Dawn on the Lake
Benaiah's father had taught him three things before he was old enough to ride.
One: how to gut a fish without spilling its courage.
Two: how to walk a ledge with no fear in his ankles.
Three: how to hold his ground when a thing was bigger than him.
The third lesson took the longest. Benaiah was small for his age. Most things were bigger than him. The sky. The sea. His older brothers. The shadow under the bed. His father's name in the army records, written above his own.
But the third lesson stuck the deepest. Because his father didn't teach it with words. He taught it on a morning in early winter, when the lake was glass and the eels were running and a wild boar came out of the reeds at them.
— end of chapter one —
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