A/N: Chap 14 review responses are in my forums like normal. Just as a reminder, if I have warning that I'll be missing a posting day, I'll try to put a note in my profile. And for those hoping for doubles-chances are if I'm too busy to post, I'm probably not writing either. Sorry. But this is a big post, so hopefully it will make up a little.
Chapter Fifteen: To The Coasts They Came, Kind and Mighty
Njord of Wolf Hall flexed his arms and roared mightily as he charged into battle. His tall, lithe frame spun like the whirlwind as he easily side-stepped foes and enemies alike. He kept his footing like a seasoned veteran, and with the flourish of a champion hooked the ball of elk leather and leaves in his left heel to avoid a blocker, swung his right around with an almost artistic flourish, and sent the ball into the opposing reed basket.
The six-year-old boy began hopping up and down with excitement, while in an unusual show of emotion, his father Doji shouted and clapped from the sides of the playing field.
On Taylor's lap, with a little hand-drawn picture book on her lown ittle lap, four-year-old Tayla barely noticed. She pointed down at the letter.
Taylor held the child with one arm around her plump little belly, and with her other pointed to the picture. "What is that?"
"Turkey!" Morag's daughter, and second child, chirped the word happily.
"Turkey. T. Teh. Teh. Turkey." With each repetition of the sound, Taylor touched the large letter at the top of the page.
"T!" the girl said.
She then tensed for her reward, and squealed when it came as tickles on her side.
On the field, the Riverbend team was making a good charge to the Wolf Hall basket. They called it football, because the rules said no hands. It was rough, and a game rarely went by without someone being hurt. But in a field filled with Bespoken and a goddess who could heal any wound, the children couldn't have been in better shape.
Orban Two-Toes, formerly of Castle Black and now of Wolf Hall, stood in the center of the field acting as the referee. Which meant he was there to keep fights from breaking out. Rules were pretty nebulous at that point in the game's development.
What wasn't unclear was that the games always occurred in winter, when the fields were fallow and usually snowed over. The snow always fell lightly in Taylor's lands, though, so the surrounding villages tended to come here.
It also presented a good opportunity for the burgeoning communities to trade or just speak to each other. Just in the six or so years since Taylor arrived, another village had been founded to the north and east of Wolf Hall. The founders were a family that studied with Taylor long enough to secure their numbers and letters, and for them to learn about brick-making, the power of lime, and the importance of basic sanitation and hygiene.
On the wooden bench beside Taylor, Morag was feeding her youngest child, Hala, while her toddler was playing with Flurry, who laid on his side while a horde of little toddlers crawled over him. Occasionally he'd use his massive jaws to catch or move one, but the children were safer with him than their own parents.
Opposite, Shaen of White Tree watched his oldest grandchild run circles around older, stronger boys. The man looked sixty, though he wasn't even forty, yet. Like all the Free Folk of his generation, one could not afford to wait to have a family, because life was hard enough to strip away any potential for that life to be long. So, though he was not yet forty, he had four grandchildren from his eldest daughter. His son Otor was fourteen, and would likely soon be looking for a woman to add to those four.
He watched the game with a look of astonished happiness, as if it were beyond belief that a grandson of his could play, and be happy and well fed.
"Telos, what this?"
Tayla turned the page, and was now pointed at the U.
~~Voluspa~~
~~Voluspa~~
Six couples sat around a bonfire before Tayor's home, with seven others joining the circle, most of whom were older Bespoke who had over the six years of her stay in the forest joined Taylor to study or learn.
Taylor sat at her place, with her back to her home, while Flurry lounged nearby eating a lizard turkey.
The conversation moved smoothly, from trade and personal family disputes to the idea of making the trails better for the wagons. Despite Taylor's horse breeding, there were still too few horses for the area, and so most used forest elk as beasts of burden. Each couple represented the elders of their village, the six that populated the southern reaches of the forest. They'd taken to calling the area Wolf's Wood.
They came for the games, at least one every few weeks during winter, but every night what started out as simple conversations over dinner and potato wine had slowly changed to informal policy discussions that gradually changed the entire woods from six separate villages into a singular community. A common language, and increasingly, common beliefs.
Taylor rarely said anything during the conversations. She watched with her bifrost eyes, and answered any questions they posed to her. But the conversations were not about things Taylor could do for them. The people were working out ways to make their lives better, and to keep the peace. Raiders still occasionally came, after all. And while Taylor could be anywhere a weirwood tree waited at the drop of a hat, both Leaf and Morag assured her that the people of Wolfs Wood needed to be able to defend themselves. They needed to feel like they could defend themselves.
