Vol.4, Ch.3, P.2
Thereafter, we put the brook behind us and returned to the high trail. The twofold treat of sun and water had proven just the trick, for we soon discovered our steps quicker and our bodies lighter than before. Why, we even later found ourselves further along the route than was projected.
“I wager we’ll arrive before the morrow’s nightfall,” I remarked during a brief break and survey of our surroundings. It was best we broke into the manor under cover of night; if we can gain its outskirts before sundown, then all the better. Make camp soon, set out early on the morrow; arrive nigh the manor at evenlight, weather willing; there, rest whilst awaiting the fall of night; and when all is dark and ripe, spring ourselves to the attack—such was our plan.
“Proper spot, this,” Sig observed along the trail. “We ought camp ’ere’bouts.”
I thought very much the same. With bush and bough brimming about these parts, there was cover enough for a comfortable camp. Thus it was that we made a mite more headway before finding a small but sheltered hollow, and there set our scant gear down and sat ourselves upon the hardy undergrowth. Gloam came swift, and soon were all the mountains and their valleys veiled in darkness. Though we had sensed no surrounding sign of hostility, we nonetheless dispensed with starting a fire. All well and fine; it was rather warm, anyway.
The mirk waxed as we rested. Dark and still were the nights in these high places. The mountains, the trees, the ridges—all were rich, black shadows hushed and huddled under the star-heavy heavens.
“This I likes,” Sig said asudden.
“Like what?” I asked.
“The quiet.”
“Ah…”
The man had a point. Especially tranquil it was on the mountainside. The wood was grown thick about us, enough to sap all sound coursing through them. Bugs and critters themselves seemed content to keep the quiet. Even the winds stirred little, lost as they were amongst the shushing shrubbery. Indeed, all was very silent and very still.
Tranquillity as savoured in daily life far below could not compare. No; such was a silence solely of sound. Here on high, it was a different experience altogether.
“…”
“…”
Amidst that stillness, the faintest moonbeam bluely cast itself upon Sig’s countenance as he was sat across from me. Not in the slightest did he stir. That he wouldn’t, that he preferred such peace, belied naught about him. No, it should puzzle none that this living flame of a man relished in the moments when he could be but an ebbing ember.
“Cools the blood, innit,” he said lowly. Tranquillity, cleansing and calming the very veins in the body—such was surely how he imagined it.
“Quite,” I agreed, nodding as I sensed the same serenity washing through me.
A while later, we had ourselves a simple supper: dried meats to munch on and mouthfuls of freshwater reserved from our prior respite. Frugal fare, perhaps, but I thought the meal quite the feast, myself.
“Taken to trampin’ ’ready, ’ave ya,” Sig noted of my improved mountain-feet. A slight spite was in his tone, as though recalling coarser trials endured to achieve the same.
“I learnt from the best,” I returned peaceably.
I had been hard put to it at first, but in sticking to studying Sig’s steps did I finally find my hiking feet. Well, as much as a man could in a day, that is. But thanks to that, I was only half as worse for wear than I otherwise would’ve been—a sure boon for the morrow’s break-in.
“My first time, truth be told, making a trip over cramped paths as these,” I confessed. “Glad to have a fine model to mimick.”
Sig scoffed wryly. “‘Model’,” he echoed. “Ne’er been call’d that ’fore.”
A man walking his own way, whether in swordplay or other pursuits. Yet for all his wild wisdom, there hitherto was perhaps no one in his life willing to note its worth, much less learn from it. But wisdom it was nonetheless, and indeed noteworthy. This journey alone had me convinced.
“I ought’ve considered mountaineering for my regimen,” I mused. “Had some interest in it before, sure enough. Though the need never arose till now.”
“Aye?” Sig responded. “Well get on it, when all’s said an’ done.”
“I will,” conceded I. “But you’re coming with.”
Sig loudly clucked his tongue. “…Right ache in the arse-like, ain’t ya,” he groaned. Still, despite his complaint, the man never did refuse the idea. And that was the important bit.
“You really are a strange one, you know that?” I observed.
“Huh? Wot’s that make you, then, ‘ey?” Sig began retorting. “A gorilla full-shorn? A shite-flingin’ faerie?” Such small banter between us continued there on. Soon enough, the topic turned to one interest we both shared without question. “Ah. Ya fancies it the same as me, then, eh?” said Sig. “The sword, slicin’ through a pool o’ water.”
“One mirroring the moon, to be exact,” I added, delving deeper into the esoterics of swordplay. “If even in my mind the moon remains unmoved, then it’s a good cut I’ve dealt. That’s the same for you, as well, I wager.”
“You knob,” snarled Sig, before trailing off, “…’ow’d ya bloody know?”
