The Last of the Runners

The Rector had sent for a servant to fill the lamps for a second time. However, despite the guttering lamps, he and the Head Learner worked on. They had hardly stopped for two days, poring over every programme of learning and removing any task and reference to imagination and thinking for oneself. Even problems of calculus where students had to work out how fast a tank was filled with water were purged of any suggestion that the tank was fictitious.

They had started with the Training School programmes and not found them particularly challenging. They were so concentrated on developing the future workforce of Villblanche and on achieving success in their final assessments that there was little opportunity for imagination. The challenge had come when they started to revise the junior school programmes of study. There were so many topics and tasks designed to excite the imagination of the students that it was impossible to revise. The only solution was to throw it all away and begin from scratch, even down to writing a factually based reading primer that taught the necessary phonic rules without drawing on narrative in the slightest. After all, they only needed to decode the words. Art went the same way, restricted to mark making and completing repetitive patterns in no more than two colours. History became the mere repetition of events, with no consideration of why they happened or what it might have been like as that involved potentially imaginative thinking. “What if” was to be forbidden. There was no need for it. They had determined what the answer was. Experimentation was outlawed in science unless to confirm known fact.

The Rector and the Head Learner had started to smile when they began their task. Now as they suppressed that hated imagination, they laughed with pleasure. The more bland they could make a programme, the more they laughed and the more they did that, the better they did the task set them. They had the draft completed well within the time allowed by the Proctor, and sat back to relax with a smug sense of satisfaction.

“Did you know anything about his boy?” the Rector asked, casually as he offered the Head Learner a glass of wine.

“The runner?” twittered the Head Learner. “Well, hardly, Rector. After all, he had not come up to the Training School. He was not due until next autumn. I think, however, that I might have met him when I visited his school. He described the Training School programme as dull.”

“Did you follow that up in any way?”

“He got a good telling off, I gather,” said the Head Learner, “From his mother as much as his teacher.”

“Did she go to the Training School?” he asked.

“I think she was unremarkable from what the records say. She was there when I just taught practical skills.”

“What about the boy’s father? Did he attend the school?”

“There was no record of the father’s name at the junior school. The rumour was that he was a runner who returned from Villombre to his childhood sweetheart. Only, just like all that rabble, he ran off again, when the woman had the child.”

“Rumour, Head Learner, is a Weaver’s word,” said the Rector. “We should not rely on it.”

“Indeed, no, Rector,” twittered the Head Learner, nervous that she had made a mistake, “but where records let us down, one has to turn to less formal channels of information.”

“Quite so, Head Learner, we use all the tools at our disposal to get the job done. How precise is the rumour? Did it give details of name, for example?”

“Not names, no, Rector. It is consistently vague on that fact. I think I have a copy of his record in my portfolio,” She rummaged in the leather folder while she spoke. “A couple of rumours suggest he was a Master Weaver, whatever that was. Most rumours make him a contemporary of yours, Rector. The mother too, they say was a contemporary, but I doubt you would have had anything to do with those who ran and their kind. Not with your fine academic record. It was a long time ago.”

The Rector smiled wanly and took a sip of wine. His academic record was fine because he had made it so. It was the one peccadillo he had allowed himself on becoming Rector – expunging the official record of the beating he had received for not telling on Kyrl. There was something in the Head Learner’s voice and what she said that made him think he should be wary of her. She had mentioned his record and suggested that the boy’s father could be a contemporary of his. Was there something behind the simpering smile he ought not to trust? Did she have more imagination than the Proctor had credited her with? Had she something more than rumour to base her suggestion on? He glanced at the paper she passed to him. He did not react when he saw the name, just passing the sheet back to the Head Learner. It confirmed the thought she had put into his mind, a doubt he had to resolve, and resolve before he left for Tournemittes.

It was late, or rather it was early when the Head Learner left. He would take their proposed programmes of study to the Proctor in the morning, after breakfast. There was still a good hour before breakfast so the Rector made his way down to the cells. The elderly Watcher was flustered by the appearance of the Rector at such an hour, but he said nothing and just gave him a lantern.

He went down the winding stairs. There was no sound coming from the cells now. The singing had been stopped. The Rector checked each one. Mrs Bruntler sat staring defiantly at the door; the old woman was curled up in the corner; the Sub-Magister’s mother was asleep on the straw, tired out by crying. The boy’s mother was sat with her back to the wall, eyes closed, silently mouthing some words.

