Hunted

by Paul Eslinger

  “Oh.” Trey sounded disappointed.

  I glanced up as the morning sun painted the undersides of the high clouds brilliant orange and pink. A dark dot in the middle of one cloud grew bigger as I watched, and soon it was big enough I could see it was a dragon rather than an eagle or osprey. I called out, “Zephyr, that dragon is back.”

  “You don’t have to shout,” Zephyr said reprovingly as she trotted around the end of the shed and joined us on the bank of the creek. She sat and looked up. “Is it the same dragon as yesterday?”

  Frustration roughened my voice. “How would I know that? I’ve only seen two dragons. I can’t track them using magic.”

  “Their skin coloring is unique. None of them is the same color all over.”

  By this time, the dragon was close enough I could make out the color. The golden body glistened in the sunlight and the shape of the head, tail, and wings were familiar. “It’s the same dragon as yesterday,” I said.

  “Good.” Zephyr rose to her feet and looked uphill rather than at the dragon. “It’s time to dig stones.”

  “We’ll dig,” I said as I stood, picked up my pack, and swung it over my shoulder. I wasn’t used to devious thinking and Ara always won games we played that involved several levels of strategy, but Zephyr’s response to the dragon made no sense. I wanted some answers, but I might be able to get them while digging if I kept pestering Zephyr with questions. “I need to get another hammer and chisel for Trey from the shed.”

  Trey followed me with a frown on his face. He sounded tired. “We dug a lot yesterday.”

  “Ara and I also dug last week,” I responded. “Today, we’re going to chisel out a piece of soft rock. We won’t use shovels.”

  “Okay.” Trey looked at his hands. “I hope we don’t get blisters again.”

  “We won’t,” I promised as I entered the shed. I pulled a hammer and a chisel off a shelf and handed them to Trey. “And if we do, I’ll heal them.”

  I turned back to pick up my bow from the end of the workbench and noticed the edge of a leather pouch protruding from behind a pile of cured pieces of cedar. I pulled it out and flipped the top open. The pouch contained a flint and a piece of steel, dishes for eating while traveling, and a folded set of men’s clothing. I looked at it, trying to make sense of the contents when I saw a second pouch. It contained similar items, but the unfamiliar-looking clothing was for a woman.

  They hadn’t been there very long because the pouch leather was still supple and there wasn’t a hint of dust on top of them. I had never seen them before. Had Father put them there while I was gone on one of my last hunts? If so, why?

  “Are you coming?” Trey called from outside.

  I pushed the pouches back into place, snatched up my bow, and stepped out through the door. “I’m ready,” I said, feeling like a small boy trying to hide a stolen cookie from his mother.

  Trey’s eyes widened when he saw what I was carrying. “Where did you get a bow?” he blurted. He was carrying the bow his father had used rather than the smaller one he typically used for hunting, but the one I was carrying was longer, made for a man.

  The bow was still in the case Ara made for me. I swung it over my shoulder and spoke as we started walking, “You should know there was more than one Hunter.”

  “You stole a bow from one of those killers?” Trey asked incredulously. “How did you do that?”

  “No, no,” I said. “A puma killed one of the Hunters. I picked up his knife and the bow the next day.”

  Trey’s hand went to his belt. The knife he was carrying was better than my old one but not nearly as good as mine. My father had taken it from another Hunter, the one who killed my mother.

  “Is the knife better than your old knife?” Trey asked.

  “It was,” I admitted.

  “Don’t you have it?”

  I sighed. “No. Two thieves tried to rob Ara and me just before we got to Glendale. The only thing they got was the knife.”

  Trey gave me a look that indicated he thought I could do anything. “Couldn’t you find a way to get it back?”

  “No,” I said with another sigh. “One of the King’s Hunters–probably the one who visited your house–found the thieves that night and took back the knife. He killed them both and took the head of the thief with the knife he’d stolen. Lucky it wasn’t me.”

