That done, feeling a bit foolish for some reason, Tarrin turned west and started walking, a path that would cause him to skirt the stable and go out over a planted field.
"Wait a minute! Who are you? What are you?" the oldest called.
"A memory," Tarrin said, just loudly enough for them to hear, then he opened his stride and carried himself out of their sight, around the stable, before they could respond.
He really didn't know what else to do. He wasn't about to let the Trolls wreak havoc in the area, threaten that family, but he couldn't stay to hunt them down. So he created a safe place for the people to go, a place safe from the Trolls, where they could wait until it was safe to go home again. And he protected that nameless family that had made him feel better.
Of the two, the latter was definitely the most important to him.
To: Title EoF
Chapter 22
Miserable conditions.
Tarrin growled a bit as a rivuletof cold water funneled out of his hood and chilled his shoulder and upper arm, feeling it sink into the cloth of his shirt. The rain had been heavy, cold, and very unpleasant for nearly four days, and it was something which he'd hoped to avoid. He'd gotten a bit tired of rain, making it dark and oppressive despite the fact that it was well after noon, making his homecoming seem strangely ominous. Spring rains were a yearly occurrance in Aldreth, the chilling rains lasting for days, even rides, but they were an event much anticipated by the people of Aldreth. The ends of the rains heralded the beginning of the planting season, and two rides after the rains ended, the festival of Summer's Dawn was held on the village green. Those two rides were spent feverishly planting for the summer, and the fesitval marked a respite from the heavy work, a holiday to celebrate the end of the heavy labor.
Aldreth. He had yearned for the place, dreamed about it, thought of it, for many months now, and finally, he had come back. He stood on the road to Watch Hill, shaking some of the water off of his large cloak, trying to figure out how he had gotten lost and ended up so far south of his home village. He had been aiming for his old farm, to pass through it on the way to Aldreth, to see what was left and remember good times gone by. It had to be the rain. It made him a bit listless, a bit unwatchful. He had been on the meadow path leading to the farm, but he must have accidentally turned onto the blackrock path instead of staying on the meadow path. The blackrock path led to a large black rock-hence its name-that rested about a longspan south of the village. His mind was so occupied with seeing things, he never noticed that he had made a wrong turn. He hoped his father never found out about this, he'd never hear the end of it.
It had to be the expectation of it. He had been looking forward to this for a long time now, and it had been the main motivation for crossing the Frontier as quickly as he did. He travelled in ten days what he thought would have taken him fifteen, because any time he was not sleeping, he was running. He had been so excited to come back to Aldreth, to see it on his way to Suld, that it made his attention wander off what he was doing much of the time. That wandering attention had gotten him into trouble on two separate occasions, proving that the Frontier was not a place to be if one couldn't keep his mind on what he was doing. The first altercation had been when he had crossed the territory of a Were-boar without stopping the required three days to let him know that he was passing through. He had seen the signs, but he had been in too much of a hurry to stop and wait. The Were-boar had caught up with him while he was taking a nap, and he had been very, very unpleasant. So unpleasant, in fact, that he had had the gall-perhaps the stupidity-to attack Tarrin. Tarrin did not take kindly to being attacked over something as silly as not saying hello, and reacted accordingly.
The next time he killed a Were-boar, he had told himself, he wasn't going to make the mistake of biting it. Were-boars tasted horrible.
The second altercation was probably the more dangerous of the two. He had been moving in a straight line, using Sorcery to keep him on the path to Aldreth, and he had blundered into the home range of a pack of Were-wolves. Were-wolves hated Were-cats with a passion, and Tarrin's presence in their territory was noticed almost immediately. That pack of fifteen Were-wolves was on Tarrin's trail immediately, and it was only by good fortune that he realized that he had wandered where he shouldn't have been, and turned away so he could get out of their range as quickly as possible. Tarrin wasn't going to tangle with an entire pack of Were-wolves, not if he could help it, and certainly not on their home ground.
What made it dangerous and a bit annoying was that the Were-wolves continued to pursue him even after he left their range. That annoyed Tarrin, for he had done what he was told to do, and yet they still weren't going to let him go. It annoyed him and offended him, for his pride was too much to continue running away from them. So he stopped in a clearing and waited for them. If they wanted him, he was going to oblige them.
What happened after that was probably going to get him into a great deal of trouble with Fae-da'Nar. The Were-wolves reached him and immediately attacked. Tarrin, who was already annoyed and still had the fresh memories of his tangle with the Were-boar in mind, wasn't in the mood to show neither mercy nor quarter. The Were-wolves showed no fear of a solitary Were-cat-until, of course, their numbers began bursting into flames at the wave of a paw from the Were-cat. Tarrin wasn't stupid enough to fight fifteen Were-wolves claw to fang, so he chastised them mightily with his magic. So mightily, in fact, that only three managed to live long enough to get out of the meadow.
Tarrin grew a dim opinion of his Were cousins at that point. If all Were didn't like the Were-cats, that was fine. But if they were going to attack him, they were going to pay the price for their stupidity.
Nobaka. The Sha'Kar word for fool.
Outside of those two little adventures, the passage through the Frontier had been uneventful, and a little blurred. He was running almost twenty hours a day now, just like a Selani, moving with a desparate urgency to reach Suld in time. Thoughts of that and daydreams of visiting Aldreth had occupied his mind and allowed him to run freely, making the time just fly by. It seemed like it was only a couple of days ago that he entered the Frontier. Then again, it did get a little unpleasant when the rains started. Tarrin tried to ignore it at first, but it was just too cold and too unpleasant. So he Conjured up a cloak that was waterproof. That helped, but it had been a while since his feet and trousers had been dry, and that cold, clammy feeling made the cool air that much more unpleasant.
The weather wasn't the only thing that had changed. The brown skin of his tan had steadily faded with the days under the forest canopy, away from the sun. He didn't look like an Arakite anymore, but he did still have a dark tan that made him look slightly bronzed, like an Arkisian with a light complexion.
The time in the Frontier hadn't been totally alone. Keritanima had been contacting him daily, and she kept to her new pattern of calling to him around noon every day to talk. Allia had also started doing that, but her calls came near sunset. It was good to keep in communication with his sisters, but there wasn't much that they could say through the amulets, because of the risks involved. It was usually little more than smalltalk, though Keritanima did pass on information through Jenna, letting his sister talk to him in that place that only the two of them could enter. More and more of her troops had arrived, and Keritanima had managed to convince the Council and most of the city that they were there to defend Suld against the possibility of an attack, not outright preparing for an attack they knew was coming. This was a logical conclusion, given that Dal armies were laying siege to Ultern, and were only ten days' march from the walls of Suld. The Wikuni and Vendari had done a good job to make what looked like general preparations, nothing extreme or specific, while doing their real preparing in the darkness of night. Tarrin had worried slightly that the Vendari honesty would ruin the subterfuge, but Vendari were warriors. They knew when to keep their mouths shut. They understood that surprise was a key to battle, and surprise could not be achieved if the enemy knew what to expect. They simply said nothing, and allowed their Wikuni comrades to do the lying for them.