Chapter Ten

The following morning Tarn wordlessly put on his mended leggings and went to fetch water. He had travelled half the distance to the spring when he heard footsteps running up behind him. Turning to see who approached, thinking it might be Borach, he discovered the boy from the hut across from his.

"Hi, Tarn. I'm called Tyrell. Beware of Borach. He'll crave revenge." Tyrell warned, holding out his right arm.

The boys clasped forearms and Tarn accepted his first friend. Smiling, Tyrell challenged Tarn to another race to the waterfall.

Several years older than Tarn, Tyrell beat him easily with light laughter urging Tarn to greater speed.

"How did ye fathom to capture the sabre leopard with wood bundle straps?"

"My father taught me to build snares for small animals, but the first few fell and lay upon the ground. One of them closed around a rabbit's leg. I found him hopping around on three legs unable to free himself."

Tyrell nodded, grinning. They filled their buckets together and lugged them back to the huts. Unlike Tarn, Tyrell had brought two buckets and a stout pole. Once filled, Tyrell threaded the pole through each bucket's rope handle, balanced the pole across his shoulders, and used his legs to lift and carry the buckets without spilling or sloshing.

"'Twould be easier to carry half a bucket until ye find yourself a pole and a second bucket."

"That's what my hut-mother said as well," Tarn answered wearing a devilish smile.

Marta kept her counsel when Tarn entered the hut with one leg soaked and seated himself by the fire to dry off without prompting. She accepted his stubbornness in all things where it was to Tarn's discomfort. So long as no personal harm was inflicted, she felt content to let him muddle his way through on his own. He would eventually come to his senses or learn to enjoy cold, wet leggings.

Tarn watched Shaurii shape the dough balls.

One piece was the largest by far.

He caught Shaurii's eye and smiled.

She grinned with conspiracy and began to cook the dough over the fire-heated rocks. When the bread and porridge were ready, he received the biggest piece of bread with his bowl of honey-laced porridge. Tarn ate in silence, listening to Marta and Shaurii speak of woman things.

Having meticulously cleaned his bowl, but still hungry as only a growing boy can be, he held it out for more. Marta replaced the bowl with a tough strip of dried meat and pointed to the bucket. Wearing sullen displeasure for the hunter who failed to be fed well, Tarn reached for the bucket. Ere his fingers fell on the rope handle, Marta's strong hand, strengthened by years of snapping kindling, captured his wrist as though a vice held it in place.

"Ye will no receive further rewards or receive special consideration for doing what any warrior in this village would have done in thy place," and looked at Shaurii to ensure compliance.

A wide and flashing smile spread across his face to replace the sullen grimace. Marta had compared his actions to that of a warrior!

As if she had read his mind, she added, "Thee be not a man, yet, but thee show promise, son," and smiled lovingly.

"I thank thee, hut-mother," Tarn replied sincerely, noting that Mart used 'thee', a term of endearment, more often.

He felt surprised to discover that Marta's sparse praise meant nearly as much as his father's once had.

* * * * * * *

Not many weeks later, Tarn climbed out from between the sleeping furs to a wild autumn wind that lifted fallen leaves off the ground in swirling vortices and snatched others turned purple, brown, and red off tree limbs. With Autumn's entrance, he detected subtle changes in the mountains and its inhabitants.

The squirrels had all but ceased their playful antics and scurried at an ever-increasing pace to gather winter stores.

The rabbit he snared yesterday was losing its brown fur to a coat of pure white fur, and large flocks of birds travelled in a southerly direction. His happiest realization was the lack of berries and tubers to harvest. By Vulcan's flaming forge! but he hated berry and tuber picking.

When they picked close to the village, Tarn enviously watched the adolescent boys participating in spear throwing and sword practise. He dreamed nightly of casting the flexible iron-tipped projectiles. Every day he tried to hold his father's sword out in front of him in one hand, but it weighed too much for him to lift but a few inches off the ground, and that for only a moment or two.

At night, once he had completed his chores, Marta permitted him to sit with the men around the central village fire. He listened raptly as they spoke of particularly memorable individual battles, historical wars when the Southerner's kings and princes thought to bring Asgard under their heel, and of current clan feuds, transported by youthful imagination onto the battlefield, where he slew their enemies and reaped bountiful plunder for the hut.

Not long after the leopard incident, Dennen presented Tarn with a dagger that boasted a corrugated bone handle fashioned out of antler.

Denned had carved two sabre leopards into either side of the haft. Beginning at the tang, where steel met bone, delicate lines depicted each leopard reaching out one long-armed claw in a swiping motion. Second only to his father's sword, it was his prized possession.

Whenever Dennen stayed in the village and sat at the fire, he invited Tarn to join him. Tarn watched Dennen's every move as he honed a sword, sharpened spear tips, and shaped spear hafts from branches selected for their girth, straightness, and lack of knots. Tarn quietly peeled bark and removed knot ends under Dennen's patient instruction, feeling very much like the hunter and warrior he craved to become.

