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Book 1: Part 2, Achuld and Tolliaft
As some of the last dregs of skylight strained themselves through the canopy, Tolli and Huld broke free of the tree line onto a cleft in the hillside. This pocket sat beyond two large pines, roots rushing out over the ground in wild tangles, and nestled down between two steep slopes, rimmed by shrubs, with a rocky crag jutting out overhead. Each slope ended abruptly along a rough stone floor, jutting back toward the cliff face. The cliff itself rose far above their heads before cutting back toward the hillside. Nearer the back wall, sat a hulking, flat-topped boulder, surrounded by thresh grasses to cover the cold stone floor. Propped upright next to the boulder were two sawed logs as stools and nestled along the side some supplies the boys had slowly accrued over the course of their visits. This gash in the hillside was their hideout.
Huld trotted over to the pile of ash and charred remains of their fire from the week before, stacking twigs and kindling together, while Tolli rummaged through his pack. Candle stubs, a mussel shell, lengths of twine, a small antler swiped when no one was looking. The scraps of paper from their lessons. Rough, pulpy paper covered in scrawlings of grammar and vocabulary, doodles and scribbles. Today, after another week of dull lessons on the Aroan language, the two would hold their ceremonial burning. A fire built up, their faces painted, they would whoop and holler as they cast page after page into the blaze, watching the paper curl and catch as the foreign letters were lost to whatever imagined fire god may nourish their bonfire.
Stuffing the bundle of the papers under the edge of the boulder, Tolli set out the candles and the antler, knotting the rough ends of the twine together. Nearly nothing could be seen in the little cliffside refuge. With the light gone from the sky, most of the nook was shrouded in darkness, and the task of lighting a fire became a game of lightless muscle memory. Huld spindled a coal to life near the charred pile, scorching a hole in their vision. Resting the healthy coal on a chip of bark, Huld swaddled it in fluffy tursum grass. A breath, a breath, a breath, each a burst of light. As the bundle caught, it found its home in a nest of twigs and grew, bit by bit.
Soon, the stone wall shivered with motion. While the bonfire itself was nestled in the cleft, the cliffside above was washed in stumbling light, a dancing standard surely visible to any soul in the town down the hillside that turned a discerning eye to the east.
“Tursum, cordially, yabby dee lah. A tree, above-below, draws out the sap to strain an eye on a chained quill,” Tolli puffed as he slid off his stump by the stone with the twine now a circlet. Huld stooped near the flames, warming his hands. Tolli pressed the twine crown onto Huld’s head, twisting some curly hair around the cord to keep it in place, and stepped over to a vase among their supplies. Tolli opened the top and scooped a small glob of sheep fat out with the mussel shell. With another step, he was brushing dark coal into a pile and mixing it into the shell, mixing and massaging until the shell hued midnight.
“Hold in your mind the hallowed visage of Arodastre, gem of the Hargland, as you score the page, Tolliaft!” Huld mimicked, prodding Tolli as the younger boy dribbled water into the shell and began daubing lightly about the other’s face. Two arching curves across the brow, a smudge at either end. Shading under the eyes and broad whisker strokes. Spots up either side of the cheeks, comb-thin lines over the jawline, and a big blotch across the chin. The grease paint shon in the firelight as it dried on Huld’s face, and Tolli handed over the shell.