After the Brawl, the night’s excitement ended abruptly for Hyden. Gerard followed him back to the clan’s bonfire, which was relatively deserted at this late hour. A lot of other clansmen had attended the Brawl, but they were either still out among the crowds, or had already retired for the night.
Hyden presented Gerard with the pair of expensive horsehide boots he bought for him earlier in the day. Gerard thanked him, and gave him a long hug of appreciation, and then begged off, saying that he needed to go collect his winnings. Hyden figured that he just didn’t want to face their father, or any of the Elders, with his decision to leave yet.
Hyden didn’t mind Gerard’s departure. He was tired and his eyes ached. He still had to compete against that blasted elf in the morning, and he couldn’t get to bed until he cared for the hungry hawkling chick that he had neglected all evening.
He took the nest bucket from his tent and carried it over to the dying bonfire. The chick ate greedily, and Hyden saw that its eyes had finally cleared.
The memory of the old crone’s prophecy, and of his eyes zooming in on the tiny dart that the little witch-devil had shot into Lord Gregory’s shoulder came to him. His stomach knotted and churned, and he sat down hard in a cross-legged hunch.
He finished feeding the bird, and scooped it out of the bucket gently. He put it in his lap and began stroking its new feathers with his finger.
The feathers were brown, with traces of red and silver running through them. In the dim fire glow, they seemed to hold an illumination of their own. The bird’s beak and head had taken shape as well, but all in all, the little hawkling was still no bigger than Hyden’s hand.
“Are you really a gift from the gods?” Hyden wondered aloud.
As if in response, the young bird fluttered its wings and managed to fly a few feet. It didn’t land well. It toppled sideways on a half open wing and made a little shriek of pain, or maybe it was frustration, after righting itself. It turned around then, and leapt from the trampled ground. With a quick double flap of its wings, it flew back to Hyden, and landed almost gracefully on his knee. Hyden had to chuckle, for the bird seemed to be puffing out its chest, proud of the accomplishment.
Hyden stroked the back of its head with one finger, and put the index finger of his other hand out before it. Somehow, the bird understood his intent and stepped onto the offered perch. Hyden marveled at how strong its tiny claws gripped him.
“I suppose the gods didn’t name you yet, did they?” Hyden whispered. “Your tail feathers haven’t lengthened enough for me to tell if you’re male or female. We need a name that will suit you either way.”
The hawkling cooed at him, then dug its claws into his finger deeply. Instinctively, Hyden yanked his hand away, and shook it. The bird flapped and fluttered back to the ground awkwardly.
“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.”
Talon let out a loud shriek from Hyden’s shoulder. The sound drew the feral gaze of all six yellow elven eyes to him.
“And some people are so afraid, that they only crawl out of the forest once a year to the one place where we humans are sworn not to fight,” Hyden returned hotly.
He wanted to say more, but held his tongue and fought down his anger. If the elf had been trying to unsettle him, the trick had worked.
The elves kept their eyes on Talon, but Hyden’s sharp words caused all three of them to narrow their brows, and the elves were colored with rage. The elven archer gave Hyden the slightest of looks, then pulled his bow from its leather case and began to string it.
The crowd around the tournament field quieted as the Valleyan archer took the line. He looked resplendent, in his ringed leather armor, sporting the yellow and red checked Valleyan shield patch on his breast, and a similar shield shaped symbol of his kingdom’s honor guard on his shoulder in shining silver. It had been rumored, and in fact was true, that the man’s mother had been born in Dakahn, so a sort of alliance had formed within the crowd. The part of the story where the Valleyan horse trader had bought the Dakaneese woman from a slaver, for an old mare and some sacks of meal, had been conveniently left out.
Hyden watched with respectful understanding as the young man took several deep breaths and squeezed his eyes shut for a quick prayer. No doubt someone had piled up a wagonload of pressure on his shoulders too. The myriad distractions that seemed to come from everywhere were probably weighing on him. Only the glittery haired, alien looking elf seemed oblivious to the tension that was humming through the air.
The Valleyan man took his time and shot well. He repeated the Westland archer’s results, to the boos of the greater kingdom’s overwhelming numbers.
A large Valleyan man wearing ringed leather armor, probably the archer’s father, bolted across the field hurling curses and insults at the whole of the Westlanders’ bleachers. Before the Redwolf soldiers could get to him, a pair of green and gold clad men, rushed out to rebuke the man’s words, and a fight erupted. There was an explosion of screaming and yelling between the two sides across the archery field, and Hyden was a little concerned that the whole place would turn into a battleground. Finally, the skirmish ended when the three men involved in the actual fight were put in chains and marched slowly across the field for all to see. Needless to say, the crowd settled down. The place was at a near hush when the combatants were placed in a wagon cage, near where the targets were, and hauled away.
