Chapter 4 -- The Haunted Beach

Raylin sensed the interloper before she heard his clumsy footsteps, breaking every bit of underbrush on the forest’s edge. She should have known the haunted stretch of beach wouldn’t keep Gnolen away. He had heard too many stories of young heroes walking through fire, conquering terrible beasts, or doing other brave but stupid feats to prove their love to fair maidens.

With her seldom-brushed black hair, twice-broken nose, and dress torn and repaired until it had become a patchwork of greens, Raylin had never considered herself anything akin to a maiden, let alone a fair one.

Neither had anyone else. Except for Gnolen.

For that alone, she should have loved him. Did love him, in her own way. It just wasn’t the way he wanted.

“Gnolen, you move like a drunken burrower,” she called.

“Are you any more graceful, hobkin?” he taunted back.

Only Gnolen could use the nickname without suffering retribution. When he called her by the moniker, she could hear admiration in its rise and fall. Stories claimed hobs, despite their ferociousness and size, were the greatest crafters in the world. Hands melted stone. Fingers braided strands of hair into lassos for catching wisps. With the tip of a fingernail, they added such detail to a statue you expected it to stand up and walk away.

Of course, the boys who had originally been responsible for her nickname had spoken it with piercing intent, their syllables barbed and poisoned. They thought her awkward and clumsy, which she was, and wrongly considered hobs to be similar. The nickname givers had cornered her in the woods, invading her favorite reading place nestled between the roots of a tree. Wisps had flown nearby but teleported away when the boys arrived, reappearing paces away in the same loose swarm.

“You readin’ another book?” Lowen had asked. The blacksmith’s son, he had been too bitter for a boy of nine summers. Each time his father had set him to work on forging nails or belt buckles instead of weapons, he had stoked his frustration like the fire where metals were cast. Still too scrawny to swing a smith’s hammer more than a few times without tiring, Lowen’s strength had lain in his hands, made dextrous by intricate work.

“It’s the only thing she’s good at,” another boy joined in.

“Naw, she only likes the pictures,” Lowen had teased, aiming a kick at her foot, not knowing Raylin had been waiting for taunts to turn into the usual pokes and prods. When she pulled her foot back, Lowen stumbled on the gnarled roots around them, cartwheeling his arms before finally regaining his balance.

And they thought her clumsy.

“Remember last year when she broke her nose?” a lackey asked. “Looked like a hob, she did.”

Head always buried in a book or tracing the path of a bird’s flight, Raylin had probably crashed into every person and structure in Digrif’s Bay. Some more than once.

“Maybe her father wasn’t a brigand after all,” yet another chimed in. “I bet her mom got friendly with a hob.”

“Aye, she’s hobkin alright,” Lowen said, reaching for her with his pincer-like fingers. Raylin twisted away, closing her book around the wisp light by which she read. With his other hand, Lowen snatched the book.

They had obviously wanted a fight, so Raylin decided to give it to them. Boys were said to be more easily touched by Unmaker’s fingers, but the women of the Bay took pride in being more than a little Unmaker touched themselves.

Raylin had always fought better than any three of the Bay’s boys combined, which would have helped if there hadn’t been six of them. She used her surroundings, especially the tree, to keep them separated at first, her only goal to retrieve the stolen book and flee. She threw dirt in their eyes, barreled into them when they lost their footing, and stayed to the shadows while leading them through the occasional canopy-piercing ray of sunshine.

When Lowen had thrown her book into the air, she let down her guard. It hadn’t been a particularly valuable book, and she had already read it several times, but Raylin believed in principles and justice. If she didn’t stand up for herself, no one else would.

The boys had broken her nose for the second time, and she had done a fair bit of damage to their more sensitive regions. After that day, the nickname had spread and stuck.

“You alright, Ray,” Gnolen asked. “Did I lose you?”

He strode across the beach, feigning bravery, but his eyes darted around the haunted shore like startled birds. A fisher’s youngest son, he wore the life in his skin--tanned to a muddy brown, hands callused to stones from hauling nets and prying open shells. A splotchy beard spilled across his round jawline, barely more than peach fuzz.

“I beat LittleThaw.” Raylin’s words burst out like juice from a squashed berry.

“Good morning to you, too,” Gnolen said. “Is that what you were thinking about just now?”

“No,” she said, rubbing the crooked bridge of her nose.

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“Oh,” he began, obviously noticing the way Raylin was pinching her nose before she made herself stop. “Have I told you--”

“--how distinguished my nose is?” She cut him off, unable to bear his compliments. “How beautiful? Like a wriggling fish that flashes in the sun?” Raylin walked away as she spoke, angling for the dry sand just above the Bay’s lapping waves.

“I was going to add ‘recently,’” Gnolen huffed as he jogged up and followed, always one step behind. It was another thing she could have loved about him--giving her that margin of space even while he intruded upon her solitude--if it didn’t infuriate her so much.

“Is it so wrong of me to remind you of my feelings every now and then?” he asked.

