Chapters 1-3 of my first fantasy novel

PROLOGUE

Born into an already ancient world, born of stardust, and the cold light of the sister moons Aindara and Gwyn, the Eldenshae commanded the language of all natural things and given the powers of enchantment, fire, and the sister moons themselves.

A thicket of rose bushes would part to form a path when asked to do so, fruit would become ripe in the palm of their hands, they could turn a village into a raging inferno with just their fingertips, but the world was peaceful, without men, and there were not yet villages to burn.

         The cloven-footed Eldenshae had faces and torsos resembling those of men, but horns grew from their heads - curved horns of a ram, long slender horns, thick spiraling horns - stabbing the air three feet or more above their heads.  Most had skin of an autumn yellow, but some had skin the color of stone, some a deep emerald.  It is said that one could see ancient magic and all the mysteries of the cosmos reflected in their eyes, which burned with a pale blue-grey fire.

         Three ages passed.  Man arrived into the world, bringing their hatred, fear, and violence with them.  Thousands of the ancient Eldenshae were slaughtered, dragged from the deep groves of the world and burned in town squares across the land, horns severed from their heads in front of cheering crowds.

         After only a hundred years the moon-children all but vanished from the world.  What remained of the once thriving race was driven underground and into the deepest parts of the world’s vast wilderness.  The sparse remains of the once thriving and peaceful race fell into darkness and violence.  Killing intruders into their woods without a thought, slaughtering entire villages that dared set their borders too near a tree line.

         Slowly, after the passing of yet another age, fewer of the Eldenshae remained, falling into the realm of legend and song.  The world moved on.



ONE

Beshen burned well.  Too well.  She had only meant to give herself a chance at escape, not burn the city to its foundations.  She stopped running when the clawing of the icy winter chill finally became too much for her lungs to bear.  Three miles from the city walls and she could still smell it, the burning of houses and flesh.  Great plumes of dark smoke rising into the night, blowing easterly toward the Styrm Mountains.

         Vesha couldn’t yet make out the sounds of horses and armored men, but she knew it wouldn’t be long.  Weighed down with her newborn baby, it was a wonder they hadn’t already caught up to her, despite the fire.

         After a moments look behind her she trudged on, crunching snow under bare feet, slowly now, catching her breath.  She had not had time to dress when they came for her, only time to throw a cloak over her shoulders, grab the baby boy, and run for it.  Setting fire to The Gilded Hall and its neighboring buildings all the while.

         The men would come for her though, Vesha had already resigned herself to a bloody fight before a painful death, perhaps in front of a cheering crowd of Beshen citizens, those that survived anyhow.  No doubt they thought her to be a witch, what else could send large swathes of flame from the palms of their hands?

         Another half mile on and she slowed to a stop, resting against a tall oak.  She removed her hood and stared up to sister Aindara.  She could hear the sounds of clattering armor and thundering hooves in the forest’s dead silence.  Soon she would be able to smell them as well.

         A few yards ahead of her stood a nasty looking patch of briar, well lit the by The Sisters.  Knowing it was time to act, Vesha walked calmly to the briar and waved her hand, hissing a few ancient syllables that did not suit her beauty.  One would never have believed they came from her mouth at all.  Perhaps the breeze through the trees.

         The briar’s tangle of branches twitched, as if thinking a moment before opening to create a small, safe place beneath their deadly thorns in which to tuck the newborn.  The baby, wrapped warmly in the thickest blanket from Vesha’s bed had not made so much as a peep over the last three miles, but as his mother waved the briar closed around him, he began to fuss and cry under the protection of the thorns, some a menacing six inches long.

         Vesha picked a small sized stone up from the ground and spoke softly to it, a few seconds later the stone was baking, hot in her hand.  Carefully she placed the stone beneath the briar where it quickly melted the snow around it, radiating a calm and steady heat.

         Vesha removed her cloak and kneeled in the snow.  Her pale nakedness illuminated brightly under the moons.  She closed her pale eyes, mumbling ancient prayers under her breath, and she waited.

