“Let’s get out of here, but don’t make any sudden movements.” Birch slowly reached for his pack and inched toward the path, his eyes never leaving the undergrowth. Somewhere, unseen among the shrubs and bushes a blood boar was watching, ready to charge the moment it felt threatened.
Buckthorn appeared to have heeded Birch’s warning. Holding his pack in both hands in front of him, he too backed away.
From the path, Birch continued to focus on the forest around the giant oak tree. There hadn’t been any more noises since they’d retreated, but the animal was probably still there.
“Come on,” Birch said. “We shouldn’t linger here.”
They shouldered their packs and continued in the direction they’d been heading before they stopped.
“What panel did you see back there?” Buckthorn asked.
“A reward panel for a skill called Animal Identification.”
The interpreter grinned. “I thought it might have been something like that.” He put his hand on Birch’s shoulder. “And you thought your gift was useless.”
“Before we were interrupted back there,” Birch said, “you were about to say something more.”
“I think I have the beginnings of a plan.” Buckthorn checked behind him, and Birch followed his gaze. The large oak tree was already quite a way off. They were making good progress.
“Do you think we’re safe here?” Buckthorn said. “I don’t want to have to stop again for a while.”
“If we stay on the path, I think we’ll be fine.”
“Good.” The interpreter stroked his beard. “Let me start by asking you some more questions. If I remember correctly, you said your score for Mark Interpretation is 4.96. Bearing that in mind, if you could see it, what do you think my score would be?”
“I don’t know. It’s got to be high. About seventy-five?”
“That would make sense. Although, we don’t yet know for sure what a high score actually is in any particular skill. A score of fifty might be really good, or even a score of twenty. But, for argument's sake, let’s assume you’re right. Let’s say my score in Mark Interpretation is seventy-five. Do you think, in time, you could ever achieve that level?”
“Of course not. The Sacred Oak didn’t mark me as an interpreter, but it selected you for the role. Out of all of the others in your Marking Ceremony, you must have been the one best suited to being an interpreter. You must have a natural talent for it.”
“That’s exactly what I would have said until a few years ago.”
“And now?”
“Now I am not as certain as I once was. Several experiences have made me start to question everything.”
“But how can you do your job if you have any doubts at all?”
“It’s a struggle. But with the unique talent you have been given, I think it will finally be possible to monitor what is going on.”
“What do you mean?”
“Because you are able to see your progress in an individual skill, we will be able to determine how easy it is for you to acquire a skill in a field previously reserved only for those with a specific mark. Like Mark Interpretation for instance.”
“Is that the only reason I’m here?” Birch stopped in the middle of the path. “I’m just a part of your experiment. And here was me thinking you actually wanted to help me.”
“That’s not entirely true, nor is it fair.” Buckthorn fixed Birch with a stare. “You will certainly be able to provide me with useful information, but in doing so, you may also reveal to yourself the power of your gift.”
“Just because I can see the panels, it doesn’t mean I can do anything better than other people.”
“Not yet. But with your ability to truly understand how each activity affects your progress, you should be able to determine the most efficient way to gain skills. If my suspicions are correct, potentially you could use this to become anything you want.”
“But, even if you are right, I still won’t be permitted to try. I’m as much one of the Markless in Ravenhurst as I am in Eldergrove. It will be the same all over Verdant.” Birch raised his hand and pointed to his mark. “Until interpreted otherwise, this says that I can only be one thing. Markless.”
“I’m working on that.” Buckthorn gestured down the path. “We have several days of travel ahead. I’m sure I will have come up with something before we reach Ravenhurst.”
*****
Long shadows striped the path, and the late afternoon breeze wasn’t quite as warm as it had been earlier.
“We should think about making camp soon. If there are more blood boars in this area, it would be good to have a fire going before nightfall.” Buckthorn nodded toward a small clearing to the right of the path. “What about over there? It’s as good a spot as any I’ve seen.”
