The rider was startled and quickly drew his sword, when a furry creature silently emerged from the tree line into the tall grass of the plains, appearing a short distance in front of his horse. But as he drew his weapon, the animal halted and crouched low, now barely discernible among the tall blades of green. “Strange”, he thought, “No ordinary fur-backed creature would recognize the significance of a sword being drawn.” He quickly scanned his surroundings, but in the brief moment he took his eyes off of the animal’s location, it had disappeared without a sound. The man spurred his horse cautiously forward, to the spot where he had last seen the creature, in hopes of finding a set of tracks, but none were visible. He leaned closer to the ground for a better look, and in that instant, something caused his mount to suddenly go wild. Expert horseman that he was, the rider remained in the saddle longer than anyone should have been able to, especially considering the position he was in when the bucking began. But, eventually the man could no longer hold on to both the horse and his sword, and refusing to relinquish his weapon, he allowed himself to fall. A controlled fall would be much safer than a haphazard crash to the ground, after all. He was, however, unfortunate in his timing. The horse spun rapidly in the same instant, its haunches slamming into his side.

The man awoke a few minutes later to find two deeply inquisitive gray eyes wordlessly peering into his own bright green orbs from an uncomfortably close distance. The man cleared his throat, “Hello there, little one. Where are your parents?” and taking a look around he added, “…and where is my horse?”

A quiet, almost strained reply followed, “My mother is dead. My father is gone, too.” Lawk’s voice felt strange to him after going so long without uttering a word.

A sympathetic look came upon the man’s ordinarily hardened visage, and he spoke softly. “You are alone?”

“No. You are here, and the horse will come when I call her.”

“When you call her? Am I to be the prisoner of a ten-year-old?”

“No.” Lawk thought for a second. “I’m eight.”

The rider let out a chuckle as he whistled to his horse. There was no response. He tried again, but still no sound of hooves came. By all appearances, the horse was gone. “I thought you said my horse was nearby.”

“She is.” Lawk then peered into the woods where he knew the horse was hidden, meeting her eyes and signaling for her to come, in his own way. The horse emerged from the tree line almost immediately. The rider was speechless at this eight-year-old boy who had somehow commandeered his trusted mount’s loyalty in the brief time he was unconscious. He climbed back into the saddle as Lawk asked, “Do you have food?” As a reply, the man reached down and heaved the boy into the saddle just in front of him and began the ride to his cabin. Lawk, sensing no hostility in the same way an animal knows when it is or is not in danger (another lesson of the wilds), did not protest. And, the two carried on in companionable silence, which the boy appreciated. It had been far too long since he had last spoken to a person, and he had no desire to become chatty now. The wilds had taught him, instead, to be silent and observant. He idly wondered if this man had spent some time in the wilds. He seemed very observant and appeared to have no inclination to strike up a conversation.

***

“John, who is this cute bundle of furs beside you?” inquired a sweet, high-pitched voice from the front porch of the quaint log cabin, as they approached.

“He is a lost boy, Stace. His parents are gone. I found him near the edge of the woods.”

“Well come along, then, there’s venison stew waiting,” said Stace as she ushered them inside.

“Again? It was good the first hundred times I had it, but it’s getting old,” grumbled John.

“I could say the same about you, but you don’t see me complaining,” came the reply with a wink.

“Yea, but then you would have no one to force that delicious stew upon day in and day out,” he shot back with a cheeky grin, while wrapping his arms around his wife. In a spontaneous display of tenderness, he sweetly kissed her lips. But, the moment was quickly broken by a quick, firm grab of a handful of Stace’s plump backside.

As if they both suddenly recalled there was a young, fur clad newcomer in their midst, they quickly ceased their playful greeting and turned their gazes down near their feet, to find Lawk had disappeared. They looked up to find the boy was quietly sitting at the hardwood kitchen table, feet dangling from a chair, rapidly downing a bowl of stew. The couple chuckled softly and joined him.

“He was silent the entire ride over, save for a few oddly practical questions for a boy his age. Who ever heard of an eight-year-old alone at the edge of the woods, wrapped in furs, and asking about game and resources on the plains? I fear he may have been alone a lot longer than any boy his age should be. The fact that he has survived alone at all is astonishing.”

“Yes, and he sure did help himself to that stew rather quickly. I wonder if we’ll find a skeleton under all those trappings?” Stace remarked with concern. Looking the boy up and down again, she continued, “I’ll have to give those furs a good cleaning, while you get the boy washed up. I’m sure the folks in town will have a good enough laugh at the poor thing as is. He looks like the world’s smallest trapper, when you can see his face, and like some strange, furry creature when you can’t. The least we can do is clean him up until we can get him into some proper clothing.”

