The Winds of Crowns and Wolves (16 page)

A stump outside of the house was the resting
place for Neach’s hind, as he sat beneath the shade of a large fir.
Its overhang provided relief from the beating sun that he had
ridden into the village behind.

Neach watched as the populous of Jorwel
meandered about their homes. Their faces were laden with soot, and
their eyes grew wide as they struggled to continue moving. It was
evident that their physically demanding lifestyle took its toll
upon each member of the community.

Men carried logs on their shoulders and
women carried buckets of sap. The pragmatic application of the
trees’ every organ was essential to the flourishing of the town.
What struck Neach the most about the town was its size compared to
Spleuchan Sonse. Whereas Spleuchan Sonse was made of a small
collection of huts, the town of Jorwel seemed to be littered with
homes as far as the eye could see. Its proximity to fertile land in
the east, the river on the west, and the forest to its south,
provided it with a trident of applicable resources.

It appeared they lived simple lives,
although demanding, and Neach couldn’t help but find solace in the
late afternoon heat. He slumped further down the stump until his
hind side hit solid ground. Sweat had begun to form above his brow
and he wiped it with the tattered right portion of his sleeve.

He managed to make it for nearly half an
hour before he contemplated the ramifications of his earlier
encounter with Tyrin.

The harsh tone in his voice, coupled with
his aggressively physical nature concerned Neach. He hadn’t laid
hands on anyone in a malicious manner since he was at home with his
brother. Now, his new “brother” felt that he had the liberty to
throw him about as if he were a sack of vegetables.

He wondered what he should do.

The sun beat down without reprise, singing
his skin beneath its ethereal luminescence. Soon he would need to
return inside, but for now he would bask in the heat of the day and
hope that Tyrin would come to find him.

Surely enough, moments later, Tyrin exited
the house and headed in the direction of Neach.

“Come with me,” Tyrin ordered.

Neach was taken aback by the command, but he
obliged and stood at once.

Tyrin continued without a cease in his steps
toward the back of his home. It sat along a river and there were
blocks of wood that were rested with axe blades driven deep into
their wooded flesh.

“You are to split these blocks and then come
find me,” Tyrin barked once again.

Neach nodded without speaking a word, afraid
to say the wrong thing and further drive a wedge between himself
and his brother.

He had never split wood before, but he had
seen his father do it. Asgall would spend the early hours of the
day splitting logs for firewood and house repairs.

The young man from Spleuchan Sonse hearkened
back upon his village upbringing as he brought the heavy axe down
into the thick haunch of forestery.

Each repetitive thud aligned itself in
congruence with his heartbeat. His pulsating veins came in time
with the blows and a sweet harmony of physical exacerbation was
played. The task was continued for a few minutes and eventually all
of the wood was split into two pieces, useful for efficient
application of the raw material in the home.

As he placed the final log onto the stump,
Tyrin came around the corner of the home to check on Neach’s
progress.

“When you’re done, come see me inside,
okay?” Tyrin asked timidly. His demeanor had obviously changed from
their initial meeting as his angry disposition was replaced by one
of tranquility.

Neach obliged, yet again, and tossed the axe
as he headed toward the back entrance of the hut.

When he entered, he smelled the scent of
cooking meat. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tyrin smoking
what appeared to be pig flesh. This was a grand gesture to make as
meat was a difficult commodity to come by lately.

“Sit,” commanded Tyrin.

From the other side of the room, he brought
a plate full of food for himself and Neach to enjoy in its
totality.

“Listen, Neach, I’m sorry for the way I
acted earlier,” Tyrin said.

“It’s just, times have gotten tough; we’re
all on edge; I live day to day hoping to survive,” Tyrin
continued.

“And now, we’re entrusted with stripping
Henrig of all his power, and ensuring that he never step foot on
this land again, by death or by exile,” Tyrin concluded in a grim
manner.

Neach nodded for a few moments cautiously
before asking a question.

“So, what is it we’re meant to do exactly?”
Neach asked.

