Chapter 1— Orcshire Valley in the Spring

Moonthread, by Anthony Lee Phillips

(Before you start -

I wrote a book of poetry about the gods in this world.
It’s called ORC LORE: Poetry About the Gods,
And there are 4 ways to get it—

• As an ebook,

• As a paperback,

• As an audiobook,

• And as a free videobook on Youtube.

Theses are the stories
the Hero of Moonthread, Nala, grew up
hearing around the fire.
Hope you like them!
Back to the fiction…

—A)

Chapter One
ORCSHIRE VALLEY in the SPRING

“Do you remember Orcshire?” she said.

The woman’s old voice was husky, rusty, little used. Her tusks were long, and twisted toward her and then forward, like a serpent. The old Orcish witch was alone, and yet she spoke her mind aloud.

“Do you? Do you re— …remem— …uh— …uhhh—!”

Then she sneezed, once, twice, and three times.

She shook it out and said, “Excuse me!” to no one. Then again…

Perhaps she said it to the tree.

Its bark was blue beneath a moonful night.

She took out a cloth, and wiped her nose ’til it was dry.

“Gotta wash that,” she said, returning the cloth to a pocket in the wide sleeve of her robe. The back of her robe had a symbol, a big circle, sewn from a magical thread that changed color in the moonlight.

“I remember,” she said. “Funny enough. At my age, most of my memories are…”

The Orcish witch snorted, felt another sneeze coming on. But it passed.

“Damn pollen,” she grunted. She turned her head and spit into the purple grass. “But Orcshire…”

She looked at the tree.

“Orcshire, I remember.”

The witch put one wrinkled palm against the tree. Her skin was green-grey against the blue-brown bark, a blue so dark it was nearly black.

Her hand listened.

Listened for something like a heartbeat, expecting it to be faint.

She expected it to be faint, but she expected it.

Mmmm…

Her calloused palm knew how to listen, but…

Mmmm?

“Mm,” she grunted, unable to tell. Nothing.

Still, she kept her hand there, and imagined there was a line of energy connecting them. A thread of something, flowing out of her palm and into the tree.

Or maybe it was the other way around.

She turned her gaze upward.

“Beautiful night,” she said, wistful. Then, her lips curled into a smile over her tusks. “Ugru below, I sound like my gran!”

She laughed, until silence gathered round her again.

“But it is,” she told the tree. “It is a beautiful night. I think this place is finally… getting some of its… old character back. What do you think?”

No answer.

Her hand hummed with an aura of something, the color of moonthread, sending the gentle merging magic in through the bark, through dense rings of tree-flesh, to the heart of the thing. Still…

No answer.

“Be here,” the old woman whispered. There was magic in her plea. “Be here. Listen. Say something. Please?”

Silence.

She sighed, and patted the tree.

Then, she remembered a song she made up when she was a kid.

It was a song with so many verses, written over so many years, they begin to peel away like leaves, like leaves off a tree on a windy night in autumn.

It was spring all around her, but autumn in her heart.

“Orcshire Valley in the Spring
Means moonlight, rinsing everything…”

At first, she spoke the words like a poem.

“Full as a coin, and dry,
Dry as a bone…
A sprawling web, speckled
With dots of Dew
Is quivering in the night.
And purple trees…”

She closed her eyes, palm still pressed against the now-ancient bark.

“…Bear golden apples,
Golden cherries, too. Can you see it?”

No answer.

“A hundred fragrant promises
Come drifting down, down,
Down the mountain, west wind hissing—
& off the sea comes salt-kissed mist.”

Then she sang it, like the song it was.

* * * * / * * * *

1. Orcshire Valley in the Spring
Means moonlight, rinsing everything.
Full as a coin, and dry, dry as a bone…

Purple trees rustle.
The wind’s got a chill,
A memory of winter…
There’s frost on the sill.

Look at the moon…
Caped in bright stars…
Hooded and hemmed in by mountains.
The storm still looks far…
At least it did then.

2. Orcshire Valley in the Spring
Meant boats were skimming down the stream.
Magic in each living thing.
Magic in the way we sing.
What did we sing? The cedars were
Swaying!
What was the song?
How did it go?

‘Come home,’ to the salmon!
‘Bloom wild,’ to the berries.
‘Stay dead,’ to some demon-I-didn’t-know!
‘Back soon?’ to the faeries…

3. Orcshire Valley in the Spring
Means moonlight rippling in the clean
Bubbling stream; the red wind was
Hissing… I was a kid, waking up.
I was a kid…
Was I ever so young?

