Book One – The Western Wood
Chapter 1
Falk had lived in the Northfold all his life, up on the hill overlooking the village of Alesven. All the life that he had lived there in the village, had seen him taught many lessons. Of all those lessons he remembered only one, and that one lesson, that one piece of worldly advice that his memory did carry with it, he chose to ignore. The advice was this, 'do not go into the Western Wood Falk, there does He live with his cold sharp promises, don't go into the Western Woods'. The people of Alesven were tight lipped when it came to who He was and why they advised their children and their children's children to steer clear of the great green ocean of trees to the west of them.
When they were quizzed they would look off in that vague direction with a far away look on their faces, as far away as the woods themselves. Then they would frown and tell the curious that counting blessings should leave no time for pondering ill mystery. Falks father was a herdsman. As the boy grew older and stronger so his father grew older and weaker and it fell often and then always to Falk to tend the flock as it wandered over the rocky hills and the grassy gulleys of the Northfold. Many would find such a lifestyle idyllic in their minds eye for though the Northfold was rugged it was beautiful, but as is often the case with those who dwell within beauty their own idylls lay far from where they were.
The beauty of the Northfold never faded from itself but it did fade from the mind of Falk for though not unkind, he was a vain and restless boy who was unbowed by the majesty of his surroundings. Rather he saw them as a vast and glorious prison from which he might never escape. So it was almost a fate of his own making when one day a member of his flock which he turned safely with his crook did misstep navigating a hilly path. It fell and rolled down and away.
Falk could not make up his mind as to what to do, for if the creature lay dead then he would retrieve it at any time but, alas from the direction of the small white form at the bottom of the gulley he could hear a mournful bleating. Now as was said for all his faults Falk was not a cruel boy and he had no desire to leave the creature in pain to be set upon by the ravenous red wolves which sloped about in the caves in the hillsides of the Northfold. Falk took the remainder of the flock to a holding pen, one of a number that his father as a young man had built in the area in the shelter of a cave mouth.
He latched firmly the gate of the holding pen and set his Lur-hound Skel to guard the entrance against unwelcome foes. It would be a brave red wolf indeed that would tussle with a Lur-hound, brave to try and lucky to survive. With the herd secure, Falk began the treacherous climb down to where the fallen sheep lay. The bleats were still there, fewer though and fainter than before. Falk began to steel himself against the possibility of slaying the animal were it wounds severe enough to warrant such mercy. A full hour did the climb take for it was a treacherous way that required much care from the climber. He passed several cave mouths on his descent but they looked to be empty of any potential predator.
When he eventually reached the floor of the gulley Falk set off in the direction of where he remembered the sheep to have fallen. But search as he might the animal was not to be seen. Falks confusion swamped him. Surely the animal would have been too injured to walk unaided, but had a predator been involved then the body would not have been consumed utterly, there would have been a carpet of blood and wool and discarded remains to mark the feast. None such were seen, or so he thought at first. However after a closer examination Falk found a single clue. A few stray strands of silvery white wool snagged on a thistle. As he moved closer he saw several more anchored in a similar way and as he walked the saw that these signs did form a path which mapped the beasts direction.
Falk followed closely like a bloodhound for the traces were thin and hidden at times. So intent was he that he did not note his general direction. With every step he drew further from Alesven and the Northfold until after several thousand or so he stopped in the chill of a looming shadow. Such was his focus that he did not track the future of his pursuit. Falk looked up and with a shiver bore not just of the chill he saw that the shadow which enveloped him was from the towering trees of the Western Wood. They stood all in a line like gloomy guardsmen, branches folded across their chesty trunks, the sneering faces in the canopy speaking the unspoken warning that none may enter this place.
Falk turned and looked back at the hills of the Northhold. Scattered with gorse bushes and rocks, framed by a sun setting with startling rapidity, either the light was in a hurry to flee or the darkness was woken early from its slumber. Falk realised that he'd never looked on his home from a distance such as this before. He rued the curses that he cast upon its soil for this was no prison the place of his birth, this was a sanctuary the likes of few men benefit and many more desire. Falk shivered again in the steady wind of the forest shadow and made up his mind to turn and walk from the gloom and go back home. The sheep was lost and he had done more than most to recover it.
Just as he made to turn from the dark grey trunks that he could not comfortably bring himself to look on, Falk noticed that directly at the entrance of the forest, snagged on an upturned root end, there was a clump of silvery white wool. So the poor creature came this way. It went to its doom in the forest and was likely lost beyond recovery. This thought steadied Falk as he turned to walk away however, he was stopped again for clear as day and almost as if directly behind him there came the clear bleating of the lost sheep. The boy spun quickly seeking some sign of the creature within the confines of the wood. No such sign was seen for the guarding branches seemed reluctant to allow in the light or anything else. His eyes could not penetrate the many shades of darkness which enveloped the Western Wood.
It was then that Falk made a fateful decision and ignored the well remembered lesson of his youth. He walked to the very edge of the wood, for in his naivety he imagined the wounded and confused sheep to be but a few feet beyond its boundary and that he would walk beneath its boughs for only a few moments. Just before he set foot through the small dark archway between two of the trees Falk saw something strange at his feet. There were stones set there in the ground. They were about a hand width in diameter, each one perfectly round and in colouring half white and half black. Had he taken the time to examine them properly then Falk would have seen the many runes carved into the stones which went much deeper into the ground than he perceived, but he did not take the time. Instead he thought to ask in the village when he returned of these strange border markers at the edge of the Western Wood.
With a deep breath he squeezed in through the reluctant branches and thorns and stepped into darkness. Had Falk known truly of the malice of the woods he might have known that their reluctance to allow him entry was a façade and that it was not by chance or his own will that he trod beyond that barrier. As Falk entered the western wood the shadows of its arms did in fact usher him along, deeper and deeper into their embrace.