Tyrin chuckled. “Isn’t that a good question?
From my understanding, you are meant to infiltrate the castle and
we will go from there.” The smile dissipated from his face in
seconds. His once resounding smile was replaced by a decreasing
grin.

Of course, Neach was already aware of this
despondent task. Fenris had informed him following his training on
Rosalia that he was to head to Leirwold to infiltrate the King’s
residence.

Suddenly, Neach changed the tone of the
conversation.

“I heard there’s a forest around here,” he
said softly.

Tyrin’s smile returned as he chewed on a
large piece of pork.

“Indeed there is,” his teeth showing, “just
south of town,” he finished with a wry grin.

“Maybe we could go there after the meal?”
Neach offered.

It was as if all the muscles in Tyrin’s body
relaxed, as his smile continued to maintain residence on his
face.

“That would be perfect; the forest is my
favorite place to escape to,” Tyrin stated, in what sounded like an
octave higher of a voice.

As Neach placed the last piece of meat into
his mouth, he rose from the table and followed Tyrin out the back
door.

The sun was beginning to set, and it sat
just above the mountains that lie due west of the town. Tyrin’s
shadow fell long at his side as he strode south toward the forest.
From afar, the tall tree line seemed fairly miniscule along the
horizon, and their thick green leaves blew in the stiff wind.

On foot, it took only a few minutes to reach
the entrance of the wooded area. From the outside, it seemed to
lack impressive features, simply a collection of large plants in a
land that was fertile with wildlife. Upon entering into its
clutches, Neach quickly found out that he was mistaken.

The ground was lined with glowing flowers
that seemed to be something out of a work of fiction. Their
luminescent bodies cast a blue light on the path that was carved
between two trees. Though the forest was in possession of a thick
canopy like that of the woods on Rosalia, its interior shone bright
with the effervescence of hundreds of thousands of glowing
plants.

Tyrin stroked the trunk of a tree as he
stopped in his tracks, gazing off into the distance.

“They call this the Forest of Light, Neach.
It’s where I come in times of trouble,” Tyrin said softly.

His voice and demeanor had become much
calmer after the initial falling out upon Neach’s arrival, and
Neach was glad to be interacting with his ‘brother’ in a benevolent
manner.

As he spun around, deep inside the magical
depths of the forest, Neach felt invigorated. It was as if all the
energy of the sun had been dispersed as happiness into his bones,
and it now emanated in his upbeat movement.

Looking around the forest was almost like
peering up at the night sky on a clear evening. Each individual
plant acted as a star in an ever expanding nebula of flora.

Tyrin began to walk slowly again and
beckoned for Neach to follow behind him. Through vines and over
rotted tree carcasses, the men travelled further southward toward
the heart of the forest. Moss grew upon every trunk, and it glowed
green with the blue-white light that was given off by the various
fungi and plants.

Before long they reached a dark lagoon
nestled deep in the catacomb-like pathways of the forest. Its water
was a deep blue, almost violet, and it was completely still. On the
banks of the pool, Tyrin sat and gazed out across the water.

“Welcome to my happy place, Neach,” Tyrin
said.

The violet water reflected the glowing
plants, as well as something that Neach had never seen before.
Floating just above the water, small, glowing, insect-like
creatures were buzzing about. Everything that was occurring around
him led him to believe that he had entered a dream. There was no
way that any of this could be possible. They weren’t far from his
home village, and it appeared to be a completely different
world.

As Neach sat, contemplating the curious
nature of the creatures inside of the forest, Tyrin whistled five
notes softly.

With each note, a collection of the glowing
insects caromed toward the muscular man. He lent a hand to the air,
and these creatures landed atop it.

Neach rose to his feet, startled, and asked
what these animals were.

“They’re not animals, they are fairies,”
Tyrin said mysteriously.

