The Beginning (22 page)

The words were squeezed out of his mouth with such anger and hatred that even Jahrra, who was used to his scorn, felt taken aback.

Jahrra took a deep breath and shook these thoughts from her head. They had happened several weeks ago, and now that school was out, she and her friends could relax in a world free of the twins and their acidic remarks.

“Where to?” asked Rhudedth happily as everyone finally met up just in front of the boardwalk.

“We were thinking of a picnic on one of the sand dunes further south along the beach. Maybe even along the bank of the Oorn River,” Scede answered, darting his eyes sheepishly towards Kihna.

She smiled shyly, her pale blue eyes dropping as a pink blush touched her cheeks. Scede looked away, pretending to be interested in a cormorant sitting on the pilings in the middle of the lake.

“That sounds like a good idea, I haven’t been out here in such a long time,” Pahrdh said dreamily, his hazel-brown eyes practically smiling.

Jahrra always envied Pahrdh’s and Rhudedth’s unusual eyes and unique hair. She thought that Rhudedth’s hair looked like autumn leaves, and sometimes wished hers was that color too.

The six horses thudded over the boardwalk single file and headed west towards the ocean shore. Jahrra, Scede, Gieaun, Rhudedth, Kihna and Pahrdh, in that order, waved to the local Nesnan farmers who were fishing or simply enjoying the day as they passed. They all chuckled as Jahrra retold the story of the lake monster for what seemed like the hundredth time, and how it had almost devoured Eydeth that fateful night.

“Oh,” exclaimed Rhudedth, wiping tears from her eyes, “if only it
was
real and it
did
eat Eydeth!”

Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede had finally caved and told their other friends the truth about the lake monster a few months after it had happened. They confessed to them one weekend on a camping trip to Lake Ossar, revealing every little detail: how they had come up with the idea (not mentioning Denaeh of course), how they had spent a year putting it together, and how they had finally tricked Eydeth into searching for it. They even went out to the little island where Gieaun and Jahrra demonstrated the pulley system, bringing their now rather decrepit-looking creature out of the water. Everyone had stared at the three friends in a combination of horror and admiration.

“Jahrra! I showed up to make sure he went through with the dare! It scared us half to death!” Pahrdh had said, more in shock than in anger.

“Yeah, but it was more fun that way, wasn’t it?” Jahrra had responded with a mischievous smile.

Since that first camping trip together, the newly formed group of friends had spent many fine days at the lakes, racing on the beach with their horses or just telling stories from school. Jahrra’s favorite story, no doubt, was that of the lake monster, and she often changed the ending a little so that Eydeth got eaten of course. Gieaun enjoyed telling everyone about the unicorn hair they had collected and Scede liked to tell stories, to Jahrra’s slight annoyance, about the dragon Raejaaxorix. She enjoyed the fact that she’d been too busy to even think of the irritating Tanaan dragon lately, and Scede’s recollections only reminded her of her ire towards him. When he insisted on telling everyone how Jahrra had acquired Phrym, she would just try and imagine he was talking about a different dragon.

Rhudedth, Pahrdh, Kihna and her sisters had been all very intrigued by the stories they’d heard, and had a few to tell of their own. Rhudedth and Pahrdh always loved to recall the story of Jahrra’s dramatic fall in Kiniahn Kroi, and Kihna loved telling everyone about what it was like shopping in town with Ellysian.

“You should’ve seen her at the tailor’s in Kiniahn Kroi once,” the Resai girl had said through tears of laughter. “She was so rude that the seamstress kept poking her with the pin on purpose, saying ‘I’m terribly sorry’, or ‘Oops, my hand slipped’. She must have stabbed her at least fifty times!”

Everyone had fallen down laughing as they imagined Ellysian flinching, and they’d begged Kihna to tell more.

Suddenly, Rhudedth’s friendly voice cut into Jahrra’s happy reminiscing and she was brought back to the present.

“Oh, don’t you just love the ocean!” she sighed aloud as the horses stepped onto the soft, sandy trail opening out onto the shore.

