by Kris Hiatt
Path of The Calm
SAGA OF THE WOLF: BOOK I
By Kris A. Hiatt
Copyright © 2015 by Kris A. Hiatt
All rights reserved.
For Sheila, my love.
Thank you to those who read my early drafts and provided feedback and support. Especially to you, Cheryl, Dave, and Tonya. This would not have been possible without you.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 1
The sandy haired kid grinned at him from above. It wasn’t a nice grin as if he were happy to see him. Instead, it was a malevolent grin; a grin that wanted to do him harm, just like the boy who wore it. It wasn’t the first time Treace had seen that grin; in fact, he had seen it many times before.
He had been shoved to the ground and his shin was scraped and bleeding. The fall had torn open his pants at the knee and the push knocked his travel sack off his shoulder. It tumbled to the ground and most of its contents had spilled out. Treace could see his apple rolling on the ground and his jerky covered in dirt next to it.
He guessed he didn’t want to eat lunch today anyway.
“What’s the matter, stone-faced Treace? Did that hurt? You gonna cry again, crybaby?” The sandy haired kid mocked, standing over him as he lay on the ground.
“Stone-faced Treace, stone-faced Treace,” the three other kids chanted.
It was the same old rhyme Treace had heard dozens of times; rhyming his name with the insult. If one of the Onneron Brothers at the College didn’t use their magic correctly, they could lose the ability to have any emotion. Without the ability to feel or show emotion, they could never smile or frown. Their facial expressions never changed, hence the stone-faced reference. Treace didn’t find it particularly inventive or clever, but he wasn’t exactly in a position to judge.
The other kids were at least a few years older than him, with Wren being the oldest, and the biggest. There was always a group of them, never just one, and Treace was so small that he couldn’t really fight them off. He was much more intelligent than they were, but that never seemed to help when he was lying on the ground with four to one odds.
“Go away, Wren,” Treace said as he started to get to his feet, keeping his emotions in check.
“I’ll go where I want,” Wren replied, pushing Treace back to the ground.
His already scraped knee was opened up a little bit more and he tried to ignore the pain. “I didn’t tell you where to go, idiot, I just told you to go away,” Treace said, quite irritated. He knew he shouldn’t have provoked the older boy, but he couldn’t help it, Wren was much larger and a bully, but he was also stupid.
Wren’s response was a sneer and a swift kick to his stomach which knocked the wind out of him.
He gasped for breath that wouldn’t come and doubled over in pain. The older boys were laughing at him, but he didn’t care, he was too busy being on all fours trying to catch his breath.
After several failed attempts, he managed to find a breath that had air when someone, Wren he presumed, kicked him hard in the ass. It knocked him flat on his face and he started to cry; he couldn’t help it. He knew the older kids would laugh even more, but he couldn’t help it. He was only eleven years old and sometimes at that age, you just can’t help but to cry.
“Aw, look at the little crybaby! Cry, crybaby, cry!” Wren said in a mimicked baby voice.
Wren laughed at his own baby voice and grinned even more as he swung his leg back and kicked Treace hard in the ribs. The others joined him.
Treace managed to pull himself into the fetal position and covered his face with his arms; it absorbed the kicks aimed at his face. He knew his arms would be very sore and that he would have to explain the bruises to his mother, but it was better than the alternative. A kick or two to the face could dislodge teeth or break a nose. That would be even worse. He could explain the bruises, but it was harder to explain a broken tooth or a broken nose.
Treace’s lower back exploded in pain and his vision started to blur. A pathetic moan escaped him as he fought to keep consciousness. A hard soled shoe had found its way into his right kidney and he thought for a second he would pass out. He set his mind to keep from closing his eyes and fought away the pain. He succeeded in keeping from passing out, but he wondered briefly if the pain was worth it; it might have been better to just succumb to the darkness. Too late for that though, the feeling passed and he was left with nothing but pain as a few more kicks connected with his body.
After a few moments, which seemed to last much longer, the other boys seemed to get tired of kicking and went along their business. But not Wren, he had a little more to give. Wren picked up Treace’s travel sack and threw it further away.
“Keep away from my town you useless dog’s ass, or you’ll get more. And next time it’ll be worse,” Wren informed him before spitting on him and joining his friends.
It never ceased to amaze Treace how that ignorant wretch seemed to run this place. Even though he was only fourteen or fifteen years old, the older boys left him alone. Most of the adults seemed to shy away from him as well. It was probably because his father was the constable of the city, and therefore the law. His name was also Wren. Treace didn’t know him, but he knew his son. Wren Shilian II, what a pain in Treace’s ass, both literally and figuratively, he thought.
He waited a few long minutes before pulling himself off the ground. He looked around to see who was watching him and noticed Jensen, one of the two local blacksmiths, was watching with a concerned look on his face.
