Asunder: A Gathering of Chaos by Cameron Hopkin (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

thought himself already at the apogee of shame and suddenly discovered otherwise. Tears pricked at his eyes, and he clamped his lips together and looked at the ground. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He shook his head jerkily. The clearing was totally silent.

With his hand still on the rhino’s horn, Pul turned toward the others, speaking for everyone’s benefit. “Our beasts are not tools, to be taken up when needed and thrown in a corner and forgotten after. They are not dumb, and they are not tame. They are us. They are what make us Pacari. They are friends and companions and shields and spears. We care for them and they care for us.”

His lecture to the young ones complete, he turned back to Kest. “You move with the beasts, Kest, and they love and obey you in ways I have never seen before. You may even be right that our traditions limit us, and that we could have a larger stride in this world. But though you bring a string of great beasts in your wake, you do not know them. You have not bonded, not truly, and that is what we do. We choose a beast and we give ourselves to it. It stays with us for life. We become one. All you have done is found some pets.” He spat the word out like an epithet, and Kest shuddered as if it were an arrow in his heart.

The chief walked away from him, sad and angry. “We need no pets here. Send them away. You have failed your trial. You will not be a hunter for our people.”

Kest knew nothing of the next little while – his shame and failure shut him off from the world as it went about its business and forgot him. When he returned to himself, he was sitting in the dirt right where he had faced the others, but nearly everyone was gone. His animals were gone, too. The others must have turned them away, led them off with food and gentleness until they were out of the summer clearing. They were never mine. They just tolerated my presence; went along with me out of curiosity and good will. He was amazed that he hadn’t seen it. How could I have been so stupid? I am the world’s greatest fool.

Only a few people remained. Pul was speaking to his parents, an arm around each of their shoulders. Whatever he had told them, they nodded as he gave them each a pat on the back and walked quickly to their hut without a backward glance at him. Whatever shame he felt, he was sure they felt double, and it was his fault.

Now only the chief and the tall stranger lingered. Kest hated to think the man had witnessed the whole thing, but beside everything else, the feeling was a small and insignificant thing. He felt oddly unanchored, as if his head might float away. It all seemed so unreal. When the sun had stood overhead, he’d been the chosen one of his people. Now he was nothing, and the sun hadn’t even touched the treetops yet. It seemed impossible, and yet reality refused to shift back into its proper course. Shaking his head, Kest stood. The two older men were talking.

“…have yet to discuss the boon you wished of us,” Pul was saying.

“Perhaps today is not the proper day for such a thing,” the man mused in his quiet, commanding voice. He sounded educated, wise. “Had I known such an event was in the offing, I would never have imposed myself.”

“The tree falls when it wills,” Pul said. “In truth, I should have seen to your request before all this, but I was excited for the boy’s return. I am sorry.”

Aren’t we all? Kest knew he shouldn’t hang about and eavesdrop, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. After all, it wasn’t as if he was hidden. He was no more than ten paces from them.

Puldaergna opened his hands to the man. “Tell me your need.”

“I seek something that is of great worth to my people in our fight,” the man murmured. His sound put Kest in mind of a majka’s paw – velvet soft and malleable, but with a hidden capacity for violence. It was an arresting voice.

“Your fight,” said the chief dubiously. “You are a Black Isle man, yes? Is it the… demons… that I hear people speak of?” His tone left little doubt as to what he thought of such tales.

“I do not ask you to believe in creatures you’ve never seen and hopefully never will. But we do fight, and not against each other. Call them what you will – dangerous beasts, spirits, or any other thing you wish – but our fight is real. I seek an object that will aid us, but to reach it I must go through unknown ways and great danger. I need a tracker and a hunter to lead me through the deep forests of the Mainland.”

Pul nodded. “And you want one of mine to be this tracker.”

“I can pay well. There will be much danger, and we may not return. I will compensate you accordingly. All others speak of the Granaal tribe as the bravest, and so I sought you out.”

The chief snorted. “We’re the closest to the coast, is what you mean.” The black-robed man spread his hands and gave a little smile. Kest hated that little smile. He hated this man who had seen him shamed and ruined his return. It would all have been different somehow if he weren’t here. He couldn’t help himself. He spat noisily in the dirt.

The chief swung around at the sound, skewering Kest with his gaze. Kest’s shame rolled back over him like a wave. I have less self-control than a child. Everything I do is wrong.

A shrewd glimmer sparked in Puldaergna’s eyes. “I have just the man for you,” he said to the foreigner.

Kest understood immediately. In truth, it was an