As the lantern’s light fell on her face, she opened her eyes and looked at him, his face framed in the small opening in the door.

“Hello, Gyll,” she whispered, “What do you want? Shall I sing you a song? Like in the old days? Sing you a story of Dragons?”

The Rector staggered away from the door. What nightmare was this? How had he not recognised her before? The song, the boy, Kyrl, her: all stuck in his head and whirling around. The Proctor was wrong. The war was not going to start at the solstice. It had been going on since his childhood.

They had stopped at last an hour before dawn. Kyrin had never felt so tired, and slept as soon as he sat down. He had curled up with his head on his bags and that was it. His eyes were closed, his brain stopped and he slept. Ash sat beside him, alert, staring out into the trees. His head seemed to swivel round like an owl, scanning the woods for danger, unblinking. He did not move; he did nothing to attract attention from even the passing deer. Kyrin slept and Ash watched, delighting in the effort he had to make, the honour he felt outweighing the pain.

Three hours he let Kyrin sleep, waking him gently around nine. They walked for about half an hour before Ash allowed them to sit and eat. Ash made a lot of mess with the crusts of bread.

“Gives the Watchums something to look at and ponder over,” he said. “Slows them up.

Kyrin nodded wearily. His legs felt like lead and he was so tired his head felt as if it was stuffed with cotton wool. It was so difficult to stand that Ash had to put out a hand to stop him falling back down. The first few steps Kyrin took hurt, particularly his knees, but he kept his legs moving and the pain subsided. They climbed to the top of a ridge and Ash stopped, looking all ways. How he could tell which way they had to go was beyond Kyrin as they were deep in the woods. They were surrounded by trees up on the ridge so could not see more than twenty paces and trees filled the slopes on either side.

“North...” said Ash, smoothing the moss on the trunk of the tree, “...east.”

He turned to the right and moved off along the ridge. Kyrin fell in behind him, relieved just to be going along the ridge and not down into the valley. It gave his knees a bit of a break. As he followed Ash through the trees, he realised that he had no idea where he was going. True, he knew the name of the place, but how he got there from where he was, he had no idea. It had been one of the places he had intended to visit on his way to Villombre, but his route would have started in Contefay. They had been walking through the woods for a day and a half and had not crossed a road or significant path, following tracks made by animals or hunters though the undergrowth. If Ash was to suddenly disappear, he would have no idea where to go. He moved alongside his guide.

“Ash, where are we headed?” he asked in a whisper.

“The bridges, little master,” came the reply, as if it was obvious.

“Where are they?” Kyrin hoped he did not sound stupid. Ash looked at him an instant before replying.

“North east from here. They cross the river where it plunges through the gorge. Once we are across the gorge, it’s down into the circular valley that has Tournemittes at its heart.”

“Not far then?” said Kyrin hopefully.

“Three days if the nearest bridge is passable,” said Ash, “Five days if we have to use the furthest.”

“How many bridges are there?”

“Four bridges cross the gorge, each some ten miles apart. It depends whether the Watchers know all of them. They were built in the old times when more people were travelling the woods and because they knew them, they were not afraid of the animals that roamed wild. Now one is used most as the main path beats its way across and the animals leave it alone.”

“So the Watchers will know of that bridge. Why don’t we head for one of the others straight away?”

“Because this ridge takes us within a mile of that bridge, and if it is unguarded, it saves us so much time. If it guarded, we will see that before we have to break cover and can head north to find the next bridge.”

“What if all the bridges are guarded?”

“We risk being late, little master,” said Ash, “ for it is another three days to the top of the gorge and around.”

With that sobering thought, they plodded on in silence. Kyrin made an effort to walk faster. He had no desire to be late, although he did not know why it was so important to be on time.

The wind had a colder edge to it now, sighing or sometimes wailing though the trees, which creaked and rattled with each gust. Through the lattice of branches which looked black and grey against the leaden sky, the greyest of light filtered down. The wind was cold, the light was cold, so much so that it felt warmer in the dark, when there was only one type of cold to combat. Their journey fell into a rhythm, with short breaks every couple of hours. Kyrin slept every time they stopped, his eyes closed the moment he sat down, back against a tree. He stopped bothering to take off his bags: less to think about when Ash roused him to move on again.

Leaning into the wind, which cut and froze him to the bone, Kyrin found the images of home filling his mind: the kitchen fire; the soft bed in the small bedroom; the shutters that kept out the cold. They tempted him to give up, to get out of the grey cold and yield to the comfortable grey life that awaited him in Villblanche. Each time the dream reached that point, he snapped alert and redoubled his efforts to keep up with Ash. He wanted the new life that this man offered him. He did not want to stay on this side of the gorge.

