CHAPTER 2.12 – LEAVING THORNWOOD: RIAN I
Rian pushes through the forest, deep in his own thoughts. For once, his companions are almost silent, although never completely. The peace is regularly broken by low cursing, and occasionally by heartfelt sighs. He’s spent his life in silence, in an environment where noise risks ambush by something hungry. The group has been uncharacteristically quiet since leaving Thornwood. It’s ironic that this should register to him as a concern.
Anuk, the source of the cursing, is simplest to explain. It seems she’s decided the forest is purposely impeding her. Classically for the girl, she’s decided to treat that as a personal affront.
Thae, normally positive and calm, is somehow the source of the sighs. The acolyte seems distant, locked in thought. It’s hard for Rian not to feel responsible, but that’s still a riddle to him. He’d like to think the whole business with the breastplate can’t be the cause, but the half-elf was SO ill at ease. He’d been so intent on making amends to Orrin that when it occurred to him he might somehow have offended his friend, Rian had been too shocked to respond. He had committed fully to giving the cleric what should have been a nice gift. He still can’t understand how that could have backfired.
He can’t untangle that alone; it’s certainly not his strong suit. And once more he feels shame that Anuk, of all people, had to explain to him why he shouldn’t have been speaking Dwarvish in the smithy. To unlock what’s going on with Thae, he’d naturally consult Hugo. Except that the halfling’s the most withdrawn of them. That’s never happened before. The wee man’s obviously troubled. Any time Rian’s glanced back, Hugo’s looked grim, like he’s chewing something bitter. His own head’s pounding, a headache he’s seemingly been fighting for days. He feels responsible for everyone’s downcast mood.
It’s like a maze. He’s lived by simple rules his whole life, it seems. Simple but rigid. Out in the woods, even once the stockade was finished, he had the unyielding option to stick to the rules or to die of their consequences. Be quiet or be noticed. Be tidy or be found. Work hard or starve. Only himself to fend for, only himself to rely on. And now, every day, he’s surrounded by people, tied up in dependencies running in so many directions it makes him spin.
Lessons his life couldn’t have taught him are suddenly biting down on him. Reactions that, it seems, are supposed to occur to him naturally. Him, having barely ever had friends. He’s not used to having to check in with someone else, to have to explain his actions. Or his thoughts. Recently he’s been immersed in things he never could’ve anticipated. He’s had to adapt to situations that could never previously have occurred in his life. And he knows his lack of aptitude’s ruffling feathers.
Maybe, somehow, Hugo’s distance is Rian’s fault. Although how could that make sense? The halfling told Skinner he was dead. And while he was struggling to process how he might feel about that revelation, he’d learned that the weird ploy had spun out further and hurt Pollyanna. He’s certain his reaction wasn’t happy. Because he hadn’t been happy. How was he supposed to react when something so unimaginable was dropped on top of him from a clear blue sky?
It only occurred to him this morning that he could have told the Caladrians that he wasn’t angry with them. Skinner meant nothing to him, and it was only in the merchant’s imagination that there was any bond between Rian and his daughter. But it felt horrible to cause the girl grief, particularly when Hugo’s telling of the story had been so focused on how bereft she’d been.
And yet, somehow, he might be the villain of the piece?
It was crazy-making.
Suddenly, he’s alert, senses spiralling away from this empty well of half-understood possibilities and hidden rules. Towards things he fully comprehends. He raises his hand, hisses a warning as he becomes certain there’s something heavy crashing through the forest, right at the edge of his senses. He looks back at the rest, reading surprise in their hooded looks. And not one of them will meet his eyes. Simple rules though: quiet or dead.
He holds still, straining to hear the next instance of the sound that alerted him. Points into the air when it comes, then ducks and picks a path at a tangent, aiming to close on the source. He can hear the others fall into their places, stomach twisting a little that Thae seems to be trailing behind further than usual for their rearguard. His brain tries to identify some unnoticed insult. He still carries the acolyte’s beautiful warhammer but had been sure this was with consent. It’s a heavy piece of gear. Besides, the half-elf wields Bertak’s foil like a graceful assassin.
He banishes the speculation, focuses on trailbreaking the quietest route possible to the source of the crashing. As they approach, he’s isolating the sounds. Three large bodies, unconcerned with stealth. On two legs rather than four, the smallest human-scale or thereabouts. The lighter one’s clumsier than the larger masses, too. He holds up three fingers, then gestures for slow, careful progress. If they’re humanoids, the group might not need to worry about being sniffed out, but still, he keeps their approach downwind of the unknown group.
By the time they’ve caught sight of the ogres there’s no new information for Rian, no surprises. He’s already primed the others to be on guard but not to invoke violence unless attacked, judging this to be a family group. Sure enough, the youngster’s about heights with Thae, walking close to its mother. She’s something to behold, a heavily-muscled 9’ in height, bulk doing nothing to indicate femininity. Indeed, the only indication the bald, brutish thing might be female is the addition of a band of rank animal fur tied around her chest to the rough loincloths they’re all wearing. The father of the family is a foot taller again, their bulk explaining their absolute lack of concern for being tracked.
