A crisp morning breeze whispered through the rugged wilds bearing disparate, sweet scents of Rordynne Forest as it awoke. Ryleine’s catch had been light recently, but she could feel her luck changing. Something peculiar drifted in the air, something restless. Wildlife would be nervous, prowling the forest with eyes and ears pricked up, and not concentrating on concealed snares beneath their limbs.
Her feet landed softly on damp mossy dirt, her leather boots keeping the moisture out. She had made the boots herself, along with the rest of her outfit. Her knee length shorts wrapped tight around her thighs and tighter still under the belt, her shirt perhaps more stylish than comfortable, and a jacket to keep her warm on frigid mornings. But for all her efforts in presentation, her priority remained durability, and to avoid loose clothing snagging in rough undergrowth.
Rordynne Forest supplied all the leather and food she needed, and still enough to flog in Lerinton, where traders would resell to Helen’s Bay merchants at twice the price. She would not normally bother travelling that far herself, not unless she needed supplies. Lately however, the forest had provided less than she needed, and once again the first trap she checked that morning yielded pitiful results. She crouched down, resting on one knee as she searched for any signs of animals passing by. Evidence was obvious in the spoor, but luck, it seemed, had been on their side that night.
With a sigh she stood and retied her hair as she had several times already that morning. It hung close to her waist, and years of experience had earned her the ability to twirl it into a knot within moments, a habit she often repeated while her mind wandered.
Three traps later and several reties of her hair, yet still no yield. Something had changed, but she could not quite figure out what it could be. Finally, she found a snare that still held its quarry, and her excitement grew as she approached. It had caught something completely unexpected; a beast unlike anything she had seen. With its back at a height with Ryleine’s waist, the great cat appeared to be something like the tiger depicted in myths of the mainland, yet quite different. Her fur a held deeper black than a dark night in a cave, with blood-red stripes spanning the full length of her body from whiskers to tail, shrinking at each end. Her paws measured twice the size of Ryleine’s hands, while her teeth bore resemblance to a torturer’s set of sharp stilettos.
She looked back at Ryleine, sad, and in pain. The noose tightened on her front paw, and blood dripped from the wound. The beast snarled at Ryleine as she approached. Her stomach grumbled despite her distaste for feline flesh. Besides, the pelt alone would fetch a handsome price. And more than likely this carnivore had eaten, or at least scared off most other prey, leaving Ryleine’s traps unsprung.
Despite defiant hissing and growling, Ryleine persisted. She edged closer to the feline, dagger drawn, eyes fixed on her prey, prepared for the usual death throes. All creatures fight to the last no matter how slim their chances. Ducking under the all too predictable swipe, she slashed with her dagger and quickly stepped back.
“Go free, sister of the forest,” she said.
She felt glad no one was around to hear her, it sounded much better in her head. The black tiger backed away slowly, limping slightly, eyes still fixed on her. Then, she turned and bounded away into the thicket.
An act of madness no doubt, but Ryleine pitied her. She was probably all alone in the forest, something Ryleine could relate to. Besides, once that pelt had been spotted in Helen’s Bay, every man with a pointy stick would be flooding Rordynne Forest in search of more of the new precious hide. Ryleine would far prefer that her sanctuary remained her own.
She continued through the forest, seeking her traps and hoping for captured game; anything would do. Half the day had passed already when she finally found a sprung trap with a catch still held. A hare, barely enough to feed one person. It would have to do.
She slung the hare over her shoulder and made for her grandfather’s hut. He too lived alone, deep in the forest, as far away as he could get from people without being too far to return if he needed. The hermit, they called him, those that knew he existed, but there were not many of them left. He had been there for so long that scarcely anybody remembered his name. Ryleine always made sure her route took her close enough to check on him.
It was hardly unusual to find his hut empty, he liked to take lengthy walks, so Ryleine wasn’t worried. Instead, she sat down outside and started on the hare. She made short work of skinning it, cutting fur just deep enough in the right places and then sliding the body out, leaving the hide almost perfectly intact. The meat she skewered, and cooked over a small fire.
