The Orbit Scrolls: Book One

1

Reader

Early autumn 4287 M.C.

Scimitar Province, Wraithaven

Five hundred years old, the cottage, nestled within a sloping copse of blood-red flame maples, was relatively new compared to many in the province. The large hay barn and smaller outbuildings common to properties cultivating vineyards and orchards were centuries older. Walls of fitted limestone blocks anchored them all fast against Wraithaven’s fierce winter blizzards. Gray slate roofing tiles clad each structure like a warrior’s armor.

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The instant Taggart Kayne awoke, he knew the day would not follow its normal routine. Having awakened two hours before dawn was the only thing typical.

He lay still at first, absorbing the subtleties of the morning. A chilly autumn breeze out of the northwest whispered through the half-opened window in the north wall of his bedroom. His breath frosted into faint clouds before dissipating. The small cast-iron stove in the bedroom’s corner rested dark and silent now. No oak logs burned, crackling orange and happily behind the grating of the little hinged door. The wood had cooled to ash hours ago, leaving naught but a hint of oak coal scent to ride the breeze to his nostrils.

Faint rhythmic ticks of the mantle clock in the adjacent gathering room sought his attention. A great-horned owl hooted in the forest beyond the hay barn. The weight of the heavy quilt drawn up to his chin conspired with the scents of wool and the cedar-lined trunk it had lain in to keep him warm and comfortable right there. But on the seventy-one-year-old man’s left side where Alina, his wife of forty-seven years, should still be cozying next to him, his left hand sensed only her residual warmth clinging to the mattress. She had started their day without him.

He slipped out from under the warm quilt and donned simple leather sandals and his dra-ki—a black-streaked, light gray martial arts uniform consisting of a heavy, long-sleeved, cotton jacket and loose-fitting trousers. He looped a long black cotton belt twice around his waist, securing the belt with a square knot at his navel. Both ends of the belt hung precisely twelve inches below the knot. An embroidered, six-inch-long red dragon decorated the left belt end, signifying Master Dragon rank in empty-hands combat and in seventeen different martial arts weapons. A similar dragon wrought in gold and blue thread graced the right belt end, a second Dragon-level rank in stealth and covert tactics. Wraithaven had no higher martial rank.

Upon leaving the room, Taggart took his scabbarded Dai-ryu (Great Dragon) single-edged long sword and his Kai-ryu (Small Dragon) dagger from the oak wall pegs above the headboard on his side of the bed. He slipped the weapons into his belt, but despite the darkness of the room, he noted the empty pegs on Alina’s side.

At the back door, taller even than Taggart’s rangy 6’4", stood the weapons cabinet of burled oak. Inside the exquisitely carved 850-year-old heirloom, all seventeen pairs of weapons, from spiked war hatchets to chained wheat flails, hung neatly on wooden pegs.

We were to practice staff and scon-ki, (wheat sickles), this morning, Taggart thought, shutting the double doors. No moon hung in the cloudless, black sky, but the backyard was dotted with a dozen, knee-high, seemingly randomly spaced points of yellow light—tiny candle lanterns obviously lit by Alina. The scent of eight-foot-tall dwarf apple trees, their supple branches heavy with ripening fruit, silently welcomed him. Two different gravel paths led from the back door to a waist-high stone wall fifty paces away.

Two paces wide, the main path meandered with a shallow S-curve to a low cedar gate in the wall. A narrow meditation path branched to the left off the wider path, before looping tightly back upon itself, crossing the main path seven times until blending with it again at the gate. In places, the little path crossed over tiny gurgling springs on low teak bridges. In others, flat slate steppingstones served as crossings.

Beyond the wall, a diffuse yellow glow backlit the fruit trees just enough to define their shapes. Even in total darkness, Taggart could have negotiated either path without a misstep.

This time of morning, only one path would do. Taggart paused to appreciate the aroma of apples wafting through the orchard, noting tonal differences where the light breeze hissed through distant spruce needles, or shouldered past the stouter apple leaves. Then, clasping his hands at his belt, he bowed his head, and stepped reverently upon the narrow, winding trail. His mind entered Nung-Cha, The Necessary Path.