***

Vesha had wandered the wilderness of Arethe aimlessly and alone for eighty years before arriving in the great city of Beshen, exiled from her people when she was barely yet eleven years.  Vesha had been caught taking the shape of a human girl; shape changing was one of the Eldenshae’s oldest magics, but a human girl?  Never.

She would always remember stepping out into the fresh air of the forest, flanked by Waywatchers, and turning to watch the great gate of massive roots twist and curl shut behind them.  She would always remember the long trek through the woods, escorted ten miles into the wild before the Waywatchers handed her a curved dagger of bone and an exile’s bracelet of ash.  She would always remember watching them go, leaving her truly alone in the world.  Had one of the Waywatchers not been a closest friend and her oldest brother, then she would not have been given the nasty looking dagger at all.

         Vesha lived a solitary life for nearly seventy years.  The punishment of exile was not about survival, all Eldenshae could survive in the world as long as they stayed far from mankind.  The punishment was about loneliness, separation from your people.  She watched the comings of goings of men, growing more curious year after year.

         Finally, while on the outskirts of the small town of Nawerr she decided that she would no longer live alone and took the form of a human woman for the first time in almost eighty years, a beautiful young human woman.  For the Eldenshae, approaching the age of ninety-one was about the same as a human girl approaching the age of 30.

         She entered the town from the south and proceeded along its dusty main road, eyeing the buildings curiously.  A rickety cart overloaded with barrels rattled past her, almost into her, and the horses eyed her nervously perhaps fearfully.  “Ho there! Watch it miss!” yelled the man from the cart, his young son next to him bounding into the back of the cart in order to stare back at her as they trundled down the road, kicking up dust.

         Men were hammering metal in an open air building to her right, the clanging of which echoed painfully in her ears.  Across the road was The Laughing Gate, its sign creaking gently. After years of watching men stumble out of similarly looking inns, laughing and shouting, she took it for an inn and made her way slowly to its doors.  Once inside she was nearly overcome by the din and for one brief moment panicked that she might drop her humanly form.  However, once the doors banged closed behind her, all was silence and her panic left her.  Nearly every man’s head turned to her, their eyes resting on her deep red hair, such a rarity in these parts of the world, before taking in the rest of her body.  There were no screams of terror or the frenzied drawing of weapons just the lustful, silent gaze of men.

         “Alright, alright.  It’s only a girl, a red head perhaps, but still only a girl!” shouted the large woman standing behind the bar, “Put your faces back in yer beers and let it be ya bastards.”

         At that all of the men resumed their drinking and their card games, the noise returned to its previous level, ringing in Vesha’s unaccustomed ears.  The innkeeper Magin beckoned Vesha to the bar where she took a stool and sat looking at Magin blankly, full of uncertainty as to what was meant to happen next.

         “You look road tired my young dear,” Magin said, “and perhaps a bit lonely.  Are you traveling by yourself?”

         “I am,” Vesha replied slowly.

         Magin shook her head perhaps wondering where the young girl’s family might be but said nothing, instead she headed into the back room, returning a few minutes later with some soup and bread which she sat in front of Vesha.  “Eat girl,” she told Vesha, “and don’t worry about money right at the moment, I know what a starving face looks like, and I can afford it.  Just keep it to yourself, if the men here got the idea that I have any sort of kindness in me…”

         She ate quickly, not realizing how hungry she had been.  The first drops of ale she would ever taste passed her lips when she finished her meal.  Magin returned when the mug was empty and refilled it before leaving again to tend to her other patrons.

         Not one of them men approached Vesha, and Vesha was sure that the men’s obvious fear of Magin’s anger was the only thing keeping them at bay.  As Vesha thought this over Magin returned again, “You need a room for the night then dear?”

         And that was how Vesha spent her first night in the world of men.  The next day Magin gave the penniless young traveler a job, almost forced it on her, saying something about knowing what loneliness and poverty felt like.  Something about all those years ago.

