Daxton - Episode 17
The 5th Compass | Tales of Stonehaven [2,089 words]
Daxton is the first book in the 6-book series, The 5th Compass, which takes place in Stonehaven. Released in serial form, two episodes each week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The audio version is coming in the future for paid subscribers only. Visit the table of contents for a list of previously published and upcoming episodes.
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A thick fog, perfectly still under the harsh yellow moon, combined with the smell of the salty sea wafting through the air, directly to his nostrils, made Daxton nauseous. He wanted to escape, but fear made his legs feel like he was trudging through mud. Every step was labored, as he waved his hands about in front of him attempting to feel his way, but it was pointless, there was nothing. Yet, he sensed he was not alone.
“Help me…”
It was the voice of a woman he could barely recognize. He jerked around, this time his legs allowing him to move faster. Was it his mother calling for him? What would she be doing out here at night? Father would be worried and upset if he should discover her missing.
“Mom?” he shouted into the dark. His voice cracked and fear over what may have happened or be happening to her overcame him.
“Help!” The voice screamed louder. He could tell he was getting closer. His speed increased to a jog now and he strained his eyes to see through the fog. “Help me!” He heard it now to his left, as if inches away. He sprinted in that direction, running right off a dock and into the sea.
He sputtered and gasped for air as he flailed his arms wildly, unable to swim. “Mother…” he managed to cough as he sank deeper under water. The last thing he saw was the shadow of a ship in the distance. His arms and legs grew tired from trying to stay above the water and they gave out.
Daxton woke with a fright, coughing and gasping, Fang licking his face to wake him from his nightmare. “Mom!”
There came a knock on his bedroom door as his nightmare’s usually woke everyone in the house. “Sweetheart are you alright?” Daxton’s mother whispered.
He realized it was just a dream and calmed himself by scratching Fang behind the ears. “Yes, mother, I’m fine.” When he heard footsteps walking back to his parent’s bedroom, he nuzzled Fang. “Good boy.”
Daxton was eighteen now and the time when it was acceptable for a mother to comfort her son after a nightmare ceased years ago. She knew it and although Mirum wanted to barge in, she returned to her bedroom to find her husband sitting up.
“Another nightmare?” Ephraim asked when she climbed back into bed.
“Yes. What if he remembers it this time?”
“I’ll be glad of it. He has the same nightmare every year on his birthday and forgets he ever had it the following morning. Whatever ails him can only be solved if he can remember it long enough to tell us, or perhaps Barton, about it. Then, maybe, we can finally put an end to them. Imagine, making us wait to tell him the truth?”
“It was your insistence that we listen to what the letter said. I wanted to tell him when he was this high,” she argued, holding her hand out inches above the bed. “Are you suggesting we disregard it now?”
Daxton had crept from his room and listened through his parent’s door as they continued to discuss his nightmare. He heard them speak of his nightmare before and the fact that he could never remember it. What could it mean? Every time he heard them talking about him in whispered tones, he wanted to ask them to explain but a small voice in his head kept telling him he wasn’t ready to find out the truth. Until tonight, when he remembered his nightmare.
He raised a fist to knock on their door but the yellow moon shining in through the hall window stopped him. It was much too late to have any kind of meaningful discussions about nightmares and truths. Besides, they had enough to worry about what with the drought they’d been experiencing. It was turning into a hard year for them already. Whatever his nightmare meant, whatever the truth was, it could wait till morning. He crept back to his bedroom, Fang following close beside him and together they fell back to sleep.
The next morning Fang gave one large bark to wake Daxton. His eyes opened and the first thing he did was take a deep breath. The smell of eggs was the best part of their morning. Fang and Daxton raced each other to the kitchen. They both skidded to a stop when they saw it was his father standing over the fire. Daxton wrinkled his nose, and Fang turned his long snout away, at the thought of having to eat his father’s cooking. Daxton tried to back out of the kitchen slowly, before his father noticed they were there.
“Will you and Fang go out hunting today? We’re running low on meat.”
“Yes, father.”
Daxton and Ephraim never truly bonded as a son is expected to do with his father. That is why Daxton ended up with Fang. While out wandering the back woods of his home as a child, he and his best friend, Barton, came across a pup tearing apart a rabbit. Barton was terrified and thought it was a wolf judging by the way it was ripping the flesh off the rabbit and would not go near it. Daxton was fascinated and approached cautiously. Believing it to be a wolf as well, but not afraid of it at all, he lured the pup by dangling a frog he had managed to catch during their walk that day. When he got home and declared to his mother that he captured a wolf she was terrified, until she saw it was just a small dog. She said it would be up to his father to decide if he could keep him and together, dog and boy, waited patiently in front of their home until Ephraim came home.