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Past the stone wall lay the Kayne arena, a twenty- by thirty-pace rectangle of flat, perfectly joined slate pavers. At the northern edge, precisely at the center, rose Enkia-Entae, the Prayer Stone. The seven-foot-tall natural obelisk of gray granite was so named in the ancient Mindocean tongue meaning to reach. Crowned with patches of gray lichen, its northern side be-robed with delicate dark-green moss, the great stone loomed like a vigilant, eternal guardian. Calloused feet of thirty-five generations of Kayne warriors had worn the slate smooth from boundary to boundary.

Spaced evenly around the perimeter, a faint yellow glow from oil lanterns washed just enough light across the slate to define the boundaries. On any other day, Taggart and Alina would have lit them together.

The slender, six-foot-tall woman knelt in silence before the Prayer Stone. Her legs were folded beneath her. Her back was straight. Her head was bowed with eyes closed. Her slender hands rested on her thighs.

She was, in Taggart’s artistic mind, as perfect as a marble sculpture. He absorbed the flickering lantern light as it played across her gray-streaked brown hair drawn to her mid-back in a single warrior’s braid. His own brown hair, just as long and just now beginning to streak with gray, was plaited into an equivalent shape. Where path met arena, Taggart stepped out of his sandals next to Alina’s. He placed his sheathed sword and dagger in the wooden rack next to her weapons. Fists at his sides, he bowed toward the Prayer Stone and entered the arena.

Alina’s breathing was slow and calm. She did not acknowledge Taggart when he knelt precisely two paces to her right and mimicked her pose.

Silently, Taggart began his meditation.

I revere the truth this stone symbolizes. As it is bound to the earth. So too am I. As it reaches toward my Maker. So too do I.

Father Creator, with gratitude I begin this day, Your gift of life to me. May the orbits of my soul honor You. May I commit no harm to Your creation this day.

I give thanks for . . .

Taggart envisioned his life’s treasures: Alina, their marriage, their children and grandchildren, their health, his profession as master sculptor, his apprentices so bright with promise laboring at the quarry miles away, the latest crop of Twelfth-Harvest children who anxiously awaited his and Alina’s arrival, and many other blessings. Completing his prayer of gratitude, he stopped and began to exhale slowly and softly.

Detecting the end of his meditation, Alina matched her breathing to Taggart’s. Eyes still closed, they raised their heads to synchronize into the Final Eleven. They inhaled for a slow count of four, held for four, exhaled for four, and held again for four before beginning the next cycle. Completing eleven such cycles, they touched their foreheads to the slate before the Prayer Stone.

Then, as if joined by invisible bonds, the couple stood up, and executed a precise about-face before walking in step to the south end of the arena. Only when Alina stood did her martial rank reveal itself. One red dragon and a second blue-and-gold dragon emblem stood out in bold relief against the black of her belt.

Silently, for a quarter hour, they followed a progressively intricate routine of stretching and warming-up exercises. Upon completion, they bowed to each other, turned to face the stone, and then snapped into aggressive combat stances, fists raised, knees flexed and ready. What followed fused grace, power, and extraordinary fluidity based upon the characteristics of seven different animals.

The millennia-old, advanced Dragon-level combat forms of Wraithaven’s martial arts system, known as Nung-Cha, began with Ice Cat Slaying, a powerful dance of low crouching movements characterized by quickly executed, lengthy stances. Hands clawed in tight, blurred defensive circles too fast for an untrained eye to follow. Bone-crushing hammer-fists mimicked the killing strikes of Wraithaven’s most dangerous predators—saber-toothed felines as large as oxen.

The perfect synchronization of the couple was made possible only by a half century of disciplined practice, by having pushed their bodies to fifty thousand repetitions of the advanced forms. Both remained silent, not punctuating the more explosive points of the form with loud shouts as Outsider martial systems taught. Climactic strikes, killing blows, were punctuated with explosive exhalations of breath at the focused, pantomimed strikes of fist, foot, or elbow.

