Free Travellers #1 by Jack Lasenby

shot one, I fell in the water and hopped back, holding it up with the arrow sticking out, shouting.
    “Lucky it didn’t fly away with your arrow,” said Hagar.
    “I’d have followed till it came down.”
    “The arrow would probably have dropped out. Stone-heads do that. Metal-headed arrows, they stay in, but they’re cruel things. They cut into the muscles as a deer runs so it bleeds to death. They’ll kill a man the same way.”
    On rocks I drew people with arrows cutting into them asthey ran. I drew ducks and deer and hares. I drew us cutting wool, plucking hair, spinning and weaving. Drawing seemed to fix in my mind all the things I was learning from Hagar. There was so much to remember, Bar and Mak had to bark for my attention.
    I tried to draw Orklun, walls and a great river, but I could not draw its silence. It was like the time I tried to draw snow on the mountains.

Chapter 13
Travellers Don’t Look Back
    We loaded up with the looms and two blankets Hagar had sewn into bags and filled with wool and goat hair. My bit of cloth sagged all down one side.
    â€œYou’re learning,” Hagar said. “When we put up the looms again, you can begin on another.”
    â€œIt looks stupid.”
    â€œI’ll sew it into a pillow, and it will straighten out. It will always be your first piece of weaving. Did you never hit yourself when you started using a sling?”
    â€œYes.” The crow’s feet crinkled at Hagar’s eyes. “I hit my foot.”
    â€œYour foot?”
    â€œSeveral times.”
    Hagar squawked. “Several times!”
    â€œMy foot. I hit it several times.”
    â€œWith the stone?” She screeched.
    â€œAnd my head, too.”
    â€œYou hit your head?”
    â€œI kept letting go too soon.” I was almost crying with laughter. Hagar rocked, my weaving in her hands. Her mouth was open. I could see her few blackened teeth.
    â€œOh!” She cackled and took a deep breath. “You mustn’t mind me laughing.” She stared and cackled again.
    â€œI don’t mind.”
    â€œIt is funny, hitting yourself when you were aiming at something else.” She guffawed and wiped her eyes, and I had to wipe mine, too.
    When we had quietened down, Hagar said, “Learning to weave, there’s a lot you pick up without noticing. I can tellyou things I know, but there’s others I’ve forgotten. That’s why you’ve got to make mistakes, so you can learn.”
    â€œI didn’t beat it hard enough.”
    â€œThat’s easily fixed next time. Have you thought if we were still with the Travellers you wouldn’t have learned to weave?”
    â€œI want to be good at it. Now!”
    â€œIt takes time, like learning to hunt.” Hagar passed a rope. I took it around the load on my side and passed it back. “Now you can hit a duck or a hare with an arrow, you can get your food that way.”
    â€œIt’s better than a sling.”
    â€œIf you can hit something the size of a duck, you can easily hit a deer.” I stared at her.
    We travelled across the mountains’ tilt, through grassy basins separated by long tongues of trees. This far south the sun had lost its terrible power. The air was clear and sharp. I smelled the animals, the resinous leaves. Hagar said the Travellers usually crossed lower down.
    â€œThere are more deer up here,” she said, “and a tree with bark we use to tan the skins.”
    High above a bird cried “Kek! Kek! Kek!” harsh and wild, then a running call, much faster, and “Kek! Kek! Kek!” again.
    â€œHow would you like your own hawk, Ish?”
    â€œA hawk?”
    â€œWhy not? The men used to train them.”
    â€œYes, but…”
    â€œSomeone who has learned to put sheep and goats across the river, to shear and spin and weave, to find a pup and train it, to find herbs and use them, to make a bow and arrows, and to fire a sling without