Treb let out a sigh. “What did you expect on your sixteenth birthday?”
Markus smiled at the stars. “I had expected to be heading into school to become a wizard. I thought I might even be searching for a mentor to apprentice under. It was to be the start of my new life, a life where I would be a man who brought good things to my home and made everyone’s life easier. Maybe even a party with friends. I never expected this.”
Treb’s sour attitude melted a little, and he set aside his map for the moment. “I’m sorry your birthday didn’t live up to your expectations. When Crystal turned sixteen a month ago, we gave her a great party.”
Markus took the opportunity to say something in an effort to change their relationship. “Look, I’m sorry if I got between you and your daughter.” It was a total change of subject, but he wanted to say it while he had the courage to.
Treb was surprised and shocked. “What?”
“I know you love her and she loves you. And you would do anything to protect her and make her happy. When I met her, I found a friend, and she seemed to like me back. You can’t blame a guy for liking a pretty girl who wants to be around him. But if I’d known how it would make you feel, I wouldn’t have let her put me between you guys.”
“Listen, Markus, I’m . . .” Treb took a moment to swallow his pride. “I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable. It was mean of me to act so possessive of her. She is my little girl and . . . well . . . I wanted to keep her safe. The truth is, she hasn’t really ever responded to any of the flirts around the village, and that sort of made me comfortable knowing she was kept safe from a broken heart. When she immediately took to you, I got . . . I guess . . . I got jealous. My little girl was acting like a young lady, and that scared this dad to death. You didn’t mean to scare me, and it’s good she wants to be around boys her own age.”
Markus joked, “It’s about time.”
Treb got up and walked over to Markus and sat next to him on the log, in almost the same place that Kiin had sat earlier. “You’re an honorable person—at least, so far. You’re risking your life for people you don’t know. Not just the Rakki, but everyone. I should respect you for that; not hold a grudge. Is there anything I can do to make your birthday any better? What’s left of it, that is?”
Markus smiled at Treb. “Well, since it’s just you and me, maybe you could help me with something.”
“What?”
“Could you tell me about girls?” Markus asked quickly and with an eager smile.
Treb frowned as he leaned back, fearful of having that conversation. “Uh . . . didn’t your father already talk to you about the . . . uh . . . facts of life?”
Markus laughed nervously. “Oh, I know all about that. What I want to know is: how do you get a date? I . . . well . . . I mean to say, I didn’t have a lot of time to date and whatnot back at my village, and my father hardly talked about anything but the farm, so I don’t know a lot about asking a girl out—what to do on a date, what not to do.”
“I’m honored you would ask me, but what makes you think I know all of that?”
“Well, you have a smart, savvy, beautiful wife, and have raised a nice teenage girl. You must know a few things.” It was unintentional flattery.
Treb laughed and agreed with a nod. “I guess—when you put it that way. I do know a few things about women. First thing, as a guy, you’ll never fully understand them. Just realize that. Next, understand they aren’t boys; they’re the opposite sex. Focus on the opposite part. After that . . .”
As the night continued, Treb and Markus talked for some time about this subject. Markus was greedily eating it up while Treb warmed up to the boy.
From where she had been sitting, Kiin could hear a little of what they were talking about, and she would probably have to correct her husband on a few points later. But she smiled warmly at the sight of the two finally hitting it off. It saddened her to think that Treb was truly a good father, a man who could raise a girl or boy with skill, but would never have one of his own with whom to do so.
Kiin had listened long enough, having waited for almost two hours while the two chatted. It was time to get to bed, and she knew that her husband could talk the ears off anything once he got started.
“Well, you two seem to have gotten over the uncomfortable silence,” Kiin said loudly to give them a little warning of her approach.
Treb turned around with a guilty smile, knowing if she had heard some of his advice for dealing with mood swings, he could be sleeping at his mother’s when they got back home. “Oh, hi, honey.”
