by Colt, K. J.
“All right, then, you stinking Draugr, which one of you is the father of this miserable Throwback?” he yelled at them all.
Silent moments passed and Talon found himself ducking lower. None of the cowering Skomm stepped forward. The big Vald threw his club into the snow and ripped the crying infant from the frantic woman’s grasp as the other took her by the hair.
“No, not my bab…” The Vald silenced her with a punch to the face. Her left arm twitched in midair as she reached for her child.
Talon watched, horrified, as the big Vald carried the baby around by its tiny leg. A commotion began in the crowd, screams of “let me go!” were countered by “they will kill you!”
A short, young man broke through the crowd with a scream of rage and rushed across the snow-covered earth with a shoddy spear leading the way. He meant to impale the man holding his child, but the barbarian slapped the spear away with his big club and kicked the man with a boot as big as his torso. The father made a painful, heaving sound as he was knocked back many feet. The smart crack of a whip rang out and Talon saw that it had wrapped around the father’s neck. He grabbed at it with both hands as he struggled for breath. With a snap of the wrist, the whip-wielding Vald broke the young man’s neck, dragged him through the snow, and threw his limp body on the bonfire.
Many from the crowd looked on with horror, if they looked at all. Even from his distance away from the raging fire, Talon could smell the nauseating stench of burnt flesh and hair. The Vald walked a slow circle around the fire, holding the crying baby aloft, his club held threateningly out to the side, slowly swinging back and forth. He regarded the Skomm with scorn. In the firelight the bone through his nose and intricate ritual scars upon his face made him look like a demon come to life.
“In the days of our For’Eldra your people was cast from the side of the mountain at birth. We, in our godly mercy, have allowed you to live, though you are weak, sickly, and diseased. We have few rules for you disgraceful Skomm,” he said, rounding on the crowd. “You are not to have children!”
The angry Vald swung hard with his big club and hit the woman in the back. Talon heard the echo of cracking bone and was sickened further. He could think of nothing but the baby. Why didn’t someone do something? Surely the dozens of peeking Skomm could overpower the giants.
“Then what?” his practical mind asked; to save the baby would be to kill hundreds. The Vald’s retaliation would be swift; it would be brutal. Only once had Talon heard of a Skomm killing a Vald. Two hundred were killed because of it.
Chief barked frantically as women in the crowd screamed for mercy for the baby. Talon scooped up Chief, covered his muzzle, and ran as fast as the snow would permit. Hot tears trailed down his cheeks as he ran away from what he knew was coming. The club would soon fall again. He yearned to cover his ears but he could not put Chief down; even against Talon’s clutching hand he tried to bark.
The sound came.
The steady thudding of the big club followed him for many strides. At some point in his flight, the baby stopped crying. Talon cried and ran as the sound continued. Cries and screams mixed with the howling wind. He waited to hear the baby cry again, wishing for nothing more than the sound of that high keening.
The baby cried no more.
CHAPTER TWO
AKKERI
THE SON THE FATHER refuse shall make father’s name known.
—Gretzen Spiritbone, 4975
Talon awoke the next morning to Chief licking his face. For a fleeting moment, he did not remember the horrors of the night before. Soon, however, the screams of the Skomm villagers came rushing back to him and he felt sick.
“Why had the woman decided to get pregnant?” Talon wondered. “Surely she knew what would happen.”
His sorrow told him he should stay in bed forever; nothing waited beyond the warmth of his amma’s tent but cold and death, but the threat of his amma’s rod roused him from bed. He threw on oversized furs that his amma had made him two years before. Talon had convinced Gretzen to make the coat and pants big, predicting he would soon grow into them; he never did.
Gretzen sat before the fire pit at the center of the long tent, stirring a steaming pot of gruel, wordlessly eyeing the puppy; Talon knew her mind. He picked up Chief and brought him outside to yellow the snow. The temperature remained cold enough to freeze standing water. Talon’s breath came in plumes and hung above him like fog. The wind was still. The day would be good for ice fishing.
