Kalmar is wonderful here. If you read the previous chapters, you’ll know that he is struggling with something that weighs on him, and it will (spoiler alert?) keep weighing on him for awhile yet. But I love to see him run, and to fight for those he loves, and to be seen as a warrior by people who have been suspicious of him, and all this even before he has finished wrestling with the matter which haunts him. Take heart. We, too, can be both broken and valiant.
The Fang crackled into dust, and Kalmar plummeted to the earth. When he hit the snow, his teeth clacked together and every bone in his body shuddered. But seconds later he realized he was sliding, then tumbling downhill. Without wasting a moment to collect his wits, Kalmar found his feet and raced toward the Field of Finley, thinking not of the gathering monsters behind him but of his family, his friends, and the Hollowsfolk who needed his help.
When at last Kalmar reached the hill that overlooked the encampment, his strength was spent. He stood on the hilltop, swinging his sword wildly at the cloud of beasts as they feinted and screamed and circled in the air.
It was Carnack Ban Soran who saw him first. He was standing with his clansmen around a fire, holding a skewered hen leg over the flames when he glanced to the west. As he would later tell it, he saw a cloud of darkness whirling about the hilltop. He thought it was smoke, but instead of rising, it spun downward like a bewitched storm wind. Then he spotted Kalmar Wingfeather at the center of the churn, covered in green Fang blood and dust, wielding his sword like a hero of old. Ear piercing shrieks broke over the Field of Finley, yet through the awful sound cut the clear, golden voice of the High King of Anniera: “Help!”
Arrows sprang from a hundred bows. The archers cleared the air of Bat Fangs in moments, then thousands of the fiercest fighters in Aerwiar poured over the hills to the aid of Ban Rona.
Kalmar fell to his knees as the warriors raced past him. “Arrows . . . archers . . . to the Keep,” he panted. “Help them.”
Then he collapsed into the snow.
Carnack would later boast that it took two men to pry Kalmar’s fingers from the hilt of his sword.
—From chapter 12, “The Center of the Storm.”
What did you love best in this week’s reading (chapters 7-13), or what passage leapt out at you this week from anywhere else in the books? Post it below!
See you in the forum!
I finally have time to post! Here is what I chose for this week.
Nia squeezed them both tight. “Janner’s out there,” she said. Kal had never seen her so upset. She was usually calm in the face of great danger, but she wasn’t merely afraid, she was angry- at herself. “I can’t believe I let them blindplop him. I should never have let him out of my sight. This is my fault.”
“Mama,” Leeli said, “this is Gnag’s fault. Not yours. Like Kal said, Janner might be safer than we are.” Nia put her face in her hands and shook her head. “We’re the ones who are stuck in a dungeon, surrounded by monsters.”
“Maybe you should have blindplopped us too,” Kal said.
“Next time, please just blindplop us all,” Leeli said with a smile, and Nia laughed a little through her tears.
I love Kalmar.
I expect to return later and post my little excerpt for this week, but I haven’t chosen it yet. That is all I have to say at the moment because I am too tired to say anything more until I have had some sleep.