But with all of them there, Taylor felt the magic and the trees speak. It was time. "I heard a prayer from South of the Wall," she began.
Given the fact that she did not often speak, when she did so the others paused their own conversations and thoughts and listened.
"Many Free Folk live among the kneelers," Taylor said. "Often captured during raids. One of them prayed to me at a Godswood, and I have heard her prayer just as I hear yours. Her son loved a kneeler lord's daughter. He's being punished unfairly even by their law, he and his brethren. She begs us to save the boy and his fellows."
Shaen of White Tree held his Usha's hand. "You would not speak of this if it did not affect us all. Tell us, Telos."
"The boy, and his kin, are miners at Last Hearth. It's their livelihood to take raw iron from the earth and prepare it for use. The cliffs and stone where Hardhome once rested is rich with iron ore, and other metals. If we could find a smithee to forge and shape it, these miners could bring iron production to the Free Peoples."
The one person there that was neither Bespoke nor an elder cleared his throat. Orban Two-Trees was known by all the village elders. The fact that he left the Night's Watch and was now expecting his first child by a former Thenn raider woman confirmed his status as one of them.
"I know the legends about how Hardhome was destroyed, but here's the truth of it." He looked pointedly around the circle. "Hardhome was too successful. The Free Folk were sending ships across the narrow sea to trade, and were helping the runaway slaves from the old Valyrian cities. So a pair of dragon lords flew across the narrow city and destroyed it. I saw the records from the Night's Watch myself, a few years back when my old Lord Commander looked into it."
Orban settled his gaze on Telos. "Northern savages using stone tools is not a threat to the Lords south of the wall. But a people with access to trade from the sea, and their own iron production, could be. If you rebuild Hardhome, you could be painting a target on your backs."
The elders exchanged worried looks. Orban over the last few months of his arrival told them that the current Lord Commander was so overwhelmed by Telos curse that he no longer cared about his duties. That would change with the next. Eventually, those south of the Wall would find out. And the numbers in the south were beyond anything those in the north could count on.
Shaen spoke, then. "Today, I watched my eldest grandson laugh. He ran and played with other children from six other villages. I cannot in my mind think of any other time something like this happened. All of you, try to remember. Before Telos came, we were more like to kill each other in the forest than to be the friends and brothers we are now. Our children died at birth and took our women with them more often than not. We starved and froze to death in winter, and toiled until our backs broke in summer. But today, I watched young Njord run circles around your village's children."
His eyes actually glistened as he looked around at his fellow elders. "Why can't we have iron? Pots to cook, plows to ease our toil. The ovens Telos spoke of, that could save wood but still heat our home and cook our food. Why should we not have these things because of where we live?"
"Because the price of having those things will raise the spite of those who fear you," Taylor said. It drew the eyes back to her. "That's why it cannot be my decision alone to save these youths. You and Usha took me in, Shaen, a stranger from a strange land. You fed and clothed me, and shared what you had though you had little enough to share. I have loved you since, and all the people you claim as your own. I love everyone in this forest; any who take me into your hearts. I will fight for you as you need. But if southern armies come, you will also need to fight. And so it must be your decision."
"Hardhome is a good distance," Orban said. "There's a fishing village near the mouth of the Antler River. They could help rebuild Hardhome."
"Could you scout out a road for carts?"
He nodded to Taylor. "Aye."
"Not one of us alive ain't been done harm by a Crow," Hask of Boulder Creek said. His was the newest of the villages. "My pa died by a Crow arrow. Crows almost stole Morag there, 'afore Telos saved her. They built the wall to keep us out, then they come up and keep us down. It ain't right. It ain't right we can't live as we will it. I say yea. We rebuild Hardhome, and if Telos Is willing, we bring those diggers up to work it for us."
"If they come, they will be Free," Taylor said. "They will not give you iron. It is hard work to mine. But they will trade with you. This is our shared rule—anyone in this forest must be free."
Hask nodded. "Yes. Free. All of us."
Shaen met the other elder's eyes, then glanced at Usha, who nodded. "White Tree says yae."
"Wolf's Hall says yea," Doji said. Though he was among the youngest there, he and Morag were the clear leaders of the village that grew up just outside Taylor's land.
The other four villages agreed.
