Aster Wood and the Lost Maps of Almara (Book 1) (8 page)

“Not everyone’s gonna be agreeable to your journey. More likely than not you’ll be runnin’ into trouble before it’s over.”
 

“But why would anyone be against my finding Almara? He’s supposed to be the good guy, right?” I swallowed a mouthful of the mush, which had a neutral flavor, but a texture akin to a raw egg, slimy and viscous.
I could always just run away
, I thought. If I was so fast here, how fast would others be?

He stood and crossed the room, opening the front door to the cottage. A thick beam of sunlight played with the dust on the floor, and Crane the dog took off running into the garden, the outdoors more appetizing to him than the contents of my bowl. I swallowed the same mouthful again, the first having not quite made it all the way down.

“Yeah, well, not everybody is a good guy,” he said. “I expect you’ll meet a fair number of good and bad before this is over.”

He hoisted the ax from the table and looked at me pointedly, raising it above his head and thrusting it downward through the air.
 

“Now, I ain’t no warrior,” he said, “but I do have some experience with an ax. I can throw, I can chop. This is where we’ll start.”

“Where we’ll start?” I asked, gulping another spoonful. Despite my aversion to the goop, I still felt hollow from the previous day’s exertions.

“First axes, then knives, and then practice with a sword for good measure,” he said, stepping out onto the front door stoop. He raised his head up to the sun and closed his eyes for a moment. The bright, clear rays lit his cheeks.

My natural inclination was to argue with him, to remind him again that I was feeble. That ax looked heavy, and three days ago I wouldn’t have even attempted lifting it. But as I absently smacked at my porridge, I could not deny the energy I now felt flowing beneath my skin. The arguments faded on my lips as I looked at the long, silver sword that rested against the wall, glinting in the stream of sunlight from the window.
 

I managed to force down several more spoonfuls of my breakfast, but gave up once I could no longer swallow it all the way. I picked up a mug of tea and washed down the fat, slimy grains that still stuck in my throat, and followed Kiron out into the morning. As I laced my boots I, too, raised my face to the sun. The warmth it gave contrasted with the crisp cold of the morning. Kiron moved across the yard, and started scattering chicken feed over the grass. The hens clucked and pecked, the rooster cautiously following them around.

I stood up and carefully approached, pressing my luck with the bird. I pressed too hard, and he was on me in an instant, biting at my legs and screeching so loud you’d think I was trying to murder him. What was it with this stupid bird? I finally got a clear shot and kicked him full force across the yard. He stood up, ruffling his feathers in indignation, and then came at me again.

“Alright, that’ll be enough,” Kiron boomed. Suddenly the old man was between us, and he shooed the bird back over to his flock. Surprisingly, the rooster did not come for me again once Kiron intervened. I guess he knew who was boss around this place.

Kiron led me behind the chicken coop, where the pines fanned out beyond the homestead. The smell back here was delicious, like the scented candle we lit every Christmas in our apartment, only way better. As we moved into the trees we soon came to a large clearing. In the center several stumps stuck up from the forest floor, and off to one side a large pile of uncut firewood was stacked neatly next to one three feet across.
 

Kiron stopped in the middle of the clearing, raised his ax, and threw it hard. The ax soared through the empty space easily, and found its target, a tree. It stuck firmly into the wood.
 

“The goal,” he said, turning, “is to learn how to use weapons. But also to learn how to use everyday things as weapons, things people won’t think to keep from you.”

From his pocket he pulled a thin piece of twine, perhaps a foot long. He dangled it out in front of him and slowly approached me.
 

“If you can use a rope, a twig, a pin in your defense, you will soon find that you will be able to travel freely and without fear.”

He moved so fast that for a moment I couldn’t figure out where he had gone. But as I felt the rope around my neck and his beard scratch my ear I realized what he had done. My hands moved to claw at the twine, but before they even made it to my throat he had already released me.

I rounded on him, alarmed and angry.

