Wanderer's Song

by P. E. Padilla

  Aeden recited in his head the things he had been taught about survival. Water, shelter, and food were his top priorities. There was plenty of water around, and he found a small clearing near a stream. He selected a site far enough from the water to prevent undue attention. Predators coming to drink would be all too happy if they chanced upon a convenient meal.

  It was long, hard work, but he cut and shaped branches from nearby trees with his new knife to make a lean-to where a tree was crowding a fair-sized pile of rocks. Until he made clothing—maybe he could weave them from some of the vegetation—he would need the windbreak the rock, tree, and his branches would provide. He could cut some of the moss hanging from nearby trees to use as a makeshift blanket, if necessary, but he would see what the nights held for him first.

  Water and shelter taken care of, he concerned himself with food. He foraged for a few hours and found some ostrich ferns, mushrooms, and a few wild onions. Aeden detested onions, but he didn’t have much of a choice. He would eat what he could find.

  Aeden tamped down some of the vegetation in front of his makeshift structure. Then, using his knife, he dug a rough circle and lined it with stones he found near the river. Luckily, he also found other, smaller, pieces of flint. Unluckily, he didn’t have anything made of steel. He put the flint pieces aside in case he could use them later for starting a fire.

  There was some deadwood on the ground amongst the trees, but he had learned a better way to get wood for a fire. Aeden took his knife to a string tree. He couldn’t remember the correct name, but he had always referred to the plant as a string tree. The sharpened stone made short work of it, sawing through the base to sever it from the ground. Once it had fallen, Aeden dragged it to his campsite.

  With some difficulty because of the crude nature of his knife, Aeden sliced the tree open, used a stick as a wedge, and peeled it back, exposing its fibrous insides. He made an incision at the trunk of the plant to free a fiber, then pulled it along the whole length, liberating a thin, tough strand from the plant. Each fiber pulled away from the plant easier than the last one.

  Cut, pull out a length of the thread-like material, set it aside, repeat with the next piece. It took him almost two hours to unravel the plant. When he was done, he had a pile of fibers, each close to six feet long. He began tying them together into a long rope.

  Once he had a section of rope twenty feet long, he attached a heavy stick—about as long as his hand—to one end. He spotted a tree with several dead branches.

  Aeden held the rope a few feet from the stick at the end and swung it around in a circle. The woom, woom, woom was pleasant to his ears, almost hypnotic. A smile flickered onto his face as he let the rope slide through his fingers, launching the stick toward the dead branches.

  His aim was true. The rope slapped the dried wood and, because of the weight of the stick, wrapped itself around the branch. Aeden picked up another stick and wrapped the rope around it at just above head height. With a quick, strong movement, he jerked the rope downward with his handle. The branch made a satisfying crack as a large section of it broke off and crashed to the ground a few feet away from him.

  He unwrapped his rope from the firewood and started the process over again. Between the branches he pulled down and the ones he found on the ground, he soon had enough firewood to last him for at least a full day, maybe two. He coiled up his rope and hauled his tinder back to camp.

  Aeden broke the larger branches into sizes that would fit in his fire pit. He found some dry moss, small twigs, and dead leaves to use as kindling. All that was left was making the fire. He wished he could do it like heroes in the stories he liked to hear. They had magic and could snap their fingers and will fire into being.

  He would have to do it in a more mundane fashion.

  Aeden tied small sticks to a short length of his fiber rope. He found a suitable twig, about as thick as his thumb and a foot long. Finally, he picked out a chunk of hardwood he had found lying near a tree that had been struck by lightning. It was as big as his outstretched hand and as thick as his fist.

  Into this, he carved a small notch with his knife, approximately the same thickness as the stick he would use. He put the bowl—that’s what he would call the chunk of wood—in his fire pit and sat down in front of it. Wrapping the rope around the shaft of his stick and putting the end of it in the notch on his bowl, he was ready.

  It took him a few minutes to figure out how to keep the stick vertical; he had always done this with a helper in the past. He settled on sitting in front of the bowl, his feet together above the bowl, holding the stick upright, and either hand holding the handles on the rope. He packed kindling around the notch on the bowl and started pulling on the rope ends, turning the stick rapidly.

  It only took a few minutes for his consistent turning of the stick in the notch to get hot and start to smoke. When red embers appeared in the smoke, Aeden smiled. He blew gently on the smoldering moss, and a tiny flame came to life. He patiently fed more fuel to the fledgling fire until it was big enough to dump into the pit without going out. The bowl he removed for later use. In a few more minutes, he had a cheerful fire burning.

  The nights weren’t too cold that time of year, but the warmth of the fire felt good on his naked skin. Satisfied with his day’s work, Aeden nibbled on some roots he’d found, stared into the flame, and wondered about the next day.

  6

  Aeden’s first morning dawned as most did in the highlands, with a cool mist that burned off as the sun cleared the horizon. The coolness would give way to the heat of the day, he knew. With nothing but time until he could go back toward the village, his thoughts turned to better ways to get food, and then to exploration.

