Chapter 21

Fowler walked toward Ledun, his legs weary and his stomach growling. Six days had passed since he’d left Yowil. They’d sent him off with supplies, but he’d eaten the last of them the day before yesterday. He’d foraged for some food, but the only thing he could find were a couple of berries and some nuts. Not exactly his favorites. With all the walking he’s done in the past couple of months, he figured he’d be used to the exercise by now. Instead, his body just seemed to groan and mumble at him constantly.

I should’ve spent more time training, he grumbled to himself.

He shifted his pack and walked down the suspension bridge, trying to pick up some speed. He was looking forward to a nice, soft bed, excellent food, and sleep. Blessed sleep. That was one thing that’s been in short supply since he snuck off after Asher. He loved his sleep.

He started humming an old Terra song to pass the time. Every few seconds he would reach into his pocket and touch the Roc feathers there, as if to reassure himself that they were still close. For whatever reason, he always felt a little better whenever his fingers grazed against them.

“Stay where you are!” a voice shouted.

Fowler nearly jumped out of his skin, even making a slightly girly, high-pitched scream. He slapped his hand over his mouth as his heart rammed against his rib cage.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, his voice shrill.

A second later, three armed Terra guards melted out of the trees. Each one’s skin was painted in such a way that they literally became invisible in the thick foliage of the monoak trees.

They pointed their long spears at Fowler, their eyes shrewd and completely distrustful.

“What is your purpose in coming here?” a tall, lean Terra warrior asked. He had dark, reddish hair with bright green eyes. His mouth was a hard, grim line as he glared at Fowler.

“My purpose?” Fowler asked, getting angry. He hated being scared, and when he got scared he tended to lash out at the thing that had frightened him. “I’m here to give your sorry, pathetic tribe-city a warning.” He paused for a second and then added, “Bonehead.”

The big man bristled at Fowler’s words, the end of his spear quivering slightly. He looked like he’d like nothing better than to ram it into Fowler’s guts, even though he was just a kid.

“You better watch your mouth, runt,” he said, stepping closer so that he could tower over the boy. “If you insult me like that again, I’ll make sure to rip your tongue out of your head.”

“Do whatever you want,” Fowler responded. He narrowed his own eyes. “But you won’t get the message I’ve brought and that, my friend, can end very badly for you and the rest of Ledun.”

The warrior looked at him for several seconds, a frown still on his face. Fowler stared back while managing to look bored. Then a smile broke out on the man’s face. He laughed heartily and slapped Fowler on the back.

“You got some guts, kid,” he laughed. “What’s your name and where do you hail from?”’

“Fowler. Of Vitari.”

“I’m Garreth and these two useless sacks are Dozan and Polluck.” He pointed to each of the other men in turn.

Dozan was a squat, burly figure with a very disgusting pelt of wiry black hair covering almost his entire body. A thick, shaggy beard went down to the middle of his chest. Thick, gnarly hands gripped a spear in one hand and a sling in the other. Polluck was younger than the other two, maybe only four or five years into his manhood. He held his spear with the butt on the suspension bridge and the point in the air, gripped with a slim, delicate hand that looked nearly feminine.

They both gave him a nod.

“’ello,” Dozan grunted.

“Welcome to Ledun,” Polluck said.

“All right, all right. That’s enough of that,” Garreth yelled. “I’ll escort the boy into the city, you two, stay here and man your posts. When I come back, I better not find ya both snoozin' on the job!”

“Yes, sir!” both men yelled with broad grins. Then they turned and jumped onto the long, thick branches of the monoak trees on either side of the bridge. Within seconds, Fowler couldn’t even see them, although he tried really hard to keep track of their progress.

Garreth put an arm around Fowler’s shoulders and urged him along. Fowler found the entire situation extremely weird. He didn’t normally make friends with people by insulting them. In fact, that was the one thing that always got him in trouble. He still remembered almost being thrown in jail at Undari for letting his mouth run rampant. It was hard for him to control it but he made a promise to himself to at least try. The Rook threat was too big for him to waste time sitting in a jail cell because he let his temper get the best of him.

“So, what is bringing ya all the way north to see us,” Garreth asked.

“It’s better to wait until the Tribunal sees me,” he responded.

“That bad, eh?”

Fowler only nodded.

The rest of the trip, Fowler kept mostly silent. Garreth, however, couldn’t seem to stop talking.

“Ledun is beautiful, my boy,” he said at one point. “Not as big as Vitari, mind ya, but still beautiful. If you get to the right position, you can see the Polaris Mountains looming in the distance. Now that’s a beautiful work of nature to be sure.”

Fowler shuddered involuntarily at the horrible memories he had from his trip into them. The bitter cold. The long treks up the dangerous mountain slopes. The snow. The ice. Everything.