“What was that for?” I yelled.

He smirked. “That was to get your attention.”

I backed up several steps, but he turned away and walked to the tree where the ax had stuck. Freeing it from the bark, he turned and approached me once more.
 

“The ax is the easiest of the weapons to master. Some will recognize it as a threat, some will not, but in any case the handling and throwing of an ax lends itself to many other types of defense.” He turned the ax backward and held out its handle to me.
 

I stared at him skeptically for a moment, waiting for him to attack me again, but when he didn’t I reached out and took the wood. It was warm in my hand, and heavy, but not as heavy as I had expected. Still, the blade of the ax fell towards the ground as he released it, and I needed two hands to hoist it back upright.
 

“Now,” he said, “throw.”

He did not offer any further instruction, so I tried to mimic what he had done when he had thrown the ax into the tree. I raised it above my head with both hands and threw it. The tool tumbled head over tail three times before landing harmlessly in the dirt at the base of the tree.

Well, at least it landed in front of the tree I was
aiming
for.

“So, not quite, then,” he said.

He motioned for me to follow him and we both approached the tree. He picked up the ax and handed it back to me.

“Now, try from here.”

We were only three feet from the tree, but I did as he said. As I raised both of my arms he stopped me.

“One arm.”

I released my left hand from the wood and brought the ax down towards the tree trunk, hard. To my great relief and excitement, the blade stuck in the wood. A thin sweat broke out over my forehead as Kiron commanded, “Again.”

I did it again. And again. I threw that ax so many times over the next several days that my arm began to feel like lead. As I learned the balance of the ax, Kiron had me back farther and farther from the tree, until I could hit it from fifteen feet away. I didn’t stick the target every time, but any success was better than where I had started from.
 

When he finally brought out the knife for me to practice with, I had become so accustomed to the weight of the ax that I could barely handle the tiny blade. It would fly like a hummingbird from my outstretched hand to the trunk I targeted, but then bounce off the bark harmlessly with a ping. I tried for hours and hours, but wielding the little knife was something I was hopeless at.
 

Each day consisted of learning the ways of the new weapons, and each night I spent learning to pick locks with a short pin I could hide in my pants. Kiron’s other skills, like strangling people in their sleep with nothing more than the shoelace of a boot, I was less enthusiastic about. I simply refused to believe that I could wind up in a situation where murder became necessary. I was alarmed at the violence of it all. From what he was teaching me, it really did seem that he thought I would be fighting for my life the moment I left this place.
 

But the satisfaction I felt at learning such difficult and unusual skills kept my fears at bay. I chewed through each new task like a starving dog chewing on a difficult bone. It was just so…different…being able to
do
things. My heart had remained constant since that night with the faylons, and my chest hadn’t tightened again. I flopped exhausted into bed after the end of each day, and awoke each morning eager for more practice.

Finally, after about a week of working with the ax and the knife, the day of sword training came. Kiron had only one sword, so he had me work with a long, heavy stick to mimic the silver blade he held. He proceeded to slash at me with the sword, first on the left, then the right. Back and forth, back and forth, until I finally got the hang of watching not only his weapon, but his eyes, for clues about where he would strike me next.
 

After four days of this I was not only able to deflect his blade, but could thrust it from his hands entirely with a swoop of the stick.
 

“You’re ready,” he said, panting, as my stick touched the edge of his neck. He was sweating from the exertion of trying to keep me off him, but I had become more aggressive as the days passed, and had managed to get him into this precarious position for what was now the third time.

I stepped away and lowered the branch. I was both exhilarated and unsure.
 

“How do you know?” the old me asked, worried. “Maybe I should stay here longer, practice longer, before I head out.”

“No,” he said, regaining his balance. “I can teach you no more. Another week’s worth of practice will only serve to increase your worry. You must go now, while it is fresh in your mind and your muscles, and before you have a chance to think on it too hard.”