  First, he created snares from saplings and the rope of plant fiber he had harvested. He set up a handful of them where he saw slight depressions in the underbrush, lower than undisturbed foliage that would have been pushed aside by large creatures. He knew these to be runs for smaller animals. The ones close to camp he made so they would kill the rabbits or rodents they captured. The ones a little farther away he built so they would merely trap the creature and not kill it. He would make a habit of checking them daily and resetting them if necessary, but he didn’t want his game spoiling before he got a chance to dress it.

  There were predators in the highlands—bears, highland cats, and worse—and he did not feel adequately armed with his one stone knife. Aeden found a long, straight branch on a nearby oak tree, stripped it of bark, and smoothed it with his knife first, a handful of rough pebbles next, and finally handfuls of sand until it was smooth, straight, and about six feet long. Then he securely fastened his knife to the end with the plant fiber to make a spear. If predators came calling, he would want to keep his distance while killing them.

  Propping his spear up next to his shelter, he set about making another knife out of a large piece of volcanic glass he had found. He thought it was obsidian, and he shaped it the same way he had the other, by holding it in a handful of leaves to keep from cutting himself and knapping it with stones. When it was done, its two sharp edges were even sharper than his first knife. He rigged up a sheath for it with the plant fiber and some flexible bark he stripped off a nearby tree.

  Checking his snares, he was happy to discover that one of them had caught a lean, stringy rabbit. It was one of the close traps, so the animal was dead. Parasitic bugs had not yet infested it, and he hurriedly skinned it.

  Aeden made an incision in its belly and pulled out its entrails. He threw them in the river to be washed downstream so they wouldn’t attract scavengers to his camp. Using two sticks he had sharpened with his knife, he put the rabbit over his fire and let it cook while he scraped the flesh from its pelt and washed it in the stream. By the time the meat was cooked, he had formed the skin into a new sheath for his knife by wrapping it around the blade and then winding the fiber rope around it over and over again. He set it on a rock in the full sun to dry.

  After eating all the meat
he could pick from the rabbit’s bones, he set out with his spear to survey his surroundings. He would choose a different direction each day so he would get a good overall picture of the land for seven or eight miles each way.

  That first day was uneventful. He found two more snared animals, another rabbit and a squirrel. He killed them, tied some of the rope he brought with him to them for easier carrying, and reset the traps. He also found a section of a fallen tree that had broken off. It contained a hollow within that would serve nicely as a bowl or tub for bringing water from the stream to his camp.

  The first day, he traveled generally north, based on the movement of the sun. The land was consistent with that of his camp, forested, but not heavily, with slopes and dips. He crossed two streams as he explored. Water was plentiful, but it was the dry season so he saw no sign of rain all day.

  Aeden was still naked. He had thought off and on about clothes. He could weave some with the plant fiber, drape larger leaves over him, or save the pelts from his food to eventually sew them—he would have to make needles and slice the fibers thinner for that to work—into some kind of garment. It wasn’t crucial because even at night, the temperature didn’t reach freezing. Still, it would be nice to be able to keep the bugs off him. His skin was covered in bites. As he ate his dinner of roasted meat with foraged roots and vegetables, he thought about what else he needed to do. The ordeal hadn’t been tough at all, and he was almost two full days into it. Maybe it wasn’t worth making clothes for only a few days’ use.

  His exploration of the surrounding area revealed more landscape similar to where his camp was. He continued to find wild vegetables to eat—onions, leeks, parsnip, and some tubers—and snared more rabbits, but there was nothing new until the fourth day of his trial, when he traveled to the northeast to explore.

  To the northeast of his camp, he found a bog and stepped into it to test the footing. His foot sank into the marshy ground with a slurping sound, and he pulled it back out despite its best efforts to keep him there. There would be no going through that.

  He skirted it, finding the swamp much larger than it appeared. He could see standing water a few dozen feet into the bog, but it was too hard to tell if it ended within his sight or went on for miles because the thick, muddy water looked much the same as more solid patches of ground. After more than an hour of walking along its edge, he decided it would be better to go back to camp.

  He had only traveled a half mile when he sensed something watching him.

  Aeden looked around discreetly. He didn’t want to tip off whatever—or whoever—was stalking him. He didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything, but the sensation of being under scrutiny would not go away. He hefted his spear, scanned his surroundings one more time without moving his head, and continued on. Hopefully, whatever watched was not so fast that it could reach him before he could bring his spear to bear. He thought maybe the easy part of the trial was over.

  Aeden started off again, heading toward his camp, head swiveling and eyes scanning the landscape. The few trees near the bog thinned into the rolling open spaces of the highlands. That was good. Fewer trees meant less cover for his hunter to hide behind. Then again, it also meant fewer objects for Aeden himself to hide behind when the attack finally came.

  But that was faulty thinking. We he not a warrior, or at least training to be one? He would face his pursuer and fight it like a clansman. If it was too strong for him, it would pay dearly to take his life. That Aeden swore.

  As he came upon a pile of rocks that looked as if they could have been a structure once, he caught a flash of movement off behind him and to his left. It was just a flicker, approximately the color of the weathered rocks. Not a bear then. Of course. Besides the color, that animal also did not stalk silently; it charged in and overwhelmed its prey.

