[Arry]

Wulfham

Brand’s footsteps brought him soon to the banks of the river. The shadows of the trees were long as they threw themselves across the wide waters. And with the sun low on the horizon behind him, his shadow, too, strained eastward, rippling on the currents. He knelt down and dipped his cupped hands into the frigid stream, letting the water at first seep through his fingers.

The little drops fell like a waterfall, like tears, even, as they returned to the water. What few were left, he brought up to his face and let their coolness refresh him as they could. He took the bandage from his wound and let the cold air of evening wash over it. A certain layer of fatigue seemed to slip away as he made his ablutions with the air and water.

Incana’s words were not so easily purged. He stood up, jamming the bandage in the pocket of his breeches. His feet turned south, taking him along the rocky uneven river bank.

How was he to think of her now? Vaenosa. And the awful things she had endured as a child. He was sickened and made sad by them. But it would not due to give her his pity. He, himself, would not want to be pitied; it would make him feel small, and somehow shamed. He could not imagine it would be different for her.

Sympathy? She would see right through that. He had nothing in his ordinary little life that would give him any basis for understanding the hell she must have borne through the years. And how would such a false offering ease her pain at all?

He clasped his hands behind his back. His pace slowed as he picked his way along the river’s edge now by moonlight. ‘Think, think, man!’ he grumbled to himself.

There was the possibility of friendship. But that would . . . or he should say . . . might . . . come over time. They had gotten off to a rocky start. And to be honest he had never been around someone as . . . well, prickly, as her. Yes . . .prickly, short-tempered, sharp-tongued.

Now, in a way, he supposed those could be excused, knowing her history. Or perhaps the better word would be, ‘understood’. He kicked a small stone out from under his foot, listening to it as it skittered across the rocky ground and plop into the river. Somehow that didn’t seem right to him. It took away her accountability, and in a way made her a lesser person, at least in his way of thinking.

He’d come to a wide part of the river, where it curved a little and eddied in a large pool near the bank he stood on. The water here was relatively smooth, and the moon, which had risen higher in the sky, was reflected in it, with almost no distortion. His eyes flicked from the reflection to the moon itself and back again.

Brand put his hands on his hips and laughed. He’d been looking in the wrong places. ‘You can’t do anything about what happened to her, you fool. Only about yourself. You’re a hasty one to judge, you know that. As set in your own ways as she is . . .

The walk back seemed shorter and less burdensome. Brand saw the small fire of the campsite and headed toward it. His stomach growled, letting him know it expected to be filled now that he was done with his wandering.