Chapter 2

I did not say or do much during the four-day trip to Fardun. I just sat in the back of the wagon, looking at nothing. I felt nothing, still numb to everything after all I had lost. I would just stare out at nothing, my eyes dull and unfocused. Elder father and elder mother tried to get me to talk, to come out of my shell, but to no avail. I would eat during our stops for meals and to sleep for the night, but I still would not talk. My silence and morose attitude did not deter them, and they continued to engage me in the hopes to put me in a better mood. Elder father would tell me about the various regions of the forest through which we were currently travelling. He would explain to me what game was the best to hunt in the area. He then promised to teach me all he knew to hunt and survive in the wilderness. Elder mother would tell me about what flora was poisonous, what was edible. What would have medicinal purposes and how it can be used to help with various ailments.

As we got closer to Fardun, Elder mother thought it would be nice to tell me about what my mother was like as a child. All the troubles and joys she had raising my mother until she was grown. She would explain about how my mother had made many friends over the years, whom I would meet at the village. While the talk of my mother did make me feel a bit better, it still filled me with the realisation that she would no longer be around. I silently wept, trying not to let them notice the pain I was going through because I knew they were going through. After a while, I could not hold it in and began to weep loudly. Hearing my pain, Elder mother just hugged me close and tried to console me. It felt just as mother had done so many times, had learned it from Elder mother. I started to think that it would not be as bad as I had thought, as they both seemed to be as great as my parents had been.

A few days later we neared the village, I looked at my new home. The village was much different from Cartha in both size and in look. It was right next to a large river, and I could see what I assumed were boats moving along the shore. The houses that I could see from where we were looked to be like the ones we had in Cartha but made with. It was about half the size Cartha was, minus the defensive wall around the perimeter. It reminded me of what I had left behind, but there was a large structure that I had not seen before at the eastern edge of the village. The structure was full of logs, and it seemed that some of them were being put on to wagons. My elder father noticed my interest in the building and pointed to it.

“That is the foresters’ building, we supply the wood for the province,” my elder father told me, “nearly half of the men in the village work there.”

We entered the village, passing under a tall, wooden gate. People took notice as we passed by, and I was greeted with the warm smiles of villagers. It reminded me of the looks that had once been on the faces of the people of my village. The feeling of belonging that had been at the core of my life for years. Now it was gone, replaced by fear, pain, and heartbreak. We made our way through the heart of the town, when we turned south and began approaching a small house. It looked to be in good condition, there were hides tanning outside the house. We got out of the wagon and elder father unharnessed the horse from the wagon as we collected my belongings. He took the mare behind their house and elder mother led me inside. There were only a few pieces of furniture, it looked to be handmade and woven out of tree limbs. It gave the house a very natural feel to it that helped me to feel a bit more at home.

My elders spent the next ten years raising me, but they could not really take the place of my mother and father. For the first few weeks, my elder parents continued to try to engage me, try to get me out of my shell, but it hurt too much. I would think of my parents every day and replayed their death in my dreams every night. At first, it just made me more depressed, and I began to withdraw even more from my elder parents. I started eating less, left my room less, and then barely even got out of bed. After six months, I had wasted away to nearly nothing, and had not been outdoors in nearly three months. I had almost no energy, finding it hard to walk, or even lift the simplest things within the house. The nightmares became increasingly frequent. The intensity of the dreams increased, and I began to envision more people I cared about being killed by that beast. My parents were always the first to die, then my elder parents. Finally, I saw Ruben and his family being killed by the beast. The last to die was Violet in those dreams and it hurt me to my very core.

One morning, my elder father came in and said, “Enough is enough, boy! You have spent all your time here, in your room moping! If you keep this up you will die, and how will that honour your mother and father!”

Without another word, he turned and left, leaving me to sit there and think on what he had said. He was right, letting myself get feeble and die would not honour them. Finding the creature that did this to us and killing it, would bring honour to them. My father had been strong enough to fend off the wolf, until I had entered the shop. I would need to get as strong as my father was, if not stronger. I needed to be ready, so if it ever came for me, or I ever ran into it, I could kill it. I could not get that strong sitting in here and wasting away. I would need to work hard, daily, like he had. Even harder: he couldn’t kill the beast in the end. I would make sure I was strong enough, no one else would die by that beast again.

With a new purpose, I began to eat more, and tried to get outside every day. Fardun was a lumber village, and there was good money in it, so I started collaborating with the foresters. I was only eight, and because I was still coming back from my self-inflicted deterioration, they mostly had me collect cut-off limbs. After a few months, just before my ninth birthday, I was given the job of chopping the limbs off thinner trees. Each year, I was given new tasks, helping to chop down the smaller trees. By the time I turned twelve, I was working alone on those small trees, cutting them down with greater ease. On my twelfth birthday, elder father gave me a bow and arrow for my birthday, while elder mother gave me a satchel.

During my days off, elder father would take me into the woods, and we would go hunting. He taught me what wood was most useful for repairing and making bows and arrows. Which stones would be best for arrowheads, and what feathers were best for fletching. We covered how to make bows and arrows, though it took nearly a month to cover everything to elder father’s satisfaction. The next few months were mostly spent practising using and making my own bows and arrows for when we hunted. He also taught me how to track prey, what to do to keep from making noise, and different ways to kill different animals quickly. By the time I was fourteen, I had begun to show promise as a hunter. We then started covering the different types of traps I could make to snare or kill animals. Elder father was a fountain of knowledge, and I did my best to absorb everything I could.

Over the years, I worked hard, trained hard, and prepared for the day I would face the beast that killed my parents. My elders were always truly kind to me. Elder father continued to teach me all he knew about hunting and tracking. When we started, we hunted small animals, like rabbits, following their tracks, sneaking up on them. Now, we were hunting elk, wild boars, and the more dangerous animals, each responsible for our own kills. By the time I had turned fifteen, I had killed nearly any animal I had hunted, the only beasts I had yet to kill were forest wolves. They would prove excellent practice for when I would need to hunt the beast. Elder mother taught me how to skin and prepare my kills, as well as herbs she used to season the meat I had killed.

Elder mother made sure to take some time and saw to my training in herbology. She wanted to make sure that I could identify any plant I came across. To know if it were poisonous and its potency if they were. Which ones were edible, and what benefits they could give. How to mix them to create salves and healing remedies. Her knowledge was vast, she would not stop until I knew it exactly as she did. She also pushed me to experiment, to see if I could create new mixtures that would prove useful. Most of my experiments turned out to be failures, but on the rare occasion I succeeded, it was a very pleasant result. A little while before my fifteenth birthday, she was proud to tell me that she had taught me everything that she knew. We still worked together to refine and improve on what we knew - those days were filled with happiness indeed.

They died just after my sixteenth birthday. Elder mother had been getting sick over the last few years, so we tried everything we knew to help. I tried every new concoction I had produced, but nothing worked. When she died it was not the same, elder father just gave up on life. He became much like I had been when I first got there. He wasted away, nothing that I did would make him come out of his pain. He died a few months later.

We had a small service for them both. I buried them myself, under their favourite tree. Both services had everyone in the village in attendance. All our friends came to celebrate with them, and the village had a big celebration of their lives. It hurt to lose them, and I do miss them at times. I treasured all that they taught me and would put the teachings to effective use. The Patron of the village allowed me to continue to live in my elders’ home until I was eighteen. I had spent the years contributing many of my kills to the village, which helped many eat better. Since there was only myself to feed, I was able to contribute even more to the village. I continued to work as a forester during the day and provide meat for the village from my hunts during the night and on my days off.