I pulled the arrow as far back as I could, while still being able to aim.
The tree acting as my target was roughly twenty paces away. It was a thick tree with low hanging branches. The hunters of the village had used this exact tree as a target for generations. It also served as a test for the young boys that were born as the third son.
The church of Arica had very strict regulations for small farming villages like the one I lived in. The firstborn was supposed to overtake the business of the father, the second born should act as a reserve in case the heir died. If nothing happened to the heir, the second son should travel to the next city at the edge of the human kingdom, where they were going to colonize new land and he was going to join one of the expeditions.
The training of the third son was entirely different from the other two, instead of learning about farming and superstitious crap. The third son was always going to train in basic combat and with bows from an early age. After finishing their basic training, they could call themselves hunters, but their job did not only entail hunting for the settlements. The job also entailed guarding the village and they conscripted as troops instead of the farmers in case of a war.
“This system was put in place to support the rapid expansion, this kingdom is probably experiencing. While at the same time ensuring that they have sufficient defensive strength.” I thought while calming my shaking hands.
Arica is the goddess of fertility, which is why she has the most prominent altar in the temple of our village.
“The people of this kingdom seem to have a large pantheon of gods. Considering the temple has an altar devoted to a god of travelers, and a bunch of other gods with minor roles.”
Letting go of the arrow, I watched as it hit the middle of the tree and fell to the ground.
I walked over and checked it for damage. The fletching so worn, due to my continued training it fell apart in my hand.
“Now I need to wait until Walter wakes up... damn.”
Hunters in training only practiced with a single arrow, to teach them not to be wasteful with the thing that stands between them and death. If the arrow broke, they had to request a new one.
The person I had to ask for new arrows was the only smith in the village of Ascot. He lived together with his wife and sons at the edge of the forest, close to the little stream that emerged from the forest and drove the watermill next to the smithy.
Walter was a man of few words. He preferred the universal language of grunting. Sometimes I had a sneaking suspicion that he was deaf, but tried to hide it by never having a decent conversation.
The training ground was close to the smithy, it was right beside the stream that also drove the mill.
I collected the little iron pot I had used to cook water from the stream. The water had cooled and I used it to fill my waterskin. The rest of the lukewarm water I used to wash my face.
The other people in the village made fun of me for carrying the iron pot with me. Especially after they found out that, I used it to pre-heat my drinking water. Most people in the village tried to avoid drinking water altogether and made beer from one of the plants cultivated near the village.
My father had tried to get me to drink some of his homemade beer on my big brothers tenth birthday, when I smelled it, I got a very bad feeling and refused. I got a similar feeling whenever I tried to drink the water directly from the stream. One night I got the weird idea to boil the water before drinking it, since then I lost the feeling of imminent danger.
Making my way across the plain, looking at the different flowers in full bloom, I thought about one of my weird dreams. In the dream, a woman with nearly black skin fed me and played with me. Never before had I seen such a woman in my life, at first I thought it was one of the demons, the priest always talked about, but she had none of the telltale signs of a demon. She had neither horns, weird eyes nor inhuman appendages.
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Whenever she appeared in my dreams, I felt sadness and a little fear.
I reached the mill; the door to the main building had a chair beside it, for costumers and family members. There was nobody around yet, due to the early time of day, so I sat down and waited for Walter to wake up on his own.
Nothing is worse than a grumpy smith is, and considering why I was here, I really should keep from ruining his sleep. He came back from buying materials yesterday night. From what I managed to figure out, the distance from Ascot to the port city of Rockfell is at least one and a half days of travel on foot. Walter had to pull the materials he purchased back with his little wagon. The people of ascot had no way to buy an animal to do menial tasks for them, so Walter had to do everything himself. His oldest son Scott was still too young to help him.
“The little shit should be helping his father in the smithy instead of fooling around with the village heads daughter. I’ve been training since I turned four years old, and that idiot is nearly eight.”
My mother and father gave me a little bow for my fourth birthday, after talking with some of the hunters they told me, they considered it the start of my training. Before my parents gave me a bow, I had no idea what I was supposed to do when I grew up. All the other children seemed to be doing some kind of training, while I was just doing nothing all day. Later I found out that, it was a normal thing for kids below five years of age, and that I was the weird one.
When I started my training archery, I was barely able to use the bow. I had keep trying for an entire month until I finally became able to shoot far enough to hit the tree at the shooting range, from an acceptable distance.
In hindsight, my parents probably gave me a bow when I was so young, because they wanted me to give up on becoming a hunter, at least until I was old enough. When I kept going to train, mom and dad stopped, paying attention to me and even actively avoided me. At the time, I thought it was due to my failure to live up to their expectations.
When I turned six years of age, I asked Walter to reinforce the front of my bow with Iron, to improve the strength. I was too small to use the large longbows the hunters used, but the bow my parents gave me, had gotten too easy for me. To the point where I was afraid to break it.
Walter told me he had never tried to reinforce such a small bow before.
That was the moment I realized why the villagers looked at me weirdly when I walked by, and why the other children in the village kept away from me. Up until then, I thought it was due to me being born as my parent’s fourth son.
I slowly dozed off in the chair, training at night was an essential part of becoming a hunter, but it still took a toll.
***
The sound of metal scraping against a hard surface penetrated my dazed mind. Opening my eyes and rubbing the sleep out, I looked towards the door of the main building.
Walter walked out and continued towards the latrine behind the house. I decided not to bother him yet, for obvious reasons.
When he came back, he noticed me, and strode towards me. He stopped and looked down at me, other people might mistake his actions as threatening, but I knew this was his normal behavior so I ignored it.
Holding the broken arrow out in front of me, I looked up and said; “My arrow broke, can I have a new one?”
“Harrumph”
He grabbed the arrow from my hand and walked towards the forge. I decided to interpret the grunt as “yes”, and followed him.
We entered the building with the forge; Walter walked over to the anvil and used it to break the arrowhead off, before throwing it in a box with scrap metal. He took the rest of the arrow and dumped it into the cold forge. One of the walls had a row of low barrels standing along it. Walter rummaged around in three first barrels, until he pulled a single arrow out. The arrow was far smaller than all the arrows he had pulled out previously. He handed me the arrow and dismissed me with a nod.
I lowered my head in thanks and walked out the door.