by LeRoy Clary
But, the tracks were clear and fresh, and there was no sign of a person. Shell moved ahead slowly, following the tracks, looking for a place where the stranger could hide instead of looking for the stranger. As he moved, he decided a friend would greet him, but an enemy would probably hide and wait for him to follow so he could ambush Shell. I won’t fall into that trap.
He eased back into a crouch, ready to fight or flee, but remained still. If he didn’t follow, whoever was waiting for him down there would lose patience first because Shell didn’t intend to expose himself. He kept the arrow ready to pull and release in an instant. A tickle behind his ear drew his attention, but more than one person had lost his prey because of swatting a mosquito or scratching an itch.
The tickle came again. He ignored it and remained as still as a cat about to pounce on a field mouse. Nothing moved on the hillside below, and there seemed to be no hiding places, but there must be something. A man can’t vanish, but he can blend into the background like a fawn. Shell allowed his eyes to scan for anything that should, or should not, be there.
His ears strained for the slightest sound. The tickle touched his ear again, more insistent, and his nose caught the familiar scent of wood smoke. Not smoke from a fire, but the stale, leftover smell of campfires tinged with sweat. He somehow managed to control himself as he remained perfectly still.
Disgusted with himself for falling into the trap, Shell said, “Who are you?”
“A better hunter and tracker than you.” The voice came from directly behind the ear that had tickled.
Shell slowly turned. A smiling face greeted him from only two steps away. The young man dressed in leather pants and a shirt decorated with geometric designs held a switch with a feather poked into the raw end, the origin of the tickle to his ear. “My name’s Shell.”
“How did you finally know I was behind you?”
“You smell of wood smoke.”
“Good to know.” The young man backed off a step, his hands held away from his weapons, a long knife at his hip and a bow carried over his shoulder. He glanced meaningfully at Shell’s bow and the cocked arrow. When Shell relaxed the arrow and slipped it back into the quiver, the stranger said, “Shell? Like a seashell? That’s odd for a man of the grasslands.”
“There are other shells. Like a turtle, and snail.” His explanation felt as foolish as it sounded. His mother owned a seashell, a reminder of her younger days when she had traveled all the way to the Endless Sea, and his name came from that travel. Shell took the time to examine the other. The man was near twenty, taller than Shell by a little, and his hair was the color of sand. His eyes held green flecks embedded in light brown, and his hands were thin, with long fingers.
A twinkle in the man’s eyes belied his next statement. “I suspect seashell is probably right. You didn’t deny it; you just offered different options.”
“You didn’t give me your name,” Shell said as he squatted to be more comfortable.
“I don’t have one, or better said, I don’t wish to tell it to you.”
“Everyone has a name.”
“Oh, I had one my whole life, but I never liked it, so I’ve been seeking a new one for over two years, now.”
The revelation answered a few questions, but brought up a hundred others, such as who this strange person was, why was he here, and how did the conversation always end up with Shell feeling inadequate? “Then what do people call you?”
The smile faded. “I don’t meet a lot of people and don’t like most of them that I do, so I don’t give them my name. I’ve tried several, but John, Ander, Sander, and Bob don’t fit. Bob, do you think I look like a Bob?”
“No,” Shell admitted with a smile.
“A name should be personal. It should say something about a man.”
“So you do not have one and are seeking a name that fits you for two whole years? I can understand some of that. Do you live around here?”
A fleeting expression of pain crossed the stranger’s face, but he quickly controlled it. “No. I lived in the mountains far to the west, but raiders killed almost everyone in my village and the few that survived went to live with relatives. They didn’t like me, so I left.”
Shell waited for more explanation, and when it didn’t come, he said, “I didn’t know there were mountains to the west, only the Raging Mountains over there.” He nodded his head at the white peaks. “How long ago did you leave and what are you doing here?”
“You ask a lot of questions for a stranger. I left two years ago and have been seeking my future. I’m here because I ended up here because of my wandering, but for no other reason than that.”
Shell stood again and faced the taller man, an idea forming. He liked the honesty and frankness of the other, and there was much to learn from him in the ways of tracking if nothing else. He said, “I think I know what your name should be, and you’ve used it two or three times to describe yourself since we met.”
The other waited, but grew impatient and fidgeted until he figured out he had to ask Shell to find out. “What?”
“Seeker.”
A smile slowly grew into a chuckle and then turned into a laugh. “I like that. I’m a seeker, but also more than that. I am on a quest to find the rest of my life. Seeker is close, but I think Quester will be my name until I decide on another that fits me better. And now, Shell, what are you doing here with no other people within a day’s walk?”
“I’m also seeking my future, on a quest of my own.”
“In what way?”
Shell hesitated. How much should he reveal? The truth was that he didn’t have to tell it all. Not yet. “I’ve never done anything in my life but watch over a flock of stupid sheep. One of those mountains to the east is called Bear Mountain. They say dragons nest on the slopes.”
“You know that for the truth, or is it just a story?”
