lethargically, as if they were dragging an enormous weight behind them and wading in sludge. Heads were down and shoulders were slumped. The exhilaration and bravado that had ignited them like a wildfire on their way to harvest the hawkling eggs had been completely extinguished. Wendlin and Jeryn’s fall from the nesting cliff had sapped the joy completely out of them.
It was like this nearly every year, Hyden reflected. He couldn’t remember a harvest where someone hadn’t fallen to their death, or somehow left them all disheartened. In the first year he had attended the Summer’s Day Festival, no one had perished. The long walk from the nesting cliffs, through the great forest toward Summer’s Day that year, had been as hope filled and exciting as all his trips to harvest combined. But since then, the trip to the festival from the egg harvest was always bittersweet. This year, one set of brothers and a father, were mourning, while the rest of the clan were trying to get past it so that they could enjoy the upcoming festivities. It was the cruelest of clan rituals, or maybe just bad timing on nature’s part, that the harvest and the Summer’s Day Festival were almost always tainted with sorrow and death.
“It’s a reminder from the goddess,” Uncle Condlin had said, after burying Wendlin in the canyon. “We, as a people, may climb high and reach farther than nature intended, we may reap great strength, and we may profit from these deeds, but we must remain humble, for it as a gift we are granted to be able to do such things. Every gain has its cost, and every loss is the cost of our gain.”
Uncle Condlin had looked directly at Hyden as he spoke of gain and loss. Hyden wanted to scream out that he had nothing to do with this year’s harvest. He hadn't asked for, or even earned, the God’s Gift that had found its way to him. But he held his tongue. Condlin had already lost one son, and another was lying broken on a travois. Condlin carried one end, and refused to let anyone else ease his burden. Hyden’s father, Harrap, and a few others, took turns carrying the other end. Hyden had a deep respect for the determination and strength his Uncle Condlin showed day in and day out, but he refused to feel guilty for anything. He may have been the recipient of a gift from the gods, and his cousins may have paid a price for it, but he had done no wrong.
The somber mood caused Gerard to give up on finding more devious ways to use the ring he had found. He had long ago exhausted the fun out of the trick of having someone tell someone else something that got them clobbered. The thrill of that was gone. Instead, he kept to himself and stayed out of the way, while trying to do other things through his mind with the ring. One night, he spent the whole evening by the campfire, trying to levitate a small stone, but it never once moved. He tried to make a stick catch fire and also to extinguish a flame, but it was all for nothing. What he did manage to do, was halt a deer in its tracks the previous afternoon. Gerard might have even called the animal to them, but there was no way to be sure. All he knew was that he had called out to the forest to send them a fat doe and one actually came.
Gerard, Hyden, and Little Condlin, had ranged ahead of the rest of the clan to hunt. They weren’t really short on meat, Hyden just wanted to keep sharp with his bow. The boys hadn’t even been quiet. It shocked them all when the deer bound out of the woods into their path. As soon as it saw them, the doe started to bolt away, but Gerard cried out, “Stop! Wait!” and amazingly, the creature stayed rooted there. Gerard had been about to call the deer to him, when Hyden’s arrow pierced its heart with a “Thrump!” The Doe just stood there, with its eyes locked on Gerard’s, until its front legs crumpled underneath it. As soon as the animal fell onto its side, Gerard felt the tingling, burning rush of the ring’s magic fill his blood. It was a grand feeling, and it was all the proof he needed to know that the ring had caused the deer to freeze in place. What else the ring might have caused, he was left to wonder about.
Gerard didn’t tell anyone of his part in it. He left Hyden, and Little Condlin, to guess whether or not his voice had anything to do with stopping the deer in its tracks. He let them tell of the strange encounter at the fire that night, and was glad that Hyden didn’t mention the ring at all. The Elders attributed the weird happenings to Hyden’s hawkling. Gerard held the truth inside, and some odd voice from within told him that that was the best way.
As the clan walked in a northwesterly direction, under the spacious canopy of bird filled oaks and maples, Gerard couldn’t help but try to manipulate every creature he saw. A squirrel had his attention at the moment.
“Are you well?” Hyden asked.
Gerard didn’t answer. Hyden wondered if he had even been heard by Gerard. Being the older brother, he took the liberty of slugging Gerard on the shoulder. Gerard stumbled to the side, but didn’t lose a step.
