Gyles I

The smell of Willowdael had changed. Hearthfires burned, and the familiar bite of woodsmoke cut the sweet musk of fresh-turned soil. Still, the air was foul.

The stink of tarred hulls struck Gyles like a wave. He knew it well; he was only a boy of seven when the galleys first glowered on the horizon. He'd prayed as the sky darkened under the shadow of the mast—prayed for the day they'd sail away, never to plague his shores again. In time, the gods answered, and the eels washed away with the tides. The seasons turned from winter to summer and back again, some twenty and six times since. It smelt now like it did then.

On the morn of the day of steel, Gyles paced the shore, a habit born under the yoke of occupation. The air hung light, like a whisper at the edge of hearing. Behind him, fog slithered through the willows, their crimson-and-golds gripped by pale fingers. His wary eye swept the open water—watching, waiting. But no ships broke the horizon, and he knew not whether for good or ill. He sighed, then started back towards the road.

His first stop, as ever, was Beckett’s croft. The farmstead nestled far from the village, tucked away on the eastern edge of Boot Island, where land met the sea. Beside the farmer's dwelling lay a stretch of tilled earth, a little dock, and a stable scarce fit for three horses. Gyles had little need of the work, in truth; the island's wants were few, his fewer. Still, he found peace in the rhythm. "Beck! Time again for the harvest?" he asked, as if all were well.

"Hedger! Time's come at last. A few sheaves of grain today; on the morrow, we'll bring in the apples from the old tree, and Alyce can set to baking," the farmer replied with a wink.

Gyles took heart from the farmer's cheerfulness, feigned or no. He found he could muster no such courage. His oldest friend was not but a few years older than himself, yet he was graced with the temperament of a man well beyond his years. Gyles had grown to tolerate the beard Beck had affected, though the farmer groomed it less than he ought.

"How grows the garden?" Beckett asked.

"Slowly. Clouds linger of late—sage balks in the shade, but parsley at least keeps his vigor. They have their tempers, my children. And you? Are you and the lady still trying for a sprout of your own?"

"Yes, but the stalks are our children as the weeds are yours, and we've sown far too many." Beck gave a hearty laugh. "It's good to have you, friend, though I thought to see you sooner. Strayed from the road again?"

"Aye, but never too far. Spent some time by the shore."

"And?"

"No ships today."

At this, the farmer's face tightened. "They've not missed a day in months." He blinked, as if to banish the shadow from his mind. "It's naught—poor weather's delayed them, or mayhap they've had their fill of our timber. No matter. If the storm comes, we'll meet it in company. D'you remember when we were children, and we climbed onto the roof of the old godshouse?"

Gyles surrendered a smile. "You looked like you'd seen a ghost when Cora shouted up at us."

“That's the right of it! The old crone was tending to her garden, and she looked up and saw your feet hanging over the thatch. The banshee wailed so loud, you could hear her clear across the sea! And there you sat, swinging your legs and grinning like a damned fool while I pulled you up. We must have hidden up there for hours."

“Laughed ourselves mad!" Gyles replied, hands on his knees. "Those were the days." His eyes lingered on the floor.

Those were the days, he thought. He hadn't felt their like since spring. Days stretched long as the trillium bloomed, and with light came darkness. It was a clear spring morn when Azaran warships came upon the skiffs of the smallport like herons upon minnows. Soldiers poured from the slipway, hauling barrels of bloodwine and crates of fine brocade. The willowfolk have short memories, Gyles mused. They welcomed the finery of the Green Country, but he knew the truth of it. Underneath its fair guise, the crown was tightening the noose.

"Ah, enough brooding!" said Beckett with a clap of Gyles' shoulder. "We can mourn time lost until the breaking of the stone pillars. Let’s see to the work. Alyce will have my hide if we delay.”

“Better her than old Cora."

They toiled together as a song well-practiced. The rising sun bathed their olive skin as they cut and weighed and bundled. The hours slipped by, and at length they straightened their wiry frames, satisfied.

As the sun reached its zenith, Alyce strode from the stable. She tugged off a pair of worn leather gloves and tucked them into the folds of her apron, then dusted herself with calloused hands.