On the days when Denned hunted or tended his herd, Tarn visited Korub, the village's blacksmith. Tarn quickly learned that pumping the bellows, which increased the forge's heat to temperatures capable of working iron ore so that charcoal and leaves might be used to extract the carbon was far more difficult than it first appeared.

Still, he would rather pump the bellows than lug endless water buckets. After a particularly long and exhausting session at the bellows, Korub bestowed Tarn with a small jar of oil.

"Do ye fathom steel's enemy, lad?"

Tarn shook his head.

"Water and dampness, moisture in general, and neglect.

Moisture be the cause of rust, and rusted steel be weak steel. When ye return to thy hut, take thy father's sword and lightly mind ye, lightly coat all the blade with that oil ye earned, and then work the blade in and out of its sheath to transfer some of the oil to the fleece.

"I will," Tarn promised.

"Now scat, and tell Marta I'll be needing thee tomorrow, just before first light crowns the treetops," Korub said ruffling his hair and pushing him out the door. "We'll be heading into the hills to gather coal. Bring a water skin. Tell Marta I'll bring our lunch. We'll be gone most of the day."

Tarn raced to the hut where he shoved the hide covering aside with a flourish. Out of the corner of her eye, Marta watched him place the jar of oil on the ground, remove the scabbard from his father's sword, and coat it lightly with oil. She discerned the reverent care with which Tarn handled the blade, and the meticulous lengths he practised to ensure each square inch of steel received an ultra-thin coat of oil wearing an amused, crooked grin that said, 'He's no different than any other village boy filled with youthful dreams of one day becoming a man.'

"When thee task be complete, there be another sword hung on the wall and two spears in the corner. I'd be grateful if thee kept those in good repair."

"Aye mother," he answered, proud of his hunter's task.

Several days later, Tarn awoke in autumn's predawn grey light to the familiar sound of Marta snapping kindling. He kept his breathing deep and slyly peered out of the slits of his eyelids. Marta efficiently broke the kindling without wasted movement. Her expression looked happy and concerned all at one time while she hummed softly to herself.

His hot mother's mixed expression caused him to consider the village men who brought meat in payment for sewing or as a trade for nuts, berries, and plants. They were forever the first to the picking grounds and the last out of them. Never did they receive the choicest cuts of meat.

Tarn understood enough about village culture to realize only the hunters and their families received the more desirable parts of the kill. Yet, when Marta received her share, she accepted the meat as if it was the tongue, heart, liver, or kidneys.

Marta forever claimed the provender too good, or there was too much for the work she performed. Tarn dreamed of the day when he might add big game to the fire. And, though he snared rabbits, squirrels, and birds, the men considered this woman's food, unbefitting their status, except in times of famine, or on a mountain trek when other big game was unavailable.

Marta owned neither herds of cattle, nor sheep, nor mountain goat, nor a mate to claim his share of plunder obtained from successful raids during clan feuds. They ate only what they traded for, what the scavenged and harvested, and what was allotted to them as Marta's due for losing a husband and son in battle.

"Get thee up, little hunter," Marta called.

Tarn pretended to yawn, hiding his joy.

He had fooled her with deep breathing.

As he stalked silently toward the fire with hopes of obtaining an early piece of warm fresh bread, Marta said, "When thee fetch water, take the axe to break the ice on the pool."

"Ice? There wasn't ice yesterday. How can thee tell it's arrived?"

Quick as a young cobra striking its prey, he snatched a tasty, almost browned piece of bread off the flat rock shelf closest to him.

Pretending to ignore his stolen prize, Marta said, "Aye, there wasn't, but it snowed early last eve, and the freeze followed. Do ye no smell it lad?" she petitioned, lifting her nose to sniff lightly. "'Tis plain upon the wind."

Swallowing the last of the bread with a wolfish aspect in his eye toward liberating another, he answered, "I smell naught but crisp rain."

Quick as a mongoose, the big wooden spoon in Mara's hand swept downward, making painful contact with the back of his hand jerked back too slowly.

"Eeiie," Tarn crowed, rubbing his hand briskly while wondering how she managed to target him without glancing up from her task.

"'Tis snow thee smell and the freeze. Mark it well, for its distinctive scent will serve thee well on the hunt when it comes time to build your bed of boughs and to stoke thy fire to create morning coals. The weather changes rapidly in the mountains. I caught the scent last night ere I turned in."

"What does snow smell like?"

"Like snow of course. What else would it smell like?" teased Marta, leaving him to draw the connection between crisp rain for himself. Tarn laughed, what else indeed would it smell like. "Away, scamp. Get to the stream, but visit the bathing hut first," she ordered, laughing with him.

"But I bathed yesterday."