“What’s the matter, eh?” Garreth asked, noticing the sudden paleness to his cheeks.

“I don’t like the Polaris Mountains,” he said flatly.

“What’s not to like? They’re majestic, beautiful, and solitary. Sometimes I think about packing up m’things and heading into them. Just live there by myself and let the rest of the world sort itself out.”

“Trust me when I say, they’re not as pleasant as they look.”

Garreth was about to return the comment, but a faint sound caught his attention. He stopped Fowler with one arm and motioned with a finger to his lips for him to be quiet.

Fowler nodded.

Garreth left him in the center of the wide bridge and peered over the side. The bridge itself was high up in the branches of the trees and with the leaves blocking his view Garreth couldn’t really get a good look at the ground.

“Stay here and don’t move or make a sound,” he instructed. Then his form blurred and a great, grey owl took his place. It stayed perched on the rope for a minute and then leaped off, its wings stretched wide.

Fowler watched it dive through the branches. Owls had spectacular vision, especially in the perpetual low-light of the Qarri Forest. He was pretty confident that whatever had bugged Garreth he would find its source quickly and come back.

Several minutes went past and still no Garreth. Fowler was getting incredibly anxious.

What is going on? he asked himself.

The more time passed, the more he was sure that something had gone wrong. He tried peering through the trees but he couldn’t really see much of anything except branches, a couple of animals, and tons of green leaves. He couldn’t even see the ground. He didn’t want to wait on the bridge forever but at the same time he didn’t want to leave Garreth behind. He actually sort of liked the warrior.

“Where are you?” he whispered to himself.

As soon as the words left his mouth, a flurry of grey and white feathers burst through some branches and almost collided with his face. He yelped and stumbled back, falling and landing painfully on his butt. He scrambled back a bit and watched the owl fall heavily onto the bridge too. It rolled a little and then came to a stop. Fowler could see faint tendrils of grey-white smoke coming off its body. He crept closer to it.

“Garreth?” he asked, his voice warbling.

He got to the owl and slowly took in the extent of what he was seeing. Its wings seemed almost stripped of feathers. Its body had two or three holes going right through it. There was a nasty gash on the side of its neck and one of its big eyeballs was gone, a bloody hole was the only thing that remained.

Fowler tried to be as gentle as he could, but no matter what he did, the owl would screech in pain again.

Its form shimmered and then Garreth was lying there, just as heavily wounded as the bird. His missing eyeball, however, looked even more gruesome in his human form than the bird one.

“What happened?” Fowler cried.

“Shhh…” Garreth answered instead. “B-be…qu-quiet.”

The warrior started shivering slightly as all the different injuries to his body yammered for his attention.

“Ro-rooks…,” he gulped noisily. “In the…the…forest.”

“How many, Garreth?” Fowler asked. He could feel the blood rushing around in his head. He could hear it loudly in his ears.

“Too...,” he paused, gulped again, and then continued. “Too many.”

He closed his eyes and his body quit breathing.

Fowler tried to do everything and anything he could think of to save him, but there was nothing he could do.

Panic drove itself into his mind.

He wasn’t a healer. He wasn’t a Caller. He wasn’t even a man! He was just a kid. He shouldn’t have been put in a situation like this. He shouldn’t have been there. He should be with his father, safely in Vitari. That’s where he wanted to be now. He didn’t want to be Rook target practice.

He tried thinking of home, hoping it might help calm him down. He envisioned the smell of burning iron coming out of his father’s forge. He could almost hear the grunts, pings, and dings from his father as he worked to churn out more and more weapons. He could feel the inviting softness of his bed. He saw the soft, white glow of the cadari in his room. He could almost trace every pattern of wood grain on his walls. It was all there in his mind and for the first time since he’d followed Asher, he thought he might not ever see it again.

He put his hands to his head and cried as the overwhelming emotions he was bottling up since Rone had first given him his mission exploded out of him.

“I’m sorry,” Fowler howled, talking to no one in particular. “I just can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to die.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Roc feathers. A shaft of random sunlight hit them and they seemed to light up with brilliant blue and purple light.

It’s these things! his mind shouted at him. Get rid of them and go home. Let everyone fend for themselves.

It was tempting. It was extremely tempting. By throwing them over the side of the bridge he could rid himself of such a huge responsibility. He’d been a fool to even undertake it from the start, but he could fix that now. He could correct his mistake.

He got to his feet, somewhat shakily. He didn’t look down at Garreth’s dead body. He carefully made sure that he wouldn’t even see it in his peripheral vision.

Slowly, he made his way to the side of the bridge. He clung to the rope railing with one hand and leaned slightly over. Then he held out his right hand, the feathers poking out of it, and was about to release them.

It was time he quit fooling himself.

It was time to give up.