The Education of Brother Thaddius and other tales of DemonWars (The DemonWars Saga) (2 page)

“What brings Tuntun so far from Caer’alfar?” Mather asked. “And does she come alone?”

“Would she need an escort in these lands full of bumbling, stupid humans?” the elf replied.

Mather bowed, granting her that. Indeed, he knew that Tuntun could pass all the way through the human lands and back again, stealing food wherever she chose, sleeping wherever she decided was most comfortable, without being spotted once by anybody.

“And why am I so blessed with your visit?” the ranger asked.

Tuntun half-jumped, half-flew, down from her perch, going at once to the cauldron and sniffing it, then curling her features in obvious disgust.

“Were you just curious as to how I was getting along?” Mather pressed. “It has been three years, at least, since I have seen you or any of the Touel’alfar.”

“That is the joy of training rangers,” the unrelenting Tuntun went on. “Once we are done with them, we set them back to their own kind and do not have to smell them again.”

Mather let it go with a chuckle. He knew that behind the gruff words and constant insults, Tuntun, perhaps more than any of the other elves, truly cared for him. Tuntun, though, had always equated any show of the softer emotions with weakness, and both of them understood that weakness could quickly spell disaster for one working as a ranger.

“And yet here you are,” Mather said, his smile as unrelenting as Tuntun’s insults, “come to share my meal and my company.”

“Come with news,” Tuntun corrected. “And to see how you fare with the child of Andos and Dervia,” she added, referring to Bradwarden’s parents, whom Mather had never met.

“Bradwarden grows stronger each day,” Mather replied, and even as he spoke, as if on cue, a beautiful, haunting music drifted on the breeze. “And his piping improves,” the ranger added.

Despite her demeanor, Tuntun smiled at the sound of the centaur’s distant music, a wondrous tune indeed, and nodded her approval. “He has his mother’s gift for song, and his father’s strength.”

“A fine companion,” Mather agreed. He sat down and picked up his stew, then, and Tuntun did likewise, lifting Bradwarden’s abandoned bowl. Neither spoke for a long while, both just enjoying their meal and the continuing melody of Bradwarden’s piping.

“I am returning to Caer’alfar,” the elf explained much later on, after Mather had told her of his more recent exploits in the region, including the fight that day with the goblin trio. “I meant to go this very night and should not have veered from my path to speak with you. Too long have I been away.”

“But you did come, and with news, so you said,” Mather replied.

“Do you remember when you were a child?”

“When Tuntun used to stop me from eating my meals hot, or even warm?” Mather returned with a grin.

“Before that,” the elf replied in all seriousness.

Mather stared at her hard. He had been only a few years old when the elves had taken him in, rescued him from a mauling by a bear, nurtured him back to health and then trained him as a ranger. He didn’t remember the bear attack, just the elves’ retelling of it. Try as he might, he could remember nothing of the time before that, other than small uncapturable images.

“You had family,” Tuntun explained.

Mather nodded.

“Younger siblings, and a brother who was born some years after you left them,” Tuntun went on.

Mather shrugged, hardly remembering.

“His name is Olwan,” Tuntun explained. “Olwan Wyndon. I thought you should be told.”

“Why? And why now?”

“Because Olwan has decided to make the Timberlands his home,” Tuntun explained. “You will know him when you see him, for there is indeed a resemblance. He rides north with his family and two other wagons, headed for the settlement called Dundalis.”

“This late in the season?” Mather asked incredulously, for few ventured north of Caer Tinella after the beginning of the ninth month, and here they were, halfway through the eleventh, and those who knew the region were somewhat surprised that winter had not begun in earnest. It was not wise to be caught on the road during the Timberland winter.

“I said he was your brother,” Tuntun replied dryly. “I did not say that he was intelligent. They are on the road, two days yet from the town, and a storm is growing in the west.”

Mather didn’t reply, didn’t blink.

“I thought you should know,” Tuntun said again, and she rose up and straightened her clothes.

“And am I to tell him, this Olwan, who I am?”

Tuntun looked at the man as though she did not understand the question.

“About my life?” Mather asked. “About who I am? That we are brothers?”