“Blast you Hyden!” he cursed. “I was thinking.”
“Aye!” Hyden laughed at the stupid expression on his brother’s face. “No doubt thinking of how easy it’ll be to get into all the girls’ small clothes now that you’ve got your ring!”
That idea hadn’t crossed Gerard’s mind as of yet, and he wasn’t mad at Hyden for the suggestion, but he tried to act that way. It wasn’t easy. He had to try hard to suppress the smile it brought to his face.
“You’re looking up into the trees like that bewitched Miller from that story Berda told us.”
“Aye Hyden,” Gerard laughed. “But it’s no golden acorn I’m seeking.”
“Well, watch your step or you’ll end up with knots on your head like me.” When Gerard didn’t offer any explanation, Hyden asked. “What are you looking for up there?”
Gerard glanced at Hyden. He didn’t want to answer. He didn’t really want to do what he did either, but even though he knew it was a mistake, he did it anyway.
In his mind, he told Hyden to leave him alone and just walk away. Instantly, he felt the tingle of the ring’s magic burn into his blood. For a long moment, he stared at his brother, waiting for him to comply.
Hyden felt the command come into his mind, a subtle suggestion that made him want to move away from where he was and walk alone for a while. He didn’t do it. Just as suddenly as the idea had formed, it had drifted away, and just as suddenly, the tiny hawkling nestled in the bucket he was carrying screeched out. Hyden didn’t take his eyes off Gerard’s. He watched his little brother’s eyes widen with panic as he realized that Hyden knew what he had just attempted. Gerard sighed and slumped his shoulders. Hyden wasn’t sure if it was a slump of disappointment, or a slump of shame. He decided he was so angry at being commanded like that, it didn’t matter.
“Don’t you ever use your magic on me!” Hyden said, through clenched teeth. “Ever!” Then he stormed off and busied himself feeding the ever hungry hawkling chick.
Gerard was left speechless. He was at a loss. He knew by the way that the magic had dissipated away from him, instead of gathering around Hyden that his brother wasn’t going to obey his mental suggestion. It put a strange feeling in his guts. He began to wonder if the ring had actually been meant for him. For a fleeting moment he was certain that it had been meant for Hyden to find. It was his now though, and he wasn’t about to let Hyden have it. No one would get it from him. Reflexively, he covered the ring with his hand and made for the other side of the procession.
Just after midday, the forest began to thin. There were still trees about, in small clumps of twos and threes, with the occasional copse here and there, but they were no longer in what you could call a forest. Soon, they would angle northward and start down into the gradually sloping valley that the giants called the Leif Greyn. Berda had told them it meant “Life Giver.” Hyden had always wondered if Leif Greyn was the name of the huge river that flowed out of the Giant Mountains, or the name of the lush valley that embraced it. He wanted to ask the giantess, Berda, that very question, but he could never remember to ask it when she was in the clan village visiting.
Berda was the wife of a herdsman, and the very best of storytellers. She loved to tell tales that showed the young clans folk the ways of nature and life. She was old and wise, as well as huge, and Hyden loved her dearly. Hyden couldn’t wait to show her the hawkling. She would have a tale for the occasion, he knew. She knew everything, and she had a way of teaching through her stories that was very effective. Those who listened learned much as she narrated her captivating tales. Most of the people in the kingdom lands thought of the giants, and the mountain clansmen, as barbaric and primitive savages, but they were wrong. In many cases, the mountain folk were far more intelligent. She had told him this repeatedly, and he smiled outwardly wondering what wisdom she would have to offer about his little bird.
The mood of the rest of the clan began to lighten as they made camp for the night. The morrow would bring many smiles, and a few tears, when the group were reunited with their wives and children under the towering black monolith that marked the festival grounds. The actual festival wouldn’t officially begin for a few days yet, but for the Skyler Clan, it would start as soon as the men met up with their families under the Spire.
Hyden sat by himself with the nest bucket in his lap. He had just finished feeding the chick and was using the last of the daylight to look at how much it had grown in the last few days. Its feathers were coming in now, and its beak was turning from a soft, gray triangle, into a longer, sharper thing. Its eyes were still filmed over, but Hyden
