Year 2
Strangers in a Strange Land
She pushed her way through the field of golden grass, the tips of her fingers sparking against their blades. The night breeze aided her journey, shifting the golden sea as she went, covering her tracks behind her and carrying away the sparks from her fingers to safer, drier fields. The stolen words repeated in her head, over and over like the waves of a tumbling sea. She could still see the three of them, see the glint of his eyes meeting hers, searing through and into her. When she was far enough away from the music and voices she finally stopped. Doubling over, she breathed in and out, letting the cool air soothe and calm her until her breathing returned to normal. Reaching behind her head, she undid the fastening of her mask. Rising up again, she glanced one last time at the estate—illuminated by the twin moons—before letting the mask fall to the ground.
Autumn had come, and with it came change.
The once verdant green plain had become a golden-brown expanse which bowed and bent under the cold and somber winds that rode from the mountain tops. The leaves of the distant forest had followed suit, though at times R’kard could’ve sworn he had espied a burst of red, orange, or magenta lost within the golden foliages. Luckily, nearly two decades at sea had made him accustomed to one color. He had yet to venture into the forests, for reasons he could not quite explain. Something about them felt…wrong. Most nights he spent watching the forest, gazing into their dark domain, and though he had yet to see any sign of life, he couldn’t shake the feeling that they had been watching him back. Fortunately, the plains were home to enough wildlife and lone trees for him to survive on.
R’kard leisurely followed the rushing river that wound and cut its way towards the shore. The river had grown unpredictable, much like the weather, becoming more dangerous with every rainfall. He wondered how it would respond to the winter, would it freeze over completely or continue its endless journey? He shifted the sheep slung over his shoulder, repositioning it and ensuring it wouldn’t slip again.
Night was soon approaching, each new day was shorter than the last and the nights stretched on longer. Some nights were black as ash, with only the moon’s light to guide him. Others, however, were illuminated by the last breath of the dead, the pale green and pink lights stretching across the horizon. As a boy, he had found them beautiful, but ever since beginning his voyage, they were nothing more than a reminder. A ghost haunting him wherever he went.
He was almost near his home when he stopped in his tracks.
R’kard turned to look behind him. The short golden grass swayed in the wind, a sea shining in the setting sun’s light. The trees groaned in the distance, their leaves rustling together.
You are hearing things now. R’kard resumed his march down the river toward home. He had only taken a few steps when he heard it again. Turning around once again, he searched the hills as he listened closely, utilizing the better hearing he had inherited from his father. There was certainly
something out there, but what it was he couldn’t say. It was coming from the other side of the river. He hadn’t really explored much of the valley on the other side of the river, nor did he entirely know how to cross it. Backtracking a bit to a shallower part of the river, R’kard knelt down and placed his hand within. The water was freezing, but the current was slower and calmer here. Laying the sheep down on the ground, R’kard got to work taking his boots off and rolling his pant legs up. There was no point destroying his clothing. With that done, he picked the sheep back up and grabbed his boots, before traversing the river. The icy water came to his knees, but in a few strides he was on the other end of the river.
As he crested the hill that flanked the river, he caught its scent on the wind, an exotic soft fragrance of fruity-floral wood. It almost felt familiar, though R’kard could not identify how. He searched the landscape around him, trying to pinpoint the source of the scent before he eventually spot it. Wading through the golden field, clothed in an elaborate yet utterly foreign orange dress that complimented her light brown skin, was a young woman. Heavy curls of rosy blondish-brown hair tumbled down her back in a messy and disorganized way.
The woman looked up to him, with one hand firmly holding the skirts of her dress and the other raised in a greeting wave she called in a foreign tongue, “Niamashkra!”
R’kard didn’t know how to respond. It had been years since he had seen another person, let alone spoken to someone. He had never been a very social individual in his past, let alone ever known how to talk to girls.