Tuntun held her hands out and scrunched up her delicate face. “That choice is Mather’s,” she explained. “We gave you gifts: your life, your training, your elven title, Riverhawk. But we did not take your tongue in payment, nor your free will. Mather will do as Mather chooses.

“To tell him that I was trained by elves?” the ranger asked.

“He will think you crazy, as do all the others, no doubt,” Tuntun said with a laugh. “We have found that the Alpinadoran barbarians to the north and the Toi-gai horseman to the south have oft been accepting of rangers, but the men of the central lands, the kingdom you call Honce-the-Bear, so smug in their foolish religion, so superior in their war machines and great cities, have little tolerance for childish tales. Tell Olwan your brother what you will, or tell him nothing at all. That, you may find, could prove the easier course.”

*****

“They’ll not make the towns before it breaks,” Bradwarden said to Mather, the two of them watching the caravan of three wagons trudging along the north road. They were still ten miles south of Dundalis, half a day’s travel, and Mather knew that the centaur spoke truly. Tuntun had returned to him before dawn, warning of an impending storm, a big one, and also warning him that she had seen quite a bit of goblin sign in the region. Apparently, the trio Mather and Bradwarden had killed were not the whole of the group.

Mather had not disagreed with either grim prediction. He too, had noted signs of the impending storm, and of the goblins, and all of this with his brother making slow time along the road to the south.

So Mather had come out, and Bradwarden with him, to watch over the caravan. When he looked to the western sky, dark clouds gathering like some invading enemy, and when he felt the bite of the increasing northeastern wind through layers of clothing, he thought it a good thing indeed that he had not waited for their arrival in Dundalis.

“I cannot go down to them,” Bradwarden remarked. “Whatever ye’re thinkin’ ye might do to help them through the storm, ye’ll be doin alone.’

Mather nodded his understanding and agreement. “And with the weather worsening, I fear that Dundalis might become the target for the desperate goblins,” he said. “So go back and look over the town. Find Tuntun, if she is still about, and make sure that you keep a watch.”

With a nod, the centaur galloped away. Mather continued shadowing the caravan, silently debating whether he should go down to help them construct some kind of shelter or whether he should just hope. Another hour, another couple of miles, meandered by.

The first few snowflakes drifted down; the wind’s bite increased.

And then it hit, as if the sky itself had simply torn apart, dumping its contents earthward. What had been a gentle flurry became, in mere seconds, a driving blizzard of wind-whipped, stinging snow. Mather continued to watch the wagons, nodding his approval of the skill shown by the lead driver, the man bunching his cloak against the cold and forcing the team on.

Another mile slipped past slowly. By then, three inches of snow covered the trail.

“You can get there,” Mather said quietly, urging the wagons on, for now they slowed and men scrambled together, likely discussing the possibility of stopping to ride out the storm. But they were southerners—likely not one of them had ever been north of Palmaris, which was some three hundred miles away—and they couldn’t appreciate the fury of a Timberland snowstorm. If they circled their wagons now and huddled against the storm, they might find themselves stuck out here, with no help coming from Dundalis, or anywhere else, for many days, even weeks.

Winter would only get rougher. They’d never survive.

Mather pulled the cowl of his cloak low, as much to hide his face as to ward the cold, and rushed down to join the group. “Are you looking for Dundalis?” he asked in greeting as he approached, yelling loudly so that the men could hear him, though they were but a dozen feet from him.

“Dundalis, or any place to hide from the storm,” said the lead driver, a large and strong man, a man who, as Tuntun had said, bore some resemblance to Mather Wyndon.

“Dundalis is your only choice,” Mather replied, running up to grab the bridle of one of the horses. “You’ve got five miles to go.”

We’ll not make it,” another man cried.

“You have to make it,” Mather replied sternly. “Even if you must desert the wagons and follow me on foot.”

“But all our possessions…” the man started.

Mather cut him off and looked directly at Olwan as he spoke. “To stay out here is to die,” he explained. “So tie your wagons together, front to back, and drive your teams—and drive them hard.

“I can hardly see the road before us,” Olwan replied.

