Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1) (4 page)

“It looks wonderful Iri,” Orval Jorensen said
after the blessing. Tyrissa’s father was a broad-shouldered man, the source of
his children’s height and bright blue eyes. Well into his middle years, his
blonde hair was thinning, or perhaps merely migrating to his thick beard that
looked as youthful as ever. Tyrissa thought he always smelled of sawdust, as if
fresh from the shop.

“Thank you dear,” her mother said, “It was Ty,
Oster, and Sven who brought in the wurm, though I’d prefer to not know the
specifics on how.” Iri’s bandana was off, which was common in the evenings.
Faint tan lines showed on her face, the slash of paler skin evoking the war
paint of clan champions of old.

Probably for the best mother
, Tyrissa
thought to herself. If Sven managed to hold his tongue about the incident,
there might be hope for him yet.

“A shame that Corgell couldn’t be here,” her
father said, “but I suppose he has a family of his own to care for, now.”

“The caravan is camped at the Tavleorn festival
grounds, so I paid him a visit on the way in,” Liran said while attacking his
steak. “Little Eirin is talking now, she can barely stop. His shop seems to be
quite successful as well. I managed to score a discount on fair bit of Rhonian
greenwood from the caravan for him.
Expensive
stuff this far north.
He’ll flip for double making bookends for the nobles in Greden or some such.”

“He has a pair of hired workers now,” their
father said, voice clearly proud for the son that followed in his footsteps.
Tyrissa was never close to her eldest brother, given their age difference. She
was only eight years old when Corgell left home to start his own woodworking
shop in Tavleorn, the closest city to Edgewatch, two or three days to the west by
the Fjordway.

Talk wavered through updates on members of their
extended family. The food was exquisite; her mother had conjured a feast
seemingly from nowhere.

“Ty, your seventeenth is soon,” her father said.
As if Tyrissa could forget. Seventeen was the traditional age of maturity among
Morgs, the age when a child becomes an adult and commits to a trade or role.
Terrifying, in a word.

“Any further thought of what you’re going to do?”

“Well in some traditions, the third-born takes a
martial path. Army, militia, guard for traveling traders. That sort of thing.”
Tyrissa made no mention her real desire: to rebuild the Rangers of the
Morgwood. The order had fallen into disuse decades ago. It was a criminal
abandonment of a vital need and a part of their people’s history.

Iri gave a quiet scoff and said, “Third
son.
”

“Mother disapproves, as usual.”

“Because it’s not realistic or proper.”

“You’re always so quick to tell me what a
proper
woman’s role is, despite the fact that you and everyone your age fought in the
Cleanse.”

“Those were different times. We fought so you
wouldn’t have to be like—”

“Be like you? Heroines and leaders instead of
mothers and seamstresses?”

“I won’t talk about it further, Tyrissa. It’s the…
very opposite of proper dinner conversation.” Her mother said raised a hand to
stroke the pendant engraved with her maiden initials that she always wore.
Tyrissa knew that meant she was thinking about the Cleanse, an unconscious
reflex that was as unexplained as the scar over her eye.

“Ty. Not here, not now.” her father said with a
hint of weariness. This point of conflict between his daughter and wife was
nothing new.

“Yes papa,” she said, a parting shot wrapped in
obedience.

“Liran,” he said, “Tell us of Khalanheim.”

“Ah, Khalanheim, of course.” Liran paused for a
moment, eyeing the end of his fork in thought. “It’s big, for one. A few times
the size of Greden at least. When you first get there you’re struck dumb by how
many people there are and how the city seems to stretch on forever. At first, I
thought I would be out of place, being from so far away, but that was far from
the truth. It’s the crossroads of the entire continent. People from all over
the world end up there, and bring with them an endless supply of trade goods,
foods, stories, and styles.”

Tyrissa finished her wurm steak and listened as
her brother spoke of the city’s size, and clustered rooftops, and the varied
merchant guilds, and the endless lines of market stalls and bazaars. She
couldn’t help but feel that Liran was leaving out something more… interesting.

“Pactbound aren’t outlawed there, right?” Oster
asked.

There it is.
Pactbound: the heroes and
villains of many of the adventure stories that filled her imagination and spare
time, blessed (or cursed) with magick bestowed by the unknowable Elemental
Powers. Tyrissa hid a grin with sip of mead. It was very sweet.

Iri sighed audibly. “All manner of polite dinner
conversation tonight.”

“He’s just curious mother,” Liran said.

“The wrong sort of curiosity can kill with respect
to Pacts. Especially here.”

“It’s different in the rest of the world,” he
continued. “And there are different kinds of Pactbound and none are like what
we had here. Some are actually quite useful. Why, the Shaper’s Guild can—”

“Liran,” Iri’s snapped, voice hardening from
nearly-lost patience, “Please.”

He hid a grimace with a grin and threw a quick
wink at Tyrissa.