Do I wave back? Do I say something back? What would we say? R’kard stood there like a rock, unmoving as he considered his options. The woman approached closer, a friendly smile on her lips before she spoke again in an entirely different accent. “Naukoye, id’isra.”
R’kard kept staring at her.
What is she saying? She stopped at the base of the small hill he stood atop. With the silence still between, she bit her lip in what R’kard assumed was thought. He could see her intelligent icy blue eyes examine him, taking in every little detail. The collar of her dress wound around her neck, and shining at its heart an orange gemstone shone. A similarly colored feather was tucked behind her ear.
Who is this woman? “Gutougan.” She offered in another accent.
“I…” Was all R’kard could think to reply.
Recognition flashed in her eyes at his words, and she smiled. “Heilh on kæl?”
R’kard recognized the words from his own tongue, translating to ‘healthy and happy’. “Uh- yes. Heilh on kæl.”
“Hello, friend.” The woman responded, her hands held together as she gave a gentle bow. She spoke his tongue perfectly, but was not from his homeland. “It’s so nice to see another person. I apologize if I am trespassing on your land, I have found myself quite lost. If you don’t mind me asking, where am I?”
In the year R’kard had lived here, he had never dined to give it a name. He had never needed to, until now. He did not know this woman, but he remembered the Old Ways. To give a name, was to claim. The island needed a name for R’kard to claim it as his home. He thought for a moment, before finally answering. “Rhûneihn. You are in Rhûneihn.”
“Rhûneihn…” The woman thought for a moment, before asking, “How far are we from the Teheran border?”
R’kard was baffled by the question. He had never heard of a ‘Teheran’ in his life. Perhaps the young woman had come from some settlement beyond the forest…or somewhere up the mountains. “I can’t say, never heard of
Teharin.”
“Ah…I see.”
R’kard glanced at the sky, which was rapidly getting darker. Night would soon fall and the gentle chill would quickly give way to the cold. According to the Old Way, he had to take her in. To refuse a traveler was a crime against both the
alhulm and
alhtyrn, and neither were merciful. “My home is near. There is room for two, you can rest there.”
The woman looked around, taking in the remote expanse around them. The sea of golden-brown grass, the dark forest, and the distant mountains. There was a flicker of worry, concern, in her eyes, before the warm smile replaced it once more as she turned back towards him.
“You are very generous, friend.”
“R’kard. The name’s R’kard.”
She bowed her head in recognition. “I am Naadia.”
ᚲ
Naadia followed the strange man across the freezing river and grassy expanse, through the growing dark, and to his home. He hadn’t spoken since inviting her to his home and Naadia had thought it best not to press. From the way his voice coarsely spoke Ostlenska and fumbled at certain words, she guessed he hadn’t spoken in some time, nor did his accent match the two dialects she had been taught. She had never been perfect at speaking the language, but she spoke it far better than he did. Not to speak ill of her host, she was immensely grateful to have run into him and for his offer of shelter. After awakening half submerged in a stream and walking all morning long through the empty expanse, she had been relieved to see another person.
She still needed to figure out where she was. In all of her time studying her father’s treasured maps and globes she had never seen a “Rhûneihn”. She distinctly remembered running through the night away from the autumn palaces, but where she was now was nowhere near the place she had left. It was colder here, colder than anything she had ever experienced in Teheran. The trees were foreign as well, resembling nothing of the Teheran rainforests. The same rainforest she had fled into the previous night…how had she gotten here? And how did the man not know of Teheran? Everyone knew of the Tehrani Empire, even the Ostörn.
As Naadia followed R’kard, she glimpsed in the distance the sea. Dark waves crashed against the black rocky coastline, and even from here she could feel the cold waters on her skin. That was not her coastline. The water was…wrong. It didn’t look anything like the sea she had spent her childhood looking at during summers. But wait…how was she even at the coast? She distinctly remembered running toward the rainforest, away from the autumn palace built on the coastline. The only other shore was through miles of rainforest and mountains, and Naadia would’ve remembered scaling a mountain. She felt warmth rush to her fingertips, her blood was boiling in panic warming her skin to an unbearable degree. She was sweating, yet she was freezing cold.
