Age of Myth (The Legends of the First Empire #1)

Raithe once more marveled at Malcolm’s lack of rudimentary knowledge about how people lived. He’d given up asking how Malcolm had become a slave. Any inquiry resulted in vague responses and a change of subject. Raithe concluded Malcolm had either been taken by the Fhrey as a baby or was born in captivity.

“Yes, that’s a dahl.”

“A little too symmetrical. Did they make it?” Malcolm asked.

Raithe nodded. “Sort of. Comes from centuries of building over previous villages.” He was in the brush on his knees and had already trimmed a cross branch, constructed the gateway for the snare, and was working at tying the loop. Usually he had trouble with that last part; his fingers were too big. “After a fire or a razing, people rebuild on top of the rubble. Easier than going someplace new, and the well is already there. Do it enough times and a mound builds up.”

“So Rhen is a clan? How many are there altogether?” Malcolm asked.

“Seven. Not including the Gula-Rhunes.”

“Why not include them? They’re human, too, right?”

“Rhulyn-Rhunes and Gula-Rhunes don’t get along.” Raithe finally got the little knot pulled. “We’ve been warring for centuries.”

“Are they who your father fought against with the Fhrey?”

“Yep. Every year there would be a battle or two and every decade a full-scale war. My father survived more than thirty years of fighting.”

“So how is it he never saw a dead Fhrey?”

“The Fhrey don’t bloody their hands. They plan the battles, pick and train the men, then send others off to fight. There were plenty of deaths but only among the Rhunes.”

Malcolm nodded as if he understood, but Raithe knew he didn’t. Few did. Even he had a hard time understanding. His father didn’t seem to question any of it. Herkimer accepted war as readily as he acknowledged water being wet. But then Dureya was a different place, certainly nothing like this.

“Usually, the higher the hill, the older the dahl,” Raithe said, looking across the field of sunlight. “That’s why it’s shaped that way. In a real sense, it’s a burial mound. By the look of it, Dahl Rhen must be quite old.”

The ex-slave reclined but continued to study the dahl. “It doesn’t look that big.”

Raithe had been thinking just the opposite. The dahl rose majestically in the distance, sun-drenched and luxurious with its abundance of wood. “It’s much bigger than Dahl Dureya and mammoth when compared with Clempton, the small village where I grew up.”

“I lived in Alon Rhist, remember,” Malcolm said. He hooked a thumb at the village. “That’s not suitable for a cattle pen when compared with Fhrey standards. How many people do you think live there?”

Raithe shrugged and tied a second knot into the loop as a precaution. He didn’t want his dinner getting away. Nothing was worse than finding an empty sprung trap. “Here? I don’t know, a thousand maybe. Where I grew up we had close to forty families, about two hundred people, but that was a little village, not a dahl.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Dahls are the oldest and most populated village of a given clan. It’s where the chieftain has his lodge. You know what a lodge is?”

“What beavers live in?”

Raithe stared at him incredulously.

“Yes, I know what a lodge is,” Malcolm said with a smirk.

“Well, you don’t seem to know much else.”

Malcolm shrugged. “I never claimed to be smart.” He focused back on the hill. “So there’s a thousand people in there?”

“Maybe. This place is twice the size of Dahl Dureya.”

“How many Rhunes, I’m sorry, humans, are there?”

“Including the Gula?”

Malcolm nodded.

Raithe shrugged. “I don’t think anyone knows.”

Raithe stared up at the great green mound. Morning fires burned inside the wall. He couldn’t see the homes but counted scores of smoke columns rising straight on a windless day. The only structure visible from where they sat was the peaked roof of the lodge. Made of raw logs, it looked huge.

“I don’t see why we can’t go in,” Malcolm said.

“We don’t need to. After I finish this snare, we’ll go back over to the cascade where we set the others. Hopefully, our first rabbit will be waiting for us. So we’ll have plenty of fresh water and roast rabbit for supper. It’ll go along nicely with the rest of the bread.”

“Bread’s gone,” Malcolm mentioned.

“Gone? All of it?”

“Last night.”

“But we only ate a little bit.”

“And the night before we had a little. It’s not magic bread, you know.”

Raithe frowned. He’d been looking forward to rabbit and grease-soaked bread. Thinking about food when he didn’t have any was miserable.

Malcolm pointed to a flock of sheep barely visible on the far side of the dahl. Two men and a pair of dogs urged them up a grassy slope. “They probably have lamb stew in Dahl Rhen, fresh bread, maybe even milk, eggs, and butter. Bet they’re having breakfast right now. I love breakfast. Are you familiar with the concept?”

“Don’t start that again. If you wanted steady meals, you shouldn’t have hit Shegon with that rock.” He looked over at Malcolm. “Did he really do those things? Did Shegon feed women to dogs and cut off the hands of a child?”

“No.” Malcolm shook his head. “Shegon was a self-indulgent, arrogant fool—most of them are—but he wasn’t a monster. He was a hunter. The Instarya are another matter, and they’re the ones after us. They’re warriors who command the outposts, the tribe charged with keeping order out here on the frontier.”

“I thought Alon Rhist was the home of…” Raithe stopped before revealing his own ignorance.

Malcolm smiled, not a gloating grin or pretentious smirk but a look of understanding. Raithe reconsidered his earlier impression about Malcolm resembling a weasel. The man did have a pointed nose and narrow eyes, but other than that he wasn’t weasel-like at all.

“No, Alon Rhist, though far more impressive than that dahl over there, is small by Fhrey standards. The Fhrey’s homeland is Erivan,” Malcolm said. “A vast and beautiful country of ancient forests more than a week’s hike to the northeast. It’s on the far side of a great river called the Nidwalden. Few Fhrey ever leave Erivan. Significant portions of their population have never left the capital city of Estramnadon. They see Erivan as the center of the universe, the source of all things good, so there’s no point in going anywhere else. Alon Rhist is the largest of five fortresses built during the Dherg War. The Fhrey out here patrol these lands and ensure there’s a safe buffer between people like us and them. It’s actually a source of some friction in their society. The Instarya don’t like being the only ones forced to live in what most consider a wasteland.”

A breeze picked up. All around them leaves rustled, whispering to one another—a gentle sound. Across the field, the pillars of cook fires began to lose shape, blurring as they blew to the south.

“I don’t know why the Instarya complain. It’s really quite beautiful,” Malcolm said.

Raithe stood, taking his snare with him. He cut down a small tree, pruned off the branches, and laid it across the opening of a tiny path. The trail through the brush was the perfect size for a rabbit, and little pebble droppings were everywhere. He hung the loop down from it, keeping the noose off the ground. Then he stuck pruned branches in the dirt before the hoop, ensuring that the rabbit would need to jump over them and would land in the snare.

“Bless me with three rabbits, Wogan, and I’ll make a burnt offering of the last one to you.”

“Bargaining with the gods again?” Malcolm asked. “Wouldn’t it be more enticing to offer the first rabbit in order to prove your faith?”

“Wogan isn’t a god; he’s a spirit, a guardian of forests.”

“There’s a difference?”

“I know you were a slave for a long time, but did they keep you trapped in a hole, too? Is there a difference? Is there a difference between a cow and a goat, between the sun and the moon? Tetlin’s Witch! I swear—”

“Don’t.” Malcolm’s tone was abrupt and serious.

Raithe paused. “Since when are you against swearing?”

“I’m not. Just choose another name to swear by.”

“Why? Using a god or a spirit would be far worse.”