* * * * / * * * *

That’s how Nala would remember it.

In those days (the early chapters of her life) Orcshire Valley was a peaceful place. It was the kind of place that was wet year round, but the air never got humid or heavy.

Summers were brief, and each season saw rain, but Nala didn’t mind. She was a rain dog.

Nala’s house was on the eastside, in an orchard on a mountain that overlooked the valley. The full moon hung low and yellow, peering out from drifting spring-time clouds.

Down at the heart of Orcshire Valley, Market Town was waking up. There were carts and storefronts far below. Torches yawned to life. Butchers and tanners had selling stands in town, but kept their homes (and ugly work) out in the more remote regions of the valley. Business was better that way.

Nala enjoyed a sheltered childhood, and the price was boredom. She came from a long line of sorceresses, but her magic hadn’t happened yet.

Perhaps it never would, she couldn’t help but think.

…Sour thought.

Nala decided to think of something else.

The spring of that year was a weird one. The normally noisy house (sequestered in the sprawling, semi-wild orchard at the foot of a mountain) was quiet.

All of Nala’s siblings were finally old enough to go on a real market tour, out east, to the dry side of the mountains. Nala had never been.

Something in Nala doubted how dry the “dry side” was. It seemed outrageous! The valley was lush and wet year round, and yet they all said once you made it over the Wraithwood crags, it was all desert.

Impossible, Nala thought.

Mama and Nala’s Aunt Kairi went on the road every year, but this time they brought the whole house along— Aunt Kairi’s four daughters, and Nala’s two sisters. They packed up the fruit carts so full they overflowed, and then they left. Their adventure had begun at the end of last summer, leaving only Nala and her Gran to tend the house, and the orchard, and the long, thirsty quiet.

Autumn came.

And then winter.

Nala had never known a long quiet before that.

Weird.

It was a weird year for other reasons, too.

Sleep, for example. Sleep had changed for her. Nala loved loved loved sleeping in, or used to. It used to be that she could sleep through anything.

But something had changed early last spring. She had a new dream, a terrible dream, a daymare. It had been unspeakable. Unsharable. Even thinking of it made Nala’s stomach turn hollow.

Worst of all, once the dreams started, they did not stop. She had a secret belief that they might even be true dreams, but…

No, Nala thought. My magic hasn’t happened yet.

At first, she had loved the sprawling silence. She’d cherished it, relished the solitude like an exceptional ripe redberry. As the seasons turned, it was just Nala and her grandma (whose name was Akha) savoring the rare piece of peace that lay over the house.

They enjoyed a wet winter. Most nights, the pair of them huddled over the soup cauldron and made up stories together, while the rain played the awning like a drum. Gran Akha was full of stories, and recipes, and poems, and small spells.

After a full season, Nala began to get lonely. Her wish for quiet had come true, too much.

Now that she had enough time to herself to miss her loud family, she felt bad for ever wishing them away. Guilt began to bloom, like mold, souring the sweetness of the winter’s vast emptiness.

Still, the stories were flowing, and this was the year Nala learned how to cook. Gran taught her to clean a salmon (which she hated) and helped Nala make up her first poem (which exhilerated her).

Now, it was spring, and the rest of the family was still gone.

Mountains, and rivers, and dense trees kept the wide world long at bay…

But so did all the magic.

There was magic in the flowers and the fruits.

The Orcshire tulips whispered forgotten secrets to the Purple Ridge Daisies.

There was magic in the birds, and bugs, and bitter winter wind that bites, long after winter’s gone.

In many ways, this is where (and when) Nala’s story began.

She learned so many things that spring, but wished that Gran had bothered to teach her some magic. Nala didn’t want her only power to be “having bad dreams.”

She never told anyone about the dreams, especially when they were bad ones…

And she only remembered the bad ones.

“Beautiful night,” her Gran Akha said, and Nala snapped out of deep thought.

* * * * / * * * *

Next chapter: The Werelight.

* * * * / * * * *

(ps— When you’re ready, here are 3 ways to help Nala’s story continue to grow.

1) Keep reading!

2) Quote it on tiktok.

3) Join the First Draft Fantasy Club!

^.^

(One more thing!
If you wanna learn to play/sing “Orcshire Valley in the Spring,” here is my handwritten lyrics and tabbed out chords!)