“I believe it, but have not seen it, Quester.” The last was Shell trying out the new name, and it sounded right to his ears.
Quester smiled again upon hearing it and nodded his approval. “Are you by chance traveling to see those dragons?”
“I am.”
“I’ve heard about dragons and how fierce they are, and I would like to see one. From a distance. Would you object to me traveling with you?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Quester and Shell shook hands, and by mutual agreement headed east in the direction of Bear Mountain and the dragons said to live on the high slopes. Quester took the lead. While Shell normally didn’t make rash decisions, especially those so important as choosing a traveling companion, Quester gave him a sense of friendliness and confidence.
Having someone to travel with provided protection for both, but it was more than that. Quester had been living on his own in the grasslands for two years and was still alive. He possessed a wealth of knowledge that Shell could learn from, and after the experience on the trail where Quester had managed to sneak up and tickle Shell’s ear, Shell had a lot to learn. If Quester had been an enemy Shell would be dead.
Shell said, “You tricked me back there. You intentionally left footprints crossing the path that I couldn’t help but see. You knew I’d wait there watching down the hillside where the tracks pointed, trying to find you while you slipped up on me from behind.”
“I’d been watching you all day. A lesson, if you will listen. Who, what, and how many are following us this instant?”
Shell spun to examine their back trail.
Quester said, “Relax. There are none. I know because I take the time to check behind me. So, should you.”
Shell thought about how silly he must have appeared as he squatted beside the path and remained still as a rock, and watched down the slope, while Quester slipped close behind and tickled his ear repeatedly. It was a harmless lesson that might save his life someday.
“At first, I thought it a simple trick, and I was angry.”
“Simple? Probably, but more than that. I call it misdirection. I convi
nced you to look in one direction while I used the other to my benefit.”
“You’ve done things like that before?” Shell asked.
“Never the ear tickle, but yes. I’ve misdirected a pair of bandits, a crazy old man who kills and eats people for dinner, a sheriff upset at a lamb I ‘borrowed,’ and a few others. Once I pretended to be a herder and talked to a farmer and his son who were chasing after a thief that stole food from their garden. They wanted to hang him from a tree. I pointed to where I wanted them to go, saying I’d spotted myself over there.”
Shell laughed. The revelations provided insights into how Quester had managed to survive in a treeless wilderness for so long. It sounded like he didn’t hesitate to steal, but if you're hungry, choices have to be made. He said, “With two of us working together, we should be able to find food without having people chase us.”
“With two of us, there will be twice the mouths to feed.”
“If you teach me how to shoot my bow, maybe our hunting will take care of that. Besides, you know how to find plants and food, and I probably know other ways. Between us, we may do well.” He didn’t mention what would happen after reaching Bear Mountain when Shell would continue alone on his venture. Also, the idea of traveling with one who was not of the Dragon Clan felt odd and dangerously wrong. Shell had to watch his every word, as well as keep his back covered. The dragon birthmark on it was not as large as some others, or as intricate, but there was no mistaking it.
“You carry a staff because you’re a herder?” Quester asked, his eyes on the battered staff Shell had carried for years.
“It’s a weapon.”
“My bow is a weapon. You carry a stick.”
Shell kept his temper in check but realized that he’d heard a trace of humor in the voice as if Quester wanted to draw a response. It explained that Quester also had questions about them traveling together. Shell decided to settle the issue. “Your bow is good for hunting and fighting from a distance, but up close a staff is the deadliest weapon ever devised.”
“Ha, don’t they have swords where you come from?”
The humor came easy, but there was no doubt Quester didn’t believe a staff was effective when compared to a sword. Shell held his tongue, but when Quester picked up a small stick from the side of a dry stream and pretended to fight enemies with it as he laughed and mocked him, Shell halted and spotted another stick the diameter of his thumb, the length of a sword. He tossed it to Quester. “A sword. Try it on me.”
Quester snorted with derision, then suddenly attacked, swinging the pretend sword high above his head, waving it from side to side. He charged as he cut and stabbed. Shell casually blocked the moves, his staff always reaching the ‘sword’ before it touched him.
Quester pulled back, frustrated, then attacked again by lunging. When that failed, he swung the stick in wide arcs, but with each move, Shell easily met it with the staff. Shell watched Quester’s feet for the shifts in weight that told of the coming moves, but he also watched Quester’s waist. As his father had taught him, a body goes where the waist does. An enemy can feint with a head or off-hand, but the body will always follow the waist.
Quester grew peeved that Shell blocked his attacks so easily, and while Quester became winded as he attacked again, Shell had barely exerted himself. Quester finally fell back and said, “Sooner or later you’ll be too late to block me, and my sword will cut you in half.”
Shell shrugged and said, “You have only seen the defense a staff provides.”
“There’s more?” Quester charged him again, swinging wildly.
