August didn’t come down from the cave until the storm had dispersed, leaving behind only cold and sharp spring air. His hooves sloshed in the mud, slowing him down some. He hoped that didn’t get the way of the hunt.
He followed the path of devastation. He saw what the dragon did and still couldn’t believe it. The stories said that dragons were once the defenders of the Elements. Every Foreteller he knew from ever clan he had met knew the same stories about them. He supposed it was no surprise, then, that this one destroyed so much of the Kern’s hunting ground.
Wolf-hares and deer-hawks would not return to the burned forest for years. Zoak trees needed a long time to grow, and light vegetation wouldn’t be enough for the clan. August shook his mind clear from the distraction. What was he doing?
He needed to find Nisus. He picked up his pace, heading toward the last lightning strike he saw. He had to keep the storm going, so he wasn’t sure how long the fight lasted after that. But the fact that Nisus hadn’t come back to him was a bad sign.
The burned trees eventually came to an end, and a little further down, he saw Nisus kneeling on the ground.
“Thank the Elements!” he cried, rushing over to his little cousin. He clutched her in his arms. “Are you alright?” he demanded, looking over her scales. “What happened, where’s the dragon?”
Seeing her eyes, he slowed his questions and calmed down. Mud was everywhere on her face, save for the streaks where tears had cleansed away the dirt. She slowly hugged August, sobbing as she gently pointed to Cerran, sitting still against the stump of a burned tree.
His breathing was weak but steady, and he had minor burns on his scales from the dragon’s fire. A bad state, but not unrecoverable.
“Where’s the dragon?” he asked.
Cerran turned his head toward August’s voice, but his eyes stared as if no one was there. “Thought I was dead. It’s good to hear your voice.”
August kneeled beside him, examining his eyes. He hardly had any magic left, but he managed to produce a small flame from his thumb. He passed the burning claw across the chimaera’s blank stare, producing no reaction from the eyes.
Cerran furrowed his brow. “Uh, what are you doing?”
August sighed. At least he was taking it well. Still, he didn’t know what to say. He turned around and sat down by Nisus, this time his voice actually relaxed. He just wanted to help his cousin. “What happened?”
-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------
“Thunor!”
Thunder blasted from the centre of the arrow, lightning striking and blowing the branches off the trees. Nisus realized too late, however, that she had missed. Panic and tension overpowered her trained claw and she shot the arrow too high.
The flash of lighting was so bright that Nisus was dazed by it, even though she shut her eyes and looked away. But she couldn’t let her mistake build on itself. The spell missed but still should have left the dragon startled. Nisus grabbed her spear and rushed the dragon.
It clamped its jaws towards her, but Nisus stopped short, making short thrusts at the dragon’s nostrils. It flared with rage and blew a ball of fire, so she jumped to the side and thrust hard. The hit was solid, but it bounced off the scales around the dragon’s eye.
They traded ineffective blows at each other until Nisus noticed that the dragon was missing by a larger and larger margin. She barely had to move to avoid its strikes, and every attack from the dragon only came after she had agitated it.
Nisus backed off slowly circling the dragon. It kept its head in her direction, tracking either by scent or by sound. She counted her spells, then checked her marks. One spell remaining. It was her last chance to make it right. Her eyes slowly drifted onto Cerran, who fell off the dragon when the lightning struck her arrow.
If he was alive, he was surely blind as well. Suddenly, a wave of guilt crashed into Nisus, and the only thing that held her up was the dragon’s intimidating glare. It was blind, but could still kill her if she wasn’t careful. But, if it couldn’t see her, there was one thing she hadn’t tried.
Nisus charged, dropping to the ground when the dragon tried to bite her and clinging to the chin. She focused her magic on the dragon’s jawbone instead of an arrow, but the spell was the same, nevertheless. She shut her eyes cast her last spell.
“Thunor!”
She let go, her back slapping into the mud, as she took the full force of the thunder exploding out of the dragon’s head. This time, the beast staggered and crumpled onto its side, a fountain of blood gushing from the centre.
“Whoo!” she shouted, hopping in the mud. It didn’t feel quite right, however. Nisus put her claws over her ears, taking them on and off over and over. That’s the cost, she supposed. She limped over to Cerran, her legs numb from terror more than it was from exhaustion or injury.
