78 Spring 513 AV
It was very late spring. The weather had heated up throughout the now fleeting season and the grasslands had bloomed into life. For miles in front of him all the man saw was lush green grass swaying back and forth in the warm breeze. The place was alive with the song of bird, bug and man and S’hazende was ready to embark on the two day journey it would take him to arrive at ‘The Sanctuary’ Kavala called home. The Endrykas campsite would soon be on the move to their summer location, allowing the area time to recover before it saw spring again.
S’hazende was all packed, backpack, rucksack, one man tent, some rope, his bow, quicker full of arrows, and hatchet visible. In his left hand he held two, long leather leashes with his two giant hunting dogs, Night and Shade attached to the opposite ends. They seemed both excited and somewhat nervous to be leaving the protection of the camp, or what was left of it, and S’hazende seemed to sense that. It made him look out into the grasslands with the new sense of respect he had grown to now offer the wide opened space; knowing its dangers were very real, especially for a lone traveller like himself, where the pickings seemed easy.
“Travel south,” a large tattooed warrior of the Opal Clan explained, one he had been working for since the beginning of spring; not for pay mind you but experience, knowledge, and protection. “The Sanctuary is two or three days in the line of the eagle. If you hit the Bluevein River first, follow it to the sea and you will find the place you seek.”
“Thank you,” S’hazende smiled at the man who had moved his hands to rest them on the young Kelvics shoulders. “You are sure you won’t travel with us to the summer grounds, Redwing?” He asked, not so happy to lose his best packhorse.
“This is something I must do,” S’hazende told him. “I need to find where I fit in this world, I think my job working for the Konti woman will help set me up and then I will be free to follow my dreams,” he smiled warmly; he would miss the Drykas people, but thought surely it wouldn’t be long until he saw them again.
The Drykas warrior looked at the young Kelvic sternly, a look S’hazende couldn’t read as easily as he would have liked to. It looked like pride and concern had been throw at each other at high speed and left this look as a result. “Be careful, stay low, and by the Gods if you cannot keep that young pup quite, then silence him with that,” the tattooed man smiled and pointed to the hatchet the young Kelvic wore on his belt, and S’hazende smiled too.
He didn’t look back as he turned and walked away from the closest thing he had to a home, but instead marched out into the wilds, sure that he could make it to Riverfall sooner than had been predicted, and if he hit the river first, well, he would worry then. The ground was dry under his boot-clad feet and it was starting to show signs of thirst; small black cracks drawn across its surface. The sun shone down on the trio making their journey hard going and S’hazende wondered if it wouldn’t be more profitable to travel at night and sleep during the day, but as his host clan had taught him, there were too many dangers in moving though the sea without eyes. Come dawn he would wake early, the boy told himself, and get a good head start on the sun and the heat that made them all thirsty.
After a good four hours of walking the young man had grown tired and his dogs were starting to lag. It had surprised him that the brothers had been so quiet. Usually Shade was bouncing all over the place like a cooped up rabbit ready to escape, and Night wasn’t always this quite either. It made the man feel uneasy and every now and then the hair on the back of his neck would stand on end and he would look behind him quickly to see that they were still alone. Living out in the grasslands was a task few men liked to undergo and they had all through the young Kelvic crazy when he shared his plans with them.
Endrykas was long out of sight and all that surround them now was a great sea of green and gold. When they stopped, S’hazende put his hatchet on the ground with the head pointing the direction that they had been travelling. He had seen the Drykas set markers every now and then and he didn’t know if this had been the intention of them, but it worked for him. Getting lost now could cost them a few days, even a few weeks and put them all in very real danger of running out of water or food, though, he laughed to himself, he could always eat Shade as everyone kept suggesting; somewhat of an expensive meal perhaps.
S’hazende set up his one man tent so that the dogs could get a bit of shade. He tied the ends of the leashes around one of the pegs he had secured in the earth and poured from water out of his water-skin into a cooking pot for the dogs to share before drinking some of the water from the skin for himself. It was nice to take a load off and relax a bit in the tall grass, of which he made sure the top of his tent did not rise above, they could not afford to be spotted out in the middle of nowhere by predators. The dogs polished off the water pretty quickly but seemed satisfied, resting their large heads on their paws and relaxing in the shade the tent cover provided. The young Kelvic squeezed in between the two dogs and rest his head in the soft grass.
