Chapter 14: Or does the path choose the walker?

It was three days before we walked through the halls of the hospital, the destination clear in our minds. The room, its number nor location important, was small, but still fit with two beds, at the side of them a crib each. One bed and crib was occupied, the others empty.

“Hey,” mom said and laughed a little as we entered the room in surprise, a smile framing the shadows of wrinkles on her face. She wasn’t old by any means, but steadily and quite calmly, she was getting there. Some could say she was too old now to have more children. Those people don’t know my mom.

I smiled in return but didn’t dare to touch her for how uncharacteristically fragile she looked, otherwise I’d have hugged her. There’d be time for that later. Dad took his stance beside me, imposing as always, though that was a given with how tall he was. He was scary looking, not the most pretty of people around, and definitely not the most friendly. His heart was in all the wrong places. Life broke him, and what was left were unfitting pieces glued back together by my mother. But in the end it worked, and I couldn’t ask for a better dad.

He smiled too, but otherwise didn’t do much. He’d been here earlier to check up on her and to see if she was up for some visitation. Me? I was way out there. This was huge for me in so many ways my young mind couldn’t even comprehend.

Life was good. My parents were mostly awesome, though sometimes they weren’t there for me with all the work they had, but I know they tried. And I know they did it for me, so that I could have what they didn’t have when they were my age. I had friends, some since the early years of my life. School was okay, I guess, no real problems there as of yet. Simply said, I had all I could possibly ask for. Except for one thing that all my friends shared, but that I could never have. At least not until now, that is.

There in the crib beside my bed lay silently, motionlessly, a curious visitor that would be staying with me and my family for a while, I knew. Long have I waited for this moment. To see and have what others only talked about in awe or anger. The complicated, yet simple bond of siblinghood.

There lay my brother, barely three days old. Eyes shut tight together, sleeping mind taking its form.

It was too late, that much was a given. By the time he’d be barely six, I’d already be an adult. The one buddy to always be there would be playing with toys while I was already going to be moving out. Our differences would be great.

But hell, there’s a world out there that would try to get him. Pain and anguish, as only children can suffer. Obstacles and others that would bar his way.

And hell, if I wouldn’t protect him. Hell if I wouldn’t be there for him.

“Sleep tight, I’ll take the watch.”

He shuddered in his dreams.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you. That’s a promise.”

Something prodded me, jolting me awake. For a few seconds I stared into the blackness of night, not knowing where I was. Soon, though, the last wisps of dreams fluttered away in the cold breeze of a moonlit night.

“Awake? Good,” said a familiar voice from somewhere to my right. There under the tree’s shade stood a silhouette of a gryphon.

“Paul?” I whispered back, the panic still gripping me somewhat.

“Yes,” he replied somewhat jovially before letting his voice turn serious. “We have a… bad thing.”

I stood up, forcing my back away from the tree bark with which it had started to painfully merge.

“Damn,” I stretched out, getting a few annoying muscle twitches in the process.

Suddenly, a small light burst from out of nowhere, illuminating the clearing around us. Yelping a little, I averted my eyes before they could get used to the brightness. Paul had taken off a small piece of the black clothing covering my crystal lamp, letting its light spill out out.

“Map,” he said.

Confused, I didn’t pause to really think about it and did as he asked. Handing me the lamp, Paul took his backpack, dropped it on the ground, and unfolded the map on his bag, presumably so that it wouldn’t get wet from the night dew. Speaking about that, I realized my ass was suddenly somewhat wet.

He located the mountains at the point where we were about to cross before jabbing his claw into the middle of them whilst saying, “Ivotnamaíd dogs,”

Now, the word before the dogs I know I’d heard before, and the connection I had heard it with didn’t bring up pleasant memories.

I swore a string of curses, turning away and leaning against the tree’s trunk to keep myself from doing something awful. What Paul was basically trying to say was that the mountain pass was infested with diamond dogs.

“Numbers?” I asked, because I couldn’t remember how to ask how many there were. If it was just a few dogs, we could perhaps sneak around them, find a different way through, or something.

Looking expectantly at Paul, my hopes were to be dashed away with a shake of his head. “Řilíšp many,” the gryphon answered, head hanging low. Many what? Not many? No, that wouldn’t add up with the defeat with which he said it. Too many. There were too many.

No, I wouldn’t let this stop me. There had to be other passes nearby. So, I located the mountains we were in front of on the map, and slid the index finger of my right hand along the mountain range while saying, “Path, here? Here? Where?”

He just shook his head again, pointed at three points of the mountain ranges surrounding the valley where the capital lay. South, where we were, east, and north. One passage through the mountains at each side of the valley. That said, the only real alternative we had was going west-northwest around the mountains. Unless...