She looked for his heartbeat, using her claw to feel it rather than listening for it.
She knew there were healing spells that could perform miracles, but whether or not it could bring her hearing back remained to be seen. It was a heavy price, but they had to pay it. It couldn’t be helped. The dragon was too strong.
Far too strong. With blood spurting from its skull, it slowly rose from its beaten state. Nisus couldn’t hear its weak and worn breathing, but she felt the low rumbling in her chest all the same. Her eyes darted down to her arms to read her mark, even though she knew she was out of spells. For a moment, the dragon seemed focused on her, and blood drained from her face from paralyzing fear.
It huffed, raised its head as if it sensed something in the distance, and crawled away. Nisus forced herself up, thinking only of Beran and Thossa trying to contend with the dragon themselves. It was clearly hurt, but the dragon was still dozens of times bigger than even Beran. Nisus pushed forward, and forward, and then even more. But she herself quickly collapsing down into the mud.
-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------
August listened intensely as Nisus told him everything she could remember. He saved all his questions until she was done speaking and asked them slowly so she could read his lips.
After snapping at her ears, it seemed some of her hearing had recovered. “It’s like listening with my head underwater,” she tried to explain, “all muffled and distorted.”
“We need to get you two back to camp,” he said, helping Cerran up to his hooves.
Snapping twigs gave August a small scare, he thought for a moment the dragon had returned to finish the fight, but instead, it was Beran and Thossa limping together.
“You okay, friend?” he said, still holding onto Cerran and Nisus.
Beran smiled, his face was blood-soaked from the slash but other than that he stood strong. “Sent that dragon running!” he laughed. “It did break Thossa’s leg and flew off with the other creature, though.” Nisus couldn’t hear it, but she saw her cousin’s eyes widen with disbelief.
“It caught up with you?” he asked. “And managed to fly?”
Thossa nodded. “It was slower than before, blood all over its face too. First, we were worried it got you two,” she gestured her head at Nisus and Cerran, “but then we saw the crack in the skull.”
“Too tough for us, though” Beran shook his head. “Once its tail hit Thossa leg and knocked me over, we knew we couldn’t catch it.” He gently touched his claw to the wound over his face. “The fall open up the cut again. I couldn’t see past the blood without Thossa.”
“And I wasn’t going anywhere without him.” Thossa winced as she showed off her leg, which was held together by a crude splint made from a tree branch and some rope.
“No choice then,” August said. “Let’s go back. We’ll have to warn the clans that the beast was a dragon, and it had another unknown creature with it.”
Nisus read his lips carefully, stopping him before he could start walking. She guided everyone’s gaze, except Cerran’s over to the cave. “It was blocking the back,” she said, speaking slowly to listen to her own muffled voice. “They’re intelligent, and they’re hiding something. The bird-horse had wraps over its wings. Animals don’t do that.”
“Did you hit your head too?” Beran asked though Nisus didn’t hear it.
August frowned at his friend. “If you think it’s important, I’ll take a look,” he assured Nisus. “But only after we get you all back to the camp. No arguments, okay?”
Nisus watched him closely and nodded. Her limbs still felt heavy, and everyone else didn’t seem better off than she was. She didn’t like to leave a hunt unfinished, but they couldn’t afford to press on any harder.
They hiked and camped their way back to the Kern’s home for three days, letting Thossa and Cerran rest. Thossa’s leg slowed them down, and Cerran found himself bruised from constant tripping, even with August as a shoulder to lean on.
During those days, Nisus found one ear was improving better than the other, though both could barely hear anything softer than a shout. One side of her must’ve been closer to the thunder, she guessed. It made her wonder if the dragon suffered any other losses. Perhaps it was as deaf as she was.
Nisus frowned. Not likely. The dragon was undoubtedly strong, but even it couldn’t have tracked down Beran and Thossa without sight or sound.
The Kern’s camp looked much better when they arrived. New logs had been put up where the dragon had smashed it, and chimaeras were working together to preserve the wood in layers of resin. But, even though the camp looked almost like its former self, the atmosphere had changed.
Dozens of old chimaeras stormed around the camp, arguing with each other. They weren’t Kerns, they had no horns, but they barked around as if they owned the place. Most of their outcries were too muffled to make any sense, though, as they limped past a few squabbling jacks Nisus caught the tail end of a conversation, heavy with insults to each other’s families.