         Vesha stayed in Newarr for three years, taking in all she could learn about the ways of human men and women, never asking, only observing.  Avoiding the advances of the townsmen like the Plague of Spintil.  During the course of three years, she heard countless stories of the Styrm Mountains, the largest peaks in the world and to the east.  Strange stories, wonderful stories.  Being of the Eldenshae, it was hard not to believe that some of them might be true, wouldn’t there be other ancient beings in the world?  Ancient magic?

         She ended up in Beshen because Beshen lie at the feet of the mountains and was almost equally intriguing.  Such a large grey city surrounding such a large castle.  Vesha found the smell and the noise instantly unappealing along with the old, mostly decrepit buildings leaning into one another, looming over the streets to blot out the sun that rarely shone in the city to begin with.  She also found its citizens to be highly unlikeable almost without exception, perhaps the constant rain and storms soured their spirits, she thought.

         Nevertheless, Vesha decided to remain in the city for a time, a short rest from her long journey from the west.  She found a cheap room to rent and during her first few days, unaware of exactly how dangerous city living could be, she took to exploring the narrow streets of Beshen.

         On her third day in the city, she found out why women tend not to walk alone, especially in the poorer sections, the parts of the city that lay furthest from the castle walls.  Still in the early morning hours of the day, Vesha had taken what would turn out to be a wrong turn and found her way blocked by two buildings that surely had been built to close together in the first place, but had then proceeded to lean and settle so much in the last three hundred years that there was scarcely more than a gap of six inches between them.

         Staring up at the buildings and the gap, frustrated with finding her way blocked and frustrated that she could see through the gap and into the next street, she didn’t hear the two drunken young men stumbling down the alleyway towards her until one of them ran into an empty barrel behind the building on his left, nearly falling face first onto the wet-from-last nights-storm cobblestones.

         “Lookee here, what we find ‘erselves alone wit sir Hense,” said the fat one who had almost fallen.

         “Pretty ladies shouldn’t wander about the city alone eh?” replied the other man, laughing.  The two of them fell on her surprisingly quickly for as drunk as they smelled, Vesha wouldn’t have thought they’d be able to move half that speed without tumbling over.  The fat one knocked her backwards into the gap, bouncing her head off the painfully rough surfaces of the two buildings.  She slumped down onto one knee, dazed, and Hense brought his fist around into her right eye, knocking her down onto her back.  She yelled out in pain, such a common sound in the city that it was ignored most of the time.

         It wasn’t until the fat one climbed on top of her, clumsily, panting like a dog with his tongue lolling out that she realized what the men intended to do with her.  As the fat one brought himself closer to her face, she slammed the heel of her palm up into his mouth, sending his three remaining teeth through his lolling tongue.  By the time fat boy scrambled off of Vesha, Hense was long gone.  Fat boy stumbled away from her, one hand clamped tightly over his gushing mouth as if that would keep all the red in, feeling for the wall with his other hand to steady himself.

         Vesha, temper raging, had no intention of letting him go far, catching up to him with little effort as he stumbled along, yelling in pain as loudly as he could manage.  She spun him around by his shoulder and brought her heel into his face again, shattering his nose and dropping him into the stinking puddle he had been standing in.  Vesha drew her dagger, her brother’s gift, from beneath her cloak and finished the would-be rapist quickly.  The dagger had rarely left her hip since it was given to her all those years ago, and in Beshen she would make sure it never did.

***



Vesha did not wait much longer.  She could smell the horses and the men, five or six she guessed.  A moment later, led by the now wailing babe, the men appeared.  They approached her at a slow cantor, stopping several feet away.

         “Done running and thrown her babe into a thorn bush,” came the whining voice from one of the younger men.

         “Shut it up Jed,” Prince Kellis spoke, “Arnvel, get down there and take her head.  Put a dagger to the wailing infant while you’re at it.  Do it quickly you old bastard!”  Vesha, back still turned, heard Arnvel begin to dismount and waited until his feet were on the ground and his blade drawn before she turned, dropping her human form at the same time.  Her emerald skin was dark, three foot spiraling horns issuing from her forehead and into the air.

