Brotherhood of the Gemstone Chapter VII: The Fire-Fey Debacle - And The Greatest Betrayal in All of Fantasy Fiction!
Here's another chapter for you all
“The nerve of the lot of you to partake in such a foolish endeavour,” Wulfnoth complained at some length as they travelled down the road, tugging as always at his moustache when frustration gripped him. He sounded less akin to the friendly, curmudgeon druid he so often carried himself as, and appeared then the very image of a bitter, old priestly grandfather. Leading them down the road without so much as a single bite of breakfast, at the tavern for fear of reprisal from the humiliated laird, he refused to show them the slightest quarter. “What could have possessed the lot of you to behave so impulsively? Why, in my time we listened to our elders, we trusted in their wisdom and sought not to glorify ourselves at such times, but to do what was best at all times!”
Such was the force of his anger that more than one farmer or shepherd they encountered, preferred not to tarry near them or to approach. Their bewilderment at the harshness of the cleric’s tone and his puffy face was so hilarious to observe that Cormac found his attraction drawn to them. The prettiness of the day, contrasted quite nicely with Wulfnoth’s ill-temper and served to help dry their wet clothes, with the morning breeze having begun to give way to the heat of the suns.
Only Daegan appeared willing to pay the druid’s many complaints and harsh words any mind, other than Indulf that is. This last part annoyed Cormac, as a part of him felt a sense of possessiveness with regards to his friend’s admiration. It had always been he who was his mother’s pupil’s hero, yet now he had to share him with wise old Wulfnoth.
Trygve though, was the one who had undergone the greatest metamorphosis. No longer carrying the Blood-Gem, he had regained some of his good-cheer and had even begun to sing. Never a particularly talented singer (as demonstrated in the Feywoods), he was nevertheless the sort to never give up trying.
Much as he was amused and pleased to have his friend back, Cormac regardless of this sentiment felt a touch of consternation at the fact that Daegan had apparently reclaimed the gem. She had not explained quite why she had suddenly desired to have the gem nearer to her. Nor did she need to.
Drawn to the chain about her slender neck, Cormac’s gaze hardened at the thought that it was responsible for Trygve’s temper going crooked in the days since they had begun their journey.
They stopped by a stout Centaur shepherdess who agreed to for the cost of ten bronze thistles to slaughter and cook one of her lambs. This breakfast was so pleasant and warm, though it took a few hours to prepare, it served to instantly thaw the ice between them. The ice was thawed notably around Wulfnoth and Daegan, much to Cormac’s relief, with it being him who saw to bartering with the she-Centaur.
“I would have expected a druid to guard his tongue better,” She said pointedly, a blonde brow arched at the man in question.
Suppressing a smile Cormac thanked her once more, and hurried back to his companions who were on their feet in an instant, the picnic by the road at an end.
The journey went on for another number of hours, with the fields shifting from farmland to simple fields, to cedar, birch, ash and oak-tree laden forests until at last many felt certain that the lands of Ardrannaig were firmly at an end. Where the Feywoods had been a place of suffocating, terrifying darkness, this one did not possess the same sort of suffocating atmosphere. Nor did it contain the same ancientness that the Feywoods possessed. The trees were younger, fresher and sang a more joyful song. They were no less thick though, as here and there, everywhere there lay and stood countless birch and cedar trees, their fine red, white and grey bark shone with the fullness visible only in the spring. A season that signified warmth, awakening and life after the hibernation and coldness of winter, a season that only Wulfnoth out of all of them had much affection for. Due to his penchant for study, and sitting by a warm fire quill in hand or a book in hand, to read and pass the months in prolonged study or in the noting down of historical details, others might not have held as much interest in.
For this reason his misery on the road, was rather queer, yet he insisted upon it regardless of the chirping of birds in the various trees, the squeak of the chipmunks and sound of a thousand animals waking up, barking, growling and racing about once more. His younger companions raced about, slowed their pace or cracked many a jests, overtaken as they were by the sunny, warm weather they had not seen in months. Only Indulf remained firmly of a less than thrilled disposition, for his gaze often lingered upon some of the trees that almost gleamed, dark brown in the light of the suns, his thoughts likely overtaken by ones of Inga.
