The Flame of Destiny
First Kill

As usual, Taymur woke up at first light. He put on his boots and trousers, put his cloak over his shoulders then slipped out of the small hunting tent. The morning air was cold and the valley was shrouded in mist.

Their little band of hunters had been trekking for more than a week. He didn’t notice at first but they were heading deeper into the mountains. Following one trail, then another, it was almost like a drunken walk. Yet every evening as they made camp, the menacing shadows of the great peaks were a little closer.

It made him uneasy. Everything in the mountains was different and scary. The gnarled trees looked like Kobolds. Lone rocks resembled Gulla. He knew it was impossible, it was common knowledge that these creatures only come out of their holes at night. But how can you tell the difference between a fox hole and a Kobold lair? Bhaltu will laugh at me if I ask him but perhaps aunt Azra can tell me.

[Picture: spring hunting grounds]

He shook the thoughts away. That’s not worthy of a Tanisha, he said to himself, we’re hunters, we’re not afraid of the dark. He had proven it yesterday.

While the others were speeding ahead, still chasing the deer towards the south, he had spotted tiny fresh tracks of a different sort, heading east. His brother had praised him for his good eyes. Soon, they all rode east.

When they cornered the little fawn between the rocks, he saw how the animal trembled on its scrawny legs and felt sorry for a moment. But he didn’t let anyone notice that. That was what made him most proud.

Bhaltu allowed him to take the first shot. He was nervous but the shot was good and he almost killed the fawn.

Bhaltu then asked him to finish it with his knife. What an honor for a boy of his age! He took the creature’s head in his hands, carefully avoiding to look into its big fearful eyes. He gently slit its throat, letting the blood flow on the earth, while saying the sacred words of his ancestors as he had been taught. “Satanaya, mother of the earth, we ask your forgiveness for killing one of your children. May his spirit run with you forever in the green fields in the eternal sky.”

As he was standing, reminiscing over his first kill, he noticed a shadow next to him. Azra had an uncanny ability to suddenly appear out of nowhere.

“Do you feel the power?” asked Azra, pointing at the great white peak on the horizon, “they said that that the gods and the Narts descended from the top of that mountain. Some say they still live around there.”

Taymur shuddered. There was something mysterious about the high peak that weaved clouds out of clear air. Everything about it was grand, he felt grand. “Do you think they see us from there, the gods?”

“They can see far beyond mortal eyes.”

“What should I do to make them look at me?” asked Taymur. He regretted the question as soon as the words came out of his mouth.

“You’re hilarious! Barely eight summers and you want to get noticed by the gods? You’d better learn to ride like a man or the gods will see you fall on your face.”

Taymur didn’t ask further questions. Why did she always shatter his dreams?

They went back to the camp and ate some dried meat and nuts. It took only a few minutes to break up the two light tents that they used for travelling. Before long, they were all on horseback and riding further into the mountains.

Unlike the wide plains in the north and the frozen forests beyond, the scenery here changed continuously. They could traverse a wide green valley in the morning, get lost in a dense pine forest in the afternoon and dismount to climb a steep mountain in the evening, avoiding patches of ice. Yet in the morning mist, it was all indistinguishable. It felt eerie and alien to Taymur, he had the sensation that eyes were watching him all the time. He looked nervously at every crack in the rocks, every hollow tree and every thicket of thorny bush. Too much talk of Narts and Gulla, he said to himself.

Never mind all that. Today he sat on Tancred, Bhaltu’s great horse. He was a real hunter now! A hunter of the Tanisha.