Tundra

The forest was a masquerade. The trees had wrought a cavernous space for the ball, with arches built from interwoven branches and stained glass windows made from veined, moonlit leaves. The rocks, trees and rubble were upholstered in plush moss, deep, emerald green and soft like velvet. A band played. Crickets chirped in the undergrowth, hiding behind fluted flowers with red veins and throats like trumpets. Birds cried and warbled in beautiful discord. They sang a song of sunset– an invitation to the instinct-driven darkness, where the steps to the dance were prowling and foraging, stalking and running. The dance itself was violent and furtive, like a fan of knives. Frogs joined the chorus and things began scurrying, anticipating pale death.

This was where Eiron was, in the forest of the Mossen Grove. Twigs snapped underneath his feet and leaves were crushed as he continued on his way. Roots rose up like snakes to snare him. They too participated in the masquerade, taking on a serpentine camouflage of shadow, but he was too fast for them. He was swift like muffled wings, adept leaps and powerful hooves. Like no other, Eiron ran the race of predator and prey, on land as he did at sea.

It was a race many others had run before him. The blood that beat in his veins, loud like a war drum in his ears, was a tempo common to every knotted woodland, steamy, primal jungle, rolling plain, vast savannah and avenue of vigilant pine. It was the rhythm of everywhere and every when the masquerade was played, and the masquerade was life.

There is a druid saying– ‘Keep the glade, for the glade is the symbol of life. In it, things may decay or die and give rise to other things, but these is no presence of rot outside the ambit of nature’s cycle. There is no death that is permanent, no stench that lingers.’

This was the philosophy Eiron was about to encounter, when he saw a druid for the first time. The druid had great branch-like antlers, which sprouted from a head like saplings looming behind a hillock. The mound they attached to, it took him a moment to register, was feathered rather than furry, although the entire heap was as large as a bear. The furious clicking of the beak, however, was what brought him back to consciousness, out of the dream of the run and into the reality that had ended it. This beak was curved and talon-like, and the tongue inside it, he saw, was rough and grey, like a pestle fixed for grinding food against the roof of the creature’s mouth. It was attached to the base of the beak like an oyster rooted in its shell, and it was rolling wildly, forming incomprehensible strings of sounds.

The druid beckoned, and Eiron stepped forward. Turning, the creature led him into a proper clearing, behind more spirit fences and a ring of untoppled standing stones. Here, the moss grew like a carpet. Rain streaked everything. Birds darted between the trees, chirping as they chased each other, and the clearing was mottled with shade and shining pools with water clear as crystal. A congregation of druids was there, each of them wearing different animal parts. These were not the tame druids who went to live with the Seafarer villagers as part of the ancient pact. These were the wild druids, alone with themselves and apart from civilisation.

The first druid became a man, and in man form, sat down in the centre of the clearing. A range of fruits, Eiron saw, were arrayed there. There was also meat– the meat of the hunt that the circle of life justified.

'Sit down,’ he said, gesturing at the food with a hand that had until recently been a clawed wing. ‘Eat.'

Eiron shook his head. 'I'd rather stand. And I don't eat anything a druid offers me.'

The druid chortled, and there was a hint of the avian in his voice, as though he wasn’t used to speaking human. 'That's largely a myth,’ he said. ‘Had we wanted to poison you, we've had ample opportunity to do so. You've been walking our earth and breathing our air for some time now.'

‘Nonetheless,’ Eiron repeated, eyeing the food, ‘I'm not eating.'

The bird man, whose antlers still remained, inclined his head. 'As you wish. We had hoped to off you succour as a gesture of friendship and trust, but it's up to you.' Nodding back, Eiron seated himself in the clearing, kneeling knuckles on knees in the longboat fashion. 'To business, then,’ the druid said. ‘We have a task for you, Eiron Seafarer.'

'Prince Eiron,' Eiron corrected him. He had not rowed this far to be insulted.

Laughing a fox’s cackle, another druid interjected. This one had furry ears, and a curious whorl of red and white markings on his face. 'That's not right, though, is it?' he asked.

The first druid ignored him. 'If you wish, Prince Eiron. One of our number has…’

'Strayed,’ a third druid finished for him, but Eiron was sharp, and jumped in automatically.

'What do you mean, “strayed”?'

'Does it matter? Our secret knowledge is our own, Eiron Seafarer,’ said the second druid.

'We couldn't explain it to you if we wanted to,’ said the third, another stag-horned creature, more gently. ‘You've not bathed in the light of the Otherworld, nor eaten the flesh of monsters, nor run with the teeth of the wind. You wouldn't understand what he's done wrong, Seafarer.’

'All you need to know is that we need someone to resolve the situation.'

'What do you mean?’ Eiron demanded. 'I'm not some Southern courtier. I'm a Seafarer prince. I do not "resolve situations".'

'This is pointless.' The third druid piped up again, but was ignored by his peers. 'We're not going to get anything done if we can't say the words. We're asking you to murder him. Go to his grove, cut off his head and burn his body. Surely you can do that?'

'After all,’ said the second, the fox-headed demon, ‘this isn't your first murder, is it?'

'That wasn't…’ Eiron stammered, but then corrected himself. He was a proud Seafarer, not one to cower and justify himself to druids. He might have been in exile then, for the death of a housecarl, but he was not stripped of his culture, or his titles. 'Nevermind,’ he said sternly, his eyes stony and hard. ‘What's in this for me?'

'You get to be Prince Eiron again,’ said the fox-head.

'I am Prince Eiron.'

'No, you're not. You're Prince of one longboat and twenty raiders, half of whom now think you're cursed, and none of whom you have seen for days, since you abandoned them. We can raise you up to your former station, make it so you can wear those tattoos with pride.'

I already wear them with pride, Eiron thought, but what he said was, 'How?'

'The word of a druid carries great weight,’ the first druid, the owlbeast, explained. The word of a druid spoken through an ice storm or an avalanche, even more so. Just because we don't stand at the front of your boats like your pet wizards doesn't mean we're not a part of your world. Help us, and you will be Prince again. Further, you'll be a Prince whose raids are always accompanied by perfect weather and whose stronghold is unassailable. The land and the sea will smile on you. How many Seafarers, let alone Cleaved Tide rowers, can say that?'

'Why me?’ Eiron asked, growing suspicious. ‘Surely, if your magic is so powerful, you could deal with this yourselves?'

'We can't raise a hand against one of our own,’ said the third druid, bitterly. ‘Put that out of your mind.'

'Even this,’ said the first, ‘might be breaking taboo. Once you leave here, you will not hear from us until your grisly work is done.'

The second spoke again. 'Take your men, go to Sentinel Rock and kill whoever you find there. Earn the crown you think you're owed, Eiron Seafarer.'

Eiron sat still, unflinching when the words were spoken. 'So this is your offer, is it?’ he retorted, his pride wounded. ‘Spill blood, kill someone I don't know for reasons that are not made clear to me for a prize I could earn back for myself? I already am a Prince of the Seafarers.’

'No, you're not,’ said the second druid, his fox face smiling cryptically. ‘Not anymore.'

'And that's why you'll accept our offer, Eiron Druidhand,’ said the third. ‘You have no-one else.’