Tor: Part One

A young boy sits alone in a tower.

TOR

by Philip Womack

Tor was perching on the battlements again, compelled by the place where the road vanished among the foothills of the mountain range.

No rider had come galloping over the scorched plains towards the Tower, for more days than he could count.

He was leaning on a ledge between turrets, chin pressing into his hands. A tiny fragment of stone crumbled, and fell to the ditch far below.

His tunic’s rough weave was sticking to his skin. He fumbled for his leather water bottle, and sipped some small ale, allowing it to seep over his lips as if it were an elixir.

A family of rooks had established their noisy colony in the branches of an ancient yew tree. Its top stretched halfway up the Tower, scratching at the walls in an ever-closer embrace. The birds tumbled in the air, darting around, uttering their half-gleeful, half-angry squawks.

Every morning, as soon the sun stirred him from his pile of blankets in the refectory, he climbed the narrow stairs, and watched the road.