The Oorn River curved out to the sea just to the north, slicing through the dunes and beach sand like a sapphire serpent cutting a groove through the desert sand. The view, like always, was breathtaking. The blue ribbon of water was lined on either side by the pale sand, and to the east it swept against the wetlands that eventually became scattered woodlands behind the dunes.

The six friends encouraged their horses into a gallop and then set them to a run, racing down the beach and tearing across the shallow delta of the river, startling a large flock of birds and sending a plume of briny water soaring into the air.

“Can you believe the Great Race is only one year away?” Pahrdh breathed as the children slowed their horses to a stop next to some trees on the other side of the river.

“Ugh, don’t remind us!” Kihna groaned, trying to catch her breath. “Eydeth can’t stop talking about how he’ll be old enough to enter the race and how he is definitely going to win first place with his father’s prize semequin.”

She shook her head in annoyance, her light blonde hair looking like a streamer of delicate dune sand caught in a gust of wind.

“I say we just forget about the twins and the race, and focus on Gieaun’s birthday,” Rhudedth added, not wanting to dwell on their common enemy.

As the day progressed, however, the girls couldn’t keep the boys from talking about the upcoming race. “It’s nearly twenty miles long and only the best semequins can enter!” Pahrdh chattered excitedly to Scede, ignoring Kihna’s and Gieaun’s baleful looks.

“What is so great about this race anyway? And for goodness sake! It’s a year away!” Gieaun said exasperatingly, finally ending all talk about the race.

With the boys’ enthusiastic discussion finally over, the conversation turned to the Fall Festival and Sobledthe.

“I can’t wait!” Jahrra practically yelled. “I’ll finally be old enough to go to Lensterans without adult supervision and stay the whole night! And I’ll be able to take part in the scavenger hunt!”

“You and that scavenger hunt,” Scede mumbled, rolling his eyes dramatically. “Honestly, that’s not the only interesting thing that happens at the festival.”

“Oh, come on, it’ll be great! Don’t you think it’ll be fun Gieaun?”

Gieaun had no opinion either way, so she remained silent, shrugging her uncertainty.

“You three are going, aren’t you?” Jahrra turned her questions on Rhudedth, Pahrdh and Kihna, since her other two friends refused to comment further.

“I think so,” said Rhudedth, “and I think that Mahryn is coming too.”

Rhudedth grinned and gave Jahrra an impish wink.

Jahrra shrank back and slouched. Mahryn was Rhudedth’s cousin from Glordienn, and it was common knowledge that he was quite fond of Jahrra. Jahrra had nothing against him, he was a nice boy, but he stared too much and never said more than three words together.

“Oh,” she managed, barely holding back a grimace, “that would be nice. I haven’t seen him in awhile.”

Scede and Gieaun grinned, and Jahrra tried to ignore them. She was just thankful he lived so far away and didn’t go to school with them. She couldn’t imagine how Eydeth and Ellysian would treat him. She shivered at the very thought of it.

The group laid out their picnic blankets and ate their lunches, reveling in the fine weather and laughing at the shore birds chasing desperately after sand crabs while trying to avoid the encroaching waves. Before they realized it, the day was over and the children ruefully headed back home in the rich, golden light of the setting sun. Jahrra, Rhudedth, Pahrdh and Kihna waved goodbye to Gieaun and Scede as they disappeared down the driveway leading to Wood’s End Ranch, turning north as they made their way home. The four remaining companions tore down the road and around the town of Nuun Esse as they raced towards the Castle Guard Ruin.

“You’ll never catch us!” Jahrra called as she and Phrym jumped an old broken fence marking a fallow field.

“Of course we won’t!” Pahrdh shouted breathlessly from his laboring horse. “You have Phrym!”

Several minutes later, Jahrra slowed a lively Phrym to a stop in front of his stable. While they waited for the others, Jahrra gave her friend a good pat on the neck. Phrym whickered energetically, trying to convince her to let him cut loose once again.

“Maybe we shouldn’t run so far ahead of everyone all the time,” she whispered, smiling.

Phrym cocked his ears backwards and let out a small snort, as if doing such a thing would injure his pride.

Jahrra laughed. “You’re right, but maybe we could go just a little slower next time.”