It was beginning to get dark when the winding ridge opened out into a pine forest. Darker because the evergreen branches kept out the light, the wind whispered through the branches and the trees creaked softly. The gentle scent of pine floated on the cold air helping keep Kyrin’s tired eyes open.

“Not far to the bridge, little master,” whispered Ash. “Time to rest for a while. Just in case.”

Kyrin looked up at Ash, his brain too tired to form the words for the question. Ash smiled, encouraging him to sit.

“In case you have to run, of course, if the Watchums are on the bridge.”

Kyrin nodded and slumped down at the foot of an old pine tree and shut his eyes. He’d found a cleft between the roots that felt like an old soft armchair he was so tired and he slept. Ash was not at ease. Something was on the wind, something that felt strange. He could hardly see Kyrin in the shadows at the foot of the tree, so he added a bit of darkness weave of his own to make him disappear. Then he moved a couple of trees away, and sat down on his haunches. Tense and alert, his stout stave across his knees, he waited, staring out into the darkness.

He did not have to wait for long. How noisy they were as they came in his direction, trying to be quiet! The crackling underfoot, the heavy breathing, the whispered instructions! To ears as accustomed to the sounds of the forest as Ash Couper’s were, the Watchers might just as well have been approaching on an elephant; indeed, an elephant might have been quieter than the Watchers and their hissing, creaking steam dogs. Kyrin could not hear them as Ash had added some silence to the weave he had placed over him. Kyrin would not hear or be heard until he stepped out of the hollow between the roots of the pine tree.

Six Watchers appeared from behind separate pine trees. They expected Ash to run, but the old man sat stock still, the stave across his knees. He didn’t seem to have seen them, making no move to acknowledge their presence, but as the hissing steam dog crunched towards him, he began to speak.

“Watchums in the wood after dark, that’s a rare sight. What are they doing, Ash wonders, crashing round the trees with big sticks, damaging trees that never harmed them? Feeding good trees to their metal monster, Ash reckons.”

“Have you seen a boy, old man?” one of them asked.

“Ash has seen lots of boys. Ash has seen Watchums chasing them too. Sometimes they catch them, sometimes they get past.”

“Have you seen a boy today?” Ash’s rambling way of speaking was already irritating the Watchers, spooked as they were by being forced to search at night.

“No, not seen one today,” Ash continued. “Seen a Master.”

“Was he about this high, this Master?” asked another, gruffly, gesturing a boy’s height.

“No, not that height,” said Ash simply, for the Watcher had put his hand too low.

Kyrin stirred between the tree roots. It was dark, very dark. Ash’s voice came urgently into his head.

“Lie still, little master. Trust old Ash.”

Kyrin was aware of voices in the dark, but they seemed very muffled. He lay still and tried to think. The dark was deeper than the night. He could see no trees, nothing. Then he understood: the darkness weave. Ash must have put it there to protect him. So he stayed still and tried to work out what the voices were saying.

“Old Ash wanders the woods finding staves. He pays no heed to boys or Watchums. They frighten the birds and they break good staves to make walking sticks or to keep their metal dogs steaming like a leaky kettle.”

“This man’s a fool,” said one.

“We’re wasting our time,” said another. “Let’s press on.”

“Should we call for the Magister?” asked a third, “See if he can get any sense out of him?

“Do you think the Magister would want to be dragged away from the bridge to interrogate a mad man like this?”

“Old Ash knows about this Magister. He makes Watchums chase boys and drag them back to him so he can beat them.”

“You watch your tongue, you old fool!” snarled a Watcher.

“Little master, hear me.” Ash’s voice was in Kyrin’s head. “I will lead them away from here. Head for the bridge. Get across. Wait only a short time for me.”

“How can I watch my tongue?” said Ash to the Watchers, poking his tongue out. “It’s not long enough. Not like the Magister’s whip. Does he still wheeze when he whips the whining boys you Watchums drag back to him?”

The mocking tone was too much for one Watcher who struck at Ash with his stick. Ash’s stave was both stouter and quicker. It parried the blow, the Watcher’s stick snapping against it, and then rapped the man’s knuckles to take the rest of the wood from his grasp.

“Naughty Watchum, trying to strike old Ash. Ash had to teach him manners.”