“How fare my knights of field and flower?" she asked with a warm smile. "The horses are fed and watered, Beck. Should you be making for the market, do stop by Gregor’s. We’ll be needing a new set of sickles before winter sets in."

"That might prove a challenge, dove," said Beck. "No ships today—no steel."

"And how do we know this?"

Beckett leaned on his scythe and tipped the handle toward Gyles with a grin.

"Don't tell me you're back to old habits?" she asked in a tone of light reproach.

"Can't seem to shake the draw," said Gyles.

She frowned, then waved it off. "Even so. Might be there's enough steel for a pair of hooks. Take Gyles with you, dear. The islefolk are uneasy enough without such strange happenings."

“Well, you heard the lady," said Beckett with a crooked grin. "Seems I've need of a squire! Though, in truth, I could do with the extra pair of hands. Come,” he clapped Gyles on the shoulder, “and I’ll double your barley for the day.”

The request was harmless enough, but Gyles clenched his jaw all the same. It had been some time since he walked among the islefolk. The clatter of sabatons rendered him a boy again, small and afraid.

"You'll be alright?" Alyce's voice cut through his thoughts.

He smiled. "No ships means no soldiers, my lady, and my beds can bide a few hours. To the market, then," he said with grim resolve.

"See that you two look after each other."

Beck bade farewell to his wife with a kiss upon her cheek, and the two men followed the little river downstream. The gentle murmur of water guided them through the heart of the isle. They passed veins of freshwater springs and streams that cut the land and breathed clouds of mist into the crisp autumn air.

All around them, nurtured by fertile valleys and wetlands, willows thrived. Their slender trunks swayed as if breathing, and their long boughs trailed behind to whisper to one another. Gyles tilted his head to catch their secrets. The trees were kin to the willowfolk; they bent in times of turmoil, but stood unbroken after all. Their roots ran deep, and Gyles tread with care, for they erupted beneath him like the island's bones.

Beckett paused by a spring where the water bubbled up clear as glass. He cupped his hands to drink, and as Gyles crouched beside him, a sudden burst of wings set his own heart to flight. A covey of partridge broke from the underbrush, the mother and her brood, and scattered into the shadows. The sight brought a smile to his lips.

At the edge of vision, the southern mountains stood as guardians of the isle, capped with snow to herald winter's coming bite. The white peaks shone bright against autumn's warm tapestry.

Waters, willows, hills—each spoke to Gyles in their own quiet way. This land endures, they whispered. He could not help but believe them.

"Why do you do it?" Beckett's question cut through his thoughts. "Why do you watch the sea, torture yourself so? You know they're coming, Gyles, whether today or the morrow."

Gyles considered a moment. "Suppose I take comfort in the knowing, is all. Some small part of this I can take back."

Crossing the river and its banks, the two men came upon the bustling heart of the village. Modest dwellings and thatched cottages lined the streets. Above all stood the old godshouse; its steeple pierced the grey mist. At the center of the square stood the Rootwell; the lifeblood of the island slaked the thirst of both islefolk and willow, a quiet covenant of man and tree.

The village thrummed with life. Fishers hauled the day's catch straight from wharf to market, and the salty tang of brine filled the air. Fellers trudged by, shoulders bowed under the weight of their great trunks. Women balanced baskets on their hips as they made for the weavers' hall, where tales and gossip spun as freely as twine. Children darted between the trees as they flung fistfulls of fallen leaves into the breeze to the tune of shrieking laughter.

Missing from the usual throng were the soldiers. Gone, too, were the statesmen who peered from the tops of their rolls of parchment. In times past, their absence would have set Gyles' heart at ease. But with his enemies out of sight, his stomach felt as though it were filled with stones.

The two pressed on to the smithy. Gregor's workshop stood apart, marked by a towering chimney. Save for the old godshouse, it was the only such spire in the village, and the old man took no small pride in it. They found him hunched over a grindstone, forehead dewed with sweat, whiskers trimmed short. Would that Beckett would do the same. Gregor had thrown his leather smock over a gray linen shirt streaked with soot. The rasp of steel on stone filled their ears as sparks fell to the floor. He greeted them with a distracted nod, gaze fixed on the axe atop his wheel.