The three riders came thundering over the hill just as Jahrra was climbing down from Phrym’s back.

“I know Phrym is a semequin, but I’ve never seen a horse move so fast! Too bad you can’t enter the Great Race next year; you two would beat everyone by far!”

Pahrdh’s expression glazed over as he imagined his friend and her smoky semequin leaving all the other racers in the dust.

“Oh please!” Kihna breathed as she brought her white mare up next to the others. “I thought you were done talking about that race!”

The three of them bid farewell to Jahrra and headed north towards Aldehren. As they disappeared over the edge of the Sloping Hill, Jahrra sat on Phrym’s wood pole fence and watched as he danced around his corral. After a few laps, he trotted up and leaned his neck gently against her, forcing her to grasp the rough wood so that she wouldn’t fall over backwards.

“It
would
be amazing to run in that race,” she admitted to him, “but we’ll have to settle for our races down the country roads I suppose.”

Jahrra reached over and scratched Phrym on the neck. She quickly jumped off the fence and turned to face him in the darkening light. “We’ll have to dream about races later, Phrym. Tomorrow we have lessons with Yaraa and Viornen, and you and I both need to rest.”

She kissed his silvery-dappled forehead and began the downhill walk towards the Ruin.

As she trudged through the long grass, Jahrra gazed up at the sky, searching for the first stars of the night. Tomorrow she would be going back to her usual summer routine. Her days, like many of the summer days before, would be filled with hard, physical work with the elves and the constant struggle against Kruelt with Hroombra. Jahrra sighed, realizing that she would have only a few chances to see her friends over the next few months, but knowing all too well it would soon be over and she would be back in school once again.

As the weeks passed, however, Jahrra grew more and more advanced in her complicated defense lessons. She could now make herself relax and concentrate on the task at hand in the most stressful of situations, and had even trained herself to hold her breath for nearly a minute. She was now able to defeat Yaraa in a sparring contest while Srithe, Strom, Samibi and the family dog danced around them making a huge racket, and Viornen found it increasingly difficult to break past her defenses while they practiced fencing maneuvers. Jahrra’s aim with a bow and arrow was close to perfect, and the tricks she could manage while on horseback rivaled those she read about in Hroombra’s old books of ancient sagas.

With her internal senses sharpened from the years of continuous training, detecting an encroaching enemy (or sometimes three if her trainers’ children were employed) became as easy as locating Atrova in the night sky. Furthermore, to Jahrra’s great astonishment, she started to notice the emotions and earthy senses of the ancient trees surrounding her. At first she wasn’t sure what that deep prickle of joy had been, that is until she remembered, with a pleasant shiver, how it had felt “speaking” with the sacred Apple Tree in Ehnnit Canyon. Jahrra’s progress carried over into her lessons with the dragons’ language as well, something that pleased Hroombra very much. She was able to recite to him, in almost perfect Kruelt, a summary of what she’d learned from her elvin trainers that summer.

Although she had spent most of her vacation learning and not playing, Jahrra couldn’t help but be extremely pleased with herself, even on the eve of her return to school. She had grown another two inches, bringing her just over five and a half feet tall (the tallest of her age level at school and only third tallest overall), and her many years of defense training had made her lean, quick and strong.

In fact, Jahrra was certain that if she were ever challenged by any of the boys at school, either those older or her own age, she would win hands down. Any arm wrestling contest, fencing match or foot race would be no problem for her. She grinned to herself as she imagined the pompous Eydeth challenging her to full-out, hand-to-hand combat. What a delight it would be to rearrange his facial features and pummel him to a pulp in front of the whole entire school. Jahrra sighed.
No
, she thought,
that would be too easy. And it would be an unfair advantage for me. He wouldn’t stand a chance.

As she lay in her small bed that night, her arms folded comfortably behind her head, Jahrra found herself looking forward to the start of school for the first time in her entire life. She no longer imagined herself as the awkward Nesnan without any friends, but a confident, young woman capable of defeating her enemies with one movement of her hand. She took a slow, deep breath and closed her eyes, wishing that the dream world would welcome her soon.