Michael Mathias - The Sword and the Dragon

Gerard Skyler used his free arm to wipe the sweat from his brow before it had a chance to drip into his eyes. Scaling the towering, nesting cliff for the second time was far harder than he had expected it to be. No one had attempted the climb two days in a row before. His body was still sore and raw from yesterday’s climb, but he could not afford to stop and rest. He was more than three hundred feet above a rocky canyon floor. A fall would undoubtedly be fatal. The last thing he needed at the moment was burning eyes and blurred vision.

A few dozen feet above him, was the wide, flat shelf they called the “Lip.” Once he was there, he could lie down, stretch out his aching body, and relax his muscles before continuing up into the nesting shelves to gather the precious hawkling eggs he sought.

Why the blasted birds nested so high on the cliff, and so late in the spring, he could never determine. All of the other avian species he knew had hatched their young and headed north already. Why he was foolishly climbing the cliff a second time was another question he kept asking himself. He already knew the answer though: he was doing it for his older brother, Hyden.

Gerard’s free hand reached up and slid snugly into a small gap above him. As he pulled his weight up, the hold suddenly crumbled. Dust and scree rained down on his upturned face. Luckily, his mouth was closed and he hadn’t moved his feet from their points of purchase yet. He didn’t slip, but he had to contend with his racing heart and the sandy grit that was collecting on his face.

“Damn it all, Hyden! You owe me a dozen pairs of boots now,” he muttered.

He shook his head, trying to face downward so that some of the crud might fall away. Then he stuck out his bottom lip and blew up at his eyes, shaking his head awkwardly. The thought of how silly he looked at that moment almost made him laugh. He had to fight to contain it. Having mixed with his sweat, most of the grainy dirt had turned to mud. He finally used the thumb and index finger of his free hand to rub his eyelids. Eventually, he cleared his vision and then reached up for a different handhold. This one held his weight.

Far below, Hyden Skyler paced the canyon floor, looking up nervously at his younger brother’s progress. He was supposed to be the one making this climb. Gerard had already made his own. Their father and uncles had decided that Hyden should stay on the ground this year. He was the Skyler clan’s best hope to win the coveted Summer’s Day archery competition, their best hope to come along in a generation.

Hyden had argued vehemently against not being allowed to claim a rightful share of the hawkling eggs. His Uncle Condlin had to physically restrain him when they told him that this year’s climb wasn’t going to happen. Hyden had called them all to the settling circle in his anger, even the Elders.

“Why can’t I do both?” he had argued.

The Elders had explained that it was because the archery competition and the egg harvest this year were too close together. Not even the most experienced climber could finish his grueling harvest without a tear or strain. The Elders, who consisted of Hyden’s grandfather, his father, and five of his uncles, wanted nothing to happen to him that might affect his ability to aim. Nothing.

Like most young men who feel like they’ve been wronged, Hyden had been caught up in the moment. The Elders’ arguments made sense to him now that the heat of his frustration had cooled, but it had taken a while. Only after long hours of soothing and explaining did he finally relent. The fact that the prize money from the archery competition was equal to the value of more than a dozen hawkling eggs helped him put things in perspective. The idea of having his name etched permanently into the Summer’s Day Spire had its own appeal. Eventually, he decided to comply with the Elders’ wishes and stay on the ground. If he managed to win the competition, the honor and respect he would gain, not only in his clan, but also among the men of the kingdoms, would far exceed the satisfaction of making his egg harvest.

At one hundred paces, Hyden could put three out of five arrows in the Wizard’s Eye. The other two arrows would be in the King’s Ring, only because the center of the target wasn’t big enough to hold them all. Only on rare occasions did an arrow from Hyden’s bow venture out into the Queen’s Circle, but it did so only because the wind was blowing, or for some other extreme reason. Even on the windiest of days, his arrows strayed no farther away from the middle than that. He was as accurate as a target would allow a human to be. To put four arrows in the Wizard’s Eye was nearly impossible. The elven archers who had won the competition for the last four years running had done it though. If Hyden wanted to win this year, he would have to do it too.

Hyden’s stubborn arguing over being kept on the ground had paid off in a sense. He had contested that the financial loss of not being allowed to harvest his rightful share of hawkling eggs would be ruinous to his home and family. He pointed out that the Elders could give him no guarantee that he would win the archery competition. He was only eighteen winters old, had no family of his own yet, but he would soon enough, and it was the principle of the matter anyway. By clan law, a large portion of the money generated by the sale of the harvested hawkling eggs went to the individual who had harvested them. None of the Elders could deny Hyden, but then Gerard suddenly volunteered to climb in his stead. The Elders reminded the younger of the two headstrong young men that a second climb would be very dangerous, and that all the credit, and the yield of the harvest itself, would be Hyden’s, not his. The Elders were pleased, though, that Hyden would still be receiving his due without having to climb.

Hyden had never felt a stronger bond with Gerard; nor had he ever felt more love for him. When he saw his little brother finally gain the edge of the Lip, he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. He had never felt this much worry, or concern, over Gerard’s safety in his life. Usually, he was trying to kill him for some reason or another.

Little Condlin, or maybe Ryal, had helped Gerard up onto the ledge. Hyden couldn’t tell which of his many cousins it was who was up there. They all looked the same from where he was standing, with their sun-darkened skin, their thin frames, and the thick mop of dark hair that all of the clansmen shared.

Hyden had been out behind Uncle Condlin’s hut shooting arrows all week, while all the other members of the Skyler clan took their turns on the sacred nesting cliff. He wasn’t sure which of his cousins had made their climbs yet. All he knew was that Gerard had come down yesterday from his harvest with eight unbroken eggs. From what Hyden had heard, it was the best single take so far this year. Gerard had strutted around with his chest puffed out the whole evening. Uncle Condlin had brought down only seven eggs this year. Hyden and Gerard’s father would have had seven as well, but an angry hawkling had caused Harrap to drop one in order to protect his eyes from its razor-sharp talons.

It was a shameful thing to waste an egg, even when protecting oneself. Their father hadn’t been seen since he’d packed his six remaining eggs in a small crate full of “keep moss” two days ago. He had gone off into the woods seeking absolution. The eggs would be safe until he eventually returned. The keep moss, as the name indicated, would keep the hawkling eggs from hatching for as long as they were packed in it.

Gerard and Hyden knew that their father was off in seclusion somewhere seeking forgiveness from the clan’s goddess. He hoped that the White Lady would give his father a sign soon. Hyden had done the same thing last year, after one of his eggs had broken in his pack while he was climbing down.