Duthash Dracum Fehy [May 14th]. Kossuth was still a few hands away. Both Istisha and Akadi were all but new, and their slivers were gone from the early morning sky anyway. Grumbar was yet gibbous, but its dusky orange light didn't contribute much to the pitch of night, and that dark was reinforced by the thickening canopy of newly leaved trees that spanned the road that led north out of Threshold.
Jarmok felt as though he were padding through a tunnel, except for the minimal light of Grumbar, and of the stars, that fought its way to illuminate the packed dirt road.
The night's activities had left his nerves on high alert, but he could hear nothing over the sounds of his slightly labored breathing and the light pounding of his soft leather boots. He could see even less; barely a quarter of a bow shot ahead of him.
Ever since his realization that he could assume other forms, he would have preferred to fly this errand, but his head was still ringing from having done so earlier. He wasn't ready to do that again just yet.
And so he ran. Nervously. He struggled through his fatigue and his emotion-drained cobwebbed head, forcing himself to remain calm and to attune his environment.
On top of all this, shadowriders were about, perhaps waiting in ambush for any foolish enough to tread this road at night. Unconsciously, his pace quickened from a jog to a lope.
His well-founded fears birthed no fruit, however. In short order he crossed the bridge to Little Threshold and angled through the fields towards the south. Were this an errand that he would run during the day, he would have gone through the far side, but he wasn't yet intimate enough with that side to be able to navigate it under the current poor lighting conditions. So he went the long way, knowing that Ashe would have preferred the short.
But the old herbalist had said that Kit was no longer in any real danger, and that had eased Jarmok into taking the more true route, instead of the more swift one.
Of course, now that he arrived at the south end of the south field, he realized that he didn't know how to alert the small dale gnome to his presence.
Straining, he could hear the somewhat distant gurgling of water. The bramble wall was full and strong, and bore the scent of those blooms that Ashe liked so well. Crumpetblooms? He didn't really know.
Jarmok became aware of a chanting deep in his mind. He seemed to be replaying the rhythm that Ash and Maccabeus had used when the four of them had planted that oversized acorn. The Vallenwood chant.
As far as Jarmok knew, he wasn't a particularly adept person where music was involved; he didn't really know how he could have remembered that lilt, although it did speak to him on a fairly primal level.
It played continuously in his mind, and he found himself getting a little lost in it, even as his goal of fetching Maccabeus reared in his mind: an image of him, Wolf, and Maccabeus running back to Threshold to aid in Ashe's treatment of Kit.
Abruptly, the bramble began to move about, as though harassed by a strong wind. Except that it moved far more than a wind might move a shrubbery. It twisted and opened the way that it had on that morning when Jarmok had met Maccabeus.
And there stood Wolf: tall, robust, and clear-eyed, with a spear-bearing dale gnome astride him, ready to run.
"Lead on, brother mine." The gnome said.
"Hrung." Jarmok spun upon his heal and began the run back to Threshold. He didn't bother asking how Maccabeus knew that he was there, nor how Maccabeus knew that Jarmok had come to lead him anywhere. It just was, and for Jarmok's now-lethargic mind, that was enough.
The run back to Threshold was faster, and more enjoyable than the run out of Threshold had been. Jarmok's energy came back. There was no conversation, but Wolf seemed to enjoy bumping into the lean outlander playfully. Jarmok found himself racing the huge wolf at times, pushing himself to his fastest. But Wolf was faster still; the big animal seemed to be teasing Jarmok as they flew along the road southerly. He ran ahead by a handful of paces, then slowed, allowing Jarmok to almost catch up, but stayed continuously just beyond Jarmok's ability to catch him.
All too soon they crossed the angelhawk, Jarmok still on the heels of Wolf, even though the latter bore the dead weight of his hunka-brother. But Jarmok cheated.
As Wolf sped across the rosewalk, Jarmok still trailing, and then across the wolfsong, Jarmok still trailing, the outlander veered sharply off to the left, speeding behind the buildings while Wolf, less intimate with the area, followed the road. Jarmok pushed himself hard, his heart thumping and his breath forced. He vaulted over shrubberies, much as he had done earlier, and when he rejoined the road, a bowshot or so north of Ashe's house, he was alone.
But not for long. Some short distance behind Jarmok, Wolf yiped in surprise and Maccabeus laughed shrilly. Then the animal ran in earnest and the trio came to Ashe's house almost simultaneously.
Breathless though he was, it was the first time in his recollection that Jarmok shared an earnest, honest belly laugh with another person. Perhaps even with himself.
