Leaving the Nest - II
A Hunters' Moon Story
Twin brothers Maelos and Voth escaped from the fort of their father, King Hron, to meet with a nomadic warband at the gates of their tribe. The youths have dreams beyond the confines of their home and believe even one chance to meet the wanderers of the world can change their lives forever.
Read the first chapter below in full if you have not already!
Leaving the Nest - I
The warlord held his stare with the boys, brow furrowed and unblinking. They struggled to return his gaze amidst their fatigue and excitement; their knuckles whitened as they clutched their spears.
Hron rose from his seat by the fire and broke the silence, saying, “Forgive me for not keeping these whippersnappers under tighter guard.” He waved over the slaves. “I will remove—”
The warlord held up a hand. “Let them stay, for they asked fairly.”
Kenattos scowled. “You would let them intrude freely yet have us subject to your riddles and rituals?”
The warlord pointed to the slaves. “They evaded capture, which is a skill that is prized amongst warbands.” He shifted his finger down towards Voth. “Although you were grabbed by the shirt, my friend, you did not submit.”
Voth grinned, then flashed his tongue at Kenattos.
The warlord crouched before the twins, meeting their eyes, and said, “My name is Trenuir and I will give you audience. First, I would know who you both are.”
“I am Voth!” the boy proudly jabbed a thumb at his bare chest.
“And I am Maelos.” The eloquent youth nodded, holding his gaze with his new host.
“And why,” Trenuir said, “have you come to see me?” The other warriors started gathering several paces behind their leader. They each eyed the twins with slight smirks and whispered to one another. In the firelight, their youth stood plainly on their bodies; despite their scars and budding beards, not many of them seemed much older than Trenuir. Most seemed to be from the steppes, a few were redhaired Scythians, and several bore paler complexions with yellow hair indicating the blood of Northmen.
“We just wanted to meet a warband,” admitted Maelos, exchanging a glance with Voth.
Voth shrugged. “We have not seen one before, and we feared Father would send you away ere we got the chance to see you.”
Trenuir’s gaze flicked between the twins’ spears and shields. “You come armed, however, and with pursuers on your heels no less. Having myself taken in so many strays and runaways, I would hazard to guess you rascals want to join our band.”
The twins shuddered. Kenattos let out a strangled utterance. The warriors all chuckled. Hron simply glared at his sons.
“Can we join you?” blurted Voth. He step forward and shook his armaments in his grasp. His eyes bulged up at Trenuir, the corners of his mouth pulled into a sharp-edged smile.
“We have three trials for those who wish to join,” explained Trenuir. “With how you fled to meet us, I would consider one of those trials complete.”
Several of his warriors protested. “But one of them was grabbed!” cried a redhaired youth with one ear. “None of us ever were in our trials.”
“But did he submit?” asked Trenuir, glancing over his shoulder. The warriors silenced under the gaze of their leader. He looked back to the boys and explained further, “In the next trial I would have you attempt, you will be the pursuers. Go out into the steppe and find a worthy beast to hunt. Do not let him hear or see you when you bring him down.” Trenuir looked back to the redhaired protestor, requesting, “Two bows and two arrows.”
The youth nodded and went deeper into the small camp. He returned within moments holding a pair of shortbows fashioned in the Scythian style, accompanied with a pair of bronze-tipped arrows. Voth frowned as Trenuir took them from his underling and handed the weapons and scant ammunition to the boys.
“Why just one arrow for each of us?” Voth asked, disappointment tinging his voice.
Trenuir gestured to his band. “Be not dismayed. They too had to undertake this trial; to be a good hunter, you must have a sure shot and never use more than one arrow to bring down your quarry.”
Hron suddenly imposed himself between the twins and the warlord. He glowered at the former, reaching for their borrowed armaments. “That’s enough of this,” he said in a stern growl. Maelos and Voth retreated from their father’s reach. His annoyed expression further contorting into a harsh scowl, his eyes shaded in darkness.
“We will not go back, Father,” Voth vowed, imitating Hron’s face. “Would you have us remain in the second to Kenattos ‘til he can do away with us once he takes your crown?”
“Insolent…” Hron spat through his teeth, reaching closer.
Voth stepped backward, knocking his arrow and drawing the bow. He aimed the quivering tip between his father’s eyes. The king’s entourage gasped; Kenattos drew a bronze knife from his belt and rushed beside Hron.
Suddenly, Trenuir plucked the arrow from Voth’s bow. He placed himself between the king and the twins, looking down at the latter with a cocked brow. “Though we may live outside the protection of the law,” he said, tapping the arrowhead against his chin, “I do not permit those who slay their own kin without good reason into my warband.”
Voth frowned. “I have good reason to kill him,” he countered. “For he would rather see my brother and me dead than for us to inherit his kingdom. The law of the tribe and wrath of the gods is all that stays his hand from killing his own sons.”
“Such words are unfair, Vothartaikos,” said Hron. “Even thought of murdering you and Maelos shall bring down ill fortune on me.”
“Then why do you keep us to your shadow and secret us away?” asked Maelos.
“There is much you have to learn,” replied Hron, “which you are not ready to understand.”
Trenuir turned to Hron and bowed his head. “Should you permit it, and should they fair well in the remaining trials, I can be their teacher to instruct them in the burdens of leadership and the duties of manhood. I know now I might have overreached on your land, no less. Yet were you not an adventurer yourself ere you took up your birthright, o King?”
Hron slid his gaze over Trenuir’s shoulder. His twin sons looked smaller than usual in the fringes of the firelight. Then, with a sigh, he said, “If you are to teach them, they ought to earn their place. Such is the way of the warbands. If not, they will return home.”
