Tree Singer

Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

After a dinner of roasted turkey provided by the hunter, they sat in a circle around the fire. Mayten was glad for silence as she felt no desire to talk to the others. Anatolian's head lay in her lap and she stroked it absentmindedly. Cather had peeled off her boots and was applying ointments and bandages to her swollen feet. It was a strange truth that healers couldn't heal themselves the same way they could heal others and were left to the standard forms of healing. She sat about three feet away. Mayten wanted to help her friend but still felt hurt that Cather had lied to her. Or at least, not told her the truth. The betrayal had left a bitter taste in her mouth.

Tray whittled something from wood with a small knife, humming tunelessly. His shaggy dark hair fell into his eyes and every few minutes he flipped his hair back to see better.

Adven shared long swigs of something, that Mayten was sure was not water, with Trap who sat on his haunches, poking at the fire. The hunter was younger than Adven, more like the age of Mayten's twin sisters.

"Trap," said Adven too loudly, "have you no stories to relieve the monotony of this babysitting I must do?"

Mayten glared at Adven, who met her gaze with the one eye visible from beneath his hat. She was in no mood for his insults and was just about to tell him she'd be glad to return home when the hunter jumped to his feet. His arms flew in the air and his eyes sparkled in the firelight. "I love nothing more than hearing a good story," Trap said with a lilting voice that still had a trace of the green isle that must be his heritage, "Except of course, telling one of my own." Then he laughed so hard at his own joke that he doubled over with glee. His joy was hard to resist and seemed to lift the dark mood off the small camp.

He leaned over the fire, the light sending great dancing shadows on his face as he spoke. His hair, which was red, in the light looked like tongues of flame around his knitted cap. His voice took on a rhythm that Mayten found mesmerizing. "Exactly five years ago I was in these very woods, further up the great mountain. The questers were resting while I scouted for game. Now, I'm not bragging when I say that I'm the best hunter in our clan and I never come back empty handed, but that year there'd been a drought and game was harder to come by."

Mayten remembered the drought. She'd only been ten at the time but the plants and trees had all felt the sting of thirst from it. Some people blamed the drought on the sickness that took her siblings that winter.

His voice grew quiet as he mimed crouching low, bow drawn. "Finally, I heard something in the bush. By then I was getting desperate, and perhaps a tad incautious. I tiptoed slowly toward the bush, bow strung tight. Then to my awareness came the most horrible smell, a smell I knew too well and should have noticed sooner. Right when my gut clenched and I turned to run, a great bear loomed up above me from the bush." The hunter stood on his toes now, arms up in the air and fingers curved like claws. "He was three feet taller than I, and twice as wide."

In the firelight, the hunter made a menacing figure and Mayten felt a shiver run down her spine. He continued, "The bear opened his mouth and I saw two rows of knife-sharp teeth waiting to rip me to shreds. He roared and his hot breath burned the skin of my face. Before I could turn to run I was knocked sideways by a punch so strong I was sure my arm had been torn off from my body. I flew through the air and crashed full onto a tree, knocked out cold."

Now the hunter leaned over the fire and dropped his voice to a low whisper, as if he were telling a secret. "They say that when you're about to die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that's not what happened to me. As I was flying through the air, before I hit the tree, my last thought was, 'Well at least when he eats me he'll get a mouth full of shat when he gets t' my pants!'" At this the hunter slapped his thigh and doubled over laughing. He laughed so hard that he fell onto the ground and gripped his sides in glee. Mayten couldn't help herself; she began to laugh as well, picturing the hunter with the dirty pants. She never could resist someone willing to joke about themselves; her da was famous for that. Cather and Tray were laughing too. Even Adven managed a lopsided grin.

When the hunter had caught his breath, Cather asked, "But how did you get away?"

Mayten winced, her friend was naive to believe the ridiculous story. To keep her from embarrassment, she interjected, "No one would survive a bear like that, Cather. Besides, there aren't great bears in these woods, only the smaller black ones that scare away with loud noises."

"Oh, Lassie," the hunter corrected, "That's where you're wrong." He rose to his knee and turned his side to the fire, lifting up his shirt. Four white lines ran up his side to his shoulder. Mayten's heart stopped. Those were scratches from the bear. She knew it. She'd seen many of them on the trees, but never with the spaces between the claws so far apart. That had to have been a huge bear!

He let his shirt drop. "I'm alive today only because of this man here," he gestured to Adven. If he hadn't shown up I'd be dead, or at least hurt so bad he'd have to do right by me. He and the men had come looking for me and managed to draw the bear away."

"Fifteen arrows and we only managed to make him madder," said Adven in his gravelly voice. "If a boar hadn't come from the brush and gored the injured bear we'd have all been dead."

"What happened to the boar?" asked Tray, a squeak in his throat betraying the changing timbre of his voice.

"Don't know," said Adven. "We didn't stay to find out. I imagine he died rather quickly. But – I bet that bear is still looking for us."

The hunter laughed and nodded as he took his seat by the fire. "No doubt he is; no doubt he is."

"Uncle," said Tray with an eager look at Adven, "Will you tell us how you lost your eye?" Mayten glanced at the hat that dipped low over one of Adven's eyes. So that is why he wore it that way.

"Sure," said the quester. "Which version of the story to do you want?"

"Well, I was hoping to hear the real one this time."

"Did you hear that, Trap? He wants to hear the real story."

Trap threw back his head and laughed. "Better men than you have tried to get that story from him, Tray. I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you."

Adven seemed to have had enough of their story time, he stood, brushing off his trousers, "To bed with you, we leave at dawn."

Mayten pulled her blanket up around her shoulders. She'd never heard of a great bear in these woods. How was she going to survive this trip with things like that roaming around? Cather must have felt the same way. She scooted over and sat next to Mayten, but Mayten was not yet ready to make up. She picked up her blanket and moved over to the closest tree, calling Anatolian to come. She saw a troubled look flash across Tray's face but she didn't care. She would not be as warm here, but she would not be as lonely either.