As soon as the Wildermont soldiers motioned for the event to continue, the elf stole away all of the kingdom men’s hope for victory. He loosed five arrows at his target in rapid succession, as smoothly and calmly as if he were merely sipping wine from a cup. All five arrows appeared to be sprouting from the Wizard’s Eye, but Hyden could see plainly when he looked down at the target that only four were completely in the center mark. He would have to match the score or the event was over. Either way, the crowd had been silenced completely. Neither of the kingdom men could win now. It took a few minutes for this to sink into the minds of the spectators, and when it did, they all seemed to lose interest, and started to filter away from the stands.
Hyden took his place at the line, and then urged Talon from his shoulder onto his finger. He traded Little Condlin the bird for his bow with, and then took a deep breath.
It occurred to him that it was more of a distraction to see all those people leaving from out of the corner of his eye, than it would have been if they stayed and had made some noise. He forced it all out of his mind, took another deep breath, and sought out a place inside him that was both calm and serene. From there, he began to focus.
His eyes seemed to zoom in on the Wizard’s Eye, and before he knew it, he had loosed an arrow. Seeing the shaft sprouting out of the dead center of the target helped keep the world around him at bay. In a daze-like state of concentration, that had him seeing the coin sized Wizard’s Eye as if it were the size of an apple, he pulled back on another arrow and let it fly. Twice more his arrows struck the Wizard’s Eye true. As he put his fourth arrow to the bow string, he distantly wondered what Shaella and her company were doing at that very moment. It took a moment for him to find the space in the target’s center for the fourth arrow, but he saw it between the first three, just a tiny triangle of black that grew in his eyes, like a rabbit did from the sky. He loosed the arrow at it, and knew before the arrow had even struck the target that he had hit his mark. He reached for his fifth arrow, if he could fit it into the crowded Wizard’s Eye somehow, he could end the tournament right here, but, it would be next to impossible to make that happen. Already the target’s center was full.
Somewhere, outside the world of his focus, he heard the trio of the elves gasping and grumbling. He let the satisfaction that the sound gave him fade, and studied the Wizard’s Eye. Even if he put his fifth arrow in the center, it would force the edge of one of his previous shafts out into the King’s Ring. It was worth a try though, so he raised his bow, drew back on it, and took aim at the center of the target yet again. A flicker of movement, that he thought was far beyond the target, caught his eye, and then disappeared again. Maybe it was an insect up close that had distracted him. He wasn’t sure. No, he could still see it. It was moving through the air, too uniformly to be a bug. Finally, he realized that it was an arrow arcing towards them from a great distance. A glance at where it would’ve been loosed from, revealed a small group of mounted men. A banner wavered in the light breeze among them. It was a white rectangle, with a black sword emblazoned on it horizontally. It was the Blacksword of Highwander, Willa the Witch Queen’s men.
Hyden almost loosed his arrow astray when he saw the face of a woman that greatly resembled Shaella peeking out from under a hood amongst them. Was it her? He looked again, but they were too far away for him to tell.
The arrow was coming down towards him now, and it was fast. Hyden could tell that it would miss him, but it would be close. He followed its trajectory with his eyes. It was coming down right at the elven archer. There was no time left to think. He turned swiftly and loosed his arrow at the incoming missile. It was a one in a million shot, but, he somehow found his mark only a few feet before the shaft pierced through the elf.
All three of the elves shrieked in startled pain, as they were showered with wooden splinters. Thinking instinctually that Hyden had attacked, one of them drew out a dagger and charged.
“HOLD!” the elven archer screamed out, so loudly that it startled Hyden out of the strange, trance-like state he had fallen into. The knife bearing elf froze in his tracks. The elven archer was looking up at the sky with his hand held at his brow to shade his eyes from the sun’s glare. Several trickles of blood ran down his cheeks like tears. For some reason, Hyden was reminded of the tear drop scar on Shaella’s otherwise perfect face. Then the sound of fat heavy rain drops, and the screams of people from several different directions, filled his ears.
The elf was screaming something that Hyden couldn’t understand, and then Little Condlin made a wheezing, muffled grunt behind him. Hyden whirled around, to find that the boy had an arrow sticking up out of his shoulder. His cousin was trying to scream, but for some reason couldn’t manage it. It wasn’t raindrops he was hearing, Hyden realized as tears filled his eyes. He dove to catch the boy, as he staggered to his knees. Talon somehow got pinned between them, and was shrieking and flapping madly. Blood dribbled down Little Condlin’s chin from his mouth. Arrows were raining down on them, and Hyden had no clue as to why it was happening, or what he could do about it.
Without any regard for his own safety, he hovered over Little Condlin and Talon, shielding them with his body, while shouts and screams, and the sound of ringing steel filled the air around them. A perfect Summer’s Day had just turned into an incomprehensible bloody nightmare.