To a non-Wraithian observer, the strenuous ritual might be perceived as overzealous acts by rare adherents to such an activity. This was not the case here. Across the length and breadth of Wraithaven, the morning entry to The Necessary Path started the day’s activities. School children and the elderly, tradesfolk and militias, healers, teachers and families all began their days thus. Villages and schools held mass Nung-Cha gatherings. It had been so for over two thousand years. To do otherwise was unthought-of.

With the final strike of Ice Cat, they paused for a count of four. Rising to the attention stance, they took three measured breaths.

Descending Crane followed, allowing them to recover from the vigor of Ice Cat through deceptively graceful spins and the narrower stances of the form. High snapping kicks to the front and side, blurring spear-hand jabs, and axe-like chops of the hand’s knife-edge mimicked the hunting techniques of the silver crane. The only obvious noise was the whip-like snaps of their trouser cuffs and jacket sleeves.

The beguiling subtlety of Hunting Serpent immediately followed. Tight, looping blocks and wide, circling deflections masked iron-fingered strikes to the throat, eyes, and heart of imaginary opponents, delivered so quickly naught but advanced practitioners could differentiate the moves.

The fourth, Wolf Pack Playing, simulated defense and attack against multiple opponents. Strikes of fist, elbow, and feet were three times as numerous as any other form and demanded unfettered speed during execution. The rigorous form taxed both practitioners, but decades of practice made the intricate violence seem easy. In not one strike, parry, or leap did they break their fluid synchronization.

But that was not to say the moves were performed mindlessly. Even after decades of practicing Nung-Cha,Taggart was never unaware of the origins of the Wolf Pack form. It was created to epitomize the predicament plaguing our ancestors, he thought. Multiple nations often declared simultaneous war upon our Pelanjian ancestors. Combined fleets attacked multiple times in every Pelanjian generation intent on invading the home islands, determined to exterminate every man, woman and child. Always outnumbered. No allies to help. Always alone. Learn to fight! Or die!

His reverie came and went quickly. It had to.

Iron Shark followed, the most fluid form of all. They spun from low, sweeping crouches, lashing out an extended leg in one direction then another to sweep an imaginary opponent’s feet out from under him. Killing blows of knife hands and crushing blows from a foot heel always followed such iron broom techniques. They delivered deadly strikes from upright stances, from low crouches, and lastly even from flat on their backs. Upon ending, they kicked back to the upright attention stance like acrobats.

Awakened Dragon, significantly slower and less flamboyant, was the most demanding of all. Straightforward fist strikes, rising palm heel neck breakers, and forearm blocks were delivered with slow, exaggerated tensing of every muscle possible. Awakened Dragon was a strength builder, designed to reinforce the speed of a strike delivered in actual combat. The final strike, a low, kneeling stance punctuated by a straight downward blow of the right fist, left sheens of sweat glistening on their brows.

The two rose for what should have been a ten count state of preparation for the seventh and final form, Crag Lord Defender. Without a word, Alina typically led the form by distancing herself two additional paces from Taggart, which he would then match. This morning Alina didn’t move. The ten count came and went. So did another.

She’s distracted, Taggart surmised, not looking at her, just waiting her out.

A sneering voice whispered in Alina’s mind. Again. Two thousand years of peace and still we enter The Necessary Path as if it was needed.

And it isn’t! She threw back. Hasn’t been for centuries! Our cultural paranoia feeds upon itself!

Forgotten about Cathmore? The Voice sneered. So soon? It was ready for her reply. Again. As always.

How could I forget? Ever! And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the Voice abandoned its playground.

Silently, Alina forced herself to move the required two paces. Taggart followed.

Crag Lord was the most elegant form of them all, combining the swift, circular clawing techniques of Ice Catwith high aerial spins and kicks more flamboyant than the confined movements of Descending Crane. The entire arena was required for the wide, circling arm blocks and the long-distance attacks unique to the form.