This time, Shell blocked the first blow, an overhead chop. .Then, Shell advanced, his staff, slashing and swinging, the ends striking Quester time after time, on his upper arms, not hard, but firm, with at least four strikes on each arm. A switch of handholds and Shell struck three firm hits on the outsides of Quester’s thighs. Quester fell back in stumbling steps. Shell made a wild swing with the staff above his head, and his hands slid to the very end, and the next roundhouse swing stopped just short of Quester’s unprotected head, like a woodsman chopping firewood.
A stunned expression filled Quester’s face. His eyes were glued to the staff a handsbreadth from his head. He said, “By the old gods, that was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. If I didn’t know better, I’d think your stick is better than a sword.”
Shell lowered the staff, his breath coming harder with the exertion of the fancy moves, but a lopsided smile sat on his face. “Staff, not stick.”
“Can you teach me?”
“Not with your attitude. Seriously, it takes years of hard practice to do what I just showed you.”
“Yet you carry a bow?” Quester asked.
Shell shrugged and said, “I have never shot a single arrow with it.”
“By that, I suppose you mean you’re the best archer I’ve ever encountered?” The voice was snide as if testing Shell for the truth, and expecting to find Shell was an expert archer. “Like you’re just a herder and don’t know how to defend yourself, so you carry a staff.”
Shell laughed for the first time in days. “No, what I mean is that I took this bow from five highwaymen and a woman who were trying to rob me last night before I burned down their huts. I’ve never even drawn the bow but once, to test the pull. A poor shepherd like me does not have a use for a bow.”
Quester crossed his arms over his chest and squinted, giving Shell an appraising look that lacked any humor. His voice growled when he spoke as if he didn’t fully believe the answer. “I think you should take the lead.”
Confused, Shell shrugged. “Okay, but why?”
“Because you, my new friend, are either much more than you seem, or you’re a damned liar and until I know which, it’s hard to put any trust in what you say. I should watch your every move.”
“I still don’t understand.” Shell took a step closer to speak on a more personal level, but Quester took an equal footstep back, his hand lowering to the hilt of his knife.
Quester said, “You tell me you don’t know how to fight, but then say you can defeat any swordsman with your stick. You tell me you took that bow from five highwaymen? You say it as if you do that sort of thing without effort every day. Five of them against only you? Then you burned their homes? All that as calmly as if you’re telling me what you ate for dinner last night and you wonder why I’m concerned?”
“Concerned? Over me? I guess I still don’t understand.”
Quester hadn’t moved back again, but he still appeared upset. He said, “Maybe we should go our separate ways.”
Shell took a few steps back and sat on a ledge of sandstone, and in sudden understanding. He allowed a smile to grow. “Hold on a moment, Quester. If you had seen them, all five of them, you wouldn’t be so impressed. Hear me out and then leave if you want.”
Quester didn’t move any closer, but he nodded as he said, “This had better be some story.”
“First, there were just two of them to fight. They caught me beside the river after the rain, separated from my staff and belongings. While they talked, and threatened, they sent me to my backpack to get the money for them that they thought I had, and instead I grabbed my staff and broke the arm of one and jabbed the other in the stomach.”
“Earlier, you said there were five of them. And a woman.”
“After I had left those two, I decided they might follow me to take revenge, so I followed them. The first two met with the others at their huts and the other three men left to track me. They were a sorry lot, dirty, poor, and stupid. I waited until almost dawn and burned their huts.”
“That’s when you stole the bow?”
“And waded across the river. I waited there on a stone shelf for half a day to see if they followed.”
Quester relaxed. “You never know who you’re going to meet out here, and for a while, it sounded like you were either a fearless killer or the biggest liar I’ve heard of in a year. Either way, it was time for me to leave.”
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“Let’s talk while we walk,” Shell suggested, still a bit confused and miffed at the attitude. A change of subject might help. “Tell me about your mountains to the west.”
“You’re interested in mountains of any sort, it seems.”
The statement didn’t offend Shell, but he decided to be honest with Quester, up to the point of admitting he was Dragon Clan. There were limits. “No, not all mountains, but you bring new possibilities that may help my family. I know people of the plains who have traveled west, and none has ever mentioned mountains in that direction. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but they must be so far away that people never go there.”
“People you know may never go there, but I lived in a village of a hundred, and on the other side of those Blue Mountains are cities that they say have thousands of people.”
“The other side?” Shell had never considered that across those mountains would be more people, perhaps, even more, grasslands like his home, or even another ocean. And beyond that could be more. “Is there a king?”
“At least three. And beyond there are more. I don’t know much about them.”
“Why didn’t you go that direction instead of crossing the grasslands?”
“A good question. Raiders came to our village. I was out hunting. When I returned, our village was burned, our farm too, and our animals slaughtered or missing. I was careless and searched for my family, but left plenty of footprints and tracks for them to follow.”
“They came back and found them?”
“And chased me,” Quester said without emotion.
“What about your family?”
“Dead. All of them, and almost everyone else I knew in our village. I took off on foot with three of the King’s men on horseback chasing after me. I headed into the mountains where others joined them in hunting me down.”
“Then you slipped away to the grasslands and kept going?”