The Bowl of Souls: Book 01.5 - Hilt's Pride (12 page)

 “Things were actually okay with
Coulton’s
father around. His name was Robert, but he told us to call him Old Bob. Old Bob was a sweet man after a fashion. Coulton built him a bed and though it was a tight fit in our little house, we made do.

“Then one evening Coulton didn’t come home from work. I went to see his boss and he said that Coulton had gone into the woods looking for some trees to harvest. The next morning we went looking for him and, um . . .” Her voice slipped and her lip quivered. She brought one shaking hand up to wipe her eyes.

“He had been torn apart.
Eaten by
moonrats
.
Th
-they had been getting more numerous for a while and bolder. More of them had been seen on our side of the road’s protective barriers. People had been attacked before, but this was the first time that a Pinewood man had been . . .”

Beth didn’t see Hilt approach, but she felt his comforting hand on her shoulder. She let him leave it there. It actually helped. She cleared her throat.

“I, uh, had nothing left to do. I had no one but Old Bob and I barely knew him. The people of Pinewood were kind to me and helped out as they could. Old Bob’s condition got worse until he couldn’t get out of bed anymore. He was the only part of Coulton I had left, so I-I stayed by him until the end. The day we buried Old Bob next to
Coulton’s
grave, I left. I just walked into the forest.”

“Where were you going?” Hilt asked.

“To die most likely.
I headed towards the deepest part of the forest.
The darkest part.
I went to see if the rumors were true; if the
moonrats
did have a mother there. If she did exist, I intended to strangle her to death with my bare hands.”

 “And if she didn’t exist?” Hilt asked.

“Then I would start strangling
moonrats
. The beasts hadn’t attacked me in the past, but maybe this time they would. If I died, I would be with Coulton again. If not, I would just keep killing them until there were no
moonrats
left.” She raised one hand to her shoulder and rested it on Hilt’s. “But I found the prophet instead. I walked through the forest until I came upon the
Mage
School
’s warded road and he was standing there as if waiting for me.”

“What did he say?” Hilt asked.

Though her memory of the prophet’s appearance was fuzzy, Beth could still recall every word of their conversation as if it was burned into her mind. “He said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘That way.’ He said, ‘Hello, my name is John.’ I had no patience left for pleasantries and said, ‘Goodbye, John.’ He said, ‘That’s not where you need to go.’ I frowned at him and said, ‘How do you know where I need to go?’ He said, ‘You are looking for answers, but the way you are heading has no answers, only death.’ I said, ‘What if death is the answer I’m looking for?’ He said, ‘You don’t even know the question yet.’”

“He is annoying that way,” Hilt said. “The way he talks in riddles. He’s even worse than Yntri.” The elf had been nodding in agreement, but stopped and frowned.

“I found him . . . interesting,” Beth said with a shrug. “And at that point I hadn’t found anyone interesting in a long while. I asked him why I should listen to him and he said, ‘I am the prophet.’ For some reason I believed him right away. I had no reason to, but I had no reason not to either. I said, ‘Where do I go, then?’ He said, ‘Walk to the east. On the far side of the woods is a mountain. Climb to the top and you will find the answer you seek.’ I said, ‘When do I leave?’ He said, ‘Go now.’ and . . .”

She stopped and looked back at Hilt. “I think I already told you the rest.”

Yntri clicked a question.

“He asks what gave you so much faith in the prophet that you would blindly follow such a vague and ridiculous
request?
” Hilt said. “Actually I added the word ridiculous.”

“Faith?”
Beth furrowed her brow as if thinking about the word for the first time. Finally she shrugged. “I guess at that point faith was all I had left.”

No one said anything for a moment. Beth felt a strange sense of peace come over her and it was as if some of the weight she had been carrying was lifted from her shoulders. She had told her story and neither of them had turned away from her or looked at her in disgust. They hadn’t pitied her either. They were just  . . . supportive. Beth yawned. Telling the story had taken a lot out of her.

“I’m tired,” she said.

“Yes, I suppose we should get some sleep,” Hilt agreed. “Tomorrow could be a long day.”

Yntri stood and clicked at her for a while before heading to the edge of the campsite. He picked up the sapling he had brought with him earlier and started hacking off the branches.

“What did he say?” Beth asked.

“He said that you are a brave woman,” Hilt told her.

“Surely he said more than that.” Beth said. The elf had talked for a while.

“If it helps at all, I agree with him,” Hilt added, not answering her question.

She looked at him, trying to decide whether to push the subject. Then she saw Yntri drag the sapling over to one of the trees. The elf climbed up into the tree, taking the sapling up with him.

“What is he doing?” she asked.

“He’s taking watch,” Hilt said.
“He likes taking a perch up in the trees because it gives him a good view of the area all around.”

“But those are fir trees and . . . he’s practically naked,” she said with a shiver. “That can’t be comfortable.”

“It doesn’t seem to bother him.” Hilt shrugged. “I’m not sure why that is. Cold, heat, brambles, whatever, he goes on wearing what he wears. I’ve often wondered how he does it. The other elves I’ve met aren’t like that.
Just Yntri and the other ancient ones that tend the Jharro grove.”

“I see,” Actually she didn’t quite see. It was strange. She had been through so much, she had felt she’d seen it all, but Beth was realizing that there was a lot she hadn’t seen. “So if he’s taking the first watch, who is taking the second?”

