I STILL THINK ANYA WILL dance with you on Feast Night," Rist said as he pulled his knife up the length of wood that rested across his lap, tapering it into a point at the end.
"Leave it, Rist. We are just friends," Calen said, his cheeks reddening.
Rist and Dann exchanged a look. Dann tilted his head and raised an all-knowing eyebrow, laughing.
Calen tried his best to ignore them as he held the sharpened end of his own makeshift spear just above the flames of the fire that sat in front of them. That was a trick his father had taught him long ago. Baking the tip of a wooden spear made it lighter and stronger. The thick pole of wood was about six and a half feet long, and just under two inches in diameter. He would have felt far more comfortable with a sword in his hands, but given the circumstances, the spear would do just fine.
They all sat just in front of the cave mouth. Even with the bear dead, there was not a chance any of them would sleep in there again. A few feet away, the bear's pelt hung between two trees, stretched as wide as it could go. Dann had spent most of the morning and early afternoon skinning the bear with the utmost care and concentration. He made a point to open the ears, nose, and lips to remove all the excess fat. Without access to salt, he needed to ensure that as little moisture as possible remained to prevent the skin from rotting. Moving their camp out of the cave for the night had the added bonus of avoiding the damp air produced by the moss, and the evening sun was just warm enough to dry the hide without damaging it.
"So, tell me again, why are you bothering to preserve the pelt?" Rist asked. A sharp tssk escaped him. He pulled his finger up to his mouth to suckle on a thin stream of blood that trickled down his thumb – the result of his over eager knife work. He threw a dirty look at Calen when he noticed the smirk on his face.
Dann was splayed out on the ground, head propped up on a thick log, chewing on a long piece of grass. He stared off into the surrounding forest.
"Well, after we bring it back, we'll be declared victors of The Hunt. I can't see the others bringing back anything bigger than this monster." Dann tilted his head towards the bear pelt that was suspended in mid-air a few feet
away. "After that, there is no sense in letting it go to waste. Father could easily make a masterpiece out of a pelt like that. The gods know we could use the coin."
Rist let out a mocking snort. "Last night, you were all upset it was dead, and now you want to turn it into a coat?"
"Yes, Rist, I was upset that an incredible creature died. Slowly, and painfully, for no reason, and I was the cause." Dann's reply was curt, his eyes still lost in the haze of the forest. His jaw clenched.
"Incredible creature? For no reason? Dann, it was going to kill us. Like, dead. Snap, gone—"
"You did what you had to do, Dann," Calen interrupted. He gave Rist a look as if to say, please give him a break. Rist seemed to understand, giving a soft nod in reply.
Dann pulled his eyes away from the depths of the forest to look towards Calen. There was a heavy expression on his face. Calen hadn't noticed the purple rims developing under Dann's eyes, nor the slumping of his shoulders throughout the day. But when he thought back, he realised that Dann kept to himself most of the morning and afternoon, with few words passing his lips. Considering Calen once witnessed Dann have a drunken conversation with a tree, the silence should have raised some flags.
"Calen, I've never ended a life before without there being a real reason. I hunt deer, rabbits, fish… so that we can eat. To survive. That bear was hungry. It came back and found us in its home. We – I killed it. I know it would have killed us if I didn't kill it first, but… it's not the same."
"I get it, Dann," Calen said. I get it.
Calen tossed another log onto the fire. A soft sigh escaped him as he sat back down onto the spongy trunk of the fallen tree he had been perched on.
They sat in silence as the evening drifted away and the night settled around them. The sounds of the forest provided a soothing chorus as the day's birdsong was replaced by the soft burbling of the stream as it meandered through the forest, the crackling and snapping of the fire as it consumed the flesh of the wood, and the ever-present buzzing of insects as they went about their nocturnal business. Every so often, the howl of a wolfpine broke the tranquil blanket of familiar sounds, drawing sudden jerks from Calen, Dann, or Rist as they spun around to make sure that the bear hadn't risen from the dead.
