Phoenix Destiny

Fifteen

Jaron wondered if Ivy’s bite was some sort of hazing. She never hissed or tried to bite Dak again as he joined their daily walks and training sessions. Eventually, the dragon allowed the soldier to pet and feed her.

After her training session, she either hunted or watched the men spar from Gambler’s saddle with gleaming eyes. She clicked when it seemed Dak had the advantage and purred when the advantage was Jaron’s, as if commentating to the equines. Gambler didn’t react one way or the other, alternately grazing and watching the action as if bored with it.

Dak yelled, calling for a break as Jaron successfully parried another strike. He leaned forward, sucking in heaving breaths. Jaron stood a short distance away, puffing but not nearly as winded as his friend.

“I must be more unpracticed than I thought,” Dak straightened. “I should have the advantage.”

“You do, I can barely counter your moves,” Jaron said. He held up his sword, swinging it in two large circles before deciding it was too light and short.

“You shouldn’t be able to keep pace at all,” the soldier shook his head. “You must have trained before this.”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

Jaron hesitated as the vision of the little boy and his father flashed in his mind. He was there again, watching from the forest shadows as they danced back and forth with their training sticks.

“Jaron?”

The voice echoed in his mind, but he didn’t notice as the wind picked up and thunder rolled across the sky.

“Jaron!”

He jerked to attention. Dak stood in front of him. There was an odd gleam of worry in the soldier’s eye that Jaron hadn’t seen before. Stepping back, he rubbed his temple. His head pounded, as if someone was knocking on a door.

“Jaron, are you all right?”

“Fine. I think.”

Jaron slowly walked toward Gambler. The stallion stood alert: head up, ears forward and nostrils flared. Yet the horse’s eyes remained calm.

Jaron hesitated as a vision of the primrose unicorn appeared in Gambler’s place, then vanished. His hand quivered as he reached out to touch the white muzzle. Jaron half-expected it to melt away like the vision, but the stallion remained as it was. Slowly letting out a relieved breath, he stroked the smooth face.

“Jaron, what is the matter?”

“Tell me, do you remember everything from your childhood?”

Dak seemed taken back by the question and hesitated before answering, “Well, no one does, I think. Are you asking me if I remember suckling at my mother’s breast?”

“Do you have memories of when you were a very small boy playing in the mud, catching grasshoppers? Do you remember learning to swim or the first girl you thought was pretty, but you dumped dirt in her hair anyway? Anything like that?”

“Oh, sure,” the soldier nodded. “I always hung around my mother’s apron. She had a lovely voice, nothing like yours, but nice to hear when there was a storm outside. Some of the older boys liked to torture us younger ones. I didn’t have a brother to protect me. You mean things like that? Everyone has memories like that, don’t they?”

“I don’t.”

“What?”

“I don’t have any memories like that,” Jaron’s gaze rose to the sky, watching the drifting clouds. “I don’t have any memories before joining the jester band.”

Dak didn’t say anything as he studied Jaron.

“I was ten, a skinny whelp riding a great gray destrier. They thought I stole it. I know I didn’t, but I didn’t know where the horse had come from or why I was riding it,” Jaron paused. “They took me in. I grew up with those people. That’s where my memories start. There is nothing before that.”

“You couldn’t have just ridden out of a mist.”

“I knew I was born in the fall. I knew that I was an orphan. But I couldn’t remember anything about my parents. Not what they looked like, where they lived or what happened to them and why I was left alone.”

“And you still don’t know?”

“I’ve been having dreams about a young boy sparring with his father. Learning sword fighting, I think.”

“And you think that boy, is you?”

“I don’t know. If he is, then I lived in a castle and my parents were murdered.”

“Castle? Murdered?”

“It’s part of the dream.”

“Do you really believe your parents were murdered?”

“I don’t know,” Jaron sighed. “Sometimes I see the boy and his father when we spar. It presses at the back of my mind.”

“So, that’s why I sometimes catch you off-guard and here I thought it was my skill,” Dak shook his head, walking up to his own horse. “This dream boy of yours, does he ever take up a bow?”

“Not as of yet.”

“Good, then you’ll have no distractions,” the soldier sheathed his sword before pulling a long, slightly arched bow from a protective sleeve. Without a word, he braced one end against his foot and used his weight to string the bow before handing it to Jaron.

Jaron staked his sword in the ground and took the new weapon with a frown. It was unexpectedly heavy. Dak handed him an arrow and quickly showed how to notch it, then stepped back. Jaron tested the taunt string, experimenting with how far he could pull it back before he had to exert a lot of effort.

“Try to hit that tree,” Dak nodded to a trembling aspen no more then twenty paces from them. “Just see if you can.”

Jaron sucked in a deep breath before raising the bow and drawing back the notched arrow. His arms shook with the strength needed to hold the position as he aimed and fired. The string twanged as the arrow sailed, sticking in the ground at about half the distance from his goal.

Dak nodded, “Not bad. Try again.”

“What?”

“You need to build up the strength in your arms. We’ll worry about accuracy later,” Dak removed another arrow from a quiver and handed it to him. “And aim as you draw the arrow back. It’ll save you a lot of effort.”

Jaron nodded. He took the offered arrow, notched and released it. By the tenth, he barely had the strength to raise the bow, let alone pull back the string and had to quit. Of the ten he had managed to let loose, only two landed anywhere near his goal. The soldier seemed pleased.

“A good day’s practice. We’ll do it again tomorrow.”

Dak and Jaron continued to spar, usually with swords, but sometimes with axes, spears or lances. He was determined that his student should be able to make use of any weapon. Once Jaron was good on the ground, Dak worked in mounted techniques. Surprisingly, Gambler seemed to be a natural, never shying and almost reading the other horse’s movements as readily as Jaron read Dak’s.

They finished every session with bow practice. Jaron usually returned to camp with his arms feeling heavy and worthless. In the morning, he woke so sore he could hardly move, but he never complained.

By unspoken agreement, they avoided the camp. There was no sense in revealing Jaron’s ability until it was necessary. He sensed Dorrall’s anger brewing. Sooner or later, they would settle their rivalry.

Ivy spent most of her days in the woods hunting. Only returning at night or when the occasional storm passed through. Jaron worried about her, but each day she met Jaron and Dak to continue her training.