Chapter 9: Chapter 8: Unknown

We marched for the rest of that day and through the early half of the night. The other hunters followed us for most of our march and whenever they got too close to the formation, our hunters put themselves between the caravan and them until they backed off again.

The situation was still tense, but overall spirits were higher than one might have expected. A few older members complained that if the outsiders wanted a fight, they should just get it over with, but I knew they weren’t serious. Besides, my mother had made it clear before that we would migrate once the weather allowed, as she had feared an attack from our neighbors, and I guess she had been justified in thinking that.

Our path mainly led us in a northern direction until we reached a small stream cutting through the landscape. Seeing that the hunters were still shadowing us, though, we started crossing it at a shallower section.

During the crossing, the other hunters watched us from the shore and, looking back at them, I saw the leader of the group draw an arrow. For a moment, I thought they would attack us while we were unable to fully defend ourselves, but her companions didn’t raise their weapons and silently watched on.

The arrow flew well clear of our caravan and landed further downstream. Most of our tribe ignored it, but my mother and some of the elders had been watching its trajectory. Among them was also Tasos, who was clutching his Ahfotu and looking pretty pissed off. After the arrow vanished in the water, the other tribe turned away and quickly disappeared into the darkness.

Once everyone was back on dry land, it was decided that we would rest here for a while and travel further north first thing in the morning. I was pretty tired myself, so I welcomed the break and, after pulling out the sleeping covers from my pack, I just laid down where I had been standing and threw them on my back. Before I knew it, I was fast asleep.

This time, my sleep was, thankfully, dreamless, and the next morning I woke up, when something poked me from behind. Rubbing the sleepiness from my eyes, I saw that Fela was prodding me with an arrow, seemingly unbothered by me trying to squirm away, without getting up and exposing myself to the cold. “Come on, sleepyhead.” She pulled back her arm in an exaggerated manner and thrust it forward again. If she didn’t do this almost every time I was sleeping in, I might have even considered dodging.

Before the arrow hit me, she flipped it around with one fluid motion, although the shaft still hurt and caused me to jump up a bit. I quickly recovered, though, and glared at Fela.

“We’re moving out again, and if you still want breakfast, you should get up now,” was all my sister said as she put the arrow back into her quiver. Before I could reply, however, she was already moving away again.

As I got up, I tried to semi-successfully suppress a yawn and stuffed the blankets back into my pack before I let my gaze wander around the camp. Most people were already out and about, packing their bags or filling up their waterskins in the river. Some of the older folk were also grumpy about not getting enough sleep, but I ignored them as I went to the improvised kitchen area. Although calling it that was giving it a bit too much credit.

Most of the food was the few dairy products we had left, mixed with plants and some smaller vegetables. Without a proper oven, we couldn’t really cook any meat in time, and eating it raw was generally avoided, so the food itself wasn’t anything special. We had often eaten similar during our migrations and, sometimes, when the hunters left camp for longer than expected, chasing down an animal herd.

I simply thanked the people preparing the meal and made my way to the water. My breakfast was uneventful, so after filling my own waterskin, I got back to helping some of the others pack up, and soon enough we were back on the march. To be honest, if someone told me we were going around in circles, I might have believed them for a moment. The steppe was rather boring to look at for long periods of time, and the only real indication of progress was the shrinking mountains behind us.

We spent most of the morning like that, but when the sun had just reached its zenith, there was a shift in the surrounding atmosphere. It was subtle at first. One of the hunters scouting up ahead coming in before her usual timing and after that a squad moving from the right to the left flank, but soon enough everyone had realized something was happening.

When the chief ordered a stop, there were a few worried faces, mine included, but the reason came soon into view. The first thing I saw was a big dust cloud slowly making its way toward us. My mother didn’t order any combat formation or similar to meet them, though, so I assumed they weren’t approaching as enemies. That was proven a few moments later, when I saw a caravan, much like our own, if about twice our size, approach. They also had proportionally more pack animals than our small herd.

Once they were close enough, my mother, sisters and a few of the elders separated from our group and went to meet them. The other group’s leader did the same and they met halfway. From the bits of political education I had picked up, even I knew that was a good sign. Having the other party come to you was a universal sign for a position of power, after all.

I was unfortunately too far away to eavesdrop on what was being talked about, but pretty quickly, the chiefs separated again, although their entourages stayed put. The reason for that become obvious when my mother ordered to set up camp here before she went back to her negotiations. I was a bit disappointed to be excluded from the talks, but complaining about it in front of the others would only hurt my tribe’s image, so I just swallowed my pride and started unpacking again.

Thankfully, the hunters not involved in the talks returned soon and with their help, the tents were put up in no time. After that, the ovens were built pretty quickly as well, thanks to some magic, and the cooks started to heat them up, while a few people - me included - were put on gathering duty. Once the ovens were hot enough for cooking, though, the talks seemed to come to an end, at least for now, as the first portions of food were soon ready.

———

“Gods, politics is sooo boooring!” Fela said while putting me in one of her drunk bear hugs again. And, again, I had to be careful not to spill any food on her. Besides, why was it always me who ended up at the receiving end of these? Aya was just eating in peace next to us and pretended as if this was normal, like she always did.

Also, it was, like, barely past midday. How was she already this drunk? As far as I could tell, the few drinks we still had left didn’t even have that high of an alcohol content.