"Guys… I think we may have a visitor," Rist squeaked.
Calen opened his eyes. A large kat, about the same size as Faenir, skulked around the rim of the fire. Its spotted brown and silvery-black fur caused it to blend in and out of sight with the forest backdrop. Its tapered ears pointed straight up towards the sky, giving the impression that it was always paying attention, always listening. He had never seen a kat up close before. The dazzling yellowish glow in its eyes was hypnotising. The two tufts of fur that draped down past its shoulders on either side of its head gave it a wizened look.
Calen reached for his bow, careful not to make any sudden moves, stretching out his fingertips to wrap around the grip.
"No," Dann hushed. He was already standing up by the fire, his hand pointing at Calen but his eyes fixed on the kat.
Without a sound loud enough to be heard above the leaves rustling in the wind, Dann made his way over towards the leftover fish they had caught and cooked that morning. It was splayed out on a smooth flat stone by the fire. He stayed low to the ground, with his knees bent and his arms raised slightly in the air, spread out to either side. His eyes never left the kat.
The kat's gleaming yellow eyes returned Dann's fixed gaze. An unintelligible purring emanated from its muscular throat.
The kat took two steps around the fire, towards Dann, slow and deliberate. Its head lowered as its back arched. The muscles rippled on its hind legs. The purring deepened, dropping into its chest.
Dann's eyes narrowed. He turned to face the kat. The light from the fire flickered shadows across his face. He opened his palm and tossed the fish up into the air, to the other side of the fire.
The kat flexed its muscular legs momentarily, then launched itself into the air. The patterns on its fur shimmered in the mixture of moon and fire light as it twisted and turned its torso mid-flight. It seemed to hang in the air for an eternity, as if weightless. It snatched the fish out of the air with its mouth in one smooth motion before landing, without any discernible sound, on the other side of the fire.
The kat bit the fish clean in half, letting the other half fall to the ground.
Once it had finished eating what it had bitten off, the kat bent its head down to the ground and picked the second half of the fish up with surprising care.
Its eyes locked on Dann again.
The kat padded over towards Dann. Stopping in front of him, it lowered its head and, in almost a tender manner, placed the second piece of fish
down on the ground at Dann's feet.
A soft purring noise reverberated from its throat.
"What in the…." Rist whispered.
Dann reached down for the fish, careful not to move with too much haste.
The kat's head turned, staring with intense focus into the darkness obscured forest. It didn't move, but the hackles on the back of its neck, all the way down its spine, stood upright. The soft purring changed into a deep, chesty rumble. Calen listened intently, trying to hear whatever the kat had heard.
Snap.
The sound of a thick branch splitting under the weight of something heavy. An arrow flew out from amidst the trees, slicing through the fire and planting in the ground where the kat's leg had been.
Calen had not even seen the kat leap. Its reflexes were quicker than his eyes could follow. In one bound, it propelled itself clear of the camp and was gone, back into the forest.
"Who's there?" Dann yelled. His bow was already drawn, aimed in the direction the arrow had come from.
Rist grasped the shaft of his spear with both hands, surveying the surrounding forest. His head jittered from place to place as he searched for any other would-be attackers.
Drawing his eyes away from where the kat had leapt into the abyss of trees, Calen snatched up his makeshift spear in one hand and bounded over towards Dann.
"Guys, I think—" Rist was cut short as a second arrow shot through the trees. Though it was impossible to follow the flight of the arrow in the darkness, a howl from Rist let both Calen and Dann know where it had landed. Calen's heart dropped into his stomach. He turned to see Rist standing by the fire, his spear rolling along the ground and the shaft of an arrow protruding from his left leg.
"Rist!" Calen and Dann leapt to Rist's side, stabilising him as he stumbled.
"What the fuck are you doing, Fritz? You could have killed him!" came a familiar voice. Fritz Netly?
