To Cut Flames from the Air

Chapter II Part I: Moon-Calf Mab

On the road from Summerled to Athlascelge, a solitary cart made quiet progress during a quiet afternoon. Its driver, Eira, was of Shorefolk kin, those scaley-skinned peoples hailing from the eastern shores, and well into her years. Indeed, her hair had begun to grey at the roots and the tawny scales that lined her arms and face had begun to chip, well worn by the traveling air. As the cart had found itself on a straighter stretch of well-trod path, she took a moment to look towards the cart's sole passenger who sat beside her at the reins. 

The passenger was a young lady, a few moons short of sixteen years, from whose brow grew two elk-like horns. Horns were perhaps the most common indicator of Woodborn lineage, as scales were for Shorefolk or as fingerprints were for the Plainspeople. What was uncommon, however, was the Woodborn's silver hair, far more greyed than Eira's despite the considerable distance of their ages. Eira had been told that the child was born under a strange moon, a fact that her parents had considered the reason for the pallor of her hair and eyes. In the years since, Eira had herself deemed it a cause of another of the child's eccentricities that she found quite unnerving.

As they were riding, the Woodborn had taken to closing her eyes tightly and counting under her breath. 

"What are you doing?" asked Eira. 

"Uh, what?" the Woodborn said, opening her eyes when addressed. "Umm... I think I'm just sitting here."

"I mean with the counting. What are you counting for, Mab?"

"Oh! You could hear that," she replied. "Uh, I'm counting the birds."

"Wouldn't that be easier to do with your eyes open?" Eira asked.

"Well, uh, they hide in the trees pretty well so they'd be hard to count with my eyes..."

"Ah, of course." Eira turned her attention again to the road. The roads, when lit by the sun that filtered through the forest's leaves, were welcoming to travelers and harrowing to the beasts of the night.

"Umm, I-" Mab began to speak but stopped herself and closed her eyes again.

"Did you have something to say?" Eira asked. As the years had passed, she'd learned to see conversations with Mab like working glass. Try to pull too much out of it at once and it will break, too slowly and it will cool too much to be worked at all. 

"Well, I didn't want to worry you, but, uh, there are a pair of travelers heading towards us ahead," Mab replied. "Or, um, four travelers, if you count their rams." 

"Are they Shorefolk or Plainspeople?" Eira asked.

"Neither, uh, Woodborn." Mab watched Eira's expression turn grave. "I... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up..."

"No, no, it's better that you said something now." Eira pulled the goats that lead their cart to a halt. "Please get in the back, Mab."

Mab nodded, and climbed into the back of the cart, sitting snug between the supplies they had brought between them for the journey and throwing a cloth over herself. Once she was settled, Eira clicked her tongue and the goats continued forward, pulling the cart in tow. 

It was another five minutes before they encountered anyone else on the road, but true to Mab's prediction two mounted rams did stand on the path ahead. Two Woodborn men sat upon the rams, both in footsoldier's wear, one far the elder of the other. They did not part as the cart approached, and Eira couldn't do much apart from slowing to a halt. 

"Can I help you?" she asked. She noted the sigil worn by both riders, a hound chasing away a wolf. Rarer than finding a Woodborn this far east, save those who occupied the hunting outposts that dotted the forest, was finding a Woodborn donning the emblem of Hungascelge. Indeed, the emblem was almost entirely retired by those citizens who'd fled the Shrine of Hounds to seek solace in Halverd's Rut. Only a certain type of traveler would wear it this far east at all.

"Would you happen to be Eira of Blyksteport?" the elder of the two asked.

"Of Blyksteport is it, now? Last I heard I was Eira of Summerled," she replied.

"And before that you were Eira, the sole Shorefolk Maid of Hungascelge, were you not?" he asked.

"Have you been looking for me?"

"No, but sixteen years ago I was told to look for a girl who a little birdy told me was seen with you in Summerled. Are you traveling alone tonight?" 

Eira stayed silent. Both riders before her placed their hands to their sides. The younger of the two seemed more eager in the wait than the other. Eira let go of the reins and stood at the front of the cart. 

"Mab, run," she said.

"Um, but..." Mab pulled the cover off from over her head, hesitating to sit up in the back of the cart. The older of the two riders nodded to the younger.

"Mab. Run." 

Both men drew their swords, and with a snap of the reigns, their rams gave charge. Mab pressed her eyes closed and leaped from the side of the cart, the cloth flying behind her like the cloud of dust behind the charging rams. The moment she felt her feet touch the ground she started running, taking off into the woods. 

Eira took a deep breath, focusing on the riders before her. The younger of the two had already veered left, his course redirected towards the girl on foot. Eira closed her eyes and sharply released her breath.

Before they knew what happened, both riders were knocked from their rams. An arc of lightning had threaded through the air, blinding light accompanying a shock that traveled up the younger's spine and down the elder's arm to his sword. The former laid motionless on the ground where he landed, his ram running scared into the woods. The latter, however, landed on his feet. He stumbled once, catching himself before he could fall and moving his sword from his right hand to his left. 

Eira's eyes met his. Her breath shook, her body quickly exhausted by the strain of tearing open a leyline. 

"I'm too old for this, you know," she said. 

"I am, too," he said. He raised his sword and ran at the cart on foot.

∘∘∘

The last thing Mab heard from the road behind her was the sharp sound of thunder. 

She did not look back as she half-ran and half-tumbled through the forest before her, too scared to slow down as she stumbled over the roots and rocks. The trees smeared to dark emerald blurs as she sprinted by, her eyes fogged with tears. She knew there was nothing to look back to, for she could feel with her soul better than she could see with her eyes that only a Woodborn still stood on the road behind her.