We Fight Dragons (Volume 3, Chapter 3) "Building"
The minibus rolled north through increasingly dark forest, on roads that became progressively worse, heading for the foothills of a snow-capped mountain range. Most of the kids, except for Mels, had been camping before but never anywhere as remote as this.
Dad and Mr Dawson navigated using a paper map, and computer printouts of odd maps that used a unique coordinate system. Without the aid of a GPS they had to use a magnetic compass, and stopped regularly to get their bearings. Looking out the front window Jam would occasionally see fresh tire tracks. Other people had also been this way, quite recently.
Eventually the minibus drove into the shadow of a sheer rock face, with a scree slope at the base, and Jam saw four other cars, all SUVs, parked under the canopy of the thick fir trees.
Mr Dawson wedged the minibus under the cover of two trees that were close together, and then he and Dad got out to look around. As they approached the rock face a man in a parka walked out on to the scree and waved to them, although he didn’t say anything.
Dad pulled his copper amulet out from under his jacket and showed it to the man. ‘I must be lost, my compass has stopped working,’ he said, nodding to the amulet.
The man smiled and then showed them a copper amulet of his own. ‘No, my compass is working. You are at the right place.’
At that point, Dad and the man exchanged several words, and then several sentences in a language that Jam didn’t recognise. After a few exchanges the speakers seemed satisfied that they could trust each other a little more.
Jam watched as his father held his amulet up and focused on it. It started to spin, like Oli had made his spin, then it did the most amazing thing. It spun right off its chain, and drifted through the air over to the other man. The other man inspected it, and then repeated the same performance with his own amulet, sending it over to Dad.
Mels had no idea that something like that was remotely possible, and she was literally speechless. The boys all watched in awe, wondering when they would be able to do that.
Dad and the man both smiled and approached each other, and exchanged their amulets.
‘David Wood’, said Dad. ‘And the man with me is Nathan Dawson.’
‘Dante Biancone,’ said the other man in an unfamiliar accent. ‘Come with me and I will introduce you to the others.’
Four other families, strangers to everyone from Blacken Green, had also come for the Corded Sun.
First they met the rest of the Bianconnes, starting with being introduced to their eldest member, ‘Papa Luca’. They had already met Luca’s adult son Dante so they were then introduced to Dante’s wife, Juliana, and their son Enzo who looked to be of primary school age. Jam suspected that the small boy had not yet been confirmed as a Knight, which made him feel less bad about lying for Tobes and his mum.
Next they met Ali and Zarah Zartoshti, and their son Karim who acted aloof when introduced and barely acknowledged Jam when he said hello.
Then there was the Kapadia family, with husband Farhad, and wife Malala, and their teenage son Rustam. Rustam had a distinctive combination of tan skin and piercing blue eyes. Mels blushed every time she glanced at him, which led Jam to feel jealous, and he instinctively decided that he wouldn’t like Rustam.
Lastly, there was the Charland family. The only members here were the mother, Lizbet, and her son Matheo who looked like he was Jam’s age. The mother had black hair, and her son’s was sandy blonde, so Jam figured that he must have taken after his dad who wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Jam noticed that the adults greeted Lizbet with a reserved respect, and he figured that something bad must have happened for her husband to be absent. Since the man was a Knight, then it was unlikely that he was killed by accident or disease. Jam wondered if maybe he had died in battle.
‘Jam, why don’t you and the other kids go play a game or go exploring for a bit. Us adults need to talk about something,’ Mum encouraged.
‘Sure, Mum. Is it about Mr Charland?’
Mum nodded. Jam didn’t mind being allowed to avoid what was obviously going to be an unpleasant conversation.
Freya took a gentle approach. ‘Your son seems nice. Does he take after his father?’
Lizbet nodded in appreciation. ‘Ya. Sometimes the resemblance is uncanny.’
‘Is that nice? To have a reminder?’
‘No. It reminds me that one day he will suffer the same fate.’
‘True,’ said Luca Biancone in a croaky voice that mirrored his aged visage. ‘But I take solace that it is a fate we all chose.’
‘Dead is dead.’ Lizbet stated the obvious, very abruptly and plainly.
‘And alive is still alive,’ David added with surprising gentleness. ‘I hope Matheo finds good company here with others like him. And with the Maiden we found. She has a very settling effect on our son, and maybe she will have the same on yours.’
Mr Dawson had been waiting to ask a question. ‘Please, Mrs Charland, I know it must be difficult to think about, but is there anything about how he died that we should know?’ Mr Dawson’s instinct as a Policeman, combining empathy and questioning, came to the fore as it usually did.
‘It was a Dragon. It had infected our capital city, and he tried to destroy it. We never found Antoine’s body… he was probably devoured.’ Lizbet related the death in a very factual way. She had now retold it so many times that she was numb to its horror.
David spoke a few words in their shared language, which the others echo’ed, except for Lizbet who appeared unmoved by them.
‘On a different subject,’ David continued, ‘I went to a Corded Sun when I was much younger, and I remember some of the traditions. Luca, you probably know them best of all. What comes first?’
Luca nodded, rocking where he sat rugged up in a blanket against the cold. ‘Soon, comes the warning. I understand that the Huldraba has been sighted, isn’t that so Mr Kapadia?’
Ali Kapadia nodded quickly. ‘Yes. The Huldraba is here. It was explained to me also when I was younger.’
‘Great!’ said David. ‘I will let you warn the children, so we don’t confuse the message. Please can you do me a favour?’
