Brower approached the conversation. “Are you going to kill the dragons, Heg-na?”
“Hay nya.” She corrected Brower yet again.
He ignored her, yet again. “Well count me in. Or does your aunt want that privilege as well, Hardt?”
“I’m not interested. But her? you never know.” Hardt took a breath, looked the older man in the eyes and added blandly. “You could bring her flowers again and ask.”
When Brower had first moved into the community, a few seasons before Garce and Jaydee had gathered and convinced the sixty or so randomly situated families in the area to officially declare and name the shale, he’d immediately fallen for Vyck and aggressively paid court to her. Vyck had been legendarily unkind to him.
Brower frowned. “So is it true you fell over in fright when you saw the kyirghon?”
“While sticking a spear into its heart.” Frair who had been smoking all day had clearly forgotten the earlier race for weapons to defend the shale. He was smiling widely as he clapped Brower on the back. “C’mon old man, no hard feelings. They did the job well, gave us a chance for this festival, and aren’t exactly seeking kudos.” He turned his happiness on Hardt. “But I say anyway, good job and thank you, young man. Now, Heigna.” He pronounced it correctly and lingered on the invisible y. “I’ve been awake for three sundowns and I’ve just gotten my final wind. Let us go and take possession of the outback shack before my lovely sister Marce turns in. By the way, everyone, my birth day anniversary was today and none of you called me tales. But I forgive you.” And without another word the one score and one frseasoner danced his swarthy huntress off into the black night.
Without an audience, Brower had no more to say to Hardt and he stalked off into the crowd leaving the boy to his preferred solitude. Alone again, Hardt tried to turn his thoughts back to how he could have helped Vyck more in the hunt. He’d been thinking about her comment that he didn’t need to see it to hit it and trying to figure how he could practice listening for aim without getting himself killed. He found he couldn’t focus on thoughts of hunting with all the fearful conversations around him about the dragons.
Hardt had a remarkable ability to put aside fear when it would do him no good. The dragons posed no immediate threat and so he felt no fear. But the illogical fear of the rest of the crowd was pervasive and his own blood started moving faster as he circled the shale’s central clearing.
After that weaver and Heigna’s older sister had been taken by a dragon, Stray had sent a message to Voferen Kahago for help. Queen Laurel had returned their messenger with the notice that they should organize a wing of fighters and she would send a guardesman to train them in weapons arts. The wing was supposed to have been organized at the full moon gathering seven suns ago, but was forgotten in the heat of the kyirghon discussion and other more pressing matters. Frair had not forgotten it. Throughout the festival Frair, who had inherited his mother’s gift for socializing, had spoken to each hunter, getting a commitment either to join the wing or at least to come to a meeting on the evening of the next full moon. Hardt had agreed to attend but made no assurances about getting Vyck there. Frair could be persuasive, but Vyck wasn’t big on group events. At festivals she could play with the children, the idea of training in a wing would have no such appeal.
The shale had no idea when the guardesman was supposed to arrive. It was assumed that the Mytrees would find him or her a space in their compound unless someone moved off or died, leaving a cottage available. Hardt wondered how the shale would find sixty-three individuals with enough spare time to train in a wing. He was sure he could find time, but others had large families to care for and life in Stray wasn’t easy. There were barely a hundred homes in the area according to Jaydee’s last count and some, like Badren’s, were one person households. It would be difficult to round up nine fronts of seven people each. Certainly there weren’t enough hunters to even begin to fill the guarde.
A shout of laughter went up as Kalina who had tucked up to a handstand on Comparado’s cane and Jaydee’s shoulder, took his hand from Jaydee’s shoulder, hooked the thumb in his belt, and remarked casually, “I have no idea how to get down.” The children shouted suggestions at him, some of them running up as close as they dared to yell and then darting back. Hardt always enjoyed Kalina but the pitch of the children’s voices was too much to take. He put his hands to his ears and turned to get away from the crowd just to see Vyck laughing at him.
