The Medievals 1 Read online

  THE MEDIEVALS

  Book One

  Frazier Brothers

  For our daughters.

  May you always seek adventure, guard hope, protect others, and do the hard work of finding the power that rests inside you.

  {Wendolyn}

  Trees rush toward her, branches reaching out, scratching her cheeks and snagging her hair. Don’t look over your shoulder, Wendolyn tells herself. Just keep running.

  The cold bright eye of day fights through the fog and the ghostly trees ahead, creating flashes of light that blind her eyes every few seconds, giving Wendolyn only glimpses of her snowy downsloping path. She narrowly avoids rocks and limbs, her toes springing her along.

  Somewhere in the distance, she hears a breathless voice shout, “I’ve lost her!”

  And a commanding response comes, “Do not let her reach Sanctuary Rock!”

  Do not stop, Wendolyn. You are nearly there.

  Then a wink of sunlight hits her eyes, blinding her. And when her vision clears, a fallen tree appears in front of her, blocking her path. Her mind and feet react as one, and she leaps over the dead tree, sailing over it easily. But when the goatskin of her shoes touches the ground again, her left foot catches a large rock mostly hidden by the snow, sending her face first into the frozen white earth. Her world spins -- snow, sky, snow, sky -- and all meaning of up or down is lost to her ungoverned momentum until Wendolyn rolls to a stop.

  They cannot be far behind. So she bounces back up, spitting out the icy snow that has just filled her mouth. She scans the forest quickly, not sure which way she came from and which way she was going. Wendolyn decides to take a moment to regain her sense of direction, and so she flattens herself against a thick alder tree, hiding from her pursuers.

  She sucks in a breath. Holds it.

  Listens.

  The cold wind gently tunnels around her left ear, keeping her from hearing much in that direction, where the forest trees climb the hill back toward the village. With her right ear, she can make out the gurgling of the stream, no more than a stone’s throw from her at the edge of the fog. And there’s a faint crackling noise. She thinks it must be the water spattering over the tiny islands of ice in the half-frozen stream, causing the ice to splinter.

  But those are the only sounds. No footfalls. No one calling her name. Not Galen. Not Landon. Not yet. But soon.

  Wendolyn lets go of the trapped breath, and it spirits out into the mountain air. Her body is still. Rooted to the earth along with the tree trunk at her back that shoots upward into the forest’s bare canopy, winter’s hand having plucked the leaves. Way up high in a nearby tree, Wendolyn can just make out a bird beneath the cloudy ceiling. Its plumage is black with the hint of a bluish-purple sheen, and it has a gray beak.

  It resembles a raven, although not completely: its features are severe, meant to frighten predators. From this angle, the feathers on its chest give the appearance of a necklace.

  The bird pivots its head like it is searching for something, although it doesn’t seem to see her. She cannot remember seeing such a bird before. Not here in the Cumbrian mountains.

  Eeeee-eeeee-eeeee!

  The mysterious bird chitters and then wings away, worrying the snow from its perch.

  Wendolyn looks back to the ground, where a patch of sunlight hits the earth just in front of her, leaving her in a shadow. If you must hide in the day, always know where the shadows live. One of her father’s lessons. One of many.

  Wendolyn’s father is the one who taught her how to hide. How to be thin in the trees. How to toe lightly through the deer path that cuts through the snowy ground, being sure to not leave her own footprints behind. How to become the forest, as her father says. It has always seemed of the most importance to him.

  When she was younger, she thought he was playing a game. Hide and seek between a father and his daughter. At the beginning of each moon phase, he would instruct her to go into the forest and hide, to not reveal herself until he called her name. The longest she stayed hidden kept her away through three meals. That was in her thirteenth year, two years ago, and she was proud of how clever she had been, hiding beneath a thatching of leaves and branches in a hole she had dug a few days before. But when her father found her -- and he always found her -- there was no praise for her small victory. No joy in her father’s face. Only a vague sense of disappointment. Not in her, so much as disappointment in himself. It was as if he wanted her to stay hidden forever; and anything short of that meant he had failed as her father.

