Author: Johannes "Jergen[K]" Cruz			Viewing: Chapter 1

Morning was upon him as if he had not slept at all. Pulling his head up from where he had hidden through the dark hours, he sat against a large oak and gnawed at what was left of his journey bread. He struggled to his feet, stretching sore muscles, and looked out over the forest. All around him the sounds of waking life permeated the air, filling him with an excitement he didn’t understand, but he welcomed it. Closing his eyes he leaned against the oak and sighed. The winds of spring were returning to life today, moving the great arms of the ancient trees with gentle breath. The rustle of the leaves calmed him, and for a moment he almost thought he could hear something, as if a feather were tickling the edge of his mind suggesting a memory. He struggled to capture it like a child gripping after a thrown ball only to have it slip through clumsy fingers, but as suddenly as the sensation began it was gone. A feeling of emptiness settled over him as he contemplated the coming day. A silent void welled up that left him feeling more lost than ever. He had been running for more than three months, yet still he wore the iron collar around his neck, the inescapable sign of his bondage, of the rape of his freedom. Yet, no matter how far he ran, he knew that a part of him would never be free again. A small part of himself, the soft place that only a child can really understand, was gone now. It had been stripped away by the pain of his abduction, and emaciated by the hate he had been taught while wearing his iron collar. He started his run slowly, letting tired muscles adjust to being forced to continue their work despite protests of pain, and soon the soreness was gone and his breath came evenly. He could run the better part of the day, and knowing the depth of the forest as he did, he knew that doing so would buy him enough time that he might be able to escape his pursuers entirely. Only then, he thought to himself, reaching up to touch the cold metal around his throat, would he remove the collar that reminded him with every step why he ran. *** Allan could hear his mother calling him from the back door of the Inn above, but he couldn’t call out to her. All morning he had been laying on his stomach, his arms elbow deep in the numbing water of a mountain fed stream, trying to catch a particularly skilled trout. No matter what skills he used, even soaking his fingers in cold fat, the fish would not come. Most mornings he could have had a dozen by now, but not today. Today a master among fish faced him, and he was scant challenge for this swarthy lord. After another failed attempt Allan sighed, shook his head at his daunting adversary, and stalked his way back up to his waiting mother. “And where have you been?” She asked him, her hands settled upon her hips in a way that suggested trouble. “The stream,” Allan said sullenly. “I didn’t catch a thing all morning.” “Oh,” she said to him, reaching out to muss his hair, “that is the way of it sometimes.” “I’ll get him,” he said defiantly, looking back over his shoulder at the rushing stream. “And when I do he’s going to fry up all the better for the work of him.” “Go see Tom,” she said to him. “He’s needing you for an errand I think.” Allan nodded and he sped off through the Inn’s kitchens looking for the master of the tavern. He passed through the familiar building with the speed of a hound, dodging the two serving girls that were loading up trays of fruit for the morning patrons, and then slipping through the doors to the common taproom. Tom was there, tending the bar as he always was, but the mornings were always the domain of travelers and common working folk, and as such it was much gentler work now than in the late evenings. Some nights, especially those that saw the coming of warbands from the nearby fort of Caestar Dunning, Allan was not allowed to enter the common room at all but he always gave a hand in breakfast and middle-meal when the more gentle patrons came to the Willow Tail Tavern. “Ho Allan,” Tom said, bending down to rub his hands roughly on the boy’s red forearms. “I see you have been afoot to the stream,” he raised one of his great red eyebrows as if he conspired with the boy, “did you catch any?” Allan shook his head miserably. “Oh well,” Tom replied, cuffing the boy on the back of his head like an unruly hound, “you can make up for it tomorrow.” Tom righted himself and walked to the other end of the bar, pulling a small pouch from beneath the counter he returned to Allan. “Go see Lady Blue and bring back what she gives you,” he said. “I’ll be needing it before the night falls so you had better be quick.” Allan’s eyes lit up at the mention of the Blue Lady. A trip out to her cottage would take half the day, but even so it was well worth it. The Lady lived in the deeper parts of the forest that the Willow Tail backed itself up against, but the run would be easy this time of year with little heat and no threat of rain or wolves, and if he was lucky he could spend some time at the waterfalls near her cottage. Allan nodded, already excited by the prospect of an adventure, and took the small pouch of coins from Tom’s outstretched hand. “Take your bow boy,” Tom said as Allan turned to leave. “There might still be some wolves about this early in the spring, and if you get in trouble find a tree and wait for us, we will come for you before long.” Allan nodded as he turned to go. He burst out of the rear of the Inn, waving quickly to his mother as she trudged up the shallow hill with buckets of fresh water for the noon cooking. Quickly mounting the small ladder to his loft in the stables, he pulled his small cloak and bow from their place under his pallet and readied himself to depart. He took a moment to look at the smooth lines of the oak bow as it lay in his lap. It had taken him almost an entire summer to find and shape the wood necessary to create the weapon, and most of his life to learn its use. At nearly thirteen summers he was already the best shot anywhere in the parish, but he knew that soon he would compete against the men instead of the boys, and it was a different thing shooting against a journeyman. Taking up his quiver of common arrows, he belted them around his waist next to his small working knife and left the loft. If he was going to make it to the cottage and back before nightfall he would have to leave soon and run fast. Leaving the Inn behind him, he set out at a good pace, the sweet scent of a new spring swirling about him as he went. *** It really wasn’t his fault this time. He had done everything the right way, he’d even paid the toll on the King’s road, but it didn’t matter. Where there was an opportunity for bad luck, he always found it. The cage they had locked young William in was no more than a hog pen of lashed branches with an attached roof to keep him from being able to climb out. Two men sat in the wagon as it plodded along, one a guard from the fort, the other a farmer that had been unlucky enough to be within hailing distance when the guards needed a prisoner moved to the nearby city. Both of them paid their passenger little notice, they just joked between themselves as they bounced along the muddy road that led into Caer Dublin. “How about some water back here,” William said pathetically. “I’m parched.” The guard turned around and looked at his charge, grinning at him as he unfastened a waterskin from his belt and thrust it through the wooden cage. William put his mouth to the spout and sucked as the guard squeezed the skin and forced liquid down his throat. He sputtered as the unexpected taste of soured wine filled his mouth and throat. The guard laughed as he pulled the skin back through the bars of the cage and tied it closed. “You had better enjoy that thief,” he said through his mirth. “It’s the last you’re gonna get for a while if I know my lord Constable.” “Sure thing,” William said smugly. “When I get there they will be letting me go, you’ll see.” The guard just grunted and turned to face the road again. The wagon was bouncing worse than usual now, and it was all they could do just to hold on and try to keep from getting to bruised in the moving. William sighed, no matter what he did it always seemed like he ended up tied to a cage heading to some jail or another. He needed a new line of work; he obviously wasn’t very good at this one.