When they had all finished eating, John led the boy to the tub in the washroom, to strip out of his furs. It was then that the man noticed the unique hunting knife and reached for it. “You won’t be needing that in here, boy. You’re…” His voice trailed off as the boy quickly retreated back and gripped the handle of his knife tightly. But, this wasn’t what gave him pause. John thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, and he rubbed at them. When he reopened them, there was nothing unusual about the boy aside from his being half-naked and gripping a hunting knife, the likes of which he had never seen. “I could have sworn…no.” he thought, “I must be tired from ranging.”

“Alright then, keep the knife, if it makes you feel safer, but you won’t have cause for needing it around Stace and me.”

***

Lawk couldn’t sleep that night. It was the first time in over 3 years that he was not out in woods and the first time ever he had met any people other than his own family and his attackers, if you can call those dark murderers people. His mind was racing. A part of him wanted to run back to the woods, but the boy knew it was time to move on. He had determined long ago that he would find his family, if they still lived. They had to live, he decided. And, he would put an end to his mother’s murderers, too. The intelligent boy knew ambling around the woods, with only the animals for company, would accomplish none of this. He had no clue where to start, but Lawk figured he could find someone to teach him to fight and go from there. He knew what he’d learned in the woods would certainly help him, but he was also well aware those skills would not be enough. They were a start, but the uncommonly wise boy knew he had a lot of growing and training to do, before he could stand a chance against fully-grown and experienced enemies.

A soft rustle of grass broke him from his thoughts. Living alone in the woods, Lawk had made a point of always maintaining awareness of his surroundings, even in his sleep. He was sure to develop that particular talent after finding a snake curled up against him one morning upon waking. The barely audible rustle came again, but closer. Lawk instinctively called upon the strange calm, which he was now well acquainted with, and the enhanced vision that accompanied it. Someone was approaching the cabin. The boy walked silently into John and Stace’s room and tapped the seemingly gruff, yet caring man on the shoulder.

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***

John awoke with a start. All he saw were two shining silver eyes peering at him from his bedside. He thought he was dreaming for a moment, but then the boy spoke barely audibly, “Someone is coming.” John snapped out of his reverie and moved to grab his short sword. No man with good intentions would be way out here, on the outskirts of Laramea, approaching his little cabin in the middle of the night. He quietly moved to the side of the door, ready to ambush the intruder. Moments later, the door was cautiously pushed open by a gloved hand gripping a dagger. Even with his eyes adjusted to the darkness, it was difficult for John to make out much more than a glint of steel. The intruder’s dark attire hid him well, but there was only one door; so, John raised his sword and took a forceful, downward swing, at where he knew the man’s arm must be.

The intruder, no stranger to the dark, and having trained his ears to detect even the slightest of movements, heard the barely audible swish of the sword cutting through the air toward his outstretched limb. Instead of retracting his arm reflexively, the trained assassin made a quick, sideways thrust with his dagger, barely catching John on the shoulder, and throwing off the attack. In one quick movement, the experienced swordsman retreated a step and brought his weapon up in a blind parry, expecting a follow-up attack. Instead, he heard a gasp of surprise, a gurgling curse, and a thud as the assassin dropped to the ground lifeless. Once again, John saw those same silver eyes, which he initially thought he had dreamt up, staring back at him through the darkness. The ranger knew what had happened, but he could not believe it. He was grateful but more than a little concerned.

Stace, on the other hand, hadn’t even stirred in her slumber, probably dreaming of all the possibilities that came with the lost little boy entering her life. She longed to be a mother, but as much as she and John had tried, they could not conceive after their first child, the one they had lost early in the pregnancy. While John was out ranging, their house had been broken into. Stace had suffered a knife to the belly and was left for dead during the robbery. That is why John had built the little cabin so far out on the plains. It was exactly in the middle of the area he was ranging. He could return every night and know that Stace was safe. But, John wasn’t so sure of that safety anymore. If it weren’t for this unusual boy with the silvery eyes, both he and Stace would likely be dead right now. It is an odd thing owing your life to an eight-year-old, he thought. Just then, the boy spoke, “Are you okay?”

“I should be asking you the same. I think we have a lot to talk about in the morning, little one, but for now I had better get this mess cleaned up.”

***

Upon waking the next morning, Stace immediately noticed the large stain, where the pool of blood had been the night before. Worried, she shook John awake and rushed into the room where Lawk slept. The boy was gone. Frantically, she cried out his name. A moment later, as calmly and as silently as ever, the boy appeared in the doorway to the cabin, gripping the handle of the opthenium knife, which, as always, was tucked in his belt. John lumbered into the room behind his wife at that same moment, exhausted after a sleepless night. “Everything is okay, Stace. We just had an unwelcome visitor last night. But, he has been dealt with.”

Stace shrieked a frenzy of verbalized thoughts in reply, “What?! Who?! So it is a blood stain?! Your shoulder is bandaged! How did I not-“

“Stace,” John cut in, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her to face him completely, “we are all okay.”

“But the boy-” she began again.

