Hunger

Part I - Chapter 4 - Captured

The dyos came and went in peace, and soon one pass then two.  They hunted together, ran together, climbed together.  Iya knew where the sweetest springs where, and she delighted showing him all of her havens.  And of course, they played the game.  One game Iya was particularly proud of was after Silence had shown her how to make snares.  The next morning, Iya was gone when he woke with a stone arrow head on the bedroll beside him and Silence knew the game was afoot. 

He searched for her trail, and admitted to himself that she had become nearly impossible to track, but he knew what to look for.  A little bit of bark rubbed off a branch, a few fresh leaves on the ground told him she had left the camp from the trees.  He still marveled at her skill in using momentum to fly and swing from branch to branch, tree to tree.  He had never seen anyone with grace.  That game he had been so focused on searching the trees for her trail that he never saw the man-sized snare that caught his ankle and left him dangling.  When Iya burst from her hiding spot near the trunk of a bluebirch, she had laughed her silent laugh until she cried, snorted, and had him laughing as well.

Silence taught her to grapple and use her agility to even a fight against a larger, stronger foe.  With every skill Iya learned, Silence had to redouble his efforts in the game.  Sometimes, she would hide above him and wait for him to pass beneath before launching herself at him and he would barely have time to counter her attack without injury.  When they sparred, Iya never held back, and as the seasons came and went, Silence found that he needed to hold back less and less. As she grew, Silence even found himself pressed to best her in grappling.  Silence taught her all he knew of numbers and geography.  Day in and day out, they were always together.

As the sun rose and they limbered up with the T’al before their regular spar, Silence realized truly how much she had grown and at an alarming rate.  Then again, his experience with children was quite limited.  Regardless, Silence was sure she had exponentially grown—mentally and physically—since he had first met her only a few pass past.  When they had first met, she was no taller than his waist.  Now, she was a hand’s width below his shoulder.  She was still slender yet he saw that her form narrowed at the waist and curved out again at her hips.  If he had to guess her age, she looked to be nearly twenty pass, but from what Silence had gathered, she could not actually be more than fifteen or sixteen. 

She almost looks to be a grown w—

Silence had no time to finish his thought as Iya launched herself at him.  He barely had time to deflect her blade, and from then on, he was focused on the fight.  Silence had been teaching Iya how to duel with the Dyrvn scimitar, a wicked curved blade that broadened to a point nearly a hand’s width from the end and then narrowed down to the tip.  These were the blades that the Koryphii were renowned masters of and Iya had learned to wield her scimitar at an alarming rate.  Silence parried, counter attacked, and pressed her as hard as he dared, never once making an attack he knew she could not parry.

“Are you going to fight or just flirt with my sword?” Iya signed, raising an eyebrow.  Silence snorted. 

She knew this whole time I was holding back, he thought with inward pride.  He answered with his blade and fought in earnest, holding back less and less.  A turn of the glass passed, and then two, and neither gave up the fight.  Metal clashed against metal again and again.  Every time he tried a new attack, he found himself countering the same attack a few moments later and pride swelled in his heart.  Buckets!  How quickly she learns! 

Both were breathing heavily, and soaked with sweat.  It was near midday when Silence gave her an opening to see if she would seize the opportunity.  He committed too much of his momentum to a thrust aimed at her abdomen and she countered not by darting to the side, but tossing her scimitar to her right hand, she turned, grabbed his right wrist with her left and pulled him off balance.