         All of the horses reared up in pure dumb terror, three of which threw their riders violently.  One of the riders landed in a particularly unfortunate fashion, landing on his neck with a grizzly crunch.

         “Eldenshae,” old Arnvel managed to gasp, so softly it was almost a whisper.  The prince, still on his horse shouted insanely at Arnvel and the other two men, commanding them to attack the beast.  The boy Jed had pissed his pants the moment he saw the Eldenshae and wanting to save himself from further insults from his prince at a later time, he circled around to Vesha’s left.  In the chaos, Vesha had lost sight of the other man, but she heard him coming.  Vesha turned as he lunged from the other side of the briar, throwing himself into the air at her, ready to bring his blade down and cleave her in two.

         Vesha spun under his attack, disarmed him easily when he landed, and used his own sword to spill his guts, which landed with a sickening splash and began to melt the snow beneath him with their heat.

         Jed came next, screaming as he did so, sword raised.  Vesha dropped the dead man’s weapon and made a throwing motion toward Jed, speaking softly to the briar behind her as she did so.  A seven foot branch untangled itself from its neighbors with amazing speed and whipped outward, slashing Jed’s face to bloody ribbons.  He fell screaming.  He was still screaming when Prince Kellis, seemingly the only one to have remained calm over the last few minutes, approached his writhing body and silenced him with his sword.

         Arnvel hadn’t moved an inch, standing stone still.  A moment ago he was still holding the reins of his horse which had vanished into the night along with the rest of them, his hand still hung there as if clutching the leather straps.  “Eldenshae,” he whispered again, wide eyed.

         Vesha moved on him, but stopped when she got closer and saw the look of insanity in his eyes.  He was helpless with it.  Arnvel too had wet himself and looking into his eyes was like looking down a pair of mineshafts, falling deeper and deeper into the earth.  How could Vesha kill this man?  He was in shock, driven crazy by the mere sight of her.  Vesha began to turn away from him when the blow came.  The prince’s steel rammed through her back, through her lower ribs.

         The world flickered, grew dim, and she didn’t even realize she was falling.  On her knees, she looked up into the night sky, searching for the sisters, Aindara shone faintly through the branches.  Kellis pushed her off his sword his his boot and she rolled over, the snow turned red underneath her.  She died, the moon Gwyn reflected in her pale eyes.



TWO



Numb with shock, the prince spent the next four hours burying his fallen soldiers.  He told Arnvel three times to silence the crying baby, screaming the order to do so directly into his face the final time flecking Arnvel’s ragged face with spit.  Had it been any other man Prince Kellis would have run him through with his sword and been done with it, but he had known the old bastard since he was a young boy.  Eventually Arnvel staggered away to a nearby boulder and leaned against it, staring into the distance with his still dead eyes.

         After the bodies of his men were in the ground he set to work on the dead Eldenshae.  First he removed her head with his dagger and then he burned the body, that’s what you do with devils.  He thought perhaps the smell would snap Arnvel out of his daze, but not even the foul odor of burning flesh seemed to be enough.

         Finally Kellis turned on the briar and the screaming baby it protected.  If Kellis had been the sort to believe in sorcery, he would’ve thought the bush was making a conscious effort to do so.  The bush’s hundreds of branches seemed to stir whenever he dared get close.  He was no fool, he had seen what it had done to his old friend Jed.  With his men buried in shallow graves and the beast’s body burning to a crisp behind him, the whole scene seemed strangely fuzzy in his mind.  Was he losing it as well? Perhaps.

         But then the baby let out a particularly loud belt of cries and Kellis returned to himself.  He managed three quick steps toward the briar, which did not stir.  He gathered up his courage and took three more steps and the massive bush began to writhe and twitch.  Hundreds of thorny spider legs shuddering to life before him.

         Let the winter cold take the baby then, he thought to himself.  Backing slowly away from the bush, not taking his eyes off of it until he was a good distance away.



***



The sun was fully over the horizon when Kellis made it back to the smoldering city, Arnvel thrown uselessly over his shoulders.  He cared little for the smoking wreckage around him, the screaming women and children only grated on his already shot nerves.

