The red sunrise of the foggy morning spoke of more blood to Tagrun. Even the Aqi was tinted with red, in places. He waited patiently, as his uncle loaded a pack beast, a very unruly mule. Given his own preferences, they would have left the beast, but Galen had tools and possessions he felt not wise to leave with the Kenrai. Thus the beast was accompanying them. Until it could be fed to one of the beasts of the Grasslands, if Tagrun had his way.
At last they crossed the again muddy brown waters of the Aqi, moving as fast as the mule let them to the spot where the young hunter's spear still stood. Once there, Tagrun took his time, looking again over the now cold trail, trying to see the small details that had stood out to him the day before. The cool breeze coming down the valley of the Aqi, lifting the mists of the hands before dawn into low clouds that masked the sun, leaving the dew on the grass longer than the day before.
It was only in the looking around that something else caught the eye of the hunter. Places where the dew was gone, as the day before. Freshly broken and bent grasses that had not yet sprung as the sun was still hidden. Another fresh black thread, standing out from the soft green flesh and white needles of a small ground cactus.
But it was the hand print on his spear that stopped the hunter cold. After the trap on the crucified dwarf, it set the hair on the back of his neck moving like a spider across a web. Trusting to anything left where this enemy could touch it was something the hunter did not plan to do, even after this foe was in the grave himself. The hand print was truly a humans, with the width and fingers of that kind. The dew darkened wood of the haft showed the waxes he used to preserve it swirled a bit where the pads of the fingers touched it.
Drops of brown were all over the weapon, a brown too like dried blood for his comfort. When Galen started to reach out to the spear, Tagrun slid his arm between the elf's body and the haft, using gentle pressure to indicate the danger.
"He came back. There is blood on the shaft, below the hand mark in the dew." Tagrun began indicating things with his left hand, the right still pushing his uncle back further. Galen tensed, then let the hand push him back, studying the spear himself. It was the elf that noticed the other component first.
"Feathers. Black. Raven or crow?" Galen now was trying to read what the boy saw, but tracking in civilized lands was not the same as here in the wilderness. In a city or even rural areas, connections and the ability to question folks worked best. Out here, with no one to question, his nephew's skills worked best. He was learning some of the things of the Grass, as the boy had said he would.
"Raven, wing feathers. Know any sorcerers who can break a curse?" Tagrun chuckled, "Too bad, it was a good spear. I will leave it, with a curse marker, perhaps the Shalu can lift the curse, or trip it from a safe distance."
The hunter stood, letting the north wind spread his hair forward. He wished that it was long enough for the traditional braid of his folk, but the long winter had been harsh for all the hunters, and they had each offered up some of their hair to various rites to bring in prey. His shortened hair barely touched his shoulders, instead of mid back as it should. The sun warmed the land, lifting the shaking light from the ground, warping things close to the horizon beyond recognition. The dew was drying off, making it harder to read the trail he would hunt. But he had to follow, if only to do as the sands and sage had spoken of, driving the necromancer from the grasslands.
The wind was rising as well, blowing south, making the hunter wonder if the Grass was trying to push the monster he tracked away. With each gust, it was like the strokes of the wings of his clan's totem, pushing it away from his folk. The hunter spent a few minutes, making a curse marker, finding a branch to support it, and setting it near his spear, but not too close.
Walking wide, he came to a conclusion, their foe enjoyed coming back again and again to a spot. He walked south on the trail, Galen and the mule behind him a ways to let him find the trail. As with every hunt, this one took him time to learn the marks of his prey. The boot prints were few and far between at first, until the third stream from the distant Slag Hills. That valley had fewer stones, which let the hunter get a feel for the way his foe walked. The boots were well worn, imbedded with the marks of how their wearer moved in them. The outside edge was worn more than the insole, and there was a series of slices on the left boot. Both boots had a heel, something those of the Grass never wore. And some form of tassels hung from the backs, leaving a trace when they sank into softer places.
Tagrun's eyes took in the marks, the stretch of the paces he could see as he walked, and the lack of other prints. The foe traveled light, yet moved as slow as a man with a burden. There was no tracks of a pack beast, or travois drag marks, but he carried some weight, by his paces, which were very strained on slopes, and still staggered as if a weight was shifting on his back from time to time on the more even ground.
