The Beginning (12 page)

But I must be very careful. I must only give her a fraction of what I know
, the Mystic reminded herself.

She realized that if Hroombra had any idea of what she was planning, what she had already planned, she would never see Jahrra again. As far as the Mystic could tell, as far as she could project, the old dragon didn’t know about her presence in Oescienne, and she planned to keep it that way. She had made mistakes before, long ago, and she wasn’t about to make another one now, especially not with Jahrra.

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Chapter Six
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Denaeh’s Request

“Gieaun! Scede!” Jahrra shouted from atop Phrym, frightening a covey of quail that was foraging among the blackberry brambles lining the long drive of Wood’s End Ranch.

“What’s with all the excitement?” queried Scede as Jahrra slowed Phrym to a skidding stop, kicking dust and rocks up all around them. “Did you have another dream where Eydeth and Ellysian are forced to swim across Lake Ossar in the middle of the night?”

“No, no,” Jahrra breathed, waving her hand around in exasperation, “what are you two doing next week?”

“I don’t know,” Scede answered, slightly perplexed by Jahrra’s frantic behavior. “We’re all done with the summer shearing, and all the mares have had their foals, so mother and father won’t need us.”

He narrowed his eyes and added with a more suspicious tone, “Why?”

“Well,” said Jahrra as she climbed down from Phrym, “I asked Hroombra if I could take a few days off from chores and go on a camping trip, with the two of you of course. What do you think?”

The two siblings eyed each other suspiciously. Jahrra seemed far too excited for this to be a mere camping trip.

“I don’t know,” Gieaun said warily, “we’ll have to ask mother and father.”

Jahrra exhaled, trying to sound as patient as possible.

“Oh, they’ll let you go! We can use the time to practice our field skills. We’ll have to make a fire, gather food, fend off and hunt wildlife and navigate our own way. Besides, the mid-year exams are coming up in winter, and Tarnik said he’ll be testing us on wilderness survival this year, remember?” Jahrra prattled enthusiastically.

“Jahrra, school hasn’t even started yet, and you’re already worried about winter exams!?” Scede said in disbelief.

“Oh, Scede, when am I going to have another chance to go once school starts?” Jahrra groaned. “This is my only week off and once school begins, we’ll all be too busy to make such a trip!”

Jahrra paused for a moment, her heart racing as she watched the apprehension clouding her friends’ faces.
They must agree to go! They must!
It had taken her a few unbearable hours of careful coaxing and begging to convince Hroombra to let her go, and she wasn’t about to back down from her friends so soon.

She willed their minds to accept, but after several moments of silence she couldn’t take it any longer, “Oh come on!”

She stood in suspense as she watched both brother and sister look at each other in the all too familiar ‘Jahrra-is-up-to-something-again’ way.

“We’ll ask,” Scede finally said. “But I can’t guarantee anything. It
would
be nice to go camping for a few days.”

“Where will we go, to the lakes?”

Gieaun’s question caught Jahrra off guard. She had been too busy reveling in the fact that she only had one more barrier to breech, Kaihmen’s and Nuhra’s permission, before they were cleared to go.

“Where will we go?” Jahrra repeated blankly. “Uh, I was thinking about that the other night actually. We’ve never been past Lensterans or the Longuinn wetlands, and I hear that there are many good places to hike and camp in the hills east of there. We always seem to be traveling west to the lakes, it would be nice to travel east for once, don’t you think?”

She grinned at the two siblings nervously, hoping that they couldn’t detect the deceit hidden in her eyes. Gieaun seemed to swallow her response, but Scede paused and looked harder at Jahrra with scrutiny.

“East, huh?” he said. “The royal Resai clan doesn’t plan to travel east next week by any chance?”

Jahrra blinked. For once in her life, she hadn’t even thought about Eydeth and Ellysian. She swallowed and said, “I don’t think so. I hope not.”

“Because,” continued Scede in a stern voice, “if you are planning retaliation on Eydeth and Ellysian because their fear of the lake monster is wearing off, then you had better seriously reconsider. You’ve had your revenge and I’ve about had it with all of this fighting back and forth among us. I think we should just let them talk all they want. It’s too much trouble and energy to always be battling those twins. Besides, our ultimate goal to get them away from the lake worked, so I say we just stay away from them whenever we can and be grateful they aren’t as bad as they used to be.”