Markus nodded. “Treb and I are friends now. And he was just telling me all sorts of great stuff.” He knew better than to go into detail from the look Treb gave him.
Kiin knelt down and poked the fire to get it heated up. “What sort of stuff?” She played ignorant for their benefit.
Treb said, “Hunting imps,” while at the same time, Markus said, “Cooking.”
“You know, hunting and cooking an imp will give you one heck of a sour stomach,” she teased.
Markus stood up and stretched. His whole body felt the effects of sitting for several hours on a log. “Well, I think I’m ready for bed. I’m tired.” He started to yawn and suddenly felt Treb’s hand push him down. “Hey, what . . .” He then noticed that both Kiin and Treb had their bows out and were looking into the trees for something.
“Did you hear it?” Treb asked his wife.
She gave a short nod. “Yes, the buzzing.”
Suddenly a green imp came flying through the forest and shot a bolt of red energy at the campfire, which caused it to burst all over the place and forced the two warriors to dance around to avoid being burned.
“Damned mischievous imp!” Treb growled out and quickly regained his posture with his bow.
Just then, the imp flew by again, and with a wicked little cackle, it threw a green ball of gas at them, which exploded across the ground and smelled perfectly horrible. Treb shot at the little beast, but only hit a tree. Kiin followed his arrow with one of her own, and she shot the creature in the wings. The imp crashed into the ground.
“Did you see where it landed?” Treb scanned the area, another arrow pulled back next to his cheek, by his eye.
Kiin looked, but did not see the imp. “Damn.”
“I’ll take that as a no. Wait, I heard something . . .” Treb pointed his arrow in the tufts of grass behind where Markus had been sitting.
Kiin leveled her arrow the other direction at a bush. “I hear something over here.” Suddenly, she saw a flash. “It’s casting!”
With a quick double snap of bowstrings, both Treb and Kiin released their arrows at their targets. Where Kiin had shot, there was a blast of energy and she grinned.
“Got it,” she said upon hearing the imp exploding.
Treb’s target did not explode; it screamed and then cried. “What on earth?”
Markus looked up at the worried Rakki. “Can I get up now?”
Treb nodded. “Yes. Oh, no! I think I hit someone.”
Kiin knocked an arrow to her bow and pointed it at the location of his last shot. “Whoever you are, show yourself!”
All three paused. The crackle of the fire and the sound of pitiful crying was all that could be heard.
Suddenly, Treb’s eyes widened and he threw his bow away. “Crystal!” His Rakki ears had finally determined the familiarity of the crying. He bounded over the log and then dove through the grass. “Oh no!”
Kiin threw her bow too, and followed her husband. “Crystal!?”
Markus ran after them, not sure how they could possibly know who it was, or why Crystal would be out there. But, sure enough, there she lay with an arrow sticking out of her shoulder. She was curled up with her knees to her chest and her left hand holding her shoulder where the blood was soaking her fur. She had tears running down her face while she cried with a weak whimper.
“Crystal? What’s she doing out here?” Markus asked.
Kiin shook her head
. “I don’t know.”
Treb knelt down and picked her up as gently as he could and carried her back to their camp.
“Kiin! Help me!” Treb called out, a pained desperation in his voice.
Kiin looked at the arrow and even touched it once to see where it was. This made Crystal cry out. Kiin spoke calmly. “Treb, the arrow has met bone. We cannot push it through; it’ll have to be pulled out.”
“What?!” Crystal cried, terrified at the thought.
Treb held in his own urge to tear up and softly said, “Kiin, please hold her while I do this.”
Kiin came over and held Crystal. “Honey, your father has to pull out the arrow. It’s going to hurt, but it’ll feel better when he’s done.”
Crystal was fighting through her tears, but she nodded.
Treb bit his lip and carefully twisted the arrow for the best position to pull from. Then, with a hard yank, he freed it from her arm. Markus cringed, and Crystal let out a yelp that sounded a little more canine than human.
