Harp huffed up to them, limping heavier.
“Take my shoulder,” Brant said.
The boy, younger by two years than the others, nodded his thanks, leaning his weight on Brant.
Ahead, Marron all but danced with his excitement. The family of the winner would be on the dais for the crowning. Marron had been chattering about meeting the Huntress over the past two days as his uncle rose in the rankings.
They took off again for the Grove.
Harp moved faster now. “You’ll be on the dais one of these years, Brant. ’Course, after you cross fourteen.” Brant knew the younger boy held his hunting skills in esteem, mostly because Brant let him come along on a few forays.
Few extended such invitations to the hobbled boy. His manner was odd, and whatever ailment had left him with a shrunken leg at birth had also sapped his strength. He was thin-boned and hawkish of features. And in a realm where swiftness of foot and skill with spear and arrow were valued, few found him a desired companion.
But Brant also knew that behind that weakened body hid a keen mind and a generous heart. There was a reason the boy had advanced two years in schooling. Sometimes Brant noted how his eyes seemed lost in some other place, gone off to somewhere deep in his mind. And a part of Brant envied his escape.
“You’ll definitely be Hunter of the Way one day. Surely- girly,” Harp said. It was one of his strange habits: rhyming when he was excited. Several of the boys taunted him about it, but Brant knew his friend couldn’t help it.
“Your father was crowned, wasn’t he?” Harp continued, rushing and gasping. “Twice, right?”
Brant felt a sharp pain, puncturing his joy and draining it away. It had only been a little over a year, and the loss of his father still tore like a fresh wound. He fought back the melancholy that filled so many of his days and even more of his nights. He wouldn’t let it ruin this day. It was too bright for dark thoughts. Still, a shadow followed him. It felt like dread.
Ahead, Marron ran faster when the murmur of the crowd flowed to them, sounding like the great rustling of dry leaves. “I’ll save a spot!”
Fleeing his dark thoughts, Brant hurried after his friend, almost tripping Harp. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
They rounded a bend in the path, and the Grove opened ahead. It was a great natural hollow in the forest, ringed by ancient pompbonga-kee trees. They were the great sentinels of the cloud forest and grew no place else in all the Nine Lands. Their wood was iron strong but light as the mists that crept through the cloud forest. It was from such wood that all the keels and ribbing for Myrillia’s flippercraft were hewn, enriching the realm.
The nine mighty trees that circled the hollow were known as the Graces. It was said they were planted by the Huntress herself when she chose to build her castillion here at the edge of the hollow, in the bower of the most ancient of all the forest’s trees, a great behemoth that was already ancient when she settled this realm.
Brant led Harp out into the edge of the Grove. The giant pompbonga-kee trees circled the hollow, their branches forming a wreath of green over the natural amphitheater. In the center, it was open to the sky. The midday sun blazed down upon the center of the hollow, turning the green meadow below into an emerald sea.
Spreading up the slopes were crowds of onlookers, many with blankets spread, enjoying the spring warmth as much as the games. Down farther, ringing the center field, the crowd was packed shoulder to shoulder. Out here at the fringes, many had climbed into the branches of the Graces, where balconies and stands had been built long ago. Drapes of spring flowers decorated the levels and twined up the stair railings.
Brant craned upward. It seemed not a seat was open.
“The whole world must be here,” Harp whispered, breathless with the excitement.
A low roar swelled around them. Down below, flags fluttered, marking clans and families.
“Over here!” Marron called to them off to the left, waving an arm. “Hurry! My brother has a free bench held up here!” He pointed to the stairs that led up to into one of the Graces.
Brant ran toward him.
Farther ahead, his eye caught upon the castillion of the Huntress, perched and tiered in the tenth and greatest of the pompbonga-kees. It rose at the easternmost edge, where the rising sun would first touch its green crown. What once had been crafted and constructed within the branches had long been swallowed as the ancient tree continued to grow. The castillion was no longer built in the tree but was part of the tree. It was a sight that humbled any eye that fell upon it, proof of the power of root and leaf, of the force of loam.
There was no more fitting home for the god of their realm.
Brant searched the high balcony of the castillion. The Huntress usually watched the games from such a vantage. But presently it appeared empty. Maybe she would appear when the competition began.
Brant reached Marron with Harp in hobbled tow.
“How…how high must we climb?” the younger boy asked, plainly winded.
Marron pointed his arm straight up, earning a groan from Harp. “Don’t fret. Brant and I’ll carry your bony arse to the top if we have to. Let’s go!”
Marron was in exceptionally good cheer. He often had little patience for Harp, but this day, nothing could squelch his fine spirit. He led them toward the stairs at the base of the towering pompbonga-kee.
As Brant followed, he noted a cloaked shadowknight by the foot of the steps. She was inked in darkness, half-melded into the shadows beneath the giant tree. She must be one of the Huntress’s own knights, come to view the games.
Brant searched around the curve of the hollow. Another knight stood at the base of the next tree. Had there been another at the tree behind them? He glanced back. It would’ve been easy to miss someone hiding in the deeper shadows.
Straightening forward, he almost ran into the chest of the knight. The woman had flowed so silently out of the shadows.
“Pardon me, ser,” he said shyly, starting to step around.
She blocked him. “You are the boy named Brant, are you not?”
To find his name uttered by the likes of a shadowknight unnerved him. He lost his tongue.
“Yes- mess, ” Harp rhymed, eyes huge on the knight. “He is, ser.”
An arm smoked out of the darkness and gripped Brant’s shoulder. “The school said you were headed here. We were sent to fetch you.”
“Why?” he asked, finally freeing his tongue. “I-I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Never said you did. And I can’t say why you’ve been summoned. Only that you have been.”
“Summoned by who?”
“By the Huntress herself.”
Brant was drawn away with the knight. His two friends gaped after him. Harp looked on with awe, while Marron wore an expression more confused.
Shock silenced Brant all the way around the curve of the hollow. The knight gathered another two of her cloaked brethren, falling into step with him.
Brant heard them mutter behind him.
“What does she want with the boy?” one asked.
“Who can say? Of late, there’s no predicting her mood. Even her Hands have been whispering of her irritable dispositions and strange, prolonged silences.”
“What’s so strange?” the other said with a snort. “Sounds no different than my wife.”
They reached the ancient tree and passed through an arched opening between massive roots. Sunlight vanished. The knights melted into the darkness on the stair, fading into whispering shapes. But once they passed up to the first level, sunlight returned, dappled and in a thousand shades of green leaf. The rising levels from here seemed to have grown out of the wood itself: stacks of balconies, hollowed rooms, snaking staircases that wound through the open air or delved deep through the outer layers of the trunk. It was hard to separate what hand had hewn and nature had grown.