The balking of the mule at times came to mark something the hunter had not anticipated. It kept Galen from the fangs of snakes, made the elf aware of the grartagrun on the ridge watching them, and once by bolting saved both from a trap that consumed instead a poor beasts of the grasslands, a long eared hare. The black and purple flames wreathed the beast as they had the dwarves at the river. The poor creature had not truly died, until Galen chanted a song for the dead. That song, a haunting thing of notes that shook the hunter's spirit, with words that were both of the voice and thespirit at the same time, gave the beast release. The song still bothered the hunter, many hands of the sun later. It echoed in his mind, seeking to break many ties, worrying at the memories of Hathrad.
The hands of the sun shifted from rising to falling as the day continued. With each trace of the trail, the hunter spent time, sometimes speaking aloud the things he found, others merely making eye contact with Galen and pointing out the marks and how he read them. At last, on a stony ridge high above the great valley to the east and the draws north and south, he stopped.
"I have questions for you, uncle. This foe, how does he carry gear?" Tagrun's question broke a long silence, dropping into an air still of even bird calls.
"What do you mean?" Galen seemed puzzled at first, but the mule chose that moment to try wandering off, which made him stop short. The mule carried his gear, and Tagrun had a pack on his back carrying his few possessions and a blanket. His eyes became a bit distant, as the thought connected. Tagrun smiled at the elf, who staked the mule for a moment to a crack in the rocks.
"He bears no weight, it seems, b ut from time to time, he sinks and staggers as he walks. As if a load is shifting on him. But he always weighs the same, except those few missteps."
Galen studied the prints his nephew now indicated, looking harder at the ones just before the stones. Indeed, as he had climbed the hill, it appeared as if he was pulling something, but there was no trace of what was pulled. The staggering steps showed deeper than the others as Tagrun said. He traced the footprint with his fingers, trying not to disturb the print for his nephew, but curious as to the soil they were in.
Memories of his own teachings of magics as a boy came back to the elf, looking at the puzzle. "Leviter," like a wisp of wind passed his lips. When he met Tagrun's eyes, he saw his words causing their own questions in his nephew's expression. "He is using a spell, the Ors Leviter, it is called, the lifting spell. But I had not thought one could keep that spell going all day."
"Lifting spell, he uses magic to carry things?" Tagrun was trying to get deeper into the foe, the elf could tell.
"Yes, but with a cost. I have used that spell, and it takes much out of you to keep it going hours on end. And that is not when moving." He took a deep breath, and let it out. "He is using power wantonly, nephew. He will need to feed his power soon. That means killing, humans if he can, animals if not."
Eyes darkened, then turned back to the river. "We will go to the camp of the Otters, they will be along the river at this time of year." Tagrun's face was strained in some way he could not comprehend. "Five days journey, but we have to stay to the rocks. As much as I would like to track this one, now we know he must kill to be lazy. So we go to the next clan and warn them."
The elder nodded, he too despised giving up on a trail that was warm. But knowing where the prey was headed helped. Or so they both would hope. Tagrun left the tracks behind, moving to the quicker trail to the west. He still had a thought that haunted him, could the mage lift himself as he did the possessions? Tagrun was certain he would not like the answer to that question.
The path he took them to had its own dangers, ones the ridges had protected them from, with their exposed stone spines. Closer to the river, as they moved in the softer earth, there was another thing to fear, besides the beasts of the Grasslands. There was the beasts below the roots to worry about.
Three days they traveled, the mule being less obstinate once they reached a true trail for it to plod along. Not having to fight the mule saved time, but still was slower than Tagrun would like. Each period they had to rest the beast cost them time, he felt. What should have taken three suns, took a handful of them. But still it was not as fast as the hunter had hoped.
As the sun sank into the teeth of the distant mountains, showing their peaks and passes only in the shadows they cut into the setting orb. The black points too like something Tagrun feared was out there waiting for them. Over the last two suns he had taken them closer to the hills, resting only in the exposed rock areas of the land. The hunter still had a deep fear in him, often stopping to lower an ear to the dirt now, or watch out over the ground slowly.