"Aye, and today is not yesterday. No more argument or I'll take ye to the stream pool and bathe you myself!"

"Aye, mother of the snow nose," quipped Tarn, leaping catlike over the fire to avoid the descending spoon as Marta intentionally missed him.

Now that berries and tubers were out of season, Tarn found time to fashion a spear. It was a crude copy and lacked a steep tip. Instead, he fire-hardened its point and imagined felling a snow leopard, or a beefy stag, as he tossed it at a tree or mound. Imitating his father, he threw his home-made spear with both arms until his shoulders burned hot with fatigue.

While exploring the hills surrounding the village, he chanced upon a grey-furred grandfather squirrel nosing under fallen leaves, fat from a bountiful summer. Tarn crept stealthily from tree to tree, spear poised for the cast. Well within range, he let fly. The spear thudded into the ground behind the squirrel, catching a tuft of tail fur. Surprised and startled, the wise old squirrel stood up on its hind legs and clicked and chirped his outrage, berating Tarn indignantly before scampering up the closest tree to continue his tirade from a lofty perch. Tarn retrieved his spear and held up the tuft of grey tail hair.

"Descend the battlefield nut-keeper, or retreat home so I might plunder thy stores. My sister needs a new hat and I tire of harvesting that which ye greedily hoard," declared Tarn, sighting an abandoned by hive two trees to the left. "Next time we meet thy fur and riches shall be mine," he avowed, dropping his spear.

Tarn scampered up the tree like a monkey and knocked the hive to the ground. Eager young hands ripped away the protective layers of the hive to reveal the honeycombs within. He greedily bit off a waxy mouthful and sucked out what little honey the bees had left behind, before bearing the remains of the hive home to Marta for boiling, a more thorough process to retrieve the sticky gold treasure. Honey and berries rendered the grey porridge, the main staple of their morning meal, delicious and sweet. Without the sweeteners, it was nearly unbearable, but Tarn could have often eaten more.

In addition to the small game he hunted, he combed the mountainsides for deposits of surface coal, iron ore, and bird's eggs.

Endowed with the invulnerability granted by youth, he could often be seen leaping from ledge to ledge as sure-footed and agile as the mountain-antelope he chased for sport.

Known for their climbing prowess, the denizens of Asgard were at home on a cliff face, high plateau, and scaling a razor-edged ridge. When Tarn was not helping with the herds or assisting Korub at the forge, he climbed until his legs, back, and arms ached with fatigue and his fingers bled.

Marta attempted to control his propensity to disappear into the mountains for hours upon end with Tyrell and other village boys, but Tarn quickly learned that her dominion over him was negligible outside the hut. As a male, even a young one, he was permitted to climb and to hunt nearly at will, within the constraints of custom which, for the most part, ended at the village's boundary.

The village blacksmith and Dennen often came to his aid, requesting his help and presence when Marta pulled the reins too tight, rendering him village bound completing an endless list of chores.

It became a village joke that when Tarn was nowhere in sight, one had only to lift their eyes skyward to view him frolicking with his brother mountain-antelopes or sharing the heights with the eagles.

After several months of hoarding coal and iron ore, Tarn traded it to Korub for an iron cooking pot and tripod to suspend it over the fire. Korub agreed, but only if Tarn helped to forge the implements.

Upon proudly presenting his gift, Marta replied, "A useful item it be, and well-made, I see." Eyeing its pot-bellied girth suspiciously, she added, "Thankful for it I am, young ironsmith, but I'll no be cooking more for thee!"

Not discounting the possibility, Tarn smiled sheepishly and darted out of the hut to keep a rendezvous with Dennen. He had promised to further Tarn's hunting and tracking skills. In Tarn, Dennen found an apt pupil hungry to learn. Dennen taught him how to hunt like the fox, wily and cunning, outsmarting his prey without the need of brawn. In the wolf, Tarn discovered stealth and speed, combined with a pack's sense of unity and advantage. The mighty bear was power and patience, confident and sure. Even the timid partridge had a lesson to impart, blending seamlessly with the terrain when surprised.

During fall and winter, Tarn accompanied the men onto the ranges and high plateaus to help tend the herds. He was always the first to volunteer to search for a lost ewe or cow, and the last boy to leave the pasture where he stood guard against wolves and snow leopards with his spear and a sling loaded with a round, smooth stone. Between his duties and sleep, Dennen shaped a wooden stick suited to Tarn's size and strength and began weapons practise. Reminiscent of the evenings spent with his father around the fire on their trek from Atlantis, Tarn cherished the nights snuggled around the herd bonfire listening to the men recount past hunts, glorious battles, and village politics.

The next day, wooden stick in hand, he acted out the hero's role. Although he loved Marta and Shaurii, the freedom found in accompanying the men with the herds, and the excitement each new day brought, far surpassed simple village life.