III - SECRETS AND LEGENDS #4

Cheas took a few steps until he stood before Gwion and leaned his foot and back against a pillar.

They listened intently, transported to that memory as he told them he had been in a sort of hypnotic, feverish state and so had not noticed the wolf when it leapt upon him.

He then described the struggle, the fangs in his forearm and the front claws embedded in his chest.

'The agony took my breath away, yet I remember pondering Maed and what would become of him should I perish. That gave me fortitude. I drew a deep breath and contrived to thrust him from my breast with my feet.'

Maed gave a sheepish smile and cast down his eyes.

'I attempted to flee, yet it seized me by the leg.

I still bear the scar.' He rolled up his trouser leg and showed them.

'I closed mine eyes, bracing for the searing pain and agony.

But when I opened them, I beheld its enormous limbs upon me, panting, its snout filled with slobber mixed with my blood, and its strange eyes, wholly grey, as grey as the full moon itself.

We beheld one another, as two barbarians appraising their adversary ere the fatal clash.

I gather that was when he spake to me. I can still hear the colour of his voice, but his words have been erased like footprints in the snow. '

With a long breath, Gwion finished his tale and met Gregor’s face, very close to his own, staring at him intently. His crossed eyes and breath were the only things betraying the mark the alcohol had left. Now lucid, all the possibilities he knew ran through his mind.

He was the oldest in the troop. Although he was born in Ubberia, raised by his grandfather and uncle on a farm upon the border with Old Minister, he had been recruited into the Ministerian troop for his strength and imposing stature whilst still a young man.

He was part of a platoon composed chiefly of lads and warriors hailing from divers villages in Móntria and Tloston.

The reinforcements swore their oath of service after the plague ravaged the Kingdom of the Raven and destroyed most of the defence forces, including the life of King Renger himself.

For this reason, he not only trained in combat, but also immersed himself in all the cultures and languages, and suckled, from the very bosom of the finest orators, their stories, myths and legends.

Analytical by nature, he began by asking Gwion his questions: whether he spoke the same tongue, whether he heard him with his ears or whether his voice echoed in his mind, whether he lost consciousness or felt hypnotised or transported.

Whether he remembered anything that might give it away when it was about to happen.

'An extrasensory sensitivity,' ventured Gwion, and a spring jolted him from his seat.

'I feel all that surrounds me. This morn, ere I went to the stable, I perceived it, and that selfsame night the moon did blind me, wherefore the wolf took me unawares.

The like befell when I sought to flee; the light did filter through the boughs and I could not arise. '

Maed noted the pallor upon his brother’s visage. Fear and dehydration, he thought, and stood, ready to hand out some glasses he kept in a corner. Then he took a jug and began to fill them, having first sniffed the contents. Cheas alone regarded the glass with a hint of disgust.

'Firstly,' quoth Gregor, scratching his beak-shaped, curly beard, 'no one who hath survived a wolf’s attack hath done so because the beast let them go.

Secondly, the gods can be shape-shifters; there are legends about that.

Although I have not heard of them taking the form of animals, they use them as spies, or sources of energy, or weapons.

Narg is a clear example and our standard-bearer. '

Thus, Gregor reminded them that, according to the legend passed down from generation to generation, from grandfather to grandson, from father to son, Odín blessed Alfredo after he had climbed to the peak of the Everwhite Mountain and personally gifted him his ravens to grant him power and cunning.

'Perhaps sensitivity is a kind of love; have you fallen in love again?' Cheas ventured to ask.

Maed, standing to one side, was filling his mug when he whispered in reply, 'Yes, with you.' Cheas’s reaction was instantaneous. A blow to Maed’s right cheekbone, and both of them were drenched in mead.

'Come on, man,' he cried as he rubbed his cheek, 'he cannot be in love with nature, with the moon and the sun, with the wind—pray tell! Things like that do not come to pass.'

'You are less sensitive than a frozen rock in the midst of the desert in the depth of winter, brother,' Gwion scolded. 'Be grateful that Cheas gave you only a few bruises; Arwel would have flogged you in the main square,' he joked, whilst Gregor chuckled under his breath.