Their tent stood on the outskirts of the village, farther from Sudroen Hall than anyone else. Gretzen liked it that way. Talon thought it had its advantages and disadvantages. They were far enough away from the heart of the village to have a relative amount of peace. But the distance meant he had to walk far to get anywhere, which increased his odds of being seen and receiving a beating just for looking someone in the eye. His amma told him to never divert his eyes from others, to never act like a cowardly Draugr. Her advice gained him numerous beatings from those who would see him bow.
He returned with Chief bounding ahead of him into the tent as though they raced. Talon sat down at the small table and began to eat the gruel Gretzen put in front of him. He hated gruel. He had eaten it every morning for as long as he remembered, and always his amma insisted on adding some “magic spice” that was sure to help him get bigger. The mysterious spices too oft turned out to be bitter-tasting, ground roots or disgusting leaves from gods knew what strange plant. Given that Talon hardly grew that year, he doubted his amma’s recipes worked, though he would never say as much out loud. He got enough beatings from the stupid bullies in the village, let alone his amma’s big hands getting ahold of him.
He ate his heaping, disgusting bowl of mush and washed the lump down with a pint of goat’s milk. His amma remained quiet all through breakfast. She became overly sullen every year during the months after his birthday—the anniversary of the day she had lost her daughter.
Talon put on his boots and grabbed his fishing line, skinning knife, three crooked hooks, a sack of old crusty bread ends, and his ice pick and hammer. He left Gretzen to her ponderings and headed south to the stretch of shoreline he had found to be oft deserted. Due to the spot’s rocky shoreline full of snags and catches, no one bothered with it. His special fishing spot was a place where he was free from the constant taunting and teasing, somewhere he could dream of being far from Volnoss. Shierdon’s huge vessels often sailed past in the warmer months when the ice flows did not crowd the channel between Volnoss and Shierdon.
Chief scampered along after Talon, letting his boots clear a path through the snow. The wolf understood that the long fishing stick meant going out on the ice; also, if they had any luck, he might get the treat of a fish head or two. Talon did not share his enthusiasm, however. His mind kept drifting to the village the night before, to the cries of the baby. He found himself looking in the direction of Skomm village more often than the trail ahead. At some point in his travels, he changed direction and turned from the coast to the ridge of thick trees, through the small forest and across a windblown field of thin saplings and proud evergreens, all the while wondering why he went. Chief barked angrily behind him as he suffered to keep up, and Talon realized he had begun to run.
“Sorry, Chief,” he said as they had come to the outskirts of the village.
With his head down, he slunk along a line of evergreens and crouched into his position on the ridge. The mood of the village reflected his own. People sulked about as they did when they worked in the Vald villages. A silent sadness permeated the still air above the village where the smoke of many fires hung motionless. The bonfire that had raged the night before had since burned out. Talon couldn’t help but search for the bones of the poor father in those gray ashes. Likely they had been collected and buried along with the man’s tools, a custom of both the Vald and the Skomm. He found no sign of a burial, and noticed Chief looking intently to their right. He followed the puppy’s gaze and noticed a girl standing across t
he snow-covered field with shoulders hunched and head bowed. Her tattered cloak hung heavily about her shoulders. A patchy, brown skirt ended at her knees, where it met tall fur boots bound in leather straps.
Talon was drawn to the girl, knowing she had been somehow affected by the atrocities of the night before. The entire village had surely been affected by the violence, but the girl being alone in the field suggested to him that perhaps one of the tragic lovers had been her friend. He guessed that she had insisted on being alone with her sorrow. Yet he walked across the field toward her, pulled along by some inexplicable force.
When she heard the crunch of snow beneath his boots, she whirled around angrily.
“I said I wanted to be al…oh,” she stammered, blinking at him, searching for recognition. What was it he wanted to say to her? He didn’t remember. What should he say? He had no idea.