I made a small hop over the mountains with my finger. “Fly?”

“No,” he clicked his tongue while looking thoughtful before saying, “Umm, řilíšp lndaoch,” while clicking his beak and just shaking. Yeah, I guess flying over would be madness. The mountains were really high, and we’d freeze up there.

Come on. There had to be another way. Just, anything but going around. Dammit, was it too much to ask for? Just one small thing? One thing that would get me closer to my little brother? God, where was he?

But there was no other way, nothing sprung to Paul’s mind, nor my own as we sat there silently for about half an hour. In the end, Paul got up and made a fire. Still, I was thinking until the despair brought me into more nightmares—dreams of my brother’s carefree happiness when everything was still okay.

At least there’s a road.

So, north-west alongside the mountains we went. Rounding the still-smoking village by long distance, we found another road paved at the base of the stony giants. That’s about it, really. We met more travellers, as per usual. Though the way they looked at me changed. They appeared to be less curious. Weird.

When we passed the first village on this longer, more arduous journey, I decided something. I couldn’t always hide. Inevitably, one day I’d have to enter civilization.

That day was today.

“Relax,” I hissed to myself under my shaky breath. Nothing more was said, else the universe be tempted to fuck this up. There it was, the second village on this long way around. It was a little bigger than the previous one, but there were no walls or palisade separating it from the wilds, which would make it all the more easier to enter.

We marched forward, and by march I mean we waltzed in as if we owned the place. The gryphons, by what I figured out, were very much a battle race of sort, and as such the only thing they would respect was confidence, strength and tough words. Since I was neither strong nor could speak to any of them beside basic words, I had to have a buttload of confidence. Easier said than done.

The dice was cast, the first feather heads turned as we entered a street that seemed busy with working gryphons while not being overly crowded. There was the typical blacksmith, apron tied around his neck, flowing gently in the breeze and bellows of heat from the forge. He shot me a look, overly unconcerned with my presence, whilst still hammering into a piece of what I thought would one day make a fine sword. Some merchants had small stands and stalls along the walls of buildings. They stopped trying to get attention of others, instead watching me with keen eyes. Then there were some civilians just milling around, many watching in both confusion and wariness.

But none of them approached us; none of them really threatened us.

This is what I was so afraid of? For the first time in past hours I managed to breathe freely, the tension leaving me in relief.

Like lightning from a clear sky, suddenly lo and behold, two armed gryphons before us, one wielding a polished axe, the other a chipped sword.

“Who are you? What do you want?” One of them asked, at least I think he did. Can’t really be sure what he said, his accent was just way too different from Paul’s. I was about to reply when Paul jabbed one of his claws into my side almost painfully before speaking up overly complex sentences. Maybe I should had payed attention, but my mind was naturally elsewhere. It was on the gryphons that surrounded us, trying to look inconspicuous while listening to our small encounter, but failing hard.

Suddenly there was quiet.

“Huh?” I turned back to the gryphons, and I saw Paul giving them his axe. He looked as if he was about to sacrifice his only son. Then he looked at me, then at my axe.

“No way,” I shook my head. There was no way I’d give it up. My axe was the only chance I had against gryphons in a fight.

He just shot me a frustrated look while darting his eyes between the armed gryphons and me. The thing is, I didn’t want to stir up problem. And I had my skinning knife still in the backpack. Unless they would search our backpacks, too. Then I’d be screwed.

So, at long last I replied, “Okay.” Slowly, using both of my hands, I undid the strap holding the axe against my backpack, then I even more slowly handed it to the guards. Obviously, the gryphons didn’t trust me. It showed when one of them quickly took my weapon before hastily stepping back, most likely waiting for me to react somewhat. All I did was recede my hand and stand there like a statue.

Fortunately, the guards’ intelligence was on par with a bucket of straw. With our bags left unchecked, the armed-to-beak gryphons flew away only to most stealthily peer at us from behind a house nearby. Ignoring them, we set out to explore the town.

First though, my mind took me back to the blacksmith. Axes were good and all, but they were unwieldy in a fight. After being in a real fight, I now realized that maces weren’t too good, either. I still planned on buying one, of course, because sometimes you wanted your enemy to live. With a dozen fractured bones, sure, but still alive. Something that an unfortunate nick from a sword or axe could very well not achieve. On the other hand, a blunt weapon was still probably the better choice. As I knew myself, I’d probably slice myself up with a sword before I’d even draw it out of the scabbard.

