It made sense. The jerky, Hyden mused, did little to fill him on the trail. It barely quelled his hunger pangs most of the time. He decided that when the chick was asleep again, he would go find some fresh meat. Someone in the camp surely had some.
“The bucket was a clever idea,” his father said. “The hawkling can’t fall out, and you can carry it easily enough without disturbing it.”
He shifted his gaze to Hyden, and then waited until his son met his eyes.
“Is Gerard jealous? It was he who took the egg from the cliff, yes?”
“Aye. He took the egg in my stead, but he found a treasure of his own on the cliff. I think it’s more to his liking than this little chick.”
“Oh, he didn’t mention it earlier when we spoke.”
“He offered it to me too since he found it on my climb.”
Hyden didn’t say what it was. He felt he had already said too much. He didn’t want to betray Gerard’s trust. If Gerard wanted their father to know about the ring, then he would tell him himself.
“I could see that he wanted to keep it, so I refused it without offending him. I hope.”
“Aye,” came the grunted response. He could hear the reluctance in his son’s voice to speak on the matter, so he didn’t press the issue. He found he respected Hyden’s attempt not to speak his younger brother’s business. Gerard, he knew, would reveal his find when, and if, he decided he wanted to do so. It wasn’t Hyden’s place.
“They will be putting the doe that Orvin and his brothers killed on the fire soon.” He used Hyden’s shoulder as a handhold to help himself get back to his feet and groaned with the effort. “You should try to get a big piece of the liver. It’s lean and full of good stuff. Get either that or the loin. Cut thin little strips the size of earth worms.”
“Aye,” Hyden nodded, trying not to show that he had felt how much age was affecting his father these days. “Thank you for the advice.”
“Has the wound on your head affected your aim? Have you been practicing?” his father asked, as he returned the lantern to its hook by the doorway.
“I don’t think it has,” Hyden answered.
The truth was, he had forgotten the archery competition entirely. He was reminded suddenly of how important the upcoming event was to his father and the other Elders.
“I’ll resume practice in the morn.”
His father smiled, and gave an approving nod.
“That is the first of many wise decisions I hope you make son.”
Hyden understood the desire the Elders of his Clan had to win the archery competition, at least in theory. The seriousness, and vigor with which they pursued victory year after year, though, was beyond him. For generations, the Skyler Clan’s hunters had been the greatest archers in the realm. The Elders spoke of those times often, but, it had been before Hyden was born. The elves, who hadn’t been heard from for almost a hundred years, returned to the Evermore Forest the same year Hyden was conceived. Where they had disappeared to, or why they had come back, no one really knew, but since their return, they had dominated the Summer’s Day archery competition. Even stranger, was the fact that it was the only competition they had ever entered.
The elves insisted, in their haughty way, that the title had always been theirs. They said that the only reason the Skyler Clan had ever won, was because they had been tending to a different forest, and hadn’t been competing. The Eldest remembered it differently. He spoke of years long ago, when even the elven archers had been bested by the Skyler Clan’s hunters.
The Clan respected the elves as a people. In ancient times, they had even fought together side by side with the giants and the kingdom men against evil. They just couldn’t stand the fact that the elves hadn’t been beaten in such a long time, that only a few of the Elders could remember a Skyler Clan victory.
It was said that the annual contest had been around longer than the human race. From the time that man had begun to record history with parchment, quill, and ink, on the first day of Summer every year, in the sacred Leif Greyn Valley, under the shadow of the great, black monolith, called simply the Spire, the people of the realm had come together in peace to celebrate the spirit of life and competition. There were sword fighting and jousting competitions, as well as the three stone throw and the great tree pull. Over the last few decades, the biggest event had become the Bare Fisted Brawl. The Brawl drew a crowd as big as any that had ever been gathered. Like the elves though, the Skyler Clan had only one competitive interest: the archery competition.
Traders of all sorts came to the Summer’s Day Festival and set up wagon stores or pavilion tents to sell and display their wares. Horses and cattle were judged and marketed. Storytellers, bards, and puppeteers, as well as fortune-tellers, magi, and charlatans ran rampant. It was a festive gathering, in a mostly wholesome atmosphere, and it was the highlight of the Skyler Clan’s year.
