-II-
The Orphan

Avra walked the streets of Foster alone, his eyes roaming around his surroundings curiously. The houses were made entirely out of wood that woodcutters like his uncle Muren chopped down and sold for a profit. Though wood was a necessary resource, there were so many woodcutters in Foster that the demand had lessened over the years, and nowadays the most you could get for a log of wood was a few bronze coins. The streets were almost deserted, as most of the townspeople were fast asleep, but there were some merchants walking to the markets, dragging their goods and hoping to sell them early in the morning.

He turned a corner into a new street that emptied into a dead end; here the houses were more crowded and closer together. He headed towards his destination, a straw hut with a beautiful garden with flowers and plants in front of it, and an iron gate outside it. He reached into his pockets and took out a bronze key, and then inserted it into the lock of the gate. He turned it, and when he heard a click, Avra pushed open the gate. It swung open, and he walked across the dirt floor that ran through the center of the garden and separated it into two parts. He knocked on the door to the hut, and after a few moments it opened, and a woman with graying hair stood in the entrance. “Come in, Avra.’’

She vanished inside, and Avra removed his slippers and kept them outside the door, and then went inside. The interior of her house was anything but spacious; books sat atop bookshelves, lining them row after row, and potted plants of all sizes were to be found everywhere on the wooden floor. There was an iron pot in the center of the room that was held over a burning fire, and the woman was standing next to it. “Here are the herbs, Miss Betrah,’’ he said, and removed his cloth bag and handed it to the lady.

“You managed to find them.’’ She sounded surprised as she said this, and then she held the sack upside down and emptied the contents onto a small table. One by one she counted and categorized the herbs, and put them into the iron pot. A sweet, herbal aroma rose up from the pot after a while, and Avra sniffed it and watched, spellbound, as the old lady stirred the pot with a ladle. She reached into a cabinet above her head, and got out a jar with some whitish grainy substance, and then she poured some of it into the iron pot and stirred it.

“What’s that?’’ Avra asked.

“Talpika powder,’’ replied Miss Betrah absently, and then took a jar from atop the small table and poured some translucent, orange liquid into the pot.

“And that?’’

“Nectar from an Elkvinthé plant.” The woman glanced at him with slight irritation. “Are you quite done?’’

“Sorry.’’ His head bowed low. “It’s just that you’ve never taught me those names.’’

“There will be time,’’ she assured. She poured some more substances into the pot, and then began to stir. The scent turned from a sweet smell to a rancid odor in the matter of seconds, and Avra pinched his nose at the smell. Then Miss Betrah took her ladle and poured the contents of the pot, which measured about a liter, into a small cube-shaped plastic bottle, and then closed a lid tightly over the bottle and handed it to Avra. “Drink this at bedtime, and hopefully this will stop the dreams you are having.’’ He nodded as he received it and put it away in his pocket.

"Have you heard about the girl?’’ she asked suddenly.

Avra’s eyebrows scrunched up as he tried to remember. "What girl?’’

"The orphan. The sentries found her last night in the outskirts of Foster, and half the town gathered there. The Ganters took her in.’’

"The Ganters!’’ He knew them. Jobias Ganter was a woodcutter and a good friend of Uncle Muren. "That’s news, all right, but now I’ve got to go for training classes again. Today is the last class, though.’’ And also the class before the coming-of-age hunt tomorrow, he thought apprehensively as he went to the door and opened it.

"Good luck on the hunt,’’ Miss Betrah said.

He nodded, and then he closed the door once he was outside and headed to his house. He knocked, and his uncle Muren opened the door for him. "I see you’re back, Avra. Off to classes?’’

He nodded, and then made his way to his room. He picked up the spear he had propped up against the wall, held it vertically like a staff, and then left his room. Aunt Mila was in the kitchen, making some tomato soup, and his Uncle Muren was sitting at the table, writing something down on paper. The scent of the soup traveled to Avra, and though he admitted it smelled good, he reminded himself that he did not much favor tomatoes. He said goodbye to his aunt and his uncle, and began heading to the fields, where the training class was held. He caught himself wondering along the way, who was this girl? What would the last day of training class be like? Would he finally be rid of Simon and the chieftain’s son, Nera? He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not take time to appreciate the leisure of a walk as he usually did, and he walked the winding cobble paths that curved around in slopes across the hilly terrain in a half-dream. When he had come close to the training grounds, he picked his head up. The land was depressed inwards in front of him, and on its sides there rose up three small hills. It was a strategically-placed location, and the hills offered cool shade.

