“Gabriel! Gabriel!”
The healer looked up from were she was applying a second slather of tingly poultice to the young man’s back. Her hands were strong and capable; anyone who doubted her skills because of the wrinkles creasing her hands and forehead were mistaken, for no other healer amongst the Hinterlanders lived to pass on the ancient wisdoms. The man sighed and tried to turn over in his sleep. As the sound of a single runner came closer to their camps, the healer looked down and saw a shadow of pain cross the thin brown face. Sympathy welled up inside of her; she knew what persecution was. Her children, only babies too young to know what was happening to them, had been ruthlessly stolen one night, no doubt by King’s men, the horrid brutes. Becoming one of the Shaddai-Trust had been the only way the old healer could have coped with the hatred and emotional broken-heartedness she had been bombarded with in the weeks after her children’s spiriting away.
“Gabriel! Where is Gabriel, there is an emergency!” cried a young boy’s voice. The healer peered through the gathering crowd of dark green cloaks, dyed by the younger wives for the whole company of outcast Shaddai-Trusters, and saw little Timothy. She smiled softly to herself and finished spreading the cool poultice over the stranger’s torn raw back. Timothy worked somewhat as a spy for the Hinterlanders; he was a page for His Majesty Wenceslas the Second, may he soon perish. The healer realized what she had just thought of the king and offered up a small prayer for her forgiveness. The Shaddai-Trust must be ever ready to give love instead of hate…even to the tools of Evil itself.
She heftily climbed to her feet, bent to tie her leather sandals again, and wove through the crowd. She saw Gabriel, their good leader who wore the simple homespun that was their trademark, leaning over to listen to something Timothy was babbling to him. A dark disappointment crossed is profile and the Hinterlanders caught up each other’s hands and held children close to themselves. Gabriel slowly straightened with a deep sigh and faced his people.
“There is an innocent man being persecuted this twilight in the town square of the village-kingdom Crescent.”
The man, the old healer’s poultice now dried, sat up and looked around. He saw forlorn people, and an air of sadness rippled between the people. “What has happened?” he asked a little girl nearby.
“One of the innocent is being punished,” she answered. The man stiffened and stood up, stretching and feeling the dried poultice crack and twist under his shirt. Already the cuts snaking across his shoulders were feeling improved.
“Give us the whole account, young Timothy,” he heard Gabriel’s warm elderly voice say. The people sat down, as was their custom when an important decision was to be made.
In a voice that could be heard throughout the whole gathering of Shaddai-Trusters, Timothy relayed to them what he had heard in the throne room as he was clearing away the remains of the midday feast. The Hinterlanders shook their heads when Timothy recounted the harsh words he had heard drifting in from the King’s throne room.
“Northumbrio is afoot, I am seriously concerned for the Lands now,” Gabriel was muttering to himself as Timothy thankfully accepted a cool drink from one of his friends and sat amongst his people.
“Why, Gabriel?” asked one of the cloth weavers, her hands rough and strong. “Why should we be concerned for the very ones who cast us out from their society and made us hunted by every bounty hunter in the realm?” A rippling agreement spread through the others gathered there in the glen n the Hinterlands.
“We should be ever ready and willing to forgive our wrongdoers their sin against us, as the Great One forgives us,” Gabriel said in a wavering voice. Even as old as he was, it was still hard for him to accept such a difficult concept as forgiveness to such brutish and uncaring people, who cared not whether the outcasts starved or died from blood loss at their hands. Yet the Great One, their good Master who would send His Son to redeem them from their hard lives, had so commanded to those closest to Him, and expected His people to take heed.
At the mention of their Lord and Protector, the Shaddai-Trust began nodding as one.
“The we must rescue the poor innocent from his plight at the hands o those who know no better,” said the weaver finally. Timothy broke into a grin.
“Oh how we have such little faith sometimes,” he mused to himself. Gabriel turned to smile down upon him. “We hear such beauteous of courage and love from those the Great One has hand-chosen to bear His words, and yet we scorn them for foolish or impossible.”
Gabriel nodded. “Those are wise words indeed, young Truster.” He turned to the other Shaddai-Trusters. “This from the mouth of a mere child,” he proclaimed. “Can we do no less in following our Master’s commandment to protect His dear innocent children?”
“What do they plan to do with him?” asked the healed man, concern brushing across his stern mouth. Timothy shrugged. “I did not hear, but the punishment for not succumbing to the King’s press-gang and defying the order to be drafted into his army is death. If we dally too much longer, I fear it shall be too late.” The young man nodded and, looking at Gabriel and gaining approval, began to rally the other men to his side. The Hinterlanders were thrown into a flurry of activity as swords were sharpened and sheathed at their sides (“Not for killing,” said Gabriel, “merely for the hastening of the Master’s perfect justice through our hand, unworthy though they may be”), arrows stuck into quivers and the bows tightened, and the healers’ poultices and sweet hot teas made to stand at the ready should the rescue prove fatal.
In a short while, the Hinterlanders were ready and traveled swiftly through their wild lands on foot, for the village-kingdom of Crescent.

