for him, but he handled the coals like a pro. He gave Carl an inquisitive look as he poured a little water on the coals, watched them steam, then poured a bit more.
“My name is Carl, from Brocland. I’m looking for Hoyle. He and my father knew each other.”
The boy said nothing as he walked over to a metal triangle in the corner and hit it three times with a metal rod, then stood watching Carl as they waited. The boy’s gaze was intense but cool, and he did not seem intimidated by Carl, or even particularly interested in him. Carl heard a door close and footsteps coming up the path, and the boy returned to his bucket, pouring a bit more water on the coals, which produced almost no steam. Satisfied, he pushed the bucket next to the forge and removed his gloves.
“You’ll have to pardon my son Anais here,” said Hoyle, holding out his hand toward Carl. “He chooses not to speak.” With this, he gave his son a sidelong glance, which was returned in kind.
“Good to see you, Hoyle. I’m Carl, from Brocland.” He gave Hoyle’s hand a firm shake. “My father—”
“I know who you are, son. Aubert and I did a bit of business back in the mining days. He was a good man. I was sorry to hear of his passing.” He looked down, ran a hand through his hair. “And your mother, of course. Though I never met her, I—”
“Thank you,” Carl said, ending the man’s discomfort. “They have gone beyond, to where they are needed most.”
“To where they are needed most,” Hoyle repeated, touching his heart in time with Carl.
The ritual now complete, Carl decided to get down to business. “I was hoping, in the spirit of the friendship you shared with my father, to ask a small favor of you.”
“If it is within my power, I will grant it.” Hoyle eyed the cart and Carl’s companions. “Please understand, I have many obligations of my own to fulfill, but I will do what I can, for an old friend.”
“All we ask is for space on the floor of your shop, to take shelter for the night. We are returning to Brocland on an unfortunate errand, to deliver to its final resting place the body of a friend who has gone beyond.”
Hoyle touched his heart again along with Carl, and they lingered in awkward silence until Hoyle broke it, a kind of desperate cheerfulness in his voice. “Well of course you can have the shop, think nothing of it.” Hoyle made a gesture with his hand as if he were sweeping any objection to the side, but his response was too swift, his lack of eye contact too obvious. He had been expecting worse. “I am very sorry for your loss. And I will see if my wife can spare some soup for you—she made a big pot just yesterday, so there should be plenty.”
“That’s very kind of you.” Carl put his hand over his heart. “We’ll stay out of your way, I promise.”
“It’s no trouble at all.” He looked at Carl a little nervously.
“What news from Brocland?” Carl asked. “We’ve had scant word of late. Some fear there’s something wrong, perhaps bandits, or worse.”
Hoyle ran his fingers through his beard, but it gave his chagrin little cover. “We have had no word from Brocland in near a month’s time,” he said. “The only thing—” He stopped, fiddled with his beard some more, then looked up, his eyes deep and a little trembly. “There’s a livery boy who’s gone missing, went to deliver two horses to a client in Brocland and never came back. Must have been, a little over a week ago he went off. Should have been back in three days, maybe four. But since, nothing. They’d thought of sending someone out to search for him, but...”
“But what?” Carl asked.
Hoyle shook his head. “There’s been talk of the Maer of late. You know the old stories? Half man, half beast?”
Carl nodded. Leavitt’s question about the Maer was starting to make more sense.
Hoyle shook his head in frustration. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s got folks too afraid to go out looking, so they find excuses to put it off, or they come up with other explanations. The boy stole the horses and has started a new life somewhere; he fell in love with a girl in Brocland; he fell down a cliff and was eaten by a bear. The boy’s own brother, no older than my boy, keeps saying he’ll go it alone if he has to.” He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head again, his eyebrows jammed down toward his frowning mouth. “Look, I’d go myself if I could, but—” he held one arm toward Anais, who stood with crossed arms and defiant eyes.
“Well, Maer or no Maer,” Carl replied, “we will be taking Theo’s body to be buried with his ancestors. We have sworn to it, and we will see it done. And I promise you we’ll bring back the livery boy, or news of what might have happened in any case. You have my word.”
Hoyle grasped him by the forearms and pulled him in close. “Do be careful,” he whispered. “I can see you’ve been in the service, and you look like a stout lad. I don’t know about your companions, but...” Carl nodded, and Hoyle closed his eyes, let his arms go. “I’ll be back out in a while with your soup.”
Hoyle returned to the house, followed by the boy, who gave the coffin on the cart a long, slow look on his way out. Carl could hardly blame the kid; it couldn’t feel like good luck to host a dead body in your backyard. He waved the others over, and they retrieved their packs from the cart and joined him.
“Nice digs,” Sinnie said as she unpacked her sleeping roll.
“Yeah, but what’s with the creepy kid?” Finn stood up from his task to contemplate. “I mean, he didn’t say a word the whole time, did he? I couldn’t hear anything from back there but it didn’t—”
“Not a word,” Carl answered. “His father said he’s...he chooses not to speak.”
“Chooses?” Sinnie twisted her features in confusion.
“Those were his exact words. Chooses.”
“Like, he used to speak, but he doesn’t anymore?”
“I guess. Or he can speak but he never does. Like Jeremy, sort of.” Jeremy was a kid they’d known in Brocland who never spoke, and you could never tell if he understood you, or was listening to what you said, or if he cared. He was one of those kids who just saw the world differently than everybody else, and some kids treated him like dirt for it.
“Yeah, Jeremy, you’re scarin’ me!” Finn chimed in. It was one of the phrases they used to use to tease him, and Carl felt bad looking back on it.
“Well, if you’re of a mind to be scared, let me fill you in on what Hoyle told me.”