The Morning after The Feast

GRANYE

I’m running toward the clearing before I’m even aware that I’m moving. The black dragon vanishes into the night. Every second seems slow and crystal clear. A child runs past me, her face smudged with black soot. Flames lick the surrounding grass, but fizzle quickly.

We don't know if the dragon will return.

I feel helpless. We have been too careless about dragons.

I hear Astiah scream from behind me, “Granye! Help me find Hannasorsha!” We move together toward the edge of the clearing where the dragon landed. A few of the boys are already shouting into the bushes, “Hanasorsha!”

Two older girls have collected the younger children together. I’m relieved to see Ankahelia among them.

She cries out and runs to me. “Mama! Mama! The dragon!” I lift her up and hug her to my chest. She has grappled with nightmares about dragons. I can’t imagine the months to come as her dreams now become memories.

Through a sobbing breath she says, “Hanasorsha is gone, Mama!”

Astiah looks at the circle of children and then runs into the clearing. Yelling more urgently, “Hanasorsha! Hanasorsha!”

I try to comfort Ankahelia. “It’s okay, I’m here now. The dragon is gone.” I’ve let precious moments tick away. The dragon could come back. Someone has to take charge.

I shout at the children, “Go to the central hearth and stay inside.” Then, spotting two teenage boys, I shout, “See if anyone was hurt and help them to the central hearth. Then bank the feast hearth fire.”

They move immediately, seemingly relieved to have some direction.

At the edge of the clearing, Sorsha screams, “Hanasorsha! Come out! You don’t need to hide! Come to mama!”

Her sweet face floats up in my mind, framed by braids with red and blue flowers. I can’t allow myself to think the worst. Perhaps if the dragon has taken her she hasn’t been harmed. Thinking anything else is too terrible to contemplate.

Helia lifts Ankahelia from my arms. She wails louder.

I turn my attention to the teenagers banking coals, pushing the giant logs apart and the flames diminish.

I say, “Did you see what happened?”

One boy turns his head. I see the wet tears on his face. “It happened so fast. I saw it grab Hanasorsha…”

He collects himself, “Do you think…?”

I take his shoulder gently and look him in the eye. “Try not to think about that right now. We’ll find her. Did you see which way the dragon went?”

The other has stopped his work. He comes up behind the first boy and points, “It flew straight toward the mountains. I saw its shadow against the stars.”

Astiah and Sorsha join us, both breathless and crying. As I expected, they haven’t found Hanasorsha.

I swallow hard. “These boys say that the dragon flies towards the mountains.”

Sorsha wails, “No! No! No!” Astiah reaches for her and tries to console her.

Only then does the second boy say, “Fengranye grabbed hold of the dragon. I think he was trying to save Hanasorsha.”

I look around the clearing, which is mostly empty. Where is my son? Can it be true that he did something so brave and so foolish?

##

I’ve finally lain down and only hope to sleep.

I wept with Blix, Fengranye’s father, for the beautiful, brave son that we have both lost and are likely never to see again. He sleeps at my side, as he might have done under different circumstances tonight.

No one was killed, but many were injured. It will keep Helia busy for days and nights to come tending to the wounded and collecting medicines from the woods. Ankahelia doesn’t want to leave her mother and fears sleep now more than ever.

We are to set out tomorrow, as soon as we are provisioned, the expedition Solis appointed at the Feast of the Return plus five Others who volunteered to escort us. Whatever objections I had have vanished with the taking of Hanasorsha and Fengranye. If only I had listened to Astiah. It is hard not to feel that the loss is my fault and that I’m being punished for my reluctance.

I fear sleeping and I hope to awaken in the morning to find that I, like Ankahelia, I have only had a nightmare about a black dragon and Fengranye is restored to me when I open my eyes. I finally fall into a brief, uneasy sleep.

##

Blix takes me in his arms and I feel his breath against my neck. My body aches for him. I want to feel alive in the face of death.

“Granye,” his voice is simultaneously strange and familiar, “Wake up.” We now share the same burden of loss and I hear the gentleness in his voice. I wish to cry for a thousand moons, but I can’t waste the time this morning.

“I wonder if I’ll be back in time for lambing season.” I turn and stare at the ceiling. “This may be the last night I ever sleep here.”

Blix rises, stirs the fire and adds wood. I hear the children in their sleeping room, their voices piping on the cool morning air. “You can’t think about that now.”

“I had a strange dream last night. I was in a black valley and I fought with a terrible beast. It was dark, so I couldn’t see. I knew I couldn’t give up. I had to hang on until morning.”

“Maybe you dreamt of tangling with me…,” Blix chuckles.

I’m in no mood for joking. “I have to pack, but I don’t know what I’ll need.”

“Sturdy shoes that fit well and something that keeps you warm. Nothing else matters.”

At his age, Blix is more familiar with wandering than living at hearth. His view is likely to be true even if it is entirely unsentimental.

He says, “The Others are putting together provisions for you from our supplies. They will have water skins, sleeping skins, fire kits and the many other things you’ll need. It will delay our departure for this year’s wandering…”

“No! You can’t delay.” Late departure will mean that the Others set out in the winter. It shortens their time on the road and their ability to gather goods from the more distant hearths. I am again haunted by my failure to act. I feel responsible for this attack, even if I couldn’t have predicted this outcome.

Blix lays down the wood he has been loading into the fire. “Granye, this disaster has befallen all of this hearth. We all have sons and daughters here. Even when we aren’t here, we are still a part of this hearth. You are always in our thoughts.”

My heart is so heavy I don’t feel like standing up. Until today my life has been predictable. Now every day to come is a mystery. “What do I need to know about wandering?”