  Trey made a gagging sound. “Oh.”

  Chapter 4 – New Stones

  The walk from the shed to where I had been digging for magical stones started easily. The packs and bows made it difficult to move when the slope steepened and bushes reached for us with entangling limbs. We made better progress when we moved over and jumped from rock to rock in the bottom of the narrow canyon. It was easy to find the correct place because the holes I had chiseled in the cliff face looked like empty eye sockets. I was relieved that the holes and the small pile of rock fragments under them looked the same as when Zephyr and I had left very quickly yesterday.

  After setting my pack beside a small bush, I folded a sleeping fur for a knee pad and laid it on the ground under the edge of the cliff. The hammer and chisel I had left behind in the mad rush to save Trey from the Hunter were still lying on the ground. Both tools had new rust spots after sitting out in the open all night. I pushed aside old thoughts of Father’s hard hand when he had clouted me in the past for leaving tools outside.

  Trey joined me on his knees with the other hammer and chisel in his hands when I started examining the rock. “What are we looking for?” he asked. His interested look didn’t totally hide the sadness in his eyes.

  I tapped the thin layer of yellowish-red rock sandwiched between sections of grey granite with my finger. “There are two magical rocks inside this layer. I want to dig out a section of the yellow rock and chip the rock yellow stuff off of them. I started working on it yesterday before heading over to your place.”

  Trey glanced at me with a frown. “How did you know…” His voice trailed off as he shook his head. He leaned forward, squinted into one of the horizontal holes I had dug, and picked at the rock with his fingernail. “This yellow rock is soft,” he observed.

  “It is,” I agreed, “but I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to pull out that little section without breaking it in pieces.”

  “There’s a crack up here,” Trey said, pointing to the granite above where I had been digging. “Can we break off a big piece?”

  “Not very easily,” I replied. “I thought about doing that yesterday. It would take a lot of work.”

  He ignored me as he put the point of his chisel in a thin crack and tapped with the hammer. To my surprise, the crack looked wider after a few taps. I fitted my chisel in the crack a few inches above Trey’s chisel and started tapping.

  “I’ll take a well-deserved nap,” Zephyr said. I glanced over and saw her flop down beside my pack. She laid her head on it and then quickly pushed up so her front legs were straight. Her golden eyes gleamed and her pink tongue darted back and forth along her lips as if she were savoring some delicious morsel. “What did you do to the little stone in the pack?”

  “Nothing,” I said, surprised.

  “Yes, you did. The magic in it is stronger than yesterday. Much stronger.”

  “Oh,” I exclaimed, feeling excited. “You said the stones can store magic, but you didn’t show me how to do it. I tried to store some magic in it before I went to sleep last night, but I didn’t think it worked.”

  “It worked,” Zephyr said with a lilt. “I wasn’t sure you could do it. I couldn’t have done it when I was your age.”

  I caught the hint of awe in her voice and decided to try to get some of my questions answered while she thought I had done something worthwhile. “Tell me about the dragon that is watching us today. It looks like the same one we saw yesterday but I’m not sure.”

  “It’s not
on the Council.”

  “You already told me that,” I said, knowing irritation sounded in my voice. “You would be running for your life if it were on the Council. Where did it come from? Why aren’t you concerned that it is watching us? Are there other intelligent dragons who don’t have anything to do with the Council?”

  “Help me pull on the rock while you talk,” Trey said with a frown as he set down his hammer and wrapped his hands around his chisel. He seemed irritated by my one-sided conversation with Zephyr.

  I really wanted answers from Zephyr, but I quickly realized I couldn’t work with Trey and talk with Zephyr at the same time. Trey and I both heaved on our chisels and a chunk of rock thicker than the span of my hand and as long as my forearm broke free. It exposed a section of the softer rock as big as the ends of my two thumbs. Just as importantly, I could see additional cracks in the granite. I tapped on one of the new cracks with the tip of my chisel. “Let’s work on this one.” The granite contained several large fractures and together Trey and I were able to remove piece after piece.

