by LeRoy Clary
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Dragon Clan, In The Beginning
1st Edition
Copyright © August 2016 LeRoy Clary
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law
Cover Design Contributors: Algol2/Bigstock.com
Editor: Karen Clary
Note from the Author: Many readers have asked how the story began—the Beginning of the Dragon Clan — this very short introduction is my response. If you have already read the series, you know where the story eventually takes you. If you’re reading this as your first Dragon Clan novel, you have a lot to look forward to when you read the entire series.
Books by LeRoy Clary
Various
Here, There Be Dragons
The 6th Ransom
Blade of Lies: The Mica Silverthorne Story
Mage’s Daughter Series
Mage’s Daughter: Book 1:
Mage’s Daughter: Book 2: (Spring 2017)
Dragon! Series
Dragon! Book One: Stealing The Egg
Dragon! Book Two: Gareth’s Revenge
Dragon Clan Series
Dragon Clan: In The Beginning
Dragon Clan #1: Camilla’s Story
Dragon Clan #2: Raymer’s Story
Dragon Clan #3: Fleet’s Story
Dragon Clan #4: Gray’s Story
Dragon Clan #5: Tanner’s Story
Dragon Clan #6: Anna’s Story
Dragon Clan #7: Shill’s Story
Contact LeRoy Clary at [email protected] or message him on Facebook at: LeRoy Clary's Facebook Page if you have questions and/or suggestions
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TABLE OF CONTEXT
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AUTHOR’S NOTES
This book is a short Prequel to the Dragon Clan series:
CHAPTER ONE
Seth avoided the first blow. Shorter than his attacker and far more nimble, he used those qualities to his advantage. The nasty old woman swinging at him was not his mother. She stood tall and weighty, her nose spread across most of her broad face, and she wore a perpetual scowl. After missing him with her first swing, the other hand balled into a fist.
Seth, not yet ten, received most of the woman’s frequent abuse dispensed to the children, unlike his former home when he had lived with his family. All of them were now dead. These strangers who had taken him in were more his masters than family; more slavers than friends.
The constant abuse came from all of them, no matter how much work he did, or how hard he tried. But he was an outsider, not one of them, so he held no status in their family. If he wished to eat and live another day, he had to do as they wanted--and accept their beatings when he failed. In defiance, another thought crept into his mind. Or not.
He stood taller, chin up and insolent, as he warily eyed her.
“I told you before not to waste food!” she screeched, enraged that she had missed him with the first swing.
A single small cube of venison lay in the dirt at his feet in testament of his carelessness. When her second swing also missed his head, she lashed out with a foot. He skipped away from that, too. His resistance further infuriated her. She would continue until her fury had him pinned down on the ground, hurt and bleeding. He should have accepted his punishment if he wanted to remain with them.
She readied herself to strike again by edging closer, but Seth was already sidestepping away and had almost escaped out the door of the hut when an older daughter reached for him. She wrapped her arms around his chest and lifted him off the ground. She pinned him against her, snarling in his ear, “Where do ya think you’re you going’?”
He knew it was either escape or face two beatings this day. One beating from the old woman and then another from the evil girl holding him and preventing his escape. She was the biggest and ugliest of the younger girls. She was also the meanest.
Seth kicked her knee, then stomped his bare heel on her toes. She screamed, and her arms relaxed just long enough for him to twist and turn away. He darted for the door. The shadow of a male figure outside moved to block him. He lowered his shoulder and prepared for the collision with one of the boys, but managed to slip past with hardly a touch.
Outside in the yard, he stood a chance of temporarily escaping. A glance around the clearing told him only three members of the pseudo-family stood outside the hut. Two of them worked together tanning a hide on his right, and directly ahead, sitting on a log, was Madoc, the eldest son. Seth spun to his left, away from them.
The old lady and her evil daughter reached the door of the hut at the same time. The older woman emerged first, waving a large wooden ladle high in the air. “This will teach you a lesson when I get hold of you!”
“You hurt my foot,” the daughter snarled, feigning a severe limp, but staying up with her mother for the chase.
Grigori, Madoc’s younger brother, rounded a stand of trees on the path, the same trees Seth intended to hide behind. Probably sensing the situation, and hearing his mother shouting at Seth, Grigori’s hand snaked out and snagged Seth’s hair as he raced past. The action pulled Grigori off balance, and Seth found himself running in a circle at the limits of Grigori’s outreached arm. The fingers twisted tighter in Seth’s hair. If Seth stopped running Grigori, and his mother, would have him. The beating would be his worst ever, and some of them had been terrible, especially lately. He kept moving despite the pain.
