Looks like I, uh, forgot to schedule Friday’s post. Oops. It’ll run on Tuesday instead. (Never let it be said I’m one to waste a chance to get ahead on backlog.)
In the meantime, pop by the Fish Bowl tomorrow afternoon for some content from parvusimperator.
“Try the fruit and the nuts,” Falthejn advised. He inspected his handiwork. The length of stick almost hummed with power. He sheathed his knife. “Do you think you could cut the top of this away for me?”
“I used to watch a woodcarver work,” Sif said uncertainly. “He let me try a few times.”
“It doesn’t need to be a very good job. Just be careful not to touch the carvings.” Falthejn presented her with the knife and the stick, and she set to work, quickly gaining confidence.
While she worked, Falthejn rummaged in the pockets on the side of his pack. He produced a few small cloth bags, a neatly folded square of fabric, and a flint and steel. He unfolded the fabric and struck sparks from the steel onto it speculatively. A goodly quantity failed even to singe it, and he nodded to himself.
“What are you doing now?” Sif asked.
“Preparing. Magic takes focus. When magiker are in training, our masters teach us tricks to bring our minds to bear.” He stood, taking his sheathed sword in hand. “I’ll be back soon.”
The plant life of the south was not a topic Falthejn knew at all well. He’d only been to this part of the world a handful of times before. Tundra creeper would have been best, but didn’t grow for another thousand miles north. Starseed or bruisevine would do well.
Sorry for the delay, folks—I did the typing last night, but I didn’t put the results anywhere I could get to them at work. Once I get home, in about eight hours, I’ll put it up.
Falthejn mimicked Sif, leaning against his pack and resting his legs. The land here was beautiful, in its rugged way. Down the hill, a bare patch of ground left a break in the canopy at eye level. It revealed leagues of ridges covered with the conifers so common here, the dark green of the needles making the infrequent patch of red-brown forest floor or dark gray stone stand out all the more vividly. The breeze carried the scent of sap to Falthejn’s nose, and overhead, an unfamiliar bird let loose a cry. He took in the sight for a few minutes.
A chill struck him, along with an unbidden thought: “No men after us will see this place for a very long time.”
He shook his head and frowned, hoping that wasn’t a premonition. Even if it was, he had more important things to do. He got up, looked around the makeshift camp, and and sat a minute later with a stick in hand, fat as his thumb. He went to work on it with his knife, stripping it of its bark and smoothing out its surface, before flipping the knife around in his hand and using its tip to inscribe runes into the wood, from its base to a point a handspan up its height. He said their names as he did, pushing a little with the force of his will here, pushing harder there.
He became aware of Sif’s intent gaze, and raised an eyebrow at her.
“Can I help with anything?” she said, through a mouthful of trail bread.
“Be careful how much you eat,” he said, looking back to his work. “That’s more filling than it seems at first. Long marches breed hunger, but I doubt Hrothgar Hrafnssen would be very happy if he had to carry you tomorrow.”
She looked at the biscuit in her hands. “Last one,” she promised. “Unless I’m still hungry.”
The road cut into the side of a steep hill. The conifers upslope leaned out over the heads of Falthejn and his company, before bending upward toward the sun. On the other side, the land dropped away precipitously.
“Here,” Hrothgar said. “Or very nearly. Down the slope, there is a large outcropping. It shelters a flat with room enough for tents.”
Falthejn walked up to the edge of the slope. A few candidates presented themselves. He closed his eyes and let the possibilities blossom before him. “That one,” he said.”
They followed the road for a few hundred yards, then picked their way down the hillside. Hrothgar led them a dozen yards around the outcrop, revealing a depression in the hill beneath its face, a narrow strip of stony ground which would be sheltered from rain by the overhang.
Sif dropped her pack with a huge sigh of relief, then flopped down beside it, leaning against it and stretching out her legs. Falthejn, with somewhat more reserve, took a spot a few yards further toward the middle of the sheltered area, and Hrothgar, Alfhilde, and Jakob went all the way to the far end, staking out as private a space as they could hope for here. The distant thunder of rapids covered their quiet conversation.
My sister is getting married this weekend, so you can expect limited presence from me in most places. (Not that I’m especially active in most of the ways you might choose to follow me, but whatever.)
Let’s cover some news. First off, there will be a new episode of Crossbox (that is, the spoken word Fish Bowl) later this week, or early next week. We cover such varied and diverse topics as firearms for a particular kind of big game, a rant about a very different kind of big game, and an interesting (if I do say so myself) challenge in military hardware design.
Second, the first Many Words Monthly email newsletter debuted two weekends ago, and went to precisely one email inbox, which was mine. Sign up for a monthly dose of exclusive words. (Although, since I hate to waste writing, the fictional words which I wrote are now exclusive to the forum thread at Spacebattles. It’s one of the largest original web fiction communities around these days. You ought to drop in and say something in the forum thread. Or just go and read the exclusive words. That’s cool too.)
Finally, the first Top Web Fiction vote drive was extraordinarily successful, pushing me up to second place in the science fiction rankings and near the top ten on the overall rankings. I’m going to ask for your help again. Here’s the link. Click it. Share it. Let’s get some eyes here again.
The sun, high overhead, made its trek down toward the horizon. As it did, they came across a few felled trees, left by the side of the road. Saws and grapples laid beside them.
“These men left in a hurry,” Hrothgar said, kneeling. “They kept their axes.”