She’d been abandoned by all but Hundred and Firth. Hunny was desperately straining to keep her eyes open, but Firth was out cold and drooling. “That was an interesting moment of excitement wasn’t it?”
Hardt squat down beside his aunt and brushed a pile of grass from the edge of her blanket. “Half the shale abandoned the festival.”
“Half the shale never showed up.” She laughed, glancing down at Hundred. “We’re a bunch of recluses.”
“And you’re the worst of all.”
“I come to every full moon meeting and every festival. It’s day three and I’m still here.”
“But you don’t ever talk with any adults.” This was an observation that Hardt was repeating from a conversation he’d overheard yesterday around the kyirghon spit. Hardt himself wasn’t the least concerned by his aunt’s reticence. She talked to him.
“I don’t have much to say. Children don’t mind that.”
“You could try talking to Noah. He doesn’t look for much assistance in a conversation and he’s almost an adult.”
“I do talk with Noah.”
“Well,” he leaned over and kissed her cheek, “then I’m satisfied. Are you going to Frair’s meeting?”
“Oh yes. It is always good to keep an ear open when adults speak in packs. Are you going home?”
Hardt stood and gazed over at the fire. “Yes.” After a moment he added, “I’m going to take some rations tomorrow and go out northwest to practice using my ears.”
Vyck nodded and adjusted Firth in her arms to make more room for the now spinelessly sleeping Hundred. “Don’t take rations. And bring back another white rabbit, Jaydee wants a jacket for Hundred from the one she saw hanging in the tent but that one will be too thick for her.”
He nodded absently. “Some water, maybe?”
“You can take some water.”
A chuckle rumbled through his chest and sparkled in his eyes as he turned to walk away. “Thanks.”
“It’s your choice. If you have no faith in your ability to find water, then you should take some.”
He stopped, for just a moment, in his tracks and sighed. “Good night, Vyck.”
“Good night, Hardt.” She smiled pleasantly at his back.
On the walk home, he considered what he should bring with him besides an empty canteen. Probably spear and kaaat were the best weapons to start with. He should bring an axe as well if he was going to be cooking his kill and in case he chose to make a shelter. He could weave some rope if he needed it and if he brought the sling and a pouch for stones, he could refill the pouch with the medicinal four pointed leaves found up that way which Gaerel would appreciate trading for. As long as he was collecting things, there was a good patch of winterberry bushes that might still be ripe even this late in the season. He could trade those to Kiersta for some more honeycream and eggs. He should definitely plan to track through there on his way back.
He figured out his schedule as he jogged past their nearest neighbors, Kilalee, Trin, and Talee’s tiny stone cottage a half hour out from the center. A day’s journey could get him more than a megg away from any other possible hunters. A fortnight’s practice and then two sunups back with the furs and meat and a small detour to get the berries. He’d be back with time to make his trades before Frair’s meeting. Feeling good, he picked up speed and hurdled the willow creek.
The tiny stream had been flooded with armourfish during the storm. Some industrious soul had taken a whole lot of mud-loving littleuns out and sieved out all the armourfish and mudbugs and
lionsnakes and boiled them into a thick and spicy stew with vegetables and corndumplings. It had made a nice change from the kyirghon meat which was sitting heavily in Hardt’s stomach with several cakes and more than one hazelnutchocolate drizzled papernotje.
Hardt reached their cottage just as he was deciding to turn back for more food. Though he fought briefly with his stomach, the lure of sleep won out and he trotted around to the side to ladle a cup of water from the overflowing keg before bed. Looking at the water he wished he’d thought to pause at the creek and wash the smell of smoke from his body. Instead, he stripped off his smelly shirt and hung it over a low branch of the wittenrood to air out. Then he went to the front and sat on the stoop to pull off his boots.
