By the age of four, Malak was spending his time imagining himself as a Blackhorn kreb. Occasionally, Winter would spar with him. In these play times, he was careful not to ever take another full-force swing at his sister. Even though she was almost seven years old, three years her brother’s senior, she remained quite cautious of her brother; some lessons are hard to forget.
Benithan and Cayban would play with Winter and, to some degree, Malak, but the two boys kept their distance from him when they could. Word was getting around the Blackhorn tribe that Malak was unpredictable, and some even referred to him, behind kDira’s back, as ‘Son of Hayden.’
It was in the fall of this year that kDira found herself pregnant again. As the year wore on and she grew bigger, she experienced none of the dreams and primal fears that she had had when she was pregnant with Malak. Agis was with her much of the time, and she was enjoying the experience once again, as she had with Winter.
During the winter months, both of the Princess Mothers gave birth; one to a girl, the other to a boy. Jilleane, despite successfully having had her son Tuviast a few years earlier, had a miscarriage early in the spring. The village mourned the loss of the baby, and Jilleane vowed to try again.
Late the next spring, kDira gave birth to a baby girl with no complications. kDira allowed Agis to name the baby, and he chose the name Charlomine, after a character in a story that Elick had read them from his tomes. Charlomine was a healthy and happy baby. Winter was the epitome of big sisters and helped her mother whenever she could. Malak showed no interest whatsoever in his new baby sister.
It was the following summer that Winter began formal training as a kreb. Until it was determined that she was capable of bearing children, she would learn the skills of a warrior, as all young Blackhorn do at that age. With only the two children of the Princess Mothers, Benithan and Cayban to accompany Winter, the training was limited to one tribal instructor at a time.
Lessons at this stage consisted of basic self-defense, hunting and gathering, stealth, basic meal preparation, and at the suggestion of Elick and Guller, some time spent learning the fine art of interpreting.
Malak hated watching his sister leave for her training each day. His resentment toward his sister was growing, and he could not help but feel distanced from kDira and Agis. He was not saddened by it but angered instead. Acting out was part of his nature, and though he didn’t understand why, he felt a need to do so daily, much like eating and sleeping.
One day, after a long session of training, seven-year-old Winter was walking toward her mother’s hut, where kDira and Malak were sitting outside enjoying the sun. As Winter approached, Malak got up and ran towards his sister. Thinking he was just running to greet her, she opened her arms to her brother, who promptly jumped and kicked her in the stomach.
“Malak!” yelled kDira at her son.
As Winter was bent over, Malak stepped up and swept her feet out from under her, knocking her to the ground.
“Why did you do that?!” Winter cried.
“Who needs training?” young Malak answered. “You do!” he said, kicking sand in her face.
“Malak, stop that!” kDira said, rushing over to him and grabbing his arm. Quickly, Malak spun free of his mother’s grip and ran over to push Winter back down to the ground again as she was struggling to get back up.
“I am warning you, young man…” kDira said, stomping after her son.
“Mum, stop!” Winter yelled. kDira stopped, surprised at the command coming from her daughter.
Winter found her way to her feet as Malak came around to her front and faced her.
“You no warrior!” he said. “Malak warrior!”
Winter calmed herself down and looked her younger brother straight in the eyes. “Try it again,” she challenged.
Malak let out a growl and ran at her. Just before he reached her, he jumped into the air, one foot forward. Winter caught his leg and lifted it high, causing Malak to flip around and land flat on his face and belly, knocking the wind out of him. The young boy grabbed his stomach, curled into a ball, and began to cry.
Winter walked over to him, knelt down, placing her knee on top of him, grabbed his hair, and lifted his head so she could look into his eyes. “Do not ever come at me again, or you will die. Understand?”
“Yes, Winter,” the boy stammered through his tears. “I sorry.”
Winter let his hair go and got up and walked past her mother. kDira went to Malak, pulled him upright by his arm, and dragged him into the house.
“Just wait until I tell Agis what you did.”
For the next two years, it appeared that Malak had learned his lesson and maintained a respectful distance from his sister; the siblings no longer played together.
In the spring, Malak himself began kreb training. He eagerly absorbed all he could learn about self-defense, not caring so much for the other subjects that were presented to him. He had a love for the sword, crafting his own wooden sword from hickoring with which to practice. He would fight imaginary foes late into the evening, long after his formal training was finished. While Winter preferred the bow, Malak never took a liking to projectile weapons. For him, hand-to-hand combat was the way to fight.
As Malak grew more skilled, he expressed more and more his desire to challenge anyone that would spar with him. Benithan and Cayban would try to keep up with him, but he was already proving far better at the sword than either of the two older kids. Often one or the other, or both, would go home with bruises; rarely was Malak bested.
During the evening, Elick would hold interpretation studies with Winter, Benithan, and Cayban, where the three youngsters would spend time working on an interpretation of basic scrolls and tomes from Elick’s collection.
Winter was becoming quite proficient for someone not yet a decade old. She became obsessed with the ancient texts and volumes that Elick had collected, and though she didn’t fully understand what many talked about, she scoured many pages in an effort to glean any information she could from the images and the texts she could understand of what life was like before the Great Cloud.