Rhody sat on the loam, breathing in the now-familiar scent of rotting death rising from the nearby heathlands, feeling the stale wind blow the tears upon her thin brown cheeks dry. She could almost hear the angry shouting of the frenzied people of Crescent, eager to bring “justice” to her dear brother, who had done no wrong. Why must he give is life up to the hands of those who would surely sow him no respect? Rhody’s pleadings had taken Skerry’s decision nowhere. “I want the people of the Lands to see how much we are capable of enduring for the sake of Truth and Life,” he had said to her right before he walked into the swirling mists. Rhody was now faced with terrible visions of her brother’s blood spilling onto Crescent streets, his agonized face twisting under each new torture they saw fit to press upon him. She was appalled and she could not do a thing. How could Life be so unfair? Why was she an outcast? What would Skerry’s hasty actions bring him, after all the pain and trials had faded into the blackness of past experience? It was very possible that he would be killed; not to serve willingly in the King’s army was to defy his supreme ruling, his overall power above every human life and every thing that crept upon his marshy Lands. The wretchedness of it all sickened her.
“Skerry,” she breathed into a sudden puff of putrid wind, “I miss you so. Your raven black curls, your white smile always ready to cheer me up, your beautiful stories, the throbbing songs you play on your little drum…” His recent memory was so vivid that she fancied him to be sitting beside her, his head cocked to one side, his green eyes sparkling, a small smile upon his lips. Rhody gave a little happy gasp and lunged forward, only to stumble over a small hillock and sprain her ankle between two sharp rocks. Biting her lip against the sudden fierce jab of pain, the tears came instead because her dear brother had not been there. Rhody looked about her at the dreary gray sky, the scudding clouds in front of a sickly smoke-colored sun setting behind the distant snowy peaks, the oddly red-hued fog that hung thickly over the small tufts of marsh grass and cold stone boulders. It was such a sad world, so broken and stale, and her brother would soon be a part of it no more.
The weight of all her sadness bore ferociously down upon her and she bent her head into her knees and sobbed. She sobbed for everything she could not grasp, the terrible hatred of the King and all of the King’s men that threatened to totally engulf her strong, lovely soul.
She was lonely.

Lorn peered through the thick furze bushes and fingered his silver earring thoughtfully. He saw the hollow tree standing bare and stark on the side of the glaring white gravel highway the leather hide door flapping open in the foul-smelling breeze. “So…where is the girl I am supposed to meet here?” he thought, annoyed that the officer of his camp did not give better instructions. Was this even the correct tree and place? But yes, for what other place had a lone hollow tree growing several hundred stone’s throw from a cedar-adorned cliff? This was certainly the place roughly described to him. Even Gorn had said “You cannot possible miss it, it stands out like a fish on the river bank.”
Flipping his sandy brown hair out of his eyes, the young soldier climbed to the highway and looked up and down it. Seeing nothing and no one, he strode across the gravel road, bleached white by summer sunshine and spread with cobbles sharp to the boot, and came to stand under the tall hollow tree. He resisted the urge to shove aside the hide flap and enter in; time enough to satisfy curiosity later.
Lorn heard a low gasping choking sound and peered over the side of a small hillock. There, bent double in the muddy rocky earth, was a beautiful girl. Her long black hair fell in tangles over her smooth brown face and her shoulders shook with sobs. Lorn momentarily forgot his mission and scrambled down the side of the hillock to kneel by her side.
“Are you wounded?” he asked in a gentle voice noting that one of her ankles was bloodied and twisted. The girl gasped and stared at him. The brilliance of her green eyes startled him and he smiled reassuringly.

Rhody remembered the words of her brother, about trusting strange men. This man seemed harmless enough, but something lay behind his light gray eyes that made her wipe the tears from her face and struggle to her feet, clenching her teeth against the pain of her hurt ankle and ignoring the big hardened hand he held out to her.
“I am fine.”
Slowly she limped up the hillock for her hollow tree home, feeling a tiny wave of fright knot her stomach. She was all alone in the Lands now, with wounded ankle, and the enchanting young man who stared after her watched her proud straight back with more interest than he should have shown to a stranger.
More than ever, Rhody wished for the comforting presence of her brother.

Lorn gritted his teeth as the young woman clambered onto the highway and disappeared into her tree home. He saw the hide flap tighten as she secured it against the wind and against his searching eyes. This was going to be more difficult than he had expected. Still he was unsure of what exactly the officer wanted from her. Rumor had oscillated through his camp that her outcast brother had indeed turned himself in to the authorities at Crescent because he refused to be drafted into the King’s army.
Lorn cold only hope that the traitor’s sister did not show the same hatred of the King’s authority.