  We worked hard through the morning and into the afternoon with only two short rest breaks. Finally, we chipped away enough granite to expose the channels I had already cut in the softer rock. The piece left in the middle was twice the size of both of my clenched fists.

  Trey leaned closer to take a good look and then gave me a quizzical stare. He sounded intrigued. “You say there are magical stones inside this little section of yellow rock?”

  “Yes,” I assured him.

  He spread out both hands and examined the nicks the sharp fragments of granite had made on the backs of his fingers. Neither of us had thought to bring gloves from the shed. “How do you know that? It just looks like any other little piece of rock to me. It’s nothing special, after all, there are a couple of thin layers of this soft rock in the canyon over by my house.”

  I twisted and reached for my pack. After quickly untying a flap, I pulled out the small stone Zephyr and I had found yesterday. It was the size of a large pea and milky-white in color. Yesterday, it had contained more magic than an ordinary rock, but the magic hadn’t been strong like I had expected. Today, it felt different. The stone was still the same shape and color and wasn’t warm to the touch, but now, powerful magic lurked inside it.

  After a moment, I cut back on the level of effort I was using to hide the magical abilities of our small group. The magic in the small stone I was holding flared as brightly as the sun reflecting off of a pool of water in the stream. Zephyr raised her head and watched as I handed the small rock to Trey. “We’re looking for rocks like this, only bigger,” I explained.

  “Oh,” he said as he raised it between thumb and forefinger and studied it. “This doesn’t look special.”

  I laughed for the first time in a couple of weeks. “You just proved it was special. You just said, ‘This doesn’t look special,’ using magic to talk.”

  “Oh. No, I didn’t,” Trey protested as he wrinkled his nose. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Wrong,” I said with a grin. “You talked with your magical voice.”

  He looked baffled. “I didn’t try to do anything magical. It must have just slipped out.”

  “Try it again,” I encouraged.

  He looked at the small rock and then up at me, and a furrow appeared between his eyebrows. “This whole idea is crazy. I wouldn’t believe you except that…” Tears appeared in the corners of his eyes as he averted his gaze. Even though his lips moved, he kept his lips closed as he spoke, “How big are the rocks we are looking for?”

  “About the size of a big pheasant egg,” I explained and held out my hand. “Give the little rock back and see if you can continue to talk using magic.”

  He handed it over, watched while I tucked it back in the pack, and then asked, “Can you hear me now?”

  “Yes,” I said with a grin. “You just needed a little boost to get started. It takes energy to use magic. Don’t do too much magic the first day or it may make you really tired. If you use a lot, you may have to stop and eat, or even take a nap.”

  Trey cocked his head to one side as if he didn’t believe me and objected, “Using magic didn’t seem to make you tired.”

  “Not yesterday, but it made me really tired several times before that,” I admitted. “I don’t understand it. Zephyr says I am different than other humans who can use magic. I don’t know, maybe I am, but the only other person I know who can use magic is you. I’m just a scared boy trying to stay alive.”

  He shivered and looked away and his words were faint. “Staying alive may not be so easy. Some have already…”

  The emotion made me feel uncomfortable. “Let’s keep working,” I said quickly, and reached for the hammer and chisel again.

  “It’s time to make another scan looking for trouble,” Zephyr admonished.

  “Oops,” I said, feeling stupid. “I forgot.”

  She sighed, rested her chin on my pack, and said, “Never mind. I’ll do the scan while you continue digging. The small stone is strong enough today I can use it to reach the strong magic.”

  Working together with the chisels, Trey and I popped the piece of soft rock free from the underlying granite. He watched as I picked it up and turned it over and over in my hands and then he asked, “How do you know special rocks are inside it?”

  “It’s magic,” I answered with a laugh as I used my chisel to scratch two small circles on the surface of the yellow stone. “They are under these circles.”