It was no accident that Ice Cat began the seven forms or that Crag Lord ended them. When ancient explorers first set foot on Wraithaven’s pristine soil, two of the many wonders of the New World had made lasting impressions.

No predator in the known world matched the size and unparalleled ferocity of the immense saber-fanged felines that prowled Wraithaven from her glacier regions to her fog-shrouded valleys. As for the crag lords, no other name seemed appropriate for the huge, golden-brown eagles that patrolled the timberline country on twelve-foot wingspans.

After studying both creatures for a hundred years, ancient Nung-Cha masters created the two complex forms for the Dragon rank. As the New World had absorbed the folk who began to call themselves Wraithians, the two new forms were absorbed by the ancient five first created millennia before in the home archipelago. That meant little to Taggart and Alina. The two new forms were nearly two thousand years old before either of them were born.

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Crag Lord was a favorite of the couple. Falling back into the lead, Alina found the sublime rhythm of the form after the first few moves, abandoning the Voice as completely as it had abandoned her. Sheer pleasure from executing the precise, demanding movements began to radiate from the pair now. Eyes sparkled, smiles refused confinement, surfacing despite, or perhaps because of the concentration, the effort. Crag Lord was beautiful, as much dance as martial art, and the beauty of dance begets joy. It simply does.

At the last movement, a strongly executed, low front stance, accentuated by snapping, double-fisted strikes to the front, the pair stood up, bowed to the Prayer Stone, then to each other before relaxing. Only then did they speak.

Good morning, my sweet, Alina said, catching her breath enough to greet Taggart with a lingering kiss. Captured by the quilt this morning?

Hardly, love, he said, cupping her face with big, calloused hands. More like a poor husband abandoned by his impatient wife.

I never sleep well before a Reading.

Taggart slipped his arms around her. I attribute that to your youth, girl, he said with a grin.

Married when he was twenty-four and she was nineteen, the five-year difference inspired occasional quips.

Old men certainly don’t seem plagued by restlessness.

It’s not our first Reading, he said, stroking her lower back.

I know, Tag. I just sense an unclear darkness awaiting us this time. Taggart did not dismiss Alina’s apprehension. She possessed an uncanny knack to sense danger, or something beyond normal routine. He could only surmise that her inherent eye for detail that characterized her complex tapestry designs, empowered her during the traditional mounted stag hunts of late summer. She was often the first rider in a stag pack to detect game sign.

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At age fifty-nine, citizens who seek Wraithaven’s most honored social rank as a Reader may apply for an intensive, year-long course of study in the national capital of Conclusion Bay. Once qualified, the now Sixtieth Harvest Readers conduct the annual threshold-crossing ritual known as a Reading. For Twelfth-Harvest children, the three-day autumn campout in Wraithaven’s remote valleys introduces them to the Orbit Scrolls. For married couples who wish to serve as a team, a younger spouse can enter Reader training with the older one, as did Taggart and Alina.

After returning from their two-year tour of duty as Pickets in northern Cathmore, Taggart had reached sixty-three harvests, and Alina, fifty-eight. They have Read twenty-one times thus far, occasionally conducting multiple Readings in a single year when the number of eligible children in their sector required it. They live for the Readings now, marveling each time transit children shed their child’s mantle.

Upon the completion of a Reading, the wooden practice sword carried by every Wraithian child from the age of seven is replaced by a real, but shorter version of the steel sword carried by adults. A Twelve-Harvest child can own property, and virtually always receives a first acre as a gift from family the week of the Reading. In return, Twelve-Harvest young ones are expected to choose more sober adulthood over childish behavior.

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So, love, Taggart said, we don’t seem to be sparring. On any other day, one-on-one sparring followed two full cycles of the seven forms. Weapon drills then followed, with a five-mile run to the quarry and back completing the exercise for the day.

No, we don’t, Alina whispered huskily against his ear.

Then dare I predict that we shall not run, either?