“Ignore it,” August spoke into her ear. “Rest is the only thing we should be concerned about.”
Beran led them to the medicine hut, unlike most of the other tents, the medicine tent belonged to the whole clan, and it was built from the hides of hunted animals rather than ancestors. Inside, an old Foreteller and her apprentices worked hard to tend to the sick and injured.
Not that there were many. Two old jacks stared arrows at each other with heavy bruises all over their bodies, and on the other side of the tent, a young jill winced as an apprentice pulled painful sting bush seed pods from her scales.
“Beran!” the Foreteller’s eyes flashed with familiarity as they walked in. She wasn’t as old as most Foretellers, but Nisus still guessed she had several decades over August. She clasped the massive chimaera firmly, staring grimly at the scars across his face and clicked her tongue.
Though he was easily twice her size, the middle-aged jill pulled Beran like a child onto one of the healing beds. “Sit, you foolish boy,” she scolded, “just because I’m not training you anymore doesn’t mean you can run off on ridiculous adventures.”
She held him steady by the horn. He winced as she dabbed a stinging liquid over his face. “Valpurgia,” he groaned, pushing the jill’s arms away. “Sterewian or Helen can take care of it. Thossa’s leg needs to be set and Cerran was blinded.”
She turned, looking at the other chimaeras in her tent. The Foreteller had a hard look on her face, and she looked back at Beran as if she was going to explode. But she inhaled through her nostrils and went to work, hastily barking orders to a young apprentice, a jill about Nisus’s age, to handle Beran.
August approached her. “My cousin was deafened during the hunt as well,” he told her. “We were using-”
“Thunor, yes,” she waved him away, pulling Nisus over to another bed. “I imagine every clan on this side of the lowlands heard what you were up to.”
Thossa groaned as Helen, the older of the two apprentices, lifted her leg onto the bed. It was high up, away from the dirt which could cause infection. Hanging from wooden hooks were dozens of different dried herbs, half of which August barely knew the uses for.
“The eyes are difficult, Foreteller,” Valpurgia said as she picked a number of herbs for her mortar and pestle. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ll have to start with Cerran before I can help your cousin.”
August nodded, a little surprised that she could tell he was a Foreteller. They wore no markings to show their leadership status since most Foretellers showed it with their age.
He couldn’t help but ask. “How do you know I’m-”
“Ghending, tall but skinny, snake marks around the eyes,” she quickly said. “As his keus-bhrater, you must know that Beran was once a candidate to be a Foreteller.”
Vaguely. It was a sore spot for the big brown jack, and August didn’t pry too much. He knew something happened that ended his apprenticeship. A bad failure that Beran refused to talk about. August simply nodded.
“Well, I might not be training him anymore, but it’s importance for a student to talk to their mentor about their lives.”
August’s eyes widened. “You were his mentor? Then I should be helping. He’s my keus-bhrater, that means we’re like family.”
“Ha!” the Foreteller laughed. “You barely know me, and I doubt you have the experience to blindness. No. I appreciate the offer but I need to focus now.”
Seeing as there wasn’t much he knew how to do in the medicine tent, he begrudgingly left the Kerns to treat his cousin. Outside, the sounds of arguing was only growing louder. If he couldn’t help Nisus, the least he could do was find out why the Kern camp had such a tense atmosphere.
-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------
“We want answers, now, Muniko!”
Nisus woke with ringing in her ears. Well, one ear. Her left, the one that had weakened more than her right, played a sharp buzzing sound into her head. The last thing she remembered was one of the Foreteller’s apprentices giving her an herbal mixture. After that, she only remembered wanting to sleep.
She looked around. By her bed, a portable table had been set up with thin pieces of animal skins on them. Stains were drawn all over them, showing detailed images of the inner ear. Nisus reflexively reached up to her head.
“Careful,” Valpurgia said as Nisus went to feel her ear. “You don’t want to damage all my work, do you?”
“Wha-” she paused, realizing she could hear in both ears again. She looked at the pictures again, and the small tools that had been left on the table. “What did you do?”
Valpurgia smirked. “Clan secrets. But your hearing should start working better.”
Nisus tilted her head, comparing the sound from one ear to the other. Her right felt the same as before, but the other left felt as if she were hearing things a second slower.
