The Tribes of K'haren - Completed

Chapter 20.1

Their first day as a tribe was as uneventful as can be. The falling rain was soft but the speed with which Bay carried Raf made the drops feel uncomfortably hard even on his scaled skin. He worried about Nume and Kran up on Luthi's back for a moment but then he dismissed the thought. Why would he worry about them? It wasn't as if he cared about their comfort, they just had to survive and a little rain wasn't going to kill anybody. As long as the wind remained as soft as it was, there was no reason for Luthi to stop flying either.

But in the evening, the rain grew heavier and Raf avoided the conversation at the fireplace. He had noticed he was getting attached to the Phraio and he didn't like that at all. Instead, he went for a walk through the scarce landscape. There were only a few trees scattered in the seeming wilderness that he knew had once been a forest, before the Phraio had come.

Raf remembered hiding in the region they were now in before it had been all cut down. It was just after his master had died, before he met the now dragon king. Remembering made him feel the loneliness and sadness all over again and so he forced himself to focus on something else. He calculated how far Tarlequin might have gotten with the group of Phraio, if they hadn't turned on him. If he hadn't been the talented bard he was, they certainly would have. Why would any Phraio ever accept a non-Phraio? But with his flute, and be it a small horn replacement, he'd have them listen to him at any time.

Even Raf himself had felt the effect of Tarlequin's music, and he'd hated it. It made him feel, something Raf had learned to suppress decades ago. But now he was stuck with people all the time and their emotions resonated in a corner of his mind he had successfully ignored for a long time.

When he heard a noise in the dark, Raf stood absolutely still. Moments later, he was greeted by Bay with a sound he hadn't heard from her in a while. It sounded like something between the cooing of a Gseirut and the splatter of a small stream. Raf answered with a weak imitation of the sound and Bay rubbed her face against his shoulder. When he raised his hands and petted her, he realised she was covered in something warm and wet, probably blood.

'Thanks for that...' he muttered, brushing the stuff off his shoulder with one hand. Raf could see quite well in the dark but everything went black and white after sunset. Though not tonight for both the blue and the red moon were out, making the whole world seem to glow in a rather reddish tone of purple. Bay's eyes mirrored the light intensively and it made her look ghostlike, hardly even real.

With an elegant jump, Raf moved himself up on her back and told her to go find the others. At first, she didn't move, then, she licked her paw and once she seemed to be content with it, she finally started running.

They had to wait until midday for the rain to fade before they could finally travel on. Everything was going well and Raf let his thoughts drift away to the sound of Bay's paws rhythmically beating on the ground. Raf was in a slumber-like hypnosis when he was suddenly reawoken by a scream from above. Looking up, he couldn't see anything at first because the bright light blinded him, but then he recognised Luthi. The Gseirut was flying zigzag and seemed to be panicking.

From the ground, there was nothing Raf could do for him and the Phraio, so far, he didn't even know what was causing the trouble. He called Bay to a halt and stared up worriedly. Then he saw something but he wasn't sure what it was. It seemed to be another pair of wings, not as large as Luthi's but too big for a bird and certainly too small for a dragon. Before Raf could figure it out, Luthi seemed to calm down and headed back down to the ground, close to where Bay was standing. Actually, he ended up landing so closely, Bay jumped up with a hiss and stepped aside.

The smaller winged creature followed moments after and Raf didn't recognize it until he heard the voice.

'Hello, sweetie, still got that lovely sword of yours?' the woman said, folding her wings behind her back and approaching Raf curiously. Bay hissed at her angrily and wouldn't take her eyes off the stranger anymore.