Talen ran for the bench. When he was close enough, he took one running step to the bench then another to an old knob sticking out about five feet up the trunk. He followed the momentum upward, grabbed a branch, pulled himself up, and stood on a fat arm of the tree well out of the reach of his brother and sister.

“That’s about the dumbest place you could have chosen,” said Ke.

Talen climbed a few branches higher and looked down at the two of them. “The joke’s up.”

“We don’t have your hog-worn trousers,” said Ke. “You’re the one who loses things on a regular basis.”

Talen did not lose things on a regular basis.

He saw Ke bend over and pick up a number of rocks. “You come out of that tree or I’ll knock you out,” said Ke.

“No,” said Talen. “I think you need to give up your childish games.”

But Ke threw a rock instead.

Talen ducked. The rock flew straight and true and would have made a pretty bruise, but a small branch stood in the way and sent the rock wide. Goh, he needed to put more branches between him and those rocks, so Talen climbed until the branches were no bigger than his thumb.

He couldn’t see Ke or River from this height. Nettle stood over by the well, finishing his sausage, and using one hand to shade his eyes from the sun.

“You smelly bum,” Talen called down to him. “Do something!”

“Jump!” shouted Nettle. “He’s coming up.”

Talen heard the leaves rustling below as someone ascended toward him.

Nettle was a fine one to stand there and call out instructions. Talen must have been at least forty feet up in the air. The barn roof would have been perfect had it not been thirty feet away. There was nothing else around him but hard ground below. He had nowhere to go. He could not simply jump out of the tree at this height.

Ke was right—running up this tree had been idotic.

He caught a glimpse of Ke climbing below him and to the left.

Maybe he could get around him. Talen did not want to be at his mercy in the tree. He climbed down toward Ke. He would get close, then move to the other side and away.

“I’m going to give you one last chance,” said Ke. He looked up at Talen with that happy look that said Talen was a rabbit and he was a dog that had just found his next meal. He was maybe only six feet away.

Talen scuffed the branch and sent small particles of bark down into Ke’s face.

Ke ducked, and Talen made his move. All he needed to do was get to a branch four feet below him and to the right. It would be a quick climb from there to the ground.

He swung down, but Ke had been expecting the move, and suddenly he was grabbing at Talen’s leg.

Talen moved out on his branch. Ke followed. Talen jumped for another branch. He grabbed it with both hands, pulled himself upward, but before he could get a leg up, the branch cracked and swung him to the side.

It was dead and rotted.

Talen looked for something else to grab, but he couldn’t see anything close; then the branch popped again and broke entirely from the tree.

Talen reached out, grabbing for anything, but it was too late, and then he was falling headfirst. He yelled. He saw Ke’s face then a wide-open space beyond with nothing between him and the ground but a branch that would most assuredly break his back.

STAG HOME



I

f this fall lamed Talen, he’d be good for nothing but the war weaves. An image of him at the wizard’s altar in Whitecliff flashed in his mind, the Divine draining his Fire away, the essence that fueled the days of his life, so it could be used by a better vessel—by a dreadman.