Orban stood again. "If you're agreed, then I'll need a few people from each village, carts, the tool chest and horses. It will take work and supplies to rebuild."
"Winter will not be long," Taylor said. "The spirits tell me spring is only two weeks away. I will bless all of your fields to ensure large crops. No one will go hungry for helping found Hardhome. But it will require help from all of you."
"It'll be done, Telos," Doji said. "I'll go with you, Two-Toes. We'll prepare Hardhome for those Telos saves."
Taylor stood. "All are agreed?"
The elders and leaders of the forest regarded her in solidarity. "We are agreed, Telos," Shaen said firmly.
~~Voluspa~~
~~Voluspa~~
Taylor found the old woman curled up at the base of the weirwood tree that dominated the smaller of two baileys within the wood and earthen palisades of Last Hearth. The woman shivered in the cold, and her body ached from a lifetime of hardship, and her ribs protruded from days of hunger. The woman's soul held only the most tenuous connection to her body.
She had starved to death at the root of the weirwood tree that gave Telos passage, and none within the bailey thought to help her. None at all.
In the bitter cold of pre-dawn, Taylor sat down beside the woman and gathered her tiny frame in her arms. The woman was so lost in her exhaustion and weakness that she didn't notice at first. Rheumy eyes blinked open and stared up at Taylor's blindfolded eyes.
"Telos?" she whispered.
"I heard your prayer, Lelai."
"My Byrne is a good boy," she whispered. "Strong man, like his Da was. Not right, Telos. Not right what they do. Please. Save my boy. You're so warm."
She closed her eyes and turned her head to Taylor's chest. Moments later, she stopped breathing. Taylor shepherded the woman's soul into the tree, and felt her spirit welcomed within the vast network that held her ancestors. When she was safely gone, Taylor found herself staring about the old motte and bailey fortification of Last Hearth with sinking contempt and anger.
She judged a people by how they treated their weakest members, and the lords of this castle let an old woman starve to death within their own walls.
There were many ways that Taylor could have chosen to proceed. With her bifrost eyes she could see the mines a mile east of the fortress; she could see the exhausted men chained to bunks within what amounted to slave quarters. But within the fortress itself, she saw a young woman in all the finery of wealth laying on her side and weeping as her back bled into the furs of her bedding from a brutal whipping.
Taylor gently placed Lelai's empty body down; she would have her pyre, like none of her people had seen. But for now, Taylor cast a simple glamor over herself. It did not change her appearance, it just made people not notice her.
The guard that sat within the bailey was sound asleep and did not stir as Taylor let herself into the great hall of Last Hearth. The term was deceiving. The wood and stone hall was itself not much larger than a typical American home. The bottom floor was the hall where the lord hosted his vessels. The upper floor was where the Lord and his family slept. All other staff were in surrounding outbuildings.
The wood inside the building was black with generations of preserving tar and wood smoke. There were no guards within this building, and the only sound was the thunderous snoring from the Lord's chambers.
The girl's room was barely the size of a closet; the bed was no four poster like from Winterfell, but rather a built-in bench of wood on which a thin mattress of feathers was placed. Even that was a luxury to most in the area.
The girl was wide awake and stared in confusion as her door opened, but she could not focus on who entered. At least until Taylor let her glamor fall.
The girl sat up in alarm, but did not scream.
"Byrne's mother prayed to me," Taylor said. "I have heard her prayer. It was not to save herself, though she was dying. It was to save her son. And yet, I can see a part of her son within you. I am Telos. Tell me your story, Lizbet Umber."
"I don't care about myself," the young noblewoman declared. She carried only fifteen years in her soul–not even Taylor's age when she battled Scion. "Just save Byrne. What my father's doing is monstrous!"
Taylor planted her staff and walked to the girl's bed. Lizbet stiffened but did not run as Taylor sat and pulled down her sleeping gown to reveal the bleeding stripes on her back. The small kernel of life she carried in her womb had survived the whipping, but it was a close thing.
With her wounds revealed, the brave face Lizbet showed cracked. Tears poured down her cheeks as she bent her head and wept.
Taylor took the enchanted ointment she'd prepared just for this very possibility, and began spreading a thin layer over the blooding stripes. The wounds closed before the powerful magic. The girl's weeping turned into surprised hiccups as her pain faded; she turned and stared at Telos.
"M'lord Rickard said you'd healed him. It's true, isn't it? You're a god."