Among the clans of the Kansarothi it is said that the winds can bring good or ill, and a wind from the sun was good, and one to it was ill and took the fears of the people to the sky to become real. Tagrun cursed, as that sun set, the wind at his back. There in the grasses were the signs he had hoped not to see. Buhatar trails, the broken sod of their exits from tunnels they dug beneath the ground here. The raised ridges of grass that rose over the tunnels between those exit spots, and the remains of many creatures that had fallen to the buhatars. There was even a skull of the long nosed tusk beast out there, the great tusks lying like bait for those foolish enough to dare the open ground to harvest that ivory.
The waves in the grass that still stood were broken by those trails in the sod. Trails that marked the danger they now faced. They had fewer choices now. Tagrun had hoped this pod would have starved and moved away over the rough winter just passed, but they had apparently fed well. Buhatar was the king of the grasslands, but this far south, they were rare. The soft loams let them burrow fast, but if they dug too deep, the beasts own tunnels became their death, collapsing much easier than the slower than the red earth used in pot making that was further north.
Galen joined him, eyes looking across the devastation. The elf's eyes roamed the mess, knowing he was seeing something, but not sure what. When his gaze met his nephew's, the younger man realized the elder was not familiar with the danger they faced, or at least had never seen its destruction. The hunter knew he had to name the danger, so he spoke softly looking back out to the land ahead of them.
"This is the hunting grounds of a pod of buhatari. This pod is dangerous, the long winter has let them feed well, it seems. When we move, we move slowly and softly." Tagrun's arm raised and began to point to the signs they would need to watch for. "The beasts leave trails, those raised areas, but in tall grass, look for grass that moves against the winds. Buhatar hunt by sound and shaking, so step careful, and get anything you cannot live without off that mule. The first time it acts up, we leave it. No arguing, unless you plan to die buhatar food."
Galen did not argue for a change. He could tell the younger man was not joking. He took from the mule all he needed, and a few of the more precious items, including a small chest of gems and jewelry he donned quickly or stashed in places around his body. The elf then took up an ornate spear from the back of the beast.
"I note you have not replaced your spear." He held out a bronze headed spear, with a shaft of some light colored wood, stained in a way to make the grain of the wood stand out, almost like runes along the shaft. At the butt end sat a strange bronze piece, a pair of dragon's claws holding a deep red firestone, the brilliant ruby with the darker flame in its center. "This was made by my mater, your Avia, the mother of your mother. She took the information I had of the spear you used last time I visited, and tried to anticipate your needs. This is a pilum, a throwing spear, as we use in hunting."
Tagrun took it. Despite being made to be obviously hurled with force, it was able to be set, as the back claw of the pair acted as a butt for the spear. The workmanship was of both kinds, the hunter could tell. It was built to be used, but beautiful at the same time. Tagrun had heard that elven weapons were all show, no edge, but picking a blade of grass and trying it on the edge, told him all he needed to know. There was a fine edge on the working end of that weapon.
"Thank you. I hope to meet her someday to thank her for this."
"Perhaps you shall, but she knows you are happiest here in the lands you grew up in." Galen stared back at the grasslands ahead, the low rolling hills and broad valley seeming inviting, until one saw again the traces of the beasts they now had to avoid to go on.
Both settled their gear one last time, and started down the spur to that lower path. Each step was made with care, attempting to make as little noise as possible once they reached the edge of the rocky areas. As the earth's bones dove beneath the deep soil of the lower terrains, even the mule seemed content to move as directed and behave. The large area of fresh buhatar scat, still very odiferous, no doubt contributed to its continued change of attitude.
Tagrun would from time to time stop and survey the path, looking very carefully for more signs, but none appeared. The grass still moved in waves with the wind, no tell tale puffs of dirt as the bahaturi came up to breath were close by, and best of all, it seemed to the hunter that the beasts were tracking a herd of vixgrint closer to the river. But the main pod was not his worry. It was the ones that left the pod, the weak, those driven out with the foaming mouth sickness, and the other dying beasts. A buhatar no longer in a pod was not as predictable, they could lay in wait for days, barely moving, breathing too softly to be seen except on a cold morning as the breath would frost the air.