Calm. Naadia took a deep breath in, letting the cold air quiet the flames.
Calm. Don’t panic. Not again. There is a perfectly rational explanation for you being here. We probably ran in the wrong direction last night. Just breathe. R’kard’s home stood on the edge of a cliff overlooking the black coastline, the river they had been following tumbling downhill and into the sea. When they arrived, it was illuminated by the slowly rising moon, the water sparkling in the light of the stars. As they approached, Naadia realized the roof itself was the hull of a longship, supported by walls of upright logs and angled poles. There were no windows to look into the home, only a single lopsided wooden door breaking the monotony. R’kard walked forward and toward the door. He fumbled around the top of the door with his left hand, while his right moved along the edge of the door. Eventually his left hand got hold and he pulled the door slightly forward, the wood creaking as he pulled it out of its frame. His right hand grabbed a hold of the edge of the door, and he lifted it up before moving it to the side.
Naadia watched with a mixture of bafflement and fascination. Rural peasants would never end to amaze her. R’kard leaned the door against the wall with a
thud before turning towards Naadia, who returned with an inquisitive smile. Or at least, her best attempt at one while tired and exhausted. “I, uh, haven’t made hinges.”
“I see.”
“You should enter first, so I can…” He gestured at the door.
“Yes, of course.” Naadia replied before entering the home. The interior of the longhouse consisted of a single large hall, the center of which was home to an unlit open hearth. Stones had been placed in a large rectangle around the hearth, while hanging above it from a wooden stand was a metal cooking pot. From the earthen floor rose wooden beams that stretched up to the ceiling above, it was even more apparent from here that was staring at the empty hull of a longship above her.
Glancing to the left side of the home, propped against the far wall was a hay mattress resting upon a wooden bed. Strangely, there was no blanket in sight.
How does he not freeze to death? In the right corner of the longhouse lay a pile of cut firewood, and resting against it was a finely carved battle axe. Even from this distance, she could vaguely make out writing carved into the curve of the blade. Naadia secretly hoped the man still had plans to add more to the home. At its current state the longhouse was…spacious, to say the least.
Naadia heard the sound of the door being pulled back into place as R’kard entered the longhouse. She moved out of his way as he dropped the limp body of the sheep on the ground near the open hearth, before grabbing some wood. Naadia watched from the sidelines as he crouched down by the hearth, arranging the wood beneath the pot in a somewhat methodical order. It wasn’t the greatest stack and she suspected it would actually harm the fire rather than benefit it.
“Would…” Naadia had only now noticed the subtle point to R’kard’s ears.
A half-elf? She quickly sorted through the history lessons her pandit’s had taught on the Ostbörn. They were all human. They had dealings with other species (seldom were they ever peaceful but dealings nonetheless), and though some spy reports and first hand accounts from spooked warriors purported tales of them fighting like animals on the field of battle, they were still by all accounts human. So why wasn’t he. His dull copper braids shifted as he stacked the firewood, revealing a part of his left neck and a glimpse of the runes that had been tattooed down his neck. From where she stood, Naadia could just make out the rune ᚹ and the slanted lines of another.
Interesting. “Could I be of any help?”
“You can skin the sheep.” R’kard pulled a cutting knife from his belt, and handed it towards her absentmindedly.
Naadia hesitated.
Well, at least he trusts me. The only problem was, Naadia didn’t know how to skin a sheep, nor did she really want to know. Teheran cuisine didn’t feature much meat, but when her family did partake of meat it was always prepared by the shudras. “I don’t know how to do that.” R’kard slowly glanced at her with a judgemental and annoyed face. Naadia quickly followed. “But, I can light the fire for you.”
