Through the Flames (3 page)

Gabriel nodded before turning around and walking back to his mare. Stepping in the stir-up and swinging his leg over the horse’s back, he sat in his saddle and took the reins in hand. With a soft whistle, Gabriel nudged the mare into a trot. He did not look back towards Kirakath until it was completely out of sight.

Caleb watched his friend until he was no longer within his line of sight. Even then, his eyes remained focused on the trail, almost as if he expected him to turn around and ride back.

“Are you going to stand out here all day?”

Caleb snapped to attention and looked around, quickly seeing that the only people still out there were him and his father.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb apologized softly with a noticeable inclination of his head.

“There’s no need to apologize, my son,” Michael said with a softer voice than he normally used. “Your best friend just left, and you know you won’t see him again for the next five years. I can’t blame you for being distracted.”

Caleb was unsure how to process his father’s words. They were quite unexpected.

“I want you to listen to me very carefully, Caleb,” Michael said as he looked his son in the eyes with a tone that exuded importance. “It is commonplace for an apprentice hunter to be given his first hunt alone a month before his eighteenth birthday. Though you have not yet seen sixteen and a half years, it has been decided that you will be allowed to go on a hunt by yourself.”

His son gasped in shock at that. It was unheard of for such a thing to be allowed.

“This won’t be the hunt that marks you as a full hunter, however. This tradition can be bent, but it cannot be broken,” Michael said as he realized what had crossed Caleb’s mind. “This is good for you in many ways. For starters, there will be no repercussions if you fail in your hunt. It will also provide practice for you that other apprentice hunters do not receive.”

Though that sounded good to the apprentice hunter, a single question came to mind that needed an answer. “Is it fair for me to get this opportunity when others don’t?” Caleb asked immediately.

With a smile, Michael said, “Life is not fair. When it is fair in favor of another, you must endure, but when it is fair in your favor, you must seize the opportunity.”

Caleb nodded his head slowly as he considered his father’s words. The man had always said things like that for as long as he could remember. It seemed that he had a talent for delivering thought provoking explanations and arguments.

“When do I need to leave for this?” Caleb asked after a few moments of consideration.

“You can go in the morning,” Michael said as he laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. “You can get everything together tonight.”

Caleb nodded his head with a small smile, but something felt different to him at that moment. He suddenly had a feeling that something was wrong, but he dismissed it as nothing more than his imagination.

What could possibly go wrong?
He shook his head, breaking away from the earlier train of thought.
Gabriel will be gone for five years, but Dad is here. Nothing can go wrong with him around.

* * * * *

Hours passed before Caleb finally entered his room to get ready for the hunting trip that he would begin leave for on the following morning.

Looking around, Caleb examined his room. The only furniture inside the simplistic room was his bed and a wide dresser that had three drawers in it. The bed posts and the dresser both seemed to be made from the same wood that was used for the floor and the walls.

He pushed his door shut and walked over to the dresser. His longbow, quiver, and brown leather bracer were lying atop the piece of furniture with a large piece of off-white cloth underneath it.

His eyes stayed on the bow for a moment. The fine craftsmanship of the yew longbow made it an oddity in a village as small as Kirakath. The best longbows were made from yew, but the time it took to actually craft one meant that only people that were fairly well off owned them.

A small smile found its way on Caleb’s face as he remembered when his teacher gave the bow to him. It had been the most important gift that he had ever received.

I wonder where you are, Hector.
With his mentor on his mind, Caleb eyes lingered on the bow once more. It had been four months since his mentor’s departure from the village to go on a hunt that he refused to tell anyone about.

Caleb pushed thoughts of his mentor to the back of his mind. He was not worried about Hector, despite the fact that he was worried about Gabriel. His mentor was the toughest man that he had ever met, and Caleb knew that he would survive no matter what.

Pulling the middle drawer open, Caleb removed a brown tunic and an off-white undershirt from the dresser and placed them on his bed. He then shut the drawer and opened the bottom drawer.

A small smile formed on his face as he removed a pair of brown leggings from the bottom drawer and put them with the tunic and undershirt.

What would you say if you were here now, Master?
 
As he continued to get his clothes ready for the trip, Caleb’s smile grew at the imagined conversation that he would have with his mentor when he returned.

With that done, he opened the top drawer of the dresser and immediately saw a cloth covered object that was roughly the size of his palm. Lifting it into his hand and removing the cloth, he found that it was a finely made bowstring.

I guess I still have a good one after all,
Caleb thought as he rewrapped it and slipped it into the hidden pouch that was inside of his quiver. His eyes then went to the rolled up bowstring that was sitting right next to his bow on the dresser.

Carefully picking the bowstring up, he unwounded it and held it out fully stretched. He inspected the string from all sides with a careful eye before rolling it back up and replacing it on the dresser.

I shouldn’t need to change the bowstring too soon,
Caleb thought with satisfaction. The process of making a bowstring was rather complicated, and it was one of the few things that Hector had not yet begun to teach him. The prospect of having to use an inferiorly made bowstring did not set with Caleb very well. He hoped that Hector returned before it broke.

