Edith Pattou - Hero's Song

Table of Contents

Title Page

Table of Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Crann's Map

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

Fire Arrow

ONE

Copyright © 1991 by Edith Pattou

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and

retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work

should be submitted online at www.harcourt.com/contact or mailed

to the following address: Permissions Department, Harcourt, Inc.,

6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

www.HarcourtBooks.com

Chapter One from Fire Arrow copyright © 1998 by Edith Pattou

First Magic Carpet Books edition 1998

First Published 1991

Magic Carpet Books is a trademark of Harcourt, Inc.,

registered in the United States of America and/or other jurisdictions.

The Library of Congress has cataloged an earlier edition as follows:

Pattou, Edith.

Hero's song: the first song of Eirren/by Edith Pattou.

p. cm.—(The songs of Eirren)

"Magic Carpet Books."

Summary: On a quest to rescue his kidnapped sister, Collun discovers

that he is a key figure in the struggle to save the kingdom of Eirren

from conquest by Medb, the Queen of Ghosts.

[1. Fantasy.] I. Title. II. Series: Pattou, Edith. Songs of Eirren.

PZ7.P278325Hg 1998

[Fic]—dc21 97-30181

ISBN: 978-0-15-205542-4

Text set in Granjon

Designed by Kaelin Chappell

Map by Barry Age

E G H F D

Printed in the United States of America

For my grandmother, Hollis,

who planted the garden,

and for Charles

I am a salmon in wisdom's fountain

—from The Song of Amergin

Irish poet, ca. 1270 B.C.

(translation by A. P. Graves)

ONE

The Kesil

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?

Abruptly the old man reached out his dirt-encrusted hand and firmly grasped Collun's arm. Almost against his will, Collun looked up into his face. The kesil's eyes were focused and alert, not wandering and dull as they had always been before. The last rays of the sun caught them. They were an incandescent shade of silver-blue. Collun slowly rose to his feet, his breath coming fast.

The kesil spoke. "You know what you must do. Delay no longer." The words were spoken softly, yet each one was clear and direct.

"Do not travel on the high road. It is not safe." He loosed his grip from Collun's arm but held the boy's gaze a moment longer, his eyes glittering. Then abruptly the kesil turned away. He shuffled to the gate, opened it, and slowly moved down the road.

Collun watched the kesil go. His heart thudded unevenly. Was this man perhaps not a kesil? For a moment his eyes had been so clear, hardly those of a madman.

Did the kesil know about Nessa? And of the fear that wrapped around Collun like a dank smell? Collun shook his head in confusion and returned to his work, bent on thrusting away all reminders of his cowardice. There was much to be done in the garden.

And yet the moon rose, dinnertime came and went, and still Collun sat crouched in his garden. The trine had long since been laid aside, along with the watering can and the spade. All he had been trying to forget came flooding back.

Collun's lips moved silently as he counted the days since the news had first arrived.

A week and a day.

A week and a day since the messenger from Temair had come up the dusty road to Aonarach. A week and a day since Collun had learned that his sister, Nessa, had disappeared.

Collun leaned over one of the neatly planted beds of flowers and broke off a spray of alyssum. He held it up and in the moonlight could see a fire ant climbing the purple-black stem. He spun the alyssum between his thumb and forefinger, but the fire ant climbed on, making its way steadily through the honey-sweet blossoms.

Collun wished that he could trade places with the fire ant. The insect's path was clear. There was food to collect, shelter to build, danger to avoid. Collun's hand trembled. The ant paused a moment, then resumed its climb. When it came to a fork in the alyssum stem, the ant did not hesitate. It knew which way to go.

Collun did not.

Since that day when the messenger came to Aonarach, Collun had gone about his daily routine on the farm and at his father's smithy, but his body felt slack, his muscles weary. He watched his hands pound nails into hooves and stake drooping tomato vines, but he was unable to find sense in what he did.

Less than a year apart in age, Collun and Nessa had always been close. When Nessa had left the farmhold for Temair, Collun felt as if everything had dimmed—the colors of the flowers, the light of the sun. If something had happened to her ... He could not bear even the thought of it.

Collun remembered how his younger sister had looked the day she departed for Temair. Her plentiful dark hair had been tied up in a dozen trailing ribbons. Too many, their mother, Emer, had said, removing a yellow, a blue, and a pink one.

Nessa had been up at dawn that morning, unable to sit still long enough to eat breakfast. Their father, Goban, had grumbled at her fidgeting, but Nessa kept running to the door every few moments to see if Aunt Fial's curricle was coming down the road. She fretted each time she came back to the table. What if they had the day wrong? Or worse, what if Aunt Fial had changed her mind?

But Aunt Fial's curricle had arrived on schedule, driven by a small, wiry man named Quince with heavy brows and a sword buckled at his hip. Nessa's eyes had widened at the sight of the sword. Quince explained that the road between Inkberrow and Temair had its dangers, especially of late. He had had no trouble coming and expected none on the way back, but it was well to be prepared.