They Honoured The Forest

The wind rustled through the yew boughs of the small grove, and the light of stars and a crescent moon painted everything in the clearing silver. Appropriate, it seemed; some of Aeric's priests called the crescent moon Aeric's bow, and just beyond the clearing, the waters of the river the Wilders called Aeric's Bowstring lapped quietly against its banks.

They stood facing each other, only five now. Elgrin gaunt and barely standing from weeks of hard riding, Adair with his left arm atremble and riddled with ugly scars, Patches physically hale but eyes haunted, Telfyrdd a hardened, grim woodsman now, barely recognizable from the rosy-cheeked apprentice ranger of two years earlier. And Cuinn, covered in the dried blood of the Wilders she'd tried to save, of the Boeruinese marauders she'd methodically hacked the limbs from to fertilize the Wilders' fields, and her own, still blooming on the dressings of the vicious wound in her shoulder. Dirt and yew needles and dried leaves stuck to the blood; it half masked her face, she looked more a bloodthirsty wood-demon from Rjuven legend than a noblewoman. Braedon and Ceara were still unaccounted for.

And in each of Adair's hands was a bowstring, darkened with sweat and grime. It was all they had of Asha and Syggi. Elgrin had been forced to abandon Syggi's body and flee for his own life. Asha they could only presume had fallen to the dogs of the Boeruine army.

Elgrin knelt and dug two holes in the damp, black forest loam, and Adair pressed each of the bowstrings in one.

"They honoured the forest," Telfyrdd said. "I once watched Asha climb up a spruce tree as tall as the Keep roof with one hand, and a hawk chick in the other, to tuck it back in its nest after it had fallen out."

"They honoured the city," Patches said, her voice quavering. "Me and Syggi were just Stormpoint street rats before we came here. Syggi always talked about going back to Stormpoint to recruit more street kids."

"They honoured the common folk," Elgrin continued. "Syggi killed the Duene raider who had been attacking Wilder farm girls. She never talked about it, but I know she did it for them."

"They honoured the just ruler," Adair said softly. "They would have done anything for you, Cuinn. They would have been proud to have given their lives in the line of duty as Ghosts."

"They honoured themselves," Cuinn returned. "I'll never forget the day Asha beat that Brechtur archer and won the tournament. She was the best marksman we had. And I'll never forget how hard Syggi trained, and how she turned from a Stormpoint urchin into the finest of woodswomen. And so we honour them."

She crouched down and tucked a yew sapling into each of the holes in the earth, and patted the loam back around it, and tears washed clean channels through the dried blood on her face.