Dashyl's Quest

 “What are you doing?”

The question made Dashyl yelp as he jumped up and scattered papers into the air.

He whipped around, his heart racing in his chest. Fretly was rolling on the floor laughing.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” Dashyl yelled at his friend. The boy scrambled around the hut picking up the pages of the letter he had just been reading.

“Oh, you should have seen how high you jumped,” Fretly said, sitting up and wiping tears from his eyes while trying to quit chuckling.

“Not funny,” Dashyl protested.

“Sorry, but what are you reading,” Fretly asked.

“Nothing,” Dashyl replied as he gathered up the pages, folded them up and put them back in Soern’s trunk.

“If you’re going to be a sneak, Dash, you need to not be so jumpy,” Fretly admonished. “Now, what are you doing reading our host’s letters?”

“They’re just love letters,” Dashyl said, unimpressed.

“Any juicy details,” asked Fretly, in that awkward stage before becoming a man.

“No,” Dashyl said crinkling up his nose. “They’re from a curic, maybe one that took care of us.”

Fretly’s interest suddenly grew serious. He crouched down behind Dashyl and peered over his shoulder into the trunk. “Anything interesting?”

“Well, the letters are written in the Sarion tongue,” Dashyl said.

“That’s not unusual, the Saraja are still taught the Sarion tongue, but they don’t speak it publicly,” Fretly explained.

“Yes, but why is she writing to Soern in the Sarion tongue,” Dashyl asked. “Shouldn’t someone writing to Soern write in Sidrani Symbolic like all the other letters and papers in this trunk.”

“Sh,” Fretly suddenly interrupted. “Soern’s back and he has company.”

The two inside the hut could hear Soern’s deep voice in conversation outside and a similar, deep voice responding.

“They must be tying up the igwaza,” Fretly reasoned. “Quick, close the trunk and let’s get ready. We don’t know if this Soern guy could be setting up a trap for us.”

“Right,” answered Dashyl as he closed the trunk and joined Fretly peeking out the window next to the door. He could see Soern outside with another equally large Kirzan. They would find out soon if it was a trap or not, Soern and his companion were coming in. Dashyl braced to either run or fight.