Minhiriath, S.A. 998
Ardaric was three-and-twenty years of age when his father died, and it was then that he took up leadership of his settlement. To mark the occasion, his people made the short journey south to their heart tree, where they feasted and danced and sang prayers to the sacred watcher for seven days and seven nights. The tree was the site of their every important ritual, from births to deaths to comings of age.
When the balmy summer dusk fell, their dancing shadows mingled weirdly with the surrounding trees, and their lilting voices offered a strange contrast to the cicadas’ incessant droning. Women turned meat on spits, and children ran to and fro, fetching and carrying for their elders. Ever mindful of the forest on the edge of which they lived, they burned only grasses and those boughs which had fallen from dead or diseased trees. It was a time of mingled sorrow and delight: they sang praises for the lives of both Ardaric and his father, but they also lamented the burdens of death and duty which - though they fell upon all men - fell especially heavy upon the shoulders of their leaders.
Ardaric raised his cup of mead to a passing gaggle of youths, who giggled and punched one another as they ran off to dance rings around the heart tree. Liuva, seated at his side, smiled sadly at their retreating backs.
“They do not yet know there is sorrow in these woods,” she said.
“No. And, gods willing, they never will.”
She gave him a long, searching look. There was something akin to pity in her eyes.
“You hold out enough hope for all of us.”
Ardaric had no reply.
While they had always known of the Doom of Men, the times in which Ardaric lived had made his people bitter and cynical, and the weight of their survival was upon him now. The days since the coming of the tall men with a fierce light in their eyes had been marked by a thinning of the forest and dark, smoky skies. It would not be long before the cruel axes of the invaders reached their village and drove away the animals and plants upon which they relied. Ardaric’s hope for continued peace lay in the saplings his people had grown from mere seeds, but it was a fragile thing. The trees grew too slowly to replace those which fell, and every year the invaders grew closer.
* * *
There came an autumn day some years on when Ardaric and Liuva were awoken by a shout just outside their hut. Bleary-eyed, they rushed into the midst of their villagers, all of whom were staring south. Above the dense blaze of orange and red leaves, the massive heart tree’s maroon foliage loomed like a dark cloud. It was a cool, windless morning, and many of the people had blankets wrapped around their shoulders. Liuva shivered; in her haste, she had run from the warmth of their bed wearing only a thin gown.
“Did you see it?” she heard one woman ask her husband. The woman tugged at his arm and pointed toward the heart tree.
The husband nodded. “Just there!” he said.
Liuva tried to follow his gaze into the distance to see what he saw. Around her, murmurs of “Yes, I see it!” and “What’s going on?” and “Can’t you see it? Right over there! Where the heart tree is!” crescendoed into a panicked cacophony. Still, Liuva did not see whatever they were seeing. She went to Ardaric’s side.
“My love, what is it? Do you know what has them in such a frenzy?”
Before Ardaric could answer, a great gaggle of crows rose from the woods, cawing and squawking their panic. Liuva looked toward them, and saw the heart tree tremble. She gasped. That tree was more than one thousand years old. It was big enough around that it took ten men joining hands with their arms fully outstretched to form a ring around it. Even then, they would all be pressed into its rough and unforgiving bark such that their cheeks and arms would be scored and scratched when they pulled away. Nothing so ancient or large should move so easily, yet here was their heart tree - the foundation of all their lives - swaying without a breeze.
“What’s happening?”
“How could the tree be moving like that?”
“Mama, I can’t see! Lift me up so I can see!”
“Should we go over there to find out what’s going on?”
In voices Ardaric knew well, his people asked these and dozens of variations on the same question:
How was this possible?
From the distance there came a mighty groan, as if a huge animal had been run through with a spear. The heart tree shook more violently, swaying wildly now from side to side. It would be only a matter of moments, Ardaric knew, before it toppled completely. A woman nearby began to cry, and her sister wrapped her in a hug.
As Ardaric turned away from the gathered crowd, he said to his wife, “I need to see Borani.”
* * *
That evening, Borani’s twin daughters led him, each holding one of his hands, into Ardaric and Liuva’s hut. His spine was curved with age, and the wisps of white hair on his head drifted back and forth as he moved forward with his halting gait. Having been born before Ardaric’s grandfather, Borani was the eldest of all the villagers. His daughters were older than Ardaric’s father had been when he died.
“Borani, welcome. Thank you for coming.” Ardaric smiled and nodded to the elder’s daughters, who hurried out into the night after helping their father to a seat upon a cushion. “I trust you know why I’ve asked you to come.”
The old man nodded. “The heart tree,” he said simply. It had finally fallen with a tortured groan and a mighty crash of boughs that afternoon. Since then, a strange silence had emanated from the woods - a silence that felt alive and purposeful, and which was reaching toward the settlement with long, cruel fingertips.
“Yes. What do you know of the men who came to these shores to fell our trees?”
Borani’s brow furrowed. “They came in my grandfather’s time. Landed their ships on our shores and, once they learned to speak with us, talked of bettering our people by teaching us their ways.” He shook his head with disgust. “They came on ships seeking the lumber to build
more ships. Where they mean to go and what they mean to carry aboard all those vessels, I could not say. But that is what they have always wanted. That, and to rule us all.”