With that, he shut the two open dresser drawers and walked back over to his bed. Picking up the stack of clothes, he put them on the edge of the dresser.

“I think I’m ready now,” Caleb said as he picked up the brown leather bracer from the top of the dresser and set it on top of the stacked clothes.

At that point, he began to change into his night clothes so that he could retire to bed for the night.

* * * * *

While Caleb was just starting to go to sleep, Michael was sitting in front of the fireplace with his eyes focused on the dancing flames before him.

“Michael, are you sure that it’s such a good idea to let him do this?” Sophie asked as she sat on her knees next to him. “The forest is a dangerous place, and even full hunters don’t always come back.”

“I’m sure,” Michael said with a light smile. He turned somber as he continued. “Caleb needs this. With Hector still on that search of his and Gabriel away from the village for such a long time, Caleb is going to be very lonely. Getting away from the village and doing what he loves is the best idea that I could come up with. I’m more concerned at to what we will do after he returns than anything else. The closest girl to his age is eight years younger than he is. I just don’t know how everything will work out for him down the road.”

Sophie looked at him curiously. She could see most of his points, but the last part surprised her. “Are you suggesting that we find someone for him?”

“Stars above, Sophie,” Michael said as he fiercely shook his head. “I’d never do such a thing to my only son. I’m just thinking that we might want to think about taking him out of the village for a trip later on. I’m sure you’d like to get some more cloth from Caldreth.”

“Maybe he’ll meet someone?” Sophie speculated.

“Hopefully,” Michael said with a sincere smile. “I still remember when we met back when I first arrived in Zabryan.”

“I do too,” Sophie said with a sparkle in her eyes. “You looked so lost in the grand city of Zabryan.”

“Can you blame me?” Michael asked with a hearty laugh. “Lucas never stopped teasing me for it. I had never seen such a magnificent city. I suppose I would have been even more shocked if we had not served in Caldreth together beforehand.”

His wife nodded her head with a smile. “I think your idea is a good one, but I doubt one trip will be enough.”

“Then we’ll just have to make it into more than a single trip,” Michael countered with a smile.

Sophie nodded, but a small frown formed suddenly. “You never addressed my concern.”

“I didn’t,” Michael agreed without a hint of hesitation. The look in his eyes made it clear that he had expected her to bring it up again. “You fear that something bad will happen during the trip.”

“I do,” Sophie said, the frown upon her face growing ever so slightly.

“I do not fear that he will come to harm. His mentor has taught him well,” Michael said, laying a reassuring touch on her right hand. “Besides, he’s got the blood of Kirakath on his side.”

A slight look of confusion became apparent in Sophie’s eyes at those last words as it always did when Michael said them.

Following what she had learned from past experience, Sophie said nothing further. Michael had made it clear many times before that it was not a question he could answer.

Releasing a heavy breath, Sophie’s eyes went to the dancing flames in the hearth.

Caleb sighed as he began to walk through the forest with a rabbit held by the feet in his right hand and his longbow held in his left hand.

It had been three days since he left the village for his hunting trip, and the only game that he had encountered as of yet was the brown rabbit that was in his hand.

Glancing at the brown rabbit, Caleb sighed. It could not have weighed any more than two pounds. There was no way that it would be a filling meal for the night, but even a small rabbit would be more filling than the berries that he had eaten the night before.

I guess it’s too late in the year to catch anything good,
Caleb thought as he continued walking back towards his camp.
I’ll give it one more day. If I don’t find anything more, I’ll return home. Dad said there would be no repercussions if this hunt was a failure, after all.

That was about as far as his train of thought managed to go before he felt pain shoot through his body, spreading from his chest.

He was forced to his knees on the leaf-covered ground by the intensity of the pain that spread throughout his body. He only barely managed to stop himself from dropping his bow and the rabbit as his knees met the ground.

What in the dark abyss was that?
Caleb thought as the pain lessened after a few minutes. Though lessened, the pain persisted.

An eerie feeling suddenly enveloped him a matter of seconds later, causing him to look around as quickly as he could.

To his left, Caleb saw something about twenty yards away. It appeared to be a longsword that was stuck in the ground. Even from that distance, he could see that the pommel was circular and unmarked. That was not the most peculiar thing about it though.

While its style and shape were rather ordinary looking, the sword was unusual in a way that Caleb had never expected. The sword was almost completely transparent.

That was when things became even stranger.

All of the sudden, a ghost-like figure wearing a hooded cloak appeared about ten feet away from the sword on the side opposite of Caleb.

The hooded cloak that the figure wore was not quite transparent. Instead, it had a hazy quality to it, but Caleb still found that he was incapable of describing it as being a certain color. Nonetheless, the hazy cloak obscured the figure’s face.

Peering forward carefully, Caleb saw the figure walk up to the sword, grasp it by its hilt, and remove it from the ground. He then waved it before his face.