On this particular session, Elick was allowing free interpretation, where he would allow them to sit and interpret just about anything he had. Later, as a group, they would discuss what they had found in the ancient texts.
Winter was combing through the shelves of tomes and scrolls when she came upon a little cubbyhole with but one small scroll. She pulled it out and began reading the small groups of words on the paper.
“Elick,” she turned to her elder. “What does ‘betray the world’ mean?”
cHAPTER 6
“When were you going to tell me, Elick?” kDira demanded.
Elick had no question in his mind that the Queen Mother, although his dear friend, was now asking in an official capacity.
Agis cringed in fear for his friend. kDira was not one to be drawn to violence, but from the way she was talking now, the casual observer would not know it.
“Well?”
“Dearest kDira, I have struggled over this for many years now. There just never seemed to be an appropriate time to break it to you.”
“How about when you first read those words?” kDira continued. “Do you think that might have been among the best of times you could have brought it to my attention?”
“Queen Mother, at the time I first read those words, you were so traumatized by Hayden that I felt that, thinking of your health, it was best that I not burden you with the matter.” He paused, waiting for a scolding that didn’t come. “And then your dreams started, and you were so troubled by them… and then the boy came and almost killed you in delivery…”
“And?”
“And, well, I thought it best that we wait and see if the boy showed signs that would be cause for worry.”
“Did you see any? Any signs at all? Were there ever any signs that we should be concerned by his behavior?”
“I am sorry, kDira, but honestly, I truly thought that you and
Agis could raise him to be a fine Blackhorn kreb.”
“We can still do that,” Agis interjected. “I can still train him to be a fine Blackhorn.”
“You have tried, Agis; we have both tried. He is seven years old, and he is a little…” she paused. Her throat closed as she tried to stop herself from saying what she’d feared for so long; what she felt deep in her heart.
“kDira, it’s okay,” Agis said, hoping to calm the Queen Mother.
“He’s a little Hayden!” she blurted out. “A little bastard Hayden child.”
“Now, kDira,” Elick said in an attempt to defuse the intense emotions that were starting to peak. “I do not think the traits that Hayden had are hereditary.”
“I don’t know what heredi…”
“Hereditary.”
“Hereditary means. What does it mean?”
“It means something that you are born with that your parents pass on to you when you are conceived. Malak not only has Hayden blood in him, but he also has yours as well. Surely you can bring that part of him out?”
“I am not so certain.”
“So, what do we do now?” Agis asked.
“I do not know,” said kDira. “I have forbidden Winter to speak of the provicy to anyone. She doesn’t understand fully what it means, but I don’t want her spreading it around.”
“I think we must choose our actions carefully,” Elick said. “We must make every attempt to make him a model Blackhorn, because if we treat him as though he were something evil, then he will most certainly become that.”
The following day, kDira took Winter into the woods on the premise that they were going on a hunt together, but in truth, kDira really just wanted to get away from the village, and the weight of the revelations that had come the day before. Winter was happily tagging along, enjoying the woods and its thick green foliage. She watched treecat after treecat scurry away and scamper up a tree, unaware that they were not the prey of this particular hunt.
As they marched deeper and deeper in the woods, kDira’s pace began to quicken as she became lost in her own thoughts, causing Winter to have to double her own pace to keep up.
“Mum,” Winter said to her ever-quickening mother. “Mum, why are you walking so fast? Mum?”
kDira stopped as Winter caught up to her, somewhat out of breath.
“I am sorry, little Princess. I was daydreaming and did not realize I was walking so fast.”
“It was almost like you were trying to get away from me.”
“Oh no, precious girl, it was not you that I was trying to get away from.”
Winter seemed to understand what her mother meant, though the true meaning was never revealed to her.
“Mum, what does it all mean?”
“I don’t understand? What does what mean?”
“The Book of Kaderah. It is about you, is it not?”
“I suppose it might just be. Sounds like it, doesn’t it?”
“It warns about the first male child. That would be Malak, am I right?”
“You are a very smart and perceptive girl. You will make a great leader one day.” kDira turned and began walking down the path again, this time at a normal pace. Winter followed.
“But mum, it says he will betray the world. What does that mean?”
kDira was silent. She had no answer. What could she tell her daughter, who seemed to be wise beyond her years; an old soul, some would say.
“Mum?” Winter asked again.
“Winter, there is a lot you do not know about Malak, and about how he came to be.”
“Who is Hayden?”
kDira stopped once again. “Where did you hear that name?”
“I heard one of the villagers say ‘Son of Hayden’ as Malak and I went to kreb training one day. I don’t know which one; there were a number of them gathered around one of the shops on the main road in the village when we walked past, but it stuck in my head.”
“You need to forget that name; Hayden is in the past.”
“Why does it bother you so much, mum?”
Again, kDira was silent. Once she explained it to her daughter, there would be no going back. Winter would know the horror that her mother had faced, and the monster that had fathered her half-brother. As far as Winter knew, Malak was her full brother. So many secrets kept for too many years.
