Blood and Sand Trilogy Box Set by Jon Kiln

Author:Jon Kiln [Kiln, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-02-05T22:00:00+00:00

“It’s not far, I promise,” Vekal was saying, pulling on his mother’s hand as he tugged her through the desert, away from their home of wood and rock.

“Vekal! Really, enough of your games. You know that I have to get back to the hut, back to our flock.” His mother was scolding him, but he could feel that she was letting herself be dragged by her only child. Even at this young age, out in the desert, Vekal knew that she would gladly flee her life with the man whom she called husband, and the older son Elak whom the husband had brought with him.

Vekal knew a lot for his young years, although he just thought that this melancholy and desperation were the way of the world. Mothers were always sad and cried when no one was looking, and step-fathers and step-brothers were always cruel with hard corners to their fists.

Vekal lived with his mother and their new family out in the deserts, where they herded the goats and took them to the markets every summer to trade.

“But this is really important,” Vekal said again, pointing over to the rise of sand dunes where he wanted to take her.

“Oh Vekal, I know. I am sure that it is, but you know how your father gets. He gets very angry if the herd hasn’t been brought in for the night. The desert coyotes come and—”

“No desert coyotes near here,” Vekal pointed out. “We would see their sign.” He pointed at the sands. It was true, and one such as he, one of the southern nomadic desert people, knew how to read the signs of passing animals almost as soon as they knew how to talk their own tongue. Surely his mother knew that as well.

A sigh from above him, and Vekal cringed. It was the sigh that his mother gave when there was no point. No arguing. She stopped, and he found that all of his efforts could not budge her forward.

“No, little one. We must go back now,” she said heavily.

“But Elak can bring the herd in. And step-father can heat his own stew!” Vekal shouted angrily. He had planned this intimately, every detail of this day. It had to work, it just had to.

“Vekal…” his mother said warningly, and he knew that he had lost. So he used the only trick that he had left to play. Vekal had always been quick, and he wriggled from her grasp and sprinted across the final rise in the desert.

“Vekal! Beloved! Oh, you little—” His mother gasped, at first in panic and then in anger, and raced after him. She was of course much larger than he was, and much quicker, but he only had to get to the rise to show her what he had found below, and then she would see, and then everything would all be different.

“Come here!” He heard her shout as he raced up the last bit of sand and tufty grass, his eyes still careful to scan the ground for the holes of spiders or snakes.

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