Hardt's Tale: A Mobious' Quest Novel Read online

  Conveniently, first on the meeting’s docket after Jaydee Mytree’s introduction of the newest settlers was the issue of what to do about the Kyirghon keeping Strayers out of the western bos. During the heated discussion, the silent Vyck and her nephew were nominated to hunt down the kyirghon.

  “Vyck is the finest hunter we’ve got. She and Hardt can kill the thing if anyone can.”

  “And if she’s gored no one will notice she’s gone.” This witticism came from a cruel and anonymous voice deep in the crowd.

  “But you’d have to tan your own kill again, Brower.” Jaydee, standing on a tree stump, identified the wit. “I’m more than willing to join the hunting party but too many will spook the creature beyond capture.”

  “We could set a trap and spook the kyirghon into it.” Heigna, a young woman hungry for a fight, pushed to where the hunters were gathering around an uncomfortably out of place Garce, father of the Mytree who left the killing to his well-liked bond, Jaydee

  “Or drive it into the fields and let the dragons take it.”

  Shouts of “Hurrah!” and “That’s it!” followed Brower’s suggestion.

  “Oh yes, brilliant idea. Who’ll just go fetch a dragon to our bidding, hm?”

  “What about poisoned bait?”

  While the hunters of the shale gravitated to the center of the gathering arguing different tactics to kill the beast, Vyck remained where she stood a little apart watching the discussion, her bright gray eyes taking in each interested hunter. Vyck stood as tall as any man in the shale, passed only by Hardt in the last season. She had the family’s broad, strong shoulders, improved by her fourteen frseason living in the southern forests, bos, and bogs. Her hair was kept closely cropped since she’d had hacked off the lustrous black tumbles of it the night she fled her family’s village. Overall, it was a formidable woman who now watched the debate with calm impatience.

  Hardt, though one of the finest hunters, stood apart as well not quite ignoring the commentary run by Noah, Jaydee and Garce’s fourth child third son, standing at his side. He watched the scene with the same wary alertness as his aunt. Anyone watching them, as indeed Garce was from the center of the rising conflict, would have been struck by the more than familial resemblance between the two. And when their eyes met, though the public argument raged on, the Mytree sire knew that the matter had been decided.

  Vyck’s pointed contralto cut through the babble, “You can have the meat and the hooves and the antlers. We’ll keep the hide. We’ll take along Mytree’s horn and when either one of us or the buck is killed, we’ll blow it and you can carry the body back here for whatever celebration you desire.” She nodded to Brower. “Sunup after next we’ll go. We will need some particular supplies. Hardt will come round to borrow them from you.” She glanced over to the injured man for permission, “Perhaps the retrieval party could wait at Badren’s cottage?”

  A judiciously drugged Badren struggled with consciousness on his litter, “You’re welcome to it.”

  “Thank you. Then that is settled. What’s next on the docket, Garce?”

  And no one argued with her. Hardt collected the horn, some rope, and the dung the next day as well as confirming that there would be enough at Badren’s cottage to carry the beast. In the end Gaerel the near healer joined Garce, Jaydee, their four eldest including the extremely jealous Frair, his equally miffed girlfriend Heigna, and a few other adventure-loving souls for what turned out to be the long wait at Badren’s.

  The kill had finally occurred quite near Badren’s cottage and Vyck’s shouts to Hardt were heard clearly by Garce, Frair, and Gaerel who were outside, hanging a new door against the coming storm. They alerted the others and by the time the Kyirghon’s screams were dying on the wind, the party had set out with food and fresh water, medical supplies, and much equipment for hauling the carcass. The horn blast found them nearly at the kill site where the victorious hunters were huddled miserably under the dubious shelter of an early blooming tree, applying aloe to their numerous cuts and scrapes. Noah and Gaerel escorted Hardt and Vyck back to their cottage, fixed them a hot meal, and put them to bed against their protests while Jaydee organized the skinning of the beast.

