It took months for Redbridge to understand why he'd pushed her away, and longer for her to forgive him. In all that time Brandon did not return. In a vague urge to be good at something, she learned to build bows and fletch arrows, making a thousand straight strong shafts, and training herself to make them fly to whatever target she wished, bending a long blow almost as tall as she was, that only the huntsman Redbridge had learned from could draw. She dressed herself in a style that suited her, that some of the other girls in town started to imitate for practicality and grace in one. Two more long years passed, and in that time, Redbridge did not take place again in the festivals, but watched them from beneath the tree where her botched seduction of Brandon had taken place. She would stand there, and wonder what the power that had filled her when she was angered was, and where it had gone. And she would rub a long auburn hair between her fingers. One that had caught in her nails as she fled. She'd found it there the next morning, and carefully preserved it in a fold of paper. And she would wonder what she had done wrong, and if she had done something different, if he would have accepted it, and what would have happened then.
The woods felt wrong, and it made Redbridge nervous. The huntsman had disappeared over a week ago, and she was looking for him.
"Redbridge!" Brandon jerked aside fast enough to avoid the arrow that flew at his face, but it pinned a hank of his hair to the tree behind him. He didn't move further than that, brown eyes cold and impassive on her face, as she reached up, on tip-toes, and ripped the arrow out, taking a few strands of his hair with it. "Nice shot," he said impassively. Redbridge snorted and turned away, continuing to track the huntsman. Brandon grabbed her arm.
"Child, you should be out here." She turned to face him half way, back stiff and lips in a thin line.
'I,' her posture said, 'am not a child.'
"Redbridge," Brandon amended, "come with me."
She shook her head fiercely.
"Please," he said earnestly. "It is not safe, and it is only going to get worse if you continue in that direction."
'Why,' her eyes demanded, 'should I listen to you?'
"I am sorry about what happened, Redbridge, but please, listen to me." Brandon looked at her seriously. "The huntsman let loose something that does not belong here. You cannot handle it. Please, come with me."
Redbridge tapped the arrow in her hand against her lips. Then she put it back on the bow and drew, the arrowhead pointed straight at Brandon's face. He looked down the shaft at her. "What is the matter?"
"Sense of smell of course." Brandon appeared behind a tree, and frowned. And Redbridge let the arrow go. The apparition dissolved.
"How did you know, child?" asked Brandon, as the young woman flung herself into his arms and buried her face in his hair. "Was it the smell?"
She shook her head, and shrugged. Then she noticed the blood dripping from his arm. Redbridge looked a question at him.
"It may not have been real, but it was right. We should leave. Now." A cold wind blew though the trees. Redbridge helped him out of the forest.
"I am sorry," Brandon said, as she bound up his arm. She looked at him, curiously. "For what happened."
She half turned away, and closed the lid to the first aid kit.
"I did not mean to hurt your feelings. I just did not realize that..."
She turned back and silenced him with a raised hand.
"What? Oh." There was a long pause. "The forest."
She nodded.
"I was coming back to Redbridge to see you. And I got caught in the explosion."
Brandon explained that he saw the huntsman trying to pull something out of the ground within a half circle of stones, that sat at the edge of a ruined house. He was going to see why, when it came loose - it appeared to be a mandrake, but longer, more like a vine. Then the earth rumbled, and... Redbridge gave Brandon a look that plainly said 'you expect me to believe this?'
"This is what happened, Redbridge. I have no idea how a legion of undead got sealed into the ground with a mandrake root. I can only tell you what I saw. And it real enough. Do you think I would be here, bleeding, and without my sword if something had not happened?"
Redbridge nodded, acceptingly, and bit her lower lip. She sat down beside Brandon, and leaned against him.
"Do you want me to explain now?" he asked her. She nodded, and wrapped a strand of his hair around her fingers, leaning against his shoulders. "I did not realize that you had grown, Redbridge. I see you so rarely, I still remember a little girl."
Redbridge sat up and gestured to her breasts.
Brandon smiled and shook his head. "I realize, you have grown."
She nodded and leaned back against his shoulder.
"But I don't understand why you are fixated on me. I should be a father figure, you realize."
Redbridge looked up at him, and smiled.
"You're not listening, are you?"
She shook her head, and took his face between her hands, drawing him over to be kissed.
