The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

and Johan smiles to see the act.
    As they climb, conversation ceases. From instinct, the group matches their steps to the youngest member, but Simon, too, is having trouble. Johan and Isabella have no such difficulties, outpacing the boy and scribe at regular intervals and having to stop and wait for them to catch up.
    Clouds drift across the ice-blue sky, and hawks wheel around the gradient of peaks, now and again plunging downwards to seize upon an unknown prey. They are as sleek and large as young river-swans with a wingspan twice as much again, speckled white and grey, with a soulful cry that pierces thought. In Gathandria, it is said that as long as hawks live in the mountains, then all the land will be safe. That has turned out to be a lie.
    As they watch the hunt, Simon’s stomach rumbles, and Johan turns back along the narrow path towards him.
    “I’m sorry,” he says. “There’ll be no more food for any of us until our first stage destination is reached, although we have water enough. We will need then to be light and clear.”
    “What do you mean?” Simon pants, but Johan gives him no answer. In truth he cannot.
    Upwards. Ever upwards.
    The air grows even thinner and the path steeper. The boy and the scribe scrabble along as best they can, sometimes snatching at the rock face to maintain balance. When, once, Simon dares to glance down at the distant valleys beneath, Johan feels the wave of the scribe’s fear in his throat.
    Don’t fall, Simon. Keep moving.
    Simon opens his eyes. At his feet the boy looks up at him, his young face a question mark. The scribe scowls and Johan senses his inner words, all but shaken out of his head. Yes, I’m a coward. But you knew that when you met me.
    Johan does not answer; he cannot argue the point.
    At last, after several hours, the path grows too narrow to climb in pairs and they are forced to travel singly. Now and again, a scattering of small stones or handfuls of snow dislodge themselves from the path and tumble down into the valley beneath.
    Late that night—so late that they see the way only by moonlight and the flicker of stars—Johan finds a small hollowed-out section of the rock-face on the left. It allows shelter from the wind and enough of a flat surface to avoid the danger of tumbling to their deaths. Isabella arranges outer clothing into a blanket for warmth, and then they suck the moisture from the snow clinging to the lip of the mountain. There is nothing else to sustain them.
    The boy sleeps first, and Simon hugs the small body to him. Johan wonders if he may have misjudged the man; he is a coward, yes, but he has compassion. For some. The last thing he remembers before falling asleep is the moonlight glittering across his sister’s hair.

    Isabella
    Hartstongue dreams of hawks and unknown danger. She makes sure of that. There are other things she has made sure of in the night too. He will discover them soon enough.
    In the morning, he takes a while to come to himself, the sun playing on his scar.
    “Boy?” the scribe reaches out to where the child has lain next to him, but his hand touches mere snow and rock. “Boy?”
    Hartstongue is fully awake then, his face creased into a frown.
    “Scribe?”
    At the sound of her voice, his head jerks around, towards the back of their small refuge. There, Isabella is crouching in the shadows, holding the boy and pretending to soothe his forehead.
    “He was crying in his sleep,” she whispers, “but you must have been too far gone into dreams to hear him. I had to wake him.”
    The scribe is at her side before she can finish speaking. “What’s wrong? How is he?”
    Isabella shakes her head and he follows her gaze towards the boy. Naturally, after what she has done, the child’s face looks small and pale. He is no longer breathing.
    At first the scribe doesn’t understand.
    “It’s the cold, isn’t it?” he says. “ This place. Gods, what have I done to him? I should never have… Here, let me take him.”
    She lifts the dead boy into his arms. Hartstongue tries to remove the scrap of cloak from the child’s shoulders, the one she has poisoned him by, but his fingers hold tightly to the edge, as if holding onto life itself. In vain.
    The scribe swears again, softly, and the shape of her brother at the front of the hollow casts their refuge into darkness.
    “Is the boy dead?” Johan asks, hunkering down next to them and putting his hand on the dead child’s arm. “Believe me, Simon, I