“Your talons are sharp!” Hyden growled, and then sucked a droplet of blood from his finger. The hawkling bobbed its head up and down, and then cooed again. Hyden froze.
“Talon?” he asked the little bird, as if it could understand him. To his surprise, the hawkling bobbed its head again, and leapt back onto his knee. Again, Hyden chuckled in disbelief.
“Talon it is then. We’ll call you Talon.”
While Hyden slept, he dreamed the dream of flight again. Distant mountains loomed ahead and field mice scattered in the pastures below him. Around his wing tips, cottony clouds floated on warm, uplifting air. It was a night of glorious dives, wild swooping attacks, and long, slow spiraling climbs. He slept as well as he ever had, and when he was finally startled awake, he could still feel the wind flowing over his feathers.
Several angry foreign accents, and his father’s voice barking out harshly from somewhere nearby jerked him from his dreams. He sat up and looked around, slowly forcing the confusion of waking from his mind. He’d fallen asleep outside by the fire pit. Already, the ways were crowded with people. He remembered that today was Summer’s Day, the day of his competition. A wave of nervous excitement washed over him. Talon was perched on the top edge of his nest bucket, with part of a grasshopper hanging from his beak. He had eaten most of it, and didn’t seem to know that he had missed the morsel. Hyden laughed, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. From behind him, a small voice spoke.
“Hey Hyden.”
It was Little Condlin. The boy had become distant and reclusive since his two brothers had fallen at the harvest. Hyden had seen him hovering around the women mostly since they’d been at the festival. No one could blame him for wanting to be close to his mother. It was probably a good thing for her and him both.
“How are you?” Hyden asked, as the boy squatted down in front of Talon to look at the bird, eye to eye.
“I’m alright, I guess,” Little Con replied, before going into a nonstop series of questions.
“Does he have a name yet? Can I be your squire, or page, or whatever they call them, since Gerard has left us? What do you think it is? Is it a boy or a girl hawkling?”
“Slow down Condlin. Slow down.” Hyden rose to his feet quickly. “What do you mean Gerard’s gone? How do you know?”
“My father, sent me to fetch you,” the boy said, without looking away from Talon. “Gerard left a note last night saying that he was leaving. I didn’t know he could write.”
“Here,” Hyden fumbled a silver coin out of his belt pouch, and tossed it to his cousin. “Go across the Way to the vendor and buy some raw meat. I’m not sure if the hawkling is a he or a she yet, but its name is Talon.”
Hyden ruffled the boy’s hair. “Cut the meat into little strips and feed the bird. When I’m finished speaking to our fathers, we will discuss the possibility of you accompanying me to the tournament.”
The boy was off before Hyden had even finished speaking. Hyden lingered with Talon, like a protective parent, until he saw Little Condlin returning with the bird’s food.
Harrap wasn’t the angry, cursing man he had been the day before. Today, he was quiet and reserved, with eyes full of what might have been regret, and more than a little sadness.
“Why wouldn’t he have claimed his winnings if he knew he was leaving?” he asked his oldest son.
Hyden didn’t have a definite answer. It was a curious thing that Gerard had put all his winning blue tickets in with the note he had left their father, but Hyden didn’t see it as a cause for alarm.
“Maybe he cashed a few of them in. Just what he thought he might need,” he suggested, even though it didn’t seem like something that Gerard would do. Gerard’s nature would’ve been to collect all of his gold and leave just a little bit behind, not the other way around.
“He told me he was going to leave, but I didn’t think he would go so soon.”
Hyden didn’t say that he had known of his brother’s plans since early yesterday evening, just after they left the fortune-teller’s tent. He kept what he told his father about Gerard’s destination, and traveling companions, as vague as he possibly could. He didn’t want to fill the Elder’s head full of unwarranted concern. With the ring at Gerard’s disposal, Hyden was sure that his brother could take care of himself, but he found it frustrating that he couldn’t share that bit of knowledge with his father without betraying Gerard’s confidence.
After a long silence, Harrap sighed and then nodded, as if he was accepting some part of a reality that he had no control over. The subject of his concern changed then.
“Are you ready for today son?” he asked with a forced smile.