Falthejn pressed his lips together. The ominous feeling flitting around the back of his head settled in deeper. “We should not tarry.” He thought back to the journey down, two weeks and an eternity ago. “Nor should we leave the road for the logging camp. Hrothgar Hrafnssen, do you know the land here well? Where might we set up camp out of sight?”
Hrothgar frowned to himself, thinking. Falthejn gave him a few moments. A sudden chill swept past him, and a deeper sense of foreboding. “We should move,” he said.” No diviner ignored feelings like that. “If you see a place as we are walking, say so.” He didn’t wait for an answer, continuing down the road with a hand on the hilt of his sword. Sif followed, rubbing at her arms, and Alfhilde and Hrothgar fell in a few steps back.
Alfhilde watched her husband’s face. His brow furrowed with more than just recollection. Pushed aside again, she guessed. Corralling Jakob’s flailing arms with one of her own, she laid a hand on Hrothgar’s shoulder. He looked to her, and she gave him a sympathetic look—I’m on your side, she hoped it said.
His expression lost some of its dour character, and he tried a smile that turned out halfhearted, before turning back to his own thoughts.
Sif watched him sneakily. Weariness showed in his face. He looked like a rope pulled almost to breaking. She wondered if she looked the same. Suddenly, it hit her: of all the people in the world, she knew nobody as well as these three, who were almost strangers. Her thoughts turned somewhere dark and dangerous—yesterday, the stench of the monsters, and of blood, the screams of her friends covered by the guttural roars of the ontr—the feel of her heart pounding in her chest. No, she thought. Not now. They had too far still to go for her to fall apart now. She listened to her heart beat, and willed it slower with a few deep breaths. Nobody seemed to notice. She hoped it stayed that way.
Hrothgar watched Alfhilde out of the corner of his eye. She was bearing the hardship well. Ahead, the diviner absentmindedly stepped over a hole in the road. The man was effective, Hrothgar would grudgingly admit, but his cavalier air drove Hrothgar mad. Lives were at stake, and Falthejn Arnarsson saw it as a chance to play games and show off. Worse, Alfhilde seemed not to notice—she put more stock in the diviner’s words than his own. Hrothgar frowned. Something would have to change.
It did not escape Alfhilde’s notice. She knew Hrothgar better than he thought, and perhaps better than he knew himself. He would be feeling useless, cut out of the decision-making, with few skills he could bring forward. He was, at his heart, a man of action, and not content to run in a herd. She wished she could say something, but she could think of nothing he would have the ears to hear. She only hoped he could keep himself from doing anything rash.
“What does it mean for us?” said Alfhilde.
Falthejn looked away, lips pressed together. After a moment, he said, “I may miss others, or perhaps see those who will not be there. I can be certain about one thing, at least: they cannot escape my sight when they stand ready to attack us, nor can they cloud it when they are near. I would not have been nearly so graceful at the bridge, if they could.” He gestured to the hatchet hanging from Alfhilde’s belt. “If I draw my sword, be ready to use that.”
“Ready I will be.”
Falthejn heard the iron in her voice. “Very well.” He tilted his head. “Then let us march on into the unknown.”
The road crested the side of the valley, only to descend immediately into another. The stream at its base was mercifully small, easily forded, and the road turned to follow it for some time, cutting between steep hills. They ate as they walked, saying little. Falthejn wondered what weighed on the others, between his own troubled thoughts: was it the ontr clouding his sight? Some rogue diviner? Something else altogether? These woods were poorly known, and human folk were new arrivals to the realms of magic. No man knew what horrors of nature the trees might conceal, things too dark to name. A beast with the gift of foresight, stalking them so perfectly they would never know it? Falthejn shook his head. That was not a productive way to think. Instead, he thought about what he might do. Truthfully, it would not have taken much talent to throw him off-track, given how little finesse he’d put into it of late. Tonight, he would try a few things to focus his efforts.
On the far bank, Falthejn stepped onto the rope. His foot slipped, and he caught himself on the hand line before making his way out over the river. Sif stifled the urge to cheer him on, wondering briefly where it had come from.
Halfway across, the diviner grabbed the hand rope, vaulted up onto it, and ran, arms held wide for balance. As he neared the bank, he drew his sword and jumped. The severed ropes fell behind him, and he tossed the sword to one side. Arms windmilling, he hit the ground hard, rolling to a stop. Sif jumped out of the way. Movement on the far bank caught her eye, and she screamed.
Falthejn sat up. Two ontr stood across the river. They were of middling size for their kind, wearing the usual hodgepodge of armor. Neither had a bow, fortunately.
Alfhilde spun Sif to face the other way, and knelt to comfort the child.
“They do not swim,” Falthejn said over the din of the river. “We should go.”
Hrothgar nodded, picking up Falthejn’s sword and presenting it to the diviner. Falthejn sheathed it. Hrothgar undid the binding holding Jakob to his back, and took his son in his arms. “Lead on.”
They pressed on along the road, up the switchbacks on this side of the gorge. The roar of the river subsided, and as soon as it did, Alfhilde asked, “How did you miss them?”
“It is as I feared,” Falthejn said, ignoring the bruises forming along his side. “They have magiker of their own.”
Hrothgar looked at him askance. “Does that make a difference?”
“Magiker with the right talent can hide things from my sight,” Falthejn said. “We had hoped it was not widespread among the ontr.”