“Harvest's here at last, Father!” Beckett called over the din. “Three bundles at the usual trade?”

With a final pass over his work, Gregor wiped his brow and set the axe aside. “Good morrow, young masters. Aye Master Beckett, three bundles for a goodly sum of horseshoes and nails. The lady will be well pleased at boiled grains.”

Gyles stifled a grimmace. Life on the isle was simple enough, to be sure, but boiled grains?

The smith straightened and beckoned the two men to follow him inside. His dwelling was dark; shelves stacked high with tools and sacks. He reached for a purse on a high ledge and passed it to Beckett. Nail and sheaf exchanged hands, and talk turned briefly to days past. Gregor seemed eager to return to his labors, but Beck lingered in the doorway. "What else then?" the old man asked.

"I know you're pressed enough for good steel as it is. Still, I'd ask a favor of you, old friend. I need two hooks—one for me, and one for the miss."

Gregor sighed and wiped his hands on a rag. "I'm sorry, young master, but I'm afraid there's been no fresh steel in weeks."

Gyles and Beckket exchanged a glance.

"Weeks?" asked Beckett. "How can that be, with those wretched ships upon our shores day and night?"

The smith shrugged wearily. "Of late, the soldiers keep to themselves, and the trading days grow fewer. I feel a change in the wind. To what end, I would not say."

Gregor's words hung heavy in the room. Gyles tried his best not to dwell on the day's portents, but his imagination betrayed him. Missing ships, missing soldiers. No steel. He prayed the ships had simply departed the isle, as they had done so many years before. His heart whispered darker thoughts. "Come now, Beck. We've troubled the man enough for one day," he said as he shuffled his friend out the door.

"Watch yourselves," Gregor called after them. "And mind your tongues! You'd do best not to speak too freely of this."

Clouds were gathering overhead when at last they left the home. Islefolk stood frozen in the streets, their eyes fixed on something Gyles could not yet see. He breathed deep, and a sharp scent met his nose—fire! He shot a glance at Gregor's furnace, but it lay dormant. He turned his head westward, and his eyes met a pillar of black smoke that rose beyond the trees. It billowed and writhed against the leaden sky.

"Beck, look!" He pointed toward the horizon, voice tinged with alarm.

Beckett squinted against the light and shook his head slowly. "The Willowfort... what madness now?"

The plume rose steadily from the quarter of Dun Moeras. The abandoned fortress had long loomed on the island’s western reaches, silent until now. Time and mind had forgotten its purpose, some military outpost turned the dwelling of miscreants and vagabonds. It was no place for honest folk.

The wisest course would be to run, thought Gyles. Alas, he had never been able to douse the flame of his curiosities, once it was lit. Beck shared the same affliction. Or so Alyce liked to remind them. He exchanged a knowing look with the farmer. In silent agreement, they shouldered their grain and made for the fortress. They took the rumrunners' road through the westwood, a route they had dared not tread before.

The hum of Willowdael grew distant as they made their way through the wood. The smoke was their guide, and its black column grew larger with every step. Overhead, birds wheeled away from the path; Gyles took their retreat for an ill omen. The winding trail climbed steadily and led the two men to the very shadow of the fortress, no more than a hundred paces ahead. "We should get off the road," said Gyles, his voice low.

Beckett gave a solemn nod, and the two men vanished into the brush. Shielded by the dense thicket, they climbed the hill that overlooked the crescent bay. As they neared the summit, shouts of battle rose up to meet them. The scene below might've been ripped from the depths of Gyles' nightmares.

A fleet of war galleys held steady in the shallows. Twin banks of oars bristled along their sides, poised to strike water. Their rams were snarling beasts—siren, krakans, serpents. Ballistae lined the forecastles, and upon their sails glared a golden trident on an amethyst canvas.

Onshore near the fortress, an encampment seethed with activity. Red and gold tents peppered the landscape like an echo of the willows, and a wooden palisade encircled all. Gyles recognized the distinct vignette of Azaran soldiers—each bore a gleaming breastplate enameled with violet tendrils, coiled like the vines of clematis. Their helms, crested with purple plumes, quivered in the shifting breeze.