“And what exactly do you expect me to do about that?” I simply asked between my bites of food.

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“Hmmm... I know! You could be there for cuddling, then... uhhh, I could cuddle you.” Honestly, what was with her and cuddling me?

Before I could reply, how that was a terrible idea, though, my mom spoke up. “You know very well that I won’t allow that. Besides, Charas has his duties to attend to.” At that, she turned to me with a stern look in her eyes, “And today I expect you to take them serious, understood?”

“Yes, mother.” I may still have mixed feeling about training my magic, but that wasn’t the only thing I was expected to learn, even if my old memories would, hopefully, make some of them rather trivial.

The rest of the meal was spent eating in mostly silence and some unimportant small talk. Soon enough, the negotiations continued, although this time they were held in a big tent, instead of out in the open. One member of the previous talks didn’t rejoin them, though, and now I was standing with Tasos again in an open field, but we hadn’t moved as far as last time, and I could still see the camp in the distance.

“Soo...” The atmosphere was rather awkward. Tasos hadn’t actually said anything except that I should follow him here and now he was looking out toward the steppe. I hadn’t brought my instrument with me, but he held his Veng Tuba in hand.

“You know, young Charas, the very first time I had used magic unsupervised is a moment I will probably never forget.” He took a deep breath and sat down on the grass. I wordlessly sat down beside him.

“I was just a bit older than you are now and my father had been the one to teach me. He said that with enough experience, I had the potential to become one of the greatest mages of our generation. He had been skilled in both water and earth magic himself, and taught me a lot in these fields, but our tribe didn’t have a strong fire or air mage, so I had to learn those on my own.”

He closed his eyes and continued, “I didn’t think it was a bad idea to show off my powers and although I didn’t have siblings like you, my niece was only a few winters younger and one of my closest friends at the time. So one night, we snuck out and I just started playing. It was a hot summer night, but one could feel the humidity that indicated a storm was coming.”

“At first I played a few water and air songs and cutting the grass with blades of winds was an exceptional feeling and my niece spurred me on to try out bigger spells, although I didn’t dare to use fire in the summer heat. After a while, however, a tune got stuck in my head and I instinctively started playing it.”

He paused for another moment. “Next thing I knew, I was too stunned by a blinding light and a thundering noise and just stood there stunned. What eventually got me out of my daze was the screaming and crying I had heard beside me.” I could see a few tears gathering in the corners of his eyes and instinctively grabbed his hand before I even realized I did. When I tried to pull back, though, he held onto it and so I held his hand as he started talking again.

“I had been warned about using my magic, of course, and I had thought that what I was doing was safe, but there always is one danger we can never fully account for: the unknown. In the end, my niece survived, though she would be lame in one of her legs for the rest of her life. At that time, I had sworn to myself never to use magic again.”

He opened his eyes and looked directly into mine. “I don’t know what exactly happened that night, but even I can see that it has shaken you, Charas. And I promise you, that feeling is natural. Magic is an incredible tool, as well as a dangerous weapon. But you can’t just turn your back on its power… At first you may think you can handle it, but in reality, magic is a fundamental force; one that isn't easily held back."

He settled his eyes back on the horizon. “It was almost ten winters later and actually happened not that far from where were are right now, when I used my magic again. Your grandmother was Chief at the time and if there was one thing that got her riled up, it was the prospect of hunting Elves by the border, let me tell you.” He chuckled a bit at that.

“Back then, you could expect at least one of their patrols a season, so she had taken most of the able hunters with her to earn her personal prestige. Naturally that left me and about thirty others back at camp and I was expecting to spend the next days mostly looking out for the animals in peace, but migrating form one territory to the next is rarely appreciated by the local Chiefs, so it wasn't surprising that we made few friends by coming here.”

“However, I had expected that they wouldn’t care much, as long as we didn’t hunt on their grounds... To put it bluntly, I was wrong.” He took a deep, steadying breath again. “My father had been our best warrior left at the camp, so of course, he was our first line of defense. But it soon became clear that he was outmatched. I was hesitant to use my magic, however. I hadn’t trained it and I didn’t know how good I was at controlling it, but I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. By the time I had gotten my instrument, my father had already been injured by their arrows and I wasted no time before starting my song.”

“Fighting in battle is often portrayed as this heroic, honorable act, but the reality is far more grim. You just try to stay alive by any means necessary and wait for your opponent to slip up, while they do the same. One mistake and it’s usually over in an instant. My first time killing another person was no different.”

He squeezed my hand tighter again. “In the end, I won, but the battle hadn’t been without its cost...” He wiped away a few tears. “I’m sorry, it still hurts to think about.” I didn’t really find the words to console him, so I just gently wrapped him in a side hug.

“What I can say with confidence, though, is that if I had spent more time studying my powers instead of fearing them, I could have won without needing to pay such a heavy price... That is the lesson I wanted to teach you today. If you let the unknown be untamed, it is much more of a liability. It helps no one and you will only regret it in the future. I know it seems frightening to you now, but it using and understanding your power means, you will never have to fear it again… I’m sorry, this wasn’t really a good lesson, but I hope you understand what I want you to learn."

I looked back into his eyes, before my eyes drifted out toward the steppe. I lightly touched the ground with my gloved hand “I think I do.”

At that time, the sun was already painting the sky in an orange color and, after a few more minutes in silence, we went back to camp.

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