Hyden had always loved the hunt, so much more so now with an elven crafted longbow to loose with, and Talon’s sharp vision to see by.
Hyden understood that Vaegon had lost his depth sight. The elf had to be deeply pained by the loss. Hyden understood, at least he thought he did. He couldn’t imagine how it would affect his mind if he lost his ability to aim properly. When Vaegon had offered him the bow, he had almost refused it. Something, some odd intuitive feeling, made him think better of denying it though, and graciously he accepted the gift.
The elf’s smug and superior attitude had all but disappeared, but that change had started before Vaegon had lost his eye. Vaegon wasn’t himself anymore. His wound wasn’t just of the flesh, and Hyden had spent a lot of time on the trail, and by the fire, thinking of ways to cheer his elven friend. It was the least he could do to repay Vaegon for the wonderful gift he had given him.
Vaegon was spending more and more time scribbling in his little journal, and it worried Hyden. He wished he could think of something suitable to do for his friend, something that would fill at least part of the void the loss of his eye had created. So far, nothing he thought of seemed even close in comparison to his gratitude towards Vaegon and his sorrow over his friend’s loss.
“Life is not kind, nor is it fair.” Hyden repeated the words he had recently heard his uncle Condlin grumble under his breath. “Sort of like now.”
A few hundred yards away, a ram was leading two of his females up the mountainside, completely unaware of Hyden and Talon’s presence. Through the hawkling, Hyden had watched the animals come up out of the distant valley and slowly make their way towards him. He could’ve killed one of them long ago, but had decided to wait. As long as they were moving towards him, he would let them come. If they started changing course, he would try to herd them his way with Talon. The swooping hawkling might be able to frighten them right up into the cavern entrance. It would take a while, but it would be faster, and far easier than having to drag one of the carcasses all the way back. If Talon couldn’t keep them on track, and they started moving away, then he would just have to kill one, and move it in the old fashioned way.
While he watched and waited, he found himself thinking about Pratchert again. The story was fresh in his mind, and the strange question kept forming in his head.
In the story, the wizard and his wolf had stopped at the Summer’s Day Spire, and a dragon had come. They had had a conversation that supposedly lasted several days. What kept nagging Hyden’s mind was the subject of that conversation. What would Pratchert have had to say to a dragon, or a dragon to him, and for days, no less? Hyden couldn’t imagine what he would want to say to or ask a dragon if he were given the chance. Knowing himself as well as he did, he figured he would ask the dragon to tell him a story.
What sort of story would a dragon tell? Maybe that’s what dog man had done. It would’ve had to have been an awful long story to last for several days, but then again –
“Still too long of a shot, eh?” Loudin asked softly, but with an intentional sharpness in his voice.
Hyden almost jumped out of his skin at the sound. He hadn’t heard the old hunter approaching at all. He took a moment to let his thundering heart settle before he replied.
“You startled me,” he whispered.
“Nearly scared a turd right out your arse is what I did,” Loudin chuckled. “It would’ve been far worse for you if you didn’t have my breakfast in your sights.”
He hunkered down beside Hyden, and patted him on the shoulder. Fog swirled from his mouth with his breath.
“Consider it payback for the knot you had your blasted bird put on my head yesterday.”
Hyden felt his face flush with embarrassment, but couldn’t help but smile at the memory. For a long while, neither of them spoke; they just watched the ram lead his females ever closer.
“They’ve been in my range for a very long while now, Loudin,” Hyden bragged the answer to the Seawardsman’s original question. “I’m just saving myself the work of having to carry one of them up that hill and back to the cavern.”
Loudin squinted at the three specks moving in the distance, and then turned to look at Hyden. He started to challenge the boast, but then caught sight of the hawkling soaring high overhead and held his tongue.
It was those hawk eyes that would allow Hyden to shoot so accurately, Loudin guessed correctly, just like he had put those arrows in that dark beast that took the elf’s eye and nearly killed Mikahl. Hyden had loosed from the opposite ridge Loudin remembered, and at night. He had had nothing but the faint glow of Mikahl’s sword to light his target, and he hadn’t missed. He gave Hyden a nod of respect.
“Aye,” he added. It was just another example of the power of youth that he no longer had access to.