Against the terrible force grappled a band of ragged fighters garbed in mismatched leather and cloth. A pitiful assembly. Yet, for all their disarray, each bore a single garment of crimson, bright as blood. "Do you recognize them?" Gyles asked his man.

Beckett’s eyes were wide with awe and dread; he offered no answer. Gyles pressed himself to the earth, as if its embrace might protect him. Even so, as fear churned angrily within him, he could not tear his gaze from the dance of life and death below.

The crimson host fought in vain. Their lines buckled under the relentless advance of the soldiers from the beach, who set fire to canvas as they advanced, and soon the sky was black as pitch. The pride of the crown made manifest.

Gyles knew little of war, but the fortress doubtless offered the insurgents some advantage. It was not enough. Archers loosed what few arrows they could from the high battlements, yet too few found their marks. Soldiers broke against red footmen like the tide upon the shore.

The Azarans cut down any man who dared stand at the gate. Gyles turned from the slaughter, his gaze drawn to the galleys offshore. Stones flew from their decks to rend battlements and carve a wound in the wall. Purple-plumed warriors flooded the breach in a sweel of steel.

It seemed to Gyles that the fighting was near its end, until a single redcloak danced through the frontlines, evading sword and spear. He watched as this lone warrior raised his hand above his head, fingers outstretched towards the godsrealm; he buried the other deep in his pocket, groping for something unseen.

The soldier raised his head, and as his hood slipped away, a cascade of chestnut tresses spilled free. A woman. Gyles' breath caught in his throat. He could make out the movement of her lips, but she shaped the words in a tongue he could not understand, the meaning of her cadence lost. Faster than a heartbeat, the cacophony of war was silenced.

Light coiled about the tip of the woman's finger. With the speed and force of lightning, it exploded outward and streaked the sky in a thousand forked veins. The battlefield vanished beneath a cascade of brilliant color, a searing wave that bathed the world in violet. The sound that followed was as a thunderclap from an angry storm, a violent force that shook the very earth.

The blast hurled Gyles backward from the hilltop. He tumbled down and down as the world spun around him, until at last he came to a halt, badly bruised from the tumble. He heard the thump of Beck striking a willow.

“Gods,” Gyles rasped. "What was that? What did you see?" He pressed his fingers into his temples as the pain throbbed in his skull.

Beckett groaned and hauled himself upright. "I would not name it. One thing is certain; it was not of the earth. The Tempest itself hasn't the fury. Oh, gods be damned—the grain!"

"Leave it, Beck! We've no part to play here—we should never have come!” Gyles pulled Beckett by the arm, and the two retreated into the wood.

They kept off the road, but near enough to keep their bearings. The sun was low in the sky now, hidden behind the clouds. Their pace was as quick as their hurts would allow. Grunts and winces were all that broke the hush of the trees while the westwood blackened around them. Dusk hastened its approach.

The steady rhythm of marching boots turned their blood to ice. "Down," Gyles hissed, and the two men ducked low.

A horde of soldiers churned the earth of the rumrunners' road, near a hundred strong. Their captains were no knights of olde, but dread figures clad in lamellar pauldrons and pockmarked plate. About their necks hung a heavy length of black iron chains.

At the fore of the grim procession strode a figure larger than all the rest, shoulders swathed in a cloak of raven's feathers. The scar of an old wound cut a jagged path across his eye, nose and cheek. The dead eye was gray as slate, cold and unyielding. The men flocked to him like ravens in an unkindness, their self-satisfied squaks matched only by the chorus of sabatons on the forest floor.

Gyles could scarcely breathe until the soldiers were beyond sight. Only when the discord was at last swallowed by the wood did he release a ragged breath and turn to Beckett. The color had gone from the farmer's face. Gyles swallowed hard and helped him to his feet. Not a word passed between them while they closed in on the village.

