Oli cast his line and the raft wobbled beneath his knees. He reached into the throw, pulling back in time to right the little vessel before it tipped him into the river. He watched the silk thread unravel against dark trees on the far bank. It caught the sunlight briefly, a shining arc, before a gentle plop sounded from across the river. The line settled onto the surface and Oli sat back.

He waited.

If Oli was good at one thing, it was waiting. Fishing, too, if they could be considered different pursuits. Oli thought they could. Waiting for a fish was a special kind of waiting; it relaxed him in a focussed, intense way.

As he waited, eyes scanning the breadth of the river for a hint of his prey’s hunger, his ears picked up a foreign sound. From upriver came the drawl of Western accents. Traders! Hastily, he whipped back the line and pulled his raft into the thick reeds. They closed like a curtain in front of him and he peered through as a barge drifted round the bend. A man at the rear worked the pole, sweat pooling under his arms and on his back despite the cold. Oli was supposed to return immediately if he saw outsiders. Instead, he clung to the reeds and eavesdropped as the intruders passed.

“Mooring in the Republic is free now. And you can stay out of Dombarrow. There’s a trading post upriver of the city. Just another day’s journey and we could sell the lot for three times the Kingdom price.”

The man working the pole talked in a louder voice than anyone who belonged in the forest would risk.

“Good idea,” A burly woman concurred, looking up from sorting dry leaves into cloth bags. “We should pass Scursditch and spit at their harbourmaster on the way. I met a man who’d been to the Republic. He brought silver back for grain. Silver! For selling grain!”

“Silver from the godless city?” The third Westerner, with short grey hair greased neatly back stood in the middle watching the others work. In an angry bark he declared, “I’d sooner dump the cargo for hoarders to pick over.”

“We can’t afford to be picky. Times are changing, anyhow. The tower stands and all that.”

“Oi! Who’s that lurking in the shallows?”

Oli nearly dropped his rod. The woman pointed and three pairs of eyes trained on his hiding place.

“Hey, boy! Come on out. I’ve got a pouch of tobacco for half of those fish.”

Oli looked down at his basket, poking out between the reeds, and pulled it belatedly back.

“Just a wee shy one from the Sevener clans. Leave him be.” The man with the pole said.

“Look at his basket though! That’s devilish luck with nothing but a stick. How’s he doing it? Reb, steer us closer. We’ll trade him something. A bit of fresh fish would be a treat, and your nets aren’t catching anything.”

Oli rose slowly and held up his left hand with the thumb and second finger pressed into a circle.

“The Lost Daughter,” he mouthed silently.

It was the sign his mother made if outsiders spotted them. The sign of the youngest of the seven gods; of dreams, death and childish play. She said it scared them. She would only shrug disinterestedly when he asked why, as though the fears of Westerners were an irrational mystery, useful to exploit but not worth exploring.

“We keep to the river till we reach Scursditch.” The older man declared, eyeing Oli with a mixture of fear and disdain. “He’s bad luck, this one. Savages are all bad luck. Push us on, Reb.”

Then they were gone downstream, taking the last of their cargo to Scursditch, the only town in the forest and the only place where Westerners deigned, or dared, to mix with their distant cousins, the Seveners.

Oli had accepted an offer of trade once, a long time ago. With trembling hands he’d counted out a dozen herring and a great barbel as fat as his head. He’d returned proudly with a bag of sugar. The other children had gone wild, and he had experienced for the first time that heady delight of popularity. It had not been worth it. His father had confined him to their home for half a moon and his mother had told him stories every night of careless children who brought curses to their families in innocent looking packages and had to watch them die of strange illnesses. ‘We should fear outsiders as we fear ghouls and sleepers,’ she had repeated to him over and over until he had plugged his ears and turned to face the wall.

Some of the children got away with worse, Oli ruminated as he cast his line again. The twins, Koen and Kuno, could sneak away to spy on the townsfolk at Scursditch, even returning with pilfered cloth, and the adults and elders merely shrugged and exchanged smirks. And Ingo – the infallible, perfect Ingo – got away with clambering around near the hoarders’ caves and coming back with scrapes all over his arms and legs.

“Nowhere is safe in wood or glen, but a fool sets foot beyond the treeline’s end,” Elder Mildred would intone as she wagged her finger under his nose, then Ingo would produce a handful Terlos’ soap and she’d chuckle and ruffle his hair.

Perhaps, mused Oli in a spirit of self-pity, they get away with it because of who their parents are. Yet his parents, too, held weight in the clan. He knew why the rules were stricter for him – if he cared to admit it.

