Chasing Sparks

Chapter 16.1

Wren and Quizi had been walking north for close to five weeks. The weather had become steadily colder in that time and Wren was pleased for his warm bearskin accessories. The terrain was changing, too. The endless treescape was being replaced by areas of open ground. The forest was starting to thin and the foothills, beginning to show themselves. At times, they could even see the mountains proper, looming large above them.

Although they hadn't been running, they had maintained a good pace and Wren felt he was well clear of the Seekers once more. But as he strode on purposefully, he watched carefully where he put his feet. The ground underfoot was no longer the soft, wet mulch of the forest but rather, a more treacherous mixture of thin wispy grass and increasingly large stones. The path they were following, in particular, was strewn with small boulders and hidden rocks.

As they were in more open ground, running should have been easier but the unpredictable terrain actually made it more difficult. So, Wren had cut down the length and frequency of his scouting runs and spent more time walking alongside Quizi. To his surprise, he hadn’t minded at all. Quizi had started to open up to him in the last few days and they had begun chatting about various things to pass the time.

“How do you know this path will take us across the mountains?” Wren asked, trying to start up another conversation.

“I don’t,” Quizi replied, “But it’s going north and paths don’t stop in the middle of mountains.”

Wren couldn’t argue with her logic. He then changed the topic to something he had been wondering about for a while. “Quizi. How did a little Caver like you get to be a Barbarian?”

It was a nosy question and Quizi had dodged it last time he’d asked but Wren was still curious and thought he’d try again.

This time Quizi sighed and said, “I know little of what happened. All I know is what I was told.”

Wren was about to apologise for prying but Quizi continued before he had the chance.

“Some Cavers desecrated the ancestral home of the Free tribe,” she said, “Why? I don’t know. But this was a day of great pain for the Free. When they found out who it was, they attacked them with great force, killing most of the Cavers and chasing the rest away.

“The Free later found me lying on the floor where the fight had been. I was just a baby. One of them picked me up and carried me back to the clan. Many Barbarians argued I should be killed but the one who found me, claimed me and raised me as his own.”

“Being raised by the people who killed your parents,” Wren said out loud, “That couldn’t have been easy.”

“My Free parents are honourable people,” Quizi continued, ignoring Wren’s lack of sensitivity, “And brought me up like I was one of them. This was not easy, as I was half the size of all the other children. But as my affinity for speed developed, my father began to understand my strengths.

“The Barbarian way of fighting was not suited to me. Their weapons were too heavy. So, my father gave me a couple of skinning knives to fight with and started showing me how to use them. People laughed at me for this. I cannot remember the number of times I was told I needed to kill the prey before I skinned it.

“But as I got older, I got better and better and I was fast, too. Very fast.” Quizi grinned.

“I learned to fight those much bigger and stronger than me, but I never managed to beat my father. A good strength affine, like him, doesn’t leave himself open to attack even with a big heavy weapon. And the times he caught me when I got a little too close, his strength was awesome. He could have squished me like a bug.”