Normally, when the council of Skyler clan Elders met, there was a great feast accompanied by much festivity and ceremony, but not on this occasion. The women of the clan were four days away in the foothills of the Giant Mountains, at the clan’s home village. There was no one here to decorate and prepare the elaborate meals that were usually served before such an event. The men didn’t forego tradition completely though. A group of boys were sent out to gather enough deadfall to build a bonfire, and another trio of older boys were sent out to hunt up some fresh meat. Others came to clear out the Eldest’s hut, which would be used as the meeting hall. Hyden and Gerard were forced to move themselves, and the hawkling, to their father’s smaller hut.
After they had gotten settled, Hyden fed the bird again, and then he decided it needed a more permanent nest. He waited until the chick was sleeping, then he went out and gathered some sticks and straw. In the bottom of an empty bucket, he built a new nest for the hawkling. Later, when the hawkling woke up, he transferred it from his shirt to its new home. The tiny thing chirped and squawked and hissed its distaste for the bucket. Hyden mistook this display for hunger, and fed the chick until it couldn’t eat anymore. Still, the hawkling protested. Only after Hyden tore up the shirt he’d first carried the bird in, and put the pieces of it in with the little chick, did it finally quieten down. By then it was mid-afternoon and Hyden’s head was pounding. He cleaned his wounds again. Afterwards, he laid down next to the bucket nest and fell fast asleep.
While Hyden was building the new nest, Gerard safely packed away Hyden’s five eggs with his own and their father’s. When that was done, Gerard went off to answer all the questions that his cousins were dying to know the answers to. He was the center of attention, and he enjoyed it. They asked him about his daring leap, and the extreme height of his climb, but mostly they asked about the hawkling chick, and Hyden. Gerard tried not to let that bother him. He was sort of glad because he didn’t want to tell anyone the real reason for the leap, or the extended climb. He told no one about the ring. It was put away in his belt pouch. Something odd had happened earlier, and he was certain that the ring had caused it. He hated to admit it to himself, but he was a little frightened over the matter.
His uncle, Pylen, had asked him if he held any ill will towards Hyden, since the egg had hatched for him. “Of course not,” he had replied. Unfortunately, the questions kept coming along those lines, and they made Gerard uncomfortable. Finally, while Uncle Pylen was in mid-question, Gerard had screamed inside his head, “STOP IT UNCLE PYLEN! GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!”
The words weren’t said aloud, but Pylen hadn’t finished the question he was asking. He simply stopped speaking, his eyes glazed over with confusion, and then he just up and walked away. The ring had heated on Gerard’s finger, and he had been filled with a tingling rush of energy. The energy from the ring had seemed to swirl up and wrap itself around Uncle Pylen like so much invisible smoke. Gerard had felt it, more than seen it, but there was no doubt that it was there. The ring was magic, and that scared him as much as it thrilled him.
For a long while, Gerard had just stood there watching Uncle Pylen walk off as if they had never spoken. Finally, he removed the ring and put it away. He did his best to forget the event, but he couldn’t. He decided to tell Hyden what had happened, but Hyden had fallen asleep. He ended up carrying on with the younger boys long enough that the event had faded from his mind almost completely. Every now and then though, he could feel the heat of the ring tickle his finger, even though it was put away. It wasn’t until later, when he saw his father striding proudly across the lodge grounds, that he was able to let go of the memory completely. He raced to his father’s side with his chest swelled out, his head held high, and a beaming smile stretched across his face.
“I got eight eggs, pap,” he bragged, in a voice far higher in pitch than he intended. “And six, no, well, five for Hyden.”
“I know, son,” his father replied, with a smile as big as Gerard’s. “I asked the White Lady to show me a sign when I’d been forgiven for my wastefulness.” He stopped walking and spread his arms open wide to embrace his son. “And lo and behold, she gave me so much more than just a simple sign!”
He gave Gerard a squeeze, and then ruffled his hair as they started walking again. “I’m proud of you son. You did well.”
Gerard’s step took on a new cockiness, and if it was possible, his chest swelled out even further than before.
“Where’s Hyden?”
“Asleep in your hut,” Gerard answered. “He tripped over some rocks yesterday and split his melon.”
“Hmmm,” his father sounded, with a curious expression on his face. “I’d best go check on him.”
“Aye,” Gerard agreed, with mock seriousness in his voice. “You really should. After all, he’s a mother now!”
Gerard wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard a grunt of laughter come from deep inside his father as he strode away.
Hyden was awake and feeding the squawking chick when his father entered the hut. His father took the oil lamp from the hook by the open entryway and carried it closer. He had to hold it high over the bucket to be able to see the chick down in the bottom of it. He stood there a long while studying the baby bird. Hyden glanced up with a grin on his face. His father returned the smile, only it was the smile of an Elder, not the smile of his father that Hyden saw.
“Much responsibility has been bestowed upon you son. Do not take it lightly. The rearing of this Godsend, and all the choices you make from this very moment, will determine whether your future will be terrible or grand.”
Hyden wasn’t sure exactly what all that meant, but he nodded as if he understood. He felt his father’s demeanor change as he knelt beside him and peered into the bucket for a closer look. The seriousness of the Elder passed, and his father’s pride and wonder began to show through again.
“It eats a lot,” Hyden said excitedly. “I’ve already fed it more than I can remember.”
“Its mother would be feeding it strips of fresh meat, bugs, mice, squirrels, rabbits and the like,” his father informed him. “I don’t think the dried salted meat is robust enough to fill its little belly.”
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.
In his grandfather’s crowded hut, the Elders only had a moment to gawk in awe and wonder at the hungry little hawkling chick. Hyden kept the bucket in his hands protectively as he showed it around the room. A commotion from outside seemed to be intruding on the gathering, drawing everyone’s attention away from the bird. Then someone outside gasped loudly. Another voice shouted out something that sounded urgent. A moment later, Little Condlin burst into the Eldest’s hut. All eyes shot toward the sweat covered, wide eyed boy.
“Wendlin has fallen from the cliff!” He choked as the tears started to pour from his eyes. The room started to erupt with questions and concern, but the boy held his hand up to stall them.
“That’s not all of it,” he sobbed. “Jeryn is stuck above the Lip in the darkness.”