“It’s not quite right, is it?” Valpurgia said. She waved her hands muttering a spell under her breath. Nisus noticed her mark, magenta hearts on the palms of her claws, started to glow, sending a soft stream of light toward her ear.
“How’s that?”
Nisus nodded. “Getting better.”
“Then this should do it.” Valpurgia continued the spell, turning her wrists to the humming of magic, slowly tuning Nisus’s hearing until the sound in both ears were aligned. “Say something.”
“Something.” Nisus was amazed. The sound was the same on both sides, clear and crisp as if she had just gotten new ears. “Elements have blessed you with inspiration. How did you do that?”
Valpurgia turned to put away her notes and tools. “Our ears have many tiny components, hard and soft,” she said. “You were lucky with your right ear, only a soft outer layer of tissue was damaged. It would’ve healed by itself anyway, but I used a spell to speed it along.”
“And the left?” Nisus asked.
“As I said, clan secrets,” Valpurgia smiled. “Though, I suppose you should know what’s in your body, at least.” She picked up a small crystal that was lying with the other tools on the table.
“The shockwave from thunor damaged the harder parts of your ear,” explained, “tiny bones that vibrate, transmitting sound into your head. Yours were beyond repair, so I had to replace them with crystals.”
“Replaced?” Nisus digested the information, but couldn’t imagine a piece of her body becoming crystal.
Valpurgia nodded. “It was easy enough, your left’s soft tissue was also damaged, so going through it was no problem. Just had to heal it closed afterwards.”
“But,” Nisus’s brow furrowed, “you’re still able to adjust my hearing? You just did that, didn’t you?”
“Of course,” the Foreteller beamed, “it’s just a simple spell for manipulating small items.”
Nisus was surprised by how simple she made the process sound. Replacing pieces of a body, that sounded like a miracle. Could it really be done with some simple magic?
“No one in my clan could have done this,” Nisus admitted as she took a tentative step off her bed. “How’d you learn so much about the ear?”
Foreteller Valpurgia rolled up the diagrams she had laid out. “I’m sure there are secrets your own clan keeps from outsiders. Your cousin, August, he might know a few things I don’t. The Elements left us with more than just stories, you know.”
Nisus wanted to pry for more answers, but she was reminded by Valpurgia of more pressing matters. Stories. The stories of dragons, chimaeras needed to know they weren’t just stories anymore.
“Where’s my cousin?” Nisus asked.
Valpurgia simply pointed outside her tent. “Follow the sound of old jacks yelling at each other. You’ll probably find him there.”
The moon was high above her as Nisus stepped outside the medicine tent. Its white glow was not the brightest thing that night, however. Through the entrance of the camp, Nisus saw dozens of pitched tents and campfires. The air was heavy with the smell of other clans.
Most were lowlanders, Wefans, Skaiths, Gadurons and Apelgadurons, though she also noticed the distinct slate-coloured hunting kits of the Wildclaw clan. Whenever more than one highland clan needed its interests represented, the Wildclaws were called on.
“You can’t stall forever, Muniko,” one Foreteller hollered at the Kerns’ bonfire. Nisus hurried, hoping August could tell her why half the mountain had gathered in one place.
The one raising his voice was a Wildclaw, old even for a Foreteller. Other chimaeras stood behind him, grunting in agreement.
“We will talk when we have convened with our own and repaired our camp,” Muniko, a grey chimaera who looked in his late seventies, stood firmly. The Kerns stood fast with their elder, facing the highlanders. Nisus spotted Beran among them. He had a piece of cloth wrapped over his hair and half his face, only showing one eye and his horn.
She pushed through a crowd of children who were watching from the sidelines until she spotted August standing far behind the crowd of Kern hunters.
“You’re okay!” August said as she pushed her way over to him.
She nodded. “That Foreteller can work miracles I never imagined were possible.”
“Well, I’m glad that’s the case,” August said, “a gathering of clans this large hasn’t happened in living memory.”
“What’s going on?” Nisus asked.
August kept his eyes forward on the Wildclaw. “We’ll talk about it soon.”
Nisus watched as well, the highlanders simmering with frustration at the Kern’s Foreteller. But, they were guests, and couldn’t make too demanding requests. The Wildclaw Foreteller backed off, waving an arm to the highlanders to return to their tents.
“You had better sort this out, Muniko,” the old jack growled before they left. “You have until morning to answer for what’s happening.”