Their hurried pace faltered as they neared the square. Gyles breath hitched, and his jaw went slack. From the heart of the village, a second column of smoke twisted toward the sky—thick, black, and angrier than the first. A living, vengeful thing, clawing at the heavens. "Could be Gregor," he muttered, but the words rang hollow.

"He never works past dusk," said Beckett.

Gyles pushed aside the branches blocking his view with trembling fingers. The village came into sight, and the ground tilted beneath him.

Willowdael was burning.

Flames ravaged rooftops; they leapt hungrily from one thatched eave to the next. Smoke choked the air, thick with the stench of charred timber. Another smell lurked below—sharper, like metal. Blood.

Bodies of islefolk lay strewn across the square. They were lifeless, broken and abandoned as old toys.

His gaze darted from body to body until it found a young girl, crumpled by the Rootwell. No. It was Maren, the fisher Willem's daughter, her auburn hair caked in blood and dirt. He hadn't seen her in months. She could not have counted but ten winters in all her life.

For an instant, he felt nothing at all. He did not shed a tear, for the weight of the world was a dam. Should he crack, the flood would come.

Beckett's head snapped back and forth. His eyes settled at last on Gregor's home. Gyles followed close behind Beck's desperate sprint to the smith's cottage, one of the few yet spared by the rising inferno. The door hung ajar, splintered and torn from its hinges.

Inside, Gregor lay motionless. His eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling, unseeing, his axe just out of reach.

"He fought, Gyles," Beckett hissed through clenched teeth. "And where were we? Hiding in the hills!"

Smoke snaked in through the doorway, and Gyles' lungs began to itch. "There's nothing we could've done, Beck. We're no soldiers." He shot a hand to his heaving chest; his eyes burned, and he spat as the smoke thickened.

For a moment, neither man dared to move. Gyles knew they had but moments before the fumes took them, but he would not permit his legs to abandon Gregor's body.

Beck shattered their trance. "Alyce."

He bolted from the home, and Gyles followed without a thought. Their hurried steps crescendoed into a frantic sprint as they followed the little river back toward the farm. Alyce is a clever woman, Gyles assured himself. She'll hide, or hear them coming and fly. She'll be alright.

Night had fallen by the time they reached Beckett's farm. The field, once alive with the promise of the harvest, stretched out before them as a wasteland of salted earth. Whatever fires had ravaged it were spent. Ash and soot remained in their wake.

Among the blackened field, Alyce lay still.

Beck staggered toward her. His knees buckled as he collapsed beside her body. His hands trembled, and he cupped her face. Gently, he smoothed her brittle hair. "Alyce, my dove," he whispered. "Wake up. Wake up, dove."

Silence answered his plea.

A sound broke from Beck's chest, low and gutteral, until it rose up into a keening wail that tore through the night.

Gyles stood dumbly. A trembling hand reached out to touch Beck's shoulder. “Beck. Beck, I’m so sorry, my friend. I'm—” His shock curdled into dread. "We mustn’t stay here."

Beckett did not move. His cries rang through the fields, raw and broken. Too loud. Vultures come for the dead, but the Raven may yet come for the living.

“Beck!" Gyles' voice sharpened. "We can’t stay here. Do you still have that dory?”

When Beck didn't answer, Gyles grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled. With a wrenching effort, he tore him from Alyce's body. Beckett fought him to the last; his fingers clawed at her as though touch might bring her back.

"Come on!" Gyles barked. "We'll die if we stay!"

He heaved Beckett to his feet and threw one of the man's arms around his shoulders. Together, they stumbled toward the pier behind the barn. Charred earth crunched underfoot.

At the dock, Gyles set Beck down as gently as his shaking hands would allow. In the black of night, he wrestled with the rope that bound their escape. Finally he freed the skiff from its moorings. "Come on," he said as he lifted Beckett into the boat.

Gyles climbed aboard and pushed them off. The dory drifted into the black abyss as he took up the oars, and the waves lapped softly against the hull. Beckett hung his head, silent and low. Gyles looked back at the isle, and his eyes met two twin lights that burned weakly in the night—one from the crescent bay, the other from the square.

At last, he felt the tears come, hot as they traced paths down his smoke-streaked face.

Darkness took them as Willowdael faded from view.