(You be the judge, vote with comments: Do I have my chops back and have the thread of this story again?)
Three bleak, grey dawns now lay behind them, as Galen stared across the dying coals of their night's fire at the hollowed out boy across from him. Losing two so close to him, and the mess at the Burning Rocks still sore to the boy, left the eyes vacant save the occasional stirring of vengeance's flames within them. Today, the embers of the fire and the eyes were dim, but not for long, the elven assassin thought.
Something would spark a rage, a killing one, and the boy would be lost, every bit the killer the one they hunted obviously wanted to make him. The Necromancer was not just playing a game with primitives, that much had become clear. The creature of darkness wanted them on his trail, and moving through the land in a rage. Each day, near to noon, they would find his camp from the night before, a place of death, even the grasses brown, brittle, and lifeless, adorned with strange trees made of bodies drained of life, that they lost time in burning, to prevent the dead from following them.
Tagrun rarely spoke, only a few words about the trail in the morning, and nothing but gestures in the trade sign-language after they'd dealt with the foul messes left behind by their prey. His eyes died more with each night, but the hate blazed up each noon, when they beheld the new horrors of crucified corpses, some twisted into trees in their own right, before their essences drained into their foe.
His eyes drifted across the prairie around them, the soft, rolling grasslands of the place his folk once called the Eastern Deadlands, ravaged by the remnants of the volcanoes around them, and a sorcerous war three ages before that triggered that cataclysm. The grass was not the green of the northern prairies and plains crossed before reaching the Vault. Dull teal to blue blades swayed in the wind, shorter, cropped often by herds of auroch and bison, among other creatures. The tall spires of the old vents and runs of dykes left behind when the ashes of the eruptions which formed the bowl of the land cast strange shadows, as their gleaming rocks, rich in precious metals, studded by clumps of wind and rain polished gems that sparkled in the sun. Those towers, numerous, but still spread apart by stadia, left him stunned, but the boy ignored their beauty. The tribes all ignored the riches, having paid heavily when they'd overrun the land during the Age of Convulsions, as the Old North Empire collapsed, for trying to harvest such, finding them enchanted against harvest by any not of that fallen nation. Something Galen fought testing, to see if those spells still held out against the fading of power the years passed brought on all such power.
Three days of sporadic sprinkles left the trail still there, but weak, hard to follow. The delays in setting the funeral pyres merely aggravated Tagrun, the boy simmering over the delay, but knowing the cost of not burning the ensorcelled bodies, the young hunter took the time, and did it well. This morning, though, his half open eyes meeting his uncle's.
"We go about this wrong. He wants us wasting time."
Galen grunted, pouring out the last of the pot of kaf, frowning. "Yes. But if we do not find the camps, others will suffer."
Tagrun shook his head. "No. Here there are fewer night hunting beasts to fear. That is what I mean." He leaned back, noting darker bands of clouds to the south. "Tonight, I say we keep on the trail. By torchlight if necessary. Drive him to abandon this, make him hasten to his chosen place to meet us, and perhaps fail to have it ready as a trap to kill his pursuers." Leaning forward, the boy stirred the coals, letting them brighten a bit, before seeking Galen's eyes and judgement.
Galen narrowed his own almond eyes, staring across the waving grasses, noting the increase of shrubs amid the landscape, compared with further north. Sipping his drink, he thought over the suggestion, not liking it. If the clouds broke, the trail would be easier to follow, and the hunters were not known for night tracking, to those outside their lands. Ones who knew them feared the nights they hunted, for the clans proved good in the dark hours at tracking their prey, or maybe more than by the light of the sun. So far, their prey counted on the edge night gave his powers, so perhaps Tagrun was correct. But to confront a sorceror in the dark, or the dim light of dawn might just be too much for them.
"He travels by day, that we know." Tagrun now opined. "Gathering up those he finds out, for his evil. If we push him, perhaps he will not take more of the Otter clan, whose grass we now tread."
"Or perhaps we will meet the Otters themselves, at night." Galen stretched, feeling muscles still tight from their fast pace and short nights protest at the movement. "Against such as this man, we know not what they will be sending out now."
Tagrun grunted, knowing his elder was right, but feeling his own idea worth trying. "Otter will understand. We know word is spreading, you saw the curse wards they leave, the wands in the rock piles, the staff with the burnt skull of the beast set upon one of their camps." He noted Galen's motions, knowing they meant the elf was ready to move on, but waited only for him to finish his idea. "One night, if it works, and we stop him from destroying souls, we keep it up. If not, back to the day trekking, but longer hours, camping only after the sun sets. The moon of migrations grows rounder each night, let us use that light."
Nodding, Galen admitted that one night would not harm them, if they could catch the horror they stalked. "Very well. One night of tracking him onward, but we do not approach him until dawn. Can you go so long without rest?"
"Once, I followed the tusk-cat I am named for, six days and nights, eating on the run, never sleeping. For this monster, I would run all the days and nights until the moon leaves the night sky. And into the dark, if the lesser moon lets us."
Kicking dirt over the fire as he rose, Galen met his nephew's eyes. "So be it."
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