There were a few youths sparring with each other using spears in the valley below him. Avra’s grip on his own spear tightened; he barely knew how to wield it, let alone how to throw it. What use is spending your childhood learning how to hunt, he reflected, when I plan to become a gardener? He sighed, and then continued on his way, being careful not to lose his footing and make a fool of himself by rolling down. He saw Simon sparring with one of his buddies a few yards away from him, and he groaned. Simon must have glanced up and seen him, because he began walking up to him.

“I see the penniless gardener has returned to bless us with his great presence,’’ he mocked, and then raised his voice. “Would you mind not holding your spear like that? You look like a massive idiot.” A few of the other boys and girls let out a chuckle.

Avra’s face flushed. Just ignore him, he thought, and he began walked away from Simon, heading to the center where the other youths were gathered.

“You must be lucky today,” Simon drawled out behind him, “as you did not fall down the slope like last time.”

Avra forced himself to block out his words, and he focused his attention instead on their instructor, Treklar, who had just arrived and had called the others to him. The elderly man was starting to speak. “We will start out with something easy today,’’ he was saying, his voice traveling over the masses easily. “Let’s try a running exercise. In this, however, you compete with each other, since I find that competition brings out the best in people. It makes them try harder than they normally would and produce better results than if they were to go at their own pace.’’

Treklar pointed at one of the hills surrounding them, and then pointed to the hill next it, and then to the third hill. “You will all line up on one hill and run when I say so to the second hill. Run as fast as you can, because the last two will be eliminated, but also don’t tire yourself out—go at a steady pace. Then you will run to the third hill, and then run back to the second, and then the first. The process will repeat itself. Any questions?’’

Only Simon’s hand was raised, and so Treklar called on him. “What if someone accidently falls down a hill?’’ The whole class burst into laughter, while Avra felt irritation surge through him.

“Well, obviously that person would be in no fit place to run, as he or she would undoubtedly come in as one of the last two,’’ Treklar said seriously. He cleared his throat and began walking to the hill on their left, beckoning to the other students. The whole class began following him, and soon everybody was at the top of the hill. “What is the point of this exercise? How will this benefit you on the hunt tomorrow? It’s simple really. You need to build on your stamina so that you can run while you are chasing a frightened animal, such as a deer. You may also need it to run away from a frightful animal, such as a bear.’’

Treklar kneeled down on the top of the hill, facing the hill next to it. The whole class was lined up in a row, their eyes in front of them. “Ready? I will count to five, and then you start. One…two….’’ Everyone tensed, and their front knees bent as they waited for the ominous syllable. It would come faster than they all anticipated. “Four…five.”

Everyone immediately broke rank, and they began sprinting to the next hill. Avra felt the wind hit his face as he ran down the hill, and almost lost his balance, but he caught himself at the last moment. The downwards slope made him run faster than he intended to, and he found that he couldn’t stop. Soon he had reached the bottom, and his legs ached as he began running up the slope of the next hill. He pushed himself to his limits, running as fast as his legs could move, slowly making progress on the upwards trek. Then he remembered what his instructor had said about pacing himself, and he slowed down considerably. He turned his head and scanned how the other boys and girls were doing, and saw that they were also struggling on their way up, but were slightly ahead of him. He turned his head a little behind him and saw that Nera, barely breaking a sweat, had a determined, calm look on his face as he lagged behind right in front of the last two, a boy who Avra knew, Calven, and a girl, Shredan. He’s not trying, Avra realized. He’s pacing himself.

He reached the top of the hill after about ten boys and girls had, and Simon and Kyra were two of them. His whole class contained about twenty-one students, so he considered himself somewhere in the middle. Avra could already feel his heart pounding quickly, his legs aching, sweat forming on his forehead, his neck, all over his body—and they had not even begun. But despite that, he could feel his muscles flex and strain, and he felt as he had achieved something.

Calven and Shredan, both who had come in as the last two, stopped as they reached the top and began walking back to their instructor. The rest of them continued on their way, and Avra maintained his pace, his arms swinging back and forth. The hills to him were merely checkpoints, not even a resting point, but more a reward zone. He took strange comfort in that every hill he passed, he beat two more people—granted that he was not one of the last two. Before he knew it, he had finished two whole rounds back and forth, and the number of participants had been almost reduced by half. Every bone in his body ached, he had a pounding headache, and he felt like giving up, but Avra continued on with an animal-like drive. I can do this, he thought. I’ve come so far. It won’t do to give up this easily.

