As one of Olumphia’s fellow guildlings, I shall respectfully decline to comment regarding the hedgerow. But I will say that she is not wrong about the scandal of the fruit fires. I have read, reread, and wept over Riggin Dagorma’s The Wailing Orchards: A Tanjerade Tragedy any number of times.
The guildmadam was already striding away, and the boys ran to catch up. They followed a walkway to the edge of a flagstone courtyard, where she stopped and held out a hand for silence. Janner counted fourteen students sitting in a circle in the center of the yard, watching two other students as they tumbled about on the ground in vicious combat. A man sat among the students in the circle, pointing at the wrestlers and speaking from time to time.
“This,” Olumphia said in a voice just above a whisper, “is the Durgan Guild. It’s the oldest of the Hollish guilds, named after Connolin Durga. Oy!” She gave the boys a meaningful look as if they should know who Connolin Durga was, but all she got were blank stares. “Pah. You mean to tell me your mother didn’t teach you any Hollish history? Well. You saw the statue in the courtyard, didn’t you? The man on the horse was Connolin Durga, one of the great warriors of our land. He drove out the ridgerunners in the Second Epoch when they invaded and set fire to the Outer Vales. They infested the Hollows like groaches, creeping into homes and barns at night to burn them and scare us away. The house fires lit the trees, and a hundred miles of orchards were consumed. Whole acres of fruit, gone! Fruit!” She looked at the boys again to be sure they appreciated the gravity of the loss. They pretended to be shocked, and she continued: “Connolin Durga was the only chief cunning enough to muster us in the chaos to defeat the ridgerunners and their allies. The Bannick Durga is named after him, as is the Finnick Durga. The Durgan Guild is a fellowship of warriors and spies.”
“Spies?” Kalmar whispered.
“Oy. For as long as we can remember, the ridgerunners have crept into our borders to steal fruit and animals and tools—but mainly fruit, the little swipers. They love it, and who can blame them? We actually do a bit of trading with them, under the strictest protocols, of course, and only at the border. But it seems there’s no end to their appetite for sneakery. Our Durgans counter their efforts. Now, of course, it’s more than ridgerunners we fight. It’s Fangs and the cloven too.”
As annoyed as Janner had been, he was warming to the idea of creeping through the forests with a company of fellow watchmen, sending signals by the light of the moon and chasing ridgerunners over hill and vale.
“That’s Guildmaster Clout.” Olumphia sniffed. “He’s a despicable man. Arrogant, short-tempered, and rude.” She glared at him for a moment and muttered, “I’d marry the old rotbag faster than I could pluck a whisker. But he acts like I don’t exist. Despicable man.”
The guildmadam scratched at her bony jaw with one hand and twirled a lock of hair in the other. Janner imagined her as a young girl, lanky and outcast, spying on her more popular classmates from behind a hedgerow.
—From chapter 20, “The Durgan Guild.”
What was your favorite Wingfeather passage this week? Share it in the comments!
This week in the forum, you’re invited to pick a guild! (I hear Guildmaster Clout and the Durgans are looking for a few new recruits…)
This passage about friendship struck a chord with me:
…The thought came to Janner for the first time since they had arrived in the Green Hollows that he might make friends– real friends, not like the Blaggus boys in Glipwood, who were only good for a laugh and a game of zibzy. Friends he could read with, and write with, and talk with, friends he would still know when he was a grownup, like Nia and Olumphia, or Podo and Buzzard Willie. Janner couldn’t wait for bookbinding.
That passage makes me happy, too. I loved making friends as a bookbindery guildling. We read aloud to each other at lunch and swapped our favorite books… it was wonderful, and i did make lasting friends there.
Any relation to Connolin Durga, Sam?
Hmm… I hadn’t thought of that before… My parents never told me. I’ll look into it!
The section I picked reminds me that even in the middle of difficult circumstances, not everything is difficult and not everyone is having a hard time. Someone is enjoying learning the ways of their new home in the Green Hollows.
The inside of the chamber was as full of dogs as the Guildling Hall was full of children. But unlike the students, the dogs were glad to see them. They barked happy barks and circled the Wingfeathers, wagging tails and sniffing at boots and whining to be petted. Leeli dropped her crutch and hugged the first dog that approached her. It put a paw as big as a saucer on her shoulder and panted in her face. Another dog nosed his way under her other arm, and she stood supported between them, smiling so wide that her face turned pink. Then the dogs trotted forward and dragged her along. Leeli squealed with delight as they paraded her around the room, pursued by a train of barking dogs, most of which were as tall as Leeli.
Janner and Kalmar laughed. It was as if the Maker had prepared a place just for their sister.