“You shall not be. You will believe as you believe and none shall stop you. The path ahead is clear and you shall lead the way into the triumphant future.”
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was Harl’s first bow and he was immensely proud of it. He had gone with his uncle, Nadris, to the forest to search for the right kind of tree that they would need, the thin-barked one with the tough and springy wood. Nadris had selected the thin sapling, but Harl had chopped it down himself, sawing at the resilient, green trunk until it had been cut through. Then, under Nadris’s careful direction, he had scraped off the bark to uncover the white heart of the wood within. But then he had had to wait, and waiting had been the worst part. Nadris had hung the length of wood high inside his tent to dry and had left it there, day after day, until it was ready. When the shaping began Harl had sat and watched while Nadris methodically scraped it with a stone blade. The ends of the bow were carefully tapered, then nocked to take the bowstring that had been woven from the long, strong hairs of the niastodon’s tail. Even with the bowstring in place Nadris had not been satisfied, but had tested the pull, then removed the string and shaped the wood again. But in the end even this was finished. This was to be Harl’s bow, so it was his right to shoot the first arrow from it. He had done so, bending the bow as far as he could, then releasing the arrow. It flew straight and true, sinking into the tree trunk with a satisfactory thud.
This had been the longest and happiest day in Harl’s life. He had a bow now, would learn to shoot it well, would be allowed on the hunt soon. This was the first and most important step that put him on the path from childhood, the path that would one day lead him into the world of hunters.
Although his arm was sore, his fingertips blistered, he would not stop. It was his bow, his day. He wanted to be alone with it and had slipped away from the other boys and gone to the small copse close to the camp. All day he had crept between the trees, stalked bushes, sunk his arrows into innocent tussocks—that were really deer that only he could see.
When it grew dark he reluctantly put up the bow and turned back towards the tents. He was hungry and looked forward to the meat that would be waiting. One day he would hunt and kill his own meat. Nock arrow, draw, zumm, hit, dead. One day.
There was a rustle in the tree above him and he stopped, silent and unmoving. There was something there, a dark form outlined against the gray of the sky. It moved and its claws rustled again. A large bird.
It was too tempting a target to resist. He might lose the arrow in the darkness, but he had made it himself and could make more. But if he hit the bird it would be his first kill. The first day of the bow, the first kill that same day. The other boys would look at him very differently when he walked between the tents with his trophy.
Slowly and silently he put an arrow to the string, bent the bow, sighted along the arrow at the dark shape above. Then let fly.
There was a squawk of pain—then the bird was tumbling down from the branch. It landed in the bough above Harl’s head, hung there, unmoving, caught by the thin branches. He stood on tiptoe and could just reach it with the end of his bow, prodding and pushing until it fell to the ground at his feet. His arrow stuck out from the bird’s body and the creature’s round, sightless eyes looked up at him. Harl stepped back, gasping with fright.
An owl. He had killed an owl.
Why hadn’t he stopped to think? He moaned aloud at the terror within him. He should have known, no other bird would be about in the dark. A forbidden bird and he had killed it. Just the night before old Fraken had unrolled the ball of fur disgorged by an owl, had poked his fingers through the tiny bones inside, had seen the future and the success of the hunting from the manner in which the bones were tangled. And while Fraken had done this he had talked about the owls, the only birds that flew by night, the birds that waited to guide the tharms of dead hunters through the darkness towards the sky.