         These were only the city’s poor anyway.  What he did care about was getting his old friend to the alchemist.  Not the type of alchemist that would be found on any street corner, dealing in silly love potions and useless medicines.  He needed to return Arnvel to his father’s castle and have him looked at by a true alchemist.  But at the moment Kellis couldn’t bare the weight any longer and set the old man down, where he stood blinking stupidly.

         Kellis gritted his teeth, swore loudly, took the man by the shoulder, and led him out of the middle of the road.  Kellis took a seat on a set of steps that had once led up to the doors of a tavern.  The tavern itself lay in ruin behind him.  Once the largest tavern in this part of Beshen, it now lay collapsed in a heap of timber and rubbish, charred black and still smoking.

         Kellis watched two slum boys chase a dog through rubble across the street.  Their faces smeared with dirt and ash.  Arnvel burst into a sudden fit of roaring laughter.  Gales of it.  Kellis turned to his friend and stared at him in dismay, startled by the outburst.  A cart full of bodies rolled slowly by them, heading for the city’s western gate and into a field where it would dump its reeking load of paupers and their children into a mass grave.

         “How much of this damned city burned last night?” Kellis wondered aloud.

         “Ahh yes,” Arnvel said, looking around knowingly, “most of it sir.  Most of it.  Probably the castle too by god!”

         Kellis sighed deeply before standing up and throwing Arnvel back over his tired shoulders.  Back to the castle then, onward to a stiff drink and a bed full of Beshen whores to soothe his worried mind.  As for the ragged bag of bones over his shoulder, onward to the alchemist and a day full of bitter medicines.  And if that didn’t work it would likely be off to the crazy house where he would be treated little better than a stinking Beshen prisoner.  Kellis had refused to kill his friend, but he would have little problem locking him away and leaving him to die of loneliness and boredom.

         Several children swarmed Kellis, running circles around him and screaming all the while.  They smelled of smoke and poverty and he ignored them as he marched out of the poor section and toward the castle, which loomed ahead of them, large as gods.



THREE



Two days later an elderly man in smoky grey robes rode out of Beshen.  He was Father Grenn, a normal man in priest’s robes.  He was there when the blaze had started and spent the last couple of days comforting its sufferer’s, telling them all about the endless bounds of Sheya the Blind’s love, pure nonsense of course.  Sometimes Father Grenn would think back on a sermon from days passed and chuckle to himself.  The absurdity of it all.  His disguise however, had served him well over the last thirty years.  He didn’t mind the robes, itchy as they were.  And he didn’t mind living in the abbey either, despite having to live among religious fools, namely boring Borse.

         Grenn had helped to douse the fire until late into the night, not returning to his bed at The Gilded Man until the sun began to rise over the mountains.  In most places the Beshen citizens, soldiers alongside them, were still fighting the flames as an exhausted Grenn finally lay down and shut his eyes.  Falling asleep quickly and deeply.  The cause of the fire was unknown and perhaps always would be despite the best efforts of the many people he had overheard yelling about a sorceress.

         Sorcery and magic had left the world along with the dragons ages ago.  And the gods, if ever there were any had left long before that.  Father Grenn was sure of that.

         It was around midday when Grenn came over a ridge in the forest and heard a baby crying from somewhere in the trees on his right.  A superstitious man might have fled, believing it to be mischievous fairies up to no good.  A wise man might have fled, fearful that bandits were attempting the same.  Father Grenn was not superstitious and although he was wise, he’d be damned if he wouldn’t investigate the sounds of the cries of a baby ringing out through the otherwise silent forest.  Bandits he could handle.

         In fact, he might rather have stumbled into an ambush or an encampment of scarred highwaymen brandishing their weapons at him, rather than stumble upon the swathe of blood stained forest that his horse cantered into.  He pulled the flask from underneath his robes and took a mouthful of its contents, burning his mouth and his throat on their way down into his belly where they sat warm and soothing.

