Bram Tallow's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Every full moon, Bram Tallow's antlers grew a new point, and he still did not know why. He had felt them push through his skull as a boy, and he had hidden his head ever since. Tonight he stood in his riverside forge, hammer set down, staring at the ceiling shadows his own horns cast. He wanted one thing now. He wanted to know what he was becoming. A traveling peddler had told him something at the market. Some antlers carry a maker's mark, hidden where they meet the skull. If a mark existed, it might name his kind. It might explain the moon. Bram fetched a sheet of dark rubbing paper and a stub of charcoal. He pressed the paper flat against the base of his left antler. His arms bent back at a cruel angle. The growth curled behind his crown, past where his fingers could reach. He rubbed blind, working the charcoal by feel. He pulled the paper down and held it to the coal-light. Smudges. No mark. The clue sat in the one spot his own hands could not touch, and no mirror in the forge showed him that curve. Bram set the hammer against the anvil and gave up on doing this alone. He needed eyes that could look up close. He needed a scholar. He pulled his hood low and walked out into the moonlight. He remembered a shop that stayed open late, its windows glowing soft silver among the herb-hung eaves. Dried plants swayed under the roofline. Pale lilies bloomed in a box below the sill, giving off a faint white shine. He ducked through the low door. Jars packed every shelf, floor to rafter. Behind the counter, an old woman ground something with a stone pestle. She did not startle at his horns. She only tilted her head, studying them the way a smith studies raw iron. "You've come to have those read," she said. Not a question. She set the pestle down. "Bend your head. Under the lamp." Bram knelt. She was small enough to stand and reach him. Her fingers parted the hair at his skull and traced the antler's root. He held still, breath tight, the rubbing paper crushed in his fist. "There," she murmured. "A shape. Pressed into the bone itself." She took the paper from him and worked it against the hidden curve with her own steady hands. When she peeled it free, a mark showed clear in charcoal. A stag's head, antlers spread wide, ringed by a thin crescent. Bram stared at the image. He had seen no such crest in his life. But the old woman had gone pale. "I know this sign," she said quietly. "The moonlight stag. I did not think one still walked with a man's face." She folded the paper and pressed it back into his hand. "You should not stay in this town. If I recognized it, others will too."