Hiss! The sharp rush of air tore through the morning stillness, weaving a disturbance into the ever-present, shrill sound of droning midges that fill the Midgewater’s air with their ceaseless song. In the flickering light of his nearby campfire, Flent stood hunched over after casting his net – unfurling it like a dark cloud. Fluttering, scrabbling birds thumped around inside the net after the fowler’s successful throw. He had caught a threesome of common teals. They were fast ducks, but good eating nonetheless. Despite their size, his beefy hands showed incredible deftness in necking the birds. With a sudden and precise twist of the wrist, the fowl went limp in his grasp and no suffering lingered. A grim but fast act, born of long habit.
As the dawn continued to break upon the dense marshland breath, and Flent had begun tying the teals to his backpack, the fowler’s eyes twitched across the orange hues of sunrays that split through the solitary alders which stood like tall watchmen. The buck of a man paused his work briefly, and felt a shift in his surroundings. The familiar whirring of the midges thinned and the marshes sucked in its slow, creeping breath. On occasion, fell and frigid winds would come tumbling down from the Lone-Lands and give relief from the many insects that swarmed the Midgewater. But, this was a different breeze. The brute slowly rose to his full height and touched the hilt of a foreign, curved dagger that always rested on his toolbelt. “Drawing breath.. not releasing it..” he muttered to himself as he often would. He watched the rushes sway faintly and the distant canopy of Chetwood forest dance with the incoming winds. His gaze shifted over the veiled fens and streams and the tangled reeds of where he came from the evening prior.
It took Flent a good while to master his nerves and to resume breaking down his camp. When he had taken out the smoldering embers with a splash from his waterskin, he slung the heavy pack over his squared shoulders and put a firm grip on his walking-staff.
With everything secured to his pack, the fowler had begun picking his way back toward the mantle of Chetwood. Like the thousands of times before, his heavy boots sunk and tugged at his legs – as though the marshes were keen on dragging him in. Flent had heard the old-wives tales of lights in the pools and forlorn faces pleading for travelers to stay with them. He believed none of it, for he had never seen such things and knew the Midgewater like the back of his hand. Nevertheless, something stirred in the shallow fens and he could not bring it home. The air, or what passed for it, seemed to cling to him like a beggar. A restless whisper for company. It was as though the marshes begrudged his leaving. Today, his familiarity with the place and stoic demeanor offered little comfort.
Splat! Slurp.. slosh! His pace quickened – seemingly against his better judgment. He was never one to hurry, but something inside of him gave rise to a variety of dark musings. The feeling of unseen eyes, of something waiting just beyond sight began to frighten the man. He could hear the distant blackbirds fluting their mellow tunes in the safety of Chetwood and perhaps the wistful weeps of the robins nearby made him quicken his steps.
Heavy-footed now, he hitched his pack higher up his shoulders and tightened the grip on his staff. Each step sounding louder in his ears, like he had instilled an ancient anger within the marsh that fought to keep him in. The dense air pulled, it clung to him like a another layer of skin. But there, poking through the fading shrouds of mist, came a change. Faint still, but with a few more paces it grew steadier. For what felt like a lifetime, Flent strode through the undergrowth before noticing the clear, uncorrupted notes of birdsong. The mellow blackbird he had noticed earlier sat perched upon the branches of a lone birch that stood praising the early sunlight, just outside the green walls of Chetwood forest. The fowler stopped to look at him, it’s yellow beak split into song, unbothered by the hunter’s presence below him. The crystalline, mourning murmur of the robin caught his attention too, as the fiery bird darted across the shrubland that grew higher the closer it stood to the forest.
At the edge of the Midgewater, now at firm ground, Flent slowly turned. The mist still hung thick as ever over the marshes, blurring the black fens and twisting alders and willows into looming, dark shapes – as though they were giants walking across an ancient battlefield. The many broken ruins of Arthedain jutted from the mire like the bony insides of a fallen warrior. Time and nature had swallowed much of their former glory, where once the old kingdom of Arnor stood proud. Weary, Flent gazed upon their far-off ghostly shadows and felt his face twisting into a dour look of worry.
The fowler grumbled a quick word to the Wain, the Burning Briar, and turned his back on the marshes for the first time in a long while. Whatever had corrupted the grounds where he had hunted time and time again, he could not find out by himself.
The forest closed around him, and the marsh, with all its mysteries, faded behind the swaying green of Chetwood. He would make for Bree-town, to seek out wiser minds and answers to the unease that gnawed at him.
