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

  Hardt thought farther back as he sat down with his tools, tried to remember a time before Stray. He sometimes imagined he could remember his mother’s face, but the face he conjured up could easily have been only a younger Vyck. He thought he remembered a swirling river and for some reason a bear, but again Vyck had told him about the accident and his fever so Hardt couldn’t be sure he remembered anything from Pace, before their secret hike.

  The trials of his early childhood didn’t much bother Hardt. He couldn’t remember them and he’d always been content with his aunt. He loved Vyck and was loved completely by her. He’d never wanted for anything they couldn’t invent between them. Meeting new people had been an interesting change in the past several frseason but he was satisfied with Vyck’s company alone.

  He completely failed to recognize the dull ache of desire in his soul. Vaguely he was aware that it would be enjoyable to have someone avoid him as carefully as his aunt avoided Getek. He was also somewhat aware that he felt responsible for Vyck’s not welcoming Getek’s attention like honeycream and also that he didn’t necessarily mind not having to share her.

  So caught up was he in these thoughts that Hardt failed to hear the stampeding Kyirghon until they burst through the brush and into the camp. Three sharpened shortsticks leaned against the fallen log he automatically stood up from. A fourth, still rather dull stick was in his hands along with his honing knife. He had several kaaat hanging from his belt beside the sling and the leather loop. None of these weapons registered in Hardt’s mind when the first young buck was leaping over the fire at him. He punched it.

  A left backhand to the head pushed the kyirghon out of its path and unfortunately pushed Hardt into the path of the next stampeding animal. He caught himself against the fall on her flank with his knife hand, raking a gash along her right side though she kept running as she screamed. The third ran far wide of him but he fell to his right to avoid the dam running fourth. He got his hands down on the log to catch himself just in time to see the cat leaping over the fire at the dam’s haunches. Hardt kicked up his legs and pushed off the log with all of his strength hitting the cat square in her exposed chest with his booted feet. He heard ribs crack and felt her trajectory change even as he yanked his legs back to the ground, grabbed a shortstick, and twisted back to face the angry cat who had fallen, rolled, and leaped with far more grace and a coiled tail that gave her speed.

  With no time to think, Hardt jammed the stick into the creature’s throat, brushed away one claw with the knife and turned, pushing into the stick with all his force, hoping she would crack something on the log in her fall this time. One of her giant paws had reached him though and four long claws sunken deep into his upper chest and left arm dragged him down and around with her, into the barely banked fire. She cracked her head open on one of the ring stones and he knocked his face on her teeth. Unaware she’d been finished by the stone and unable to get away from the claws, Hardt got both hands clamped around her jaw and twisted, snapping the creature’s neck.

  Later, after the guarde had arrived from all sides at a dead run, heard his tale, and run off after the kyirghon leaving Gaerel with Hardt and the badly frightened Sirte who’d arrived first to find Hardt on a burning pyre and covered in blood, Hardt had time to wonder why he’d attacked the cat.

  Sirte was pacing around the cold firepit with her hands over her face trying desperately to catch a breath and calm her hysterical crying. After making a remarkable dent in the dead cat’s head with a stone from her sling, the girl had heroically damped the fire and detached Hardt from the cat before throwing up. But with Gaerel there to see to the emergency, she was now free to shiver uncontrollably and blame herself. Hardt waved the healer away from his wounds, ordering him to see to the girl. He wanted time alone with his own self-deprecation.

  He stood and wandered back over to the log where he had been sitting, lost so far in his thoughts that he hadn’t been prepared to defend the camp from a stampede any weaver would have heard with ears stuffed with wittenrood flowers. And come down to it, he thought, he would have acquitted himself fine if he just hadn’t attacked the cat. If he’d let the cat bring down the kyirghon he could have dispatched both cat and dam with a couple of the spears sticking in the ground by his sleeping roll and then gone after the kyirghon infants who wouldn’t have survived for long in any case without their dam. Why had he saved the mother?

  Getek, Frair, Brower, and Heigna returned just after the bondstar set. Frair and Heigna were covered in scratches where their exposed skin had been grabbed by the burry thickets that grew in patches out this way and Getek’s gloves were covered in the burrs and thorns. Brower was unscathed.