  Vyck woke later at the sudden silence when the storm abated to find Noah and Gaerel gone. She stepped outside onto the wet grass. The moon was high but descending and the hide had been delivered. They had left it under the sun tarp and let the rain flaps down. Vyck, though tired and sore, gathered her tools and set to preparing the hide. Soon she pulled down a thick winter rabbit fur from where it hung on one of the poles to shield her bare feet from the cold stone ground of the tanning tent as she stretched the hide onto the stakes she set up under the tarp.

  Still caught in the relaxed comfort of near sleep, Vyck’s thoughts floated in her brain like dreams as she went through the almost ritual process of cleaning the skin of death and preparing it to be of use for the living. Her mind wandered as it often did over the landscape of her past. Great big Hardt had been so little once she had carried him on her back as she hunted, his tiny fists grabbing at butterflies and flowers. He’d wrinkle his nose at the death she’d carry home with them. The small cottage she’d built slowly, learning as she worked what woods were best and which dragonbed was easiest to quarry.

  Hardt never did speak much. He’d first started playing with sounds well after their arrival in Stray. While she admitted freely that she was a quiet woman, Vyck had tried to speak to the infant as much as she felt was healthy for her sanity. She called him all the old tales that she knew and Hardt was a good listener. He smiled and knit his tiny brow in concern at the appropriate moments. He just never responded until Jaydee Mytree brought her youngest, at the time, to visit.

  Noah, younger than Hardt by many seasons, giggled and gurgled and babbled so infectiously that Hardt was soon trying out the sounds for himself. During Jaydee and Noah’s second visit, after some careful testing with Vyck, Hardt launched into teaching Noah how to speak words.

  Vyck, who hadn’t noticed how the people of her birth village, Pace, had been hurting her until she’d seen them neglecting Hardt, watched him take control of the relationship with approval. She was unable herself, however, to accept as easily Jaydee’s proffered friendship.

  The kidnapping aunt paused in her midnight work for some water which she drew from the covered keg beside the cottage. As she drank, she ran a briefly rinsed hand through her cropped hair with some regret. She thought, not often, of letting it grow back but considered that she’d cut off the past with her hair and it was best not to risk inviting it back. The truth is she’d thrown herself so completely into this new life of raising Hardt in an empty land with all the love he deserved, that she had forgotten the fierce anger with which she had cut off the hair and the heart her loves had used against her. It was her heart that she feared not the past. She had loved her hair; the cool swish of it on her back, head tilted to the sun. The joy of its wild energy twisting and flying in the wind, the romantic way it draped mysteriously in front of one eye caressing her face. When that too had been used to hurt her, she’d lost all hope in love… in joy and so she hacked it off. Best now to love Hardt and the forest and let the others all be. But, ignorant of her true heart, Vyck finished her work on the skin wishing lightly that she had met the very kind Jaydee before her heart had, so she imagined, closed and vowing once again to be friendly at the festival that would surely take place tomorrow over the meat of the Kyirghon.

  Hardt’s breath remained slow and deep as she stepped inside and checked on him, grabbing a hoska from the breadcubby and spreading it with an illicit spoonful of honeycream. With brilliant timing the rain began falling again as she leaned in the doorway to watch the sun rise. Then with a rarely seen smile she stripped off her bloody clothes, dropped them outside in the rain, and cuddled back into bed in her underthings to sleep through the dreary morning.

  Two

  ∞

  The storm kept the shale indoors the whole nex
t day but children ran the tale of the kyirghon kill from cottage to cottage and when the day dawned dry the following morning, the festival was well on its way to legend.

  Just about one hundred and four springs before the kyirghon kill the landers had established a tradition of festivals when they had, after a year of hiking from the shore where they had beached their boats, chosen the site of the first settlement in this their new land of Kaveg. Weary was so chosen and so named when one of the eldest of the pilgrims had thrown down his pack and declared, irritably, “That’s it. It has been a year. I’m tired beyond words and I am not walking any further.”