  “We must better your skills,” her father says every time Wendolyn fails to remain concealed, or to climb a tree, or to shape a spear, or to hold her breath underwater. “I will not always be here to protect you.”

  “Protect me from what?” she asks, repeating the same question that she has asked her father since she understood what worry sounded like in his voice. From whom or what does Wendolyn, the daughter of a humble fisherman, need protection?

  But in the moments that follow this question, her father’s tongue takes root; and the only answer that ever comes is silence. Wendolyn has resigned herself to her father’s reluctant relationship with words: for everything he says, there is always far more that is left unsaid. And with this particular question -- From what is he protecting her? -- his visage becomes a stony mask as he tries to hide the secrets that fill his eyes and swim in his throat.

  It is a look that Wendolyn has privately come to call the Nameless Fear. An unspeakable beast that feeds in the dark of her father’s belly. It is the same look that comes when Wendolyn asks about the mother she has never known; or the deep scars on his legs and arms that one does not get from working the land or fishing the lakes; or the strange, glowing flower he hides in the cupboard under lock and key, watering it with droplets of his own blood in the aging hours of night when he thinks Wendolyn has gone to sleep.

  The Nameless Fear.

  An endless, lightless depth of which her father will not speak.

  ◆◆◆

  Crunch. Snap.

  Wendolyn regains focus as she hears a footstep in the frozen crust of snow, joined by the sound of a twig breaking somewhere in the fog. She presses her shoulders further into the knotty alder tree, thinking her pursuers are near.

  She is playing a game with the elder children from the village. Landon, Galen, Leeta and Etan. They call it Sanctuary. One person is chosen as the hunter, the rest are gryphons.

  This time, Galen is the hunter; and everyone else, the hunted. As a gryphon, Wendolyn must make it to Sanctuary Rock -- a boulder in the woods that they have marked with a red cross -- before she is discovered and caught by the hunter. If a gryphon is caught, they must join the hunter in his pursuit of the other gryphons. And if the hunter catches all the gryphons before they reach Sanctuary Rock, the hunter wins.

  Wendolyn thinks she is close, although she suspects that she is the last remaining gryphon, which means she must outrun four hunters. This is not unusual -- for Wendolyn to be the only surviving gryphon. Her father’s training gives her an advantage over the other children: she can move through these trees more quickly, and she knows how to hide her tracks. And most of the time, her legs are fast enough to beat the other children to Sanctuary Rock. Although she has found that Galen is particularly maddened when he loses to a girl.

  “I found her!”

  She whips her head around to find Galen ghosting out from the wall of fog, coming straight for her. As he runs, Galen is signalling Landon, Etan, and Leeta, who are descending the hill from the village, growing visible from behind a thin veil of trees.

  Suddenly, Wendolyn feels the blood rush into her legs and arms. The sound of her heart beating fills her ears. And like an arrow from the bow, she takes off, ru
nning from the hunters, rejoining the game.

  While she knows she’s faster, Wendolyn has started from a standing position, giving Galen the advantage. And he is gaining on her.

  “Trap her against the Edge of the World!” Galen shouts, ordering his fellow hunters.

  Wendolyn looks to her right, where, indeed, she sees the Edge of the World not ten feet away. It is a name the children have given to the area where the ground ends and gives way to a steep dropoff down into a valley of snow-covered trees.

  Wendolyn has sometimes secretly wondered what it might be like to fall from such a height. But today is not the day she wants to find out. And with Leeta ten feet off to her left, Wendolyn will shortly be pinned in with nowhere to go.

  Wendolyn pumps her legs as she takes a path that skirts the hillside, hoping that if she believes she can outrun Galen, she will. Think it, be it, her father says.

  Then, just as Galen reaches out his hand and nearly touches the fur of Wendolyn’s coat, he trips over a branch and hits the frozen earth with a hard thump.

  “Get her!” Galen cries to the others. “Do not let her reach the rock!”