  Getek stripped off his gloves and spoke briefly with a somewhat calmer Sirte while making sure that Gaerel saw to Frair and especially to Heigna whose rash might leak its poison into the new cuts. Brower grabbed a strip of rabbit pemmican from the smokebag hanging on the undismantled spit and sat himself on the log next to Hardt.

  “So, you’re some great hunter. You conjured them to come straight to you.” He pounded Hardt on the back and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, resting his hand on the bandaged claw wounds. “But what I don’t get is why you let them go. Did you feel sorry for the poor orphans? Didn’t want them to lose their mommy like you did?”

  “Brower, back off.” Getek shoved a mug of water at the man.

  “Getek, I’m just having some…”

  “Unless you want to talk about what happened to your children’s mother, back off.”

  Brower stood instantly, his fists coming up of their own accord before he thought better of it. “What do you know?” he growled.

  The former roaming guardesman was not intimidated. “The truth. Now see if you can’t get the fire going again.”

  For a moment it looked like Brower was going to hit Getek, but the moment passed and the man slipped by and took his anger out on the firepit.

  “How are you doing?” Getek sat down and handed his provident a second mug of water.

  “I’m sorry.” Hardt took a deep breath and looked into Getek’s face before taking the mug. “I’m sorry I messed up.”

  “I don’t like snakecats.” The guardesman absently picked dirt from his nails. “They are especially vicious when they kill and they don’t usually eat very much of their prey at all. It would make more sense for them to feed on rabbits and vermin. It would not have made me happy to see a snakecat torture our mother kyirghon after we had decided to let her live. Saving her life, it makes you a good guy, not a bad guardesman.”

  “But I wasn’t alert. They were in the camp before I knew they were on me.”

  “That was a serious mistake. But I can teach you concentration and how to keep watch on a long and thoughtful night, and I bet you’ll learn quickly. But how to fight a snakecat hand to hand and win, well you’ll have to teach me that.”

  Hardt’s shame would be his finest teacher because the boy had learned, painfully, the results of failure. Such mistakes were difficult, but if survived they were the most effective education. Getek could map the lessons which had forged his personality with the scars on his body and he was grateful few of his lessons had been marked by others’ scars. Those lessons were harder.

  Getek shout out and gathered the front together when the fire had been resuscitated. He checked in with each member of the guarde and got a report of the wounds from Gaerel. Hardt was the most seriously injured but it was obvious that Sirte would need more attention. Seeing Gaerel’s concern for the girl’s shivering, Brower got her to huddle with him in a blanket under the guise of getting gossip on the extent of Hardt’s injuries. Frair wrapped himself in a blanket as well, but Heigna, though wearing little, was covered in a lotion and she crouched near the fire to stay warm and dry faster.

  “We are now down to three kyirghon, two females and a male.”

  Sirte interrupted, “But what do we do about the dragon?”

  “Dragon?” Hardt had clearly missed som
ething.

  “The dragon was flying westward, away from us. If we keep our hike to the thickest tree cover and stay alert, we should be okay.”

  “Besides, it got quite a meal in that doe.”

  “Dragon?” Hardt repeated himself a bit louder.

  Heigna answered. “A dragon got your wounded doe before we could reach it.”

  “We set out, following the kyirghon’s easy trail until it crossed a creek. They must have realized the cat wasn’t on them anymore,”

  Sirte interrupted Frair to correct him, “Snakecat.”

  “Snakecat?” Heigna turned to Hardt, incredulous.

  He nodded.

  “Woah. Happy to have you with us.” Frair was momentarily stunned. He continued. “Well, the trail disappeared. But Brower picked it up again from the blood the doe was leaving all over the thickets. We figured she couldn’t keep leaping them with such a wound and sure enough they started finding ways around the thickets.”

  “They slowed down, wouldn’t leave her behind.” Heigna piped in.

  “We caught up to them when they reached a clearing in the trees. The buck and healthy doe were grazing and the dam was picking a path out for your bleeding doe who didn’t look like she could make it that far.”