This change in mood was not wholly wrong as Wulfnoth informed them, as the Kirkfiodh served as a dividing line between the Ardrannaig lands and those of Rothmore, which were actually directly under the ownership of MacDuibh.
“But the clan rarely ventures here, with the actual stewardship of the lands under the supervision of my good friend Rohnald MacNeal, a cousin of the MacDuibhs.” The druid clarified as they entered the vicinity of the forest.
“Is he a friend from fifty years ago?” Cormac asked distractedly swinging a stick he had picked up and waving it at a nearby tree branch, where a nearby squirrel squealed furiously as it leapt to another, safer branch. He frowned.
“Of course not, why it was not very long ago that I had visited Rohnald,” Wulfnoth admitted loudly as he always was.
“When was this?” Indulf wondered as he studied a small hill to the left of them that rose far above their heads, was lined with hundreds of red, orange and green trees. Some had fallen since long ago a few had only recently done so where still others remained tall and strong.
Following his gaze with equal fascination, it came into the mind of Cormac that mayhap Alette might once have seen these trees. Mayhap, this forest contained some of her folk, who may have felt more timid, less willing to speak with and sing and dance with ordinary mortals.
Trygve hardly paid any of their surroundings any mind, having given over his salt-filled pack to Cormac to carry, he had hurried wither into the forest in search of a deer he claimed to have seen racing by. Though not as skilled a hunter, he had nonetheless as in the case of Cormac and Daegan spent some time in the forest hours away to the north of Glasvhail, hunting under the supervision of Corin.
Wulfnoth answered with a glance towards some blue-winged pigeons that flapped by, followed by a group of blue-jays that chirped merrily at the wanderers. “It must have been nearer to thirty-five years ago.”
This information pulled a laugh from Daegan and Cormac, with even Indulf unable to resist a small smile. Sensing their mirth at his expense, the druid frowned at them irritably, before he sought to square his shoulders, and walk with a touch more dignity. Though he appeared more than ever before akin in appearance to an overgrown weasel with a thick moustache, he succeeded beyond question in this endeavour.
“There is quite the difference between thirty-five years and fifty years,” He insisted heatedly.
Differences that were as wide and different as the colours red and greed that appeared to be everywhere, the green lay in the land as the thaw had given way to life. The suns shot out their golden rays over the land of the island of Bretwealda, with such warmth and a beauty that lit the forest up with a thousand smaller suns.
Long was the walk over the hills, past the trees, then down the hills, past the trees. There eventually came a time when the suns that had reigned over them all so brightly, began to dip. Their light gave way to darkened clouds, gave way to an ominous sense of foreboding.
It was as they walked that Indulf came to ask Cormac, as perturbed by the silence that had come between each of them as thief might in the night, penetrating the safety of their homes. Blackening the land all the more, turning the warm red and green trees into blackened monoliths that loomed over them. The once friendly squirrels and chipmunks, and other rodents were replaced by the movement of bears, of other shadow-creatures or large predators who had little love for men.
“Cormac, how is it you knew the wood of the temple, was soft and brittle?” He queried keen to at last hear of this particular subject, and to ward off the unease that had begun to settle into his stomach.
His own stomach felt strangely hollow, as did his mind at that moment as he eyed the lumbering figures that appeared to his mind to glower down at them. Trees that, were once as warm as parents, now appeared little more than glaring towers at war with the forest itself or so Cormac thought with many a nervous glances all around them.
Only Daegan appeared blind to the air of menace that surrounded them, wandering through the forest blissfully unaware of the change in the air. A tune which sounded rather akin to the hymn of the red-sword of Ziu the war-god, on her full-lips as she all but bounced forward with her long hair trailing after her. Shaking his head at this folly on her part, as the shadows lengthened over her and the rest of them, as the wind blew through each of the tree-branches which had begun to re-grow the leaves they had lost in autumn.
“There is a hole in the rear of the temple of Fufluns, in Glasvhail,” Cormac revealed with a shrug of his shoulders, “The hole was an accident, one dug by Trygve and I when I was either four or five. This was after the long-winter you remember?” Indulf nodded his head in response, “Well after that winter, it took weeks for the snow to completely melt with the water pressing against the wood of the temple whereupon it left the wood brittle and soft as what happened with that temple of Turan.”