The sun had been up for a while when Galen and Tagrun met again over a breakfast of cornmeal cakes and dried beef. Warm breezes rattled the surrounding tree leaves in a murmur rarely heard in the grasslands, save along the streams that fell from the Slag Hills to the east of them. At the moment, the Vault was close to silent, just the occasional voice in the air, faint tread of feet, and sounds of a smith's hammer in the distance came to their fire. In the air was the heavy smell of the rains that had come after they took up these tents, the wild nighttime rains more common to summer not spring. Rich odors of health and growth now rose from the sunlit ground, as the heat of the day warmed the land.
Across the fire, the boy seemed different. Where there had been a somberness, broke only in rare moments by the joy the Numeni had in the world, he now radiated a sense of purpose. He did not meet the eyes of his uncle, but the way they watched a certain path told Galen why not. The girl was not in evidence in this smaller encampment, though she had been with them until before the storms rolled over in the last hours of darkness. Where she was did not bother the assassin as much as it seemed to worry the boy.
Bronze eyes, slit as his own were, at last met the elf's inquiring gaze. The hate so visible in them on the trails here was not showing at the moment. Creases and twitches around them spoke of concern instead. For Galen, this was a relief. The boy had been burning like the grasslands with anger on the way here. A rage at their prey over the deaths he had seen, one the tale Galen had told the Elders would have fanned into a conflagration the wildfires he had sparked with his magic would seem dim next to.
In the quiet, both men ate, thinking different thoughts. Galen set aside the shocks of being on the Vault of Sandor, setting his thoughts on the hunt to regain the trail. The town at the river's mouth was this necromancer's target, he could tell now by the direction of travel. But a good stalker of men knew they hunted a wily and deadly prey. There were other options, not many, but still, there were a few. Along those paths the mind of the assassin dwelled as he slowly chewed the dried meat, wishing his friends would let them reach his packs, and the store of beans from Domorushtuu in them, which when ground and boiled made a wonderful brew for drinking in the mornings. Or while thinking.
But such beans were rare among the clans. They rarely traded outside the grasslands. Mostly the few gems and gold found in the river to the west, sometimes the hides of the beasts they had slain, but did not need more than the meat at the time, and the quills of the great birds of the land, used by many as the best for writing with, as well as decorations for clothing. Such are the hardships of the assassin's calling, the elf thought, sipping from his water skin, to miss many a luxurious meal, while on the hunt.
This prey, after getting his mind back from the wishes of his tongue, had shown his guile and daring several times. Doubling back, not just to toss off the trail, but to hunt himself for lives. The traps, even the raising of the beasts before him as undead servants, all pointed to danger from their prey. Taking another bite of the jerked meat, Galen chewed both the food and what he knew of the prey. The sages of Thogras had few details to give them, save they had divined his Mistress. Just knowing the necromancer served a female power alone had chilled Galen's blood when told. The Empress of Death was the goddess he served, and they knew it was a he only by the magics.
Tagrun grunted, obviously a little worried the girl was not with him, but no more than any other young man in love when away from his woman. "What is known by magic, can be influenced by magic."
Galen's eyes rose from the fire his hand was stirring. "Did I speak my thoughts again?"
The ripple laugh of an elf rang on his ears. "You said on the way here, each time you did, that it was a sign of age." The boy placed a small cup into some coals on his side of the fire, dropping in the leaves of herbs and other plants that acted as the tea of his folk. "Funny, hunters of men seem to talk so much, it must alert their prey."
"Just we old ones, but once we do, we don't stay long in the profession." Galen's hand ran through his hair, wishing he had a comb or brush with him at the moment. "And you make a good point. As I told you, what magic obscures, it also reveals. And the reverse."
A twig acted as a stirring stick as Tagrun pondered this himself. "Can we trust this one not to have influenced the magics to blur what was revealed." He held up a hand, stalling Galen for a moment longer. "This necromancer, let us assume all we have seen is a false trail. You said no one could carry that amount of weight by spell, which means somehow, someway, he has hidden the tracks of the weight. Could he have allies or servants on a nearby trail, carrying things, that he grabs from time to time to make us fear him more?"
Objections died in the assassin's throat as the words found niches in his brain. Spaces deep inside his head where another hunt's memories lay in uneasy sleep. Galen shifted down to the ground, despite the mud. Contact with Mater Terra sometimes gave him his best ideas. Tagrun's line of pursuit was changing things. Any other Numen, Galen thought, would have never considered that the sages of Thogras could be bested in magics. His nephew did, though. Once, early in his career as an assassin, Galen had faced another necromancer, one just as crafty and deadly. One who had woven spells with such skill that only what she had desired to be revealed was shown. She had even twisted the power of the Ors Veritas, under scrutiny of those suspecting her, to avoid condemnation.
"Let me think this over. I have hunted others of his ilk, and perhaps I can try to predict his trail better." Galen reclined on the ground as he spoke, and once down, his face grew slack, and the eyes danced around seeking thoughts in another realm.
Tagrun removed and sipped his tea, as his uncle lay there, head against the stump seat, thinking. The young half elf remembered well his mother doing much the same when she had to "consult her memories and oracles". Galen would not answer to much now, not until his walk in thoughts was done. Instead, the young hunter thought over the way the grass had been, and what it had changed to. Raising images in his mind, seeking the path of their prey, and things he may have missed. Xibo and Drixaz, no longer able to hunt due to injuries, often sat along the edges of the sacred place, watching the hunters and beasts below them. He knew this as Xibo often had criticized or praised him with details of hunts he had been in near here.