Hyden knew he had to do well. He was sure that anything short of a win would disappoint his people. They had been trading at Summer’s Day since the beginnings, since the time they say it all began. The Summer’s Day Festival was where the harvested hawkling eggs were always sold, and where the goods and supplies that the mountains didn’t provide the Clan were purchased, but the archery tournament was all that really mattered. The event had become the Elder’s passion, and over the last few years; winning it had become an obsession.
The winners of each event, each year, not only won a small fortune in gold, they also had their name carved in the base of the spire for all to see. Hyden remembered standing at the base last year while his grandfather read the list of names. He had pointed out the Clan members as he came to them. For quite a few years in a row, it had been only his ancestors who had won the archery competition, and his grandfather was one of them. Then, for the last eighteen years straight, there were only elven names; Vagion, Droitter, Pattoom, and Ghanderion, all of them strange sounding and hard to pronounce. Hyden wanted badly to win this year, not for himself, but for his people. He had to admit though, he wouldn’t mind having his name etched and immortalized into the spire for all of eternity.
“Don’t take all the liver!” an angry, youthful voice barked out at him.
Hyden was jolted from his trance by the words. He had been thinking about what it might be like if he could actually win this year.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
He was unintentionally hoarding the good meat of a kill that wasn’t his own. With an apologetic grin, he took a few of the dark strips of liver meat he had cut and added them to the bright red strips of loin in his hand. He then made his way back to his father’s hut. Hyden’s head was still hurting and he felt a little dizzy. He wondered if the daydream that he had slipped off into was brought about by his head wound. He felt odd. It was a feeling he couldn’t quite describe even to himself. A moment later, he found himself staring down at the strips of meat in his hands. How had cutting so little of the stuff gotten his hands so bloody?
Gerard was waiting for him back at the hut. By the way his little brother was fidgeting and squirming in the chair, Hyden could tell something was amiss. He intentionally ignored Gerard for the moment and went about draping the strips of meat over the top edge of the bucket. The little bird woke with a screech, began stretching its neck and reaching up towards the meal. A recognition of instinct washed over Hyden, but he couldn’t quite grasp how he understood the feeling. It was like a fond memory of a favorite food. Only this longing was for a taste that he was sure he had never savored before. He wanted to eat the raw liver himself. Strange.
“Hyden!” Gerard half yelled, half whispered. “Come here, listen to me.”
After making sure that the hawkling could get at all of the strips by itself, he took a seat at the table and gave Gerard his full attention.
Gerard told Hyden, with a voice full of equal parts of excitement and fear, how he had sent Uncle Pylen off with the magical ring and a thought. He went on to tell him how the same sort of thing had worked on their father only a moment ago by the cook fire. Gerard said that their father had eased up to him and asked him if there was anything that he wanted to talk about, and said that if there was, that he would be willing to listen. Gerard had just mustered enough courage to put the ring back on, and after the incident with Pylen, he didn’t want to talk to his father about it yet.
“I told him in my mind to go ask Sharoo the same question,” Gerard said with huge eyes and waving hands. “He did! He just up and walked over to Sharoo and started talking to him. I felt the ring tingle through me Hyden. I felt it make it happen. I swear it.”
“Bah,” Hyden was doubtful. He could usually tell when Gerard was lying or exaggerating, but strangely enough, his brother seemed to be telling the truth.
“I’ll believe you if,” he paused for a moment, thinking, and a devilish grin slowly crept across his face. “Come on. Prove it to me.”
They both hurried outside. Hyden searched the groups of men and boys milling about for someone in particular. Gerard followed nervously, with one hand covering the ring. Hyden led them to the far side of the lodging grounds.
“There, over by the well,” he pointed. “Do you see Tevar, and his brother, Darry?”
“Yeah, I see them,” Gerard answered, wondering what his brother was up to.
“Make Tevar go tell Sharoo what he did with Sharoo’s sister the night before we left the village.”
A wide grin spread across Gerard’s face. This would be great.
