Flamewing: Fire and Stone

Chapter 1

"I TOLD YOU, BENJAMIN!" his father screamed.  A backhand sent the twelve year old boy sprawling, his face stinging and numb with hurt.  He didn't cry, but Ben knew more than to say anything.  No matter what it was, no matter how meek or kind or intelligent, it only made his father angrier.  Ben bit his lip to bear the pain, this one taking the cake for brutal beatings this week.

This can't be the road to caring for people, can it?

"ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?" his father bellowed, lifting Ben by the collar.  "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?"  Those same words echoed in his mind from earlier, from someone in town.  Someone who couldn't honor his request to be trained as a doctor.

"I know I can do it!" he had interrupted.  He realized he'd closed his eyes in anticipation and opened them.  Did I say that out loud?  His father's face said yes with a ruby red wrath.  Spit from his father's deafening battle cry hit his face before the blow, which was crushing and landed him on the floor.  I want to help people, not end their lives.  Just leave me alone.  It's my curse, but it won't be changed.

"LEAVE THIS HOUSE!  GO, GO INTO THE WILDERNESS AND COME BACK A WARRIOR!  COME BACK ANY SORT OF WEAKLING DOC OR SWEET-EYED BOY AND I'LL KILL YOU!"  Ben scrambled up with all the strength he thought he still had and ran toward the door leading to his room.  "YOU'D BETTER BE GONE BY MORNING!"

A half hour later, his shirt ruffled in movement before the open window.  He felt the blows on his body and head, the cuts on his face.  His hand came away a little sticky, but not red or wet.  He looked into the night, black and blue staring back at him.

It was decided then. Six years of beatings, and now he was really forced out of the house.  He'd left countless nights before, despite the wage of an especially rough beating paid without fail the morning after.  He wondered how the beatings for sneaking out differed from the usual.  I'm probably too numb now to know the difference, he thought.  This was the first time he'd really been uprooted.  Completely isolated and cast out.  At least I won't be beaten constantly by father, he thought.  Something told him the outside world wouldn't treat him much better.  All the same, it is a change.  And that's nice.  He rose from his bed, rubbing his irritated and tear-stained eyes.  How he held it all in perfectly during every beating, he couldn't guess.  I did have that dumb outburst.  He stood a moment, contemplating, looking around his very small bedroom.  He decided it was in the past and bent down to open his trunk.

While on the opposite side of his room, the small chest only lay four feet from his bed.  It was his only stash of belongings, yet he had no resentment for this.  He didn't have much need for a second or bigger trunk.  He grabbed his satchel first, a dependable traveling bag he'd taken many nights before.  It had never looked so empty, he thought as he stuffed a stale loaf of bread into it.  He siphoned rolls from the town market whenever he could, never trusting his family (especially his father) to feed him.  He'd never had to use them until now.  At least I didn't do anything stupid, he thought, like take apples.  He would have laughed at the thought of finding apples rotted in his trunk if his own insides didn't feel something akin to that.  He stuffed three more loaves and dug deeper.

He reached to the bottom and pulled out his only blade, a hunting knife about ten inches long from hilt to tip.  That was a lingering memory of his deceased uncle, an added reason he had never really used it.  He reflected a moment on finding a sheath or scabbard for it.  It's small, does that make it a sheath? he thought.  There was no time.  He took a strip of thick cloth from his trunk, wound it many times around the blade, and stuffed it in his bag.  With it he packed a small gold coin, and a pouch of gauze and bandages.  A doctor has to start somewhere, he reassured himself as he stuffed the humble collection of old but unused medical supplies in his still baggy traveling bag.  He packed two shirts, an extra pair of pants, and an extra pair of socks.  Better save room for stuff on the way, he thought, a little sadly.  He looked at the only slightly larger collection of things he was leaving behind.  A small wooden nothing-grinder from when he was little, a pearl his mother had given him, a tin can, a lump of coal he had stolen from the fireplace once as an addition his collection of smooth and interesting stones, and a wooden sword his father had given him.