The bullies always seemed to find him when there was either no one, or just a very few people around. Jensen had watched him get beat up at least three times now. Granted, the fact that Jensen’s smithy was on the edge of town and closest to Wren’s manor probably had something to do with it. Still, Treace couldn’t help but to briefly wonder if the smith was in on it. He quickly dismissed the notion as silly, although he still didn’t understand why the smith didn’t step in and stop the other kids. Weren’t adults supposed to protect children?
Treace spat on the ground and noticed the blood mixed in with his saliva. He hadn’t noticed until then, but he had managed to cut his tongue during the fight. He guessed he had bitten it. He hoped the smith wouldn’t notice. He didn’t feel like answering all the questions that came along with it. It was alright if you were roughed up, but once blood was involved, adults seemed to take notice. It was one thing to be bullied around a bit, but it was something else entirely when a child was spitting blood. He didn’t want the attention of the latter and didn’t want his mother knowing he was getting beat up.
He brushed himself off as best he could and grabbed his travel sack. Then he gathered up what was left of his dignity and proceeded to leave town. His mother would be expecting him home soon, and since he lost his father a few years ago, he was all his mother had left. He didn’t want to keep her waiting.
As he walked he thought of his father, as he usually did. It wasn’t easy for him, even after the few years that passed.
His father, Orlin,
used to work at the local mill before he died. His father was trying to dislodge two logs that had gotten stuck when he slipped and fell between them and was crushed under their weight. His mother only told him about it once, and she didn’t offer many details. He guessed he didn’t blame her for not wanting to. She went to bed right after telling him the story. He could hear her crying from his room.
“Boy, you going to answer me or what?” The smith called out, drawing Treace from his thoughts. Judging by the tone of his voice it must have been at least the second or third time he had called out to him.
He was much older than Treace, probably older than his mother, with long, black hair and beard that was matted to his head. Treace knew the sweat wasn’t only from the summer heat, but also from intense fires produced by the forge.
“Sorry sir, I didn’t hear you,” Treace said, his face going red. It was bad enough that he was beaten up in front of the man, he didn’t want him thinking he was daft too.
“Well that was obvious,” the man said under his breath.
Even though he was forty or so feet away, Treace heard it. His mother always said he had good ears, though he doubted the smith thought so right about then.
“Come here for a minute, I want to talk to you,” the smith said loudly, patting the bench that sat just outside of his shop with large, well-muscled hands.
By the look of those hands, Treace guessed that working in a smithy must be hard work. The smith didn’t look to be upset at being ignored.
He didn’t think the smith saw the blood in his saliva, but considering this was the first time someone asked to talk to him after he was roughed up, Treace decided it couldn’t hurt to talk to the man. At least it couldn’t hurt any more than his lower back, ribs, and ass did.
He walked over and put his travel sack on the ground. He managed to climb up on the bench with some effort.
“What’s your name?”
“Treace, sir.”
“My name’s Jensen, son. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, sir.”
“Why is it you don’t ever fight back?” The smith asked while he absently wiped his hands with a rag.
The rag was so dirty that Treace wasn’t sure if he was trying to clean the rag or his massive hands.
“Why is it you never stop them?” Treace asked.
The smith sighed heavily and stopped wiping his hands.
“I don’t stop them because a boy has to learn to fight back.”
Treace opened his mouth to speak, but the smith cut him off with an upraised hand.
“And the constable’s the father of the big one that put a beating on you. No one in their right mind is going to cross the constable, even if his son is a bully.”
Treace thought about it for a second, well aware of the judging look spread upon the smith’s face.
“I would fight back, sir, if it were something resembling a fair fight. Four to one odds aren’t very fair, wouldn’t you agree?”
Treace bulled ahead as he noticed the smith was about to respond.
“And if no one bothers to stop the bully because he’s the son of the constable, then maybe someone should just tell the constable so he can put a stop to it. He is the law you know.”
He wasn’t sure if he should expect a response, but even if he did, he wouldn’t have expected the smith to simply give a great big laugh. It was the kind of laugh the came straight from the belly. It was a contagious laugh, and as everyone knows, a contagious laugh is impossible not to laugh alongside of. Treace let a small grin spread across his face before he was howling right along with the smith.
“You sure do have a lot of fire, don’t you boy? Don’t get me wrong and go thinking that’s a bad thing. You’ve got a sharp tongue, and a sharper wit, if I don’t miss my guess. But sometimes that tongue can get you in trouble.”
Treace couldn’t argue the point; he knew the smith’s words to be true. Therefore, he merely shrugged in response.
“How old are you, boy? Eight? Nine?”
“I’m eleven, sir,” Treace replied meekly. “I’m just small for my age.”