Slowly he became absorbed in the rhythm of the race; his mind felt dead, andthe only things he knew to do was to breathe, to move his legs back and forth, and pump his arms likewise. He did not know it, but his stamina increased considerably, his thigh muscles strengthened, his chest grew leaner, and the shadow of muscles began to appear.

He was running down a hill as fast as his aching legs could move, and he was slightly ahead of all the others for once when he saw out of the corners of his eyes Simon and his buddies catching up to him. At first he dismissed it as nothing, but they all had smirks on their faces and were all staring at him as they ran alongside him. One of the boys had gotten particularly close to him, and he was less than a feet away from him. Simon was on the far right, and he had surpassed Avra, yet he turned his head back to grin at him. Sensing trouble, Avra glanced behind him at their instructor, Shalka, but the man was apparently saying something to one of the students who had come in as one of the last two, the boy named Nekolaus. He’s probably trying to cheer him up when he could be stopping something bad from happening, silly fool, he thought, and then immediately scolded himself. Shalka was a good man, and he was not the enemy. But it was clear that this time he was alone, and whatever Simon had in for him he would have to face on his own.

Simon snapped his fingers tightly as he turned his head forward again, focused on running. Avra closed his eyes for a moment, knowing that a split second later whatever Simon had in store for him would happen. He opened them again, and saw out the corners of his eyes that the boy who was dangerously close to him had extended his leg up to a forty-five degree angle until it came in front of Avra’s own leg. Avra panicked, for he instantly realized what was going to happen, but he also realized that there was nothing that he could do about it—not with such short notice. The boy’s leg came in front of him as an obstacle would, such as a rock, and when Avra tried to move his obstructed leg to continue running, both the legs connected, tripping him. He fell forward with suddenness, and although he tried to bring his hands up to stop the fall, the gravity of the slope propelled him downhill. He tumbled forward, his body rolling like a lifeless doll on the hard, grass-covered earth. His head was spinning when he finally stopped, and there were scratches all around his arms and legs where they had banged against the ground. He thought he could feel blood in his mouth, but there was a possibility that he might have mistaken the metallic taste for something else. He lay still on the grass, unmoving. He could hear the thud of footsteps around him as they climbed the next hill. What is the point? He thought. A foot pressed down heavily on his chest, and he gasped as his breath was knocked out of him, his eyes bulging open in shock. He saw another one of Simon’s crony’s back turned to him, his right foot stamping on his stomach. A brief, painful moment later, the foot lifted as the boy continued on his way. Avra wheezed, holding his hands to his chest and moaning. He could hear the boy’s laughter dimly. He felt emptiness surge through him like a plague. He felt worthless. He might as well give up now, as he was bound to lose anyway. If he got up now, he would only get humiliated in some other manner.

Then a sudden drive awoke in him. He was not running for the pure sport of it. He was doing it to prove something to everyone, but most importantly to prove to himself that he was not as weak as others might think of him. And now Simon had given him something else to run for: to show him that he was not an object that he could just push around and treat like dirt. He would do it to show Simon that he might hurt him, he might make things harder for him, but in the end he would not let anything oppress him, because he was determined and strong in will. He spat out the blood in his mouth, and then used his legs and arms to lift himself up. He stood shakily for a while, still dazed, noticing the other youths passing him by so easily. Then he turned behind him and saw Nera looking at him, a blank but peculiar look on his face. Behind him there was a pair of boys, the last two, who were jogging side-by-side. Avra turned to face toward the next hill, and slowly began moving his legs. A tremble shook his legs, and suddenly a cramp caught in his calf muscles. He stifled a yelp, instead letting the numbing pain travel through him. Eventually the feeling passed, and he began to pick up the pace. Nera Gondo had already overtaken him, and soon the last two had overtaken him as well.

No, Avra thought. He gritted his teeth and began to run faster and with quicker strides, letting his arms swing back and forth. He pushed himself to the limits, and soon he had passed the last two by and then Nera. He smiled grimly as he reached the top of the hill, and then decided to rest for a few seconds. He breathed deeply in and out, closing his eyes and willing himself to move on. He was still as tired as ever, but at least now his calf muscles did not throb as much, and he could control his legs. When he was a little over halfway to the next hill, a girl suddenly collapsed, as if her legs had given way. She was breathing hard, and sweat was clinging to her neck and her forehead. Avra hesitated, and then reprimanded himself for taking so long to make such an obvious decision. I know how it feels to want to give up, he thought, and then immediately began to jog back to where the girl was laying down on the ground. She was not good-looking in any way, for she had a beaked nose, dull brown eyes, and thin, cracked lips. Avra extended his arm and tried to grab her hand and pull her up, saying, “C’mon, you can make it, just a little further!”, but she viciously shook her hand, removing his grip on it.