         Grenn dismounted and walked over to the nearby briar patch.  He did not believe what his ears were telling him, that an infant was crying itself hoarse beneath it’s branches.  He didn’t even notice the pile of chilly innards lying in the snow until he squished his way through them.  Utterly disgusted he bent down and peered into the bush.  And Sheya be damned there was a little baby boy underneath the web of giant thorns, wriggling around on top of a thick blanket.  Grenn reached in to pull the blanket out with the infant riding along on top of it but stopped when he felt the warmth radiating from a smallish stone placed a few feet away from the blanket.

         Puzzled and curious Father Grenn picked the stone up only to drop it a few seconds later yelling out in surprise.  It felt as if he had stuck his hand into a cooking fire.  Grenn watched the blisters form on his reddened palm.

         Cursing the stone and his luck he finished dragging the blanket and its rider out, wrapped the boy up tightly in the blanket and took another pull from his flask.  Normally Father Grenn didn’t fancy himself a drinking man, but he always brought his flask on the road with him to ease the weariness of travel.  And now, well now he was just glad to have it with him anyway.  It eased the surprise of finding a baby in a bush, a pile of guts, and the snow around him spattered red with blood.

         The burnt corpse of an Eldenshae would have been curious to if it had still been there, but the Eldenshae have a most peculiar way of returning to the stars.



***



The road back to The Fifth Abbey was a long one, perhaps two weeks or more.  It was a lucky thing that most Arethen people were disposed to giving freely to travelling priests otherwise they both might have starved before reaching the abbey at all.  Sure, Grenn could’ve turned back and brought the child to Beshen, but he could think of no one to hand the boy over to.  He would certainly never hand a new born over to the royal family.  Prince Victor would probably smother him in his crib.  No, Grenn would sooner throw himself into the Bay of Tusks, the little boy tucked firmly under his arm.

         The baby stopped crying so much almost as soon as he was in the Father’s arms and didn’t seem to mind the brisk pace that Grenn had set his horse to.  He rode as fast as he dared with the baby jostling in his arms.  He was worried about getting some food into both their bellies and they wouldn’t reach the next town until the road wound its way through twenty five more miles of wintery forest.

         A few miles further and Grenn could hear the rushing water of the Brenlin River off to his left, snaking its way from the Styrm Mountains in the east across hundreds of miles and into the Bay of Tusks.  The First Bridge still lay another six miles ahead.

         Constructed ages ago by the first men, the great bridge was older then Beshen and there were stories of the bridge men being guarded by highly trained archers as they worked.  The stories held that the archers would fend off Eldenshae attacks day and night, killing a hundred Eldenshae a day some stories claimed.

         Now days it was a known fact that bandits sometimes waited at the bridge for lonesome travelers, sometimes to demand steep tolls, sometimes simply to murder and steal.  Grenn hadn’t seen any signs of trouble when he passed over the bridge on his way to the city and hoped so much that he wouldn’t see any on his return journey.

         He was shaken from his grim thoughts of having his throat cut and the baby being thrown into the Brenlin’s icy water when a small Scuttle glided down from the trees and landed on his saddle horn, puffing itself up.  The dark rust colored bird fluttered it’s wings and stared up into Father Grenn’s surprised face.  The little bird chirped loudly and jumped onto the baby’s blanket, staring down at the child for a long moment before jumping back to the saddle horn.  The Scuttle puffed itself up again, a little rust colored ball of feathers.  It let out another loud chirp before flying back up into the trees.



***



Almost an hour later Grenn was stopped several yards from The First Bridge, building up his courage and pushing away worrisome thoughts.  He was also looking closely for any signs that there might be trouble.  As there didn’t seem to be any Father Grenn took a deep sigh and made his way across the long bridge.  The clapping of his horse’s hooves on the ancient stones seemed to echo out into the woods.

         He was just several feet from the bridge’s end when the three youths decided to make their presence known.  Clad in black and wearing hoods, they shot quickly up the sides of the bridge and over its parapets.  Two of them unsheathed long daggers while the smaller boy with a tuft of blonde hair sticking out the front of his hood drew his bow and nocked a nasty looking arrow.  The boys all pointed their weapons at Grenn, trying their best to look tough and frightening.