As her grandfather had not returned in time to share her meal warm, she cut the hare in half, eating her meagre portion, and leaving the rest in his hut. If scavengers didn’t find it first, he would have something to eat when he returned. She could not wait any longer for him as she preferred not to be caught out after sunset. Her next stop was Lerinton, where she could sell the fur and pick up a few supplies. She might even stop at the tavern before heading home.
* * *
“One dirty for that, it’s barely mature.”
“One black coin?” exclaimed Ryleine. “That will barely pay for a drink in the tavern.”
“You don’t need a drink, you need to eat something.”
“Then you’re going to need to pay me more than one black, aren’t you?” she said. “That skin is worth five at least.”
“Hah, I would be lucky to get four in Helen’s Bay!”
“Fine, I will give it to you for three, and you will be robbing me.”
“Here’s two, now get the hell out of my store.”
Ryleine gave up negotiating and accepted her coins. It was undoubtedly worth more, but she didn’t have enough patience to barter with merchants. She wasn’t really interested in money, but she did need it in town. For one thing, she needed a new dagger with a sharp blade. Two black coins wouldn’t buy her a decent one, but she had been saving up.
New dagger in hand, she headed for The Forest Gate, a favourite tavern on the outskirts of town. It brandished a spacious timbered common room that offered warmth and shelter from horrible weather, and a quiet garden for a pleasant evening. Unfortunately, the barman insisted on accommodating other guests too.
She dropped a single black coin on the bar, making a show of how few she possessed. The innkeeper showed a warm smile, as he always did. Deklow knew everybody around there. Everybody knew everybody around there, but he was a kind man, unlike many.
“Tough day?” he asked.
“Tough year,” she agreed.
“You take a seat and I’ll bring over a nice warm stew and something to drink.”
She found an empty bench outside, and sat with her back to the table, gazing at the restless stars. She played with her hair, loosing and retying it several times. Even when her food arrived, her eyes turned upwards and followed the stars as she spooned the stew into her mouth.
The night sky always fascinated her. Stars forever wandered the heavens above, unable to stay still, a perpetual dance of a million flickering torches above. Why did they move? What did they seek? And were they watching her just as she watched them?
Perhaps they were simply unable to sleep, restlessly searching for a more comfortable position, irritably rolling over in boundless black quilts of boundless night sky. But if legends held any truth, the gods always cast their gazes on the lives of those busying themselves below.
“Good evening, gorgeous.”
A man sat himself next to her without request. She didn’t recognise him; must have been from Helen’s Bay. He was joined by another who sat on the other side of her, squeezing her uncomfortably between the two.
“I’m taken, gentlemen.”
“You look to be alone right now.”
Ryleine fingered the dagger in her pocket. Still unused, she didn’t really want to taint it with human blood, however tempted she felt to prick the man where it would hurt most. Luckily, the innkeeper stepped in.
“There is a free table over there, you two should move to it. Trust me, you don’t want to get on the wrong side of her husband.”
Thankfully, they left without too much argument. They were opportunistic and, evidently, she wasn’t a risk they were willing to take. She nodded her thanks to the innkeeper.
“Would you like another drink?” he asked, gesturing to her cup which was nearly empty.
“Not tonight, I’d best get going. Thank you.”
She took another sip as she looked back up at the sky. The stars were swimming restlessly as ever, all except one. It stood still, low in the southern sky. She had seen it before, a few times. It hung there on occasion, almost as if it were watching her. But something seemed different this time, it appeared… bigger.
She held her eyes fixed on it for a while, trying to work out if she was going mad or if the star grew brighter as it edged lower. Soon she was convinced. Easily the brightest star by then, the light continued to swell as it began to descend towards the horizon. Moments later a flash briefly lit night sky, and the star plunged into Rordynne Forest. Her chance, she realised, to see for herself if the legends of the gods were nothing more than tales.
