I watched my Chief and my friends leave with a heavy heart. I had refused to go back and meet my clan and say my goodbyes to the grandmother. The Old Dragon would wail and curse and try to feed me her awful food, and...and the truth is, I would not have the courage to leave again.

So I turned back, and returned to where old Kavus and his wife waited for me. Bijan and the other two boys were given to other warriors in the clan, and I cursed my luck that I was to live with weak chinned and scrawny old Kavus. What would I learn from him!!! What could he teach me about the ordeal at the end of the year?

I slept at night in a corner of the tent, rolled up in some skins. I could not sleep for a long time, and I stared at the stars through a slit that I made in the tent wall.

"Come, come, there's work to do...enough sleep, my boy!" Kavus prodded me with a bony finger. The sky was till dark. It was a busy day, what with helping the old lady to clean and fetch kindling, and then to go with Kavus into the hills to search for plants and stuff. Then I was dispatched to the warrior group, for some training in fighting. I was dead tired when I got back to the tent, and black and blue from trying to dodge the blows of the teacher, that coarse Rawat. I think he took some extra pleasure in taunting me, because I leaped higher than his precious Vasuki. I almost fell asleep while eating, and that's never happened before, as the Old Dragon would have told you.

The days that followed were a blur, because it was the same routine. Up before dawn, help Avni. Off with Kavus where he stayed at the foot of the mountain and told me what plants to fetch, and if I made a mistake, I would have to go back and fetch the right ones. I had to climb that mountain four or five times a day! Kavus would tell me not to waste time dawdling on the heights, because he knew exactly how much time it would take me to go up to where the plant grew, and to get back.

I liked the freedom of the hills so much that I would run faster than he thought I could, just to spend some time breathing the cool air, and filling my eyes with the bigness of it all, and wandering around.

Then I would return, leaping from rock to rock, fairly flying on my way down, and he would be waiting to inspect the plants I brought back. Sometimes I thought he watched me with a smile on his gaunt face, but I wasn't sure.

They fed me well, and I must say, Avni was a better cook than my old grandmother.

I did not like the weapons training though, because Rawat always looked for a reason to humiliate me. I would have to find a way to deal with him.