Birch nodded. “Fine with me.”
They headed off the path, shrugged their packs off their shoulders, and started to tramp down an area of brush so that they could lay out their blankets.
“There should be enough kindling around here,” Birch said. “See if you can get a fire going, and I’ll try to find some larger branches.”
Keeping his ears and eyes open for signs of blood boars, Birch headed into the forest. He didn’t have to move very far from the camp before he came across what he was looking for. A large branch had fallen from an elm tree. It was pretty much dry. Birch hauled it over to the tree from which it had probably broken off, leaned it up against the trunk, and stamped down on it. The branch broke with a satisfying snap. Birch repeated the process a few times until he had a stack of firewood.
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He picked up as much as he could carry and returned to the camp.
Buckthorn’s pack was open and he was sitting on the floor with a flint and steel by his side. In front of him, in the middle of a patch of ground that had been scraped back nearly to bare earth, was the beginning of a small fire. Buckthorn fed a few more twigs to the flames, and he continued to do this until the fire was large enough to cope with some thicker bits of wood.
Birch added a couple of the smaller sections of branch he’d collected and then sat down next to the interpreter.
He glanced at the undergrowth. If there were more blood boars around here, the flames would likely be enough to keep them at a distance. As night fell, provided they didn’t stray too far from the fire, they’d be safe.
Buckthorn took a small cooking pot from his pack along with a tiny wooden box. He filled the pot with water from his waterskin, and then he added a pinch of powder from the box.
“Crested calamint,” he said. “It only grows in Ravenhurst. I always carry some with me. Makes a very good tea.”
When the tea was ready, Buckthorn poured it into two wooden mugs and offered one of them to Birch.
A rich aroma cut through the fire’s smoke. It made Birch’s nose tingle. He smiled, imagining how Old Rush would’ve reacted if he’d caught him with a cup of exotic spiced tea. No doubt he would’ve slapped the mug from his hand. But Birch was no longer in Eldergrove. He blew on the pale green liquid and then raised the cup to his lips and took a small sip.
He’d never tasted anything like it before. The flavor was intense, and it seemed to change the longer the liquid stayed on his tongue. At first, it was as tart as a raspberry, but then it became something sweet and tangy.
“Good, isn’t it?”
Birch nodded and took another gulp. Surely even Eldergrove’s stablemaster would’ve had to admit to liking this.
“You should use this time to work on your panels,” Buckthorn said. “The more you can discover about your talent before we reach Ravenhurst the better.” He put his mug down. “Earlier you said you could sense another panel linked to the leaf panels. Perhaps concentrate on that.”
Birch did as Buckthorn suggested. He made dozens of attempts to reveal the hidden panels that seemed to be connected to some of the leaf-shaped panels. He wasn’t able to latch onto them fully, but with each try, he felt as if he was a tiny bit closer to bringing them into focus.
By the time he was ready to sleep, Birch had managed to raise his Panel Control score to 6.47.
*****
A shriek startled Birch awake. A bird perhaps, or maybe a fox? But something about it hadn’t sounded quite right.
It was still dark and the fire had burned down to embers.
“Buckthorn? Did you hear that?”
There was no response from the spot on the other side of the fire where the old man had made his bed.
“Buckthorn?” Birch pushed his blanket aside and stood up. “Are you awake?”
Birch stepped around the fire. He could just about make out Buckthorn’s blanket, but the man wasn’t underneath it.
“Where are you?”
Birch’s pulse quickened. He turned around and stared into the black.
Another noise. More of a groan this time. And definitely human.
It had come from the forest, close to where he’d been collecting firewood earlier. Birch took a breath. It had to be Buckthorn, and it sounded like he was in pain.
“I’m coming.” Birch waited a few heartbeats for a response, but none came.
