Chapter 56
"Since we already have a fire built, I think we should just make camp here." Mathias said. He was bent over a small rack he was busy designing with sticks and fastening them together with pieces of thin rope so that Jamin and Taddeo could have something to hang their clothes on to dry near the fire.
Tristan glanced up at the sky. It had been mainly overcast all day and only now were a few weak beams of sunlight breaking through the clouds. "I don't know." He said in a doubtful tone. "If it rained again during the night, we'd all be in trouble then."
Taddeo and Jamin sat by the fire, each one with a blanket draped over their shoulders. Both of them looked cold and exhausted.
"I vote to stay here." Taddeo said.
"Me too." Jamin added. He'd never been much of a talker and he'd said even less since his incident with the creek crossing.
"It sure would be awful to wake up in the night and all of us get soaked then." Fira said. She poked her finger into the water she had warming in a small pot over some coals she'd raked to the side of the fire. "Ouch. This is definitely hot enough now." She looked up at Jamin. "I know you said everything in your pack would be ruined, but I think you'll find some things still usable. Now how about some of that tea you were always bartering for back at Canyon City?"
Jamin lifted his eyebrows in a hopeful manner.
Fira smiled. "Come on. I know you brought some with you. You like your daily tea way too much to have left all of it behind."
"Hot tea would help warm me from the inside, I think." Taddeo said. "I sure hope we can salvage enough for at least two wonderful steaming mugs full." He turned to Jamin. "You would share, right?"
Jamin looked alarmed. "Well, of course! After all you sacrificed to help me, that's the least I could do for you!"
Tristan retrieved Jamin's water logged pack and set it down next to the other boy. "We've got to go through all this anyway and get things dried out."
"So I guess this means we're staying then?" Fira said.
Tristan paused and looked at Lotus, hoping to get some kind of indication from her on what they should do. Stay or find shelter? He thought as he stared at the struthiomimus.
Lotus twitched her tail, sniffed the air, and looked up at the sky.
Fira snapped her fingers in front of Tristan's face. "Hey, you." She said, trying to get his attention. "I asked you a question. It seems you're mind is always elsewhere anymore."
Tristan turned his attention back to the girl, irritated because of the interruption of his thought process with Lotus. As a result, his lips tightened and his eyes squinted in annoyance as he looked at Fira.
"Whoa." She said suddenly. "And people always say girls are the ones with crazy mood swings."
"I was in the middle of…something." Tristan said. "You interrupted."
"Did I?" Fira gave him a skeptical look. "As far as I could tell, you weren't saying a word." She looked over at Lotus.
The creature's eyes were focused on Tristan.
Stay and make shelter.
Tristan turned his head away from Fira and looked at the dinosaur again, his eyes wide with surprise. The dinosaur's answer came through to him after all. "We should stay here." He said. "But we should also make a shelter just in case it rains again. I don't think it will, but it'll keep the cold dew off of us at least."
Fira crossed her arms and looked back and forth between Lotus and Tristan. "I just don't understand."
"Me neither." Mathias piped up. "I don't understand when Tristan became the appointed decision maker."
Tristan rolled his eyes, deciding to ignore the other boy for the moment. Instead, he placed a hand on the knife in his belt, making sure it was still there, before he started off into the woods again. "I'm going to get some stuff to make a shelter." He said over his shoulder. Lotus scampered after him.
Fira was still standing there both puzzled and perturbed. "Did you guys see how he and Lotus were looking at each other again? They didn't say anything or make any sounds and yet it appeared that they had communicated some how."
"He's probably just trying to get you all confused." Mathias replied. "I mean, he never even went to Treetown and that's where a lot of training in dinosaur communication takes place. Also, he had to take communication skill lessons from Bix back at Canyon City. That ought to tell you something." His last words were swathed in sarcasm.
Taddeo rubbed his hands together near the flames. "It tells me something." He said, unable to stay out of the conversation. "It tells me that regardless of not having spent time at Treetown, he apparently has learned something somewhere, and whether you want to admit it or not, Mathias, he's got this growing connection with saurians. I think it's amazing and valuable. If you wouldn't give him such a hard time so much, he might come out of his shell enough to actually let us know how he does it."
Mathias just frowned in response and turned his full attention to the project he was working on while Jamin found a soggy package of tea from his pack and handed it over to Fira with a shrug.
By the time Tristan and Lotus returned, Taddeo and Jamin were sipping on hot tea while Mathias was busying himself with hanging their wet clothes on the makeshift rack he'd made, placing it near the fire to dry.
As Tristan started trying to construct a shelter, Mathias soon took over, showing off his wilderness survival skills he'd learned from Treetown. Tristan backed off finally, feeling out of his league at the moment and not really enjoying the competition with Mathias anyway. Clearly the other boy was doing better at this job than what he would've come up with.