***
Trenuir sent one of his warriors to observe Maelos and Voth as they began the second trial. Guiron was only a little older than the twins, yet his extensive travel under the sun and warring against tenacious men and beasts put more years in his face than his true age. He brought them far from the campfire into the open steppe and let them use what hunting skills the brothers had to find spoor of any worthy game.
Their cunning will come with time, Guiron thought after he let the twins start their hunt on their own. The plains were largely unobstructed, allowing him to spy the pair as they ranged northeastward. Several slopes and squat hills had them for a span as they passed over, but their crouching forms reemerged at the crests, blotted in the gloaming hour.
Guiron sat himself down on a mossy stone protruding from the earth. He turned only slightly as he followed the twins’ course to a distant, dark patch of land. It was for his devotion to observation that Trenuir selected him to accompany the twins; Guiron often took sentinel duty when the rest of the Kestrels slept, even on the darkest of nights or after long days of fighting and marching. In King Hron’s lands, Guiron expected little danger, save if the tribespeople suddenly ceased taking so kindly to the warband’s presence. He concerned himself chiefly with witnessing a fair catch at the twins’ hands.
Maelos and Voth had slipped far enough into the distance that even Guiron’s keen eyes could not capture them. Nonetheless, he waited, knowing their voices, faces, and stories could betray them should they speak false about their kill.
As the final glow of the sun retreated from the world, Guiron’s gaze strained in the scant light of the crescent moon. Enough time had passed for the stars to gather in the black dome of the sky. There came no sign or sound of the twins.
Perhaps they are taking care on this trial, thought Guiron as he checked the wheeling of the celestial bodies. He slid off the rock and stepped towards the expanse he observed. Aside from the swaths of grass shivering in the eventide breeze, nothing moved.
Guiron lifted both hands to his mouth, intertwining his fingers and wetting a hole between his thumbs. He blew at length into his hands, which emitted a sound like a bird swooping over the plain. He had shown it to the twins before they left as a means for him to get their attention. The Kestrels had many such furtive measures of communication as to remain inconspicuous while within earshot of game, predators, and foes. The call echoed through the air, then faded within a new gust of wind.
A cry answered the feigned birdcall. It was high and human; a plea for help.
Taking up his spear, Guiron followed it towards where the twins had gone. Another issue of it guided him a little more eastward, further off than where he last spied them. It sounded again until it came together as a string of tearful babbling over the thump of feet in the grass. A short form ran up to Guiron over the crest of a hill—one of the twins.
“Help!” he wailed, waving one hand while clutching the other to his brow. Guiron could not tell if this was Maelos or Voth. They boy stumbled up to him, almost collapsing into his arms.
“What is it?” Guiron asked, steadying the boy with his free hand.
The child pointed behind him, sniffling, towards a . “A wolf! It’s going to eat Voth!”
Guiron sprung past Maelos, bounding down the hillside, spear aimed forward. Below, more than a hundred paces from the hill, he saw forms circling in the dark. One stood on both legs, not tall by any means, but unwavering still as it swung at a four-legged shade skirting around. Angry, high-pitched shouts and curses mingled with the growls and barks of a wolf. Guiron set his teeth, thankful there were no signs of a pack; he yet had a chance to save the boy.
As he descended onto the plain, Guiron loosed a deep bark that echoed out before him. The noise captured the beast’s attention and it seemed to slink back. Voth, however, took it as an invitation to strike. He raised his bow over his head as a club and swung. It smote the wolf’s head with a brief crack, provoking the beast to leap at him. The boy moved out of its pounce, but sight of it spurred Guiron. The warrior switched the grip on his spear, preparing to throw it once he came within range.
The wolf pressed its attack, forcing Voth to retreat towards some lumpy form laying on the ground. He tripped and fell backwards, his hands flew up and released the bow. The beast loomed over him and growled, pressing its forepaws upon his chest. Voth screamed and thrashed, his fists flailing all around as the wolf thrust its face upon him. Its shaggy back obscured to Guiron whatever brutality it dealt to the child. The warrior’s mind, however, dwelt only on ending the savage creature’s life. He raised the spear, mere paces away from throwing distance.
One of Voth’s hands reached for something beside him. It looked like a pair of short sticks ending in sharp points. His fingers wrapped around one and pulled. He twisted and tightened his grip until the share he grasped tore away with a sharp, resounding snap. Before the sound left the air, he plunged the spike into the wolf’s throat. A pathetic yelp went up and the beast’s form sank. Voth’s hand repeated the motion until the wolf’s entire weight slumped upon him.
Guiron slowed, lowering his spear. He approached the scene as he would any hunting spot—quietly, with long, careful steps. Now, being so close, he saw the wolf lay over a young male saiga. An arrow stuck out of the latter beast’s chest behind the shoulder.
Voth shoved the wolf off himself and stood up on shaking legs. In one hand, his gripped a bloody piece of horn, which Guiron could now see he had wrenched from the saiga’s head. The boy’s exposed chest bore a few scratches, already beginning to bled black in the night, but otherwise he seemed hale. He regarded Guiron with an unblinking gaze and an expression that suggested he might vomit at any moment.
“Are you all right?” was all Guiron could muster in light of the incredible image.
“Voth!” Maelos cried from some ways back. He came running up to his brother and threw his arms around him, bawling. Voth’s shoulders slumped and he let go of the horn. Shutting his eyes, he returned his twin’s embrace and wept also.
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“Leaving the Nest” © Ethan Sabatella 2025 – Current Year, All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or replication of this work in its entirety in any form (written, audiovisual, etc.) without express permission of the author is prohibited. Excerpts may be used for review or promotional purposes with credit and acknowledgement of the author. This piece cannot be used for training of Artificial Intelligence programs.