  Frair took a breath and Brower chimed in. “The dam had claw marks on her side by the way. So don’t feel bad, it looks like the cat managed to surprise those dumb animals as well.”

  Frair sat up. “Brower, stop. Let it go. It’s not like you’re the only one Vyck has rejected.”

  “So, we circle up,“ Heigna loudly leaped back into the tale with a glance at Getek, “and are quietly planning how to take down the wounded kyirghon and run the dam, buck, and doe farther west when we feel a sudden, strange and warm wind press down on us. The kyirghons break into a run again, racing for the far trees. But your doe can’t keep up with the dam who keeps looking back.”

  “Then we see it.”

  Hardt looked to Getek, “A dragon.”

  “Yeh. It swooped down and scooped up that creature in its claws. Brower and I reached the edge of the clearing just in time to see it shoving the doe into its enormous mouth. Swallowed it down in one gulp.”

  “Heigna and I,” Frair reclaimed the floor, “went north to head off the kyirghon if they started running east again.”

  Heigna held up her unfortunate arms, showing off her lotioned scratches. “We didn’t find them.”

  Getek took charge again. “We did not see the dragon return east and I’m not worried about it. There is a possibility that it may send other dragons to hunt the remaining kyirghon, but I don’t believe it noticed us in the vicinity.”

  “And it didn’t have a rider.” Brower reassured Sirte. “So we’re probably okay.”

  “As I was saying, then, we’re down to three kyirghon now. If Gaerel can assure me that everyone is in good enough shape to travel, we will hike north for a few suns looking for any signs that the kyirghon have crossed east again. Then we’re heading home. Gaerel?”

  The healer continued to mash up whatever salve he was working on. “Hardt needs rest. You all do. And Heigna shouldn’t climb any more trees, poisonous bark or no. But if we take it slow, I think everyone can make it. Hardt must have time to sleep himself out, through sunup and as long as his body needs, before we start out.”

  “He’ll have it then.” Getek stood. “Sirte, Brower, set up a tent for Hardt and black it out as much as you can. Sirte, as it is already past your watch, you will take Hardt’s at sunup. Hardt, I will have nothing to do with you before highsun tomorrow. Sleep. Don’t think, Sleep. Understood?”

  “Yes, Getek.”

  “Alright. You are all dismissed. Hardt, see Gaerel again before you turn in.”

  And Gaerel fed the boy a drug which made it much easier for him to obey Getek’s ridiculous order.

  The fourth night after the cat and the dragon, after three suns of tracking northwest and finding nothing, the sleeping company was bathed in the darkness of a new moon. Getek who had taken first watch from Sirte, said nothing as he watched Hardt sneak away from the camp again with his weapons. He noted only which direction the boy took when he slipped into the trees. Each night but the first he had seen Hardt spill Gaerel’s drugged drink and sneak off to hunt in the quiet of the night. Each morning Getek personally attributed Hardt’s grogginess to the drugs and allowed it to be understood that the fresh meat was his own kill.

  Hardt hiked silently through the bos until he judged he was far enough away from the encampment that he could not hear them unless they shouted. Far enough away that he would be no danger to them if they got up in the night. Then he held his spear at the ready and waited, clearing his mind of all distractions from the sounds of the wilderness.

  For three nights he had held this vigil. The first night his patience had been thin and he brought three dead animals back to the camp. But his wounds ached and he was unsatisfied by the easy kills. The second night he’d started at some sounds, but let them go, trying to listen for something farther away as he had when he’d first begun training his ears. He wanted to learn discipline. He wanted to learn how to stand perfectly still and be completely aware. The second night he’d brought back a treehog speared from nearly twenty greg.

  This night he planned to kill nothing. He held his spear ready for protection, but listened only to the sounds of the night. He picked a spot surrounded by thicket to keep the small animals and creeping vermin away. His thoughts; doubts, fears, memories, and desires creeped in but he chased them away with the hoot of a brickowl, the shift of the wind, or a falling nut in the trees thwartleft of him. He noted the birds as they glided overhead and stretched his consciousness to the barely perceptible trickle of a distant creek. He kept his breath calm and slowed his heart when a creature leaped through the brush within a spear’s reach.