-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------
With the highlanders returning to their tents, the lowland clans idled by the bonfire. There wasn't any animosity between them, but lowlands weren’t a united force either. August guided Nisus by the arm and brought her over to Beran and Muniko, who were trading words around a circle of other Foretellers.
“Thank the Elements you recovered,” Beran said, breaking his conversation with the sour-faced Muniko. Nisus picked up whispers from the other clans, a reassuring sign that Valpurgia had done her work perfectly. “My friends, we’ve been losing our minds over this disaster.”
Nisus raised a brow. “Why are the highlanders here over the dragon?”
One by one, silence cut through the chimaeras. She caught incredulous looks from the Wefans, and envious eyes from the Skaith clan’s hunters. There must’ve been a hundred onlookers, waiting for their Foretellers to come to some conclusion.
“What did she just say?” Muniko’s eyes stared arrows at Beran. “What would any of you children know about dragons?”
Beran strode up to the old jack, raising his shoulders to stand at his full height as he talked. “The beast attacked us before we found out it was a dragon.”
“No chimaera alive or dead has seen a dragon,” replied the Foreteller. “Not a single story passed down has any record of what they look like.”
“But we know they flew and breathed fire,” Beran said. “That’s exactly what the dragon did.”
Muniko stayed silent. There was something else between them, anger than neither jack could push aside. Nisus thought the two Kerns were about to lock horns. But, there wasn’t time for their personal troubles to slow down the hunt. She brushed August’s grip off her wrist and stepped into the circle.
“A creature of the heavens,” she said, “there’s nothing else I could say to describe a beast that can take five lightning strikes and still walk away. And it wasn’t alone.”
“Two dragons?” gasped the Wefan’s representative, a jack who looked twice Muniko’s age.
Nisus shook her head. “Something else, a bird-horse kind of creature. It was like a deer-hawk, but it could walk on all four legs and its wings were on its back.”
“Such a creature doesn’t exist,” scoffed the Skaith Foreteller.
“I thought the same,” Beran said, pointing to his face. “That creature taught me to reconsider.” The Skaith quieted down, looking to the other Foretellers. None of them spoke up to question Beran’s word.
“So, an unknown creature and a dragon,” Muniko said, “the dragon obviously being responsible for the attack. Care to share what any other details?”
In front of the whole audience, Nisus and Beran took turns telling everyone what happened. The cave, the size of the dragon, and the wing wrapping Nisus had noticed on the other creature. The more she spoke on how the dragon survived their spells, the grimmer the clans became.
Finally, Muniko had enough. He held his claw, interrupting Nisus as she told them how she lost her hearing. “I’m very thankful for your help, Ghending. Cerran’s a good student of mine.” He turned to Beran. ‘But you, boy, are a brazen fool! We had one chance to surprise that beast and take it down, but instead of calling for the rest of the clan when you suspected the cave, you hunted it yourself!”
Beran’s claws clenched, and Nisus thought he was about to wallop the old jack, but August intervened and held his keus-bhrater back. “We all made the mistake of underestimating it, Foreteller, but in all fairness, my cousin and I had no reason to suspect it could beat our spells.”
“Blame someone later, Muniko” snapped the Skaith Foreteller. “We’re all here for the same thing as those highlanders. Now all those attacks are starting to make sense.”
“You mean there were more?” Nisus hastily asked.
“Yes, all at about the same time,” the Skaith said, with agreeing murmurs trickling in from the surrounding chimaeras. “Giant shadows stealing food in the night, trails of broken trees. Though, you’ll be happy to know that our clans were the only ones avoided.”
She tilted her head. They may have been rivals, but she couldn’t deny what the Skaiths were good at. Avoiding the only two clans purely dedicated to tracking and killing, Nisus couldn’t believe that was a coincidence.
The Skaith’s Foreteller read her face and agreed. “They fear us. Skaiths more than Ghendings most likely, but that isn’t important.”
Nisus ignored her last remark. There were more nods, more eager eyes looking to her and August for answers since they had faced the dragon, and lived. But Nisus wasn’t sure if she had an answer. Their clan was good at hunting, and their prey had escaped. And the problem of simultaneous attacks, it was like they were the prey now, and she had no answers for it.