Ardaric sighed. He had always known that the tall men had been the cause of the thinning trees, the dying animals, and the mourning landscape. He realized that he had been naive to think that was all they wanted. The villagers had paid for his ignorance with their heart tree. Anger rose in him, like water coming quickly to a boil.
* * *
Ardaric rode out from the village with supplies for a two-week journey to the harbor. He rode back with revulsion and hostility festering in the pit of his stomach.
“He’s back!” called a breathless boy at the door. As the boy ran away, he left a trail of little white puffs of his breath in the air.
Liuva put down her weaving, wrapped herself in a thick cloak, and went to greet him. She found Ardaric changed: all the softness had gone from his face. His jaw was set and his eyes blazed as he looked at her. So striking was the change that she feared that, if she touched him, she would burn away with the same fire of fury that had transformed her kind, hopeful husband.
“Well, my love, what happened?” she finally said.
He closed his eyes, recalling the scornful, jeering faces of the tall men with whom he had met to plead their case.
Simple, they had called him.
Simple and crude. They had laughed at the peace offerings he brought and told him that the best way to make peace would be to cede his corner of the forest to their dominion. The trees would be put to better use in their fleet, they argued, than as the hierograms of a lost, backwards people.
Ardaric shared all this with his wife, who looked astonished and sad. “How terrible,” she said, knowing her words would do nothing to soothe the pain he felt. She let silence fill the space between them for a moment, then asked, “What will you do?”
“I will call upon the forest to defend itself,” he said simply.
* * *
Ardaric’s father - and his father’s father before him - had forbidden their people to stray too deep into the woods. This they did for fear of whatever fey powers had led to men dying or vanishing there without a trace. The heart tree was as far as anyone from their settlement could go. Thanks to this law, no one had died an untimely death amongst the trees in living memory, and Ardaric had intended to carry that on in his time. But since his trip to the harbor, that had changed.
He summoned Borani once more to ask the old man’s advice.
“I need to find a way deep into the woods,” he admitted. “I need to know if there is a path that will lead me straight and true into the heart of the forest. The heart tree’s grove is out of the way. At any rate, I dare not return there, knowing what I will see.”
Borani did not ask why Ardaric wished to break with his own policy. He answered honestly: “If you truly wish for this, I will show you the way.”
The pair set out the next morning. Ardaric kissed Liuva and promised to return to her before the moon next rose, seven days hence. Borani rode, wrapped in many blankets, in a small cart pulled by a mule. One of his daughters sat at his side. Ardaric walked, blowing into clenched fists every now and then to stave off the chill creeping into his fingers.
Their path twisted and turned, and on several occasions, Borani’s cart got stuck amongst gnarled roots and they had to pause before moving along. At last, they came to a place where the woods darkened and the trees began to press in close. It was as if they had come up on a different forest altogether. Ahead, the trees parted to reveal a worn path, which ran straight ahead until it faded out of sight.
“This is where we leave you,” Borani said. His daughter hopped lightly out of the cart and guided the mule around, so it faced in the direction from which they had come. “The last man to disappear went through there to prove himself to a woman by bringing back the head of a forest spirit. His name was Hunulf. I came here with some other lads to encourage him, but when he did not return for two days, we went back to the village. We were running out of food,” he said by way of explanation. “The path is said to be straight. If you still wish to speak to the powers of the woods, this is where you must go.”
Ardaric nodded. “Thank you for showing me the way,” he said. His words fell heavy among the cold trees. “Farewell for now.” He waved to Borani’s daughter and strode forward and along the path.
The old man asked his daughter to wait a moment before they proceeded back to the settlement. He twisted in his seat to watch Ardaric’s figure fade into shadow.
* * *
Ardaric prayed silently as he walked.
Reveal yourself, he thought.
Show me your true power. Show me that you can fight back. Help us. Help us repel them.
If he had not been so focused on his prayers, he would have noticed the whispering and creaking of the trees, and the way their naked, skeletal branches scratched hollowly against each other. Where squirrels usually skittered up tree trunks, there was nothing. No birds sang, and none took to the air as he approached.
After a time, Ardaric noticed a heaviness in the air which seemed to press into his lungs, making each inhalation come up short. He felt light-headed but plodded on, repeating his silent prayers in an infinite loop. Still, nothing and no one responded to his pleas.
* * *
In the weeks following Ardaric’s departure, Liuva had prayed, then cried, then gone off food entirely. The whole settlement had been unusually quiet and still, as if by holding their collective breath and tiptoeing about, they would hear Ardaric coming before they saw him and be able to celebrate his return all the sooner. But he did not materialize through the mists.
One morning, the village awoke to find the sun had not risen - or, if it had, it was obscured entirely by the hulking black clouds stacked in the east. Gathering in the center of the settlement once more, each person gazed toward the mass of shadow, wondering if Ardaric had summoned some force of nature to block out the sun and thwart the tall men.
Several people dropped to their knees, openly swearing their fealty to the east and whatever might come from it. Liuva stood in their midst, dizzy with weariness, and cried.
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