Rain Heart

Chapter 2: Dacko I

Dacko was awakened by a shiver.

For a few seconds, he was only aware of the agitated sound of his breathing and the feeling of panic that slowly faded from his chest after hitting him with the force of a fist. He wondered if he had had a nightmare, the kind that fades from memory upon awakening, and snuggled further under the blankets that covered him up to his chin. Despite the arrival of autumn, the summer heat had not yet left the Valley, but Dacko had not yet been left by the cold that had awakened him. He tried to go back to sleep, curling up even more in his bed and closing his eyes tightly, without any success. After a few moments he assumed defeat with a sigh and sat up still wrapped in the warm furs.

His home was small and more or less squared, occupied for a quarter by the round bed dug out of the ground and lined with furs. A few steps away from the bed, in the center, was the hearth hole, in which several pieces of firewood had been lying intact and perfectly arranged in a pyramid shape for days. He had a cooking structure too, which rested against the wall next to the bed, unused for as long as the fire. At the back, in front of Dacko, dug into the rock were storage spaces filled with baskets and vases covered in dust. On the ground lay his latest project, a shapeless mass of dried clay and a handful of abandoned tools. A step had been extracted from the rock, now occupied by several pairs of winter shoes, and carved wooden shelves of clothing had been placed along the left wall. The only window, on the left wall, was small and round, covered by a worn leather parapet. From a natural hook in the rock hung a sturdy leather harness; in one of its pockets was hidden the metal blade of a knife.

Dacko stood up, dropping the warm furs on the bed, except for one which he wrapped around his shoulders, and exited the home. It had been built by taking advantage of a natural stone wall and digging several cubits down, freeing steps leading up to the wooden door. The rest of the structure had been raised with logs the thickness of a neck firmly fastened together and covered with cob for better insulation, and at its highest point, next to the rock wall in front of the bed, a tall man could touch it by stretching out his arm. From there the rafters sloped slightly to the door, where Dacko just brushed the roof with his hair. The roof had been constructed of progressively thinner and tighter logs, branches and reeds, with a top layer of carefully woven straw with the exception of a gap designed to let the smoke from the hearth escape.

When he pulled aside the curtain at the entrance and breathed in the cool but not cold air outside, the sense of alertness had not yet disappeared. He was surprised when he noticed the coolness of the rain resting softly on his bare skin. He hadn't heard the drops falling; it seemed more like a mist slowly falling on him than actual rain. He sniffed the breeze for reasons to be worried, but the smells brought to him by the wind were common and ordinary: he smelled forest, rain, his packmates, old wood and the remains of fires. But he was still uneasy, and he was beginning to believe that it had nothing to do with the nightmare. All around him, the Hearth slept while the wolves rested. Dacko should rest too, he should return to his bed and close his eyes until his stubborn subconscious returned him to the world of dreams, but for some reason he found himself walking barefoot towards the entrance of the Hearth, where the two long rock ledges that surrounded the settlement closed in an embrace, leaving only a gap of a few feet in the wall. His ancestors had been wise to choose that jagged rock formation as a shelter from encroachment and the elements, and generation after generation, Rainwinds had continued to build their individual homes in the shadow of the protective crags, forming the common Hearth, the heart of the Steep Forest.

Dacko shivered as a gust of wind rushed through him. The air wasn't cold, but the currents that began to rise out of nowhere were, and the boy pulled tightly over his chest the sleeping pelt he had brought with him, which was the only thing that covered his naked body. Perhaps that was another sign that he should return home and try to sleep for a few hours, or so he wanted to think, but without knowing how or why, he saw himself walking through the Hearth, along the walls of the houses of stone, wood and mud, towards the entrance. His instinct, that jumble of impulses and alarms that every wolf learned the hard way to listen to, stirred restlessly within him, as if warning of a distant and unidentified danger. Dacko told himself that perhaps, if he changed, he could go into the forest and follow those instincts wherever they led, but he was reluctant to leave the Hearth by himself and in the dead of night. It was suspicious, or so Daichi would say, and the leader was eager for Dacko to give him an excuse to turn his packmates against him. However, Gärn was on patrol to the west, and for all he knew, Nadja had things to do that night as well. He considered for an instant asking one of the others to accompany him, but dismissed that idea quickly. No one besides Nadja and Gärn would be willing to follow him into the woods in the wee hours of the morning just on a hunch. They risked word getting out that they had accompanied him on an unauthorized patrol, at a time when the boy was little more than a pariah on an official level.