Much like his mother, and Galen, his head cocked off to one side at the idea released by that thought. He had not just his eyes, but the eyes and minds of others. Just as he was the guide in the grass, and Galen would take over in other lands soon, so to could others have tracked their prey, even without knowing it. With the quiet of his namesake, the hunter left to find those who frequented the edges of the buttes, seeking the trail in the eyes of other hunters. Just as he would watch the birds of prey and carrion when seeking the herds when seeking to feed the clan. Their eyes saw from a different place, and thus other things led them to prey.
Near the west edge of the spire they were upon, the young hunter found the elders. Not being in the hunt, but watching from well afar with eyes still keen, though other parts of their flesh binding them from taking up spears and stalking it themselves. They were also rather noisy, speaking loud, arguing over which hunter was wrong in his position around the herd of vixgrin, the large beasts with the scoop antlers. These creatures were dangerous prey, standing nearly two spears high at their eyes, and were extremely territorial. So much so, they only bunched over the winter and in rare herds on the grass as they moved from the mountains to the west to the hills, and back each spring and fall.
Given his preference, despite the meat of the beasts, and the many uses of their other parts, Tagrun would hunt the auroch of the coastal plains over these beasts. These beasts, especially the oldest of them, could almost sense the approach of a hunter, even from great distances. This made getting close to a herd, during times like now, when they crossed the river to seek the high mountain meadows and forests to the west, difficult, if not impossible. Most herds formed around those older beasts.
The elders were arguing over which herd should have been hunted and why. The fact that the pipe they passed back and forth gently still told Tagrun much that he had wondered over. Not just one set of eyes had evaluated his hunts here in the past. That had explained why so many young hunters got their first hunts here, near the high buttes. So others could watch as well as their mentor. This argument seemed to be all over on which hunting bands were right and wrong.
"It is a wonder we young can get close to prey, as our ears ring with your words at a distance." Tagrun was glad to see the jerking motions that told him the elders had been more intent on the hunts, and forgot to protect themselves. "You both know better than to sit with your backs to the trail. Perhaps I can regale the youngsters on how I caught elders sleeping when they were to be watching the young." Tagrun took a seat on a nearby rock, after checking for snakes.
Xibo watched him with a delight in his eye. "Your hunts, tusk-cat, were a bit beyond normal ones. Few wind up killing their namesake so early in life, and fewer still take no trophy from the beast." He smiled until his eyes had held Tagrun's for a few moments. "I see, this is about the hunt you are on now."
Drixaz stirred, turning away to look at the hunter as well. "You think he passed us by."
His hair floated around his face in the wind as he used it to mark negation. "Actually, we know that his kind needs many materials for the spells we have seen, but he travels light, alone. Can you ask if any strange parties have passed by in the past hand of days?"
The old men shared a look, Drixaz being the one to smile now. "You owe me a tender cut of your share tonight, Xibo. He noted it, though he says 'we', to include your elven friend."
"Yes, yet the totem powers spoke to the boy, not the Galen. That is strange. Perhaps our gods have chosen their own blade to hunt this evil." Smoke rings floated around the elder of the eagle clan, before he passed back the pipe. "You will have the meat, but I think in the end, I will be right."
The bells of elven laughter rolled over the elders, who shared a smile. "So, I am an elder and admitted to the friendly disagreements then?" Galen walked out of the scrub silently as the hunter had. Tagrun was troubled he had not heard the killer of men before in his own approach, but his father claimed his own skills in walking without a sound came from his mother, not him.
Xibo shushed him, suddenly leaning forward. Drixaz stood, looking down over the edge. Picking his way to the rim, the assassin had his blood frozen. Nine small crucifixes were on the slopes below them. The same dark purple flames dance upon the bodies decorating it, as had the one in the north, and still did the rocks covering the bodies buried there. Worse, by the size of the tortured bodies, he knew this time it was not Pumilio from the mountains to the west on the crosses.
"Children! Perfidio!" The curse was soft, but still all his rage was in it. Galen knew this one was mocking not just the tribes, but him in particular. Turning back, finding the hidden stronghold of the Kensori, letting them know the world could find the place they had hidden for an age.
Drizax trembled beside him. "No warning, this beast of hell can evade the protections of the gods."
Xibo seemed alone to be calm. "I have a bad feeling something from the past has followed a wandering one home." He looked into the eyes of Galen. "Once, long ago, one who still lives amongst us walked the desert to the west. The place of ashes and sands, during passing of the Sickle Star."
The Sickle Star of the tribes was the great planet Athalan, the rings giving it the appearance of bearing tools of a farmer on each side of its orb. The passing would be one of the eclipses, when Athalan passed before Andramakas, blocking the sun for fifty days or more each time. Yet still so many strange things happened during those eclipses, which came about once every seventy five years, that one could not pinpoint it out of the tales he had heard.
"Tell me more of this time, Elders. Tell me what it was that some clansman stirred up in the Shifting Grey Sands."
But beside them all the face of the half-elven youth was blank, tears coming down his face. Before the elders could speak, his words shattered the men forever. "Chanti left with nine children this morning. To the slopes above the hunt. There is no marker for her." Tagrun raised his face to the skies, as the howl of the Tusk-cat he was named for tore his throat, and the thought of losing one they had sworn to protect sunk into the elders.
It was only by force that Galen was able to keep the boy from leaping off the spire to the slope below. Tagrun was gone, when they looked in his eyes. The enemy had claimed another victim. In those eyes, Galen saw only an echo of many souls and spirits he had gazed upon before through those portals. The boy was now a killer, but one dedicated to taking just one life.
He hoped other lives would not stain the hands of his nephew with their blood, as they had his own. But the Parcae of his folk were not known for giving easy lives to those of half-blood, and the totem powers of Tagrun's human heritage demanded sacrifices still, some said. Of one's heart desire, if not the heart itself.
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