Jahrra was surprised at Scede’s sudden tirade and she decided he must have been holding this all in for months.

“Oh,” she said, feeling a little abashed, “I wasn’t even thinking about them, to tell you the absolute truth.”

And she hadn’t been, either. Scede wasn’t convinced, however. He looked hard at Jahrra and added, “I’ll say it one more time: If you are leading us on another wild goose chase in order to ruin Eydeth’s and Ellysian’s’ lives, then you had better count me out.”

Jahrra didn’t know what to stay, so she just leaned weakly against Phrym and turned her eyes to the ground. After some time, she lifted her head and looked Scede directly in the face and said, with complete honesty, “I swear we’re not going on a three day camping trip just to get back at the twins.”

We’re going for some other secret reason that I can’t tell you
, she reminded herself, knowing Scede would be just as angry if he knew it was for Denaeh,
and you’ll probably both hate me when this is all over.

Scede let out a struggled sigh and looked at his sister. Gieaun simply smiled and shrugged, saying, “I’d like to go if you would.”

“Alright,” her brother said harshly, “I guess we’d better ask mother and father.”

To Jahrra’s great relief, Kaihmen and Nuhra agreed to let them go, but only if they finished all of their chores around the ranch before they left. Jahrra, not wanting to jeopardize her great luck, showed up every morning at Wood’s End Ranch, insisting on helping Gieaun and Scede with their work. With Jahrra’s help, they finished everything on their list in record time, and it wasn’t long before they were planning out their upcoming adventure.

***

The morning before the day of their journey, Jahrra packed Phrym’s saddlebags with everything she would need for their excursion: her bow and arrows, her old dagger and plenty of rope, a few of the maps she had copied from Hroombra’s collection, a guide book on the wild flora and fauna of southern Oescienne, her bed roll, her small spyglass, a few spare water skins and some dried meat, bread and cheese. She double checked her supply list, nodded as she found everything where it should be, and bid farewell to her guardian and mentor.

“Please be careful Jahrra,” Hroombra told her with a sad softness to his voice. “The wilders of Oescienne can be just as full of dangerous mystery and fearful beasts as Felldreim, even if it doesn’t hold the same degree of magic.”

Jahrra nodded soberly. He didn’t often act so serious, and his somber mood struck her in a slightly disconcerting way.

“I won’t let anything get me,” she said with a mischievous smile that she hoped blinded him from her own trepidation. “I’ve had lessons from Yaraa and Viornen, remember?”

Hroombra returned his own grin, flavored with good humor. This was just enough to cheer Jahrra up and send her off with a light heart. Jahrra rode to Wood’s End Ranch where she, Gieaun and Scede spent the better part of the evening planning out their route through the southland.

“We’ll take the road down the southern edge of the Sloping Hill, and then turn east instead of going straight into Lensterans. We’ll have to camp out at the crossroads here,” Jahrra said, pointing to a place on her map where the roads met, “and then we’ll continue across the river in the morning.”

“Where will we go from there?” asked Scede, not seeing anything of interest on the map.

“Master Hroombra once told me about some isolated canyons in these hills,” Jahrra pointed again at the map, but this time further south from where the roads met. “I think we should see what’s there. There might be some birds or animals we’ve never seen before living there.”

The next morning Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede packed up everything they needed onto Phrym, Aimhe and Bhun, taking along only a few extra provisions. They planned to hunt and gather most of what they would eat in the wilderness. The fruits and berries were plentiful this time of year, and so was the game, so they didn’t worry about going hungry.

“Do you think we packed enough Phrym?” Jahrra asked as she tightened the girth of his saddle and double checked that the saddlebags wouldn’t shake loose.

Phrym gave a small, breathy whicker. He knew they were off to somewhere important; he’d never been packed down like this before.

“I’m ready, are you two?” Jahrra called to her friends.

“Not quite, you go ahead down the drive and we’ll meet you soon,” Scede said, finishing up with Bhun.