“Quiet now,” kDira said in a hushed voice. She pointed into a break in the trees where several chideer were grazing on the leaves of the smaller trees. “Ready your bow. You take the one on the north-hand; I will take the one on the south-hand.”
Without speaking, Winter did as she was told. Her new bow, three times longer than the one she had begun with a few years earlier, was strong enough to penetrate flesh. If she could put her arrow on target, she could easily take home her first game harvest.
“On three,” kDira said in a whisper. “1… 2… 3.”
In harmony with each other, they let their arrows fly. As if they were mirrors of the other, two chideer fell to the ground, an arrow piercing their hearts with perfect shots.
“You are an expert marksman, Winter! You felled the chideer on your first shot!”
“Yay! Mum, you are a pretty good shot too! You have been watching me and learning a few things.”
They both laughed and went over to their kill. They spent the next hour field-dressing the chideer and preparing to haul the animals back to the village for an evening feast.
“Mum?”
“Yes, my little Princess?”
“Who was Hayden?”
The joy of the successful hunt quickly vanished with the question. A wave of sadness and anxiety crept over kDira. She wanted to be angry with Winter for breaking the mood, but when she looked at Winter’s innocent, caring face, she could not bring herself to scold the child. She felt tears begin to well up in her eyes, and then she could not hide it any longer.
kDira looked around and found a fallen log near the chideer. “Come, sit down here with me,” she bade of Winter.
kDira paused to gather her thoughts and find the right words. It was a minute before she spoke; Winter could see the pain in her eyes.
“Hayden was an evil, evil man,” kDira began. “At the time he was the leader of the Karn. He kidnapped me and took me to the Karn Palace and kept me captive. He beat me and raped me. Your father and a lot of other brave Blackhorn rescued me. Hayden was killed, but not before he planted his seed within me. Hayden is Malak’s father.”
The look of horror on Winter’s face was unmistakable, and kDira instantly questioned her decision to tell her daughter the truth. Winter began to cry and turned to her mother, wrapping her young arms around kDira. Together they cried.
“Mum, I am so sorry you had to go through that. I am so sad for you.”
kDira was overwhelmed that her beautiful daughter was sad for her.
“I am fine.”
“Do you want me to kill Malak for you?” Winter asked.
kDira managed a sad smile. “No, my precious, I do not want you to kill him, but thank you for thinking of me.”
They shared a lighter moment, then kDira helped to lift one of the chideer onto Winter’s shoulders, then lifted the other onto her own shoulders.
“Come, let us go home. You are a mighty hunter now, my daughter!”
“Like my mum!”
cHAPTER 7
In the main hall, kDira, Agis, and Winter were hosting a feast featuring the fresh chideer, for a small gathering of friends and family. kDira’s mother Jilleane and brother Tuviast, along with the Princess Mothers and their children were among the guests. Also attending were close friends Ari, Edu, Omiroe, Elick, and Guller. Several of the elders helped ready the meal of chideer, fowl, potatoes, and various greens, with plenty of bryne, water, and fruit juice to wash down the delicious food.
There was no real reason to celebrate other than Winter getting her first kill, but that was enough. Everyone congratulated the young girl, and her pride swelled. Toasts were raised t
o her continued success, and soon everyone sat down to begin the meal. Occasionally, someone would walk into the hall out of curiosity and would be invited to the table to share in the meal.
Malak sat next to Winter, both seated between kDira and Agis, kDira next to Winter and Agis next to Malak. Agis helped the young boy get food on his plate, while Winter prepared her own plate, picking an extra portion of chideer meat for herself.
“Chideer always tastes better when you harvest it yourself, aye young Winter?” an elder asked from somewhere down the table.
“Most definitely, sir!” Winter answered proudly, raising a piece of the tender meat, suspended from the tip of her knife, into the air.
“Malak, did you congratulate your sister on her kill?” Elick, sitting across from him, asked.
“No,” was Malak’s simple answer.
“Malak,” Agis asked, putting his hand on the young boy’s arm, “do you not think you should?”
Malak looked at Elick for a moment, then slowly turned to his sister and said, “Congratulations on your first kill, my sister.”
Winter turned to see her brother smiling at him. “Thank you, brother,” she said cheerfully. Malak turned away and as quickly his smile faded. Without further pause, he went back to eating. Then, for a brief moment, without raising his head up from facing his plate, he shifted his eyes up at Elick, catching the Interpreter looking at him. Elick’s heart froze, and the Interpreter quickly averted his eyes down to look at his own plate. Suddenly, he had no appetite.
The next evening, Elick was at Guller’s quaint hut, telling his fears to Guller in private. “I tell you, he looked into my very soul and crushed it; snuffed it right out,” Elick exclaimed to Guller. “That boy scares me!”
Guller wasn’t as much of a collector of tomes and scrolls as he had been; he had relinquished the bulk of his library to Elick so that the Blackhorn knowledge store would be all in one place. He had kept a few of his favorites though, placed on shelves or lying open on a table near the fireplace.
The kDira's World Anthology Page 28