Well, it was too late for that. I had been thinking hard on it already. But as much as I wanted to wimp out, to stay put at Kiron’s and hope for some impossible rescue, my mother’s face kept floating into my head. I couldn’t leave her there alone forever.
 

That night we feasted. Kiron had spent the afternoon slaughtering and butchering the chickens, and the carcasses were now drying into packable fare over the fire. I had been anxious to be rid of the horrible rooster, but when it came down to it, and his head was pressed down on the block, a deep pang of sadness sank into my chest like the blade of the ax into his neck.
 

We settled in for the night, both of us quiet as the thoughts of tomorrow stirred in our minds. Kiron sat back in his chair by the fire, and pulled from under his shirt a small piece of folded parchment. He held it out to me.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s your link,” he said. “Tomorrow, we’ll make the jump.”

“You’re coming with me then?” It was a question I had been afraid to ask.

“Don’t see as I have much of a choice.”

I breathed a silent sigh of relief. I unfolded the paper and recognized the now familiar symbol of Almara at the top of the otherwise blank page. I looked up at him skeptically, but smiled when I said, “You sure this is the right piece of blank paper?”

“Yes, you brat,” he shot back, but the skin around his eyes crinkled in amusement.

My fingers traced the ovals on the golden symbol.
 

What sort of place awaited me on the other side of this link?

The next morning the sun did not make an appearance. Low, gray clouds covered the hillsides like a lid on a pot. We woke in the dim light and started getting ready.

Kiron was at the table, rummaging through piles, finishing the packing of the bag. “First, we’ll clear out,” he said. “You ain’t leavin’ from here. Last time that happened, the cottage was nearly wrecked from the force of the thing.”
 

“And good morning to
you
,” I said sarcastically. But he wasn’t having any humor today. He had a concerned look on his face as he readied the pack.

The same sort of explosion must have happened when Almara had jumped from here two hundred years ago. I thought about what the attic back home must have looked like after my departure. I wondered if police were swarming over the farm, looking for me.

I sat up and stretched with a loud groan. Crane stretched, too, but made no move to get up. He yawned and each of his four paws extended, his toes reaching deeper into the blankets. I rested my hand on his furry stomach for a moment while I grappled to break free from the haze of sleep. I hadn’t thought about the dog. The chickens were gone now, but what fate awaited the hound?

“What are we going to do with Crane?” I asked. “Is he coming?”

The dog’s ears perked up at the sound of his name.

“Nope. We’re gonna drop him with my sister. Only one of my kin still alive.”

“You have a sister? Why didn’t you tell me?”
 

“Ain’t your business,” he said. “Anyways, we’ll only be with the old witch for a few minutes.”

My mind buzzed as I tried to imagine a female version of Kiron.

On the table, he lay out our breakfast; four boiled eggs on two plates and a slab of cheese for each of us. I was thankful for the lack of slimy mush. I shuffled to the table and slumped into one of the chairs just as he was pouring out two mugs of sweet tea. It was hot and spicy, and it cleared my head as I sipped it. Crane waited for us to rise from the table before bothering to get down from the bed to search for fallen crumbs.
 

“Where will we go?” I asked.
 

“Empty field just down the hill,” he said. “Nothin’ to destroy out there but dry grass and wildflowers. We’ll jump to Larissa’s first and then take Almara’s link from there.”

“Larissa, is that your sister?”

“Hmph.”

I retrieved my boots from just outside the front door. As I pulled them on I took a long look at the cozy farm and wondered if I would ever see it again. I realized with a certain amount of sadness that the silence of the farm had meant the slaughtering of the birds.
 

“You ready?”

Kiron helped me with the bulky backpack, which was awkward at first, but quite light. He nestled the knife I had used in practice into the side pocket, even though I was useless with it. As soon as the pack was on my back, I commanded it,
“Obscure!”
and it collapsed and disappeared, though I could still feel the straps resting on my shoulders.
 

“Got the link?” he asked.

I pulled it out of my pocket and showed it to him.