Lotus and Fira assisted Mathias with the shelters while Taddeo busied himself with concocting some kind of soup, using his little travel pot, cooking over the hot coals raked out from the fire. "I don't know about the rest of you." He said as he gathered his supplies, "But Jamin and I need hot food tonight. Even though I drank that tea, I'm still chilled from that icy water. It seems like I'll never get fully warm again."
The other cadets, eager for hot food, each offered something from their food supplies to contribute to Taddeo's soup.
"It better be good." Mathias warned the older boy. "Because we're all taking a risk offering some of our valuable food stores for this."
Taddeo wasn't even fazed by the Mathias's doubtful expression. "No worries. I know what I'm doing. It's going to be fantastic."
While everyone else was preoccupied, Tristan helped Jamin sort through his wet pack and tried to salvage what they could.
"What's this?" Tristan asked, as he pulled out a soggy bundle of papers. There was writing on them, but the ink ran together, blurring most of the words. As he untied the string holding them together he managed to read a few legible words: Dear Elora…Tristan looked up to see Jamin giving him a startled look. "You were writing to Elora?" Tristan said, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.
Jamin grabbed the bundle from Tristan. "Yeah." He grumbled. "They're ruined now." He said darkly. "I was wasting my time anyway. She always liked you better."
Tristan shook his head. "Don't say that. When we worked together, she often talked about you. Whatever time you spent with her must've stood out to her."
"Really?" Jamin said, but his tone did not sound hopeful.
"Yes, really." Tristan said, trying to encourage the other boy.
Jamin looked down at the papers for a moment, sifting through them. He did not smile. He looked up again, eyes squinting in frustration while he shoved the papers back into Tristan's hands. "Here, you can lay these out to dry and then we'll just use them later for fire starter."
Tristan felt bad for the other boy. As he and Jamin pulled one thing after another out of the pack, trying to decided what was salvageable and what could still be usable after drying out, Jamin's expression went from dark to dismal. Tristan realized that Jamin was not just discouraged simply over the ruined letters, he was discouraged about the whole journey they were making. He tried to think up some words of encouragement, but couldn't come up with anything that didn't sound lame. Most of the boy's food was ruined, his bed roll was wet, as well as his extra pair of clothes, and all of his other traveling supplies.
"The rest of us will share our food with you." Tristan offered.
"We'll probably run out though before we can reach the first settlement."
"We'll survive. You'll see."
"I don't know. It's only going to get colder and we need warmer clothes."
"Well get those at the first settlement as well."
"What if it's too cold before we reach it?" Jamin went on, shivering again as he thought about it. "Lotus warned us of early cold weather. We weren't prepared for that when we first set out. We were supposed to make it to the first settlement to make our transition to warmer things, and we still haven't made it there yet. This first part of the trip is taking too long. First the rain, and now my stupid mishap with the water crossing."
Tristan wasn't used to hearing Jamin have so much to say at once and what he had to say was depressing. He didn't know what to do for him other than just be there and listen and help him lay things out to dry.
Darkness soon settled over the forest and with it came cold air which drew everyone closer to the fire. The others were finished now with the makeshift shelters, having piled everyone's supplies beneath them. They'd all agreed that it would be better to sleep out in the open near the fire and only squeeze into the shelters as a last resort. Taddeo was stirring the soup, tasting it every now and then, but kept telling the others that it wasn't ready yet.
"I think you're just trying to sneak a bigger portion for yourself." Fira teased as she watched Taddeo tasting it again.
"No, it's just that soup takes a long time to make. If we keep pushing at a fast pace on this journey, we won't have hardly any opportunities to make it. Since we stopped early today, I figured we might as well take advantage of the opportunity."
Fira was hanging out near Taddeo, watching him make the soup and asking him questions about it, much to Taddeo's delight and Mathias's disappointment. After awhile, Mathias had an idea. He pulled his dragon flute from his pack and decided to play a tune on it. Everyone listened to the slow piping, each one mesmerized by the sounds. Even Tristan couldn't help but feel soothed by the music, but he wasn't going to let Mathias know that. Lotus soon sidled up to Mathias, cooing, trying to harmonize with the tones of the dragon flute.
It wasn't long before Fira left Taddeo to tend to the soup alone and she sat down next to Mathias, much to Taddeo's disappointment and to Mathias's delight. "Show me how to play." She said, her eyes matching the golden flecks in the firelight.
Mathias eagerly placed the flute into her hands, leaning close, showing her where to place her fingers and telling her how to blow into the mouth piece.
Tristan winced at the sour sounds coming from the flute now. He hadn't realized just how talented Mathias was with the instrument until he heard someone else attempting it.
Taddeo soon announced that the soup was done and everyone eagerly brought their travel mugs to him, watching in anticipation as he ladled out their portion. It had been torture having to smell the delicious aroma wafting from the pot for the past two hours.