“I simply worry about you,” Iri said, softening
her tone. Slightly. “The south is less safe than Morgale, and having Pactbound
roam free… you can’t trust them. Ever. There’s a reason Vordeum is an empty
land. Man wasn’t meant to toy with the power of gods. We made that mistake and
it cost us more than you four could ever understand. Speak no more of it at my
table.”

“Of course, mother.”

Talk returned to inconsequential fare as the meal
wore down. Tyrissa stayed silent. Liran left out certain details about
Khalanheim that she had read about in her many adventure books. She shot a
glance at her mother, and knew Liran was omitting the more fantastic elements.
While the meal was filling, Tyrissa still hungered for information. She would
have to grill her brother for the good stuff later.

Tyrissa stood among the fragmented ruins of the
village’s watchtower, the late morning light promising a warm day. One Morg
tradition Tyrissa embraced was the training of all children in basic weapon
skills and self-defense, one of few holdovers from the old clan ways that had
strengthened after the Cleanse. She poured nearly as much energy training with
the visiting instructors as she did exploring the Morgwood. Her weapon of
choice was the staff, enchanted as she was by fantasies of a warrior whirling
at the eye of a storm of blunt power. Carved from local pine, her current staff
was well-worn from countless hours of practice. It was too short for her now,
but she had a plan to fix that.

She had no sparring partner today so she fought
against the air, flying through forms and techniques as quickly as possible in
the pursuit of perfection. It helped to push away the aimlessness that grew
like summer moss in the corners of her mind. Her formal schooling was finished
and there are only so many minor tasks and chores that could use her hand. She
never learned a trade, instead helping out with odd jobs here and there, mostly
in her father’s shop or with the
kaggorn
herders. Tyrissa let the
morning fade into the blur and whistle of her staff flying through the air. She
knew she needed to find a place in the world, a true role to fill, instead of
dreams of adventure and heroics. She hated the very thought of surrendering to
practicality, but for now she faced southward, her back to the beckoning wall
of trees, resisting the forest’s call.

Eventually the build-up of doubts and worries
broke her concentration. She misplaced a foot and stumbled, swearing quietly as
she regained her balance. Tyrissa glanced around to see if anyone was watching.
No one. It didn’t count. Sweat trickled down her back as she glanced to the
sky. The sun neared its noon peak, its light drowning out the day’s faint
aurora, now in its fading silver phase. How long had she been practicing?
Shaking her head, Tyrissa propped her staff against the ancient watchtower’s
stones and went to a nearby well for a drink.

Upon her return Tyrissa spied her mother at the
center of the lower village green, speaking with a group of strangers. Many
other residents of the village watched from the edges of the green or their
windows, the adults suspicious, the children fascinated. Tyrissa leaned into her
staff and joined them. Strangers were always watched closely, more out of a
lingering caution than overt hostility. Especially strangers such as these.

There were five, each with a horse and each armed
with a variety of weapons, all sheathed or stowed and marking them as warriors.
They all had darker hair and skin tanned either by blood or from weeks
traveling under the sun. That would make them unfamiliar, foreign, and
mercenaries, three black marks against. Four hung back, clustered at the edge
of the village green, while the fifth and only woman of the group spoke with
Iri. Tyrissa could sense her mother’s irritation at this distance as she jabbed
an accusing finger at the woman’s face. They were unwanted. When the other
woman talked, she punctuated with small, respectful bows. Iri stood still for a
moment, then looked over her shoulder at Tyrissa and pointed.

A minute later Tyrissa faced down one of her
dreams.

The woman looked a handful of years shy of her
mother’s age, with a round face that was once pretty but now tempered by age
and experience into a quiet dignity, like a bouquet of flowers made from steel,
mold lines and all. She gave Tyrissa an assessing look with bark colored eyes
that tilted slightly downward toward her nose. Her gaze lingered on the staff.

"Hello” she said bowing slightly. “I am
Tsellien ar’Ival. You are Iri's daughter, Tyrissa, yes?" She spoke at a
deliberate pace, her accent infusing her speech with an exotic buzz.

“I am,” was all Tyrissa could manage at first.
Tsellien wore a simple brown coat over a faded silver tunic, both worn and
dusty from travel. Over one shoulder stood the hilt of a longsword, handle
elegantly worked into a thicket of vines, the pommel a crystalline orb that
glinted silver in the sunlight. Tyrissa knew she was staring and conjured a
polite smile to mask against her gawking.

Tsellien motioned at the staff, “You are a
student of the staff?”

“Yes. Only the basics. It’s a tradition.” And a
part of everything she wanted.

“From the look of you,” she said with a faint
smile, “you were going through more than the basics. I spoke with your mother
and she said you might be of some help to us.”

“Do you two know each other?”

She shook her head. "Not personally, no. Iri
worked with a friend of mine many years ago."

"During the Cleanse," Tyrissa guessed.
An easy go-to. What else could it be?