Having a pet was never something Ephraim was keen on. They require constant care and attention, both of which he knew he and his wife would not have the time to give. But it was the way Daxton looked and the excitement he showed when he asked if he could keep it and promised he would look after it always. Ephraim could not refuse. And secretly, a part of him wished it would bring them closer together.
Instead, it brought Daxton closer to his mother, Mirum. Perhaps it was because the way she cared for him was similar to the way Fang cared for him unconditionally. She encouraged him to do what he wanted and made him happy, but his father insisted he spend more time learning how to work their farm and spend less of it with Fang. But Daxton wanted to be out in the wilderness, hunting, with his dog and hated being forced to work the farm with his father.
Every morning he would do only what was required of him and by midday he would go off with Fang, and sometimes Barton, to hunt in the back woods.
As he watched his father scrape bits of egg onto plates, he wished his friend would surprise him and show up early so he could avoid having to eat. “Where’s mom?”
“She had to go into town early for a few things. I forget what. Sit, I want to talk to you.” Daxton sat reluctantly at the kitchen table. He thought both his parents would be present so he could tell them of his nightmare, and they could unburden themselves. Instead, his mother chose to leave the house and leave the explaining to his father, a man he never understood. Fang laid beside his chair and huffed while Daxton’s stomach growled, both expecting food prepared by Mirum, not conversation and hard to swallow eggs.
Soon as the half brown, half burnt eggs on a wooden plate of similar coloring was placed before him Barton came bounding through the back door with his bow in hand and a quiver full of arrows on his back. “Aren’t you ready yet? Come on, you know the best time to catch them is before the sun reaches the peak of Mirror Mountain.”
Barton wasn’t the best archer or hunter but one thing he was good at was showing up at times when Daxton needed rescuing.
Daxton stood from the table with exuberance. “Sorry father.” He ran towards the front door with Fang at his heels to grab his bow, rested against the wall and quiver which hung from a nail. They were outside in the fresh air and sunlight before his father could utter another word. “Thanks, Bart, you saved my life.”
“I saw your ma in the market and guessed your father would be preparing breakfast. I come as fast as I could.” Barton bent down to give Fang an awkward scratch behind the ears. It took him a long time before he was sure Fang wasn’t a wolf, just a dog. It didn’t help that the reason for his name was because Fang happened to have a pair of canine teeth that looked just like fangs.
The three of them walked briskly around the back of Daxton’s house surrounded by tall sycamore trees that provided some shade for their dying crops. His parents called it the backwoods because of its location behind their home, but also because everyone knows the backwoods are where wild boars live. Almost every day that Daxton could escape his father’s chores they tramped through the decaying dirt and the trees into a large forest. It was in these backwoods that Daxton learned how to catch rabbits by watching and studying Fang’s movements whenever he approached his prey. Eventually, his father figured if he was going to be spending so much time in the backwoods catching rabbits they might as well work at bringing home larger prey and gifted him a set of bow and arrows.
Daxton enjoyed hunting with Fang because it was a time for him to be quiet and think about what he wanted his life to be like when he became a man. He’d make plans with Barton while Fang would lay in waiting till his master would release his arrow and take down a deer with one shot.
Barton enjoyed their outings just as much even though he was not good at hunting. It got him out of the house and away from his father who, like Daxton’s, had expectations greater than Barton felt he could ever achieve.
“With a great cook like your ma how come your da hasn’t learned how to make somethin’ as simple as eggs?”
“I wonder that myself. I think he hates having to cook so if he does it wrong, she’ll keep doin’ it. He did the same thing to me. Taught me how to chop wood when I was old enough to pick up an axe. Now I have never seen him pick up that axe since. Your father ever do that to you?”
“He doesn’t cook or chop wood or clean. Now all he does is drink. I do miss when he used to tell me what a great warrior he was. Long before I was born. I think he’s disappointed that I can’t fight like he could when he was my age, so he just stopped telling me stories altogether.”
They reached a clearing where they knew animals were most likely to pass. Daxton and Barton climbed up a large tree that provided great vantage points from its limbs while Fang remained on the ground.
“Sometimes I wish our king would make him a general again. Then maybe he’d stop drinking and hitting—.”
“Shh,” Daxton said, pressing a finger to his lips. He pointed in the distance and Barton turned to look over his shoulder, even though the signal was more for Fang than for him. Daxton pulled an arrow from his quiver and prepared to fire on a boar he spotted. He held his breath to steady his hand, squinted one eye and fired just as a branch that Barton was leaning on snapped under his weight. The sound startled the boar who gave a cry of pain into the silence.
Fang sprang to life and bolted towards the boar while Daxton dropped down from the tree, giving Barton a dirty look.
“I nearly missed him because of you.”
“I’m sorry, honest.”
“Forget it. If it wasn’t a clean shot, Fang will finish him off.” No sooner did the words leave his lips did he hear a yelp that could only have come from Fang.