Chiding him was a daily chore. Gwion was the rough-and-ready one, whilst his younger brother, with his wild spirit, was a child trapped in the body of a burly warrior.

To continue, feeling somewhat more at ease, he turned to the eldest of the troop. He recounted with confidence how Tower had first spoken to him, a few weeks after the fall of the temple.

'I was endeavouring to soothe him with certain lullabies when his gaze met mine and I heard his voice within my head.

Ironically,' he twisted his mouth, annoyed even by the memory, 'he requested that I sing no more, for I was woeful at it, and reproached me that the comb I was using did not belong to him, but to Valcon. '

The immense fright it caused him made him let go of the reins. Tower bolted and the guards had to be deployed to find him.

'I tried not to go near him, but Narg ordered me to do so again,' he said, huffing. 'He spoke that day, even though I had gone prepared, drunk as a lord. I think he said the same thing today, that I should not hide my essence.'

'Essence,' repeated Gregor as he beheld the candles growing drowsy. 'First, we would need to learn if the old man who reared you is still alive. Second, ask him of any revelation concerning your birth.'

Gwion curled his lower lip; the notion of returning to Cartos did not appeal to him, and besides, he required a fair excuse to be absent from his guard duty.

'Now then, Gwion,' said Cheas, crouching down, 'you have the courage to feel your opponent’s soul slip away the moment your blade pierces his flesh, tearing and severing the thread of his life, yet you lack the guts to listen to what a horse has to say to you,' he chided, and Gwion froze.

'Pluck up your courage, run not away, and ask the right questions. '

He remained hesitant; just thinking about it made his stomach clench. He feared what he might hear; moreover, he hated the sensation of that energy rooting his feet to the ground and how the reality around him became clouded.

'That is an excellent idea,' said Gregor. 'It may well be an oracle seeking to communicate with you. I remember the tale of Colquen the hermit and the legend of the blood moon:'

He was an old man who had dwelt, many winters past, to the south of Kerkion, by the River Castril—the very river that flowed into the lands where you two were reared.

The folk loved Colquen despite his being a hermit, and attributed wondrous powers unto him.

Among the most remembered was his ability to heal incurable maladies and assist couples to conceive children.

It was said that his hut could only be found by those who had a true need. King Rolen of Kerkion, upon learning of his existence, sent men to search for him, intending to use his gifts for his own benefit—but they never found any trace of him, nor of his hut, nor even of his mere existence.

Some years later, during a lavish banquet that Rolen was hosting for the nobles and wealthy of the region, an event occurred that would in time become the stuff of legend.

A mountain bear had entered the palace’s main hall in the midst of the festivities.

The guests fell into great consternation; cries for succour and wailing filled the chamber, yet the guards stood spellbound.

The bear crossed the hall and halted, standing upon its hind legs before Rolen, claws outstretched.

It regarded him for a few minutes, then departed the castle without leaving a single footprint upon the ground, nor any scent the hounds could detect.

When the beast had gone, Retter, son of Rolen and future heir to Kerkion, drew near his father, who had grown pale as a wounded warrior with no blood left in his body.

With his own cold hands, Rolen took hold of his son’s and whispered in his ear: 'Colquen warns us—the blood moon is about to rise, and the firstborn sons of all the nobles will die at the hands of plague.

We must sacrifice the cattle and bathe the people in mead. '

At that moment Rolen fell senseless, and did not wake for two solstices, passing from sleep into eternity. When Retter recounted what his father had whispered, the nobles refused to believe him. They accused him of poisoning his father, and he ended in the dungeon on a charge of treason.

To the realm’s misfortune, some months later the sky turned crimson, and the moon cast brownish and reddish hues across the fields.

The folk remembered Retter’s words and went to the dungeon to seek his counsel—but he had already died; he was the first of the firstborn.

Within a week, all the others shared his fate, hideous sores weeping a yellowish slime.

The nobles spent vast sums of gold upon sorcerers and healers to find the culprit behind such a curse.

Months passed with no answers, until one of them crossed paths with a pupil of the hermit: 'The blood moon was your doing—Colquen warned you.

It was no curse, nor the wrath of the gods, that slew your offspring.

It was man himself who, through his own folly, unleashed something far greater than any of you could imagine. '