         “Whose this clip-clapping on my bridge then?”  said the blonde haired boy sounding as though he spoke through his nose.

         “I, young sir, am Father Grenn of The Fifth Abbey.  And you are Magin’s boy.  Not good enough your father ran off on her?  You too have to run away looking to catch an arrow through the neck or a dagger in the back?”

         One of the other boys took a few steps forward, waving his dagger in a way that he must have thought looked menacing, “You stop your flapping old man or we’ll have you strung up by the pull, dangling from the trees, and screaming for mercy.”

         “Colorful language for a farmer’s son I must admit,” Grenn replied, “you little goblins should go home to your parents.  Stop playing at hiding under bridges and waiting for lonely old men to pass by for you to steal from.”

         “I said stop your flapping!” screamed the boy, bringing tears to his eyes.

         “You should be glad I stumbled upon you,” Grenn paused and the boys stared at him, obviously curious as to why they should be glad, “You know that if real bandits found you playing out here they would most likely kill you and spoil your fun.  I however, am not going to do that.”

         The boy who had remained silent during the interchange finally spoke up, “Priests don’t go ‘round killin’ folks.  A good priest would hand over his loot and scoot on down the damn road, you ancient bastard.”

         “Then perhaps I am a bad priest, but I would still take no pleasure in killing you little play actors.  I will however be pleased you thump each of your heads.”

         And with Grenn having had the last word he kicked at his horse hard and charged across the remaining length of the bridge, scattering the three boys.  He caught the blonde one first, kicking him as softly as he could in the back of the head and sending him face first onto the the stones.  The boy who had told Grenn all about what a good priest should do threw himself violently over the side of the bridge and into the river below, yelling all the way down.  That was fine with Father Grenn, he wanted the mouthy one.

         Ten minutes later Grenn sat the warmly wrapped baby down a few feet away from a warmly burning fire and looked back to the road a short distance away.  The mouthy brat lay unconscious near Grenn’s horse.  Grenn turned to the little bundle of blanket and the baby stared back at him.

         “Now watch this little babe, the perfect ending to the day’s events.  I think you will like it,” Grenn said.

         A few minutes later the mouthy boy was bound by his ankles and strung up his own pull, dangling twelve feet off the ground.  He came to on the way up and seemed confused at first, but was cursing Father Grenn insanely by the time he was hoisted as high up as the pull would allow.  Grenn tied the rope off as tightly as he could and laughed deeply.  He then picked up the baby and started back to the road.  Grenn stopped suddenly as though an important thought had just occurred to him and he turned back and looked up at the struggling boy.

         “You’re likely to break your neck if you do manage to struggle free you little vermin.  I’m sure your friends will be along shortly if you just wait patiently.  And be sure to tell young master Temley that he better be back at The Laughing Gate next time I’m through those parts or I will come looking for him.”

         “May your goddamned horse break its goddamned legs!” shouted the boy who was now spinning slowly in the air.

         “And one more thing,” Grenn said as he turned away for the second time and started walking back to the road again, “real bandits would never set camp so close to the road much less so close to their chosen place of banditry.  Good day to you, you silly little fool.”



***



Grenn didn’t reach Fellen until around dinner time.  His stomach roared at him, having not been fed since that morning.  He could only imagine how hungry the baby’s stomach must be.  As appealing as the inn looked as he came down the hill and toward the town, a swig from his flask would have to suffice.  Bringing a baby into an undoubtedly crowded and noisy inn did not strike him as a very good idea.  Instead he turned his horse slightly south and headed toward one of the larger farms on the outskirts of the town itself.

         The broad shouldered man who answered Grenn’s knocking lost most of the pleasant expression he had held when he realized that his visitor was a priest and likely looking for food and possible lodging.  Although most people in Arethe were very generous and accommodating to wandering priests, many of them did it with a certain amount of displeasure.