Tension in the line snapped his attention to the present. His hands tightened on the rod, and he tugged back gently, gauging the strength of the pull. He drew the fish closer, hand over hand. Beneath the surface he could see it thrashing, struggling to escape. In a smooth movement he yanked up the rod, caught the fish in his left hand, thwacked it against the wood and snapped the head back. To complete the process, he placed his thumb against his first finger, making a teardrop and muttered,

“Farlean, her domain is swift water, her gift is cleanliness.”

Then he appraised his catch. A sturgeon! Quickly, he checked her for eggs. He found none, but even so this was a fine prize. He gazed at the glittering body as the last twitches gave way to stillness, then he moved to stow it in his basket.

“I suppose you think that’s clever.”

Oli froze as he would if he had tripped over a sleeper root. He felt as though a jugful of winter river water had been poured down the back of his vest. There was no one else here besides him. The traders were gone, weren’t they?

“Well, it’s not clever, it’s cruel.”

The arch tone drifted from the far bank. Oli’s eyes, darting frantically back and forth, could not locate its source.

“Luring it over like that with the promise of food, and then turning on it,” the voice continued, in an accent that belonged to neither the forest nor the West. “How would you like to swim against a hook, tearing a gash in your own flesh to survive?”

At once, the speaker came into focus, and Oli wondered that he had not seen the man before. That dark patch in the buckthorn bushes wasn’t a mass of dead leaves, still hiding Spring’s new growth, but a patchwork fur cloak, pulled tightly around a slender, crouched frame. The gaunt, lightly bearded face of a young man peered out the top. His long, black hair merged into the shadows of the forest, just like his cloak in the undergrowth. His face was so pale against the leaves, though, that Oli could not believe he had missed it.

Oli remained still, dead fish in one hand and rod in the other. He could muster a response from neither his body nor mouth.

“Well?” Demanded the stranger, apparently expecting an answer. Oli wasn’t sure, but he thought the man looked surprised to find Oli staring at him. Angry, even. Affronted.

Indignation cut through his fear. “Well, what do you eat around here?” Oli retorted.

He felt the pole shift in the riverbed and reached for it, without taking his eyes off the stranger.

“Nothing that thinks I’m it’s friend, that’s for certain.”

The man’s cloak was made from pieces of hide stitched together. Oli recognised deer skin, some patches of rabbit and... was that a wolf’s claw that hung on the left? Just a moment before, Oli thought the claw had been a patch of thorns. And was that a thin branch or a wicked looking, jagged spear that his right hand clasped? The melodic, arrogant voice did not match the wild figure in front of him and Oli distrusted his eyes almost as much as when the man had been hidden.

“Where are you going?” Oli asked in a hopeful tone. He really wanted to ask whether this man was going. The stranger pointed toward the mountains.

“What’s the name of those peaks?”

“Name?”

Stolen novel; please report.

“What do you call them?”

Oli frowned and paused. The man pointed to where Ingo liked exploring, where the hoarders lived. “Um... the mountains,” he replied doubtfully. What else would you call them? Were there other mountains? Did he want the name of each peak?

For a moment the stranger made no expression, then a peal of laughter exploded from his thin lips. As it did so, his cloak fell open. The clothes underneath, though faded, displayed colours as varied as a late spring meadow. Red, yellow and even silver vied for space against a purple background on the man’s skinny chest. The tailors of Scursditch sold nothing like that. Oli pushed on the pole, dislodging the raft and moving it back into the shallows.

“Stop. You wait there a moment.” He looked angry again. He stood and pointed a bony finger at Oli.

Terrified, Oli pushed harder on the pole.

“Just answer a question.” The stranger slid down the bank as though he meant to leap across the dozen yards between them.

“What?!” Called Oli, pushing away so hard he almost lost balance.

“Is it where the Beyobacks live?” The stranger shouted. “Answer me!”

“The what?” yelled Oli in return. A rock bumped beneath the raft. He could wade here but could not yet reach the mooring stump. The man shouted another question which Oli could not hear. Something about how Oli could see him. Water rippled up and splashed over the deck of the raft. Oli leapt down and began pulling it to shore until, glancing over his shoulder, he saw something he had never seen before.

The thin man shrugged off his cloak and stepped into the water. He walked right into the deep, strong current and submerged himself. Oli had seen animals swim, but never a person. For a moment amazement got the better of his fear. He waited, half expecting to see the man carried away, but soon saw his form far below the surface. As it moved toward the centre the shadowy outline appeared to be crawling along the bed like a skilled climber scaling a cliff. The stranger crossed the deep bed of the river and suddenly shot upward, bursting out, half wading and half swimming so fast the water splashed over his head. Oli dropped the basket and mooring rope and fled into the forest. His heartbeat thumped in his eardrums and, as he ran, he heard the man yelling behind him.

