i n

F

BIGGER

SMALLER

COURIER

GEORGIA

TIMES

VERDANA

COMIC

l

RECENT

POPULAR

e

u

 ^{(it's beta!)}

I remember how biting the wind was that day. The autumn season was usually quite a bitter one in Aronshire, it being somewhat more northerly than most villages in Albion. That morning though, there was something else on the wind I still can’t place. A feeling of winter coming perhaps.

I remember when, leaving early to feed the horses, I caught the final glimpse of the coming of age troupe threading off into the woodland mists on their way to the old raven tree. The sun was just rising, bursting over and above the dark trees, melting away the shadows. Under the eaves however, it remained dark. Veiled in the mists. There was nothing I can think of that may have been lurking in the undergrowth, other than the Adder, that was a threat to such a large group of people. Especially when they were all charged with the excitement the Elders had instilled in them throughout the months beforehand.

I remember Sandy. My little sister, her excitement at being named leader. Leader of the coming of age troupe. It was a great responsibility; you had to remember the way exactly as the Elders instruct you, and lead your group of unruly, excitable friends through the darkest woodland. To the great Oak. To the old Raven tree.

I was proud of her, my little sister. I had been the troupe leader of my own coming of age party, though that was some time ago now of course. Often over the preceding months she would come bursting into the meadow where I would be, taming the horses for our livelihood, or the house of our father, where I would be cooking for our mother.

“Dane! Dane!” She would shout, before dragging me off to the Elders house to show me a particularly good charm she had made, or to see one of the large earthenware bowls used to proffer food to the tree.

We weren’t worried about her when we said our goodbyes the night before her departure. The event never took more than a day or so and they would be back, laughing and singing, men and women all.

For the next day or so I worked away the hours, but the horses seemed unusually skittish and bad tempered, and the hours grew lesser faster with the onset of winter. After the third day I became worried, I spoke to Elder Dasham-Helica, the oldest and wisest of our Elders.

“Do not worry yourself, young one” I was told, “They shall return when the Oak is ready for them to do so”.

So I waited. The nights drew in and the darkness of winter descended, and still I waited. Eventually even the Elders grew anxious, and allowed us to search the woodland. In the wood not a trace of the troupe could be found amongst the snow and dark, gnarled old trees. What was there instead winding through the trees, as if being left by someone doing a strange, disjointed dance, was a trail of dark red spattering. A path of horse’s blood, leading to the old oak.

It was growing dark as we approached the tree, but was still light enough for us to make out the silhouette of the great tree. Bent with age, its branches were massive, gnarled and blackened with age. A musical tinkling came from the boughs as a soft breeze whistled through them. The sound of charms left by previous generations chiming in the wind.

In amongst the twisted mass of roots, right up against the trunk, we found a doorway hacked deeply into the raven tree’s flesh. Above it, daubed in horse blood, was a single word, just legible in the dying light.

“Shechem” I whispered and couldn’t help but shiver slightly at the implication.