The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

But its intensity is fading.
    Run.
    The word jumps from inside Simon’s head and powers through his blood like a river in spate. His fingernails graze his palms and his skin turns cold.
    The stranger takes a step back and his gaze rakes the room. Simon is sure he must see him, but he doesn’t react.
    “Where is your son?” he demands.
    With a sudden movement, Simon’s mother knocks the cane from the man’s hand.
    “He’s safe from you ,” she says.
    At the same time, the soldiers’ torches are extinguished and everything except the light around Simon goes dark.
    He runs.
    Towards the open door and the welcoming night air. As he does so, the protective shield of light flares once and dies. He hits the soldier at the door in the legs and he buckles, crying out, and enabling Simon to squeeze past into the greater darkness. There’s a roar behind him and then a scream—his mother’s—quickly silenced.
    He doesn’t look back. Instead, tears flow freely down his face and bile catches in his throat, Simon runs and keeps on running. Past the vegetable plot and the place where the herbs are nourished, past the yew hedge and onto the village track. From behind, he hears shouting and the sound of feet in pursuit. The threat of capture, and who knows what afterwards, drives him onward. He races past the first few huts and then swings right down the narrow path next to the launderer’s home. It leads to the well and, beyond that, to the woods, and he might shake off his pursuers there.
    Just at the corner, he nearly loses his footing and has to slam his hand into the stonework in order not to fall. The rough edge slashes his skin and draws blood. He can smell the iron scent of it. The shouts of the soldiers grow louder, almost upon him. With a great heave, Simon rips some of the crumbling stonework from the wall and flings it with all his strength in their direction.
    They’re closer than he thinks. A handful of stone hits the nearest one a glancing blow on the forehead. He cries out and slips. The second man is unable to stop in time and crashes into the first. At the same moment, torchlight flickers in the launderer’s house and his door flies open. It’s the respite Simon needs.
    He runs, panting hard and trying to stop the tears from blinding him, past the well and into the woods.
    Once there, the thickness of the trees cuts out any glimmer from the moon, and the darkness is complete. Branches of oak, beech and wild wintergreen trail along his hair and shoulders. From somewhere deeper in the woods, a lone wolf howls and Simon’s heart beats faster. It’s rare that a pack will venture this close to the village even in late summer, but sometimes one or two will do so on their own. He prays to the great Horseman and all the stars that it will not find him. Or at the least it will not be hungry for flesh tonight.
    He needs to get to safety, but where can he go? He can’t go home, not yet, not while the stranger and the soldiers are there. Neither does he know when it might be safe to do so. A sob escapes him as he wonders what the man will do to his parents, and when he’ll let them go free. There is nowhere else to find refuge. Beyond the woods lie only the fields where the tall cattle graze, then the marshes and more villages. As many as the mind can count. And beyond all of these lurk the mysterious mountains.
    Simon can never travel there. It is forbidden. He will have to hide here amongst the trees tonight, hoping that neither wolf nor soldier will find him. Tomorrow, he will venture back to the village, to try to find his parents.
    Having a plan, of sorts, makes his breathing steadier. Listening to see if there are sounds of pursuit, he hears none, so he takes a deep breath and launches out into the woods. A while later, stung by nettles and scratched anew by brambles and twigs, he finds an oak suitable for hiding in until the dawn. Its trunk feels gnarled and wide, but gives way, just a short distance from his head, to a fork of two branches. Crossways from that he finds another set, and yet another. Here he could climb high enough to avoid detection by man or animal, provided it doesn’t scent blood, and still be safe from falling if he sleeps. Though he does not think that sleeping will come easily.
    A matter of moments and Simon is installed in the oak’s broad branches. He blinks and tells himself to be brave; dawn will come soon enough. Another moment later, and he remembers nothing at