Hyam’s two horses and the oxen would pull his wagon along the forest trail, but they did so reluctantly. Hyam found it hard to pay attention to genuine threats, with them jerking and pulling and veering. Horses and oxen alike loathed the forest and moaned at each scrape of branch upon branch. Leading a team on his own was nigh on impossible. The previous harvest season, Hyam had almost been trampled when some beast had howled in the distance and the team bolted. So far this spring he made do with a handcart. He had erected a lean-to where the trail entered the clearing and left his tools there. Most farmers dared not leave valuable implements laying about. But in all his life he had only met a handful of others upon the trail, and none since his uncle had passed away.
Today he carried just his bow. A quiver hung from his back, and a knife long as his forearm was strapped to his waist. It was more a sword than a knife, but peasants were forbidden to own weapons of war. Hyam had learned to wield it from the Long Hall forester, a silent mage whose few words would still the most feral of beasts.
Hyam’s bow was as tall as he, and only three people he knew could string it, much less bring it to full draw. He had made the bow himself, fashioned on the instructions of his uncle, the most patient man Hyam had ever known. His mother’s brother had once served as archer to the king. The year Hyam had returned from his banishment to the Long Hall, while the nightmares plagued him and he feared he would never be free from his stone prison, his uncle had taken him deep into the forest. There a lightning bolt had split a yew so vast ten men could not have joined hands around its girth. Together they had fashioned three bows, one for his uncle and two for Hyam. Each had been formed from the point where the supple exterior wood joined the stronger heartwood. Hyam’s first bow had been a third smaller and so slender he feared his uncle was mocking him. But his uncle had explained that Hyam was coming to archery late in life and needed a youth’s implement to develop the skill. Two years he had drawn and shot, drawn and shot. In the process he had developed shoulders broad as his larger ox and a chest to match. Then his uncle had declared him an archer and shifted him to the second bow. Somewhere along the way, the nightmares had stopped. They’d never returned. Until now.
He stepped into the oval farmland in the heat of mid-morning. He set his bow and quiver by the lean-to and reached for his tools. But when his hand settled upon the spade, Hyam faltered. He told himself it was only a dream, that no night specter was waiting to shout in the forbidden tongue and pounce. He forced himself to grip the implement.
Farming was all about meeting the most urgent need. Chores were never done. Accepting this was part of sleeping at night. Since his uncle had passed away and his mother took ill that final time, Hyam had limited his crops to less than half the field. He planted a border of fruit trees around the tiny spring that bubbled up near his shed. He raised some wheat but gave most of his time to vegetables. Every season he debated whether he should put the pastures surrounding his cottage to the plow and forget the oval field entirely. But he knew it was idle chatter. There was no other farm that came close to his yield or quality.
He had been debating whether to add a few rows of corn. It meant reclaiming some of the fallow earth, which had not been touched in more than two years. Not to mention forcing a terrified ox to walk the forest trail so the beast could drag the plow. And he was going to put in some blackberry vines that he had clipped from wild bushes growing along the forest perimeter. They had rested in a shallow watering trough for three days, and all had sprouted roots.
Hyam walked to the point where his farthest row of carrots met the knee-high weeds. This field contained mystery upon mystery—how the wild growth never rose higher, how brambles never took hold, how neither ravens nor wild mice attacked his ripening crops. He often wondered about such things as he worked. Imaginings about some long-forgotten heritage and a possible tie to his mother’s forebears did much to shove his loneliness aside.
He settled into the simple, satisfying routine of hard work and sweat. The heat grew with the sun’s approach to zenith. He stripped off his shirt, drank deep, and started on another row. When it happened.
The shovel in his hand vibrated like a water-seeker’s implement. Hyam dropped it and jumped back. The spade lay at his feet, mocking his jolt of genuine terror. He hesitated a long moment, then picked it up once more. The sense of power returned, but muted.
He stood there in the baking heat, wondering. Either he confronted this or he packed up and left for the day. And then . . . what? Return the next day and let his fears dominate again?
Angrily he stabbed the shovel into the earth. And leapt back a second time, shouting as he did. Because the earth came alive before him.
The furrow opened with a rustling sound, like a river of dry earth, which in a way was precisely what he saw.
Two years of weeds and wildflowers disappeared as the earth turned upon itself. The furrow opened at the pace that Hyam could run, quiet and easy and smooth. It reached the field’s far end and stopped. The forest beyond remained silent. The furrow lay straight as a sword. Open. Waiting.
Hyam reached down and hefted the spade. The same thrilling energy vibrated through his hand, up his arm, through his entire body. He sensed it more clearly now. The force seemed to be coursing in both directions, from the spade to him, and back down again.
Hyam took two steps to his left and gingerly planted the blade into the earth. Another furrow opened up before him. Running with impossible precision across the expanse. The oval field was at its longest here, almost a mile in diameter. No trained team could plow such a line. It did not waver nor vary an inch. He stepped over and started another, not even waiting this time. Again and again, until he had a dozen furrows all opening before him simultaneously. The air was filled with the sound of softly ripping roots, of earth tumbling and opening and turning.
He reached the field’s far side and halted. Now that he was done, he could not believe his own audacity. The shovel continued to vibrate softly. The coursing energy was no longer content to flow from his body to the dirty handle and back. Hyam felt it rise up from the earth now, filling him with an immense awareness of his connection to this place. A bonding that ignored time or logical limits.
Hyam jerked again as the dream flashed behind his eyes. He recalled how it had ended, the lines of power rising from the earth and lashing him with cords of flame and vengeance.
At that very moment, a voice cried merrily, “Do my eyes deceive me? Have we found ourselves a farmer practicing the forbidden arts?”