‘My uma says to stay away from her, else she will curse my bird’s game! I train with a spotted sparrowhawk. The girl trains with a pair of sooty buzzards. Smaller and useless, just like her. With all the birds that follow her, she will scare away the prey.’
‘I may be Aysenör’s only child, but I am not useless,’ I muttered, keeping my lip from trembling.
Haj merely puffed his round cheeks and narrowed his blazing black eyes before snatching my arm. ‘What did you say?’
At his intense words, my other clansmen eyed me curiously. Their parents had also warned them about the strange little girl who attracted the eccentric crows, the screeching hawks.
I held Haj’s gaze. Babshah said if my tribe thought my very existence was cursed, I would prove nothing except through my actions.
‘Enough, Haj.’ Babshah wrenched him away. He stormed off.
I shrank behind Babshah’s furred robes, but the woman was no longer my kinsman. Instead, her grey eyes reflected the anciency of a tradition spanning eons: the chief folkteller of the tribe. Yanking me out from her legs, she wagged a bony finger.
‘O, young apprentice. Remember my teachings.’
‘B-but they hate me, Babshah Khatun.’
She stooped to my height. ‘A folkteller speaks truth through the lore of history. The people can love or curse you for it. A most severe task, not all can bear its burden. Your uma was to be the next folkteller, but she resisted and it fell to me. Foolish woman that she is, Aysenör.Youwill not fail my entrustment.’ This was the first time I’d been entrusted with anything. It felt precious. I nodded fiercely.
The children scattered into the forest to begin the hunt. Haj and I strapped our bows and arrows, to use if and only if our hawks failed in catching quarry.
We hunkered through the trails, musk deer mewing through the foliage. At the first clearing, a thin stream gusted the rocky terrain. The woodland swallowed any sunlight. My young buzzards curled on to my shoulders uneasily, digging into the furs of my tunic, a thin leather cord around one of their talons. Haj sneered at both birds. He was seasoned in his bird bondage. He didn’t need a creance to tether his hawk.
Haj tied his bait to a hemp rope, recited a prayer and swung it in practised loops, his sparrowhawk flapping to and fro in powerful strokes.
Haj did not allow me to use my buzzards. Instead, his sparrowhawk caught chubby sage grouse and quails. I sat back against the trees, stroking the long necks of my birds. Gradually, I heard the voices of the other children growing louder.
‘Older Brother, do you hear that yelling?’ I asked.
‘Who is yelling?’ Haj turned. His sparrowhawk returned to his shoulder, talons empty. The bird curled its beak against his collar, shivering.
‘Something is wrong, Older Brother.’ I glanced about the forest.
‘Of course you’d be scared,’ he snapped with a frown.
The ground tremored, startling the rest of his words. The voices of the other children rose into shrill screams. Haj backed away so fast, his foot twisted against a stubborn root.
‘Brother!’ I clenched his arm to steady him as he fell heavy against me. My heart rattled and I brushed the bow and arrow strapped to my leather vest. ‘We must go.’
He nodded. ‘Your uma warned us from going south of the pass.’
We retraced our trail back toward the open pastures. The commotion reached us first. I saw the other children shoving forward out of the woodland, pointing to something behind them.
Haj gestured to his older sister Hawah. She was flushed and gasping for air as if she’d run the entire length of the valley. ‘Brother, there’s a beast! We must flee!’
‘Flee? Where do you think you are going? My lesson is not yet finished.’ Babshah swooped into the field as though appearing from nowhere, her robes flapping behind her. ‘Do not run, little cowards.’
‘B-Babshah Khatun. It’s the same beast from your stories,’ Hawah insisted.
‘Which kind?’
Hawah paled. ‘A great buffalo with deepest blue fur, and an enormous horn – the size of a small tree. As sharp as the khan’s blades! But its eyes,’ she paused, shivered and spoke, ‘such red eyes like hellfire!’
‘A karkadann. This is a rare blessing,’ Babshah mused. ‘The great horned beast from the jinn-folk roams wild in remote terrain. And, what of it?’
The children tittered in nervous laughter.A karkadann, the word spread. ‘It will devour us,’ Hawah insisted.
‘Fear not, child. I have a young apprentice who will hunt it. A hunt through folktelling.’
