Ewan Greenwood's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

Ewan rode into the next village with the tablet wrapped in cloth and his tools in a sack. He meant to carve wards on the homes before he went north. But when he stepped into the market square, the talk died. Farmers stopped at their stalls. A fisherman set down his catch. They watched a stranger with a knife and strange marks on his mind, and no one came near. An old woman spat when he raised his carving blade to a post. "Witch-work," she said. Men gathered behind her. "We buried folk who dealt in marks like that." Ewan lowered the knife. He hated the magic as much as they did. He could not tell them so and be believed. A stranger's word bought nothing here. Callum swung down from his horse beside him. He looked at the ring of hard faces, then at the empty coracle by a stall, its lashings loose and one board split. "Whose boat?" he asked. The fisherman raised a hand. Callum crossed to the coracle and ran his thumb along the cracked wood. "This won't hold a season," he said. He pulled his tools from his belt and knelt. Ewan understood. He set his sack down and knelt beside his brother. They did not carve wards. They mended the boat. Callum cut a clean board. Ewan bound the lashings tight the way their father had taught them both. The fisherman crouched to watch. Slowly the others drifted closer, curious now instead of angry. Aisling stayed back, arms crossed. She hated this. "We came to protect them," she said low to Ewan. "Not to fix their pots." Her hand touched the orange pendant at her throat. Her mother had died to magic, and she wanted the riders dead, not the day spent kneeling in a market. "Every hour here is an hour the killers ride free." "They won't let me mark their homes if they think I'll burn them," Ewan said. "Trust first. Then the wards." He handed the mended coracle back to the fisherman. The man turned it over. It was sound. He looked at Ewan a long moment, then jerked his head toward the herb garden at the square's edge, its timber arches heavy with green. "Start there," the fisherman said. "My daughter tends it. If your mark keeps fire off her plants, we'll talk about the roofs." Ewan carried his blade to the garden's frame. He carved the first ward into the arch, slow and clean, while the village watched. When he finished, the fisherman nodded. By dusk, half the homes bore Ewan's marks. He had won them. But as he packed his tools, the fisherman spoke again. "You go north, to the glens." It was not a question. "My brother went that way with a warded stone, meaning to break their gate. He never came back." Ewan went still. Someone had tried his exact plan already. And failed.