The soup turned out to be delicious and they all made sure to eat every last drop. Tristan told Taddeo that instead of becoming a skybax rider, he needed to work in his parent's restaurant. "Thanks, but I've worked far too long now with Rider training to change occupations now." Taddeo said. "Besides, I could never give up my bond with Aerial. She's the most amazing skybax there is."
"No." Mathias argued playfully. "Windsong is the most amazing skybax there is."
Fira lowered the dragon flute momentarily. "Swift outshines them all." She said in a matter of fact tone, then resumed her awful piping.
Jamin shook his head. "You're all wrong. Grey Mist is the best."
Tristan longed to tease and tell them that he had all of them topped with the fact that he had two skybax partners, Twilight and Dark Wing. But he held back, remembering that any mention of Dark Wing brought up too much controversy from the others, specifically Mathias. Before anyone could pull him into the fun jesting and the skybax reminiscing, Tristan busied himself with preparing his pallet near the fire and crawling beneath his blanket. As soon as he lay down, listing to the crackling of the fire and everyone else's quiet chatter and Fira's wobbly learning notes being piped into the cold night air, he drifted off to sleep.
Tristan awoke some time later, fighting his way out of another nightmare about falling. He gasped and shook with fear, sitting up fast and looking about wildly. His blanket lay wadded up next to him. He must've kicked it off somehow during his sleep. Cold air nipped his nose and he wasn't sure if he was trembling just from the nightmare or from the cold air as well. He looked toward the fire, realizing that it had died down low. Trembling, he got up, stirred the fire, and added more wood to it. He picked up his blanket and shook it, then draped it over his shoulders and huddled by the fire until his shaking calmed down.
As he stared into the fire, worry about the nightmare reflected in his eyes. He suspected it had come due to the events of the day, crossing the creeks, worrying about falling, and then Jamin's close call. It was hard to come to terms with the fact that he was terrified that once he returned to Canyon City, he wouldn't have the courage to climb back into a skybax saddle again. It seemed like every time he had the nightmare about falling, it seemed like the dread climbed up a notch higher. If that wasn't enough, the memory of the nocturnal skybax attack made things worse. He wanted to go back and help Dark Wing and Twilight try to establish peace, but after that first attempt, it was hard to think about going back. Bix was right. Attempts for peace were not without sacrifice and he was beginning to believe that he might not have the courage to go that far again.
Little did Tristan know that Mathias had awakened this time to Tristan's gasps and terrified moaning. He pretended to still be sleeping, but he cracked an eye open, watching as Tristan got up and tended to the fire. He could see how disturbed the other boy was. It was one of the first times Mathias truly saw a weak side to Tristan, but instead of pouncing on the opportunity to give him a hard time about it, he realized that he actually felt a bit sorry for the other boy.
Tristan looked truly scared for awhile as he huddled near the fire with wide, sleepless eyes, no doubt reflecting over terrors which he didn't want to share with anyone else. Mathias figured that it probably had something to do with what had happened that night he'd arrived at Canyon City on the back of a skybax, and in terrible shape. Tristan had never openly shared with Mathias what had happened, but he'd picked up on details from others, learning that Tristan had been attacked for some reason by another skybax and for whatever reason, Dark Wing, the supposedly rogue nocturnal skybax, had helped him back to Canyon City. Where Twilight played a role in all this still remained a mystery to Mathias.
It suddenly occurred to Mathias that Tristan had incredible courage to still be determinedly on the path to becoming a rider even after that horrible incident. What made this guy hold on for so long during training? And why was he dabbling in the dangerous business with pterosaurs that were nowhere near friendly terms with humans? Was it really for the greater good, or because he was rebellious and drawn to a violent side of nature?
Tristan sat still, watching the mesmerizing leaping of the flames and listening to the crackling sound of the fire mixed with the distant sound of the creek water rushing nearby. He was just now feeling calm enough to lie back down and go to sleep when a new sound reached his ears. It was a strange, howling tone, somewhat like the wind in the canyons, yet still not quite like anything he'd ever heard before. He raised his head and looked around at the surrounding dark woods, hoping that whatever had made that sound was not carnivorous.
Mathias heard it too and decided to get up. He rolled over and staggered over to the fire where Tristan sat and leaned toward the flames, warming himself. For some reason, he wanted to be nice for once to the other boy, but couldn't figure out how to go about it.
"Dire wolves." He said. "I'm sure of it."
Tristan threw a wary glance Mathias, thinking that he had only bothered to come over so that he could brag about his knowledge and try and scare him. "You think they'll bother us?" He said, cautiously.
Mathias shook his head. "Probably not. There are too many of us. But it would be a different story for someone who was alone."
Tristan couldn't hide the chill which traveled down his spine. The howling tones sounded spooky, and it was difficult to determine which direction they were coming from. He didn't want to appear scared in front of the other boy though, so he stood and said, "Well, I think I've about warmed myself back up again. I'm going back to sleep."
Mathias was left alone by the fire, realizing that he'd done a terrible job at attempting to be civil to his rival.