"Redbridge - " he started, and was cut off by her lips against his. He pulled away, just a bit. "I don't want to hurt you again, but this really isn't the time." He smiled at her kindly. "Besides, it's not me you want is it?"
She shrugged, indicating in that eloquent movement that Brandon, despite his inability to think of her as an adult, was the only one that thought of her as a person.
"I can't, Redbridge," he said, holding her hands to keep her from touching him. She sighed, but hung her head, somehow, she understood what he meant. She stood up, and dusted off her hands, crossing them across her chest, and looked at him expectantly. The tall hunter put on a new shirt, and re-donned his leather armor, frowning at the hole in the lower arm, where something had ripped through.
"Damn, I'm going to have to repair that." He looked up at Redbridge, who looked at him expectantly. "Right now," he said, "whatever that force was is in the forest. They attacked me because I did not belong there, and tried to trick you, for a reason I cannot tell."
Redbridge shrugged. She didn't know why either. She fingered her braid, and sighed, gesturing to follow her. When he did she led him to a small workshop in a shed just outside of town. The inside was filled with cloth scraps, leather scraps and shafts for arrows, as well as feathers and points. She gestured, indicating that Brandon could fix his armor here. She picked up a shaft, and weighed it in her fingers.
"Is this where you work?" Brandon asked.
Redbridge shrugged. She looked at the shaft of the arrow as if it would tell her what was going on. She was still staring at it when Brandon began waxing the seam he'd put in his armor. At last she looked up, and caught his eye. He looked up, rolling a bit of bee's wax between his fingers.
'What' her hands asked him 'are we going to do?'
Brandon smoothed the last of the bee's wax away and reattached the lower vambrace to the rest of his armor. Then he sighed and looked Redbridge in the eyes.
"Whatever I have to."
She tapped herself on the chest and raised her eyebrows at him.
"That, Redbridge, is up to you."
She scooped up a handful of arrows and slipped them into her quiver, then pointed out the door to the forest.
"I don't know if that's the best idea, Redbridge."
She shrugged, as if saying 'Well then, what do you think we should do?'
Brandon looked out at the woods, then pointed. "Look there, Redbridge - what do you see?"
She took a half step forward, leaning slightly on her bow, and squinted - coming out of the woods was a gray fox - no... She shaded her dark eyes from the fading light, and looked again- it was a tendril of mist, reaching out like a living thing testing to see if the water was cold. As she watched it grew thicker, stronger, and was joined by others all reaching slowly out from the woods and creeping their clammy fingers out to touch the stone walls that edged the farmers fields. She blinked, rubbed her eyes and looked again, not only was the creeping mist still there, it was still spreading - and gathering force as it moved towards the town. She turned to Brandon, clearly disturbed by this. He nodded.
"Come, we must get to the town - we can form a line of protection from this - I don't know what it is, and it may take time to dispel."
Redbridge adjusted the strap of her quiver and trotted along beside him. She wasn't sure if she understood what he meant, but something about that gray mist seemed wrong.
"Get me a bucket of water from the well," directed Brandon as they reached the town center. The people of Redbridge bustled around them, not noticing the movements of their least favorite neighbor, or the hunter who had brought her there. Redbridge obediently brought the bucket, and he stared into it for a long moment, then nodded, and poured the contents of a small bottle into it.
"Come on, we'd better start circling the town. You stay with me, alright?" he said, picking up the bucket and walking to the edge of the town. She pointed. "Yes I see." The fog was thicker and moving at a slow pace towards the town - thick and rolling. "They should start to notice it soon."
"HUNTER!" bellowed the headman, pelting towards Brandon and Redbridge when they were halfway around the village proper. Brandon gave Redbridge a smile and she silently laughed in spite of herself. The headman stared at them both in shock.
"ThefogiscomeinginanditateacowandWHATAREYOUGOINGTODOABOUTIT?"
"I am doing something about it," Brandon said calmly. Redbridge had to turn away to keep from laughing in the man's face. "Redbridge and I will handle it. Just get your men in from the far fields." A cloud passed over the sun, and the world got dimmer - but it didn't brighten again. "Hmm..." Brandon looked up at the fog that had risen like a tidal wave over them. "Better hurry."
Something in the mist laughed, high and droning like a child's giggle.
"That is not good," Brandon said, exhaling hard. He sped up, carefully pouring the water in a continuous line and whispering under his breath. "I need another bucket, Redbridge."