“The elf is terribly good, father,” Hyden said matter-of-factly. He made sure that it didn’t sound like he was making an excuse. “I will do the best that I can.”
“Aye,” Harrap’s smile became genuine, and held a great deal of pride in its curve. “If you do your best and lose, there’s no shame in it. As men, we sometimes put too much value on trivial things. I wish… I wish that we, as a clan, hadn’t put so much pressure on you. It’s not fair. You cannot win back the losses of the past. All you can hope to do is compete with pride, honor, and dignity. If you manage to do that, then you’ve already won.”
Harrap put his arm around his oldest son, and squeezed him lovingly.
“Honor among men, it seems, has grown scarce these days,” he mumbled, to no one in particular.
“Thank you father,” Hyden said.
The weight of the load he’d been carrying on his shoulders seemed to have lightened a little bit, but not so much that he felt he could relax. The rest of the Elders, including his grandfather, still expected him to win. He didn’t want to think about the competition at all yet. It was still a few hours away and he had other things on his mind.
“What were you and those men arguing about this morning?” he asked, trying to tactfully change the subject.
“One of the men that fought in the Brawl last night, died. Now, some of the Dakaneese wager men are trying to dispute the Seaward Monster’s victory.”
Hyden wasn’t surprised.
“Lord Gregory looked to be dead when he fell.” Hyden didn’t say anything about the witch and the poison dart. “The Monster won, despite the Lion Lord’s final blow. What is there to dispute?”
Harrap was shaking his head.
“It wasn’t the Westlander that died. The Lion’s last blow shattered the Monster’s skull. The crowd saw the Lion fall first, so, by all rights, the Seawardsman won, even though he was probably dead before he landed on top of Lord Gregory. The wager men tried to balk on payment of Gerard’s tickets, until they saw how large and formidable our clan is. It wasn’t easy getting Gerard’s prize. I had to threaten to harm them while we had them surrounded. I also had to remind them that we are not part of the human kingdoms, but are from the Giant’s lands. Most of the folk who bet last night don’t have the numbers we do, and aren’t getting paid at all. The whole place has turned into a boiling pot. It wouldn’t surprise me if the kingdom folk start killing each other over it.”
“But today is Summer’s Day,” Hyden said. “Today is the day all the people are supposed to celebrate peace and friendship.”
“Aye it is,” Harrap returned. “But the people of the kingdoms have long forgotten the ways of old, and the sacred oaths their ancestors swore here. It is sad, but it is not our concern. We are the Skyler Clan, and we are free. Only the king of the giants can command us. And that’s only because we live in the mountains they call their own. King Aldar doesn’t even presume to rule over our people, even though he has that right. As I said before, the men of the kingdoms have long forgotten what honor is all about.”
A short while later, Halden, the Eldest, patted his grandson’s back and wished him well. Hyden’s uncles, Condlin, Sharoo, Benald, and Pylen, all did the same. His grandfather’s brother,
Harren, mussed his hair as if he were still a little boy. Then Uncle Mahr, the clan’s spirit leader, said a prayer to the White Lady, their patron goddess. All of the Elders, and most of the women, would be watching him compete later. What little bit of pressure his father had lifted earlier had now been replaced tenfold.
Outside the crowded tent, where they were gathered, the younger clansmen waited patiently to add to it, all of them, except Gerard. This fact gnawed at Hyden more deeply with each passing hour.
After he spoke with his father, Hyden jogged past the shining black spire, down the southern Way to where Gerard had said Shaella and her party were encamped. The day was as perfect as a day could be. The sun was bright, and the sky was blue and clear, save for a few puffy white clouds drifting lazily. There was a cool and steady breeze coming from the west, carrying the fresh smell of the river’s swell, and the blooming foliage along its shoreline.
The people he passed, though, were visibly on edge. Untrusting eyes darted here and there suspiciously. Everyone was traveling in groups and they were all armed with some sort of weapon. All of the clumps of people moving about, were from the same families or kingdoms, and they tended to stick together, as if a stray would be swept away by some unseen magical stream.
