In the Depths of Avdenton

He had left me sitting there upon a huge black rock, one of a dozen boulders scattered about before the banks of the Grey Waters, sitting high with my arms about my shins and my chin on my knees. The sun bore down on my shoulders and I could feel it in my hair, making rainbows on my black raven-locks. There was no wind, but the water was rushing as madly as always where it forked off before me, the river coming down from the Grey Water Lake and curving madly to my left where it would eventually flow to the coast, and to my right the smaller tributary branch that flowed off to the east and eventually would end as a small stream on the borders of the desert.
I could understand why he had left me, but I could not even hope to know why he had dared to leave his Kite behind. It was a small bird, smaller than a hawk, and why he did not own a hawk I couldn't understand either. The Kites were probably much faster, and harder to spot, but hawks were just as intelligent, and bigger, less likely to fall to earth in the winter cold or to be eaten by a bigger bird. No doubt the Kite would be beaten easily if it came to match with a hawk. And nothing was bigger or better than a hawk. A hawk had nothing whatsoever to fear.
It kept staring at me, and it was making me angry, as if to emphasize that he was gone. Its eyes were large, beady, black, its beak was small and white, and its snow-white feathers were fragile-looking, as if it were just a baby with its baby-white fuzz. The Kite's wings and tail had black accented feathers, so it wasn't like a dove, and it was fairly large, sitting with huge but soft yellow and black talons on a rock across from me.
"Shoo!" I waved my hand in the air at it, but it blinked and stared on, and then it turned its head to look at the river finally, as if I were no more of an interest to it, nothing but a rock myself.
I remembered when he had first got the bird. He'd wanted one, something fierce and loyal, and he went to a tradesman to find a hatchling. The man had several hawks, but they were so expensive as we had never guessed, and then he showed us a little newborn hatchling, weak and dying and bullied by the older hawks, and he was in love. I hated the thing; I wanted something better, but he bought it for a little gold penny, and he was happy.
He had named his Kite Arathorn; royal eagle, because in his head the little white bird was better than any hawk. I still despised it, and I didn't know why he'd left it to me. I was almost sure to let it die.
I thought of him, staring at his bird, and I was angry. If I had been someone else and he'd left me; a lesser person maybe, then I might have cried in distress. I might have thought to cherish Arathorn, because he was the only thing left behind, including myself, but then it was not so. I didn't even feel like crying in the least bit, but instead smashing something, maybe even Arathorn, if I could catch him.
It was I who had always wanted to leave, I who always stood on the edge of the fields overlooking the world and thinking that it would be as easy to leave as heeling my pony forward. It was I who always told him how I hated the cornfields, all the maize and wheat and barley stretched out forever on endless plains. I longed for mountains, for oceans and rivers mightier than the stream that flowed from the Grey Water. I longed for people and beasts not like my own, and skies of red and gold.
But it was he that was allowed to leave. He'd told me, days before, that he didn't mind all the maize so much, the fields when flat you could gallop endlessly. But I wanted beaches to gallop! And slopes to canter straight up! And yet it was he that was leaving, not I. He that had left, and me behind.
He'd gone for the main reason to find if his uncle was yet alive or not, and to try to find work, to make money. He said he might like to apprentice as a smith, or even a soldier or a guard for a big estate or for the king. I said I hated the king, and he told me that I didn't understand. Also, that I didn't know what it was like to have a family, or to miss someone, to long for them to return, at least to know if they lived or not.
Like I didn't know! I was born on the coast, my mother said. I came from the north, from beyond the Albinos, from the Great Wild Lands. My name was Avalone, and I had come with a shell strung through a chain about my neck, an abalone shell of the likes that were only found in distant, forbidden lands. No one from this land could ever go there, and no one from those lands could ever go back once they had crossed the mountains over.
Still I sat, thinking about him, facing north on my black rock. I could see the shadows of mountains, sometimes, maybe a glimmer or a white peak, if I stood tall in my stirrups on my pony's back from the highest hill or ridge I could find, and if so, then only for a moment. I lived for moments like those, and I always wondered on those mountains.
Arathorn sat up, stretching his neck and peering north as well. He ruffled his feathers and spread his wings and leaned into the breeze that the river carried down, as if about to take off, and I wondered if a command alone could stop him from flying off to his master, wherever he was. He ruffled his feathers again, snowy white and silky, but then he settled back on his perch on the rock and swiveled his head to look at me.
"I hate you." I whispered. I thought of how he could fly up at any moment and catch a sight of the mountains, and I envied him his wings.
The wind steadied and quieted, and vanished all at once, and again the steady rush of the Grey Waters was heard above all else. I looked to the northeast, across sparce woods and knew that the White Desert lay beyond, somewhere no one ever ventured, and beyond that the Black River, and finally the Black Lands. I shivered and saw as the trees rustled in a wind that didn't touch me, nd then I heard a strange call.
Arathorn had perked up again, and he also was staring northeast at the ugly sparce woods, dry and desolate, not rich or green like those to the west and the south of Vestershire that met up with the Blue Hills. His black eyes were wide, and he blinked as the trees rustled again and the river raced madly southeast so that the wind there was muffled.
A call came again, and that time I recognized it. Usually calls like that only came in the dead of night, from far east or far north, or when the moon shone down on the land, or just at dusk and before dawn. Never, never had I heard such a call so close and loud as I did then, a call that undoubtedly was the reason for the trees rippling, and not the wind. It was a call that ruffled Arathorn's feathers and made my hair stand on end, a call that was answered by my pony in the fields to the south as he nickered in search of me, out of fear.
I stood on my rock and peered at the banks opposite my side of the river gorge, where large tree roots stuck out of the bank, gray and dead in the dusty soil. The leaves of treetops rustled again, and Arathorn perked up, rustled his wings and spread them out, ready to fly.
A large grey head was barely visible through the trunks of many old trees, and if not for the glowing yellow eyes I probably never would have spotted the huge wolf. He stepped fearlessly out of shadows, staring me down like prey across the banks of the river.
Arathorn did not hesitate to fly. He took off and started north, and then circled back with the wind to carry him south like an arrow making a hasty escape from a powerful bow. I stared back at the wolf who held my gaze endlessly, and then I jumped from my rock and fled.
I ran the sparse, sandy ground, dodging rocks and boulders, to the field of barley that met up with me, to where my red pony stood in the field with his ears back, looking chilled as I did. He had no saddle on, and his reins had been loosed on the ground so he would not step on them and break his bridle, but it took me only half a second to mount up and gather my reins and spur him forward.
My pony was small, fifteen hands at most, and red like a fire, but he could run as fast as the wind. I tightened my legs about him and leaned over his neck as he stretched forward at an easy, flying gallop, like wildfire over the plains, from whence came his name.
We were in Vestershire at a full gallop before five minutes, and I was struggling to stop Wildfire from careening into anyone, at the same time shouting.
"Wolves! Wolves! At the river! Wolves in broad day!"
A few people stopped and stared at me, and then the butcher and the town smith came rushing forward, grabbing at Fire to steady him.
"Whatsit?" They asked, and I yelled about the wolves.
They all believed me, no doubt, and everyone wanted to start a panic, it was easy to see. But they had to struggle to calm me down, to reassure me that there was nothing they could do, and no way wolves would ever come into Vestershire, even if they were Great Northern Wolves, or wolves from the dreaded Black Lands.