The sound was almost too soft to hear and for a moment Hardt discounted it as a natural sound of the forest. But, listening more carefully, he heard it again and realized it was coming from beneath the suntarp. He grabbed a sharp kaaat automatically from the collection hanging beside the door, but quickly thought the better of it, imagining Vyck’s reaction to a ruined pelt. He leaned inside and took instead Vyck’s sling and two stones from the small table at the entrance. His step was silent as he crossed the yard. The strange sound was almost regular. A breath’s length of cat purr or bird chatter and then silence for a few breaths. He tried to hear where in the tent the sound was coming from, but couldn’t tell for certain. The moon was dark, so no worry of a shadow. He readied the loaded sling and threw up one rain flap.
Nothing moved. The sound continued. Hardt saw nothing out of place in the small tent. A few hides on the poles, the kyirghon stretched out on the several kitje high stakes. A corner of the thick rabbit fur was poking out from under the hide, where Vyck had been kneeling on it during her working hours before going to the festival the past suns. Closer now, he could tell the sound was coming from underneath the stretched hide. Hardt knelt down a good distance away and carefully looked under the dead kyirghon’s empty skin. There on the rabbit fur, one tiny fist grasping a handful of the soft whiteness, lay a small boy sleeping, gently snoring every few exhales.
Three
∞
Getek was a tall man. He had dark skin from twenty frseason travelling with the roaming guarde and hazel eyes which had passed down to him from his great great grandfather, Greg, the first partner of Kaveg. He wore his grey hair cut as short as his dark beard. His muscles were rock solid from daily weapons training, swimming, and running and his hands were weathered and strong. Getek could lift felled trees out of pathways. He could move as swiftly as a feather on the wind. He had never been sick a day in his life. He remembered every tale he was ever told, could play the loate, and loved to dance. Getek could tell you the names of all the plants yet named, knew how to lose gracefully, and understood politics.
When the settlers of Stray first saw him, he was crying like a newborn.
Luckily it was only Talee who saw this. She found him when she went out at dawn to peel some few bark for her father’s hangover. She detoured by the willow creek to check the traps and heard someone yelling downstream. Following the voice she found a man stumbling along in the creek, soaked from head to foot with sweat and covered in the accumulated dirt of the forest. His face was streaked with tears as he begged her to help him search for his fourteen seasons old son. He’d been looking all night with no luck. Talee got him back to the cottage and woke her parents to get him some food and clean clothes while she drummed for help.
Three nearby settlers arrived in short order and sent Talee off to the shale center to gather more people with the big drum or even gather those still sleeping there in hopes of reviving the festival. A map of sorts was laid out in seeds on the front porch as best the locals could figure though no one but Jaydee kept a real close eye on how the whole shale was laid out with cottages, gardens, pens and such. After some discussion, it was agreed that Vyck might know the area best as mattered for such a search and Kilalee drummed out a message to her while Trin, despite his hangover, trotted off in the direction he thought their cottage lay.
“Thank you for your help.” Getek stood from the porch table and offered his empty plate to Kilalee.
She took it with a curt nod. “Don’t get used to it. We’re not friendly people.”
“Kilalee, be nice. The queen sent him here.”
“I don’t like the weapons, Kalina.” She set a basket of sausage bread on the table for the mostly hung-over gathering help. “Trin and I won’t be fighting for you. But we’ll be glad to help with the dragon problem in any other way.”
Kalina strode over from where he’d been studying the seed map thoughtfully. “Kilalee, the man cannot find his child. Could you hold off on the dragon talk, please?” He turned to Getek and reintroduced himself, “Kalina, sir. I’ve been thinking about the hut you described bunking down in and I think we’ve got it wrong on the map. It sounds more like the place Vyck stores her stone and supplies for the dead season. I get my stone from them and Hardt took me there to help with lifting the pieces I needed when Vyck was down with that fever last spring.”
“Yes, that’s the hut, Kalina.” Everyone turned to see Vyck striding out of the trees loaded down with an enormous pack. “We found this stuff there this morning. Were just doing a circle search when we heard your drum. Where’s the man?”
“I’m here.” Getek nearly toppled the bench in his rush to stand.
Vyck visibly caught her breath at the sight of Getek. She looked away immediately and dumped his stuff on the ground before her. “Hardt, I’ll see you back at the cottage.”