The cheer and mirth of the previous day was gone. It was like a rain storm had washed away the joy and left a sticky film of worry and fear over everything. Some of the people seemed oblivious to the foul mood. Others scurried from shop, to cart, to tent, buying up things, as if it were the last day of the world. Hyden saw a few groups that were packing up their belongings to leave. Horses were hitched to waiting wagons, and pavilions were being rolled and stored for travel.
Hyden felt the tension hanging in the air, like the slow, sizzling sound of a knot in a fire log. Sooner or later, it would pop and send a shower of sparks swirling out of the pit. The embers might just burn themselves out, but something as simple as a breeze could cause them just as easily to flare into flame and burn a whole forest to the ground.
As he had expected, the Dakaneese woman’s camp was empty. Nothing but trampled grass and a few rock-ringed fire pits remained. The trail they left led southward. The nearest camp was far enough away that he didn’t even bother asking about the sudden departure of Shaella’s party as he passed it on his way back. Gerard was gone, chasing after his dreams. Hyden had to respect his brother’s determination, even if he didn’t like the fact that he had gone.
When he returned to the Skyler Clan’s area, he was ushered in before the Elders. The competition would be starting soon, and they too wanted to heap piles of pressure on his shoulders.
Hyden eventually left the crowded tent and emerged into another pack of his clansmen. They patted his back, wished him well, and offered little tidbits of advice and support. These were mostly tinged with the opinions of their parents and the older clansmen. Comments like: “Beat the skinny forest freaks,” or “Show those yellow-eyed devils what it’s about!”
Hyden knew that not one of the younger men, or boys, had been as close to an elf as he was yesterday at the Culling, yet they hated them just because the Elders did. They couldn’t have formed their opinions of their own accord. They were only repeating the things they had heard others say. It didn’t matter, Hyden decided. He smiled at them and thanked them, but his head and his heart were somewhere else. Hyden was trying not to let his worry over Gerard, or the pressure from his people, get the better of him. This day was too perfect of a day, and either win or lose, he was going to try and enjoy it.
Little Condlin parted the group and handed Hyden his bow. To everyone’s delight, Talon awkwardly flew from the boy’s shoulder to Hyden’s. He had to help the struggling little chick land, and get a grip on his shoulder, but once Talon was settled he puffed out his chest proudly and let loose a squeaking caw.
A few minutes later, Hyden was walking towards the tournament grounds with Little Condlin a few paces behind him, while Talon was flapping and struggling to maintain his balance beside his ear.
The archer from Westland looked angry and distracted, like he hadn’t slept in a while. He was sharply attired though, in a crisp white doublet, sporting the golden lion of his kingdom on the front and back of it. From fifty yards away, he put three arrows into the Wizard’s Eye and two just outside it in the King’s Ring. Loud boos and jeers came from the crowd gathered behind Hyden, but they were quickly drowned out by the cheers that erupted from the other side of the shooting lanes.
Hyden saw that the bleacher scaffolds from last night’s Brawl had been rebuilt along the length of the archery tournament grounds. They weren’t nearly as tall now. Hyden guessed that it was more because the field was long and narrow, than for any sort of safety concern. Unlike the night before, where crowds had been happy to be mingled hodgepodge together, today, the kingdom folk were segregated into factions bearing their kingdom’s colors, and sitting separate from the other kingdom folk who were in attendance.
The Redwolf soldiers of Wildermont were present in abundance, and had wisely seated the Seawardsmen on one side of the range, and the Westlanders on the other. This left them facing each other, which created an opening for some colorful gestures and crude threats to be thrown across the field, but the arrangement otherwise kept them from getting too close to each other. Hyden also noticed that there were plenty of Valleyans and Dakaneese in attendance. They had chosen to sit on the same side as the Seawardsmen, but stayed amongst themselves just the same.
“A true representation of the politics of fools,” the elven contender said, from a few feet away.
His two companions chuckled beside him and directed their wild, yellow eyes at Hyden.
“See,” The elf continued, as he pointed toward the people who were booing from behind them. Hyden looked, and saw his clansmen, and the womenfolk, filing in and taking seats together, yet separate from the people of the kingdoms.
“The weaker kingdoms fight among themselves enough to warrant the slight separation between them, yet they all take the same side against the west.” The elven archer looked directly into Hyden’s eyes then. “The rest of the pathetic humans just hide in the mountains.”