They were at it again. In front of him, or behind his back, they never let up, not for a minute! He felt his anger boiling up again, felt his face getting hot and his eyes starting to burn with the misery of loss he had vowed never, ever to show. He wanted to storm right back inside and confront both of those miserable old beasts, but what good would it possibly do? They’d only say to his face what they’d just said to Justyn.
With a strangled sob, he wrenched himself around and ran off - not into the village, but into the woods beyond, where the villagers were too cowardly - unlike his Mum and Dad - to go.
His feet knew the path, so he didn’t need to be able to see to find his way to one of his many hiding places. That was just as well, since unshed tears of anger and grief kept him from seeing very clearly. Darian wasn’t old enough to remember a time when things had been other than hard here at Errold’s Grove, but until last year, he had been happy enough. He hadn’t spent much time in the village itself, and although he hadn’t had any playmates, he hadn’t felt the need of them. Solitary by nature, he enjoyed the mostly-silent companionship of his parents.
Errold’s Grove lay on the very far western edge of Valdemar; nominally it was part of Valdemar, but the people here seldom saw a Herald more than once a year, and of late it had been longer than that between visits. Not that a Herald would do Darian any good, but the Heralds’ absence made the villagers feel neglected and forgotten, and that made them even harder on anyone who didn’t conform.
And Darian would never conform. He hated the village, he hated the people who saw no farther than the edges of their fields and wanted nothing more. He wanted more; he was stifling for want of freedom, and felt as if he were starving on a diet of confinement and mediocrity. He’d been out there where these villagers feared, and he remembered it far more vividly than anything that had happened to him in this dull little huddle of huts. Once he’d traveled the deep Forest he was never the same again, and he didn’t want to be part of this insular flock of humanity.
He ran like a hare through the field of corn behind the cottage, bare callused feet making little noise on the soft, cultivated earth. Nobody stopped him; the tall green corn hid him from view, and if they heard his running feet, they probably thought it was one of their own children coming back from an errand. A moment later, Darian burst into the shadows of the Forest at the edge of the fields and slowed once he was in the shelter of the undergrowth. He took a moment to orient himself, then twisted his way through the brush and sought refuge in his favorite tree, one of the enormous Forest giants that ringed the village and kept it in shade for most of the day. He climbed as swiftly as a squirrel or a tree-hare and as surely; even blinded by tears he had no trouble finding his hiding place where the great trunk split in two, forming a cup that a boy could easily curl up in and still have room for a few possessions. Beneath him lay the village, a cluster of about fifty buildings on the forested side of a bridged ford on the River Londell right on the edge of the Pelagiris Forest.
It went on forever in three directions, climbing hills, plunging into valleys, and crowning the huge bluff that rose above the river downstream of the village, with only the Londell halting its march toward the heart of Valdemar. The hard-won fields carved out of the forest were tended and fertilized with the greatest and tenderest of care, for it took terrible effort to gain a foot of clear ground from the trees, and there was always the chance (so it was said) that the Forest would decide to take revenge for trees that were cut down rather than falling down naturally. The Forest had always been a fairly uncanny place according to the old granthers and grammers of the village, but since the start of the mage-storms it had gotten very much stranger and far more dangerous.
A Herald had come - the first he had seen - three months after his unwanted apprenticeship to Justyn had been decided for him. The Herald had been light-skinned, with a long blond braid of hair, and looked all the paler because of the white outfit and matching riding coat. With him, of course, had been his Companion, a white horse that was more than a horse - it was more like a dreamer’s ideal of everything a horse could be, with lambent blue eyes, a long mane and hide that stayed impossibly clean, and silvery hooves. The Herald had explained that the strange things that were happening were called “mage-storms,” and they were caused by the magic of the world being disturbed a very long time ago. They had been told that the greatest mages of the world had united under Valdemaran leadership, and were working to prevent any major catastrophes. The Herald had answered the few questions posed by the villagers, looking to the white horse and then back. Darian had wondered at the time if he was the only one of the group, Justyn included, who felt like the white horse and the Herald were communicating with each other through then-looks and subtle gestures. The Herald would have gone on, but several of the older folk of the village hauled him away to explain more, out of Darian’s earshot. Since that took Justyn away as well, he was perfectly happy with that, and went off then to spend time alone in this very place of refuge. By the time he’d emerged, the Herald and his Companion had gone, and there hadn’t been one through here since.
According to Justyn, the fact that Errold’s Grove was relatively near Lake Evendim meant that they got the worst of the mage-storms. Huge circles of land and the creatures in them either changed completely or warped and twisted out of all recognition. Monsters appeared, things worse than the worst nightmare or legend, and unfortunately there were no friendly Hawkbrothers nearby to chase away or kill them - not that the people of Errold’s Grove particularly trusted the Hawkbrothers. At one time these people had made a good living out of going into the Pelagiris Forest and collecting some of the strange plants and fungi that grew there for use as dye-stuffs, and that business had occasionally brought them into conflict with the Hawkbrothers. Traders had come far out of their way for those dyes, and that had encouraged some people to go in deeper, in search of any other things that traders might find valuable. Of course, the deeper in they went, and the more they looked for ancient treasures instead of mosses and fungi, the more likely it was that they would wander into Hawkbrother lands and be warned off, often at the point of a drawn weapon. Once or twice, outsiders had come hunting treasure as well - and their bound bodies would later be found neatly arranged on the Forest edge, without a single copper piece or trinket missing, awaiting discovery and burial. Each such discovery would discourage deeper incursions for a few months, but there were always greedy outsiders ready to dare the Hawkbrothers for the sake of treasures, and their fates were a warning to the dye-traders to stick to their business and leave whatever “treasure” was out there alone.
Nevertheless, there was enough and more than enough of legitimate “quarry” to tempt the people of Errold’s Grove out into the Pelagiris until things started getting out of hand. The village had been quite prosperous, with visits from Heralds twice and three times a year, a fine wooden bridge over the Londell built by the order of the Crown, and even a pair of Valdemaran Guards stationed to watch the bridge and keep the peace on the road. There were still two sturdily built guardposts here, one on either side of the bridge, to prove that Errold’s Grove had once been considered an important border town.