Hero's Song

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Collun was on his knees, working in the flower beds, when he spotted the kesil coming up the road. He leaned back on his heels, watching the tall figure approach. Pinching off the dead head of a cornflower, he wondered why the ragged forest man was back so soon.

Ordinarily the kesil only came through Inkberrow twice a year, begging for food and muttering strange words under his breath. He had visited their farmhold, Aonarach, just a month ago. Collun's mother had given him food as she always did.

But here he was back again, and, even more odd, instead of heading around to the back door to beg for scraps, he walked right up to Collun.

"Good evening," Collun said, his voice uneasy.

The kesil mumbled words that Collun could not understand. He kept running his hands up and down his knotted gray beard.

"Are you hungry? May I bring you bread? Or a drink from our well?"

The wild man shook his head.

"It won't be long before the first frost," Collun said awkwardly, to fill the silence. The kesil's hands continued moving on his beard, and Collun turned back to his work. He concentrated on uprooting a weed with his trine. A feeling of dread made his hands shake and he cut the weed off short, its jagged edge white against the soil. Collun stared at it. Why did the kesil not go away?

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