"I am Telos of the Trees," Taylor told her. "The god trees accept me as their kin, and carry the prayers of those who take me into their hearts. I have a place for Byrne and all those who follow him. Not just a home, but a livelihood. Those north of the wall do not have iron mines or smelting. But we need it. Your Byrne and his kin could find a good life there, perhaps even wealth of a kind. I have spoken to the elders of the Wolf's Wood, and they have chosen to accept Byrne as a Free Folk, and are prepared to trade food and goods for his iron. He could have a good life. Will his son be with him?"
"Son?"
The child was breathtaking, Taylor had to admit. She had that native beauty that back on earth would have graced magazines and movie posters. She looked down and her hands hovered over her stomach. "I know it was wrong," she whispered. "We grew up together. We played in the woods, Byrne and me. He saved me from a wild boar once, when I was ten. I can't…I know it was wrong, but he…"
Taylor saw all she needed. "Is there anyone in the castle you trust enough to come with you?"
She shook her head. "Father drove them out when he found I was with child. Only Lelai stayed, but she…gave up."
"Then gather what things you can carry. Wear good shoes or boots, it will be a long walk."
Though in many ways, Lizbeth qualified as a fairy princess, she was a fairy princess from a harsh, unforgiving world. She dressed quickly in a linen undergarment, then pulled on a heavy woolen overdress, then a great coat over that. She only had three sets of footwear, despite the apparent and relative wealth of her family. Of those, she chose heavy, clunky boots. As she secured them with little strips of leather, she noticed Taylor's bare feet.
"Are your feet not cold?"
"The earth is my cousin, it cushions and warms my steps," Taylor said. "Come."
With the glamor restored, Taylor led the teen-aged princess back through the fortress. The guard still slept, though another walked the palisade. He did not notice them as they slipped into the open country.
Once freed of the walls, Taylor turned and looked back at the old wooden castle. "They let a widow of an imprisoned son starve to death within their walls."
Lizbet shook her head and wiped her eyes. "The Umbers are hard people. Father's done much worse."
"Then let Lelai's pyre soften them."
Taylor raised her staff and seized the spirits of the sky. The lightning came on command, showering down over the keep and its surrounding outbuildings.
"The sound will wake your family," Taylor said to the girl. "They have a good chance to escape. But the fires may hide your escape for a time, and I have enchanted our passage so they won't be able to track us. Come on."
The young expectant mother walked with steady, strong steps after Taylor as they made their way through the heavy oak forests that surrounded Last Hearth. The naked branches sprinkled snow down on them as the sun began to rise.
They reached the mines and the surrounding outbuildings after fifteen minutes of walking. When they arrived, Byrne and a dozen other workers were being herded by heavily armed men toward the mines.
With a wave of her staff, Taylor seized the souls of Umber's guards and sent every one into a deep sleep. They dropped where they stood, causing the miners to crouch down in alarm. In their midst was a blonde Doji–a young man with broad, powerful shoulders and what would have been a handsome face were it not covered in bruises.
Lizbeth rushed away from Taylor, breaking the glamor as she threw herself with a cry into the manacled young man's stunned arms. The boy tried to put his manacled arms around her, and groaned in frustration when he couldn't.
That is, until he saw Taylor as she let her glamor drop.
"Byrne of Last Hearth. Your mother gave her last breath praying to me to save you. So here I am. There is a rich vein of iron ore on Sterrold's Point, north of the wall. The Free Peoples of Wolf Forest have voted to welcome you and any of your fellows who wish to come. You will have food and supplies to build your own homes, and if you are willing to continue your work, a wealth of trade. The Free Peoples are hungry for iron."
None of them asked who she was; her healing of Rickard Stark spread her name across the northern lords.
"So you'd have us trade one master for another?" The speaker was a man with the same dark coloring as Lizbet, but easily ten years older than Byrne.
"Master?" Taylor shook his head. "It would be your mine, Willem. You and your fellows. You would decide your own work. There would be none to force you. You would mine only what you needed to trade for food or supplies. More work will get you more wealth, less the same. There are no slaves North of the Wall. All peoples are free to live as they will. If you come, you'll be part of that."
Byrne shook his head. "They'll come after us," he said.
"Perhaps," Taylor said. "But they will not reach you."
"What of our women? Our kids?"
"All are welcome, but it will be a long journey."
"How?"