The mist kept coming and the people of Redbridge became increasingly worried, as the world got darker around them. The mist swirled outside the town, but didn't get any closer than the thin wet line that Brandon had carefully made.
"It won't last forever," he sighed, sitting down on the steps of town hall. "But hopefully it will last long enough."
Redbridge shifted uneasily in place. She pointed over her shoulder.
"I'm not sure," he said, frowning. "But someone obviously knew it was there, or moving that mandrake wouldn't have had this... remarkable reaction." The tall hunter frowned, and stood, dusting off his pants. "Keep watch on the perimeter, Redbridge. If anything tries to cross the line - shoot it."
She jerked a thumb towards a nervous looking villager who was scurrying past, holding a lantern against the encroaching darkness. She couldn't blame his nervousness. The darkness left a shadow on you, like a smudge of dirt on the window. It felt sickly, and oily.
"Flesh wound," Brandon said, in a half joking voice. Redbridge rolled her eyes. "Don't let anyone through it. Your arrows won't pierce it, good ash and eagle feathers that they are, but people will weaken the barrier." She nodded again.
Redbridge turned to the barrier and scratched her back. Something felt just to... odd about the mist. Like while the mist was halted at the edge of town by Brandon's water-barrier, but the shadow that made the world dark had an almost tangible feel to it as well. Redbridge walked to the edge of the town, and just stared at the faint damp line. She shrugged, and stared into the mist. Something was moving in it. The slim brown haired girl quickly strung her bow.
"Shhh..." crooned a voice from the mist.
"Shhh."
"shhhh." It echoed itself, almost in chorus, as if there were hundreds of people in the mist, all speaking with the same, breathy, quiet voice.
"We mean you no harm, Child of Redbridge."
"no."
"No harm."
Redbridge shifted uncomfortably, but unstrung her bow, and as she stood there, holding it in both hands, the voices spoke again.
"Why are you so aloof?"
"Why..."
"why?"
"After all, we wish only to speak with you,"
"What's the harm in that?"
"no harm."
"We looked for you when we were freed."
"You."
"just you," they whispered, still in that strange chorus. If Redbridge strained - she could tell that most of the voices were that of children, but some were women, and a few were young men. She stared into the mist, trying to see where the voices came from, but only saw swirls and rill like any fog, shaping and reshaping into impossible patterns. The longer she stared, the more sure she was that there was something there. She leaned forward, squinting, the oily feeling of the darkness forgotten in her intent observation.
"Come."
"come."
"Come." The voices called to her. She shook her head and drew back.
"Oh Child of Redbridge, why not? Is it for the tall hunter you wait?"
"He will not come."
"He does not care."
"Come."
"Come"
"come," they entreated, sounding so sincere.
"He does not love you."
"He is not yours."
"But he is."
"Come,"
"come."
"come," whispered the voices.
"Come to us, child of scorn. Your lanky one, he does not understand you. He thinks he can seal what he is away behind a wall of faith and will. He will never know the joy that you might. The joy of truly being oneself."
"Come to us."
"Yes... come," they cried.
Redbridge looked deep into the mists that surrounded the town trying to see who called her.
"Come to us."
"come to your father's people."
"We are the bones of the children they murdered."
"We are the blood that they spilled out of hate."
"We are all that should be avenged."
"Come to us."
"Come."
"Come!" It became more insistent as she hesitated. Redbridge took one trembling step forward, as if to go into the mist, to join the imploring voices, those women, those children, those young men, those babies cries, whose owners she couldn't see. And then she closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. After that, she retreated, first one step, then another, until she was well within the circle.
"No..."
"Oh no!"
"Oh," whimpered the voices.
"Oh child of Redbridge, do not be afraid."
"We are only what you wish to be."
"We are only what you are."
"We are strong."
"we are..." they entreated.
"Bring your lanky friend if you must,"
"In time all walls can be broken."
"And then..."
"And then..." there was a childish giggle, broken as it gasping for breath, and then it became a long string of mad laugher, taunting her, calling her.
"And then," said the voices. "And then who knows? For we were sealed, we are sealed no longer. Now, now we are running free! And who knows what fate shall befall the world, now that we are free, and not bound into the unforgiving earth."
"As we gather our strength, our sisters, our brothers, all of those who are sealed within walls or beneath the stones."
"The walls shall be broken, little sister."
"Come."
"come."
"Come. Do not be a wall. Be free."
"Be free."
