Ulthrid Wolfspeak's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Ulthrid Wolfspeak had walked the roads of Faerûn longer than any man should, and now his hands shook too hard to carve a ward. He stopped the wagon at dusk and climbed down slow. His knees cracked. His crow watched from the roof. Three hundred years of druidcraft lived behind his eyes, and no one alive to carry it. The thought sat heavier than his failing body. Every village he passed held children who cared only for coin and crops. He needed an apprentice before the road took him. He had found none worth teaching. Cob snorted and pulled against the yoke. The ox stared into the brush beside the track. Ulthrid followed his gaze. Something small crouched there, half hidden in the fern. A boy. Thin as a reed, hair matted, clothes hanging in rags. He clutched a cloth bundle to his chest and watched Ulthrid the way a cornered fox watches a hunter. Scratches crossed his hands. He did not run. He did not speak. He only measured the distance to the trees. "I won't chase you," Ulthrid said. He sat on his wagon step and set out bread. "Take it or leave it." The boy stayed still a long while. Then hunger won. He crept forward, snatched the bread, and backed away to eat. His eyes never left the old man. Ulthrid noticed the bundle shift. A small bird's head poked out. The boy had wrapped an injured sparrow in his own torn scarf. "Its wing's broke," the boy said at last. His voice was rough from disuse. "I set it with a twig. Like the splint for a leg." He waited for mockery. Ulthrid leaned forward. In three hundred years, no child had shown him this. Most boys would have eaten the sparrow or thrown rocks at it. This one had bound its wing and gone hungry to keep it warm. "What's your name?" Ulthrid asked. "Bastian." The boy's chin lifted. "I'm looking for my family. They were taken. Months ago." Ulthrid's chest tightened. Here was the thing he had hunted for across half of Faerûn, dropped in the brush like a seed. A restless mind. A gentle hand. A hunger to understand living things. He could teach this boy everything. His knowledge need not die on the road. "Your splint is wrong," Ulthrid said. "Bind the wing to the body, not to a stick. I'll show you." He held out his hand. "Travel with me. I know these roads. I know where people get taken, and where they get sold. You help me, I help you find them." Bastian stared at the hand. Then at the wagon, the ox, the waiting crow. Slow, careful, he stepped out of the fern and took it. Ulthrid had his apprentice. And now he had made a promise he was not sure he could keep.