But apparently, her cousin was. He rallied them together simply with the sound of his voice. “So far we know only two things. First, they’re hostile. We’ve never seen them before. We can then reason that we’ve never hunted them, or done anything else to provoke them.”
“Aye,” most of the chimaeras agreed.
August nodded and continued. “We also know they’re intelligent. The attacks were coordinated, picking targets that were less equipped to defend themselves after the Melt. That makes them more dangerous than any animal.”
That made them uneasy. But none of the clans was willing to look weak in front of the others, so their Foretellers faced the truth with bold, hard eyes.
“In that case, we’ll need information,” August finished. “Starting with the cave we found.”
Nisus looked around the camp. Unease slowly morphed itself into fear among some of the hunters. While she was glad that August had taken her seriously, the other chimaeras looked at him as if he was crazy. The thought of the dragon returning had crossed her mind, but Nisus didn’t think it was likely after the beat they gave it.
“And if there’s nothing there?” The Wefan’s Foreteller asked.
“Then we keep looking, in your lands,” August said, pushing even more tension through the crowd. Nisus knew he must have sensed it too, his face firm but his claws rattled and fidgetted around.
“Not even a dragon can be in two camps at once, and the cave we found wasn’t big enough for the numbers it would have taken to attack all of us. They must be scattered in their own hiding places. One of them must have an answer to why they’re here.”
Beran was the first to break the silence. “Wise, as a Foreteller should be!” he said, firmly gripping his keus-bhrater around the shoulder. The other Foretellers bristled, upstaged by youth, but kept their faces calm. “If no one else can-”
“The Ghendings should return home,” said the Skaith Foreteller, “they need to tell their clan. The Skaiths are more than capable lend help.”
“Anyone who wants to go should go,” Muniko cut in, taking back control of his camp. “The hunting party can gather in a day. We’ll let the Wildclaw know our plan and give them time to help if they wish. Please, the moon is getting high. Return to your tents for the night.”
Foretellers and hunters alike grumbled, but Nisus spotted a few in the back leave the crowd. Wefans and Gadurons, clans with few hunters, retreated from the debate first. The Skaiths, of course, were the last to leave. The hunters who had come with their Foreteller stared arrows at Nisus and August. But not even the night hunters dared to breach the Kern’s hospitality and stay unwelcomed.
They left, and the camp was soon quiet with the sounds of crackling wood. August sat down, holding his claws together to steady himself. Nisus believed that was it for the night, and she wanted to find Cerran. If her hearing could be healed, she wondered what Valpurgia had managed to do about his eyes. But before she could talk to her cousin, Muniko descended on Beran with a tirade of shouts.
-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------
Muniko’s voice grated like chalk against a tree. “You will not be joining their search.”
The argument moved from the bonfire to the largest tent in camp, a meeting place for Foretellers only. Like the medicine tent, it was covered in animal hides, though no wall of furs and rawhide could muffle Beran’s voice.
“You can’t stop me from standing by my keus-bhrater,” Nisus heard him say. She and August waited just outside the tent, prepared to jump into the situation if either chimaera grew too heated.
“I held my tongue because of our guests, Beran, but I have had enough of your brazen attitude toward our clan.”
“Held your tongue?” Beran’s voice pitched up. “You called me a fool in front of half of the entire mountain.”
“Aiye! You bet I did, child,” Muniko snapped. “Because that was necessary. They had to know that our family’s more than a camp of reckless oafs.”
“Is that what you call the Element of Honour?” Beran retaliated, his shadow flickering around the tent as he passed by the torches. “The camp was destroyed, we needed to keep that dragon away from our home.”
Muniko didn’t sound convinced. “Risking the lives of kith and kin is no Honour, Beran!”
Something made the hulking chimaera, who Nisus had seen to be full of friendship and kindness, snap into a fit. Dirt flew from under the tent flaps as Beran kicked about.
“We may be kin, but I’d hardly call it our family,” he growled.
Muniko’s tone, previously frustrated but measured, now rose to match Beran’s. “You have never treated this clan with respect. We raised you, fed you, and after all, that you’re still ungrateful as ever. We were right to stop your Foreteller training.”
The old jack stormed out of the tent, pushing past Nisus and August without a second thought. Beran chased after, but the two Ghendings stopped their friend from charging down a clan elder.
Beran roared, but he didn’t follow him. “That’s in the past, you old jack. Just try and stop me from searching that cave!”