  Aeden went through what it could be. A man? One of the large highland cats? A deer coincidentally going the same way? If it ended up being something harmless, he would be embarrassed, but better embarrassed than dead.

  As he passed around the rocks, he picked up three stones about half the size of his palm and held them in his left hand.

  Aeden only had a few miles left back to his camp. He saw rocks, clumps of bushes he recognized, even a smudged track he had made when leaving that morning. That made him feel better. The camp was familiar and he knew the terrain well. If he had to fight something, he would have his best advantage there.

  The clatter of a stone coming loose and tumbling down the rock pile made him turn his head.

  A gray-brown body flew right toward him, claws reaching out to shred him.

  Aeden dove at the ground and rolled, coming back up to his feet immediately. The large cat—bigger than he was—landed and turned to face him.

  He was sorry he’d guessed correctly. The highland cats were strong and fast as a striking snake. The warriors in the clan sometimes hunted them, but even with bows and well-made weapons, there were usually injuries. The cats were tenacious, vicious, and didn’t fear anything. He would not be able to injure it and chase it away. When this confrontation was over, one of them would be dead. Aeden aimed for that to be the cat.

  The feline’s back arched, its fur standing up on end. It hissed at him and moved toward him from ten feet away. When it got closer, it lifted its right paw, hooked as if to swipe, claws extended.

  Aeden threw the first rock.

  The stone struck the cat in the forehead, causing it to spit and hiss more loudly and to swipe at him, though he was not in range. Good. The madder it got, the more mindlessly it would attack him. If he couldn’t outfight it, he would have to outthink it.

  Aeden threw the other two rocks, one skipping off its head near the ear and the other one striking it on the shoulder. None of the stones did any damage, but they worked the cat into a frenzy. It was frothing mad now and didn’t wait to see if Aeden had any more projectiles. It leapt at him.

  It was the move Aeden had been waiting for. He dove to the side while bringing the spear up between them, hoping it would skewer the beast using its own momentum.

  The spear betrayed him.

  He scored a shallow cut along its ribs, causing it to shriek in pain and anger, but the spear did not puncture the animal as he had hoped. Aeden landed hard on his side, not able to roll properly with the awkward movement, but the claws had missed him. This time.

  The predator landed on its feet, wheeled, and swiped at Aeden again. He wasn’t able to bring his spear up all the way in time, and four stripes of fire raced across his arm. He swung the butt of the spear around and struck the cat on the top of the head so hard he thought the shaft might break. The cat backed up, looking dazed.

  The arm that was slashed seemed to work still, though pain blossomed and he felt weak in that arm. He had to take the opportunity now to finish the confrontation.

  Aeden lunged in with his spear as the cat was shaking its head to clear the dizziness. It swiped at the weapon, but only deflected it slightly. The sharp stone blade pierced the creature just under its front leg, causing it to stumble and screech in pain.

  The warrior-in-training danced back from the next swipe of the claw and swung the spear around in an arc. The blade made a savage slice in the cat’s hind quarters, and the cat lost its footing a second time. It regained its balance and eyed him hatefully.

  The cat’s eyes darted from its opponent to the rocks as if it sensed it could not win outside the range of its claws. It bunched itself and jumped at Aeden to close the distance. It was an awkward leap because of its injuries, but the hurtling body came right at Aeden, claws outstretched and mouth open, white fangs gleaming in the afternoon sun.

  The young Croagh was ready this time. As the cat hurtled through the air toward him, he dropped to his knee, brought the point of the spear up at an angle toward the airborne cat, and pushed upward with all his might.

  The spear blade entered the cat between two of its ribs, and the butt of the weapon slammed into the ground from the ca
t’s weight. Aeden dove to the side, receiving another swipe of claws to his left shoulder.

  “Cachten!”

  Aeden staggered to his feet. The cat struggled to get up, the spear still stuck in its side. Its weight and the force of its jump pushed the weapon entirely through the beast, several inches of the bloody stone blade protruding from its back. It panted, its eyes wild, its nostrils flaring as it tried to come to grips with its situation.

  Aeden went to it and, grasping the spear haft firmly, yanked it out. The cat screamed as the jagged stone blade ripped free. The beast lay there, breathing heavily, trying to get enough air into its lungs, but failing. Its eyes met Aeden’s and held them. The boy nodded.

  He held his spear up in front of him, perfectly vertical, a salute to an honorable foe. Then he drove the spear into the cat’s brain, their eyes locked the entire time.

  7

  Aeden was bleeding and felt as if all his strength had fled after his combat with the cat. He found an elephant plant nearby and plucked some of the large leaves to stick to his wounds to clot the blood. He would dress them properly when he got back to his camp, but did not dare spend the time yet. The sun would be going down and he didn’t want to leave his kill to the scavengers.

  The cat weighed more than he did, but he was able to shoulder it, the stress on his injured shoulder and arm making him yelp. He picked up his spear, which he had leaned next to a nearby rock, and started the long trudge back to camp. It was less than two miles, but it took him over two hours.