"I think not, old man. Readers and Dragons need their rest, especially old Dragons." She ran her fingertips slowly down his chest. Her left hand took the ends of his belt as she backed slowly away from him, her hazel eyes holding his of gray. As his right hand slid over hers, the intricate dragon tattoo looping around his thick wrist and hand covered an identical tattoo on her smaller hand.

Rest indeed, he thought as they strolled back to the cottage, using the most direct path.

2

The Road

Falcon’s Road is two wagons wide where it traverses thirty-one miles of mountainous terrain between the Kayne family quarry and the village of Falcon’s Aerie, but no straight portion is longer than two hundred paces. Like a great tan serpent, it pours gracefully over gentle hills when it can, yet it tightens radically around the harsher slopes when it must.

Untold thousands of roads snake among Wraithaven’s hamlets, towns, homesteads and ranches, matching the mosaic of intersecting mountains and glacier-fed streams and rivers that define Wraithaven. From Conclusion Bay on the west coast to the eastern border nine hundred miles away, over a million Wraithians populate Wraithaven’s eleven provinces. The most lightly populated, and the most rugged is this, the extreme northeastern province of Scimitar.

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Ah, my favorite part of Falcon’s Road, Taggart said. He and Alina reined their identical brown, white-stockinged mares from a light canter to a steady walk. The riders were well seasoned and well provisioned travelers of the road and certainly of their destination. The saddlebags of each carried their Mission Robes, emergency rations of hard tack, jerky, and cheese, plus oiled canvas ponchos – rainers.

On a lead behind Taggart, a pack mare named Five bore a pair of large panniers, strong willow-framed baskets encased in oiled canvas to protect freshly inked Scrolls for presentation to this year’s Initiates, and the long, white ceremonial robes of Scroll Night.

The last bend had ended eight miles of tight loops winding through dense stands of pine and spruce. Now, the landscape opened panoramically. Here, the towering, ice-crowned peaks of the Shield commanded attention, looming over travelers in breathtaking silence.

Ancient, long extinct nomadic tribes migrating across the vast steppes outside the Shield believed that imprisoned evil wraiths battled jailer gods to escape and feast upon human souls. Thus did the seeds of Wraithaven germinate in the local human minds, then eventually propagate worldwide in that part of the human soul that so easily welcomes myth and legend.

That humankind’s greatest evil still lurked behind the Shield seemed seared into the genetic code of the human race. Myth had always prevented bold attempts to explore either reality or root cause behind the Shield.

To the actual inhabitants of Wraithaven, however, the impregnable, brooding peaks have meant consummate peace and sanctuary for over two thousand years. While the rest of humanity cowered under fear-spawned myth, Wraithians lived with fact-based reality. That reality, despite its splendor and seclusion from humanity’s propensity to wage war, was not without danger. That many large, territorial-driven predators roamed every province of Wraithaven answered why no Wraithian went unarmed beyond the confines of town or village. By habit, Taggart and Alina wore powerful long bows strung across their chests, while scabbarded Dai-ryu long swords and quivers of arrows hung at the ready from their saddle horns.

Here at Taggart’s favorite spot though, their weapons held no more significance than the boots they wore. The road seemed to enjoy itself as it headed for Falcon’s Aerie twelve miles away. Travelers felt invited to pause before continuing. The view was a kaleidoscope of colors and textures.

One sensed that same soul-deep insignificance one feels when standing upon a desolate ocean beach, knowing without any doubt that the crashing breakers have always been, and will always be. The eternal, jagged slopes here contrasted as much with these temporary human beings as they did with the temporal forests that knelt in homage before them.

Stately emperor spruces disperse in random formations throughout the mid to lower slopes. Aloof as the crags, they seemed like disciplined, warrior monks who take their roles as valley sentinels seriously. Autumn winds teased the riders with fleeting scents of horse and spruce and forest loam, but the down-swept, silver-green branches of the great sentinels barely moved.