“Your attitude remains the same,” Muniko said without turning his head back. “We are still living in the past.”
When he was out of sight, they let Beran go. They returned to the bonfire without a word to each other, letting Beran simmer off his feelings. August helped his friend change the wrappings around his face, and for the first time, Nisus saw the consequences of their hunt.
Long pinkish tissue stretched from his forehead to the bottom of his lips. The talons of the bird-horse had left four claw marks that arched under his horn, narrowly missing the eye but taking a piece of his nose and lip. He might have been slightly handsome before, definitely bearing strong, brutish features that some jills liked. But now he was painfully disfigured.
Nisus glanced down. Muniko blamed Beran, but she blamed herself. All she could think about was how she froze when the massive eye of the dragon opened on her. She could have saved them the trouble if she had warned them earlier.
“You don’t have to get involved with this one, keus-bhrater,” August told Beran once they had secured new clean bandages on his head. “We can handle a cave.”
Beran gave August a questioning look. “You agree with him? You know how the dragon came for us, it was impossible to get the clan to help.”
“I’m not in agreement,” August said, “but this is your clan. Strange creatures could be coming from anywhere to attack us. You need to get along with your clan to fight through this.”
Once Beran had settled down and the spectacle of the argument was over, the camp finally grew silent. Only the moon bugs, chirping from the trees and glowing white, disturbed the village with their chatter. But the swarm of chirping songs was just a constant drone, easily forgotten after a few short moments.
Cerran was resting in his family’s tent, Nisus found out from Beran. She asked if he was okay, if she’d be allowed to see him.
“I’m sure you can see him just fine,” Beran answered, “though I’m not sure how well he’ll see you back.”
Nisus frowned, but didn’t take the joke too seriously. It seemed she couldn’t think too much about this chimaera, there was a lot she didn’t know about him. She let her cousin keep Beran company while she went to find Cerran.
The Kern camp was laid out a lot like hers. The largest family tents were gathered together at one side. Nisus imagined the place in the day, the hoof paths between the tents would be filled with cousins and siblings chasing each other around, playing at hunting or doing chores for their parents.
Though she was looking for Cerran, it was Thossa who ran into her halfway through the camp. Nisus was surprised to be up and walking so soon.
“Foreteller Valpurgia said I need to exercise it,” Thossa answered when Nisus asked her why she was moving so soon. “Besides, there’s a hole in my tent, remember? I can’t look at it without thinking about the dragon.”
And how it escaped. Nisus dropped her gaze. “Do you know how Cerran’s doing?”
Thossa shook her head. “He was still getting worked on when my leg healed up. Seemed like it was more than just a healing spell, though.”
Nisus nodded, and then pointed to her ear. “Same with me. Replaced something in my ear with a crystal piece.” Thossa raised a brow, surprised to hear about such a miracle.
“Is something wrong?” Nisus asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing, it’s just that the last time Vlapurgia healed someone like that was years before I was born. Wasn’t sure if it was real or not.”
“So, it’s that much of a clan secret?”
Thossa shrugged. “We tell the story enough, it’s not much of a secret. But I don’t think half of the clan would understand how to do it if they had all the details. I don’t, for sure.”
They talked a little longer, Nisus helping Thossa keep an eye on her gait, making sure she wasn’t limping. The other clans and their opinions didn’t seem to bother Thossa as much as it did Beran.
“Let them say whatever they want,” she scoffed when Nisus asked if she regretted joining them on the hunt. “We proved that the dragons can be hurt, and that the other creatures can be caught like any other animal.”
Nisus wasn’t so sure, but felt relieved that there was one less chimaera to feel guilty about. It didn’t seem to get to her, the arguments between the other Foretellers.
-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------
Cerran’s tent was in the middle of the others, not massive, but Nisus could still tell he had a big family. She touched her bow gently with the tip of a claw and breathed. A charcoal-black jack greeted her the moment she knocked on the door.
“Chill Wind,” he called back into the tent after Nisus introduced herself, “see if Cerran’s awake.”
He was, but just barely. “Sorry,” he apologized for how he appeared, “Valpurgia’s said I can’t expose my eyes to bright light for a while.” A thin cloth was wrapped around his horn and face. Nisus could make out the outline of his eyes, but couldn’t see anything else. She imagined everything else looked equally blurry for him.