Jahrra nodded and turned Phrym down the long dirt road, looking like a grey-blue ribbon in the young hours of the day. The only things stirring were some small foraging birds, frightened further into the brush as the semequin and his rider marched by. As the morning advanced, the treetops became gilded with the cool yellow of dawn, the sun’s brilliant rays spreading across the vast fields like golden pathways connecting the earth with the sky.

Normally Jahrra would’ve waited for her friends, but she was in the mood for some fresh air. Once she and Phrym reached the large gate at the ranch’s entrance, Jahrra felt a lot better. She swung off Phrym and leaned against the edge of the fence.

“They’ll be here any minute now. Scede just had to put the halter on Bhun and Gieaun was right behind him.” She rubbed Phrym’s neck and looked out over the vast fields.

As the minutes ticked by, Jahrra began to wonder what was taking her friends so long.
I hope they haven’t had second thoughts!
she thought dejectedly. Half an hour passed before Gieaun and Scede finally rode up on Bhun and Aimhe.

“Sorry,” Scede breathed in frustration, “Gieaun thought she’d left something behind and we had to turn back.”

“You don’t have to say it so harshly,” his sister retorted. “I may have left it and then what would I have done?”

Scede rolled his eyes. “It was only her precious pillow,” he explained to Jahrra. “And she could’ve done without if she really wanted to rough it.”

Gieaun turned pink at this comment and abruptly looked the other way, her nose stuck in the air.

“That’s alright,” Jahrra remarked with amusement. “It shouldn’t take us all day to get to the crossroads anyway.”

“Are you sure it’s safe to travel to the crossroads alone?” Gieaun asked, forgetting about her irritation at her brother.

“Of course it is,” Jahrra insisted. “It’s a well traveled path and the farmers use it all the time. Plus, there are three of us and our three horses, we’ll be fine.”

“What about Hirihn Wood? I heard that bandits wait behind the trees and ambush traders!” Gieaun said in her usual, paranoid way.

“Oh, don’t be such a coward Gieaun! We’ve been to the Belloughs and back for Ethoes’ sake, we can handle anything!” Jahrra bellowed in aggravation.

She jumped onto Phrym and kicked him into a quick walk. “C’mon you two! We have miles to cover today!”

Scede flashed an impish grin towards his sister and jogged Bhun after Phrym. Gieaun let out a sound that was a cross between an uncomfortable sigh and a whine, and slowly followed after them.

“Not so fast Scede! Jahrra! Wait for me!”

She brought Aimhe up to speed with the other two horses and soon the three were on their way down the road towards the Oorn Plain.

Jahrra had always been told that the late summer months were the hottest in this part of Oescienne, and today was no exception. The early morning crept towards mid-day, the heat gradually rising to an almost unbearable temperature. The dust from the barren dirt road created a choking, terra-cotta haze and the sun seemed to bake the shadows of the three horses and their riders against the dry hills.

“Are there no trees at all in this part of the country?” Gieaun panted in exasperation.

They’d been traveling for several hours along the road that ran between the Oorn River and the southern Longuinn Hills, but had only seen a few stray trees along the way, but nothing to provide ample shade.

“I see a small grove about a mile up ahead!” Scede suddenly called out to the two girls riding just behind him. “That must be Hirihn Wood.”

Gieaun squinted into the distance and then gulped nervously as the dark wood grew nearer, finally giving the hot and tired group their first chance to rest. Gieaun may have feared these trees, but Jahrra was more than grateful for the shade after their hours of travel. She pulled out the map she’d brought along and glanced over it.

“Yep, this is Hirihn Wood,” she said, focusing on the dark blotch of ink that represented trees on the map.

Gieaun let out an anxious cry, and Scede gave her an annoyed look. “For goodness’ sake Gieaun! This wood can’t be any worse than the Wreing Florenn!”

The dark pines weren’t very tall, but the tangled branches and needle-carpeted forest floor gave the place a very suffocated and cramped feel. A narrow path curved around the thick, branchy trunks of the trees and continued on to what only Jahrra and her friends could assume was the other side of the main road they had just left.