Contrasting such staid elegance, deciduous hordes erupted across the valleys in brilliant splashes of colors. At times, the flame-red maples and golden-leafed birches brazenly trespassed in small stands near their aloof elders. At other times, they crowded the great ones in mischievous, uncountable numbers. They waved leaves of flamboyant crimson, sun yellow and pumpkin orange in even the slightest breeze.

I like the birches the best, Taggart exclaimed, as the road swept near a large stand of the peeling, white-barked trees. The delicate golden leaves waved in the late autumn breezes like a billion delicate handkerchiefs. I should write poetry about such places and events, my lady, he said, enjoying the scenery immensely.

And what would you write, love?

I think I would pen that each of these exquisite leaves seems to cheer travelers on, as if we were their personal parade.

And? she prompted.

"And, that leaves ticking against their neighbors sound like a million elfin hands applauding the passerby."

A splendid analogy, love, Alina said, but I think mallets and chisels fit your hands better than a feather quill might.

These? he asked, holding his veiny, calloused hands palms up with mock innocence.

Those, Alina grinned back.

Even against his tall, rangy frame and broad shoulders, Alina felt his hands seemed out of scale. As if the Creator had meant them for an even larger man.

When they gripped mallet and chisel to liberate Taggart’s latest vision from the raw stone blocks, they seemed to exude life of their own. When formed into knife hands, or hammer fists during Nung-Cha practice, they became focused weapons, and had, in fact, been lethal on five occasions against marauding highwaymen during their two-year Picket tour-of-duty in Cathmore. But her hands had been just as lethal during that tour, despite her preference to create exquisite tapestries with them upon her loom.

For Taggart, broken nails, ridges of yellowed callus, and countless scars from flying shards of marble and granite had taken their toll over the decades, but when he touched her, the gentle artist always restrained the warrior within. During a Reading they unrolled the Orbit Scrolls with a reverent touch that set the tone of the event more eloquently than words ever could. For Alina, Taggart’s hands exemplified the complex nature of the man. In truth, the hands of each served two masters—the artist’s outwardly expressed accomplishments, while the warrior’s deadliness was hidden and restrained by internal shadows.

We should visit Mairin this time, Alina said, changing the subject. It’s been six weeks now.

Taggart grinned a wide oh really? at her. With a mock pout, she slapped at his shoulder. Any time spent away from their grown children, and especially the grandchildren, bordered on disaster from Alina’s perspective, which often meant trading quips with Taggart over the subject. In truth, Taggart missed chasing about with the little ones as much as Alina did.

Their eldest son, forty-four-year-old Mannis, and his thirty-four-year-old wife, Caleigh, had four children: two sons, Bowyn and Devlyn, age seven and ten, and a daughter-and-son set of twins, Bredon and Donia, age four. Even by Wraithian standards, the couple had married late. Mannis had completed his stonemason apprenticeship under Taggart by the age of twenty, yet, despite an obvious talent for intricate stone detailing, he never acquired Taggart’s passion to liberate visions imprisoned within blocks of marble and granite.

With Taggart and Alina’s reluctant blessing, Mannis had sought a mariner’s life instead, serving aboard several coastal freighters, and ultimately as the captain of a swordbill schooner. After six years at sea, Mannis returned to his landlocked birthplace, Scimitar. In time, he found the true passion of his life: Caleigh, their four lively children, and the two-thousand-acre cattle ranch and pear orchards they had built with their own hands.

Their second son, thirty-nine-year-old Baran, and his thirty-four-year-old wife Leah, Caleigh’s twin sister, had three children: daughter Tyra, age twelve, son Maccus, age six, and two-year-old daughter Brina. Like Mannis, Baran, Leah and their children had carved their twenty-two hundred acres of cattle ranch and peach orchards out of a remote, mountain-surrounded valley in the spectacular Spear Blade range.

Being the oldest grandchild, Tyra had benefited from six years of equestrian advice from Taggart, whereas her sibling Maccus had just begun his lessons. He had taught her to ride and shoot the recurved Wraithian longbow. In turn, Tyra had taken to the sport of mounted archery as if born to it, winning six straight tournaments in various age groups. Having just turned twelve, she gave special meaning to this particular Reading. Tyra would be Taggart and Alina’s first grandchild to be initiated into Scroll Night.