Near some great trees, the hunter felt uneasy, as they approached a stream falling from the distant hills to the great Aqi below. The bed was of the rocks and boulders exposed by the flowing waters, or rushed down the ravines it had cut during the floods of many seasons of snows from the stony ridges above. The place they were at was one of the few that there was no ravine, but a broad valley paved in the debris of erosion and trees of the streams, the tall fluff wood trees that let loose each spring the snows of cobweb seeds, to turn the grasslands white, on the ground and in the air, with their drifting wisps. There was also a large cluster of the crying woman trees, whose branches sagged to the ground like the hair of a woman hanging her head over the body of her dead lover. The clustering of many trees gave the hunter hope, for buhatari could not tunnel through the earth branches of such a gathering, without killing the plants forever.
As it was afternoon, he brought his uncle and the beast of burden the elf led down the slope from the direction of the sun, with only a slight drift down the hill to the stream running over the rocks with the music only water could make. There was a wide gap in the trees, where the scar of some old wildfire still showed the path of the flames, spreading uphill from some spot by the stream some fool had been careless with a fire. It must have occured in the fall, as Tagrun remembered from a visit the season of thunders before there had been six trees on the north bank that were now gone. The plums and two of the weeping women were now missing, or charred stub, with some sections of logs on the ground in that area.
The wind was from the hills, angled from the lands of cold along their back trail. The grey ash and burnt soil stirred up in small clouds as the men and mule moved to the boulder field around the stream. The water was shallow, spring runoff being nearly over, but still stretching across the whole of the stream bed, not yet receded to the deep narrow channels of summer. But the waters were still chilly with the frosty touch of the snows they came from. Once across the bed, there was a field of boulders to navigate. Two hands of spear lengths, if not more, Tagrun figured as they got the mule to step out of the stream.
Only to balk suddenly, as a swirling of winds from the ravine upstream came through the great weeping woman trees. A wind rich in a scent the hunter and his uncle had both hoped not to smell. The rotting flesh smell of a buhatar's breath. The elf froze, knowing that any motion would be deadly after the many tales softly spoken by his nephew as they had traveled during the last two suns. Galen could feel his throat burning at the odor, so strong it carried even the taste of spoiled meat to his palate.
Eyes dancing over the trunks of the trees, the hunter sought the signs he hoped not to see. The large spine crest of the beast was visible, barely, through the hanging hair branches of the trees. The golden brown shell blended in very well with that area. The crest looked oily, like the shells did right after moulting. This gave Tagrun hope, as after shedding the outer layers of a shell, the beasts slept soundly for days. Still, they would have to take extra care, moving even more silently than before.
Weaving a path amid the rocks, trying to keep the larger boulders between them and the beast, they moved for nearly a hand of the sun while covering only a few spear throws in distance. The stream bent around an outcrop of solid rock, turning the stream south, making them choose the noisy splashing or moving closer to the beast, along a soft sandy flat. Tagrun signalled to his uncle and moved the quieter path, forgetting that mule might not appreciate it. Galen had not taken any calming steps like wrapping its head in his blanket, as getting such would make noise, and stir the mule to a ruckus anyway.
At the closest spot to the trees, the wind again swirled, bringing the scent of the beast again across them. The mule tossed its head, rattling the halter it was lead by. This time the wind was one of those rotating columns of air, wide and fast, taking not just the smell of rotten breath of the beast, but the fear scent of the mule back into the trees. As the finer grit rose from the sand, Tagrun cursed softly, seeing it race back into the trees. Snuffling erupted in the trees, as well as the thudding of the beast coming to its feet with a breaking of branches of the bower it had made under its weight.
The mule lost its last bit of calm, braying and kicking out at its master, who let go the halter fast, his hand finding the great mace at his belt. As the mule tore across the stream in a run, Tagrun turned not to save the mule, but to face the buhatar. It did not charge out, but staggered, sluggishly, as if drunk. The beast was unsteady, its great cone head swaying back and forth, trying to find again the scent of animal fear the mule had released moments ago. The black agate eyes, with no white to them, and no difference between pupil and iris, were like magnets to Galen's own orbs, leaving him stunned by their gaze. Not that the gaze turned one to stone, but to one who had never seen those beady eyes before, it was like an enchantment of the old tales, freezing one if fear or fascination.