“I won’t pretend that there aren’t many dangers. Perhaps the most important thing is to trust your instincts. Believe yourself. Believe what you know to be true.”

“I think I was asking a more practical question, like how do you find water? Or kill a jaguar?”

Blix scratches his chin. He comes and sits next to me and puts his arm over my shoulder. “Granye, it’s impossible to plan for what you will face. Worrying about it will only cause you to lose sleep. The best plan is to face each challenge as it arises.” He smiles, but there is sadness in his eyes, “Beside which, you are hunting a dragon. Nothing I can say will prepare you for that.”

##

Faced with the long, sad day ahead, it’s hard to decide where to start. Finishing packing, of course, but I also have many goodbyes. The sheep must be tended and without Fengranye here, the extra work will weigh heavily on our hearth. I decide seeing Solis is the best first step.

I rap on the door of the Black Grange. Behind the door, I hear something heavy pushed across the floor. Solis opens the door and she says, “Come in, Granye. I’ve been expecting you.”

I can never shake the feeling that she is reading me. She sets a kettle on the stove and sets two heavy cups on the sideboard. She does this in a precise, graceful way . I regret the wasted days I could’ve spent learning from her. Astiah was right about her sense of urgency. A wave of regret washes over me.

She turns to me, a small sad smile on her face, “Tea? Or perhaps something stronger?”

“Tea is fine.” I say.

She motions for me to sit. We both sit. I look around the room in rough wooden chairs padded with fur. I study the big rug on her floor again, trying to puzzle out what kind hide it is.

All around us there are crates and chests, some bound in fabric, others tied with a complicated system of precise knots. Many of her cupboards stand open and bare. I wonder if she has been awake all night packing.

Noting my curiosity, she says, “We will be gone a long time. I need to stow things away, so someone else can occupy the grange.”

“How long will we be gone?” A grim weight rests on my chest, I’ve barely spoken of my fear that I may never come back to the hearth.

“It depends on many things. First, we will need to seek help from other hearths. Speed is essential now.” She rubs her chin, looks out the window towards the black mountains in the distance. “I hope we will be back before the next Return.”

The next Return? I want to cry out in protest. I can’t be gone that many moons. I’ll miss wintering in the sheep, lambing and shearing. There are so many things I know that I don’t have time teach anyone else. Since I woke up this morning, I’ve felt a growing certainty that Solis is right. I must go on this journey, no matter how unhappy it makes me. It’s so painful, knowing I can’t leave and knowing I can’t stay.

I can see how the dragon has disrupted the natural order. For a society that values children above all things, these nights following the Return are important. There will be fewer children this year. Already this black dragon has rent a hole in the order of our world.

Solis looks at me steadily, “It is what dragons do, Granye. They disrupt. They destroy.”

I have an uncanny sense that Solis knows so much more about the world than I do. It’s both comforting and unnerving.

“You have a plan,” I ask.

She goes to pour our tea, holding the teacup as gently as if it were alive. I bow, accept her hospitality.

“I do.” She pulls out a small bound book and turns it over in her hands. The cover is scarred and scratched. She lays in open in front of me. The pages are covered with notations, symbols and lines that make no sense to me.

“This is my Vahgen. It is a record that has been passed down by the Drakdarekam. They tell how to get to any place from every other place. Translated into our language, I suppose it’s something like ‘way finder’ or perhaps ‘personal way.’ All Drakdarekam carry this book and add personal notations. I will teach you to read this, but for now, I will have to navigate.”

She flips to a page. “This is where I believe Svaart has gone.” She points to a passage. There are notations in the margins, scrawled in what I guess is her hand.

“Svaart?” I say.

“The dragon who has taken the children. It is a fire dragon. If we have any chance of finding them, this is where we must go.”

“You know this dragon?”

“Yes, and so will you. All dragons are dangerous in one way or another but fire dragons are often the most dangerous.”

I try to make sense of what she means. Dragons that don’t breathe fire? So many questions and no time to ask. I remember the dark valley in my dream uneasily.

She flips back through her book and points at another page. “Winter is coming. The journey will be slow on foot. First we must go to this hearth and ask for horses.”

My heart skips a beat. There are wild horses living in pastures and I have heard tales of hearth minders who ride them. I’m not against learning new things, but I’m also aware of my age. I’m still strong enough to lift a ewe or fell a tree, but lately I’ve noticed that my wounds heal slower. My shoulder aches when I get up in the morning. I’d be embarrassed to say to I’m afraid to try riding a horse, considering all that Solis has experienced in her long, dangerous life.

She continues, “Once we have horses the Others will leave us and try to rejoin their hearth brothers.”

I sip my tea, feeling the weight of our mission settle over me like a heavy blanket.

“The children,” I say. My throat catches for a moment, thinking of my son, who may have already fallen to his death somewhere in the darkness.

She sets down her teacup and covers my hand with hers. It is rough and warm. “I think there is a chance they may be alive. It is too soon to give up hope.”

I nod.

“You will not do this alone, Granye. Each member of the team has a part to play.”

“Even Sharna?” I say, thinking that Sharna excels primarily in gossiping and causing conflict.

She nods, “Especially Sharna. Until I can teach you more, you will have to trust me. I realize that you have little choice, and for that I am sorry.”

I stand to go; I planned to ask her what to pack. I see now that packing is the least of my concerns. “I have many things still to do today.”

Solis steps across the room and folds me into her arms. “Your burden is heavy, Granye. I will help you bear it.”

My eyes well with tears, but I don’t have time for grief. For the moment, at least, I can return to the hearth with a flicker of hope.

I cling to Solis’ words, like the last fall leaf on a tree: ‘It is too soon to give up hope.’

When I repeat them to Sorsha and Astiah, I hope I will sound convincing.

##