Chapter 1-3

“If he can...” Almonihah murmured. What if... but his father was a dragon. There was no way anything could beat his father. But if not, then why...

Zrathanzon broke in on Almonihah's thoughts. “You ever used a sword?”

Almonihah blinked at the change of topics, but some part of him welcomed it, shying away from its former train of thought. “No...”

“Do you want to learn how?”

Almonihah thought for a moment. Maybe, if he had known how to fight... “Yes, I do,” Almonihah said, a determined look on his small, scaled face.

Zrathanzon revealed that he had made a small practice sword overnight—really just a roughly straight stick of about the right size that had the bark shaved off and another stick lashed on like a crossguard. Zrathanzon gave it to Almonihah, then drew his own sword. “You hold a sword like this,” he said, demonstrating. Almonihah, frowning a bit in concentration, looked at what his instructor was doing, then carefully copied it. “A little farther down the hilt,” Zrathanzon instructed, and Almonihah obeyed, then looked back at Zrathanzon. Zrathanzon nodded, then said, “Ok, now this is your first stance...”

Almonihah was breathing in gasps by the end of the training session. He couldn't think of any time he'd been breathing so hard, but it felt good. It meant he didn't have energy to think about anything. It was clear that the training was over for the morning, though. Zrathanzon confirmed it by sheathing his sword and saying, “Not bad, Almonihah. You've got potential. I think it's time for you to rest now, though.”

Almonihah had too little breath to respond, and only nodded in acknowledgement. He sat where he was, still breathing hard, while Zrathanzon went back into camp and stirred up the fire. Slowly, Almonihah's breathing slowed to normal. When he could feel his heart beating at a more normal rate, he got back up and followed Zrathanzon back into camp. He was somewhat surprised to find that Zrathanzon was preparing lunch, until he glance up into the sky and noticed that the sun had already passed the middle of the sky. He'd been learning swordplay the whole morning.

After lunch, they took a moment to rest around the fire. Almonihah looked at his new teacher, his little mind working, and asked, “So... Zrathanzon, what do you do?”

Zrathanzon chuckled a little, and responded, “I'm a ranger.” When Almonihah just stared blankly at him, he continued, “I travel in the wilds,” he gestured to indicate the untamed forest around them, “hunting, looking out for people who live out here, protecting them from monsters...” Zrathanzon shrugged. “You'll understand.”

Almonihah was silent as he tried to understand what Zrathanzon had said. He was still trying to create a picture in his mind of what a ranger was when Zrathanzon said, “You feeling rested, Almonihah?” At Almonihah's nod, he continued, “Have you ever been hunting?”

Almonihah nodded again and said, “Yes...” He looked at Zrathanzon for a bit, then continued a bit doubtfully, “But I don't think you do it the same.”

Zrathanzon laughed a bit, and said, “Probably not. Want to see how I do it?”

“Yes,” Almonihah answered.

Zrathanzon laughed a bit again, and then murmured, “You like brief answers, don't you?” He shook his head in amusement, and then continued, “Well, it's about time to make a hunting trip. Make sure you put that sword somewhere safe, then we'll get going.”

Almonihah nodded, looked around for somewhere to put Zithrandrak, and eventually contented himself with hiding it in his bedroll. “We'll have to make a sheath for it sometime,” Zrathanzon murmured, more to himself than to Almonihah. “Of course, it'll be a while before you're big enough to use it,” he continued a bit more loudly. Almonihah simply nodded again.

Zrathanzon picked up a piece of bent wood leaned up against a tree near his bedroll, pulled out some string, and started using the string to bend the wood more. Almonihah looked quizzically at him for a bit, then asked, “What's that?”

Zrathanzon chuckled a bit. “I'm stringing my bow.” He glanced at Almonihah, and seeing his uncomprehending look, laughed and said, “You've never seen a bow before, have you?” Almonihah shook his head, and Zrathanzon said, “Well, this is what one looks like.” He held up the now-strung bow. Almonihah's stare... was still blank. Zrathanzon laughed again, shaking his head, and said, “You'll see pretty soon what a bow does.”

With that, Zrathanzon got up, picked up a couple other little pieces of equipment, then motioned for Almonihah to follow. As they traveled deeper into the woods, Almonihah snapped a twig underfoot. Zrathanzon froze, then turned back and whispered, “Watch your feet. Like this.”

Zrathanzon walked carefully, his booted feet completely silent. Almonihah watched intently, then tried to follow. He got a good ways before crunching anything else.

After practicing moving through the woods silently for a while, the two reached the edge of a sizable clearing. There was a small herd of deer browsing on the other side. Zrathanzon froze, and gestured for his little companion to do likewise. Then he slowly drew an arrow from his quiver, nocked it, drew, and loosed it.

It sank deep into one of the deer's sides, but not into anything that would kill it quickly. The whole herd, including the wounded deer, took off running, and Zrathanzon took off after it. Almonihah tried to follow, but he was quickly outdistanced by the much longer-legged ranger. It wasn't long, however, before he nocked and loosed a second arrow, one which brought down the wounded deer almost instantly. Zrathanzon slowed his pace, and Almonihah was able to catch up, breathing hard.

“The deer would have died after a while on its own,” Zrathanzon said when his student reached him near the deer, “But you don't make it suffer unnecessarily. We have to kill to eat, but we kill as quickly and painlessly as possible.”

“Is that part of being a ranger, too?” Almonihah asked.

Zrathanzon nodded. “Rangers don't cause animals—or plants, really—any more harm than we absolutely have to. We respect nature, and nature respects us in turn.” An oddly thoughtful expression (at least for a five-year-old) came over Almonihah's face at this.

Zrathanzon reached the downed deer, carefully pulled the two arrows out of the carcass, then shouldered it easily. “Let's get back to camp and prepare this meat,” he said, turning back to where they had come.

It was late by the time they had finished preparing (and eating some of) the meat. It seemed to Almonihah that he had never been so tired in his short life. Sword practice, hunting, preparing the meat... his mother had always given him chores, but never like these!

His mother...

His father. Where was his father?

Zrathanzon broke into his thoughts. “You want to go to bed now, Almonihah?”

“Yes!” Almonihah answered emphatically.

Zrathanzon grinned a bit and motioned at Almonihah's bedroll. “Well, go ahead. Just don't lay down on your sword.”

Almonihah had been in such a hurry to lay down that he'd almost forgotten about that. He winced a bit at the thought of laying down on top of his father's sword, and made sure to carefully move it aside as he got under the blanket on his bedroll. He closed his eyes and expected to fall asleep almost instantly. He didn't.

First of all, the day's exertions seemed to have made every muscle in his body sore, so that there wasn't any comfortable way to lay on his bedroll. Second... now that he didn't have any task to throw himself headlong into learning, he had no defense against his thoughts. His mother falling... his father maybe being dead... otherwise why wouldn't he have come? Why wouldn't he have saved her? And even if he was alive... and came and found Almonihah... how could he go home without mother?

Why hadn't he saved her?

There were tears on Almonihah's cheeks again when he fell asleep.

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Can't say I've got a lot to say about this posting. Mostly just giving a picture of what Almonihah's early training was like. I am happy with Zrathanzon--I hadn't known he was quite so happy. I guess I thought A.Z. got it from him.