Neach couldn’t believe what was he was
hearing. For his entire childhood, his parents had told him stories
of fairies that spent their time in the forests of Duncairn and
maintained the balance between humanity and nature. As he saw them
before his own eyes, he understood their influence over the people
of the Kingdom. Watching such a stoic young man be brought to his
utmost serenity showed how powerful the fairies were.

“Before people, these fairies ruled the
wood. They lived in harmony with the forest, and the forest existed
happily. Now, we harvest timber from this very land and, in return,
make sacrifices to these small creatures in the hopes that they
will maintain this ethereal piece of woods for as long as
possible,” Tyrin concluded.

Neach had to catch his breath before
replying to the outlandish comments that Tyrin had just made. Alas,
a part of him felt at peace, and he believed every word of it.

“They’re beautiful, are there many of them?”
Neach inquired.

Tyrin chuckled softly before responding to
Neach’s question.

“You must not get out of your village much,
Neach; they are the rulers of the wooded realm. They call the
Forest of Light their home primarily, but they exist elsewhere. As
far as we know, they do not possess a written or spoken language,
but they exist in harmony with each other and the world around
them. Perhaps we should take heed from their behavior,” Tyrin said
with a tired look upon his face. The wrinkles beneath his eyes
showed the pain that he had suffered recently. Neach could only
assume it was a death, or perhaps he was distraught about the
conflict that loomed on the horizon in Leirwold.

“Neach, this forest shows the good that can
exist in the world. A coalescence of multiple creatures that are
capable of living together in peace. Unfortunately, in our world,
danger sits closely over the crest of the western hills. We must
ride in the morning, to Leirwold. The sooner we assess the
situation, the sooner we can do something pragmatic about our
militant King,” Tyrin stated ominously.

Neach paused for a few moments before
bringing up a different topic.

“These fairies remind me of an animal I saw
one time while I was in Spleuchan Sonse,” Neach paused again,
scratching at his arm as he recounted the event that had occurred
what seemed like an eternity beforehand. He and his brother had
headed out into the night and gotten lost in the darkness. Out of
the darkness came a wolf with purple eyes that ultimately guided
him and his brother homeward.

Tyrin let out a hearty laugh before
commenting on the tale that Neach had just described.

“Purple, you say? I didn’t realize you’ve
known Fenris for that long.”

Neach’s eyes grew wide at the mention of his
elderly instructor.

“That was Fenris? How could that be? It was
a wolf!” he shouted.

Tyrin grabbed a flat rock from the ground
and skimmed it across the still surface of the lagoon. It skipped
and hit the opposite side of the water with a thud.

“It was indeed the man himself. When the
Gods see fit, they bestow upon us the ability to transfigure into
our natural ancestors. His purple eyes symbolize his royal blood.
Before he was initiated as a member of the House, Fenris was a
Prince in his own right. He lived across the sea in a distant
Kingdom where his father ruled the land,” Tyrin said calmly. He
continued to skim rocks across the surface of the water as if he
were biding his time, before the inevitable descent into the depths
of hell that waited in Leirwold.

“But I have overreached my boundaries,
Neach. To learn more about the man, you must ask the man himself,”
he concluded as he reached for another flat rock, finding the
ground barren except for the glowing flowers.

“How proficient are you in our native
tongue?” Tyrin inquired. A core facet of Neach’s training in the
past weeks had been grasping and comprehending the language of the
House Goedwig, which appeared to be an archaic form of all the
languages of the world, combined into one cohesive form.

Neach rubbed his hands together before he
answered. The sun had since set, and the temperature inside the
woods was now dropping quickly. He may have imagined it, but Neach
thought he saw his breath in front of his eyes, if only for a
minute.

He shivered as he answered.

“Not very, but I have learned some choice
phrases,” Neach proclaimed.

Before Tyrin could respond, a stick behind
the two men cracked and Tyrin jumped to his feet with his sword
drawn.

A thick fog had encompassed the ground and
it was now much more eerie than previously.

“Who’s there?” yelled a defiant Tyrin.

Neach was unsure of what was occurring, he
only knew that Tyrin was better trained to handle aggressive
behavior than he.