He bent down by the fire and blew on the embers to rekindle the flames. After a while, the fire leaped back to life, and Birch added a few more lengths of wood. He pulled one of the longer branches from the fire. One of its ends was ablaze. If he was lucky, the flames would last long enough for him to locate the interpreter.
Holding the makeshift torch in front of him, he took a couple of steps away from the fire. The flames wobbled and then died out.
Judging by the sounds Buckthorn had made, Birch had already lingered too long. He tossed the stick back onto the fire. He’d have to navigate by what little light the fire was giving out.
“Where are you?” Birch shouted. “Call out to me if you can?”
Still nothing.
He slowly headed into the forest. With every step, the fire’s light penetrated the gloom a little less, and by the time he had taken a dozen or so strides, he could hardly see a hand directly in front of his face.
“Buckthorn. You’re going to have to help me. I can’t see a thing. If you can hear me, shout out.”
Birch paused and held his breath.
There. To his right. Was that the old man’s voice? If it was, it was little more than a whisper.
With hands outstretched to fend off branches, Birch inched forward.
Another faint noise filtered through the darkness somewhere in front of him. He was close now.
Birch called out again and pushed on.
His right foot clipped against something. It wasn’t as hard as a stump. But perhaps it was a fallen log, its wood soft and rotten and riddled with fungus. He knelt next to it and extended his hands. His fingers touched against a layer of something warm and soft. Cloth. Buckthorn’s green robes.
“Can you hear me?”
Birch moved his hands along the cloth. He identified what he thought was the robe’s fastening clasp, and then he came to Buckthorn’s beard. He carefully moved his fingers up to the old man’s face and onto his head.
He touched the tips of his fingers together. They didn’t seem to be wet, and he hadn’t yet found a wound.
He hovered his ear over where he guessed Buckthorn’s mouth was. His breathing was slow and shallow, but at least he was alive.
Birch remembered something he’d seen Old Rush do when one of the lambs had come out of its mother still and unresponsive. He’d tilt the animal’s head back to stop it from choking on its tongue.
Grasping Buckthorn by his robes, he maneuvered the old man onto his side and then positioned his head on the forest floor so that he’d be able to breathe freely.
A panel materialized in front of him.
Emergency Care +0.01
Birch quickly dismissed it and began to search the rest of Buckthorn’s body with his hands. There had to be a reason why he’d made the shrieking noise and was now unconscious.
Starting with the man’s left boot, he crept his fingers along his leg. Mid-way up Buckthorn’s shin, the cloth of his breeches was warm and wet. Then there was a patch where the cloth was torn. Something was protruding from the rip, jagged and sharp like splintered wood.
Birch removed his hand and shuddered. It was bone. His stomach lurched. At least one bone in Buckthorn’s leg was badly broken.
If the interpreter had been one of Old Rush’s animals, the stablemaster would’ve run a knife across its throat and put it out of its misery.
Birch had no intention of doing that, but how could he help Buckthorn without any light? And even if he could see, how was he going to deal with a wound like that? The bone was sticking out at completely the wrong angle, and there was likely more damage that he hadn’t yet discovered.
Perhaps he should return to Eldergrove and ask for help. Surely, he would be allowed into the village if it was a matter of saving an interpreter’s life. But then he’d have to leave Buckthorn, alone and defenseless. If blood boars or wolves, or even any ravens and carrion crows picked up the scent of his blood, the old man would be unable to fight them off.
Birch’s eyes flicked over to the fire. He could just make out the flames in the gaps between the branches and undergrowth. It had died down a little, but it was still going strong. It would be much safer by the fire, but how was he going to get Buckthorn over to it? If he had to, he’d probably be able to drag his unresponsive body all the way, but he’d likely just make the injury worse.
No. It was probably wisest to stay here. Dawn couldn’t be too far off. With the light of a new day, he’d be able to see exactly what he was dealing with. He’d just have to hope Buckthorn had the strength to make it through the night.
“I’m here, Buckthorn,” Birch said. Please don’t die.