That evening at supper, Karux passed by Jaemin and Tareuk talking animatedly with their parents, showing every bruise they could find on their bodies. Karux sat at the table farthest from them and noticed Theris, Garick and the older boys all seemed subdued. Garick stole frequent glances at the younger boys and practically ignored Sjaiwa chattering next to him.
Charissa sat next to Karux, talking across the table with Nyrana, distracting him from worries of impending trouble and Macander’s strange transformation during their training session. Macander just stared at his trencher, picking at his food. Halfway through the meal Charissa casually reached under the table and took Karux’s good hand. Startled, he turned to her and she smiled back. He didn’t mind that this prevented him from eating. She must like me after all, he thought, his spirit lifting. He even found himself appreciating some silly thing Nyrana said and they all shared a good laugh.
Then his father caught his eye as he spoke to Jaemin’s parents and Karux’s heart leaped into his throat. He could tell by his father’s hard expression that he was furious. In fact Karux couldn’t remember when he had last seen him so mad.
The sun had set by the time the gathering began to break up, though the fading summer light would linger in the sky for hours. Karux wanted to stay and enjoy these last few peaceful moments with Charissa, but he knew his father might come by at any time to confront him and he didn’t want that to happen in front of his friends. With a reluctance bordering on despair, he made his excuses and rose to leave. Charissa looked disappointed and he couldn’t help but wonder if she weren’t hoping he would stay behind so they could have some time alone together. It only made it harder for him to walk back to the house to face his father’s wrath.
Inside, he stirred up the embers in the fire pit to find a live coal. He lit a small clay lamp and topped it off from a jug of keleos oil. He didn’t have long to wait before his father came in.
Arrain busied himself putting things away, ignoring Karux who sat staring at the lamp. It was a minute or so until he finally turned on Karux. “I heard from Jaemin’s father that you and your friends were beating up on the younger boys today.” Suppressed anger turned his voice harsh. “It seems young Tareuk may even have some cracked ribs.”
Oh great, Karux thought, all I need is for him to be frightened by a bunch of lies and half-truths. “We weren’t beating anyone up. We were playing a game.”
“A game? What kind of a game results in broken ribs?”
“Hunters and wolves.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“We were taking turns playing wolves who were stalking hunters.”
“Jaemin’s father said you swung some sort of weight on a rope at Jaemin and knocked him down.”
“We had a pretend wolf swinging on a rope and took turns poking it with spears. Jaemin and his friends insisted on having a turn and, well, he just got too close.” Well it was mostly true, and his father didn’t seem to be in the mood for a fuller explanation.
His father scowled as if trying to decide what to do with him. “I’m very disappointed that you didn’t exercise better judgment in this,” he finally said.
“I didn’t actually participate in all this. I just watched.”
“Even so, you should have looked after the younger boys or gotten an adult if you needed help.”
Karux shrugged. He tried very hard not to roll his eyes.
“So who started this?”
“Started what?”
“This game! Who came up with the idea of playing hunters and wolves?”
Karux hesitated. “Amantis.”
“Amantis? Since when did you and your friends do anything he told you to do?”
Karux blushed and looked away. “He was just trying to help.” It killed him to defend Amantis. Who would have ever guessed this could have happened?
“Help? How is beating up little children trying to help?”
“We weren’t beating anyone up! Can you not understand that? We were trying to learn how to fight wolves.”
“Fight wolves? As in real wolves? Why would you want to do that?”
“Because if we don’t people will die.”
His father seemed taken aback by this, but after a moment’s thought, Karux could see understanding dawn in his eyes. “Is this about your visions? Because we still don’t know that those are—”
“It’s not just me. Amantis has seen it too.”
“He’s having visions as well is he?” Arrain said in a derisive tone.
“Well, not exactly, he found a stone in a cave of the sacred mountain that tells him things.”
“And you believed him? You know how much of an attention seeker he is.”
“I wouldn’t have believed him except that his stone told him where Bazma’s lost goat was.”
Arrain gave him a skeptical look. “And you’re sure he didn’t steal the goat himself?”
“You sound like Theris,” Karux sighed. “The goat looked like it had been torn up by some animal. I don’t think even he would do something like that just to show off.”
His father sat on a short stool and scooted it up next to him. He leaned over and looked Karux earnestly in the eyes. “I know these dreams or visions or whatever they are must be confusing, but the High Lord gave us minds and he expects us to use them. It is our ability to reason that separates us–even protects us from the beasts. If we give that up we’d be no better than the beasts themselves and perhaps even more dangerous.
“What happened today happened because nobody was using their head. I want you to promise me, when you get an idea, that you’ll ask yourself if this is a reasonable thing to do. Is it something you think I might do? Can you do that?”
Karux couldn’t speak. He felt like he was being asked to make an open-ended promise without knowing all the implications, yet he couldn’t say no. All he could do was nod his head.
“Do you still have that stone with you?” He looked at Karux’s clenched hand.
Karux nodded again.
“Do you always carry it with you?”
Karux nodded.
“Perhaps that stone is part of the problem. By always carrying it with you, you remind yourself of those scary dreams, so you can never escape those thoughts.”
A cold chill ran down Karux’s spine. Surely he couldn’t mean—
“I think you need to give me the stone.”
“No!” The word leaped out of his mouth before he’d even thought about it. His father looked as if he’d been slapped. Karux swallowed and begin rapidly back-tracking. “I mean. I don’t want to lose it. It came from the sacred mountain. I’m sure it must be very valuable.”
His father eyed him cautiously. “I won’t lose it if that’s what you’re afraid of.” He held out his hand, waiting until Karux dug the stone from his clenched fist. Karux handed it over and a flash of light from the stone struck him.
