A Homecoming...

Tallan stood in the high-ceilinged room, feeling the emptiness all around him. Everyone had stepped back from him, standing against the walls, spectators to whatever would enfold. As Tallan watched, a man pushed his way through the crowd standing on the raised platform. He was tall and poorly dressed, in drab browns and grays, and his face had a hard look about it. He stepped out in front of the others—and suddenly froze as his eyes met Tallan’s.

“Cyrus!” the single word broke unthinking from his lips. For a fleeting instant Tallan’s face changed, then cleared again. He knew this man. It was Heath, the man he had seen from the hill years ago. Heath knew him too; he stared at the familiar face, saw again the bright eyes of his friend laughing through a film of dust and smoke. Of course not. His mind snapped back to the present. This was a boy, young enough to be his son.

“No.” Heath’s voice hesitated only a moment. “No. Tallan. Tallan Firth.”

The name sounded strange to Tallan, unfamiliar. He was Tallan Longway, not Tallan Firth. That had been drilled into him almost from the moment he could talk. Tallan Firth was a stranger, from a time long ago, before he had gone into hiding and taken on a new identity.

“You’re the boy. You’re Cyrus’s son,” Heath said, and he walked forward, coming towards Tallan. Then suddenly, he saw a look of hatred come across the boy’s face. It had been twelve years, but Tallan’s anger was still there, flaring up from below the surface like a fire starting from last night’s embers. In one quick motion, he raised his bow to full draw, arrow already nocked and aimed straight at Heath. There was a collective intake of breath as everyone in the room froze in their places. Tallan had only one shot, and that one seemed reserved for Heath, but his aim was deadly and no one wanted to be the first to move. With his shot gone he would be powerless, but as long as the bowstring was taut, one man in the room would die that day.

Tallan looked calmly at Heath, watching his face for any sign of movement. He thought of his father, pointing down the hill at the man in the procession below. “He was my friend,” he heard his father’s voice saying. “We were good friends, or so I thought. I thought he was loyal to me. But—I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t do it, maybe he did. I’d like to think he didn’t.” Tallan searched the man’s face, looking to see in him the traitor who had betrayed his father. But he saw only guilt on his face. Not fear, but a deep, grim sorrow, that made him stand where he was without movement.

Heath stared at the boy, seeing the anger and loneliness in his eyes. He wanted to take it all back, take back those years of exile and hardship. “Tallan.” The name came across his lips without trying.

In that moment, Tallan made a decision he never fully understood. He threw his bow to the ground, flinging it with a force that sent it skidding across the flagstones of the floor. Heath held out his arms, and his enemy’s son went into them.

There was stunned silence in the hall—and then the murmuring began. Most of the people understood nothing of what had happened, or who the boy was. Some of the older ones had heard the name of Firth before; it had been legendary after the Battle of the Steppe. But the murmuring died down when the Prince himself stepped from the platform and walked towards Heath and the boy.

Heath pushed the boy forward, hissing at him, “Bow!” Tallan did bow slightly, a small nod of the head that recognized the Prince more as an equal than as a ruler. But the Prince clasped his hand and spoke.

“Welcome. It is an honor to have you here.”

The people stirred. What was happening? Why had this boy not been arrested? He had stood and pointed a bow at one of the leading men in the country, and now he was being welcomed by the Prince himself. No one understood.