His and mine were swords from different forges, as it were, and starkly so. Yet what it was that we each imbued our blades with were as brothers at their core. A commonality most peculiar, one might mark it, given we were as chalk and cheese. Yet to my mind, it was peculiar not in the very least.
Our banter continued on till the topic came to “travel”. As it happened, Sig himself had many a journey already under his belt, and not on account of his former affiliation with Zaharte, either. No, he was well-travelled from even before his stint with that free company, and so was learned of many Londosian lands.
“Ain’t gone out much, ain’t ya?” he remarked when I had little in the way of my own travels to tell of. “Wot you knightses do on the daily, then, eh? Jape an’ joust? Spit poemses at one ‘nother? Eh? Chase the missuses ‘round? Hah!”
“Nay,” I answered. “Some expeditions we’ve gone on, here and there, if that counts. But only when battle called.”
“Wot ‘bout ‘fore then?” Sig asked.
“Before the Order?” I said, before searching up to the stars that peeked through the leaves. “Spent all my days about the manor, that’s what. Never really ventured beyond the barony’s borders.”
Sig snorted. I could almost hear him smirking. “Gormless prince you are, then.”
“What about you?” I asked in turn. “What places’ve you gone?”
“Me?” Sig looked blankly away. “Eh. East, west… ’ere an’ there.”
“Here and there, you say.”
How enviable.
Such a thought, such a phrase did flutter in my mind, yet never did it come to lip. As for why, well… simply put, it would’ve sooner sounded an insult to Sig’s ears, like as not. In this day and age, it was neither by leisure nor wanderlust, but by need that a homeless Londosian would so wander. And what of myself? Rolf, son of a baron-house? Whose every meal had been glazed and garnished, whose bed had been big and soft, whose roof had leaked not a single drop of rain?
“Gormless”, indeed, this “prince”, were he to yearn for what to Sig were years of unyielding hardship. No; “envy” deserved no air here. If aught were to be paid Sig’s trodden paths, it ought be “respect”.
Such I mulled over in solemn silence.
“Heh.”
Reaching my ears was a huff of a laugh from Sig’s yet-smirking lips. It seemed in seeing me so silent that he’d scried a thread of my thoughts. But then…
“Oh…?”
“Hm?”
Our minds braced abruptly. Eyes squinted, ears pricked—a presence was upon us.
Bestial it was, prowling nigh… and not alone.
“Lo. Gand’rin’ us way ‘em tykes are,” Sig whispered sharply. “Five… six, I reckons.”
“Six sounds right,” I confirmed.
“An’… wolves, from the look o’ em,” discerned Sig, to which I recalled a night not long ago, when wolves, too, had harried me and Mia both. With knife and fire had I fought them then. And now, with sword and swordsman would I fight them again.
“…”
“…”
But as we watched, we found the wolves rather wary—too wary, in fact, to make a single move as yet. Cautious critters they were. No doubt chances were being weighed in their witful heads.
“…”
“…”
Sig and I kept still, staring back at them with nary a blink.
“…Scaredy-curs, ‘em,” Sig broke the silence.
“…They’d better be,” I agreed.
About the bushes the beasts idled, shadows shifting and shuffling with but the barest sound, daring no closer distance as they bided their time. Much an evil mind they had for us men, that much was certain. Still, they neither bared any fang nor chanced any charge at us.
“…”
“…”
The seeming stalemate lasted for several minutes more, till…
“…Hm,” Sig huffed. “Shog’d, eh.”
“…That they’ve done,” I said. The wolves were indeed gone, and just as quietly as they had come. In the end, no more than long, long looks were exchanged between Man and beast. “Likely fancied themselves dead, what with that death-stare you were giving them,” I observed.
“Wot you on ‘bout?” Sig griped back. “You were glarin’ at ‘em as a gourmand does ’is grub!”
“Nay, I mean it,” I insisted. “You’ve more the presence of a panther than a person, Sig.”
“Oi, piss off, aye!” spat Sig. “An’ quit ‘em bloody riddles o’ yours!” For all the fortune had in avoiding a battle by dark, it was confounding that we should have a fight with words instead. Who was it that “liked the quiet”, again, I wonder? “Hmph!” scoffed Sig as he laid himself down. “Scurry’d off when they took ya for a titan, I reckons!”
“Spoken from a titan himself,” I quipped. And for a while longer yet, under mirk and mottled starlight, we broke more of the mountain air with our maundering, biting banter. In time, our words waned as the night waxed, till our eyes grew heavy.
“Skip the watch,” Sig said in a yawn. A sin against common wisdom. But, he had a point. Deep in the wild as we were, our senses were whetted keen, that even behind slumbering lids could they sense danger creeping from a distance.
“…A watchless wink it is,” I conceded. And despite my doubts for Sig’s unsound logic, I soon drifted off to sleep at last.
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