Glancing around at other tables she saw that nobody seemed to show much interest, save for one elderly gentleman with a curiously sombre smile. Few had turned their attention from the mugs of ale on the tables. Ryleine’s curiosity was piqued, she felt drawn to the star, compelled to seek it. Either she’d travelled long past insane, or she would find it. Downing the last sip of her drink, she leapt up and began jogging southwards. She left in such a rush that she didn’t notice that she was being followed.
* * *
Even at fringe of Rordynne Forest, Ryleine never hesitated but dove straight in. She usually didn’t like to cross at night, but she knew the trees as well as anyone. It wasn’t the trees or the darkness that was the problem, but wolves that came down from the mountains and roamed after nightfall, and they were known to pick off people who were lost, trapped in the thicket. Even as she heard the distant howling, she dashed through overgrown trees, certain she knew where the star had fallen. She could see in her mind’s eye the exact location, though she couldn’t say why.
Suddenly she realised she wasn’t alone, sensing that something shadowed her to her left, running quietly, almost imperceptibly, through the thicket. She caught glimpses as a figure darted through darkness. As silent as the spectre kept, something much louder was behind her.
Unsure of her best move, Ryleine stopped dead in her tracks and swung around, dagger drawn ready. Two men burst through the trees, the same two who had pestered her at the tavern. With little time to think, or options, she laughed out loud.
“Did you notice I turned you around while you were chasing me?” she said. “Do you have any idea where you are? You are almost certainly going to die here; if not eaten by wolves tonight, then from starvation in the next few days as you finally succumb to the wrath of the forest in your futile search for escape.”
The two glanced at each other nervously for a moment, both drunk, judging but their unsteady gaits.
“You will show us out,” said the older man, “once we’re done.”
“Will I?”
She held her dagger out for them to see. They drew their own blades, both significantly larger than hers. She did not particularly fancy her chances, not against two of them. Not alone.
“It’s a bit cliché, don’t you think? Two drunk men chasing a helpless girl where no one can hear her scream.”
She sighed, dropped her dagger, and held her hand up to summon them to her.
“Let’s get this over with then.”
Grinning, they flexed grips on their blades as they edged forward. Then they froze, their eyes drawn behind and to her left. She could not hear anything, but she knew what was happening. She felt it. She had felt it. The black and red tiger stepped out of the shadows and leapt between her and the men, who froze instantly, too scared to move. Too scared to breathe. The beast paused, inspecting them from a short distance, and then a vicious snarl sent them running for their lives without any care for which direction they fled. She hoped that Rordynne Forest would finish them off.
“Thank you,” she said aloud.
The wild cat was barely visible in the gloom, but Ryleine could follow scarlet stripes on her coat, and when her eyes caught starlight, they too shone a deep red. As quickly as she arrived, she bounded off into the thicket, leaving Ryleine alone once more.
“Hello?” came a soft voice from behind her a few moments later.
She swung around, her second dagger already in hand. A man stood there. A different man, short, light build, jet-black clothing. Almost camouflaged in the shadows. He held up his hands before him, defensive, unthreatening, and approached cautiously.
“I’m sorry, I mean you no harm. I am lost,” he said.
“You must be.”
She still held the dagger out for him to see.
“I was about to help you, waiting for a suitable time to charge those men, but it seems you don’t need my help.”
He nodded in the direction the cat had bolted.
“That was quite something. What was that creature anyway?”
“My sister,” she said. “And she will come back if I call her.”
“There is no need.”
He lowered his hands slowly, gesturing towards a sheathed dagger.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I am… looking for something. I was looking, but have no idea where I am any more.”
He seemed harmless enough. At least he did not appear to have the same idea the other two men had on their minds. She lowered her dagger, and he relaxed his arms, his hands falling to his side with his fingers linking behind his back. Away from his weapon.
“City folk shouldn’t be here,” said Ryleine. “The forest is a dangerous place.”
“Believe me, I don’t want to be here,” he chuckled. “Shouldn’t have taken this job.”