Seth felt the grip loosen. He ran faster, twisting and shaking his head at the same time. From the corner of his eye, he saw the old woman with the ladle and the evil daughter charging to join in the fray. With a final yank of his head, he broke free. Grigori held a handful of hair as Seth sprawled the dirt and rolled to a stop.
Seth scrambled to his feet just as the first hands reached for him. He gave a wild kick to keep them away and rolled over again and then leaped to his feet. He sprinted for the protection of the dense forest.
“Come back here,” the woman ordered, lumbering behind for a few steps.
“You’re going to pay for this,” someone else shouted, but he didn’t know who. More shouts and curses followed. He ran down the path through the forest to the shore of the salt water where a canoe was pulled onto the beach.
Without pausing, he pushed the canoe into the edge of the water and then deeper water, his feet splashing until he felt his knees get wet. He leaped inside and fumbled for the paddle. With his first stroke, the boat surged ahead. Madoc ran onto the beach waving and yelling. He screamed to the others, “The canoe. He’s stealing the canoe.”
Seth’s breath also came in ragged gasps, and his heart pounded so hard black spots appeared in front of his eyes. He wanted a drink. No, he needed a drink. But, since moving to the new village, he’d learned the water here tasted salty and he couldn’t drink it. But unlike the fresh water at his old home, this strange water contained an abundance of edible shellfish, effortless fishing, and the sea grew green weeds that tasted better than being hungry, but not by much. The river provided water to drink.
The men of his new village shared the meat they brought back from hunting. Of course, the best hunters always got the most meat, the best cuts, and the attention of the most fertile women. They gave the meat to their favorites in their families. He seldom received any. It was that way in all villages, he suspected.
What am I going to do now? Yes, he had escaped temporarily, but what challenges and obstacles lay ahead? At only nine years old, he was too small and inexperienced to hunt successfully and expect to find enough food to eat. The nights were growing colder, and the last storm a few days ago had brought the first flakes of snow. Soon the ground would turn white, and locating food would be even harder, even for experienced hunters and gatherers. Many people died during the long winters, usually those old, young, or weak. He fit two of the three categories.
For a more immediate problem, darkness loomed ahead. Seth was now far from shore and reasonably safe. A single glance behind revealed three people standing in the shallows watching and waiting for his return. Not this time. I’m not going back there. He turned the canoe to his left and paddled parallel to the shore, knowing the men of the family would run along the beach keeping pace, and they’d be waiting in ambush when he returned to land. They could easily run as fast as he could paddle, but he might use that to his advantage, and the approaching darkness, as well.
Seth brushed aside the tears and paddled slowly, always keeping the shoreline in sight and on his left while waiting for the sun to set. Now and then he caught a glimpse of Modoc. He grew exhausted and hungry. Seth had no food, but those on shore had no boat to reach him. He felt safe enough sleeping in the canoe so far from land as he curled up. When he awoke, he was cold and wet from the small amount of water seeping into the bottom of the canoe.
It was long after sunset, the night dark, and the shoreline barely visible against the starry sky. Trees and mountains blocked off the stars on his left, so he knew where he was, and the canoe had not drifted too far. Now that they couldn’t see him in the darkness, he spun the canoe around and paddled much faster, this time keeping the shoreline on his right side. Let them search for me tomorrow in the wrong place. The increased activity helped warm him.
Later, he saw the campfire from his village lighting the underside of the trees, but he continued paddling until he was well past it, then he turned to shore. In the quiet of the night, he heard the chuckle of the small river they used for drinking water. One of his tasks had been carrying water from the river to the hut in bags made from animal skins. He knew the area well.
The canoe moved smoothly and silently up the river until he found a place where he could safely pull it ashore and hide it. He uprooted weeds and bushes and tossed them over the canoe until they hid it. Then, drinking deeply from the fresh water of the stream, he began moving closer to the remnants of the fire that still burned in front of the hut. Sleep for most people came right after dark, and he depended on the family being asleep.
Both dogs growled in warning as he crept closer through the underbrush, neither too loudly as they caught his scent and recognized him. The larger one liked him. He tiptoed to the smokehouse and pushed aside the cover. Smoke billowed out. At a sound, he turned to find both dogs watching closely, only a few steps away. He removed a small piece of venison and tore it in half along the grain. Each dog carried off its reward as he removed a larger piece of meat for himself.