As Alina had pointed out, they owed their third child, thirty-five-year-old Mairin a visit. Mairin and her thirty-seven-year-old husband, Edan, had a son, Fynn, age seven, and a daughter, Oriana, age four. Both were primarily academy teachers but also held roles as survival instructors at Falcon’s Aerie’s Central Academy. They lived just outside the village on a small vineyard of over one hundred acres.

For the prior four weeks, Taggart and Alina had conducted three separate Readings for the villages of Raven Creek, Jannock’s Falls, and Torchwood. Now they returned to the fourth of six total villages in their four-hundred-square-mile SOR (Sector of Responsibility). Timing had been poor during their last trip to Falcon’s Aerie. Week-long summer maneuvers for the Falcon militia had taken Mairin, Edan, and the grandchildren to the rugged Black Creek Pass area twenty-three miles distant.

Each summer, village militias engaged in mandatory war games against neighboring villages. Over the years, the exercises familiarize local militias with terrain surrounding at least ten other villages, thus preventing confusion if called upon to defend a given region.

Post autumn harvest, larger winter operations combined company-sized village militias into battalion-sized groups of four to six companies. Sometimes lasting two weeks, the operations pitted units of one province against those of a neighboring province.

Maneuvers so late in the year extended terrain familiarity and tested the toughness of each man, woman, and child. Night or day, in waist-deep snow or in powder barely dusting the forest floor, the large units ran, and outflanked, and defended positions. Mountain-hardened senior commanders, most aged 70s to even 90s, pushed the units to their physical limits.

Warming fires were rare. Shelters were canvas lean-tos, or wind barricades of snow blocks if the snow was deep enough. Food is jerked venison or beef, dried peaches, apples, raisins and nuts.

And always the units run, covering mile after mile in areas of light snow, or bulling their way through waist-deep drifts by breaking trail for each other, until exhaustion of the point runner gave the next person in line his or her turn.

The extreme conditions toughened Wraithians, instilling the mindset to overcome any adversary no matter the severity of the environment. To participate in the winter maneuvers was an honor, a test of self. To be too young, too old, or too infirm to wargame was considered personally demeaning.

For over two thousand years, the rhythm of Wraithaven has been thus: First come the short, local maneuvers of late summer. Autumn Readings for those reaching their twelfth harvest immediately follow, with communal celebrating of the adulthood transition. Harvests and preparation for the winter maneuvers follow. Then, due to the brutal Wraithaven winters, and the distances between many homesteads and village schools, the week preceding the winter maneuvers also signals the end of the school year. During this week, books and Learning Duties re assigned to the children for completion during deep winter in preparation for the spring tests and grade promotion for the new school year.

Learning Duty assignments become collectively shared responsibilities for families. Honor and duty perpetually link personal and family conduct.

As for Taggart and Alina, this last Reading of the year at Falcon’s Aerie would be as bittersweet as are all last Readings.

All Readers experience seasonal depressions, for the gloom of winter signals a twelve-month wait until the next autumn Readings. For the Kaynes, Tyra’s presence would sweeten this year’s event, certainly, but the pride and contradictory disquiet of watching a child cross one of Life’s thresholds will be in attendance as well.

Duty, however, would allow the Kaynes little time for melancholy. Within weeks after this Reading, Taggart would lead the six-company-strong unit, Scimitar’s First Combat Battalion, in the grueling winter games as commander. This year, they would face an aggressive and wily opponent, Dark Forest’s Third Battalion from the neighboring province of North Gale.

Alina would command First Battalion’s Healer Corps, a unit of highly skilled medical specialists who tended to be very busy during the harsh conditions of the maneuvers.

3

Playground

Three miles outside of Falcon’s Aerie, Taggart said, Let’s take Lookout Trail. Maybe we’ll get lucky.

Ample