The woman returned a solemn nod. "Terrible
times for many. Iri told me you know the forest better than anyone else in
town.”

At that, Tyrissa raised an eyebrow. "She
said that? Yes, I do." Tyrissa glanced downhill to catch her mother
watching them, just in time to see her turn back to her errand, shaking her
head in slight disapproval.

"Do you know of a place like this,"
Tsellien said, drawing a curled piece of parchment from an inner coat pocket.
It unrolled to reveal a drawing of foothills at the base of a mountain range, a
deep pass cutting between two peaks. The mountain peaks looked to be peeling
away from each other, leaving sheer cliff faces that descended to the pass. The
margins were crowded with notes and annotations written in an unrecognizable,
delicate script that paired well with Tsellien’s accent. The landscape,
however, sprang to mind instantly.

"Looks like Giant’s Gap, the first major
pass in the Norspine. It’s about a day and a half to the northwest, if you’re
on foot. More with horses,” Tyrissa said, sparing a glance at Tsellien’s party
waiting down the hill. Their progress in the thicker parts of the forest would
be slow as none of the old paths made for
kaggorn
-pulled carts lead
straight to Giant’s Gap.

"You could mark it? On a map, yes?” Tsellien
said with a smile that possessed surprising warmth and sincerity, as if Tyrissa
could trust to her words without fear or doubt.

"Of course." She could have pointed
directly at the pass, though from here it would be obscured by the curve of the
Norspine Mountains.

"Vralin," the woman called down the
hill to her party. A hooded man in loose, charcoal-colored clothing separated
from the group. He walked with a flowing grace, as if his feet glided just
above the grass, clothing rippling from a wind that Tyrissa couldn’t feel in
the air. Braced around his belt were an array of vials, glass orbs, and knives.
Despite the variety of gear, he made barely a sound as he walked uphill toward
them, carrying square brown leather folder. Tsellien favored Vralin with a
bright smile and fired off a rapid string of words in an ethereal language full
of buzzing syllables and breathy sounds, like whispers on the wind. He replied
quietly in the same tongue.

Tsellien gave a small start and said, “Yes. Let’s
stay with Northern for her sake.”

Calling the common language ‘Northern’ was an odd
and antiquated choice. Tyrissa only ever saw it called that in the older
stories from the southern nations. Each detail placed these strangers from an
ever further homeland.

Vralin nodded, produced a pen and flipped open
the folder to reveal a printed map of northeastern Morgale and the Morgwood,
the lower right corner bearing the family seal of a cartographer from Tavleorn.
Tyrissa knew the seal well; an older map made by same family hung on a wall in
her bedroom. She frowned at the newer map, noting the new blank spaces in the
Morgwood and other wildernesses on the fringe of civilized territory, visual
evidence of exploration being undone. The Norspine Mountains ran along the west
border of the map, and a handful of recently drawn crosses dotted the both
sides of the range. Most were wildly off the mark for Giant’s Gap. Shameful.

“Add yours if you please, miss", Vralin
said, his accent less pronounced, a low vibration instead of a buzz, like a
house subtly creaking in a steady wind.

She leaned in and added her own on the east side
of the mountains, not far from the little house icon labeled ‘Edgewatch’ on the
map. Tyrissa glanced up to catch a look at Vralin’s hooded face and came away
disappointed. He looked normal, sharing Tsellien’s angled eyes and rounded
face. He was the only one of the five foreigners dressed like that. Why would
he hide his face so?

“The way is rough in places, and you'll have to
make a few detours around two larger crevasses here and here,” Tyrissa inked in
two thin lines a few hours northwest of Edgewatch. “There might be other
unmapped rifts in the way as well.”

"How wide are they?"

"Twenty to thirty feet. They opened two
winters ago." Tyrissa remembered the thrill of discovering them after the
thaw, only to be saddened when no one else seemed to care. The forest was far
from static, the earth below seeming to shift every year with gradual changes.
It lent all the more need to a constant presence in the Morgwood, knowledge and
guidance that a ranger could provide.

"That shouldn't be a problem,” he said,
dismissive. “Is there anything more significant in the straight line route?"

More significant? As if they could fly over
them…

"No."

"Thank you, child.” Vralin snapped the
folder shut and turned to Tsellien, his use for Tyrissa done and the girl now
invisible. “Ellie,” he said, “it is still early enough. It’s best if we kept moving.”

“Vralin, there’s no reason to jump at shadows
this far north. It’s no longer quite as bad as the last time we were together.”
Tsellien said, frowning.

“We’re hardly welcome here. There’s no need to
provoke the locals further."

Tsellien nodded, glancing to the sky. “True. Not
the welcome I expected, yes?” She gave Tyrissa a short bow. “We must go. Thank
you, Tyrissa. When we return through here, I would like to speak with you at
length."

"I’d love that,” Tyrissa said, dozens of
questions already popping into her head. “Good luck out there."

Tsellien seemed amused by this.

"Yes,” she said. “Luck."