  “Okay,” he said dubiously.

  “Help me,” I said as I laid the stone fragment on the sleeping fur between us and picked up one of the hammers. “Put your chisel beside mine. We’ll cut the rock in two before we chip off smaller pieces.” We both tapped gently, moving the chisels back and forth, and then the stone suddenly split. I picked up one of the pieces, hoping to see a milky-white piece of stone, but could only see yellow.

  Trey turned the other piece over and over in his hands. “I don’t see anything special.”

  “It’s special,” I said with a smile. “You’re talking magically again.”

  He gingerly laid the piece of stone on the sleeping fur. “What do we do now?”

  “We work carefully,” I said and picked up my chisel. Thin pieces of the yellow stone flaked off under the chisel and then I switched to using my fingernails.

  Trey was watching so closely his head got in my way a couple of times. Finally, he gave a low whistle and said, “I see something white.”

  “We found it,” I yelped when the sunshine caused the small exposed section of milky-white material to glow with all of the colors of the rainbow.

  I suddenly realized Zephyr was standing behind me with her head over my shoulder, looking at the stone. I held it up higher and she touched the shiny part with the tip of her nose. Her magical voice rolled out in a shout. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  “Let’s keep working,” I said to Trey, knowing a wild smile was plastered over my face. Finally, the last piece of clinging stone dropped away. On a whim, I held the stone up in one hand and reached for the strong magic coursing through the ground near us. Vastly more power than before moved through me. I directed it into the stone and watched amazed as the stone grew more powerful with every heartbeat.

  “That’s a very powerful Guldur Stone,” Zephyr said. She was still looking over my shoulder and her eyes were unusually wide. “It’s much stronger than the one I used. Possibly stronger than any of the others.”

  “What others?” I asked quickly, hoping that Zephyr would continue giving out information.

  “Any of the stones ever used by Council members.”

  “I told you I knew where to look,” I said, knowing I was bragging, but feeling good about finding the powerful stone. “What do non-magical people call these stones?”

  “Some stones that look like these c
ontain little or no magic. Humans call them opals and use them for decorations.”

  “What’s inside the other piece of rock?” Trey asked and reached for his chisel.

  “Another opal,” I said, “probably about the same size as this one. Make small cuts until you can see it.”

  Trey started working carefully as I watched. I had to sit on my hands to keep from snatching it from him. Finally, he freed the second opal from the encasing rock and held it up. “It’s beautiful,” he said with wonder in his eyes. The opal twinkled in the sunlight as if celebrating its freedom.

  The two opals were almost the same size. Trey’s hands were smaller than mine, and his thumb and middle finger didn’t meet when he circled them around the opal. I started shunting magic into the newest opal and then held it out towards Zephyr while Trey picked up the other one. “Zephyr, look at this,” I said proudly.

  I wasn’t sure how to interpret the facial expressions of a wolf, other than the obvious message in a growl and bared teeth, but Zephyr looked immensely pleased. “These are wonderful,” she said.

  “They’re absorbing more magic,” I said, gesturing to the one I was holding and the one Trey was holding. “Do you know when they will get full?”

  “I’ve never seen a Guldur Stone collect magic the way you are doing it,” Zephyr said. “A covering made of feral dragon skin also collects external magic, but at a much slower rate. After the dragon skin is attuned to the stone, it can still take days in the mountains or weeks in the flat valleys to fill it with magic.”

  “It’s much faster this way,” I said, feeling smug.

  “You’re right,” she said and touched the magical opal sitting in the palm of my hand with her nose. The opal immediately stopped storing additional magic.

  “What did you do?” I yelped as my fingers clasped around it. It still contained all the magic I had shunted into it, but it wasn’t collecting more magic. I closed my eyes and concentrated on pulling magic from deep within the nearby rocks. Magic again started to flow into the opal, like water flowed when I uncovered the end of one of the irrigation ditches we occasionally used in our garden.