         “Good evening sir.  I am Father Grenn,” Grenn had given mostly the same pitch time and time again over the last thirty years and was getting quite good at it, so good that one would think he was an actual priest, “a priest of Sheya The Blind and Her Fifth Abbey in the west.  I am also a weary traveler and am hoping that in the name of the goddess you would be kind enough to supply me with a small meal, some goat’s milk for the baby, and perhaps a room for the night if you can spare it.”  Grenn gave the customary pause before finishing, “If it pleases you, I can walk on down the road and hope to find food and lodging elsewhere.”

         The broad man sighed to himself and waved them inside, “My name is Garric,” the man said waving Grenn inside and shutting the door behind him, “I have food and I have milk, but for lodging you may have to check with the inn or perhaps another farm.”

         “That is great news and I thank you kindly Garric,” said the Father as he followed the large man into the brightly lit dining room.  At the large rectangular table sat Garric’s lovely wife, his young son, and his twin daughters.  Dinner must have just been set out.  The meat, potatoes, and carrots still steaming hot.  Just in time Grenn thought to himself.

         “Have a chair Father,” Garric said, gesturing toward a chair on the far end of the table and nearest to the glowing fireplace.  The farmer returned to his own seat and motioned for his wife to set a plate for Grenn.  “This is my wife Merell, my boy Rob, and my daughters Liel and Lorrel.”

         “And wonderful names for wonderful children they are sir.  Is it possible to send young master Rob for the goat’s milk?” Grenn asked.

         Garric nodded to the small boy who then disappeared out the front door.  Up until that moment the women of the house seemed not to have noticed the small bundle in Grenn’s arms, but now that they had they were gathering excitedly around the old man and the boy.  Fussing over the little baby and commenting on his peculiarly pale blue eyes.  He began to cry, not like the whining or sniffling he had done at various points throughout the long day, but truly cry.  Loudly.

         “They can probably hear you in Beshen little one,” said one of the twins.

         “How is it that a priest is travelling alone with a baby if I may?” asked Merell as Rob returned with a skin of goat’s milk.

         “Well I suppose I stumbled onto him in the woods,” Grenn responded plainly.  The room fell silent.

         “Is it a joke?” Liel or Lorrel asked.

         “It is no joke at all,” Grenn replied taking the skin of milk from Rob’s outstretched hand, “I found him wriggling around beneath a briar patch, crying himself silly.”

         Merell moved to pick the baby up and Grenn leaned back in his chair, inviting her to do so.  The blonde woman swept the bundle up along with the skin of milk and returned to her own chair where she helped the squealing little baby drink the milk.  She motioned for her daughters to return to their seats as well.

         The twins and their brother watched their father, eagerly waiting for him to begin eating.  Garric took a roll of bread from the center of the table, tore it in half with large hands, and began to butter one half of it.  Their father started to eat, signaling the children to pick up their forks and begin as well.

         “And what do you suppose will happen to him?” Garric asked, breaking the silence.

         “I must admit I’m not entirely sure yet.  There are few good options for a man to choose from when he happens upon a baby in the forest,” Grenn paused as he began to butter his own piece of bread, “I suppose he will return to the abbey with me.”

         “And become a priest?” Merell asked, a slight tone of displeasure in her voice.

         “No, not at all.  Not unless that is a life that calls to him.  We have plenty of learned men living at The Fifth Abbey including myself.  He would be properly cared for and well educated.  His education would probably be better than that of many noble’s sons truth be told.”

         “Does he have a name?” Rob asked, speaking for the first time since Grenn’s arrival.  Up until that point Grenn had taken him for a mute.

         Father Grenn stared at Rob for a moment, thinking over the answer to the question.  “Well yes, I imagine he does have a name,” Grenn finally said.

         “Well let’s have it then,” Rob said impatiently.  His father rapped his knuckles sharply on the table in order to get Rob’s attention and shook his head at the boy, showing his displeasure with his son’s lip.

         “I suppose that his name must be Sethe,” replied Father Grenn, a smile curling his lips.