He shifted the meat inside the smoker around to conceal the missing pieces. Then he closed the lid, fighting the urge to check and add firewood. That had been one of his many jobs. He moved back into the forest and circled the camp to reach the canoe. He’d have to hide it better before relocating it tomorrow night. He’d might even take it further up the coast. It would be safer there.
Still, he had managed to locate food, at least for tonight. When and if he got hungry enough, he’d go back, but the quantity of meat he held in his hands would feed him for days. He considered stealing a blanket or fur, but they would know it was gone and begin a search. If he only stole food and was careful, they might not discover it.
They don’t know me. Seth had only been with the family for a couple of moon cycles. They’d found him wandering alone after the Blue Water People attacked his village at River’s Bend. Those few of his people who were not killed became slaves. Seth had managed to hide from the Blue Water People, but when they left and the Salt People came, they found his footprints in the mud and soon located him. They captured him to either trade or sell. In the short term, they expected him to work.
The Salt People fed him as little as possible, but made him do the most work. The only time they talked to him was to bark orders to perform the most undesirable tasks.
The cold rain started to fall before he arrived back at the canoe. The boat was a prize and stroke of luck, his first in months. A hardwood frame covered in skins coated liberally with fat made the canoe rugged and waterproof. He turned it upside down to let the accumulated water drain out, then he crawled underneath for shelter.
When morning came, he pulled the boat farther up on the bank, at least ten steps from the water’s edge. He gathered enough grass and small shrubs to cover it. But he also knew that he’d soon have to find enough animal fat to keep it coated, or it wouldn’t remain waterproof for long. That went on the growing list of needs, right after warmth and food. A warm blanket or fur, enough food that would last for days, and a sheltered place to live also were at the top. He might also need a flint knife, a bow and several arrows, a spear, and a way to keep his feet warm while walking in the coming snow.
Surviving the coming winter was something he tried to keep from entering his mind. Surviving until tomorrow seemed difficult enough. He came to a conclusion. Without a store of supplies, at least some of the basics he’d identified, he would not make it.
The camp he’d fled held the things he needed. If he had been smarter, he could have stolen a few things each day and stockpiled them before escaping. No, they would have found out and then really hurt him.
He would make a raid on the camp. It was the only way. They would be wary and watching for him and the canoe, and they kept much of what he needed inside the hut, a place he never intended to go into again. He started taking inventory of useful items in the camp that he might snatch during the dark of night.
They usually left the hide scrapers beside the wood frames they used as stretchers. The hides themselves were a goal too, even though they were not yet fully tanned and would rot if not cured, they would provide warmth. He wished he could carry fire with him, but that was impossible. There was more meat in the smoker. Turnips and carrots grew in the garden if he dared dig them.
Madoc was so lazy he often left his spear outside. Seth couldn’t think of anything else that he would risk his life to obtain. After dark fell at the end of a very long and lonely day, he moved through the forest and positioned himself where he could see the camp. Only Madoc and Grigori remained outside in the dim light. They sat and talked until finally climbing
to their feet and entering the hut where the rest of the family were already sleeping.
Seth waited and watched the sliver of a moon rise, he decided to let it climb above the treetops on the other side of the clearing before moving. He had to be sure all those inside were asleep. The moon sat still on its journey as his heartbeat increased. If they caught him stealing, it would cost more than a beating. If I don’t do this, it’ll cost me more.
He eased into the camp again, tossing the two dogs more pieces of smoked meat to keep them quiet. They eagerly ate the small slices as he picked up the spear. A bow and three arrows lay beside it. His hands grabbed them all as if without thought.
At the spot where Grigori had sat and worked at knapping flint knives, arrowheads, and spearheads, there were several incomplete works spread out on a sheet of hard leather. Most were poor quality since Grigori was still learning the craft, but no matter. They were sharp and awkward, but would cut. Seth carefully folded a piece of soft leather around them to use as a makeshift bag. He used one flint knife to cut the strips on two stretchers that held the hides in place, one coyote, and one deer. The skins were as hard as thin slabs of wood, but he folded them and scanned the area for anything else of value.
The smoker was his last stop. He tossed another handful of meat to the dogs, then placed several large pieces on top of the hides he carried. It was all he could manage, and it was awkward, at best. Two trips?
No, he’d take what he could and be happy. The risk of making another trip was too great. The major items on his mental list were in his arms, all but enough food.
What’s that sound? The slightest rustle came from near the hut. He turned slowly and then remained still. A shadow moved. It was the older, ugly girl who had held him so the woman could beat him. She moved sluggishly to the side of the hut and squatted.