“What are you looking for?”
“A gold coin,” he said. “Another one. Some old man around here has it. I planned to, er, offer to buy it from him.”
A gold coin? Her grandfather owned one. He kept it hidden in his hut, but she had seen it a few times before. It featured a ship on one side, and several stars on the reverse.
“There must be plenty of gold coins in the city,” she said.
“Not enough it seems. My employer wants them all. Needs them all. Says she can find the mainland if she gets her hands on all of them.”
He exaggerated a shrug; didn’t appear to believe his own words. She wasn’t sure she wanted this stranger anywhere near her grandfather. Better she guided him away.
“I don’t know of any old men around here, but I can help you look around. But first, I must find what I am after. Did you happen to see a star falling out of the sky somewhere around here?”
He stared at her blankly, as if questioning himself. Likely wondering what he had walked himself into.
“A star?”
“It fell somewhere close by.”
A wolf howled in the distance. Ryleine found she enjoyed watching him hesitating. Uncertain whether to follow the crazy woman searching for fallen stars, or take his chances with prowling wolves.
“I’m Ryleine,” she said, holding her hand out.
He hesitated, then took her hand.
“Kyrnrie.”
Dawn had drawn near by the time they stopped to take a break, resting next to a stream with water running rapidly over smooth stones. Ryleine felt certain they were near to where the star had fallen; she could feel it. Somehow, she knew precisely where it lay. Kyrnrie questioned her a few times, but she stubbornly insisted.
They resumed their journey as the sun began to rise. Ryleine wondered what she would do when she found the star, or what she might find in the first place. Would it be a lump of rock as many suggested? Or a god, as the pious and the dreamers hoped?
Her grandfather once told her that the stars danced at night to attract the attention of pretty girls below, and that any girl brave enough to make the journey to the stars would find a handsome man, marry him, and live eternally in happiness in the heavens. That may well have been one of many valid explanations for townsfolk referring to him as the crazy hermit.
But now that the opportunity was there for her to find a star… to meet a star, the tale gave her a feeling of fantastic longing, as if something she had searched for all her life waited at her very fingertips.
“What does a star look like anyway?” asked Kyrnrie out of the silence.
“If you asked me that a moment ago, I could have thought out aloud,” she said with a slight tone of annoyance. “Now I need to repeat myself.”
Kyrnrie flinched. Ryleine did not often need to deal with other people, she was not much good at it. Guilty, she retold him her thoughts on the star.
“A handsome prince, heh?” said Kyrnrie. “Or a princess perhaps?”
“I never said anything about royalty, just a handsome man. Keep your expectations realistic.”
“So… we’re searching for a rock then?” chuckled Kyrnrie.
Ryleine held her tongue, allowing herself to dream.
Now in daylight, she noticed that Kyrnrie was younger than he seemed. More attractive than she expected too. Could he be the fallen star? Maybe she was losing her mind.
“Once we find this lump of rock, we can then go looking for an old man, right?” said Kyrnrie. “I would really like to get out of this forest, and preferably not empty-handed.”
“I know this place better than anyone, and I don’t know of any old men around here. But we can ask around Lerinton, see if anyone else knows anything.”
“That’s exactly what I did. They told me the hermit lived somewhere around here. I think.”
“A hermit?”
He’d come too close already. Perhaps she would find another way to knock him off course.
“You are a terrible liar, you know that?”
Kyrnrie grinned as he said it. And he was right. She would have to take him to her grandfather eventually. Or kill him if she could bear it.
“He’s your grandfather, is he? I don’t mean him any harm,” he said. “I swear it. I don’t mean anyone any harm, it’s not my way.”
She could believe it. Suspicious perhaps, though he seemed a nice enough person. But what did she know about men from the city, besides not to trust them?
Before she could answer him, something else stole their attention. An odd odour floated in the air. It smelt like smoke, but sweeter. Like fresh flowers, petals carried in the wind, burning as they drifted.