R’kard shrugged and retracted the cutting knife, instead gesturing Naadia to where the flint rested on the hearthstones. R’kard shifted towards where he had dropped the sheep, and began to skin it. Naadia took that as her cue, and knelt where R’kard had been, subtly rearranging the firewood beneath the pot until it resembled the pyres she would practice on as a child. She grabbed the flint; she didn’t actually know how the thing was meant to be used and so angled her hands in such a way to ensure her host could not see them. The Ostbörn were an ignorant and fearful people, and she’d rather not kill someone tonight. Pointing her right hand toward the kindling with her fingers held close together, she channeled her energy through her body and to her hand, concentrating on the growing warmth in her breast. Curling her index finger, she allowed the warmth and energy to leave her body and find home within the dry kindling, which promptly burst into flames.
ᚱ
The branches swayed in the wind, their remaining leaves rustling against each other. Birds sang from the treetops and faintly one could hear the snap of twigs deep within the forest.
R’kard stood at the edge of the forest. His hand instinctively rested on the pommel of the axe he wore at his side. He knew the forest contained better prey than the grasslands. The axe was far from a hunting tool, but it could still be used as one. He always had a good aim, and if he was quiet enough he could no doubt get in range.
Winter would soon be upon Rhûneihn and R’kard would prefer to have as much food stored as he could, especially seeing as he was feeding two now. Naadia had been an unexpected (but not unwelcome) change in his plans, and one he would need to adapt to quickly. With winter on the winds, Naadia was bound to stay until it was safer for her to travel; which would mean they would need better food than the apples growing on the tree he stood beneath. He had purposely avoided cutting this tree down while making his home, as it grew close enough to his home to provide an easy supply of food.
R’kard pushed off from the tree, his back still sore from sleeping against one of the beams. He had offered Naadia the bed and had opted for sleeping by the hearth. He had grown accustomed to sleeping against hard surfaces during his time sailing, but it still didn’t change the uncomfortability of it. Walking out from under the shade of the apple tree, R’kard approached the border of the forest. The wind seemed to push him forward, the branches moving out of the way in welcome. Through the field of trees he could hear the sound of deer moving.
R’kard took a step forward.
Everything went silent. The song of bird and wind coming to an abrupt end.
Dominating the forest ahead of him was a dying oak tree. The leaves tumbled down it in tangled locks, lichen crawled and spread across its trunk, and the whole thing was bent to the side. Though he did not move, the world seemed to fall around him, focusing solely on the broken and bent oak tree. Some of its branches had been splintered by lightning and lay half dismembered upon the ground, burdened by the weight of their clinging dying leaves. As the wind blew by, the tree groaned and began to stir. The limp branches dragged across the ground, their twigs snapping and cracking over rocks, fingers digging deep into the earth. The whole trunk of the tree twisted and behind the rustling locks of foliage he watched as two hollow holes turned to regard him. As the tree rose from the ground, its semblance seemed to take on that of a man rising from his rest.
Something hard struck the back of R’kard’s head.
Birdsong flooded his ears alongside the rustling of leaves as R’kard stumbled back from the forest edge, a hand nursing the bruise at the back of his head. Behind him, at his feet amidst the golden-brown grass was a leather pouch, gleaming in the sunlight. Bending down, R’kard picked up the leather pouch, the contents within shifting and clicking together. He cautiously glanced back into the forest, only to find that the dying oak was nowhere to be seen. He then looked around the expanse, trying to spot the assailant, to no avail. Finally, he turned his attention back to the pouch as he pulled the drawstrings open. Within were a number of hacksilver pieces, that gleamed and glittered in the spotted sunlight.
Where have the alhulm
brought me?ᛈ
Two luminescent green eyes peered from the branches of the apple tree as the dark-skinned man walked away from the edge of the forest and back to his home. From beneath the cloth mask, a whisper of a smile tugged at their lips. They had managed to both save the man who called himself “R’kard” from the Woodsman while also paying the toll. No doubt he would attempt to re-enter the forest again given how often he stood staring into it, drawn to it by either the will of the Woodsman or the forest itself.
But for now, he was safe.