Terrible storms in the late winter were followed by a beautiful spring in the kingdom to the south. He rode easily through the land, and heard great things about the benevolence of the queen, and whispered rumors of darkness around the king’s name. An uneasiness grew in him as he came closer to the capitol, and he began to watch the skies and the fires and the light glimmering in lakes and wells for signs of things to come. No mists rose from the waters, and the skies wore brilliant bangles of stars in a great girdle, the moon waning to the barest sliver of a crescent. In the fires of the darkest night, he saw fiery creatures with hot blue eyes, tiny fingerling lizards at the borderlands of the kingdom, growing larger and more watchful as he drew near the kingdom’s seat. Always they turned their faces towards the castle on the hilltop, waiting. Palm sized, hand sized, the length of his arm. Avril stayed away from even the torches when the salamanders in the baker’s oven were the size of dogs.
Twice, he visited a village smith, for small repairs or to offer his skill, and the elementals in the forges turned their faces from the castle and watched him with the grave determination of a forest fire. He stayed away from the smithies afterwards. The morning of Midsummer's Day, he skirted the capitol, drawn to the west by rumors of a dragon menacing a village just over the border. There was no dragon, just a pack of feral hogs. He found the biggest sow and encouraged her to move along, whispering stories of rich acorns and other roots to the far north. She gathered her brood about her, boar and piglets alike following in her path. That night, the moon rose darkest black, rimmed with red. He sat with Avril upon the mare’s back, and they watched together as a fountain of light and fire erupted from the castle on the hill, a flight of sparks and fire and dragons spiraling up into the night sky. Around them, all of the fires in the village went out at once, and the people cried out in fear. Weyland watched the dragons circle above the castle, felt a great magic released, as much as he might feel the transformation of metal under his hammer into something different, something more-than. He felt rage and grief in that dark wind of magic, and despair, and his face was wet with tears when he finally turned away from the display to help the smith and the baker rekindle their fires. .
The sun did not rise the next day, the skies choked with ashes, nor the one after that, and a great many people became sick with the dust filling the wells and streams. He turned north, and came eventually to the lands held by the blue manor house, who’s lord carried a yellow and blue shield. Wudka’s son greeted him in the furthest field, riding a great bay warhorse and leading another dun colored beast.
“You can’t come closer, Grandfather,” the youth said soberly. “There’s plague here and along the coast. Weyland wondered a moment how the boy might have guessed, and then realized that his hair had gone mostly white.
“You’re Poitr, Wudka’s youngest son?” the smith asked.
“For now, I am. My brother is quite ill, and may not last the month. A curse came down from the mountains. A boy killed a giant for its treasure, and all of the first and second sons have fallen ill.” Weyland sat very still on the mare’s back, until she sidled nervously towards the dun colored horse. Poitr smiled at her, the first glimmer of the cheerful child Weyland remembered years past. “I’m certain it’s only human sons, Herev, your own sons are safe.”
Still, she took the dun stallion’s lead in her mouth, drawing him along with them. Poitr laughed. “Of course, he’s pledged to Father’s good friend Weyland. We would not keep him from you” The son of Wudka Villandsson gave a half bow to the mare, and met Weyland’s curious look. “Twin stallions, and courageous. Father says they’re destriers fit to slay dragons, and they’re good at that, but they prefer to pull carts and plows and wood. I never thought a horse could be a builder, but Herev’s sons are exactly that.Take him, find good work for him.”
Smoke rose from the field next to the manor, and the boy turned grim, nudging his gelding around. “Stay safe, Grandfather. I would offer you hospitality here, but there is only death.
The plague spread across the land, and with it the terrible ashy clouds. Winter fell before the crops came in, frigid winds whipping crops and causing wild creatures to huddle together. On a short and bitter day, Weyland rode the mare, leading the young draft horse. The animals had grazed on acorns the night before, and counted themselves well fed. In the early evening, Avril hopped down off of the mare’s haunches, flowing into a sleek hunting dog before she hit the ground silently. Weyland draped the halter lead over a branch, ignoring the mare when she pinned her ears back and nipped at him.
The big man they came upon was no giant, only a tall man wearing ragged clothes and the battered sigil of the king’s guard, far from the capital where dragons erupted from the palace. He was awkward in the woods, but had found a young buck, and was stalking it with exaggerated care. He had a knife in hand with the ease of a knife fighter, but no bow or spear. When the man snapped a twig and alerted the deer, Weyland gestured to Avril to run it down.
Wary of surprising the man, Weyland stepped out of the trees and gestured him to silence. Avril was silent in her hunt, voicing a sharp bark when the deer was down. Her bark was answered by another voice, a howl rising from the winter woods, answered by another. “Let’s get the deer before the wolves do,” Weyland said quietly, and they ran after her. She was standing her ground over the deer’s carcass, two wolves fencing with her, snarling as they circled closer and closer. Weyland drew his own knife, rushing the larger of the two beasts. It got teeth into his arm through his sleeve, but he sank his knife into its neck, hot blood soaking his hand and wrist. The other wolf slunk away into the trees.
“Two skins and two beasts for the pot,” Weyland remarked, wiping his knife and hand on the pelt of the wolf.
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“It’s a shame. I thought I had the deer.” The man in his city clothes looked at the animal wistfully. “Your hound is good.”
“The best.” Weyland whistled shrilly and the mare sauntered out of the wood as if she hadn’t been hiding just out of sight with her son. “Let’s get the kill onto the horses and back to your camp before we lose all the light.”