He must have seemed ridiculous, his facial expressions moving with his thoughts. The snowy world became quite hot suddenly, and Talon wanted nothing more than to take off his heavy, oversized coat. He realized with dread that he had never really talked to a girl, aside from occasional dealings at market. The Vald girls his age wanted nothing to do with him. Their mothers groomed them to land husbands big and strong. The only looks he got from girls his age were those of disdain, scorn, and disgust.
“I’m s-sorry for your loss,” he said to her finally.
Chief whimpered at their feet and the girl glanced down at him. Her face lit up and Talon’s heart soared. She bent down to pick him up, causing curly red locks to spill from beneath her fur hood. Chief smothered her face in puppy kisses, and she laughed despite the tears streaking her face.
“Thank you,” she said with a smile.
When he gazed upon the fiery-haired girl’s smile, strange things began to happen to his body. His heart fluttered like the wings of a hummingbird, his legs turned to blubber, and his head swam as if he were drunk; he feared he might throw-up—and he loved it.
“You’re welcome,” he said. The heat of his cheeks threatened to melt the lazily falling snow.
“Which Skomm village are you from?” she asked, absently petting Chief.
“I…uh, I am Timber Wolf Vald,” he said embarrassed. She had assumed he was also a Throwback, and who could blame her? He was barely as tall as her.
“Oh…,” she began, and some of the affability left her.
“Until next year, anyway,” he quickly added. “Unless I grow two feet by then, I’ll never pass the Miotvidr.”
The girl’s eyes wandered to the village behind Talon as he spoke, and he knew he had ruined things by naming himself Vald. A shadow of suspicion crossed her face at the title; she likely wanted nothing to do with him.
“I must go,” she said, putting Chief down. Before Talon could say anything, she brushed past him and trudged quickly through the snow back to the village.
“What’s your name?” he called after her, thinking himself an idiot even as the words left his mouth. The question hovered in the lightly falling snow as she continued on, and he sighed a long, pent-up breath. But then she stopped abruptly and turned back.
“Akkeri,” she yelled across the distance.
She turned once again and Talon yelled after her, “I am Talon!”
She gave no reply or indication she had heard him but kept on through the snow. Talon remained frozen in place as his eyes followed her until she passed by one of the huts and disappeared into the village.
Chief wagged his little tail frantically, causing it to thump, thump, thump against his leg. In his mouth he held a long red ribbon—her ribbon. Talon was careful to extract the thin ribbon from the puppy’s mouth without fraying the delicate fabric. He thought to go after her to return the ribbon but decided against it. He was still Vald after all, and he didn’t think he would be welcome in the village this day.
“Akkeri,” he said to Chief as he caressed the soft ribbon that had held those long, red locks.
“Akkeri,” he repeated to himself many times as he left the field next to the Skomm village. The name rolled off his tongue like music.
“Maybe being a Throwback won’t be so bad after all,” he said to Chief.
CHAPTER THREE
MIOTVIDR
BY WHAT MEASURE CAN the heart be judged?
—Gretzen Spiritbone, 4996
Regardless of his amma’s herbal concoctions, Talon grew only three inches the following year. As the day of his Miotvidr drew closer, he began to accept the reality that he was a Skomm and always had been. The rest of his life he would live as a slave to the spiteful Vald. When his spirits were at their lowest, his amma tried to cheer him up with her stories about his stars and with promises that his destiny held a wondrous future. He would have liked to believe her but he knew better. His father had been right. He was a Skomm—shameful. A few hundred years ago, he would have been tossed from a cliff at birth.
Despite being born the runt, Chief had grown into a big, strong timber wolf, though he remained a puppy at heart. His coat had turned from dark brown to white and gray. He had become a good hunter, often venturing out on his own and bringing back the occasional rabbit or other small game. Talon figured the extra meat had gained him the slight growth, and he was glad for Chief’s help, but it had not been enough.