‘Yes? What is it you would like to know?’
‘My son, Jam, really likes to go off wandering. Please make sure he understands the danger.’
Mr Kapadia chuckled. ‘Ah! One of those! Yes, of course. I will make a point out of it.’
Elsewhere amongst the cars and trees, the children clustered together and shyly introduced themselves. The other boys were all curious about the young Maiden who had joined them, but not all of them were unanimous that it was a good idea.
Enzo Bianconne also posed a problem for some of them. ‘This is not okay,’ argued Karim. ‘He cannot possibly be a Knight, so he shouldn’t be here,’ he said pointing at little Enzo. ‘And in all the stories my father told about they Corded Sun, they never mentioned that a girl would be here.’
‘Hey!’ Jam stopped Karim before he said anything that couldn’t be taken back. ‘Mels is a Maiden, just like your mum is, and she has saved me at least twice.’ Then he looked at Enzo, who was standing there awkwardly amongst the bigger boys. ‘And none of us have brothers or sisters, so I like that Enzo is here… it’s like having a younger brother!’
Enzo and Mels both smiled when Jam stood up for them.
‘That goes for us too,’ Zach chimed in, and Oli and Tobes nodded to back him up.
That seemed to end the objections from Karim, although he looked like he still had doubts as he sighed and said, ‘What-the-ever! I guess you have to stay now anyway. But no blabbing or gossiping about this when you get back. You know the punishment for breaking the laws of our people, don’t you?’ He swept his gaze across Mels and Enzo ominously, but he did not elaborate.
After understanding who-was-who amongst them, the kids helped their parents get the campsite ready. For the next week each family was going to live in one of the caves that was dug into the rock face. The caves needed to be swept out, the birds nests removed, and tree-fir cut and laid in the alcoves as insulation beneath their sleeping bags.
There was also plenty of firewood to be chopped. At one point in the afternoon Karim saw Tobes wielding an axe, building up an impressive pile of properly sized firewood logs.
‘Toby? What are you doing? Why aren’t you using your powers?’
Toby was momentarily confused by the question, but he’d had plenty of time to prepare for a scenario like this before leaving home.
‘My dad teaches Shirate, and he says that if I use my power all the time then my technique will get sloppy.’ For emphasis, Toby slowly and purposefully moved the axe up into the ready position, even slower than he normally would, and then let the axe fall almost of its own accord. The axe struck exactly where he meant it to, splitting the log perfectly. ‘Like that!’
Karim was impressed. ‘Nice cut. I think I understand now.’
‘My dad says that if we let everything get too easy, then we will get weak.’ In the past Tobes had thought of this as some old Shirate philosophy, but now in the clear light of reality he understood that his Dad had been preparing him for the day when he found out that he was not a Knight. Part of him resented his dad for not telling the truth. But even more than that, he loved his dad for having faith in him, despite knowing that he was not a Knight.
In the deep shelter of the rock face, there was an indentation in the ground for communal firepit that Jam and Enzo were trying to get started. They had collected dry moss from the fir trees, which they now tried to set alight. Enzo held the moss, while Jam used a steel rasp against a ferro-rod.
Eventually, Jam created enough sparks to get the moss smouldering, which was when they both realised that in their excitement to start the fire they did not get enough kindling ready. This lead to them abandoning the moss and foraging for dry twigs and small branches.
On the second attempt, after they got the moss burning, Enzo pushed it under the kindling. The fire spluttered and they had to blow on it to keep it alive. Enzo was so focused on keeping the fire alight that he kept blowing smoke back into his face and eyes, which was making his nose run. Even though his vision blurred he kept it up. With both of his eyes mostly shut he shifted the arm that he was using to brace himself, and it slipped over the edge and into the firepit.
Enzo flailed blindly to regain his grip as he toppled face first. Then all of a sudden his fall stopped, and he felt himself being hoisted upwards. He opened his stinging eyes and saw that Jam was lifting him by the scruff of his jacket back to safety.
‘Be careful little bro,’ Jam said jokingly. ‘You almost became the barbecue!’
Enzo just laughed, enjoying the sensation of flying.
After the fires were set, the kids worked together to fix the old raw-wood tables around the main firepit. Jam’s previous experience with repairs, which included fixing the cat lady’s letterbox after he had destroyed it with a spinning back-kick, came in handy and he was able to help out those who didn’t know any woodwork.
Before they ate dinner, Freya found Mels and Jam and gave them shovels, and showed them the log-seats that would be their toilets. The Knights and Maidens toilets were at opposite sides of the rock-face, and they each had to shovel out the scree that had accumulated over the years, and make sure that the fall was steep enough to direct the waste away. Both Jam and Mels were alarmed that the toilets were literally suspended above a drop, and had zero privacy other than the distance it took to walk to them. Mels quickly declared that she would make some kind of privacy screen for the Maidens toilet, but Jam thought that was unnecessary for the Knights.
That night, dinner began with an abridged version of the end-of-the-day, where only the eldest Knight and Maiden from each family spoke.
Mels already knew about the ceremony, but this was the first time she had to take a leading role, and she had to get over her nerves in order to speak as the sole representative of her family. She confessed that she had been nervous about who else would be at the Corded Sun, and had secretly hoped that no one else would make it, but now having met them she was glad they had all come.
The food consisted of heated-up packaged rations, and Luca warned everyone that soon they would be foraging for every meal.
Jam collapsed into his sleeping bag, not caring that his muscles ached or that the bedding was lumpy, and fell into a deep and pleasant sleep.
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