Cerran’s mother, Chill Wind, helped her son sit down at the dining table. She was beautiful, her white scales as clean and lustrous as fresh snow. Her mane was white like her son’s, and rolled down her neck and passed her shoulders.
They sat in a traditional arrangement, a low frame of wood with thick layers of hardened rawhide stretched across it, covered in resin to keep it sturdy. His father, Gual, brought bowls of vegetable stew in a light-brown fish broth and set it down for everyone. They all sat on pads of ox-bear furs and whispered personal prayers to the Elements before eating.
Nisus spotted two pairs of peeking eyes from the children’s room at the back of the tent. Cerran’s siblings, she guessed, who were supposed to be asleep at this late hour. She locked her eyes on them for only a moment, and then winked at them. Hurriedly, but silently, the little bodies scurried back under their covers.
“Thank you for the supper,” she said, cleaning her mouth with her tongue. “To be honest, I didn’t know what I’d do when I came here.” She turned to Cerran and bowed her head. “I missed my shot when you trapped the dragon because I was worried you wouldn’t let go. You were blinded because of me.”
Cerran’s parents traded looks with each other, but let their son give his own response. He sat for a moment, drinking from his bowl, and then smiled. “Small price to pay,” he said, gesturing to his parents. “Got an earful from them when I told the story. If you hit that dragon while I was on it, we might not be talking about it right now.”
Nisus looked up. “You’re not mad?”
Cerran laughed. “I threw myself onto a dragon. I’m happy to be alive, honestly.”
“Thank you for protecting him,” his mother said, her voice still lightly accented with a highland dialect. Her smile toward Nisus quickly twisted to a frown when she looked back to her son. “Sometimes he just doesn’t think about the ones who need him.”
Cerran sighed and looked down, his mother’s glare still affecting him despite his wrappings. “Sorry, ma.”
Nisus decided changing the subject was a good idea. “Seems like some hunters will be headed to the dragon cave,” she said. “How much did you hear at the gathering?”
“Not much,” he said. “Came home right after Valpurgia was done with me.”
Nisus nodded. She said her piece, telling him everything that was said about their hunt, and Beran. Colour seemed to drain from the parents’ faces when they heard that other clans suffered the same attacks. Cerran took it better, or maybe it was just the wrapping around his face that masked the fear.
He touched his face. “Don’t think I’ll be much help. Supposed to keep this on for a few days.”
“Beran’s out, too,” Nisus said, “if he ends up listening to my cousin.”
Cerran shrugged at that, lowering his head with a sigh. “Folks listen to Muniko more than Beran would like. Any hunter under forty cycles, he trained.”
The bowls of soup steadily drained, refilled, and then drained again until there was nothing left. Once they shifted away from the grim events of tonight, Cerran’s family had a lot of questions. Some were about trade, like when the Ghending would have new bows to exchange.
Other questions were more personal. “You’re growing up to be a strong jill,” Cerran’s mother said. “Thinking about a clan to settle down with?”
Nisus froze, completely caught off guard, while Cerran choked and sputtered the last of his soup. “Ma!” he glared sharply, but she completely ignored his discomfort.
“N-no,” Nisus flustered, putting down her bowl. She looked at Cerran’s father, who looked just as surprised by the question as she was. “I’m not even fifteen cycles old yet.”
“Oh, well of course that all sounds far away,” Chill Wind laughed, “but I was about your age when I started visiting other clans.” She laid her claw on her husband’s shoulder. “Remember that one jack, the one who approached me when you and I were still courting?”
Gual shifted uncomfortably, but managed a smile anyway. “Ghendings might take it a little slower,” he suggested. “Fifteen cycles is still quite young.”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You’re no fun.”
Nisus gathered her bow and hunting kit and stood up. “It’s late, and we’ll probably be going to the cave first thing tomorrow.” She looked at Cerran, who was covering his face with his claws even though his wrappings hid his shame well enough already. “I should probably get some sleep.”
She left quickly and started making her way back to the bonfire. The padded ground there was good enough to spend one night. Though prying, Nisus was glad Cerran’s family had happiness in them. She expected they’d hate her, or at least be wary of her, for getting their son into danger with a reckless spell.
For tomorrow, she promised herself to keep a steadier head and an even steadier claw.