"Shut up, Dennet. I would have gotten it if they hadn't scared it off."
Three figures emerged from the copse of trees. Calen could only make out their silhouettes in the pale moonlight. One was larger, with thick, broad shoulders. He was flanked on either side by two smaller figures. "Calen, we
didn't mean for Rist to get hurt, I swear it," the taller figure said. The voice was deep, familiar. Something clicked in Calen's head.
"Kurtis? What the hell do you think you're doing? You shot Rist!" Calen lunged towards Kurtis, raising his spear as he did so, his shoulders and arms tensing.
"Whoa! Don't take another step, Bryer, or I'll put an arrow in you too."
One of the smaller figures drew his bow and aimed it straight at Calen's chest.
"Fritz…" Calen muttered, a scowl spreading across his face.
He turned his head, just for a second, to check on Rist and Dann. They were on the ground, Dann cradling Rist's head on his knee. It looked like he had managed to remove the arrow, but Rist's breathing was heavy. Calen's muscles tensed as the rage burned through him. He wanted so badly to rip the smirk off Fritz's smug face.
"Careful now… He'll be fine, but I can't say the same for you if you even think about coming near me," Fritz said. He drew his bowstring back a little farther to make his point clear.
"Fritz." Just one word from Kurtis. The meaning was clear: You're goingtoo far. Fritz just glared back at him. That absent glare always unsettled Calen; the way Fritz's eyes never seemed to be looking at you, but through you. As if everyone was simply an obstacle to what he wanted. A grin spread across Fritz's face as he looked past Calen. Something had caught his eye. The bear pelt.
"What do we have here?" Fritz said, the firelight flickering across his face. "That looks like the perfect payment for costing us that kat. Dennet, take it down."
"That's ours!" Rist coughed. The pain was evident in his voice.
"No, it's ours," Fritz said.
Dennet cut the ropes that kept the pelt strung up between the trees. Then he made his way over to join Kurtis and Fritz, struggling as he heaved it over his shoulder. The clouds overhead had moved on and released more moonlight. Calen could see their faces more clearly now. Kurtis bit his bottom lip as he watched Fritz, who examined the pelt in the firelight, running his hand over the rough fur and the part-dry skin. "Not a bad job at all. This beast must have been huge. A good kill. You idiots must have gotten lucky," Fritz said. "Thank you very much. There is no doubt we will be declared victors of The Hunt when we bring this back."
"Burn you all! What is wrong with you?" The venom in Dann's words burned like a hot knife through his voice.
"It's simply being smart, Dann. You scared off our kill, so we take yours.
Fair is fair," Fritz said. He had that same cold, calculating look in his eyes.
"Now get out of here."
"You think we're leaving?" Dann roared, still cradling Rist's head in his lap.
"Yes, I do. I'll be nice. Take a minute to gather your supplies. Then start walking towards the mountains. If you're not gone in five minutes, I will show you how serious I am. I will follow you for a while, to make sure you keep walking."
Kurtis looked like he wanted to protest, but a sharp look from Fritz stopped him in his tracks.
"Okay, we'll go," Calen said through gritted teeth. A wicked grin curled at the corner of Fritz's mouth.
Dann stared at him, his mouth agape. "What are you doing?"
"Rist is hurt, Dann. We need to get him away from these assholes and make sure he's okay. That's more important than fighting with these three.
Can you get him to his feet? I'll carry the bags."
Dann replied with a resigned nod.
Calen gathered their supplies, and Dann got Rist to his feet with a few bouts of protest. They made their way towards the edge of the clearing, in the direction of Wolfpine Ridge. Calen noticed what he thought was an apologetic look in Kurtis's eyes.
"Keep walking until the sun starts to rise," Fritz called after them. "I'll know if you don't."
They trudged through the dense forest in silence, exhaustion in their bones.
Calen carried the bags while Rist used a combination of Dann and his spear as walking sticks. Every once in a while, Calen checked behind them for any signs of Fritz following them. He thought he saw something a few times, but he couldn't be sure. It wasn't worth finding out.