“Answer me you little murderer! Don’t you dare ignore me. Answer me! Come back! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, come back!”

----------------------------------------

Oli felt as though he were wading through water, though he ran faster than ever. He usually walked carefully, deliberating over each step. His capacity for getting lost was infamous. He always tried to follow the paths, but they looked different to him every time. Long ago he had begged his father to stop putting up signs along the routes he used; the embarrassment of it was too much. Now he wished the little arrows were still there. Within a few dozen paces of fleeing, he began to doubt himself.

Oli paused to look for something he recognised, standing with his back to a large trunk. He waited, listening between deep breaths. He heard no pursuit. He looked around, his head spinning, and saw the twin trunked oak, albeit from the wrong angle. Somewhat calmed, he continued at a jog. Soon the breeze carried distant noises of village life to him, and new preoccupations entered his mind. The mortal terror of an unknown man with unknown powers subsided and his chest tightened now as he thought of his parents’ reaction when he confessed what had happened. He had lingered while outsiders passed. He had abandoned the raft!

In his mind he began telling the story, embellishing the appearance of the stranger and exaggerating the danger. Surely, a person so wild and unusual could not have anything to do with the barge that passed earlier? Perhaps he should not mention the barge. As he fretted over what to say and how best to say it, he heard a cry from the village perimeter, beyond the wall of sharpened stakes.

“Oli’s here! Oli’s back!”

His sister had seen him coming. She sounded relieved, as though she knew already what had happened.

In an instant clansfolk surrounded him, shouting questions.

“What happened, where’s Ingo?” Thilo, the shepherd yelled at him.

“Look, he’s been running hard!” Called the hunter Torvald to someone behind him.

“They chased him too,” “What happened?” “Did Ingo get away?”

Oli blinked and stumbled back. The crowd closed the space he’d created. He opened and shut his mouth. The bodies felt like walls closing in on him. He glanced around, looking for somewhere to run. “What’s the matter, boy, answer!” Thilo insisted.

His sister, Adalina, swept up behind him and clasped her hands in front of his chest. He felt her voice vibrate through his back.

“Be quiet! Back off!”

Oli turned his head sideways against her stomach and smelled rosemary. The aroma, and the feel of her hands, seemed to warm him from the inside and his heart stopped pressing against his ribs.

She leant round to look him in the eye, her black hair falling over his face.

“Where have you been, Oli?” She asked quietly. “Have you seen Ingo? If you’ve been to spy on the hoarders you can tell us, alright?” She asked the absurd question with a serious urgency. She must know he never risked spying on the hoarders, though other boys did. He couldn’t even find his way there.

“I’ve been to the river, that’s all, but there was -” Oli began, but he was cut off before he could finish.

“The river!” Spat a tall, powerfully built man with braided brown hair. Everyone turned to hear him. “And he returns out of breath with no fish. Excuse me, Ada, but when has Oli ever returned from the river without fish?”

Heridan, Ingo’s father, knelt in front of Oli and pushed his face so close that bristles of the huge man’s plaited beard almost scraped his cheek.

“Listen, Oli, it’s a rare boy who doesn’t go looking for adventures by the mountains. We forbid it, but we know you all do it. So, speak up now and be honest. If you were there, if you know what happened to my Ingo, you tell us.”

The faces of the assembled adults peered down expectantly. Heridan’s breath warmed Oli’s lips and he tried to sink deeper into his sister’s arms.

“There was an outsider by the river,” Oli shut his eyes. “A warrior with a crooked spear. He crawled across the bottom of the water. He chased me!”

“Oli,” whispered Adalina in his ear with a note of pleading, “none of your tall tales now, understand? Ingo left this morning to find you by the river, but he got into trouble by the mountains after noon. Did you go to the caves with him, Oli? Did he meet you? He said he was going to meet you.”

“No!” Oli could not remember the last time the older boy had wanted to play with him.

“Nonsense!” yelled Heridan, pushing himself up and spinning away, his cheeks beetroot. “Luthold, Winilind! Beat the truth out of your son before I do. And fetch a spear, man.”

“Heridan, let me...” His sister began, but the warrior was gone, and his parents now jostled through the crowd towards him. Adalina ran after Ingo’s father.

One on either side, his mother and father yanked him by the arms into their roundhouse. Oli fell to the floor. His mother closed the door so fast that bits of earth fell from the wall. His father sat in front of him and looked him in the eye, one hand on his son’s knee, the other twisting at the hair of his short, neat beard.

“Oli, where have you been? Did you meet Ingo in the woods today?”