He had a brief vision of snow-covered mountains and fields and an angoran. It charged through the snow wielding something like a knife as long as a man’s arm. The monstrous creature, bigger than a man, with thick gray-green skin the texture of gravel, struck Garick down shooting a spray of blood across the snow.
Karux reared back and shook his head to clear the vision.
“What? Are you well?” Arrain asked.
“It was nothing.”
Arrain took the stone and set it on a shelf. “I think it’ll be best if you leave this alone.”
“Yes, Adra.”
“And I don’t want to see you or your friends playing with spears for a while.”
-=====|==
Word of the previous day’s incident spread throughout the parents of the village, all of whom dutifully warned their children about playing responsibly, the end result being that the next day twice as many youth showed up at the pasture for practice than the day before. Even some girls, including Nyrana, Sjaiwa and Charissa who normally had no interest in hunting, appeared.
Amantis dragged a bunch of poles with him to their practice tree. He had lashed goat skins at both ends of the poles and wrapped them tightly with cords.
“What are we going to do with those?” Some of the new boys asked as they gathered around.
“Everyone, listen up!” Amantis called out. “Gather round. We are not playing games here. We are training to fight for the lives of our korion and our animals.”
A few boys snickered, but most just stared at him curiously.
“Karux and I have both seen visions of the future,” he gave Karux a nod, “visions that require us to train to fight.” This brought a number of apprehensive looks since everyone had seen or heard of Karux’s fits and they had been avoiding him as if he might suddenly attack them. “We think the first threat will be at least one, perhaps several large packs of drwg that will come over the mountains this winter. We can’t be certain, so we have to try and be ready to fight nearly anything at any time. And since none of the adras will help us, we are all that stands between our korion and destruction.” This last thought seemed to surprise quite a few boys who stood up straighter with determined expressions on their faces. “So if you’re just here to play games, you need to leave now.”
No one left, but Karux wondered how serious they took all this.
“If you’re willing to work and sweat and do what we tell you, I want you each to take a pole and divide into two groups.” The boys rushed the pile and they quickly ran out of poles, so Amantis sent the rest off to gather supplies to make more.
Macander’s display yesterday must have really impressed Amantis, for to Karux’s surprise, he didn’t have them practice defending against wolves, instead he had them line up in pairs facing each other where they practiced defending against a spear wielding opponent. They were allowed to strike with the sides of the spear, but only a thrust with either end of the pole counted as a “kill”.
Karux even pried a spear into his clenched hand and practiced until he had caught up to the rest in skill. Amantis mostly had him over-seeing the newcomers while Amantis worked with the group from yesterday. Karux and his students would sometimes pause in their practice to watch Amantis’ group put the final touches on some new disarming technique. They even saw Macander pull off an amazing tripping trick where he used the pole to gain leverage over a much bigger opponent and topple him.
Macander continued to amaze everyone. Amantis often used him as the designated defender while he threw other students against him. Macander did so well, that he increased the number until nearly everyone in his group stood in a circle around him. Macander whirled in a spinning storm of wood, blocking all attacks, lashing out to take down first one opponent, then another.
The attackers began to ignore their pretend wounds, staying in the fight to jab at Macander, increasing the pace of their attacks. All talk ceased. Only the clash of wood, the shuffling of feet and the grunt of exertion could be heard.
Sensing a dangerous level of intensity, Karux nearly stepped in to stop it. His fault or not, he knew his father would kill him if he were to let Macander get hurt. But just as he was about to speak, the attackers began to drop out, gasping, too tired to continue. They were only able to touch Macander at the last by staying back and flinging their poles at him all at once. Even then, he nearly blocked them all with one wobbly spin, before dropping to one knee, gasping and clutching at his pole to keep himself up.
“Excellent!” Amantis seemed delighted. “Wonderfully done. A little more practice and soon no one will be able to stand against you.”
“No one?” Karux asked. “What do you mean?”
Amantis just waved the question aside. “Before we take a break, I want to work on some pack techniques.”
“Pack techniques?” Theris asked. “Are we doing wolves again?”
Karux had heard Uncle Naipho had given him an earful as well. He had thought Macander was one of the young boys being picked on and he had laid down a “no more hunters and wolves” law on Theris.
“No,” Amantis said with a wolfish grin. “This time we will all be the pack and we will all carry spears.”
Amantis divided them into two new groups, each containing both old and new students. He led Karux’s group into the woods where he had them hide behind trees and bushes. He told them they were wolves waiting for prey, but wolves with spears. They were to hide until the others came near and try to pounce on them, killing them while they were too surprised to act.
Karux puzzled over this while he hid and waited. He’d hunted with the men before, but that mostly consisted of beating the bushes to scare game into lines of men with waiting spears. This hunting of men confused and disturbed him. Amantis seemed very intent that the surprise go off well and kept inspecting them to make sure no part of them was visible. The whole thing just felt wrong, though he ultimately decided the purpose of the exercise was to help the defenders prepare for surprise attacks. At least he hoped that was the case.
The defenders were ordered to shoulder their spears and not take them off until danger appeared. When they finally got to the part of the animal trail where the stalkers were hiding, the wolves leaped out with a shout and managed to kill most of them before they could react, though Bazma alone of the attackers had been judged to have received a fatal thrust. Only a few at the end of the line of defenders remained able to fight, but Amantis called it off when most of the defenders dropped. He explained afterwards that some of younger stalkers had leaped too soon, giving those at the end of the defenders’ line a chance to prepare for the fight. If they had waited a little, until the end of the line was in front of them, the wolves could have caught them all by surprise and saved poor Bazma’s life.
The boys loved the new game and played it repeatedly until dark. Even then, they chased each other through the woods in the early twilight killing each other over and over again.