Raylin’s shoes splashed through the tip of an occasional wave as Gnolen set himself between her and the beach, protective despite his superstitious fear. He smelled of fish with undertones of soap. No matter how hard he scrubbed, fishing would always be part of him, and Raylin wagered she would miss the familiar scent.

A few birds strutted about further ahead, pecking at the sand for their morning meal. With the lap of waves on one side and a soft breeze rustling trees on the other, Raylin couldn’t have chosen a better place to spend her final morning in Digrif’s Bay. Despite her initial frustration at Gnolen’s intrusion, she was glad to have him there.

Instead of answering Gnolen’s question, she changed the topic.

“Why don’t you ask me about my game with LittleThaw?”

“Because you won, and I know what that means,” he said, running fingers through hair the color of oak.

She fixed him with her hardest stare.

“You know I want to hear about it, but…” His silence encompassed all his hopes and dreams, all revolving around her, a future left unspoken. “The wager?”

“I told her of our arrangement,” she said, smiling at the memory of the hob’s reaction. If Raylin had lost, she would have upheld her oath. She’d have stayed in the Bay and married Gnolen, resigned to an ordinary life and satisfied that she had tried for something more adventurous. “Couldn’t you hear her laughter? I feared it would shake the bridge apart.”

“And you beat her,” Gnolen said, making it sound far simpler than it had been. “I guess I’m not surprised.”

“LittleThaw was. She said I was the first to beat any of the hobs.”

“How did she--”

“They can communicate with each other through the gameboard. It’s an ingenious contraption, made from the eldest trees, which are linked together in some way beneath the ground. Even when their roots aren’t near each other, they can pass thoughts to other trees, and--”

“Did that pile of rocks just move?” Gnolen interrupted, pointing to the object in question. The rocks were larger than most others on the beach and had attracted a great number of wisps.

“You probably saw the crabs crawling all over it.” Raylin could hardly blame him for cutting her off. Once she started rambling, she could carry on indefinitely. “Do you think it’s the golem?” she teased, shoving him toward the rocky beach. “We’re too old to believe in all that superstitious nonsense.”

“Obviously the golem isn’t responsible for every torn net or bad haul.” To his credit, Gnolen didn’t panic as she had expected, but he hurried back to her side, scanning the rocks as if they were slumbering beasts. He lowered his voice as he continued, “But, Ray, the golem was real. It fell upriver and would have washed right into the Bay.”

“Keep an eye on the rocks then, if it’ll ease your mind.”

Mention of the golem drew both their eyes to Shrivemount Bridge, barely visible among the mountains on the Bay’s far side. Life had never been easy in Digrif’s Bay, especially since Sineck’s War. When the Radiance had stopped her advance in the mountains, they had saved the Bay from annihilation, but no matter how soundly Sineck’s army had been defeated, remnants had survived.

Rockeaters nested in the mountains and hunted in the Bay, preferring fish but not averse to attacking a lone fisher. Lycanthropes had turned to brigandry, disrupting trade routes. Recovering from two wars, the Radiance had needed time to recover, and the Bay had been on its own far too long.

“I’ll come with you,” he sliced the words between her thoughts, a knife cutting to the heart of their long-running disagreement.

“You’re welcome to, if that’s truly what you want,” she lied. It was a small, easy lie--told to spare his feelings, the reason for so many lies between men and women. “Remember that after our training, there’s no guarantee we’ll be posted in the same city. But, I know that isn’t what you want, Gnolen.”

He stopped and grabbed her arm, gentle but firm, stopping her. With his head held high, holding her eyes, Raylin saw the kind of husband he would be. Kind. Devoted. Loving. He was the best the Bay had to offer, and if she lived for a thousand years, Raylin would never understand why he loved her.

“I want you, and I’ll do anything to have you,” he said.

“Like a fish to be caught in one of your nets?” Raylin asked. She lowered her eyes. Despite the cool morning, her cheeks felt hot.

“You know it’s not like that,” he said, still holding her arm. She feared what might happen, being tethered to him by that gentle touch.

“I do,” she said and pulled away. Gnolen let her go, and they turned back the way they had come, retracing their fading footprints.

“You’ve told me how the sea calls to you,” she said. “I feel drawn to something greater, to the idea the Radiance represents. That unity of races. I want to protect towns like ours from the next Sineck.”

“And brigands.”

Rather than answer, she pointed to her nose.

The boy who had broken it, Lowen, had been rotten as a child, and the years had only made him more putrid and vile. Everyone knew he was a brigand, knew when he and his lackeys disappeared for weeks at a time that they were stealing, raping, and killing. But the Bay takes care of itself, and Lowen made sure to take care of the Bay.

“Where will you go?” Gnolen asked. “The nearest garrison is in Tailso.”

“LittleThaw is taking me. I’m to challenge the hobs there.” Raylin fought to keep the excitement from her voice, knowing how it would wound her friend.

“It’s really happening, then?” Always honest, Gnolen half-smiled--a supportive friend but also a lover scorned.

“It really is,” Raylin said. She spoke with confidence. “I’m going to become a Shield.”