“I will guide you.” As Mather finished, a haunting melody came up about them, music carried on, and cutting through, the howling wind.

“And what is that?” the stubborn man on the second wagon yelled.

“Another guide,” Mather replied, silently applauding Bradwarden, understanding that the centaur was using the music to help Mather keep his bearings.

On they went, against the driving snow, against the howling, stinging wind. Mather, his body numb from the cold, pulled the lead horse along, kicking through the piling snow. Several hours passed, and still they were a mile away, and now the snow was a foot deep all about them and before them, and the afternoon was fast giving way to evening.

It grew colder, the wind only increased, and the snow did not relent.

Mather hardly knew where he was, the snow stealing landmarks. He plodded on, yanking at the reluctant horses, and then he found he was not alone, that his brother, with equal determination, was beside him, pulling hard.

“How far?” Olwan yelled. Mather hardly heard him.

The ranger glanced around, searching, searching, for something, for anything that would give him some indication. Then he saw a tree, and he knew that tree, and he recognized that they had but one climb to go, a few hundred yards and no more. But it would be a difficult climb, and by the time they capped the last ridge, darkness would be deep about them.

They fought and scrambled for every foot of ground. At one point, the trailing wagon slipped off the trail and hooked on a tree root. They thought they would have to cut it free, but stubborn Mather, now thinking of this storm as an enemy, would not surrender anything. He went behind the wagon and grabbed it with hands that could hardly feel, and with strength beyond that of nearly any living man, began to lift.

And then he was not alone, Olwan beside him, setting his legs and his back and hauling with all of his strength, and somehow, impossibly, the two brought the wheel over the root and shoved the wagon back onto the trail.

Mather glanced at Olwan, at his brother, at the strength of the man’s body and the determination on his face. He wondered then what feats they two might accomplish together, allowed himself to fantasize about the two of them hunting goblins in concert. Perhaps he could give give to Olwan some of the gifts the Touel’alfar had given to him. Perhaps he could tutor the man on the ways of the forest and the fighting styles that would elevate him above other warriors.

But that was for another day, Mather promptly reminded himself as Olwan returned his gaze and smiled.

“We did well together,” the man said, a voice strong and resonant.

Mather smiled in reply. “But we’ve a ways yet to go,” he reminded, and they each went right back to work, urging on the horses, pulling hard the wagons, and somehow, against the odds and against the fury of the storm, they crested the ridge and rolled and slid into Dundalis proper. Mather pointed out the common house.

“You will be welcomed there,” he assured Olwan.

“Are you not accompanying us?” the man asked incredulously.

“This is not my place, though the folk here are friendly enough to those who come in peace,” the ranger replied.

“Where, then, will you go?” Olwan asked. “Which house?”

“None in town.”

“Surely you don’t mean to go back out in this storm?”

“I am safe enough,” Mather assured him, and with a smile and a pat on the man’s arm, the ranger started away.

“And what is your name?” Olwan called after him.

Mather almost answered, but then considered the possible implications of revealing a name that might be familiar to Olwan Wyndon. All of the townsfolk knew him merely as “the dirty hunter,” so that is what he replied. With a smile to assure Olwan once again that all was well with him, he melted into the snowstorm.

And what an entrance the winter had made! Snow piled and piled, blown into drifts twice the height of a man, whipping and stinging so ferociously that Mather could hardly see a line of towering pine trees, though they were barely twenty yards away. He crawled under one large
specimen, its branches wide, the lower one pushed right down to the ground by the heavy snow. With fingers that could hardly fell, he fumbled in his pack for kindling and flint and steel. Soon he had a small fire going. He wouldn’t get much sleep this night, he realized, for he had to keep the fire burning and had to tend it constantly to ensure that it did not ignite the tree about him.

But that was his way, his calling, and as his hands began to thaw and to hurt, he accepted that, too, as the lot of a ranger. He would spend the night here, and in the morning, would dig himself out and perhaps go to Dundalis and speak with his brother.

Perhaps.

The snow continued that night but lightened, and the wind died away at last to a few remnant gusts. On one of those gusts came a cry of anguish that sliced the heart of Mather Wyndon, a scream of pain and fear from a voice that he knew well.