Free Tribe: The Red Hand (Tribe Series Book 1) by Kaelyn Ross Page A

run from the Stone Dogs.
    Before panic drove her to dive under the bed, she took a steadying breath and walked purposefully out of her room, passed through her family’s dim but cozy cabin, the air fragrant of the venison stew bubbling in an iron pot atop the large cook stove, and stepped outside.
    A squirrel shucking seeds from a pinecone eyed her from a sunlit branch, and in a coop set away from the cabin, chickens clucked and scratched to the disinterest of a pair of nanny goats sharing an adjoining pen. Out behind the cabin, farther up the hillside, four pigs rooted and grunted nosily in their slop troughs.
    That wasn’t so hard, was it? Kestrel thought, letting the sights and sounds of familiar surroundings calm her. Taking another deep breath, she imagined she was only going for a stroll through the forest. Before the serene illusion had a chance to break apart, she set off.
    The wooded path she followed began in the shadow of the protective cliffs soaring above the village, ran by her family’s home, and then snaked its way down the mountainside, passing several timber-and-stone cabins tucked deep within stands of fir and pine. If she had not known they were there, and if the owners’ dogs had not barked at her passing, Kestrel would never have noticed them. Within each cabin resided a Red Hand and their family, or a hunter and theirs. For several generations the loose, well-hidden perimeter had thwarted many surprise attacks that befell the village.
    Of course, when raiding parties came howling out of the forest, one need not be a Red Hand or hunter to fight. From a young age, everyone in the village learned how to use any weapon at hand. The difference between a common villager and a Red Hand was that a Red Hand spent their lives learning the tactics of warfare, going on raids, and launchings counterattacks in defense of the village. Becoming a Red Hand was a choice few made, and fewer achieved.
    Kestrel lifted a hand in greeting to the people she saw ghosting through the woods. All waved back. Some were other Potentials, young men and women like her who would one day make this very same walk. They were her friends and family, but after tonight, their paths would separate, until they either became Red Hands themselves, or failed and were sent into the Dead Lands. Of all the people she saw, only her mentor, One-Ear Tom, spoke to her.
    “Are you ready, young Kes?” The grizzled warrior was leaning against a tree with his arms folded across his chest, as if his only task in life was to watch the world grow older, one day at a time. His long white hair hung over his shoulders, contrasting against his black roughspun shirt. He had seen many and many years, but still had a warrior’s powerful bearing.
    “Only because of your training,” Kestrel said evenly. Skittish as she felt, she was just happy she had not choked on the answer. “Are you ready?”
    One-Ear Tom grinned, showing the scant handful of lonely teeth left to him. “My part in all this is far easier than yours. Though, after what you did,” he said with that same glint of approval in his eyes that she had seen in her father’s gaze, “I suppose the ceremony will be easy for you.”
    Kestrel’s smile felt brittle. In that moment, she almost told One-Ear Tom the truth about everything. For many years, she had spent more time with him than anyone else, and she trusted him as she would a relative. Aiden’s voice spoke up from the depth of memory, and her smile hardened into a rigid slash. Say nothing about any of this.
    Kestrel waved stiffly and moved down the trail.
    On the outskirts of the village, the smell of hot metal and the ring of hammers filled the air. She paused beside an area filled with bristling mountains of rusted iron, twisted steel scrap, and weeds. No matter if you were a farmer, a hunter, or a Red Hand, the villagers collected anything that had potential use and brought it to the blacksmith, Fat Will, and his son, Short Will.