“Dad, what’s happening? Why is everyone asking if I’ve seen Ingo?”

“He didn’t meet you by the river?”

“No!” Insisted Oli, “When does Ingo ever look for me? He’s older than Ada and he doesn’t like me anyway.”

His parents glanced at one another, then his mother spoke, her wide eyes watching him for a reaction, perhaps one that would give a game away.

“He disappeared. He went into the forest this morning by the Northern path. He told his father he was going to spend the day with you. But then at noon, Joturn heard him screaming near the mountains and no one can find him now. Oli, just yesterday you were asking everyone why Ingo should be allowed to visit the mountains.”

“Why are you sure something happened? He’s always going there, and the hoarders never catch him!”

“Joturn knows his voice. Ingo is in trouble,” replied his father, “Maybe he got too close this time.” Then Luthold frowned. “Why didn’t you bring any fish back, Oli? Where’s the basket? And why did you come running?”

Adalina entered and carefully closed the door.

“He says,” she sighed, “that a magical warrior fish man attacked him.”

“I did not!” shouted Oli. They descended into bickering until Winilind thwacked a leather awning on the wall and they both fell silent. A man poked his head through the door, gave Luthold an intent look, and backed out.

“Whatever happened by the river, Oli, will have to wait. A party is going out to recover Ingo and I had better be in it.”

His father went slowly to the rear of their home, to the far side by the bedding furs, and returned with a spear. Oli and Adalina watched in silence. It was a thing of beauty, their grandfather’s old spear. One of a kind. As black as night with an engraving of Hurean’s Star that glittered brighter than bronze. But they rarely saw it in their father’s hands. Only in the depths of winter, when food was scarce and every adult went to hunt, did he go out with the spear. ‘To keep up appearances.’ He made no pretence of mastery, and no one expected him to bring in a kill. His mother rubbed Luthold’s shoulder and looked at her feet.

“Be careful,” she said in a low voice.

“Be good while I’m gone. If it was the hoarders... if we... just be good while I’m gone.”

He left and though Oli could not fathom what was happening, he was sure this was somehow his fault.

----------------------------------------

Darkness fell and still the armed party did not return. Winilind lit a fire in the centre of the house. Oli and his sister watched smoke rise through the apex of the roof, into the night sky. Oli pushed a stick around in the dust with his toes. Adalina placed a hand on his leg, and he stilled it.

“It’s not only father who’s gone. Beresa is with them. Algar and Finn too. And Heridan, of course.”

Oli shuddered. The thought of his father out in the dark with Heridan did not loosen the knot in his chest, however highly his sister thought of the man. He continued jabbing patterns into the ground and mumbled,

“They haven’t really gone to fight the hoarders, have they?”

Winilind placed a clay pot of water over the flames and sat down beside them. She smiled a broad, calm smile but Oli’s eyes were drawn to her fingers, twisting the edge of her woollen jumper.

“All the best fighters have gone, Oli. If the hoarders have Ingo, they’ll give him up. I heard about it happening before. They just kept the boy to scare him and handed him over for a sack of sheep’s bones and some bits of metal.”

“Which boy?” Asked Oli.

“Um, it was before my time.”

“Elder Mildred says a hoarder killed three Hallin hunters when she was a girl. She says they mistook it for a deer through the bushes and threw a spear at it, and it slashed them all into strips with its-”

“Shush now, Oli,” his mother interrupted, “Don’t listen to Elder Mildred’s stories. She’s lived through a lot, but she remembers it poorly.”

They sat in silence around the flames as Winilind mixed anise seeds and honey into the steaming water. The sweet aroma filled the house, warming it like a second fire. A soft wind brushed the thatched rooftops, but it carried no sounds of combat – neither the shouts of men, nor the piercing roar of angry hoarders.

Oli thought of the outsider. In his hurried telling of the encounter, imagination had mingled with memory and wrought a crueller expression on the man’s face, a wilder look about his clothes. He tried now to recall the encounter as it really occurred. The look on his face before Oli fled came to mind. Imploring or demanding? Furious or desperate? Why would a wandering hunter wear such rich clothes under his cloak of hides, faded though they were? Did he rob someone? Or murder someone? He could be an exile, a criminal fled from a Western jail. He thought about the way the stranger swam. Like a river serpent, wriggling along the bed as fast as Oli could walk on land. He shivered. Adalina felt it and shifted closer, and his mother draped a fur blanket over them. He wanted to talk about the stranger again but thought better of it, not wanting to disturb the shared warmth of the moment.

“It’s not far to the mountains. We’d have heard something if they were fighting, Oli.”

“Depends who they were fighting,” Oli mumbled, “Or what.”