Aside from the clubs they’re dragging – thick, knobbled tree branches probably weighing more than Anuk – the mother has a bulging sack over her shoulder. The contents of this seem to be no mystery as the father is holding half of a buck deer by its antlers. The beast seems to have been divided, literally ripped in two with an unimaginable degree of force. The base of the sack is red and wet, suggesting the back legs have been stuffed in there with whatever else the group counts as possessions or treasure.
They cross the gore trail emanating from the male ogre’s burden, squat some distance away until the noisome family unit moves beyond range of their hearing. Even when they’re distant enough to be unheard by the huge creatures, the group’s fallen back into their uncomfortable silence. Rian wishes someone else would tackle this, even as he knows he’s been radiating discomfort since Oakbridge became their next destination.
As soon as he begins speaking, he’s cursing how ponderous, how uncomfortable he sounds. He hopes they’ll understand what he’s attempting when they see what it’s costing him.
-x-
He’s reached the point where his memory of his mum is composed of feelings rather than images. Of warm woollen hugs. Of being wrapped in her smell. Of home. Of laughter, easy and frequent, about nothing at all, really. Of chat for its own sake. Of love.
And then? Blank absence.
It seems like a dream to him; indeed, he had woken to it. To a house suddenly devoid of laughter, a shift a 6-year-old couldn’t possibly comprehend. Unlike hers, his memory of his father is fixed, frozen. He can’t tell if Donal was always so distant, so removed from the life and light of his wife. To adult Rian, it makes little sense. How could her vestiges feel so vital, in such contrast to his dad?
But he doesn’t remember shock, that day. He remembers her being in bed. Her having been in bed. It feels like the recollection of a story, not an actual image of a sickbed. And how long must the illness have persisted, to occupy the space it does inside him? His adult struggles to make sense of a child’s hazy recollections.
There’s no fire behind the grate, no tea keeping warm at the hearthside, no suggestion of breakfast. He’d tried to find his dad, found a note instead. “Don’t go outside. Food in cold store. Back in a couple of days.” Took him all morning to summon the nerve to open the bedroom door. His mum’s room. It looked ransacked, the heavy wardrobe half-empty, the sheets stripped from the bed. The heavy blanket crumpled in a corner.
Then three days of dwelling in the silence. Fewer people than he’d have expected knocking, presumably to enquire when the Butchers would be open for business again. Rian didn’t set foot in the shop. Even though blinds were pulled across the expensive glass window and door, it was by then his father’s space. Would have felt to the boy like disobedience.
The last of the milk had spoiled on the third day. Through his mother’s illness, Rian must have picked up some ability to fend for himself, but at such a young age this was limited to staving off starvation. He’d spent most of that day in his bed, conserving heat after exhausting all of the available kindling. He was torn out of bad dreams by the sound of the door. Froze as his nightmare slowly released its grip, replaced by the stillness in the house.
He had assumed it was his parents returning, but there were no voices. Certainly no laughter. And then his bones had frozen even more as he heard a chair scrape, young ears sufficiently attuned to recognise the sound was unplanned, a collision rather than a choice. A stranger in the house.
He was already possessed of some instinct for survival, even then. His father’s cleaver was under the bed, tucked out of sight. And apparently, he had some measure of bravery too, as he padded barefoot to the door, the wickedly sharp implement grasped tightly. He sidled through the doorway as the intruder moved beneath him, quiet but imprecise.
The boy must have made some noise on the stairs, as the ground level greeted him with silence. It felt like empty space. The mystery robber must have run. A grim smile creeps onto the boy’s face as he imagines his shadow being seen, distorted into an angry giant by the dim light.
Then another startle as the door, through which the intruder must have fled, was caught by a gust of wind, latch rattling against the frame. And in the brief burst of sound, a shadow loomed over his shoulder and child Rian felt death upon him. A hand covered his own, agony erupting as his wrist was twisted unnaturally, the cleaver dropping from numbing fingers. His elbow, then his shoulder flashing with pain as his arm twisted further, joints flexed against their natural arcs of motion.
Then he’s spun onto his back as his assailant twists the tortured limb like a lever. A man’s weight suddenly presses down onto his chest. Any remaining air is expelled from the boy’s lungs. The silhouetted head lowers towards his face, alcohol and rank acid on his murderer’s breath. “Have to do better’n that.” The figure breathes strangely, intensifying the horror of anticipated death. In later years, this would remain an element of Rian’s nightmares, even after his experience broadened to identify the sound as a drunk’s hiccup threatening to trigger vomit.
In that instant, father and son recognise one another. The weight is removed from Rian’s chest as Donal stumbles to his feet. There’s still aggression in the man’s voice as he moves towards the cold room, moonlight glinting off the blade dangling from his hand. “Pathetic.” It’s the only word his dad has for him that night.
And the next morning, Rian’s life takes on its new form, the final form it will have in Oakbridge. The grim man who was, or who had maybe replaced, his father didn’t seem to think of him as a person. Certainly not as a child who needed support through a loss. “She’s gone. Your mother’s gone” was all the man offered the confused, bereft boy. And so, for years – a couple, at least – the boy dreamed that she might return. Until that hope evaporated when he learned that people usually used euphemisms rather than openly death.
‘Cos that’d be unlucky, wouldn’t it?