  Up ahead, she can just make out the red cross on the rock. She’s close! But then Landon appears in her periphery, kicking up snow as he aims his body in her direction. This will be close.

  Almost there. Keep running. Don’t look behind you.

  “Sanctuary!” Wendolyn shouts as her hands press into the boulder, all of her speed and energy returned to her by the cold rock. As she catches her breath, she looks to Galen, hands on his knees in defeat, snow and mud in his hair.

  “I had you if it were not for that branch. It was luck. Nothing more.”

  “Then she’s been lucky the last three times we have played, because that is how many times she has outrun you,” says Leeta.

  Wendolyn appreciates Leeta’s defense of her, but knows that this will only anger Galen more. And since he is the leading voice among the village children, Wendolyn does not want to lose too much favor with him. Wendolyn’s father moved them to Cumbria only a few years ago, and there are moments with the village children when she feels she is still looking in from the outside; as if Wendolyn has not been fully accepted by them yet.

  “Let’s play again,” says the eager Landon. “Only this time, I want to be a gryphon.”

  Galen shakes his head. “It’s a stupid game. We are done.”

  “But I did not get to--”

  “Shhh! Look!” Etan cuts Landon off before he can finish. They all look to Etan, who nods off in the direction of the burbling stream.

  It is a doe, sipping from the icy water that runs right through the muddy, slushy westerly path that King Henry’s men ride when passing through the hinterlands on their way to the Mori Gates of the Northern Barrier, a long boundary wall of black rock that divides the Realm from the Beyond. It is also the path that thieves are known to take as they slip over the high rocky wall and into the Eternal Forest, where they trade away their stolen goods to the Beyonders.

  Perhaps because of the fog, the doe is unaware that the children are nearby, and Wendolyn marvels at the fallow deer.

  Her beautiful chestnut flanks. Her pointed ears. Her wet nose.

  All of her is captured in a shaft of light, giving her the look of a noble creature. And on her haunch, there is a cluster of white spots in her coat that looks like a constellation of stars. There are seven spots in all, reminding Wendolyn of the Northern Basket, a constellation that she and her father often find in the night sky as they stargaze together, her father teaching her how to navigate by the position of the celestial bodies.

  Galen holds a finger to his lips, indicating that they should all remain silent. Then, from his coat, Galen pulls out a rope snare.

  “What are you doing?” Wendolyn asks, worry finding her voice.

  “What does it look like? That deer is food.” Galen responds as he begins twirling the rope and ball weights in the air, building speed.

  “Do not kill it!” Wendolyn pleads.

  Galen laughs. “Give me a reason why not.”

  “Because it is harmless. It has done nothing to us.”

  Galen shrugs, unconvinced, and sets his aim on the deer.

  “Run!” Wendolyn lets out a shout that seems to come from her gut and her heart all at once, alerting the doe, which looks up and bolts.

  Galen’s aim and his speed prove true as he lets the rope snare fly. It whirls through the air, and then the snare catches the deer’s two hind legs, sending it nose-diving into the snow.

  Wendolyn races to the downed animal. The creature lays there, frightened. Breathing heavily. Warm air steaming from its nostrils, heated by its insides.

  The deer’s right hind leg is injured from the snare’s weights.

  “It is okay,” Wendolyn assures the deer. “You are going to be okay.”

  But when Wendolyn helps the deer to her feet, the deer manages to hobble only a few paces before collapsing to the snow again, now lying prostrate just outside the patch of sunlight.

  The other children run up behind Wendolyn and the doe, and Wendolyn scowls at Galen. “You’ve broken her leg! She’ll die out here now.”

  Galen reaches into his pocket, saying, “Then there is only one thing to do.”

  Wendolyn watches in horror as Galen reveals a sheathed hunting knife. “Galen, do not do this,” Wendolyn pleads. A tear warms her frozen cheek.

  “You said it yourself. She is going to die out here anyway.”