As the sun crested over the top of the mountain, a small rivulet came into view about thirty or so feet ahead. Calen hadn't heard it as they approached.
With fatigue causing a slight throbbing in his ears, he was finding it hard to focus.
"This is ridiculous," Dann said, his voice a mixture of tiredness and irritation.
Calen sighed. "We need to stop at the water. We need to drink and take a look at the wound. We can't leave it too long, or it might become infected."
Dann nodded. Rist grunted.
After they sat for a while in silence and filled their bellies with water, Calen rolled up Rist's trouser leg to inspect the wound.
"The arrow went clean through," Dann said. "I broke the head off on the other side and pulled the shaft out. He was lucky." Dann dunked his waterskin into the rivulet as he spoke, sighing with exhaustion.
"Lucky?" Rist said, coughing. "How, by the gods, do you consider this lucky?
"Well, you didn't bleed much, which means the arrow didn't hit anything important. The arrow came through, which meant I could pull it out.
Otherwise, it would still be in your leg. And it hurt just enough to shut you up for the last few hours," Dann said, grinning to himself.
"I swear, I'll put one in you if you don't wipe that grin off your face,"
Rist snapped.
"Should have left the bloody thing in," Dann said, shrugging.
"Will you two shut up?"
Both Dann and Rist jumped a little, taken aback by Calen's abrupt and irritated tone.
"Rist, Dann just pulled an arrow from your leg, hauled you to your feet, and dragged you here." Rist hung his head, ashamed. "Dann—"
"Yes?" His tired face gave its best impression at a cheeky grin. Calen wasn't in the mood for it.
"Stop being an asshole."
Dann opened his mouth but didn't argue. Calen reached into his bag and pulled out some of the herbs and plants he had gathered the other day, while he was looking for firewood. He mulled over the different options, trying to remember exactly which ones his mother had said were good at stopping infection.
Two, he knew immediately. Cretia's Breath and Bluebottle drops. He pulled them out and set them down on the rock to his left. He muttered to himself as he sifted through the rest, "Mullder, docleaf…" None of them were as good as brimlock sap. But they would do.
When he had picked out all the ones he needed, he used a rock to grind them into a paste. He added some water from the rivulet to get the consistency he wanted.
"These herbs will act as a poultice. It should keep infection at bay while the wound heals," Calen said, still grinding away at the plant mixture. He noticed a hesitant look on Rist's face. "It's that or we cauterise it with fire.
Dann, could you get a fire going?"
The colour drained from Rist's face. "Let's go with the plant thing."
"Good choice!" Dann choked, coughing up some water in between bouts of strained laughter.
Despite the multiple protests and gasps of pain, it didn't take long for Calen to apply the poultice to Rist's leg. He tore a strip off Rist's shirt to act as a bandage once it was dried in.
"We should get going." Dann dragged himself to a seated position.
"We're going to have to walk through the night and all tomorrow morning just to make it back in time."
Calen's stomach rumbled. "Can we eat something first?"
"I second that," Rist said.
Dann sighed. With a grunt of exhaustion, he got to his feet. "If you can get a fire going. I'll go and see if I can find something to eat. Some food and rest might not be a bad idea before we get moving."
Calen had just managed to get the fire going by the time Dann re-emerged from the trees, the limp body of a beaver slung over his shoulder.
There wasn't going to be much food to go around.
"We eat, then we rest until the sun passes the peak of that mountain."
Dann winced as he pointed up towards a craggy peak in the distance. "Then we need to move."
"Agreed, Rist?" Calen said.
Rist grunted, a grimace twisted on his face.
The sun had already begun to set when Calen, Dann, and Rist started the long hike back through Ölm Forest. The combination of a warm meal and exhaustion meant they had rested far longer than intended.
