Chapter 3 - Hunting

This is the chapter I am least pleased with at the moment. I've been working on adding more color to it - bits of Laehry's personality and history. To help some of my student writers, I often suggest what I would like to see more of - a more complete description of a certain place, more about a certain character, etc. As a reader, I can see gaps in the story that the author sometimes cannot. Please feel free to include such suggestions in your comments.

She slung the rucksack over her shoulder and marched toward town. She would find her father and bring him home safely.

She walked all night. Past the edge of town, she stepped off the road and into the forest where the men had found her father's bloody shirt. After several minutes stumbling through dried leaves and over dead trees, she found a trail. Without a clue where she was going, Laehry decided to follow it, her sleepy mind simply focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

Near daybreak, she reached a small stream and filled her water skin. The woods were waking up. Birds started to sing in the branches and several chipmunks scampered across the path near her feet. She trudged on.

When the sun was high, she wearily sank onto a fallen beech and ate some biscuit and cheese. She wasn't really very hungry, but she knew her body needed the fuel to keep it going. Her stomach remained knotted with worry for her father and now competed with a fear that she would disappear into the wilderness. Pushing these thoughts from her mind, Laehry resolved to be fearless and bold.

Don't ever let fear make you hesitate, she remembered her father telling her during one of their sword-training sessions. When she finished eating, she took a few slugs of water, brushed the crumbs from her lap and continued on down the trail, her steps wider and more confident now that her fear was defeated at least temporarily.

The trail itself was quite pretty. The forest was a mix of pine and broadleaf trees. Eons of fallen needles and leaves padded the trail and the sound of her own footsteps kept her company. She walked on, going up and down ever bigger hills until she reached the top of a ridge. Here another trail ran perpendicular to the one she was on. She stood a moment and gazed about her. She was clearly at the highest point around.

Ahead of her, through the trees, the sun was sinking lower in the sky - dusk approached. She felt safe up here on the ridge - anyone who came near would have to climb a hill to get to her and the chances of someone stumbling blindly over her were slim. She turned left and followed the new path up a slight incline until she reached its end.

The trail appeared to just stop in mid-air, but as she came closer, she saw that several huge boulders marked its end. Laehry climbed up on the first of these and felt her stomach clutch as she looked over the other side. Here, the ground fell away quickly down into a beautiful valley full of trees. Far in the distance, she could make out some cleared fields marking habitation of some sort, human or otherwise.

She remembered coming with her father to a remote location similar to this one. They had hopped and leaped among the boulders. Her father encouraged her to run the edges of the widest boulders and fallen trees. Laehry knew she could out-balance any of the children at the village school. She once beat them all by walking the ridgepole of the small school building. Her father and mother sent her to bed with only bread and water for supper,

"How dare you put yourself in such danger!" her mother had wailed.

"How dare you make such a spectacle of yourself!" hissed her father.

Now, she expertly walked the edge of the outer boulder. She kicked a stick out of her way and watched it tumble, end-over-end down into the trees below. Then, she hopped down and unrolled her blanket in a bed of leaves. As the last of the suns rays dipped behind the mountains to her right, she snuggled in and fell fast asleep.

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Bati Midwood woke early in the chill morning air and reached for her husband. He wasn't there. A desperate and lonely feeling washed over her as she remembered the events of the previous morning. Her gut told her that Fort was still alive, but with three children to care for, she could scarce do anything about it.

She swung her knees over the edge of the bed and carefully placed her feet on the woven rug. Tugging on her woolen socks and long robe, she made her way down to the kitchen to start breakfast for the children. They would go back to school today. Returning to normal life as quickly as possible would be good for them.

She stopped short at the sight of the rough oak table. A piece of parchment lay curled and neatly tied with blue yarn. She was sure it hadn't been there last night. Bati pulled off the yarn and unrolled the parchment,
Dear Mother, it began. Tears welled in her eyes as Bati finished reading the short note. She had expected nothing less. Fort had been training Laehry to hunt and fight since she was old enough to hold a wooden sword. Of course Laehry would go after him. Bati worried momentarily about her daughter, wondering where she was right now, before her mind rested on something - something that had been said long ago that, she was relatively sure, assured her daughter's safety - at least for awhile.