“I don’t think so,” Vaegon replied with a dry smile. “It’s time to greet the day anyway.”
He held up a hand to stall the next swing of the ax. He had been tempted to add “your Majesty” to the end of his comment, but thought better of it. Instead, he clarified his feelings on the matter of titles right then and there.
“If you don’t want me to address you as your Highness, your majesty, or King Mikahl, then please quit calling me Sir Vaegon.” He chuckled, because he couldn’t help but end his little gripe with a bow and the sarcastic words, “If it pleases.”
Mikahl shook his head slowly, and a wry grin started to curl the edges of his mouth, but the effect of his next swing of the ax wiped the mirth away. The blow was hard enough, that it cleaved through the remaining half of the branch he had been working on.
“Point taken,” Mikahl huffed, and then let the ax fall to the ground.
He was about to take a seat on the trunk of the fallen tree, when the sharp crack of a small stick being stepped on, came from the forest at the clearing’s edge.
Instinctually, his hand went for Ironspike’s hilt. Panic raced through his body when he didn’t find it there. The sense of relief that came over him when Talon fluttered out of the woods where the sound had come from was overwhelming, because at the same moment he saw that it was the hawkling, he remembered where he had laid his father’s blade, and saw that it was still there.
Hyden stepped out of the woods and yawned. He looked at Mikahl curiously, letting his eyes take in the felled tree from top to bottom. Then, he turned his gaze on Vaegon, and shrugged.
“Kingdom folk,” he said, as if that explained everything.
Vaegon bit back a laugh. He couldn’t figure out how he could’ve ever hated the sometimes clever and witty humans. The elves were always so stern and serious, save for when they were celebrating. In contrast, these humans were determined to laugh and make light of the problems that weighed them down. Vaegon could never remember laughing and smiling so much as he had the last few days. Even with pain, sorrow, and uncertainty threatening to swallow them whole, they found a way to make each other smile. Vaegon wasn’t sure, but he was almost certain, that all humans weren’t this much fun to be around. He decided that he would catalog some of his curiosities today when he took time to write in his journal.
Hyden sat on the tree trunk; Talon swooped in, and landed on a branch beside him. Mikahl sat as well, and wiped the sweat from his brow. A light mist of steam radiated out from his skin up into the cool morning air.
“Did I wake the old man too?” Mikahl asked.
“He was sound asleep, and making more noise than you when I left him,” Hyden answered.
Loudin’s snoring was a well known subject among them.
“I’m going to miss him when he leaves us,” Hyden confided. “Without the terrible sound of his sleeping to scare away the creatures of the night, we’ll have to start posting watches.”
“Aye,” Mikahl chuckled, but found no mirth in it. He had been wondering what Loudin would do after he collected the money for the bark lizard skin. “You think he’ll go then?” he asked the others.
“I think he is still trying to decide,” said Vaegon.
“I see him spending his gold in his mind when he talks of it,” Hyden said. “But I see his concern for you as well, Mik.”
A sound came to Vaegon’s ears then – a high pitched wail. Talon heard it too, and with a glance of his raptor head towards Hyden, he leapt into flight.
Hyden looked at Mikahl, and shrugged. Neither of them had heard the noise. The next time it came though, Hyden sensed it through his link with Talon. He could tell by Talon’s instinctual recognition, that it was a wounded animal, something in great pain, and full of fearful sorrow.
Without another thought, he jumped up, and started after the hawkling. Vaegon made a frustrated grunt, and followed them, leaving Mikahl standing there full of curiosity, and more than a little excited. All the traveling he had done over the last few weeks had been monotonous for the most part. Whatever these two were chasing after, it had to be more interesting and distracting than chopping wood. It was no wonder he forgot all about Ironspike laying there in the dewy grass when he raced off after them to see what all the fuss was about.
The sounds lead them beyond the clearing, through a dense section of the forest. It was no easy chore picking the way through the tangle of branches and undergrowth, but they managed it. Up a rough hillside, and down again, and across a tiny stream in a wide, rocky bed, they went. Hyden paused there. He clenched his eyes shut and sought out Talon’s vision.
Using the hawkling’s ultra-keen senses, and using the bird’s-eye view, he followed the sound to its source. At the bottom of a ravine, a dusty, gray colored ridge wolf lay wounded and dying. At her belly, a couple of good sized pups, suckled for milk, with desperately futile effort.
Hyden could tell that they had been weaned for a while, but hadn’t learned to hunt yet. The mother had probably stopped producing milk a few days ago, and had been trying to teach them. If she wasn’t helped, all three of them would starve, or be killed by scavengers.
From the ravine, he guided Talon back to the stream bed, and marked the way in his mind. It wasn’t far, just downstream a bit, and then around a forested hillock. It took only a few minutes for him to get there.
Hyden went over the edge of the ravine with urgent quickness. His climbing skills had been honed to near perfection over his lifetime, and he was at the bottom in seconds. He spoke softly to the wolf as he approached, but she growled at him anyway. Her instinct to protect her pups was strong. Only after Talon came swooping in, and landed on Hyden’s shoulder, did the wolf relax its toothy snarl, and let him get close.
Had she fallen? No, Hyden decided, she would have been battered and broken, and her pups wouldn’t be at her side if she had taken a tumble into the ravine. After carefully, and cautiously inspecting her fur, while sending calming reassurances to her through his link with Talon, he found two rows of deep puncture wounds down her side. Bite marks. It was as if a huge predator had clamped its teeth down over her back. An icy chill ran down his spine. What could have done this?
“Vaegon!” Hyden called out to the elf. “I need you to come down and heal her. She’s not in very good shape.”
Vaegon looked cautiously over the edge. With only one eye, he couldn’t tell whether the bottom was forty feet down, or a hundred. What’s worse is what he did see, which spun dizzily in his head, and he nearly stumbled over the edge. Had Mikahl not caught up to him, and grabbed him from behind, he would have gone over the edge. It shamed him to say it, but he did so anyway.
“There’s no way I can make it down Hyden Hawk. No way.”
Hyden had noticed the drastic changes in Vaegon’s demeanor since he had been wounded. He didn’t doubt what the elf was saying, but he was determined to help the beautiful wolf live long enough to raise its pups. He sent Talon soaring along the ravine searching for another way down. There was one, but the journey required to get to it would take longer than the wolf had left to live.
“What do I do?” Hyden called out desperately.
“I could fetch a rope and we could haul her up to him,” Mikahl yelled down. He wasn’t really sure he could find his way back to the camp on his own, but he was willing to try.
The idea of pulling her up with a rope had crossed Hyden’s mind too, but the wolf’s injuries were too severe to allow it.
“Thanks Mik, but she wouldn’t make it.”
Hyden was starting to panic in fear for the animal’s life. One of the pups yapped and growled at him. Its stance was awkward, half afraid, and half protective. Its neck fur stood on end, but it was ready to dart away if it had to.
“You’ll have to heal her yourself!” Vaegon called down matter-of-factly. “You have the ability, I know you do!”
“What?” The idea seemed ridiculous. “How?”
“You’ll have to calm yourself down, Hyden Hawk. You have to relax and clear your mind.”
Vaegon sat at the edge of the ravine, not too close to the drop, but close enough that he could communicate with Hyden without having to yell.
“Once you do that, I’ll talk you through it. If you really want to help the wolf, then we’ll get it done.”
Mikahl watched in wonder as Vaegon talked Hyden into a relaxed state. In the back of his mind, something was nagging at him, but the revelation of what it was never came. The elf was speaking of envisionment,