“He is fine. We actually owe him more than a little thanks.” He recounted the night’s events to his somewhat frantic wife.

Once John had finished calming Stace, they began questioning Lawk about his past. And, somehow just knowing these were good, honest people, the boy told them everything, even his plans for the future. Stace was stunned, her jaw dropping more than once throughout the tale, but John had expected something of the sort after what he had seen, or hadn’t seen, the boy do the night before. When Lawk came to the part about the calmness that was always at his disposal and his ability to see in the dark, John and Stace were both in awe. John mentioned the silvery glow the boy’s eyes gave off in the night.

Lawk had seen his father’s eyes glow like the moon, and had assumed as much about his own. More than once he had been noticed by animals he was hunting at night. The uncommonly intelligent boy had learned to stop cutting through the dark as strongly with his own eyes, when he needed to go unnoticed. He learned to maintain enough vision that he could make out his prey and surroundings, but not so much that he was spotted. Beyond revealing his abilities to always see as much or as little as he needed, to call upon calm control at his discrepancy, and to connect somehow with animals, he could not explain much. He was only five years of age when he’d lost his family and never had the chance to learn much more about himself.

John and Stace could neither believe their ears nor their eyes. Lawk had summoned his calm for the painful parts of the retelling, and so Stace had also seen the boy’s eyes change in appearance. She thought they were the most beautiful, captivating eyes she had ever seen and said as much. John laughed at this, as he replied in jest, “Yes, now that we know they belong to this sweet boy, but try waking up and seeing nothing but the stern gaze of those impressive, moonlight silver orbs in the middle of the night. I nearly wet the bed ‘til the boy spoke!”

When all was said and done, the couple shared a knowing look, and Stace began, “Lawk, how would you like to remain with us, at least until you are old enough to join one of the academies?”

“The academies?” the boy asked curiously.

John answered, “Places where they can teach you the skills you’ll need to accomplish the goals you’ve set before yourself. I can see you are serious about this, and from the way you told your tale, there can be no convincing you otherwise. That much would be obvious to a blind man. It’s not our place to change your mind anyways, and we do owe you our lives. The least we can do is help you hang on to yours throughout what’s to come.” John paused and thought for a moment, but knowing his decision had been made for him when the boy saved him and Stace from assassination, he continued, “Lawk, can you keep a secret?”

The eager boy, excited to finally have a solid path to accomplish his goals, suddenly turned serious, and nodded his head in affirmation.

“I expected you would. You don’t act like an eight-year-old, you know. You look at least ten, and the way you speak is more akin to someone nearly twice your age. Anyways, I said ‘one of the academies, but with the path you have chosen there is really only one place that will suffice. But, you can speak of it to no one. I’ll have your word on that.”

“I promise,” the boy replied determinedly.

“Anchora’s Ancillary Academy, or the Anchor, as it is more commonly referred to by those who know of it, is the last remaining tie in all of Anchora to the times before the Downfall War. It is the only academy that survived that horrid time, largely due to its geographical isolation and its many safeguards that are always in place. Only those sponsored by former graduates may attend. And, with the secrecy graduates are bound by, this usually means only the children of former graduates. It’s likely been centuries or more since anyone who wasn’t born of a former graduate attended. But, if there are any books, scrolls, or people who can provide insight into the enemy you faced on that fateful night, they will be at the Anchor. I graduated from there as a ranger, but you may choose to study as a mage instead, if you wish. Either way, you will gain the skills you require. I imagine the path of the ranger would suit you better, but that might just be an old ranger’s bias. You can make your decision when the time comes.”

“When can I start?”

“You’re only eight. You’ve still got another eight years before they’ll take you.” Seeing the look on Lawk’s face, he quickly added, “Usually, the students train with their sponsors to prepare ahead of time. I will train you personally in the ways of a ranger and in combat. Stace can get you going with reading, writing, and any other studies. She used to be a school teacher and has been itching for another student for some time now.”

Stace’s eyes lit up just at the mention. John glanced at her with a smile and continued, “Yesterday was my last day ranging this season. So we will be heading home today. We will be traveling fast after what happened last night. I will need to report the incident immediately upon arrival, but we can start your training as soon as all is settled.”

“Speaking of last night,” Stace interjected, worry creeping into her voice, ”did you find anything on the man that might shed some light upon our situation?”

“All he had was a pair of daggers, but they are master blades, and he bore the mark. If the Dim Daggers were hired, there is no way of knowing who paid them. But, they always double their price for the same client if their man is killed. If they attack again, the possibilities will certainly narrow. Not too many people have that kind of gold in Laramea. In the meantime, we had better be on our guard and alert the king as soon as we return.” Turning to Lawk, he added, “If trouble finds us again, I want you to hide and stay hidden until it is safe to come out.”

Lawk nodded his acknowledgement, but he wasn’t making any promises. The determined boy wasn’t going to chance losing these nice folks, too, if he could help it.