"Well, we're not going to pass The Proving. But given what's happened so far, I'm pretty happy just to be going home without an arrow wound in my leg." Dann's attempt at humour was met with a swift kick in the ankles from Rist.
"Too soon." There was a no-nonsense tone in Rist's voice, but Calen noticed a smirk just lingering on the corner of his mouth. Dann managed to catch himself before falling and thought better of complaining, but something caused him to stop in his tracks.
"Dann—" Dann's raised hand cut Calen short. He squinted as he stared into the dense brush.
His voice was a whisper. "There's something…"
Calen thought he could hear it. The rustling of leaves. The snapping of branches. The thumping of heavy feet. A small puddle of water in front of them rippled at regular intervals.
In a flash, a wolfpine burst out of the trees about ten feet ahead of them.
Its fur was mostly a greyish-black, mottled with streaks of dark blood. The wolfpine stared straight at them. Something was wrong. It was large, less than half a foot smaller than Faenir from nose to tail. But it was not large enough to cause the ripples in that water.
"Oh, for the love of the gods! This is getting ridiculous! Can't we just catch a bre—?" Just as Rist was about to finish his sentence, a massive axe with a half-moon blade followed the wolfpine out of the trees, swinging through the air with a ringing metallic whistle. The axe blade was massive, nearly the width of the wolfpine's belly to the crest of its back, with a smooth translucent gemstone set into its surface. It crashed straight into the creature's ribcage and, with a howling whimper, lifted the wolfpine off its feet. The sheer force carried it through the air and slammed it into the trunk of a nearby tree. Calen didn't need to look to know that the animal would not be getting back up. He felt his grip on the spear involuntarily growing tighter as fear made itself at home in his bones.
Dann was in the middle of nocking an arrow when two creatures emerged from the trees near the body of the wolfpine. An unintelligible noise came from Rist's mouth.
A thousand thoughts ran amok in Calen's head, none of them able to make sense of the other. He had to squeeze his hands around the spear even tighter to stop them from shaking. Uraks.
They were human in shape, but the larger of the two was easily over seven feet tall. Its shoulders were heavy and broad, and its dense muscles rippled with every movement. Its ashen-grey skin was thick and rough, almost like it was made of leather. Of everything, its sharp, angular face
was the least human. The pale skin made it seem almost bereft of life, while its thin bluish lips curled back to reveal a yellow set of sharp, vicious teeth.
It wore no shoes of any description, but battered pieces of plate mail covered its legs, secured with thick straps of leather. Its chest bore no such protection; the exposed flesh was crisscrossed with half-healed wounds and scars of battles long past. What struck Calen the most, though, were its eyes. The irises were as red as blood, and the pupils were long and sharp, like those of a kat. He had never seen one up close before.
The smaller of the two Uraks looked similar to its companion, although it was around a foot shorter, and its skin had more of a brownish hue to it.
Like the larger one, it wore no shoes but bore a ragged iron chest plate and vambraces to match.
It only took a couple of seconds for the Uraks to notice Calen, Dann, and Rist huddled together a stone's throw away with dumbstruck looks on their faces. Wrapping a thick grey hand around the shaft of the axe buried in the crumpled heap of the wolfpine, the larger of the two shouted something at the smaller one. Its voice was harsh, like stones crashing down the side of a mountain. Calen could not understand anything it said.
Without hesitation, the smaller Urak charged towards the group at a pace that Calen would not have thought possible, given its size. It swung a jagged sword over its head, unleashing a guttural howl. The charred-black sword was nearly four foot long, with a translucent gemstone set into the blade, just above the crossguard.
Calen heard the familiar whistle of Dann's arrow only half a second before he saw it jutting out just above the armour on the creature's chest. It did not slow it down. Within seconds, it was upon them.
Rist was the closest one to it. Twisting out of its way, he jabbed his spear straight for the creature's legs. He missed by the thickness of a hair, then took a backswing from the pommel of the beast's sword. It struck him right in the chest and sent him tumbling into the base of a tree. He didn't move.
