LeRoy Clary
Dragon Clan: In The Beginning
This book is a short Prequel to the Dragon Clan series
Note from the Author: Many readers have asked how the story began—the Beginning of the Dragon Clan — this very short introduction is my response. If you have already read the series, you know where the story eventually takes you. If you’re reading this as your first Dragon Clan novel, you have a lot to look forward to when you read the entire series.
CHAPTER ONE
Seth avoided the first blow. Shorter than his attacker and far more nimble, he used those qualities to his advantage. The nasty old woman swinging at him was not his mother. She stood tall and weighty, her nose spread across most of her broad face, and she wore a perpetual scowl. After missing him with her first swing, the other hand balled into a fist.
Seth, not yet ten, received most of the woman’s frequent abuse dispensed to the children, unlike his former home when he had lived with his family. All of them were now dead. These strangers who had taken him in were more his masters than family; more slavers than friends.
The constant abuse came from all of them, no matter how much work he did, or how hard he tried. But he was an outsider, not one of them, so he held no status in their family. If he wished to eat and live another day, he had to do as they wanted--and accept their beatings when he failed. In defiance, another thought crept into his mind. Or not.
He stood taller, chin up and insolent, as he warily eyed her.
“I told you before not to waste food!” she screeched, enraged that she had missed him with the first swing.
A single small cube of venison lay in the dirt at his feet in testament of his carelessness. When her second swing also missed his head, she lashed out with a foot. He skipped away from that, too. His resistance further infuriated her. She would continue until her fury had him pinned down on the ground, hurt and bleeding. He should have accepted his punishment if he wanted to remain with them.
She readied herself to strike again by edging closer, but Seth was already sidestepping away and had almost escaped out the door of the hut when an older daughter reached for him. She wrapped her arms around his chest and lifted him off the ground. She pinned him against her, snarling in his ear, “Where do ya think you’re you going’?”
He knew it was either escape or face two beatings this day. One beating from the old woman and then another from the evil girl holding him and preventing his escape. She was the biggest and ugliest of the younger girls. She was also the meanest.
Seth kicked her knee, then stomped his bare heel on her toes. She screamed, and her arms relaxed just long enough for him to twist and turn away. He darted for the door. The shadow of a male figure outside moved to block him. He lowered his shoulder and prepared for the collision with one of the boys, but managed to slip past with hardly a touch.
Outside in the yard, he stood a chance of temporarily escaping. A glance around the clearing told him only three members of the pseudo-family stood outside the hut. Two of them worked together tanning a hide on his right, and directly ahead, sitting on a log, was Madoc, the eldest son. Seth spun to his left, away from them.
The old lady and her evil daughter reached the door of the hut at the same time. The older woman emerged first, waving a large wooden ladle high in the air. “This will teach you a lesson when I get hold of you!”
“You hurt my foot,” the daughter snarled, feigning a severe limp, but staying up with her mother for the chase.
Grigori, Madoc’s younger brother, rounded a stand of trees on the path, the same trees Seth intended to hide behind. Probably sensing the situation, and hearing his mother shouting at Seth, Grigori’s hand snaked out and snagged Seth’s hair as he raced past. The action pulled Grigori off balance, and Seth found himself running in a circle at the limits of Grigori’s outreached arm. The fingers twisted tighter in Seth’s hair. If Seth stopped running Grigori, and his mother, would have him. The beating would be his worst ever, and some of them had been terrible, especially lately. He kept moving despite the pain.
Seth felt the grip loosen. He ran faster, twisting and shaking his head at the same time. From the corner of his eye, he saw the old woman with the ladle and the evil daughter charging to join in the fray. With a final yank of his head, he broke free. Grigori held a handful of hair as Seth sprawled the dirt and rolled to a stop.
Seth scrambled to his feet just as the first hands reached for him. He gave a wild kick to keep them away and rolled over again and then leaped to his feet. He sprinted for the protection of the dense forest.
“Come back here,” the woman ordered, lumbering behind for a few steps.
“You’re going to pay for this,” someone else shouted, but he didn’t know who. More shouts and curses followed. He ran down the path through the forest to the shore of the salt water where a canoe was pulled onto the beach.
Without pausing, he pushed the canoe into the edge of the water and then deeper water, his feet splashing until he felt his knees get wet. He leaped inside and fumbled for the paddle. With his first stroke, the boat surged ahead. Madoc ran onto the beach waving and yelling. He screamed to the others, “The canoe. He’s stealing the canoe.”
But Madoc was huge, sluggish, and already tired. He only chased Seth a few more steps before pausing to catch his breath, his hands on his knees as he bent and fought to draw in air. If Madoc had continued his charge, he might have caught up to the canoe. Seth had found his paddling rhythm now, and the boat surged ahead every time he dipped the paddle. He’d watched others many times, but it was his first time in a canoe, and he soon learned it didn’t always go in the direction he wished. With each stroke, it moved farther from Madoc, so the direction didn’t matter.
Seth’s breath also came in ragged gasps, and his heart pounded so hard black spots appeared in front of his eyes. He wanted a drink. No, he needed a drink. But, since moving to the new village, he’d learned the water here tasted salty and he couldn’t drink it. But unlike the fresh water at his old home, this strange water contained an abundance of edible shellfish, effortless fishing, and the sea grew green weeds that tasted better than being hungry, but not by much. The river provided water to drink.
The men of his new village shared the meat they brought back from hunting. Of course, the best hunters always got the most meat, the best cuts, and the attention of the most fertile women. They gave the meat to their favorites in their families. He seldom received any. It was that way in all villages, he suspected.
What am I going to do now? Yes, he had escaped temporarily, but what challenges and obstacles lay ahead? At only nine years old, he was too small and inexperienced to hunt successfully and expect to find enough food to eat. The nights were growing colder, and the last storm a few days ago had brought the first flakes of snow. Soon the ground would turn white, and locating food would be even harder, even for experienced hunters and gatherers. Many people died during the long winters, usually those old, young, or weak. He fit two of the three categories.
For a more immediate problem, darkness loomed ahead. Seth was now far from shore and reasonably safe. A single glance behind revealed three people standing in the shallows watching and waiting for his return. Not this time. I’m not going back there. He turned the canoe to his left and paddled parallel to the shore, knowing the men of the family would run along the beach keeping pace, and they’d be waiting in ambush when he returned to land. They could easily run as fast as he could paddle, but he might use that to his advantage, and the approaching darkness, as well.