“I’ll teach you some manners, you old fool,” shouted one of the other Watchers, stepping towards Ash.

“Farewell, little master, I must leave you now,” said Ash’s voice. “Don’t delay. Make for the bridge.”

Ash’s staff laid out another Watcher with a blow to the jaw. His next blow broke the front knee joint of the steam dog, leaving it head down, its back legs unable to do anything other than drive it into the earth.

Then he danced round a tree, getting two more to hit each other as they tried to hit him, and he was away, running past the Watchers leading them back the way they had come. His speed was more than a match for the Watchers, who crashed through the undergrowth, tripping over brambles and roots.

Kyrin sat up. Sounds became clearer and then were coming back towards him. There was a groan a few feet away as the Watcher laid out by Ash began to move. At that second, Ash reappeared in the clearing, swung his stave and the Watcher was still once more. He smiled briefly at Kyrin, signalled to him to lie down and dashed off into the trees.

Kyrin did as he was told, lying down as the Watchers crashed back through the clearing. There were more of them this time and their angry steam dogs, crashing through the undergrowth, all urged on by the sweating, wheezing Magister, cursing as he ran, and shouting at his inefficient men to catch Ash and give him a good thrashing. More of this sound had come through to Kyrin, showing that the darkness weave was unravelling very quickly. He waited till he could just hear the breathing of the unconscious Watcher before he got up. The sounds of the chase were a good way off through the trees; the Magister’s curses, the shouts of the Watchers and the occasional high pitched hallooing from Ash, mocking his pursuers.

Keeping low, Kyrin slipped past the unconscious Watcher and made his way down to the bridge. A blind man could have found the path; it had been beaten so wide and flat by the Watchers. Two or three minutes and the sound of water gurgling over rocks at the bottom of the gorge told Kyrin he was near the bridge. He went carefully, dodging from tree to tree, so as not to give himself away before he could see the bridge itself.

There was no one there. Kyrin ran from the last tree to the parapet of the bridge. He checked again. No one on the bridge. Keeping his head below the top rail, he ran quietly across the wooden structure, keeping each footfall as light as possible. He stopped at the end, staying in the shadows and he looked again. No one on the other side either. Another short sprint and he was behind the first of the trees on that side of the gorge. He went deeper into the trees and stopped behind an old pine, twice the diameter of most of them. How long should he wait? Ash had said a short time. What did he mean by short? A few minutes? An hour? More than that? Kyrin did not know. If the moon did not rise, it might be better to wait for first light, in order to get his bearings. With no guide, he did not want to set off in the wrong direction. His mind made up, Kyrin sat down by the tree, keeping an eye on the bridge, hoping or expecting to see Ash come to join him at any moment.

Half an hour passed, then an hour. The slightest tinge of grey began to appear in the eastern sky. It was time to move. Kyrin started to get up, but the sound of voices coming towards the bridge stopped him. He ducked down behind the tree and watched. The Watchers and the Magister trudged back across the bridge. The Magister was glowering, sweaty and wheezing. Most of the Watchers looked worn out by the chase and the mood was angry. The steam dogs looked less forbidding, covered as they were with bracken and brambles and clearly in need of refuelling.

“Waste of time that was,” muttered one.

“Still, we taught him not to mess with us,” said another.

The Magister stopped on the bridge and looked around. Then he screamed with frustration.

“Who was guarding the bridge?”

The Watchers looked down, shuffling awkwardly from one foot to another.

“Are you clods incapable of thinking?” the Magister screamed at them. “While we were chasing the old fool, someone went trotting over the bridge. It’s why the old man ran past us here – to get us all chasing him! The one advantage we had over this runner, this bridge, and you idiots threw it away for a game of tag!”

He stomped off, the Watchers following him rather shamefaced.

“We’d better hurry after him,” the Magister was wheezing. “We can’t fail to catch this one. We just can’t.”

Kyrin smiled as the party of Watchers disappeared up the track, the weary steam dogs clanking along behind. They presented no challenge except by their numbers. He had found it easy to dodge them at Mrs Bruntler’s and in Racontour. Ash had led them on a merry dance to leave the bridge free for him. It had been easy. He looked back across the bridge, expecting Ash to appear at any moment, but there was no movement in the trees on the other side of the gorge. What had that Watcher meant – “taught him not to mess with us”?

Kyrin went back across the bridge. His heart told him he could not do otherwise.