Treb tossed the arrow into the fire. “It’s out. Now I have to bind it.”
“No,” Crystal managed to say.
“Honey, I have to bind it or it’ll get infected and could get worse,” Treb pleaded with her.
“Father . . .” She strained under the pain surging through her arm. “I have something that’ll help. Markus.”
Markus quickly stepped over to her. “What?”
“My bag—get my book.” With her good arm, she pointed back to where she had been crouching all this time.
Markus did not question her and ran back to where there was still blood on the ground. There was also a little bag. Inside was a small book that she wrote her medical spells into. With the bag and book in hand, he ran back. “I have it.”
“Page two,” she said through clinched teeth.
Markus turned to the second page and found a spell with a short description in her handwriting. “Okay. Is this all there is to it?”
She nodded. “Yes, it’s a simple healing spell, but if you focus your mind and use that wand of yours, you can heal deep wounds like this.”
Markus was nervous, but he trusted her wisdom. “Wand!” he called out, and his wand appeared. Then he came down to one knee, right next to her, opposite a frightened Treb. Markus pointed the wand at her shoulder and closed his eyes. “Asja.” The wand flashed with blue light and worked for a moment.
Crystal recoiled when the spell stopped working and the pain returned. “Keep saying it; you have to keep saying it.”
Markus felt stupid. He knew that was how some spells worked. So, he started again. “Asja . . . Asja . . . Asja . . . ” As soon as the spell started to fluctuate, he would say it again, and the magic continued. Crystal’s body would heal itself, but the spell accelerated the rate by an enormous amount. With one last “Asja,” the opening in her arm closed and sealed, as though nothing had ever happened, though the blood soaking her fur remained.
Treb quickly asked, “Crystal, are you okay? Did it work?”
Crystal gave her father the same smile she always used when he was being overly worried about her. “It worked fine. I feel better. Please help me up.”
Treb sat back and held out his hands to her and gave her every bit of support he could. Once she got to her feet, she sat back down on the log. The pain was only in her mind now, but the freshness of the memory made her continue to hold her arm.
Markus stood when she got up and looked around with a forced smile. Everything was all right now. Crystal was not harmed anymore, and the imp attack was over. “I’m glad you had that spell,” he told her.
Crystal smiled back at him. “I’m glad you were able to cast it.”
Then Treb started, “What are you doing here!?” The angry father in him now burst out.
Kiin took his hand. “Honey, calm down.” She looked at Crystal and asked again, “Dear, what were you doing in the brush behind us?”
“How long have you been following us?!” Treb bellowed before Crystal had a chance to answer.
Crystal gulped and looked down, unable to look them in the eyes. “I . . . I have been, uh, following you since, well, you left.”
Treb huffed loudly. “That was two days ago! We’ve traveled a full five widths! What were you thinking?!”
Kiin grabbed his tail and yanked it hard enough to force him to stand behind her. She glared at him and said, “Don’t yell!”
“But—!” he argued and pointed at their daughter, only to be stopped by the look in his wife’s eyes. He might have been a big, muscled, ferocious Rakki warrior, but his wife could put real fear into him.
Kiin cleared her throat, turned around, and calmly, yet directly, asked, “What gave you the notion to follow us?”
Crystal still did not look up at them. “I . . . I wanted . . . to see my parents again. I thought I could . . . I thought . . . I don’t know what I was thinking.” She kept holding her shoulder.
“Did you plan on telling us you were coming along? Or were you going to just track us the whole way?”
“Uh . . . I . . . I don’t know.”
Kiin put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “You don’t know. Do you realize how stupid this was? What if that arrow had hit you in the heart? What if an imp found you? Did you bring enough food? Did you have any idea where we’re going? What if you lost us?”
Crystal was on the verge of crying again. “I . . . I don’t know.” Tears fell down her face. “I just couldn’t stand watching you leave; you’re all I have left. If I came along, I would still be with you, and eventually see my real parents again, too.”