The smith looked in the distance pensively and it looked to Treace as if he weighed some differing ideas in his mind. He must have settled on one because he nodded and looked Treace over from head to toe. He was fairly used to it. Most adults that heard him speak always looked at him in a different way. Treace knew he was different than most kids his age; he was small so he didn’t look eleven, couple that with the fact that he spoke as if he were fifteen or sixteen and most people just didn’t know what to think of him.
“How often do you read? Often by the sounds of ya.”
“Every day, sir. Mostly,” Treace confirmed.
Treace’s father taught him to read and write early on, telling him it was very important for a young man to be educated. His father read to him often and even though they were children’s stories, Treace loved them just the same.
After his father died, his mother wouldn’t let him slack in his studies. She pressed him further and harder than his father had. She wouldn’t let him read the children’s stories anymore, but he kept one hidden in his room anyway and read it often. It was his favorite, and it was no coincidence that it was also the one his father read to him most often. She made him read history books and language books most of the time, but she also had taught him mathematics from other books as well.
His father had several book shelves lining the walls in their small house, but it was a rather limited collection. Most of the books were dialogues of traveling men, some were about astronomy, some showed how to care for plants, others covered the proper care of livestock, and yet others discussed the proper methods for creating tonics. Treace browsed through a few of them, but most were not of much interest to a boy of his age. Not that the lesson books his mother borrowed from the tutors were much better, but he didn’t have a choice in the matter. She didn’t have the money to buy them, but the tutors were kind enough to loan them out. Thinking of the lesson books reminded him of the latest book his mother asked him to get from one of the local tutors. It was titled: Compilation of Cognizant Contemplations by Carowin. It was in his travel sack, though he wasn’t overly thrilled about reading it.
“That’s good. The bad part is that you’re just a little thing. Most bullies pick on the little ones,” the smith said gesturing in Treace’s direction.
Once again, Treace couldn’t argue the point. He was beat up, living proof.
“And all that knowledge,” Jensen said as he put his index finger up to his own temple. “Isn’t going to help with that.”
Treace thought the smith was wrong in that assessment. All that knowledge, as the smith referred to it, actually made it worse. It gave him the ability to speak circles around Wren, which only made the bully angrier. Apparently he didn’t like being made fun of by an eleven year old who was, quite literally, half his size. Treace was sure his beatings were worse because of it. He didn’t offer his thoughts on the subject to Jensen, though.
“Now,” the smith started up again, dragging out the word in an obvious attempt to regain Treace’s attention. “I have an idea that might help remedy that. I just received an order from the captain of the guard to make all new shoes for their horses and make twenty new swords for his men.”
Treace nodded in understanding, although he really didn’t. He had pictures of swords flying through his mind.
“I need a little help if I want to complete that on time. Nothing dangerous mind you, but I don’t want some idiot helping me. You seem to be the exact opposite in that department,” the smith said.
Again, Treace couldn’t argue.
“And anyone working on the contract gets a cut of the profit,” the smith said and paused slightly.
Treace knew his mother could use some help with the household finances.
“You also need to gain a bit of muscle to your bones,” Jensen said and gestured to Treace’s spindly limbs. “Working in the smithy
here will help with that.”
Treace couldn’t argue the first point, though he wanted to. He liked the idea of getting bigger and stronger. Maybe then Wren would leave him alone.
“I think it works out great for the both of us,” the smith said, fiddling with his apron. “I get an errand boy of sorts, and you get to learn something new, get a few pieces, and put some meat on your bones. If you work out, I may have need of you for other jobs.”
“Will you teach me how to make swords?” Treace asked, unable to keep the wonder out of his voice.
He had a fascination with swords ever since his father started reading to him and telling him stories where the hero with the sword slays the beast and saves the damsel in distress. He wondered if the heroes in the stories were ever bullied. He doubted it. He dreamed of being one of the heroes who saved the day. It was a nice change of pace from being the smallest kid around. He was even smaller than kids a few years younger than him. His mother said he would get his growth soon, but he was beginning to have his doubts.
“Making a sword takes a good amount of time and a good amount of skill,” Jensen said. “You’ll only be a helper at first. The forge is dangerous.”
Treace tried not to let the disappointment show on his face, but he doubted he was successful.
“If you show you can work hard fetching water and ore and whatever else it is I need you to get, I may teach you some basic stuff.”
Treace brightened a little at that, but not much.
“But if you show some skill and work hard, I may eventually teach you how to make a sword,” the smith said.
“I’ll do my best,” Treace assured him.
“Of course you’ll need to get your ma’s approval,” the smith said that in a tone that indicated he doubted it would happen.
“Oh, she’ll approve,” Treace added quickly.
His mother was very insistent upon him learning new things and from various sources. He figured he could learn several topics from the smith. Like how heat affects metal and the proper amounts to melt each. He could learn how to shoe a horse, which was always useful. If she became hesitant to let him assist the smith, he would be quick to point that out and try to use her own logic against her.