“There’s no need. He’ll be taking all the watches. Yntri rarely sleeps. He tells me that it’s because as you get older, you don’t need as much sleep.” The elf clicked from his perch up in the trees and Hilt nodded in amusement. “He adds that by the time you get to two thousand years old, sleep is a sign of laziness.”

“Two thousand?” she looked up into the tree but all she could see was the end of the sapling shaking. That elf had a weird sense of humor.

They each found a place to bed down. Beth chose a flat piece of ground near the base of the rock that was free from pebbles and pine needles. Hilt chose a spot to her left, not far away. He sat next to the rock and pulled his knees up close, wrapping his coat around his legs as best he could and resting his head on his arms.

The ground was hard and her side ached, but the gauzy blanket was so efficient at keeping out the cold that she felt almost cozy. She looked over at Hilt and his position looked so uncomfortable she felt guilty. After all, if she wasn’t around, he would be the one using the blanket. She tried to push the guilt away, but it continued to gnaw at her.

“Come here, Hilt.” Beth said finally.

“Hmm?”
He turned a bleary eye her way.

“Come here. This blanket is big enough for both of us to share.”

“I don’t think that would be proper,” he said.

Yntri snickered from somewhere in one of the trees above them.

“Shut up, Yntri,” Beth said. “Hilt, we are both fully clothed and I trust that you will be a gentleman. Come here. I can see that you’re cold.”

Hilt crawled over and sat next to her, a hesitant look on his face. “How do you really know you can trust me? I’m a noble, after all. For all you know, I could be quite the ladies man.”

She glanced at him. “Are you?”

“No,” he said.

“That’s good enough for me, now get under the blanket.”

Hilt looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, then removed his overcoat, folded it twice lengthwise, and laid it down so both of them could rest their heads on it. Beth was grateful. That was much more comfortable then resting her head on the ground. He then
laid
down and scooted under the blanket. It ended up that though the
elven
blanket was indeed big enough to cover both of
them,
they had to scoot right up against each other to fit.

“Your sword is digging into my hip,” Beth complained.

“Sorry.”

“Do you always sleep with your sword belt on?”

“When I’m sleeping out in the wilderness I do,” Hilt explained. “If something was to attack, I need to be ready.”

“How can you sleep like that?” she wondered. “What if you want to turn on your side?”

“I always sleep on my back. When I was young, my father taught me that if you sleep on your side, it’s easier for something to sneak up on you.”

“Well can you make an exception this one night? I have a bruise right there and the crossbar on your hilt is poking it.”

“I suppose.” He stood and removed the belt, then
laid
back next to her.

Beth was exhausted and though she should have fallen right to sleep, her mind was too active. She kept thinking about how long it had been since she had slept next to a man. She couldn’t stop noticing the warmth from where their shoulders and hips were touching. It felt . . . nice. She frowned at herself. She needed to distract her mind.

“Hilt,” she said, her tone sounding sharper than she intended. It wasn’t his fault, after all. “You still haven’t told me why you feel it is your duty to help me.”

“Oh, well I suppose I haven’t, have I?” He yawned. “I was almost asleep, you know.”

“You can sleep after you tell me.”

Hilt chuckled in response. It was such a warm sound that she found herself resisting the urge to snuggle up against him. She frowned again.

“Odd how it seems like every time I start to tell you, I’m interrupted.” She could almost hear Hilt smiling as he said it.

“Just tell me before something else happens,” Beth snapped, half expecting a troll to come running through the trees.

Hilt chuckled again. “Want to know what they never tell you about being named?”

“What’s that?” Beth asked.

“Being named really isn’t about how good you are.”

“No?”

“Oh, in a way it is, I suppose, but the secret is that it’s just another job. You become named and along with it
comes
a heap of responsibilities. People begin to expect things of you, especially the prophet. He thrusts you into situations all the time. It’s like he’s the boss.”

“So you decided to help me because it was part of your job?” she asked, a little disappointed.

“No. I knew that since he sent you across my path, he expected me to help. But it’s more than that. I decided to help because, if the prophet told you to climb this mountain, I knew it was the right thing to do.” He paused. “That didn’t sound
fake
, did it? Because I’m not being
fake
, I’m just being honest.”

Now she wanted to hug him. What was wrong with her? “But how does it work? When you get named, do you sign an agreement? Does the prophet meet with you and lay down the rules?”

“No,” Hilt said. “I’ve met him from time to time but
its
not like that. He might show up and ask me to do something, but he never really tells me to do anything. Most of the time situations just fall in my lap and I know I’m supposed to deal with it.”

“And it’s the same way for other named warriors?”

“It seems to be, yes,” He said with a shrug. “When, I see one, we tend to gripe about it together.”

“That doesn’t seem like a very good system,” she said with a slight shake of her head. “What if the named warriors just decided not to do what he wanted? You didn’t make any promises.”

“But I don’t think that would happen,” Hilt said. “I could be wrong, but when I stood before the bowl, I could feel it searching my soul. It knew me. There is a lot of conjecture out there about what the bowl is looking for, and one of the key requirements is that you must know and trust in yourself. But more than that, I believe that one of the requirements is being someone that would make the right choice when asked. As far as an agreement . . .”