RocEter wrote:Foerde starts moving inland towards the hills.ewancummins wrote:FOERDE
After Gunnar beats Foerde senseless the priest sleeps...
Rain lashes his face and hands, tumult of wind and wave fills his ears. Foerde stands alone on the rocky shore of a storm-swept island, amid tidal pools clustered with strange sea creatures and stands of jumbled stone like castle ruins. Looking inland, he sees pine-capped hills rising from the heart of the little isle; looking seaward he beholds only the fury of the green waters.
Through the gray sheets of hard rain, Foerde spots a glimmering light near the center of the inland hills, atop the highest mound, the source shrouded by tall trees.
The trek inland through the storm proves hard. By the time he climbs high into the hills Foerde shivers with cold and fatigue. His hands and feet bleed from tint slices inflicted while clambering up or slipping down the flinty, rain slick hillsides. Breaking through a tangled of wind-twisted pines, he comes across a low bow like valley in the midst of the hills. A crystal clear pool of water sits in the lower portion of the vale, somehow undisturbed by the falling rain. Light rises from the watery surface, the same bluish shimmer that Foerde followed on his journey inland.
Around the pool, grey sheep graze while two hooded shepherds brawl. As Foerde looks on, black wolves dart into the valley from gaps in the rocky lip of the bowl, seizing lambs and even grown sheep. The shepherds continue to brawl. One tries to turn away and strike at a wolf with his staff, but the other hurls mud in his face and trips him. The wolves surge in and slay the mud-slinger. Lightning flashes overhead, and the flash reveals the face of the man who had thrown the mud, as he lies dead with his throat torn out and his face turned to the stormy heavens.
Foerde recognizes his own face under the shepherd’s hood!
The other shepherd wipes the mud from his face before striking down two wolves, sending the others howling back to the rocks beyond the valley rim. The sheep stand on their hind legs and transform into peasants wearing sheepskin jackets, each armed with a spear. The victorious shepherd walks closer and closer to Foerde till another lightning flash reveals Gunnar’s face beneath the hood.
Gunnar punches Forede in the chest, flinging the stunned priest back through a stand of pines to land on a heap of jagged rocks. He leaps like a bolt of lightning and lands atop Foerde, pummeling him into submission with thunderous blows.
When the beating finally ends, and Foerde’s vision clear a little he sees that Gunnar’s face has vanished, replaced by that of a handsome youth with gray eyes and a broad smile. The gigantic youth lifts Foerde from the stones. He dresses Foerde is a sheepskin jacket and sets the dazed priest on his two feet. Thrusting a shepherd’s crook into Foerde’s hand, he pushes the priest stumbling down the hill away from the valley.
Thunder rolls overhead, three great long peals.
A loud voice booms out- “Cast off your cloak of foolish pride and wear the fleece with humility. Learn to serve before you would attempt to lead. You are being watched.”
And then the howling winds carry Foerde deep into blackness and a dreamless sleep…
