The Brothers' Game

“You’re Ruobhe!”

“No YOU’RE Ruobhe!”

Two high voices carried their argument on the Spring breeze. The timbers of the Aelvinnwode’s southern fringe creaked above and around them.

“Am not!”

“Are too! I was Ruobhe last time!”

“Well I’m older so YOU’RE Ruobhe!”

“Aww, this game’s dumb! You never play fair, Brinden!” whined the younger and smaller of the two, a sandy-haired boy with eyes the colour of a deep lake on a clear day.

“C’mon Cathal, you’re way better at doing Ruobhe’s voice than me anyway!” the other boy, Brinden pleaded. He was older, much broader, and darker haired, with pale grey eyes. The younger boy was dressed in a fine orange tunic bearing the crest of his house, a silver falcon in each of the top left and right quarters of an orange field, with a rampant black hound on a silver division per chevron in the lower half. The older boy was dressed in undyed but well-made wool and a brown leather jerkin.

“Ugh, FINE,” Cathal rolled his eyes. He climbed onto a nearby hill and slipped his foot into the loop of a knotted rope suspended from a large, stout tree that grew below. A moment later, he had twisted his face into a caricature of evil, and held clawed hands up to either side. “Be afraid, Edgar Khorien,” the boy said in a snarling, nasal voice, “Ruobhe Manslayer hunts for you!”

The older boy struck a heroic pose, holding a hand in the air as though to brandish a blade.

“A true Taeghean is never afraid, Awnsheghlien! Hunt me if you dare!” and with that, Brinden charged toward the large tree. Cathal watched him run and clenched his brow in concentration. He judged the angle and turned to face ahead of his half-brother’s path. A second later he lunged from the hill top and swung out toward Brinden, reaching with one hand. The wind rushed passed him, flowing through the mop of his hair and he screamed with excitement. As he soared closer and closer to Brinden, he tried to judge the moment to tag him. Brinden was not looking at him, intent as he was on the tree.

NOW!

Cathal reached out to touch his half brother, but Brinden wasn’t there. The dark haired boy had stopped in his path, raised on his tip-toes with the effort, and Cathal’s hand passed through empty air less than a foot from Brinden’s face. Brinden took to running again, and Cathal leapt from his rope swing, taking to the chase on foot.

It was futile, though. Brinden’s stride was nearly twice as broad, and Cathal could never catch him. Within seconds, Brinden had reached the trunk of the mighty tree, and placed his palm on a round spot of bare wood, where the bark had been stripped away.

“Haha! Victory for Taeghas!” Brinden shouted. He stood triumphant next to the tree, his hands on his hips, chest puffed out with pride. He was taken completely by surprise when Cathal didn’t stop running.

“Manslayer!” the younger boy shouted and barrelled into his half brother with as much force as his tiny frame could generate. Brinden, caught off guard, tumbled into the dirt, laughing hysterically. They rolled around in a cloud of dust and dried out needles for a few seconds until Brinden handily pinned his younger half-brother.

“You cheated, you little sneak!” he said, collapsing onto his back beside little Cathal and laughing breathlessly.

Cathal, grinning from his own back, said “Ruobhe cheats! That’s why he wins all the time.”

“Haha, well he lost today!” Brinden stood, helping his little brother to his feet. “But nice try!”

Cathal beamed at Brinden. “Mother probably thinks the elf has got us for sure. We should get back to the cottage.”

“Ha! I’ll race you!” Brinden said, and gave Cathal a gentle shove backward before sprinting off to the south.

“Ugh! No Fair!” Cathal shouted, and ran after his elder brother.

Their laughter soared through the empty trees, through day and night and summer and winter. Through years, a decade and more, and finally into a damp, cavernous hallway of old mortared stone. It was lined on either side with the stone-wrought faces of ancient lords, their visages cold and stern and questioning.

A large, rectangular table stood at the front end of the hall, a broad slab of dark stone. The corse upon it was lit by dim torchlight. Long of limb, broad of shoulder, a tumble of once thick, dark hair falling from the side of the skull that hadn’t been ruined. What teeth remained showed through torn and mangled lips. The nose and one ear were missing, and where once were eyes the shade of a morning mist, now gaped black, empty sockets.

Next to the table, a young man sat in an old wooden chair, his sandy-haired head clasped in scarred and calloused hands. The night was still, save for the strangled sobs of one living voice that echoed across the stone faces of the dead.