Book One: Rise of the King

Chapter Fifteen

Eli missed something about home every day. Today it was clearly going to be coffee. He had been up early to see off the travelers. By the time they had ridden away, it was too late to go back to bed. He and Nate had met for a quick bite to decide what they were going to do for the day. While Nate dealt with training, Eli had seen to the fresh group of refugees. He had taken them to Anna and had Intuk make sure there were enough beds for everyone. He had then tended to the runner, Neha, who had filled him in on the goings-on of the small warrior group in the mountains and brought an updated map from Mahas, who seemed to have an endless supply of writing materials. Afterward he had gotten the runner set up with quarters and left Neha to rest.

By then it was time for the mid-day meal and he had switched with Nate to give the recruits language lessons. He would rather have Nate's job, for the recruits were annoyingly bad at the Common Tongue, even after two weeks of lessons. They had been through this six days a week, five hours a day. Yet, still, they could barely make a decent sentence and their pronunciation was highly questionable.

After the evening meal, he and Nate worked with the recruits on the archery field. One of them missed the target entirely but managed to somehow hit one of the others, who had to be taken to the infirmary. By the time Anna was finished with the wounded recruit the sun was thankfully going down. As he sat with Anna and Nate in the council tent, he found himself wondering how it taken two men to do the job of one. He had no idea how Gray did this day in and day out without going nuts.

Gray really did make it look easy and he felt bad for ever being frustrated with him when he didn't get an answer right away. There was so much to do and so many people wanting answers to what seemed very trivial questions. It was no wonder that Gray sometimes put things off until the end of the day when he could really sit down and consider all the options and make the best choices when it came to the bigger decisions. There just wasn't enough quiet time to think on things fully during the day.

As Eli shared his thoughts on all of this with his mother and brother at the refugee village, Gray sat down on the ground near his father among the tall grasses. Gray closed his eyes and smiled to himself.

"What're you smiling about?"

Gray looked at him. "It is so quiet out here."

Daniel chuckled, stirred the stew he was preparing.

"I don't think I've had a moment's peace since we entered the first village over a year ago." Gray paused, considered. "I guess it's been way over a year by now, hasn't it?"

"Yeah, I suppose so." Daniel nodded, settling himself back down while their dinner cooked.

"Strange how quickly things can change." Gray mused, looking up at the stars.

"Yep."

Gray grinned softly. "Is that all you have to say? No deep thoughts from the old man?"

Daniel grinned. "I'm dying to ask what this morning was all about." He admitted.

Gray made a face, losing some of the amusement from his expression. "That's turned into a mess."

"It usually does with you."

Gray explained about the meeting with the woman, how Katara had learned that her husband was alive. He admitted that he didn't know why she had really come to him that night. He told him how when he had told Katara that things were done she had seemed angry and Daniel had seen her leave the tent.

"How did you even take up with her?" Daniel asked.

Gray shrugged. "She was teaching me Jakara in the evenings. One night we were taking a walk and we were struggling through a conversation. She was aggravated because I was pronouncing something wrong. I don't know. She just looked so cute, standing there giving me hell. I just couldn't resist."