Tagrun shifted to one side, then tossed himself into a roll in the sand, away from Galen, yelling as he did. "Look away, fast!" The air was ruptured by the scream of the beast, half bull's bellow, half screech of a owl at the call. It turned toward the motion of Tagrun rolling, charging at the hunter, who came up with his spear set to accept its charge, praying for a shot at one of the weak dips in the shell, or that it had molted in the last few hours, and the shell was not hardened yet.
That was when he heard another crashing, and from the corner of his eye saw his worst nightmare surge out of another smaller stack of trees. There was a young buhatar with this one. Tagrun cursed the creatures and the wizard that had made them from the combining of one of the great river sharks with the club-tailed armored leviathans of the plains further north. The smaller one was still nearly the size of the mule, and was down wind from the now wild pack animal. Young buhatari hunted by instinct, from birth, staying with their mothers only for a short time until they could hunt successfully on their own, when they would join the pod or be driven off. This cub with the scent in its nose charged into the stream to find the mule.
Knowing their beast of burden to be a lost cause, the hunter laid all his concentration on the mother. She would prove a deadly foe, for in following the mule, the cub had placed Tagrun and Galen between it and its mother. Not a good position to be in no matter the creature.
The buhatar charged, and the slickness proved to be not fresh scales, but sap and juice from the branches it had made its bower from. Its body was slick, but that armor was hard as any other time. The scraping of the bronze spear down the underside of the jaw was all Tagrun needed to know this would be a long, nasty fight. He released the spear and leapt to the side, well away from the rows of arrowhead teeth inside her jaw. He prayed the weapon was as durable as his uncle claimed, watching it get stomped on at least twice. Her charge took the buhatar past him, but not the danger, as her great clubbed tail swung at him as she passed, catching Tagrun in ribs.
The white light of day burst into his vision as he found himself back at the boulders edge from that strike, tossed like a child's toy a full spear throw from where he had been hit. His side talked to him in pops, snaps and agonies, telling the hunter the ribs were broken. He rolled to the right, taking the weight of his body off his damaged left side. Still the move made his chest sound much like the noise when the buhatar had stood, as the broken ends of his bones ground on one another. A shadow fell over him as Galen interposed his body between Tagrun and the beast. His uncle was not remembering any of what he had been told, it seemed to the hunter, as he shouted and waved his bladed mace to one side, moving that way, taking the beasts attention from the wounded hunter.
Galen slowly sidestepped as the beast turned, keeping its attention as he moved the blades of the mace catching the lowering sunlight and making flashes even the poor eyesight gravitate to the weapon. Tagrun wanted to yell, but could not inhale enough to even speak without pain. The beast charged at the elf who had managed to move enough to leave the younger man safe from its feet and tail. Galen spun as the creature reached him, in the smooth moves of the saber dance elves were renowned for. The mace slammed twice in that double spin cavort on the skull of the beast, the hooked blade digging great gouges in the beasts flesh and bones, making it scream in pain not rage this time.
As the buhatar passed over the sandy stretch of ground, Tagrun's lost spear was flipped up into her belly, slicing deep into the thinner leather of its underside. Purple blood came from the wound, in a slow leak, staining the sands and grass under the crying woman trees. The beast ignored the cut from the spear, as the head wounds were worse, but it turned to attack again.
As it moved in a circle around the trunk of one tree, Tagrun forced himself to get up and run to the spear, which had fallen back into the sands, now caked in the grit and ichors of the beast. Its polished handle settled into his hand easily, the grit letting him hold what normally would have been to slick to keep a grip on. With every step and breath, his vision darkened, as the piercing pain from his ribs reminded him of their damage. He shook his head to clear the shadows, only to find that did not make matters better. Fluid was building inside his lungs, he could tell by the wet sounds he made exhaling.