  And so the first festival began. It lasted for nine sundowns and amidst the dancing and the singing and the tale calling, a long encircling wall was built to protect the new settlers while they built homes and the first castle. Ten families stayed in Weary while the rest of the pilgrims journeyed on for nearly another year before they reached a beautiful clearing to the northwest of a large lake where the shale Voferen and its castle of Kahago, the great center of Kaveg, home to the ruling queen and partner, and haven for all landers was established. That festival lasted until the hardiest of storycallers was hoarse, the castle was well under way, and Chyell had been elected the first queen. A rider was sent to Weary to get their approval of Chyell's election and her return occasioned a resurgence in the reveling. Festivals had since needed very little excuse or reason and could spring up at any place at any time.

  This festival failed to rival those first stress-busting fetes, but was nonetheless a tale for callers. A feast of kyirghon meat had been expected, but thanks to the storm, the feast was delayed. Families who had begun cooking, continued cooking all through the day of rain. Families who had begun decorating, replanned and designed and cut and built lanterns and statues and games and drapes. Kiersta, the candymaker, invited three creative children to stay with her and invent new uses for chocolate. They worked through the night. The shale, which spent most of its time happily isolated from one another, eking out sustenance from the land and on constant alert for dragons and disease, broke out of their forced solitude at this the slightest of excuses with the force of a hundred and four frseasons’ tradition backing them up.

  Sundown three days after the hunt found Vyck curled up to the side of the dancesquare with Hundred Mytree and the other under eights. She had an arm around little Firth and his sister, Calien. They were snuggled in against each other, watching the adults struggling valiantly to keep up with Ladamé’s drumming. Feet flew on the dancesquare and sweat. Hair, previously tucked up with care slipped its ties and spun clouds in the air and in other dancers’ faces. Screams of laughter and surrender vied with the stomping and clapping of those smart enough to stay off the floor.

  Ladamé danced around her drums, hands and hair wild, feet clacking an impenetrable hemiola to the drums in a final fiery unmatchable flourish of rhythm. Then she froze and the revelers, now silent to a person, waited, held their breaths until Ladamé, satisfied that the last echo was fled to the deepest forests, far into the bos, collapsed to her blankets in exhaustion. Then and only then the roar of approval exploded, chasing the rhythm up to the stars. Dancers fell into each others’ arms. Watchers pounded on the wooden floor with their chairs. Children bearing water ran through the happy crowd.

  Hardt looked over to where Vyck was being jostled by the sleepy littleuns, cheering less raucously on this the third night of Ladamé’s drumming out the stars. Vyck, holding Hunny carefully in the midst of flying bodies, was staring quietly up at those stars, her eyes following something. Hardt glanced up. A dragon was circling overhead. Entranced, he watched the magnificent creature soaring across the starfield and waited for the first dullard to look up and scream in fright.

  Almost ahead of cue, Brower screamed for his children to abandon the clearing and hide beneath the trees. Several of the beastkeepers ran for their paddocks and more than one of the smoky young men around Hardt ran for their weapons to defend the shale. The shadow of a smile crossed Hardt’s lips as he saw his aunt put up a hand and wave farewell to the dragon who was flying off away into the west.

  Noah tugged at his arm, “Hardt, come on. They’ll not have thought to put out the fire. I’ve got some blankets.”

  Hardt turned to the boy and took a blanket from him, following slowly through the crowd. As they neared the fire, he saw that Noah was right. No one had thought to quench the beacon. He also saw it would take more than a couple of blankets and wasn’t worth the effort.

  “Noah, wait. The dragon is gone. It’ll not be back with this many of us gathered in one space and we’ll be cold without the fire.”

  “You don’t think it’ll be back?”

  “No, I don’t. We’ve no more kyirghon cooking, so what’s to attract it?”

  The younger boy looked around apprehensively before he quietly answered. “If it’s hungry, there are a lot of drunken Stray folk here who would have difficulty defending themselves.”

  “There are tender youngsters aplenty too, but does Vyck look at all worried?”