"First, we go to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. And from there, I will lead you to Hardhome. By the time we get there, the other villages of the Wolf's Wood will have arrived with food and supplies to help restore Hardhome. Understand, it is not me alone that will welcome you. All the Free Peoples of the Wolf's Wood will welcome you as their brothers if you come."
"I'm going!" Bryne was a child, only a year older than Lizbet. But like her, he carried an ineffable quality that gave his words a weight his age shouldn't have allowed. "I'm tired of living like a slave! What have the Umbers done for us? They drag us from the mines to fight their wars, then throw us back when they're done. We never have enough food; enough coal to heat our homes. If there's a chance to live free, I'm going!"
The smoke from the burning Last Hearth became visible as the sun rose higher. "The Umbers will be busy for a while," Taylor said. "If you wish to come, then gather all the tools and food you can carry. If you have carts, bring them. If you have families, gather them and what they need. But be quick."
There was no real discussion; the two dozen miners shared a long look, and then broke apart. Without guards to stop them, they quickly rifled through the sleeping men's belts to undo their chains. Many ran into the outbuildings to gather their families, while others ran to the mine to begin collecting the tools of their trade.
The twenty-four miners turned into a column of sixty people, including women and children. The little village had two carts with draft horses for the transport of the ore; they were piled with tools and what little food they had, and then the younger children were set atop them. Byrne drove one, with Lizbet by his side.
As they started northeast, going as fast as the carts and the weakest members of the group would allow, Taylor called up a storm that fell upon the Umber's land with lashing wind and snow. The people walking with her stared back in alarm at a fierce winter blizzard that didn't seem to approach them at all.
They made good time. Taylor kept the weather clear for them alone, and continually blessed the draft horses to give them strength to continue long past when they should have rested. Twice she summoned old, tired forest deer to the camp so that the people could slaughter and cook them over their fires.
Behind them, snow continued to fall and pelt the Umber lands.
Even traveling faster than normal, it took two weeks to reach the Bay of Seals. The wall shimmered like a false horizon as they drew closer to the coast and Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, the easternmost manned castle of the Night's Watch.
Taylor knew they would not be able to go through the castle. The Night's Watch would not permit miners to travel North of the Wall. Then again, that was never her plan.
That night, as they camped almost within sight of the castle, hiding in copse of trees close enough to hear the ocean's waves against the cliffs, she told the miners how they would escape.
"How, though?" Lizbet asked. She was the only one of the entire group that could read. "How can the ocean hold us?"
It was a good question, and a moment, she had been waiting for. "If you are to join the Free Peoples of my wood, then you should know who I am."
She removed her blindfold. Several of the women gasped in alarm, and more than one man rose to his feet as she regarded the refugees with her bifrost eyes. "The ocean will hold your steps because my mother's father was the ocean. Njord, the god of the sea. My father's uncle was Poseidon, another god of a different ocean. The sea in the Bay of Seals knows me as its kin; the spirits and gods of the water welcome me, and will do as I ask. And I do this for you, because Byrne's mother gave her life as a prayer to save you. And my people will welcome you because of the promise you bring of freedom, and iron, so that they can live as they wish. Do you understand, now?"
They all nodded in stunned silence.
"Then be ready. We leave at first light, and we cannot stop until the voyage is done. It will take at least two straight days. Be ready."
She did not bother to put her blindfold back on. When the sun rose the next morning, Taylor led the column down a narrow trail between the cliffs to the rocky shore. She stepped to the edge of the sea and spoke to the spirits. She did not command them, not for something like this. Instead, she prayed and promised offerings, and the spirits within responded.
With a glance back at the lead cart, Taylor stepped onto the water. "Follow me precisely, and form a line no wider than the carts."
With faith shining in his eyes, Byrne drove the blindfolded draft horses forward, and just as Tayor promised, the water held their weight. With the miracle confirmed, the others formed up behind the first cart, until the second cart brought up the rear.
In the distance, Taylor called on the spirits again, and a small cloud formed over the Night's Watch castle, cloaking it in a heavy snow and winter ice that would obscure their view of the ocean.
It was a long walk through the Bay of Seals. The people were hearty, though, in a way the modern people of Taylor's America could not have understood. They walked without complaint the entire day, through the night, and into the next day. Once north of the Wall, she led them back to the shores and the Wolf's Wood that stretched beyond it.
With her bifrost eyes, she could see Orban already at Hardhome with the first cart as he began to work on repairing the old ruins.
"Welcome home, my friends," Taylor called as she led them onto the land and further north. "Your freedom awaits you."