As she fair bolted back into the trees the way they’d just come, Hardt stepped forward. A tear spilled involuntarily down the guardesman’s face when he tore his eyes from Vyck and saw Hardt approach, holding his son.
“Ker! Are you okay? Where’d you get to?” He climbed over the bench and took the boy from Hardt’s arms trying not to shake from relief. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Hardt shrugged. “He found us. Slept well. Ate this morning. He’s been telling us about your hike down from Voferen Kahago. I think.”
Getek chuckled, “His mother was a wester. He’s got her accent. Sometimes even I can’t understand a word he says. Thank you, so much. But if you’ll excuse us for a moment, Ker and I need to speak privately.” He touched Hardt’s palm and nodded his excuses to Kilalee, Kalina and the others before walking out of earshot around the cottage.
The settlers stood around uncomfortably, uncertain of what to do until Kilalee broke the spell by ripping her hospitable sausage bread and the pot of tea from the table and heading inside her house. The would-be rescuers took the cue, crossed palms all round and murmured things like “seems like a nice guy” and “glad the child wasn’t… well glad he was found” and they wandered off back to their homesteads. Kalina took the cup of tea he’d been holding and strolled over to the family’s drum. He pounded out an all clear, child was found, go back to what you were doing message. Then he smiled mischievously at Hardt, took a loaf of sausage bread from his pocket and munched as he stole away with the teacup.
“If you find Trin on your way home, Hardt, would you lead him back here for me?” Kilalee came to the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Sure.” Hardt glanced around the house. Kilalee wasn’t good with strangers and he was uncomfortable about leaving the queen’s appointee with her. “Could you ask Talee to take Getek and Ker to the Mytree compound?”
“That Jaydee is bound to return with my daughter from center.”
“Good. The kid liked our hoskas. I’ll leave him this one to munch on while they wait.” He pulled a short braid of the eggbread out of his pouch and set it on the table still uncertain the guardesman would be safe with Kilalee. “You’ll be okay until Talee or Trin return?”
“Thanks Hardt.” The woman brought a napkin and a cup of juice out to join the hoska on the table. “I’ll be nice. Just send my bond back to me quickly, if you would.”
Hardt raise
d a hand to Ker and Getek as they appeared around the house and then he took off at a run to find Trin and then get his delayed hunting trip underway.
Just a bit under a moon after Ker’s arrival in Stray, his father was presented to the small gathering who showed up at center for Frair’s meeting. The day was clear, but a storm looked to be brewing for the evening. Frair tried to excuse the weak attendance with the needs of the farmers to protect their fields and the beastkeepers to round up their herds and such, but Getek didn’t appear concerned. He’d come to know something of the Stray frame of mind in the past suns as Jaydee had attempted to introduce him to many of the hundred or so settlers of the shale. Most had been too busy. Many had simply no interest. Vyck, the lovely woman who had dragged his baggage from her stone hut that first horrible morning, the woman he most wanted to meet again, was never home when Jaydee took him by. As Kilalee had told him from the first, the Stray were not a friendly people.
He was surprised to see as many as there were in the clearing. But as he suspected, half of them were just there to see the stranger. No one approached to greet him as they arrived and few of them showed up with any weapons. Frair and a few of his friends brought an array of hunting tools despite Getek’s private explanation to Frair that there would be no weapons work at this first gathering. Several of the friendly shalers whom he’d hoped would attend were still missing when he decided the sun was at full high. It would have been nice to have some older, friendly faces in the crowd, but he hoped they still might arrive late. He’d been given to believe that Vyck tried to attend all gatherings and was hoping this would not be the exception.
Getek started the meeting by briefly introducing himself as a twenty or so frseason veteran of the Roaming Guarde, many of those with the secondary assignment of weapons tutor for Guarde hopefuls. He mentioned his appointment to Stray by the queen Laurel and partner Browm but nothing about the fact that he had volunteered for the posting. With such brief information as his qualifications and limited authority, he jumped into the training.
Hardt's Tale: A Mobious' Quest Novel Page 3