“Keep up,” was all he said, and Balor had no choice but to obey.
The air in the forest was stifling, and the trees seemed to close in around them as they shoved through the undergrowth. Beads of sweat prickled their backs, and their clothes clung to them uncomfortably. It was the hottest summer in living memory, and for the better part of a month the skies had been harsh and cloudless.
It was with relief that they felt the ground begin to rise, then steepen sharply, and then the path rose out of the stifling trees, winding up the western face of the ridge of hills that lay between them and the Sea. A welcome breeze brushed over their skin as they climbed, stirring their hair and tugging gently at their woollen smocks.
Halfway up the hillside they stopped for a rest. Balor flopped down on the grass, red-faced and sweating; Banac stood and looked back the way they had come.
A waving canopy stretched away below them, rolling westwards for mile upon mile in an unbroken sea of muted green. At the very edge of sight, far away towards the horizon, he could just about make out distant mountains rising through blue haze.
Banac’s heart quickened: there, at the edge of sight, lay Padascel, the city of the king, the City of Gold, the greatest and strongest of all the strongholds of men on the western shore of the sea. Her towers stood tall and proud between them and the Ettenlands beyond, where, it was said, great giants lived who wore the skulls of their enemies about their necks. Padascel was their only defence, their shield and protector in time of war, mother, sister and daughter to all the men and women who lived between the mountains and the Sea.
Banac had grown up on the stories of Padascel. He could not count the times he had sat and listened to Grandfather’s descriptions of her mighty walls, her graceful spires rising to the clouds and the great hall where the King sat in judgement. Banac drank these words in, gorged himself on them, and when he went to bed at night he often dreamed that he walked those streets and stood on those walls.
From time to time he formed half a plan to set out one morning and travel westwards to see the city for himself. But the urge never lasted long, and he knew it was foolishness. He would never see Padascel; never see the wide lands of the world; never see anything beside their tiny village lying huddled on the sea-sprayed shore where he would grow old and die and never know adventure.
Or so he had thought. But today something had changed. He looked down at his wrist, at the golden torc clasped there, and he felt something stir deep within him. He did not know whether it was terror or excitement, but as the memory of what lay in the forest rose in his mind the feeling grew and spread, and he looked up to the distant horizon and the half-imagined line of mountains, and dared to think that maybe there was the possibility he would see adventure one day after all.
Then Balor sniffed loudly. “I’m hungry,” he said, and all at once the spell was broken, and Banac looked away.
“All right,” he said, standing and stretching. “Let’s get going.”
*
Soon they crested the top of the hill and were met by the sparkling blue expanse of the Sea, its wind-chopped waves shimmering like diamonds in the midday sun. They stopped again and stretched, breathing in the good Sea air, enjoying the cool of the wind on their faces.
Somewhere out there, on the vast expanse of the waves, their father was hard at work with the other men of the village, chasing the shoals of silver-scaled raec and pynde up and down the coast. One day, when they became men, they too would join the fleet and spend their days just as their father spent his: hard at work. Banac smiled to himself. Not yet, at least.
After a moment’s rest they turned south and walked along the high ridge of the hills, and ten minutes later they rounded a headland and saw a vast bay curving away from them, lined with a smooth beach of soft golden sand. A mile away, on a narrow strand of green between the foot of the hills and the head of the beach, a tiny collection of high-roofed houses huddled together: the village in which they had been born and raised. It had no name. They simply called it ‘home’.
They scrambled quickly down the hillside and onto the wide, flat strand. There was still the small matter of the torc to consider. Banac was not keen to reveal his find so quickly; he wanted to keep it to himself until he knew exactly what it was. So as they made their way along the beach he turned to Balor.
“When we get near home you’re going to distract Mother,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I need to hide this.” Banac held up the torc. “And remember: if you say a word about anything I’ll make you regret it.”
“Why does it have to be me?” Balor protested.
“Because you’re the youngest and because I say so.”
“And what do you want me to do?”
“Be creative.”
Balor did not reply. Banac took his silence for agreement.
* * *
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