“You’ll share? But you and your hound made the kills.” He didn’t protest long, helping Weyland get the animals over the back of the dun horse.
“No sense in both of us starving,” Weyland bound up his bleeding arm. “Lead the way,” he gestured to the other man.
“Thank you, I’m Dale, and grateful for your assistance. My wife and our … daughter are back at the abbey, likely trying to figure out how to make porridge from stones and twigs.” Weyland noted the hesitation but didn’t remark on it.
When they came into a clearing among the tall trees, and the tall walls of the cloister where Weyland had woken after the last time he’d fought a wolf in those woods, Weyland stiffened for a moment, and then started laughing. “Do the brothers still keep manuscripts on the kitchen table?” he asked, ignoring the twinge of the scars on his limbs.
“Not any more,” Dale said ruefully.
Dale’s wife Rebeka was a watchful woman, slender and efficient with the kitchen. A stack of manuscripts had been placed on the table, and she picked the up gently and moved them to another room. The young woman, Janette, was not likely to be their daughter. She argued with one of the monks, gesturing with a scroll at a piece of parchment, clearly debating the content. She was lovely, black hair and pale skin, and the practiced grace of her movements and her evident education belied a highborn upbringing.
Their stores were slim, the wood pile almost exhausted.
Rebeka cleaned the deep bite on Weyland’s arm, applying an unguent from a cut crystal pot that smelled strongly of herbs and faintly of magic. He helped Dale skin the deer, butchering it efficiently. Afterwards, sleepless, he sharpened the knives and mended a broken wheel on the cart in the courtyard of the abbey and the broken handle of the plow, working by lamplight with the company of Avril and the horses. The dun adolescent nosed around the cart and plow, blowing his approval. When dawn’s weak light filtered through the trees, the horse patiently sidled up to the yolk, looking over his shoulder at Weyland. The mare nickered and lowered her head, cocking a hind leg to nap. Avril jumped into the bed of the cart, excited by the adventure.
Gamely, Weyland hitched the dun to the cart, leaving his pack in the yard and hefting his axe over his shoulder. Dale came out as they were leaving the gate. The smith nodded briefly. “I’ll be back with wood,” he said, leading the horse and cart into the forest. They had already picked up most of the wood in the vicinity of the abbey, but some larger dead fall waited for him just inside the trees, too bulky to carry by hand.
Weyland worked through the morning and into midday. He filled the cart, and there was a bouncy prance in the dun’s gait as he drew the wood back to the abbey. Dale helped him unload the wood, and Weyland pointed out acorns and a fallow field behind the abbey, choked with weeds but still offering heavy heads of grain. The former guardsman nodded, and set out with his wife to gather the foodstuffs while Weyland took the cart out again, and a third time. He set snares where he had cleared wood.
“Woodcutter,” Rebeka called to him late in the afternoon, offering him a bowl of soup. Nodding his thanks, he drank it in the courtyard, eating the boiled vegetables and offering the pieces of meat to Avril, who pretended she had not already consumed the offal and scraps from the deer and wolf.
“You need fowl, Goodwife. If you had them, could you care for them?”
She blushed. “I kept my master’s geese before I went to work at the palace,” she said softly. “I could care for them, and they would help greatly.”
Weyland worked through the next day, bringing in three more carts of wood and helping clear the field. Avril spent her nights on the hearth, flirting outrageously with the goodwife and Janettte for scraps from the pot. He showed Dale how to clear and re-set the snares, and they had rabbit in the soup that evening.
On the third afternoon, Weyland was sharpening the blade of the plow when the sound of chimes floated through the trees from the road. Heavy hoof beats followed, and then the grind of wheels against the track. Wiping sweat from his face, hefting his axe, Weyland casually leaned against the gatepost, watching Aodhan the Tinker’s slow approach. Dale joined him, holding an ugly boar spear with practiced ease. Weyland nodded his approval and Dale shifted his grip slightly. “It’s not so different than the spears we used in the guard,” he said softly.
“This man is likely a friend,” Weyland said, pushing off the gatepost, and relaxing his grip on his axe, resting it on his shoulder. Turning, he saw Rebeka and Janette in the door of the kitchen, and nodded to them to come.
“Greetings, Deep Woods Abbey!” the tinker shouted as his oxcart came closer. “I have wares for your women and your kitchen, and summat for the monks as well!”
The monks pushed past Janette and Rebeka, eagerly swarming the waggon, one even stopping to pet the ox pulling the cart. Ink and parchment and a bag with bits of candied fruit changed hands, and the oldest monk limped slowly and gave Aodhan a dozen sealed packets to deliver elsewhere.
When Rebeka and Janette shyly came forward, the tinker greeted them like highborn ladies, showing them fine shoes and dresses. Weyland watched Janette finger the cloth of one of the dresses briefly before she saw a small selection of books and open the first with undisguised delight. The youngest monk, thin and wrinkled and entirely bald, squinted at the text over her shoulder. He said something in their foreign language, and she smilied, replying in kind.
Aodhan winked at Weyland, and turned to Rebeka and Janette again. “I understand that geese and perhaps pigeons might be the order of the day? For meat and eggs and messages to far off places?”
Quietly, ignoring the rest of the exchange, Weyland slipped the saddle on the mare, and her bitless bridle, and his saddle bag. He looked at the young draft horse, who sidled closer to the cart and plow, nickering softly. Thus, he left the monastery in the deep woods, Avril perched behind him on the mare, a long hound with short legs and intelligent eyes.