“Call them over here.”
Hyden did. When they were all standing close, Hyden struck up a conversation.
“So how was your harvest Tevar? Darry?”
“I got four eggs,” Tevar said proudly.
“Three for me. I could’ve had two more, if I would’ve started earlier,” Darry added.
“I heard you’re going to be leaving us, since Gerard got you that hawkling chick,” Tevar said. “Where are you going to go first?”
Hyden didn’t register the significance of the question at first, and by the time he did, it was too late. When he made to ask Tevar what he meant, the boy was already heading towards the cook fire, blindly obeying Gerard’s silent command.
“What’s gotten into him?” Darry asked. “Hey, Tev, where are you going?”
“Leave him be,” Gerard said through a yawn. He was suddenly very tired. “You got three eggs huh? That’s pretty good.” Gerard put his arm around Darry’s shoulder, and then suddenly slumped to his knees.
Just then, a commotion broke out at the big fire. There were shouts and gasps, and then a primal battle cry. Several men burst out in laughter. Tevar then went racing past Hyden and Gerard with a terrified look on his young face. The older, and much bigger, Sharoo was right on his heels, brandishing a flaming chunk of wood as if it were a club. A few of Sharoo’s brothers trotted along behind them, making a half-hearted show of trying to stop, their enraged older brother.
Laughing, Hyden turned to tell his little brother that he believed him about the ring now, but Gerard was curled up at Darry’s feet, sound asleep and snoring. With Darry’s help, Hyden got his brother back to their father’s hut and into the bed.
After everyone had partaken of the fresh meat, the Council of Elders convened inside Hyden’s grandfather’s hut. Hyden was told to wait in his father’s hut, and to be ready to bring himself and the hawkling chick before the council when called upon. He was also charged with taking care of Gerard. Thankfully, everyone attributed his brother’s sudden slumber to the fact that he had climbed the nesting cliff two days in a row. Hyden strengthened that idea by suggesting that Gerard’s exhaustion had finally caught up with him. He knew it was more than just fatigue that had caused his brother to suddenly collapse, but he didn’t let on to the others. The giantess Berda, who frequented the clan’s village in the mountains when her husband’s herd of devil goats was grazing nearby, had told the people of the Skyler Clan many stories. Hyden remembered one in which a wizard cast a spell on a horse to make it fly. The wizard had slept for several days after casting the spell, because magic took its toll on men. Berda told them that using the magic had sapped his strength. Hyden figured that it was something similar happening with Gerard. At least he hoped so.
As Hyden waited, he watched the dying cook fire from the open doorway of his father’s hut. The blaze had reduced itself to a pile of embers, visited occasionally by a flicker of flame that danced around fleetingly before it wisped away in a curling stream of smoke. He wished the Elders would hurry and call him. He also wished he had taken a lot more of the stag meat before it had gone on the spit. Already, the hawkling chick was up and squawking, begging for more food. As he fed it the last bit of uncooked meat, his father stepped through the doorway.
“The Elders would like to see the hawkling chick now,” he said in his loving, fatherly tone. “We have decided that we must consult the White Lady, through the dragon skull, back at the gathering chamber before we can give you advice with any measure of confidence.”
The aging man walked over to where his younger son lay asleep. He knelt beside him and ran his hand through the boy’s hair.
“We all agree that yours and Gerard’s destinies are intertwined in some strange way. I only hope that it isn’t in a bad way. We hope the White Lady will help us guide you true, but consulting her will have to wait until we are home, when the Summer’s Day Festival and the archery competition are behind us.”
Hyden wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he was certain that his father was correct. Gerard’s strength and love had brought the hawkling chick to him. On the same token, Gerard wouldn’t have been up there to find the ring he seemed to be so fond of if he hadn’t climbed in Hyden’s stead. A strange revelation suddenly unfolded in Hyden’s mind, and he realized that all the little events of now would someday come to influence greater ones. He had a feeling that some would be grand, and others terrible. It all seemed very strange to him. All he could do was what his father had asked of him: try to make good decisions and do what he could to raise the hawkling, which at the moment was squawking loudly for more food.