Calen roared. His pulse was like fire in his veins, fear driving him on as much as anything else. The Urak evaded the first jab of his spear with alarming ease, but found Calen just as well equipped to dodge its return strike.
When Dann planted a second arrow, this time in its abdomen, the creature erupted in a frenzy of flailing swings. Calen lost his footing.
Tripping over a loose stone, he went crashing to the ground. Smelling
blood, the creature lunged after him. In a panic, Calen heaved his spear up into the air behind him, turning as he fell, eroding every last bit of strength he had left in his body as he did.
As the Urak lunged downward at Calen, it was trapped by its own momentum, helpless as the spear plunged straight through its exposed neck, spraying blood down over Calen. The weight of the creature as it collapsed pinned the spear into the ground, leaving both suspended in mid-air above Calen. Its piercing red eyes, void of life, still somehow burned with anger as they stared through him. A putrid smell of rotted flesh wafted from its open mouth, nearly emptying the contents of Calen's stomach.
Calen didn't have long to catch his breath. A blood-chilling roar erupted from the remaining Urak. It bounded across the forest floor, axe in hand.
Branches and plants crumbled beneath its powerful legs as it covered the distance between them with ease. By the time it reached them, a number of arrows jutted from its unarmoured chest. Enough to have killed a man twice over.
Dann attempted to nock another arrow, but the creature caught him with a vicious kick to the chest. Calen thought he heard a crunch as Dann's knees buckled, and he fell to the floor in a heap.
His mind was racing. Every fibre in his body burned in a symphony of exhaustion and pain. He didn't know if Dann or Rist were alive. Neither of them moved.
The massive Urak placed one hand on the body of its fallen companion.
Then, with a terrifying display of strength, it yanked the limp corpse free from the spear as if pulling a splinter from a block of soft butter. Blood fountained over Calen as the creature held the corpse above him. Then it tossed it to the ground a few feet away, without even looking to see where it landed. There was no sense of loss on its face. No sobbing, no whimpers.
Calen's heart pounded like hammer on anvil. Slow, methodical thumps echoed in his ears.
The creature's chest lifted and dropped in heavy breaths. Its mouth twisted into what could almost be called a grin. Its tongue dripped thick beads of saliva down its jagged teeth. The massive half-moon blade glittered in the pale moonlight, a mix of beauty and misery forged in steel.
With its gaze fixed firmly on Calen, the Urak whispered something in its guttural tongue before raising the axe above its head with both hands. Its
horrid red eyes burned into Calen's skull. Time slowed down as the blade fell. Calen saw what it did to the wolfpine, and he would fare no better.
The panic in his heart gave way to a sudden sense of acceptance. He had always heard that your life flashes before your eyes in the moments before death. It's what all the bards and storytellers said. How they truly knew, Calen wasn't sure. It was not as if they had fought in the wars they sang of.
It didn't matter either way. He didn't have long to look back on, but he would like to see Haem's face again.
A blinding light filled the space around the hulking shape of the Urak, a flash as bright as the sun. Calen heard someone screaming, shrieking, as if the very noise was burning their throat from the inside out.
The axe never fell.
The massive creature dropped to its knees, the ground shaking as it did.
Its arms sagged down to its sides. The axe rang out harmlessly as it fell from the Urak's lifeless fingers.
Swaying where it knelt, it collapsed on its side with a heavy thud. Smoke and the repugnant smell of burning flesh filled Calen's nostrils as it wafted back and forth in the wind, emanating from a horrid scorch mark on the creature's back. The previously ashen-grey skin had been melted and disfigured into an oozing, pitch-black liquid.
Calen retched as the smell hit the back of his throat. Coughing violently, he peeled his eyes away from the charred remains of the Urak that had attacked him, searching for whatever had brought that behemoth to its end.
He squinted to see. The mixture of smoke and exhaustion stuck his eyes together.
"Rist?"