Another thing is, why should I even bring a sword to a gunfight? With those hands of mine I could probably be better with bows and other assorted range weapons than most quadruplets around here. It would also give me advantage over them. Didn’t matter if you had the strength of ten men if an arrow was sticking from a place where your heart should be.

“Hello,” I announced my already discovered presence to the diligently hammering gryphon. He gruffed something with a thick accent. Turning to Paul, he translated: “What do you want?”

“Well,” I began while looking at the goods displayed behind him in an open stand shop thingy. There were huge swords – none of the small human-compatible variants – some axes, a few pieces of armor, but nothing else. Damn. Well, this was a small town, but still there was probably another blacksmith or a variant thereof around.

Bidding our goodbyes to the now annoyed scruffy gryphon, we entered a normal shop nearby that I’d noticed on our way into the town’s heart a mere moments ago. Above the big wooden door stood an unmistakable wooden shield with a bow, an arrow and something that looked like a bola tying the aforementioned items together in a small bundle, painted on it. There were also some glyphs, obviously of gryphon nature, but those were still beyond my meagre abilities to grasp.

Inside was homely with a fragrance of leather and oils hanging in the air. There were racks with various long- and short-range weapons. Throwing knives, axes, and even the bolas were side by side with bows twice my height and short bows that could fit inside a child’s hand.

The gryphon sitting and ardently oiling a particularly nice longbow was quite stricken with my presence. Obviously unsure of what to do he simply gaped at me as his arms kept working  automatically in a way that only years of practice can teach you.

“Hello,” I announced as warmly as I could and bowed my head. The bowyer’s beak curled into a smile, and he nodded to Paul and me, but to me especially. He said something that had the word “help” in it.

Paul just tilted his head toward me, prompting the rather short chestnut gryphon to nod again. He stood up from his small wooden stool and just spread one of his arms around the shop, still smiling.

I nodded my thanks to him. The first bow I picked up was a little longer than a shortbow. It was made of fine wood, but was otherwise plain apart from a small set of engraved ornamental runes. Soon I discovered every bow in the shop had it. Most likely it was the bowyer’s mark of his goods.

Scouring the racks was all nice and dandy, but nothing really clicked with me. Until…

It didn’t really look that much different from others. It had a wooden base with the same glyphs as the other bows, but the ends were studded with iron and curled slightly outwards. The middle of the body was bent inwards and wrapped with studded leather smooth as silk. The chord was sturdy and hard to pull, but nothing a little arm training couldn’t fix.

I turned to the bowyer and raised the bow toward him. He grinned, obviously pleased with my choice, and made to a small table with some ink and paper. The gryphon motioned with his claw for me to come closer. He carefully took the bow off my hands, inspecting it thoroughly. Then Paul and me pooled our waning resources together to pay.

He looked at the meagre sack of money in my hands, before looking me squarely in the eyes and, for the first time since we came in, shaking his head.

“Oh,” I couldn’t help but sound out my surprise mixed with sadness and disappointment.

The poor bowyer looked quite uncomfortable now. To my surprise, disheartened, even. He looked at me, then the bow. In the end, he sighed and handed the bow to me. I offered him the money but he held his palm out, stopping me before leaving through a backdoor. Not a second later the chestnut gryphon brought me a quiver with about ten arrows in it, then he took my money.

He smiled at me as I bowed so deeply to him while thanking him profusely. Matching his own grin, Paul and I walked outside with my new bow and quiver already strapped to my back as we waved at him, and he at us.

Well, ten arrows wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing, which is precisely what we would’ve gotten if not for the kindness of the bowyer fellow. That was quite dandy, but now we were plagued by another problem.

I upturned the leather pouch which used to hold our money and gems. Nothing fell out. We couldn’t operate like this. The wilderness was a nice place, but an unforgiving bitch that made you miserable at every given chance, much less a great place to sleep. Now that my anxiety over entering civilized places was mostly ignorable, renting hotel or tavern rooms was a much more appealing prospect. Plus, we’d need some money for re-supplying.

“What now?” Paul inquired on our financial situation.

“We get…a job, of course,” I answered with a smile.

My dear gryphon friend voiced my plan, “Jub?”

“Job,” I corrected him, then mimicked using a shovel, carrying something, or just generally working. He seemed to get it, and nodded, then pointed at a distinct building.

“You’re, like, reading my mind, man,” I grinned as I watched an inebriated gryphon walk out from the building. A place forgotten by God and probably few who were inside, a place to always get the newest gossip and a place to dry-drown yourself by dehydration on alcohol.

I made an eloquent hand gesture while bowing slightly toward this bastion of filth. “After you.”

Paul rolled his eyes, then swatted me across the face with his tail. And so we made our way to the tavern. For adventure and riches!