Kiin’s anger subsided slightly and she knelt down in front of Crystal and lifted her tear-streaked face. “Honey, I know how much pain you’ve been in over the past four years, but this was a foolish thing to do. You could’ve gotten yourself into much more trouble than you already did.”
Crystal put her arms around her mother and cried. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make you so mad at me.”
Kiin hugged her back. “We aren’t mad, just displeased with your poor choice of actions. You’re smarter than this.” They stayed together for a long time.
Treb stepped over and let out a softer sigh. “Honey, I didn’t mean to yell at you. I’m just angry that you put yourself in such a dangerous position.”
Crystal leaned back and looked at her father, the fur on her face wet from tears. “I’m sorry. Am I in a lot of trouble?”
Treb smiled and shook his head. “No, I suppose hitting you with an arrow is punishment enough.”
Kiin stood up and cocked her head when she heard Crystal’s stomach growling. “What did you bring to eat?”
Crystal showed them the stale bread. “This. And some nuts.”
Kiin walked around and plopped a large piece of wood on the fire. “Treb, get out some of the meat and heat it up.”
Treb nodded and went to unbind a portion of the cooked deer.
Markus smiled and walked over to the log. He sat down next to her. “I’m glad I could help you.”
Crystal wiped her face. “You did great. I have something for you.” She reached into the bottom of her little bag and pulled out a handful of copper coins. She placed them in his hand. “You dropped these.”
Markus laughed. “So, it was you we heard behind us.”
“Here.” Treb came back over with a cloth in his hands filled with some of the meat.
Crystal took it with an eager grin. “Wow, this smelled so good when you were cooking it.”
Kiin rolled out her bed. “You can sleep on my mat tonight.”
Markus decided it was a good time to be gallant. “No, she can use mine, and I can sleep on the forest floor.”
“No, Treb and I will be taking turns on lookout. That imp will probably not be the last. We’ll just trade off on the mat. You two can rest all night.”
Treb cleared his throat and looked at the mats. “Honey, why don’t you put yours on the other side of the fire.” H
e didn’t like seeing Crystal and Markus’ beds right next to each other.
Kiin smiled at him. She knew exactly what he was doing. “Fine.” She dragged the mat over to the other side of the fire and laid it out. “You’ll sleep here, Crystal.”
Markus stood up and walked over to his mat. “Goodnight, all. I’m worn out.”
Treb and Kiin quietly finished getting the camp ready for the night, and then Treb took the next watch. Markus and Crystal slept with both the fire and one adult between them.
Chapter 9: The Encounter
The next morning, Markus helped Crystal roll up the mats and prepare the packs for all three to carry. Crystal had only brought with her a small bag with her book and some food in it, so she did not have a large pack. Treb and Kiin were off in the distance having a discussion, which seemed to worry Crystal. Markus had gotten used to the two of them speaking privately.
Crystal saw that Markus had placed the Codex under his pillow. “Why was that there? Keeping it safe?”
“Partly. I was also hoping to dream about it, maybe see some answers about reading it.”
“Did it work?”
He shook his head. “It is strange. But since I started this journey, the dreams have come to a stop. The last one I had was during the only night I spent in your village, and that might’ve been just a regular dream with magic in it.”
“Is that a bad sign?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t answer the questions about my dreams and what they mean. I’m still searching for that.”
“I see.” Though she answered him, Crystal’s attention was diverted.
Markus could see that she was worried and wanted to ease her tension. “Crystal, did you ever read about the Great War in that huge library of yours?”
“Yes. In fact, some of the most inclusive manuscripts from the historians of that age are stored at the library.”
“I think there isn’t anything that library of yours doesn’t have. We had a small shop that was turned into a library some time back. I learned a little about the Great War from the old books, but not much.”
“What do you want to know?”
Legacy of Dragonwand: Book 1 (Legacy of Dragonwand Trilogy) Page 10