  Through the night he stood like this. Longer than he had stayed the other nights, he felt in control of the forest and himself. He felt the power of life and death over the small creatures slipping confidently through the darkness.

  Towards sunup, the forest quieted even more. Creatures stilled in anticipation of the coming sun’s dangers. The wind died down, silencing the whisper of leaves. As the first glint of sun appeared, white over the eastern trees, a branch suddenly snapped far to his left. Hardt turned and threw the spear in one smooth, strong motion.

  He’d aimed with his ears and as the spear left his hand and flew over the thickets, he saw the doomed creature which had made the noise. He was stunned, even as he watched the spear thunk into her chest driving her backwards into a small space clear to the brightening sky, by the beauty of the strange woman he’d hit.

  The bondstar had been below the horizon for a while when Getek roused Brower late for his watch. The lead had been hoping Hardt would return to camp before the change of watch. Brower pulled his hair back into a knotted queue as he took the report from Getek who told him Hardt had just gone for a walk. Getek loosened his boots and propped himself up against a large rock to sleep as Brower rolled up his blankets and cleared the smoke from his brain with draught of musty water.

  He fed the fire with some of the brushwood and dead branches cleared away earlier. The thickets made good kindling but the thorns made gathering it difficult and its uncontrollable, explosive ignition made burning it too dangerous so they used it only for starting their fires, though Brower and Frair had been playing with thicket thorns in torches. Tucked into the tar of the torches they created Kalina-like fireworks. The thorns exploded off of the torch in bright blue balls of flame while the tar and stable kindling burnt a steady, long-lasting, portable light.

  Brower glanced at the torches they’d wrapped that evening but decided he couldn’t experiment with them while the others were sleeping. He picked one up anyway and tossed it about while he looked around the camp. Sirte was tossing restlessly on her bedroll. Gaerel had slipped the sleep drug into her meal, but it wasn’t enough to still her mind. It surpris
ed him to see how weak she was. She’d been the only one brave enough to bring food to his cottage after his younger daughter had died of a cough.

  Brower leaped at a low branch and pulled himself up to sit on it, leaning against the trunk. Holding his slingshot ready, he looked out over the sleeping guarde. Getek slept with a hand on his sword, ready for a fight. The guardesman was easy to admire and Brower had, a sheep like all the rest, followed him unquestioningly. But now, Getek had placed a challenge between them, Brower’s past. All of Stray had their secrets. Their secrets were why they all chose to move to a place so far from anywhere else and in Stray those secrets were safe. But Getek had been roaming guarde. He’d traveled far and wide and doubtless heard tales from across Kaveg. What was there to keep him from sharing the tale of Brower’s bloodmage bond?

  Unintentionally, Brower looked west. He and she had lived in the western village where he had grown up, his bond apprenticed to a greater bloodmage, a man dedicated to the destruction of the dTelfur, while Brower cared for their three children. One day she told Brower that this man had discovered a spell which would protect him from the dTelfur magics and that this protection would give him the opportunity to save all Kaveg from the dragons and their slaves. Though the price was high, she said, he’d convinced her that the sacrifice would be a glorious one.

  Soon after this revelation, Brower had returned from preparations for a festival at his father’s to find the children and their mother missing. Searching their usual haunts, he had stumbled upon the clearing. The full moon showed the three infants tied to tree stumps, mouths gagged so they couldn’t scream for help. A triangle had been cut into each of their foreheads and they were naked but for the ropes cutting into their flesh. Every other fresh stump in the new clearing held a hunk of bloody meat reeking and swarming with bugs.

  Brower’s bond found him packing up their cottage. She pleaded with him to return the children to the clearing, explaining how their sacrifice would save Kaveg. But he pushed past her, their son Brod strapped to his back, Drowlen and Dabro in his arms and ran to his father’s home. She followed at his heels, pleading with him and trying to rip Brod from his back. Just as he reached his father’s house, the two-story stone and brick building exploded.