He hadn’t talked to Akkeri since they had met, though he often went to his ridge at night and watched her from afar. She was always easy to make out, with her thick mop of fiery, red curls. Many times he wanted to approach her, though he never summoned the courage. On a few occasions, he thought she had seen him just before he ducked down below the cover of the high grass. If she did, she never came to talk.
On the morning of his Miotvidr, Talon was pleasantly surprised to discover that his amma had prepared him a breakfast of eggs, fresh bread, and reindeer steak, rather than gruel. The meal not only made his stomach growl with anticipation but also caused a lump to form in his throat. He knew this was his amma’s way of saying good-bye.
When he finished his breakfast, he gave the scraps to Chief and went to his bed to tidy up before he left. His amma Gretzen said not a word as she absently puttered around the tent. Aside from the grand breakfast, they both acted as if it was just another day and Talon would return shortly from his measure. In fact, they knew he would not.
In his corner of the wide tent, Talon made his disheveled bed for the last time and gathered a few of his most cherished things. Akkeri’s red ribbon was the first thing he took. He didn’t trust it to be put in the sack he would be bringing, so it went in his front pocket, secured by an affectionate pat. He also took his mother’s shark-tooth necklace, set with a single, large pearl. He tied it securely around his neck and gathered a few other odds and ends he had collected over the years; these he put in the leather sack. He had always been fond of his fishing stick, having carved it himself. But he was loath to arrive at his Miotvidr looking as though he had packed all his belongings for the Skomm village, even though he had. He planned to retain some dignity.
Talon gazed at his small corner of the tent one last time and said farewell. Returning to the main room, he found Gretzen sitting blank-faced in front of the fire. Her hands sat perched atop her work, frozen in time, having been weaving a basket of vine. She jerked her head when Talon and Chief came out of his corner and into her view, as if she had been disturbed from deep ponderings.
“The fire says hard day for you,” she told him with a brow fraught with worry and shimmering eyes. “Should leave the dog.”
“Chief is a timber wolf, Amma, and I could not keep him away if I tried.”
Gretzen nodded with a weak smile, unable to meet Talon’s eyes. He put down his sack and walked to stand before her. Given her height, he did not have to bend to kiss her weathered cheek, though she sat in a low chair.
“I’ll be all right, Amma,” he promised. Her smile agreed; however, her eyes didn’t lie. They spoke of pain.
He kissed her other cheek and hugged her tightl
y, unsure how she would react, as she was not one to show affection in such a personal manner. For a time she simply sat there allowing Talon to hug her. Then one arm, and slowly the other one, wrapped around him. She began to shudder. Before his tears could begin to flow, he whispered, “I love you, Amma.”
Her soft, keening sobs followed him all the way to the door and out into the cold day. He didn’t make it ten paces before the flap to his amma’s tent flew open and she called after him.
“Don’t forget your stars, Talon Windwalker; don’t forget your stars!”
A barbarian woman walked by, tearing pieces of meat from a roasted leg with her teeth. She spat a bone at Talon as he passed and cackled, “Don’t forget your stars, you filthy Draugr Throwback!”
In Timber Wolf Village, the Miotvidr took place on the first day of every month. Any children born in said month were required to be measured in the Samnadr at the center of town. He had never been to one on the insistence of his amma, but even from their far-removed tent on the outskirts of the village, Talon had heard the jeering taunts and teasing that followed any who failed the test out of the village. Talon may not have been allowed to attend a Miotvidr, but he had mentally prepared himself for it.
“How bad can it be?” he asked Chief as they made their way through the village.
“I have been beaten up as many times as there are stars—even had a few bones broken and lost two teeth, see?” He lifted his lip to show Chief and the timber wolf barked his approval.
The beatings had been a lot fewer of late, since Chief had grown big enough to appear threatening. Timber wolves had always been the sacred animal of his tribe, and as such, were highly revered by the barbarians. Talon had recently heard whispers of “Krellr’Troda” in his wake—Spirit Walker—and he had grown quite fond of the title. He had never been called anything he could be proud of before.