  Noah looked around for the children’s favorite toy and found Vyck making faces with his baby sister and stick-fighting a slightly older boy. She showed no concern about the fire-breathing monster which had just scouted them. “She seems fine and the children around her aren’t scared.” He turned back to Hardt, comforted and confused by Vyck’s apparent composure. “But why? Why isn’t she running the children to safety?”

  Noah couldn’t understand Hardt’s calmness either. Both boys had been raised here on the edge of civilization where dragons still frequented the skies. Beastkeepers everywhere reported losses from their herds and here they’d both helped round up herds that were spooked and scattered by the monsters. And less than a year ago that new weaver and Heigna’s sister had both gone missing.

  Life is full of tragedy and chance. Garce and Jaydee’s children were no strangers to these facts regardless of their parents’ unquenchable optimism. However, to Noah’s thinking, any preventable tragedy should be prevented at all costs and the dragons fell into this category. He refused to go stone quarrying and learned instead to work with wood, illogically undaunted by its flammability. He bathed daily in the most heavily tree-shrouded section of the river to reduce the temptation of scent. He avoided clearings but would occasionally, without telling his mother who could have explained from experience why one does not feed stray wolves, take some of his kill to a clearing in hopes a circling dragon would fill its belly with the offering and not go after the human prey in the shale.

  Hardt knew of this habit of Noah’s and saw the dangerous invitation of it, but he said nothing because he was impressed by his friend’s bravery. He imposed now on Noah’s good nature to help subside what he saw as the unnecessary panic that had taken over the festival. He and Vyck had seen dTelfur humans in the distance on a few of their longer hunting journeys and he saw no fear in them for their large mounts and so saw little need himself to be afraid.

  “Vyck knows that we are safe and doesn’t want the children to be scared or hurt by panic.” Hardt handed his blanket back to Noah. “Here, they look cold. Go and reassure them. I’ll go find Kalina and ask him to give us some magic now the sun is down.”

  Kalina approved of Hardt’s suggestion that he distract the now tired, variously drugged, overstuffed and overexcited people of Stray. He had been looking for just such confirmation that it was a good idea, that the dragon was no real danger this time. With Hardt’s reassurance, the charismatic caller moved calmly and slowly through the panicked crowd blowing puffs of smoke from his pipe in the shapes of castles, cats, and kyirghon which drifted into clouds with a wave of his hand. He whistled an old marching tune, one of the many from the long hike, and called the children to him, reassuring adults as he passed.

  “Kalina, now is not the time.” Tirce swung her young son up into her arms. “There are dragons in the sky.”

  “Ah,” Kalina raised a finger to accentuate his poin
t and a small flame poofed above it and flickered like a candle, “but now they are gone. We have scared them… blow,” he held the finger by the obliging child and the flame went out, “away.”

  “Kalina…”

  “Tirce, you are much safer here than alone in your cottage with the kids and the cat.”

  Tirce stayed. Most of the community did. They gathered around Kalina on the dancesquare and listened to him call his tales and illustrate himself with simple magics– levitation, a mini-thunderstorm, pebbles which built themselves into a tiny wall around him. Wisely he did no more fire magics and called no dragon tales.

  “Hardt!” Heigna hurried over to where Hardt stood alone, watching Kalina from far behind the crowd. “Hardt, have you seen Frair?”

  “Not for a while.”

  The girl was understandably agitated, pacing tightly between Hardt and the forest edge wringing the long draped sleeves of her typically dark-colored festival dress. Heigna had about three summers on Hardt but only came up to his chin. She’d been dressing in dark colors since her sister had disappeared. Camouflage. With her charcoal skin and hair, she could disappear into the night and hide, Hardt thought, not only from dragons.

  “We should kill it.” She stood still in front of Hardt.

  “So go kill it. Who’s stopping you?”

  “I need help!”

  Hardt said nothing, but Heigna caught the smiling glint in his eyes. “Help to kill it, I mean!” she amended and punched him.