  As Galen simpers, Wendolyn realizes that he is going to kill the deer more for the pleasure of watching Wendolyn’s heart twist than for the meat of the animal; revenge for Wendolyn beating him to Sanctuary Rock.

  “Nooo!” Wendolyn cries as Galen unsheathes the knife.

  She leaps for Galen, trying to stop him. She gets her arms around his waist, driving him to the snow and ice, the knife loosed to the ground. Galen and Wendolyn wrestle on the cold floor of the forest, Wendolyn surprised that she tackled him at all. While her father has taught her the elements of fighting -- where an opponent is most vulnerable to a punch, or how to block -- she has never had to use her father’s lessons against a friend. But now, she is hearing Galen’s grunts and groans, feeling the heat of his breath, as their fists and elbows collide with each other.

  The other children stand around and can only watch as Wendolyn tries to pound away at Galen’s sooty heart, her knuckles aching with ice. Wendolyn can sense their shock at her sudden attack. Part of her wishes one of them would stop this, but nobody moves.

  And then Galen’s clenched fist thrusts into Wendolyn’s neck, stealing her breath for a moment, and allowing Galen to push her aside.

  Wendolyn can only watch as Galen reaches back with the knife in the air above his head, then drives it downward.

  For Wendolyn, time slows as she locks eyes with the helpless doe, which sees its imminent death in the reflection of the blade. The empathy Wendolyn has for the deer suddenly turns to anger. Hot, white, roiling anger that pools right behind her eyes, creating inky spots in her vision. And just before Galen drives the edge of the knife into the deer’s chest, a harsh snapping sound -- like lightning striking a tree branch -- bursts into Wendolyn’s ears and her world goes black.

  ◆◆◆

  Slowly, sound returns.

  But the blindness remains.

  In the darkness, Wendolyn hears a voice. “I saw her do it. She made it happen!” Is that Etan’s voice?

  Then someone else: “It could have been the wind.” Leeta.

  Then Etan: “That was not the wind. You saw her eyes. They were glowing. And the deer, it just ran off.”

  Then Leeta again: “Is she… Is she still alive?”

  Then Landon: “There! She is moving!”

  Wendolyn blinks her eyes open. The world is brighter than she remembers, the light hurting her eyes.

  Blurry shapes take form.

  The snow-filled clouds in the sky. The trees. The face of Galen.
>
  He is pale. Looking down at her.

  Landon picks up something off the ground, shows it to the others. It is Galen’s knife. But the blade is completely bent. How does one bend steel like that?

  She looks to the ground beside her. The deer is gone.

  “What happened?” asks Wendolyn, her eyebrows knitted with confusion.

  The children turn from the broken knife to Wendolyn. She sees the fear in their eyes. And she is just as afraid as they are, but she does not know why.

  “Come on! Let’s get out of here!” Etan implores the others.

  Landon and Leeta nod their heads in agreement and begin to back away from her.

  “No! Wait! I don’t know what happened!” Wendolyn stands as Leeta and Etan run off, with Landon pulling Galen, who is still in shock. She tries to give chase, but a sharp pain shoots into Wendolyn’s head as she stands, stopping her from going after them; from finding out what has driven fear into their hearts and legs.

  “Just tell me what happened!” Wendolyn cries after them. But they are gone.

  Eeeee-eeeee-eeeee!

  Wendolyn turns to see the mysterious bird from earlier has returned, perched now on a low-hanging branch. It seems to be watching Wendolyn, examining her.

  She wonders how long the bird has been on that branch. Did it see what happened when Wendolyn’s world went dark for what seemed like hours, but truly could not have been more than a minute?

  The feathered creature is close enough now that Wendolyn can see that the coloring around its neck that looked like a necklace is, indeed, a small stone or wooden medallion hanging from a collar.

  But before Wendolyn can get a closer look -- Eeeee-eeeee-eeeee! -- the night-black bird flies off again, leaving Wendolyn all alone among the whispering trees.

  Alone with her thoughts.

  What did Galen and the other children see?

  They were so frightened. So scared of her. Scared of something Wendolyn did. But what did she do?