“Go away,” she hissed softly, and such was the force in her voice that she might have just slapped him and gotten the same message across. “Can’t you see that I’m through? I’m exhausted, so leave me alone, you fool.”

Avra nodded numbly, feeling abashed. He turned around and began running, this time up the hill, but now Simon and his friends had caught up with him again. “Last chance to give up,” Simon said softly, almost warningly, a dangerous smirk on his face.

“Never,” Avra breathed.

Simon’s grin widened. “Have it your way.” Then he snapped his fingers, and sprinted all the way up to the next hill. Instantly a big, hulking youth passed Avra, moved directly in front of him, and then began to jog slowly. A few moments passed with nothing happening, and Avra started to grow apprehensive of what might happen, when suddenly, right as they had almost reached the top of the hill, the boy in front of him stopped in his tracks. Then he just fell backwards, as if he had lost his footing on a loose rock; indeed, that was exactly what Treklar would think when he saw whatever events would unfold next.

The falling boy crashed into Avra, his heavy weight causing the victim to lose his balance as the breath was knocked quite neatly out of him. They both rolled down the hill together, their heads spinning dizzily and crying out when something sharp struck their body. Avra could make out dimly, from his blurry vision, the other boys and girls rushing out of the way to avoid both of them who were tumbling. Very soon they had reached the bottom of the hill, and Avra held a hand to his forehead to stop the world from spinning. He gritted his teeth, and when he thought it had stopped, he got up shakily and stared with undisguised hatred at the figure of the huge boy who was trying to get up. He balled his hands into fists, and before he had time to think about what he was doing, he was swinging them as hard and fast as he could at the boy. Most of them either missed their target or was deflected, but some of the punches hit the youth in the sides of his chest. Avra thought he could hear someone calling for help, and soon realized it was the boy in front of him. Pairs of strong hands pulled him back and held him there, and with a twist of his neck Avra turned and saw that it was two of Simon’s cronies, whom he guessed were the last two. He fought against them, but he was not strong enough, and eventually he surrendered and relaxed. He saw of the corners of his eyes their instructor, Treklar, approaching them, walking quickly and coughing. His mouth was moving, and Avra realized that he was saying something. “It was just an accident, I’m sure, that Barjé here tripped his legs and fell on you, Avra. No need to get all worked up. Now, both of you get up, and apologize to each other.”

He did it purposefully, and he knows it, Avra thought, but he knew better than to argue; it would avail him nothing, anyway. He murmured an apology to the boy named Barjé, though he did not look him in the eye, and Barjé in turn murmured the same to him, though with a grin. “Look.” Treklar was pointing at the four or five students who were still running. Among them was a dark-haired girl whom Avra did not recognize, and Nera Gondo, the chieftain’s son. He did not see Simon among them, and he felt some strange delight at that. It seemed like four of the students were slowing down, and they definitely looked exhausted. Finally they came to a complete stop, and began walking, panting and wiping sweat off their faces, back to where their instructor was. Only Nera continued running at a brisk, even pace, not seeming the least bit tired or fatigued. When he reached the top of the hill, Treklar had begun to clap, joined by the rest of the class who had gathered around him. “Excellent pacing!” he called, loud enough so that the chieftain’s son could hear him. “Well done, Gondo.”

When all the students, including Nera, had gathered around Treklar, the man pointed to a rocky mountain in the distance with only stones and no signs of vegetation on it. “Now we will begin climbing that mountain,” their instructor said. “This is not a race like the last exercise, so feel free to take it easy, or you can fall and break your bones. Hiking up to the top requires logic, which means basically knowing which rocks are best to climb and which aren’t loose. When you build such logic, it might be useful for you in, for instance, distinguishing which footprints of the animal you choose to hunt tomorrow are which. The experience of climbing might also benefit you when you climb other mountains in the Verdant Hills—the place where you will hunt.” This having been said, Treklar began walking to the mountain, followed by the other students. They walked for a little while until the grass under their feet began growing scarcer, and finally tiny stones began appearing. Finally they reached the bottom of the mountain, and their instructor gestured for the class to begin hiking.

I haven’t finished the rest of this chapter yet. When I’m done with it, I’ll try to post it up.