He had seen the direction the Watchers had come from and it was easy to follow their trampling back through the trees. He went back past where they had sat without seeing Ash. The trampling became more confused where the Watchers had been led back and forward by the old hewer. A steam dog that had crashed into an oak tree was hissing as the pressure slowly leaked from its ruptured boiler, a back leg still squeaking back and forward.

Working his way along the path of destruction through the woods, he came to a large area that had been trampled down. Ash was lying in the centre of it.

Kyrin walked across to him. He was lying on his front, his arms and legs at odd angles, like a broken marionette, his clothes covered in mud. Kyrin knelt down beside the old man, and touched his shoulder. He did not move. Kyrin bent down. He could hear him breathing, but it sounded laboured, slow and painful. As gently as he could, he turned Ash over. His face was covered with blood. That was what the Watcher had meant. What other injuries had he suffered? The black swollen eyelids fluttered and there was a glint of dull green.

“Little master,” whispered Ash. Blood came from his mouth as he spoke. “Little master, you should not be here. You should be away ahead of the Watchers.”

“How could I not come back?” asked Kyrin, tears welling up. “You helped me. I have to help you.”

“Old Ash is broken, little master.” The whisper was getting quieter. “I think his running days are over. They hit him hard, those Watchums.”

“There must be something I can do,” said Kyrin.

“Don’t fret, little master. Ash made his choice and it was an honour, little master, a real honour.”

“Can’t I get someone to help?” Kyrin was desperate now. He could see the life fading from Ash’s eyes.

“Past help, little master. Don’t fret.”

“Let me help you, please. There must be something.” The tears were flowing freely now.

“Sing me a story of Dragons,” Ash whispered.

“What?”

“Sing me a story of Dragons. You know it. It’ll help.”

Kyrin began to sing the old song he had learned from his mother when he was young. As he sang, the tears rolled down his cheeks and the sadness in his voice echoed among the trees. The birds left off their morning carolling to listen as the words wound round the trees looking for somewhere to hide from the pain in Kyrin’s heart. He felt his staff begin to vibrate beneath the cloth that Ash had bound round it. Suddenly, he did not care about the danger. He stood up, pulled the bindings free and, clasping both hands round the polished surface, he raised the staff above Ash’s body. He sang all the louder, all the sadness he felt wrapped in the simple words.

Sing me a story of Dragons

Dragons both green and both blue

Sing me a story of Dragons

Dragons will always be true.

The staff vibrated in his hands, harmonising with his singing and it filled the clearing with golden light. Still he sang, the battered body of the hewer of staffs at his feet, and across Ash’s bloodied face, a gentle smile spread.

“Little master,” he breathed, “Little master, how you risk all for old Ash!”

The cold of the morning was taken away by the light and the music of Kyrin’s singing. Then his hair began to be ruffled by a breeze, a breeze which increased, a steady whoosh-whoosh, getting stronger all the time and Kyrin turned to face the wind. Still he sang and the light in the woods increased to greet the dragon that flew towards him.

It landed as gently as any sparrow and bowed its great green and blue head to Kyrin. It raised its head and the sad turquoise eyes fixed on the young man’s face. It stretched out its front talon to catch a tear as it fell from Kyrin’s cheek and it rang like a thousand glass bells as it dropped onto his scales.

“Help him,” sobbed Kyrin. “Please help him”

The dragon bowed once more and lifted Ash up in its front claws as gently as any mother picks up her child. The dragon breathed gently on the old man, and he smiled, turning his head to look once more at Kyrin.

“Little master,” he said, “the honour you do me. Do not fret, old Ash feels no pain. No one is more worthy to bear that staff than you. Do not be late, not for old Ash’s sake.”

The dragon bowed a final time and took off, carrying the tiny body of old Ash towards the rising sun. Kyrin sang the song once more in farewell and then took his hands from the staff, letting it drop back against his shoulder. The glow faded, the staff fell silent and Kyrin fastened the binding once more. He wiped his face on his sleeve, put his staff over his shoulder and set out once more for the bridge. It was still unguarded and he crossed with a determined step. Ash’s simple plan to make sure the bridge was free had been successful. His sacrifice could not be wasted. No, it must not be wasted. The crying was over. He would go where he had to and then he would seek out those who had beaten Ash.

The light from the Weave glowed brighter than it had in many years. At the base of the great loom, she twisted as she felt the pain of the events in the wood.

However, there was a greater danger, a danger that could destroy the balance – his anger. Though it may be justified, the boy’s fury could not be permitted to deflect him from his true mission.

He needed help, protecting from himself.