Stonefather

In the morning he had nothing to eat, and he could hear few birds through the din of the rapids just over the edge of the cliff. But he had slept well and arose invigorated, and today he did not even think of turning back. Instead he went to the right, mostly southward, skirting the edge of the cliff. The water tumbled farther and farther below, so that even though the ground he walked on sloped downward, it was ever higher above the water.

He came to a wall, which he recognized as a continuation of the ruined wall he had passed through yesterday. Only this wall was not in ruins, and he could hear conversation; it was manned, and though the guards were careless enough to let their chatter be heard, the fact that anyone was keeping vigil meant that there must be something ahead of him that needed guarding.

There was no door or break in the wall here, so there was no point in hailing the guards. Instead, Runnel walked along the woods well back from the wall, looking for a gate.

It was a huge thing, when he reached it, and it was held shut by huge bars. It baffled him: The bars were on his side of the gate. He was inside whatever it was protecting. In the middle of the gate was a small door, which a man would have to stoop to get through. But it had the great virtue of being open.

Runnel headed for it. Almost at once he was seized by the shoulder and roughly tripped.

“Where do you think you’re going, fool?” said a soft voice.

Runnel rolled over and saw a man standing over him, holding a javelin. Not a soldier, though, for the javelin was his only weapon, and he wore only simple cloth. A hunter? “Through the gate,” said Runnel. Where else would he be going?

“And have your throat slit and all your blood drained into the river?” asked the hunter.

Runnel was baffled. “Who would do such a thing to a mere traveler?”

“No one,” said the hunter. “It would be done to a fool of a boy who wandered through the sacred forest, thus declaring himself to be a sacrifice, and a right worthy one, in the eyes of them as still think that water needs blood from time to time.”

“How would J know it was sacred?” asked Runnel.

“Didn’t you feel the bones of the dead among the trees? The soldiers who fell here to the bronze swords of Veryllydd still whisper to me—I don’t forget the blood that made this place holy. But the beasts I hunt for the sacrifice are like you — they don’t know it’s a sacred wood. They’re going about their business when I snare them or pierce them.”

“Are you going to kill me, then?”

“I was asked for two hares, and so I’ll find hares and bring them. If they asked for a stupid peasant boy from the mountains, then I’d truss you up and drag you in.”

“All I want is—”

“All you want is to be another useless adventurous lad from the mountains who’ll make himself a nuisance to everyone in the city until you give up and go back home where you belong. There’s nothing for you here.”

“Then I am home,” said Runnel defiantly, “for home has always been a place with nothing for me.”

The hunter smiled a little. “A sharp wit. With that mouth, and that proud look on your face, you’ll probably get beaten to death before you starve.”

Proud look? How could he look proud, lying on his back in the dirt and old leaves? “Either way,” said Runnel, “I’d like to spend some of the brief time I have left inside the city of Mitherhome, but all I find is broken walls and broken bridges and rivers I can’t cross.”

The man sighed. “Here’s what you do if you’re determined to suffer more before you go home. There’s another gate farther along. Don’t go near it. Nor should you go near the four houses that are just inside the gate. Skirt wide around them and go on in sight of the wall till you come to a place where the wall is broken down. Go through the gap, then head straight south till you come to the Uhetter Road. Try to act like you just left the road to take a piss and you’ve been traveling on it all day, instead of traipsing through the holy wood.”

“Will the road take me into Mitherhome?” asked Runnel.

“The road will just sit there,” said the hunter. “Your legs will take you to Hetterferry, and from there maybe you will and maybe you won’t figure out a way to get onto the ferryboat and into Low Mitherhome without your miserable country bumpkin rags getting too wet.”

Runnel was curious. “Why are you helping me?”

“I’m not helping you. I’m getting rid of you.”

“But I’ve stepped in the sacred wood.”

“I live in it. If the spirits of the sacred dead minded your passage, they would have tripped you with their bones or terrified you with their whispers, and they chose not to. Who am I to complain of you?”

“So you serve Yeggut, the water god, and yet you allow me to live?”