The beast did not charge this time, it slowed down, not finding these foes easy as it had thought. The sounds of the mule in a fight, and a lesser roar from the cub told the men their pack beast was in as much trouble as they had anticipated. The noises did nothing to calm the mother. She pawed the ground, the branches snapping under the claws. This time she moved more deliberately, targeting Galen as she moved in, slower in pace but more dangerous as now she could stop quicker. Again the pirouettes of the dance kept the elf from the jaws, and allowed him to score three hits upon her head and armored back, the last coming with a crack of metal giving way upon the heavier plates of the buhatar's back.
One of the silvery orange blades of Galen's mace sailed past Tagrun, landing in the sand. The hunter took the chance of the moment and ran in to stab the spear in the eye closest to him of the beast. The blade slid in easily, though it pained the hunter to extend for the thrust. He cried out as the thrust struck home, happy to hear the crunching of bone shattering under the point of the spearhead. His hand had been four spans back from the blade, yet it still rested in the end against the upper jaw of the buhatar. Stepping back fast to avoid the turning head of the beast, he used both hands to yank the pilum out. He was not sure which was louder, the screech of pain from the beast, or the sound of the pieces of ribs grinding inside him.
Luck was with him, and the spear slid out cleanly, something the hook-pointed spears of his clan would not have done. He staggered back, the beast turning to follow. He had missed his target, he knew, and left himself too close. Galen had danced away, chanting some singsong tune as the young hunter had attacked. Why he did not press the attack, Tagrun could not understand. Then comprehension came as he managed to get back into the sand, and the ground beneath the beast erupted in fire that shot into the air, like a geyser in the hills the young hunter had once seen.
With every heart beat that passed, the fountain increased, and changed its nature from fire to molten rock. Tagrun was staggering towards the stream when his uncle was suddenly by his side, holding the wounded hunter up as they waded into the water.
The buhatar howled for only a short time, it had staggered clear, then collapsed, still burning, faint whines and whimpers coming from it. The flaming rocks lasted longer than the beast, setting the trees and grass of the south side of the stream ablaze, the wind driving the fire up the vale's side and down its length. In the dry grass, with the steady breeze, it was only a finger of the sun, if that, after the fountain at last dwindled to a bubbling pool of red hot rock. Behind them in the out cropping of larger rocks, they heard the cub abandoning its attack of the mule, as the wildfire scared it off.
"Why was it in the trees Tagrun? You said they only rested in areas that lacked rocks or great stands of trees." Galen said while coughing violently from the fumes and smoke from the blast.
"I don't know, anymore than how that explosion occurred."
Galen's coughing prevented an immediate follow up, so he left his nephew sitting on a boulder in the stream, to find the mule. When he came back, the elf bore the tattered packs to the north bank of the stream. He knelt in the waters as he rejoined Tagrun, splashing his face and rinsing his mouth out from the now clearing gases.
When he looked up, Galen's face was somber. "The fire was my doing, I summoned an elemental of the volcanoes here for a few hands of the sun, or at least I hope that is all it stayed for. I had no chance to warn you of it, as it is a complicated spell that I suddenly remembered casting once long ago." The elf lifted water in cupped palms to Tagrun's mouth for him to sip upon. "Up in the rocks, I could see out into the lowlands, just in front of the fire I started. There are more of the beasts out there. But they are deformed. Missing parts of them are missing, like the animated dead this necromancer raised in Isom."
The hunter looked at him bleakly. "He came this way, then. We left his trail, and he turned back to us."
"Yes." Galen faced the sun, now just touching the western horizon. "Somehow, this one knows of us. Or of me and this knife." Hand upon the red hilt, gripping it tightly, the assassin's face was grim. "He knows a blade has been made for him, and coin taken for his life. He is trying to ruin our hunt for him, by making us his prey."
Tagrun grunted, looking to the broad valley stretching south. "If this fire spreads more, we will be known as its starters." With a simple kick of a foot, he indicated the high ground, above the still smoking remains of the crying women trees. A rider of a horse was there, one bearing a hooked spear of the clans, and the tail of an otter hanging from it.
Eyes met, gold on gold, as the men knew there would be no denying their responsiblity if others were hurt. Below them, the buhatar ghouls that were not deep in the black soil came up to die in the flames. They could only hope all the undead beasts their prey had set out to kill them and others had been destroyed, but knew in their hearts that was too much to ask of their personal gods.
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