They broke through a treeline to find a clearing, charred black with trees burnt to ash. In the middle, several shattered stones, black as coal, smooth as silk. It didn’t look much like a star.
Kyrnrie gestured to one side of the clearing, to an old man, naked and wrinkled. Urinating on a tree. Thin grey hair hung in tatters around his shoulders, failing to cover the top of his head. His skin hung loose from all parts of his body.
“Your grandfather?” asked Kyrnrie.
Ryleine shook her head slowly, grimacing in disgust.
“Your handsome prince perhaps?” chuckled Kyrnrie.
She hoped not.
The old man shook a few times, and then strode towards them, not bothering with modesty.
“No,” he said. “I am something much more. I am your god.”
He smiled proudly as he proclaimed himself, with hands on hips. The rest of him, well, it hung right there. His eyes were fixed on Ryleine, she noticed, when she caught his gaze.
“What? Mine?” she asked, glancing nervously at Kyrnrie. “My god?”
“Yours indeed. You have been waiting your whole life for me.”
She shuffled uncomfortably, swung her hair loose, and leaned her head to one side as she quickly wrapped it up again.
“Er, no I haven’t.”
The old man appeared confused.
“But… but you were watching me! All those nights, you were gazing up at me! With longing in your eyes.”
“Well, I was… curious about the stars. But you aren’t, well, exactly what I imagined.”
“It is our destiny to be together, Ryleine.”
Kyrnrie could barely contain his laughter. Ryleine searched for a way out, fast.
“Look, I don’t know you. You don’t just… drop out of the sky, deliver some speech about destiny, and expect me to fall in love with you!”
“Women are far more complicated than that!” added Kyrnrie.
“Thank you, Kyrnrie,” she said. “As I was saying… well, that’s it.”
“But… but…” protested the self-proclaimed god.
“Don’t we have another old man to visit, Ryleine?” said Kyrnrie.
“Yes. Let’s go,” she said.
They hastily walked away into the forest.
“Ryleine!” shouted the old man behind them as they vanished into the thicket.
“You just going to leave him there?” asked Kyrnrie.
“What am I supposed to do with him?”
Kyrnrie didn’t answer. They were still moving quickly, almost running away from him. Ryleine’s mind raced with them. Was that really what fell from the sky? A god? Her god? The forest already boasted one senile old man and had no room for another.
“Do you think they are all like that?” asked Kyrnrie.
“What?”
“The stars! Do you think they are all demented old men? Chasing after pretty girls that look at them?”
Suddenly the god burst through the trees in front of them, and they almost tripped over each other as they stopped before him.
“There are a million stars up there,” he said, “each one a million years old. We wander the heavens, searching, until we find our perfect soulmate. When we find them, we choose to sacrifice our immortality for love.”
“Oh crap.”
“I will not give up so easily, Ryleine. I have given everything for you. I will prove myself if I must. But I will not give up.”
“Oh… crap.”
“What will you have me do?”
She glanced at Kyrnrie who held a gleeful grin. He shrugged at her, pointing at her suitor, her very own personal god.
“Well… for a start, you can find some clothes.”
He bounded away into the woods, excited. His skin flapping as he faded into foliage.
“You are going to need to find him some more challenging quests if you want to keep him occupied,” said Kyrnrie.
“I’ll think of something. Many things. How long do you think he has left? Five years? Ten?”
“How long does a star live for? Even a mortal one?”
Ryleine couldn’t guess. But somehow, she pitied him. He had fallen from the sky for her after all. How much more could she expect from a man? But then, what did he expect from her? He was a god!
“I will make you a deal,” she said. “I’ll get you your gold coin, and you and your boss find the mainland!”
She gazed into the forest, wondering how long it would be before her suitor returned. How long before she would run out of ways to keep him busy. Renryre Island was too small to hide from anyone, let alone a god. She sighed, muttering her desperation out aloud. “I need to get off this godsdamned island!”
Next, Chapter IV: A Little Too Much Salt
M.A.B. Holloway 