Chapter 4 : Ammolite

  “Won’t even cover the cost of lugging back its head.”

  Red spurted up, a groan out from the axe’s fall. The corpse spazzed under its weight. He dug his blade inward, then, with his feet locked at either hip of the muscled mass, tore down, as if he were tearing bark from its trunk. Light blood spat out from the cut, alow his straddle. He gazed down upon mangled flesh—seared, garroted—ribs split apart like a welcoming furrow, and an inordinate mess of organ and gut. Picking the axe up in one hand, he plunged his other down and through, into the ruptured stomach of the beast. He fished through its grime with picky fingers under a certain, but begrudging gaze, keen to distract his eye with anything but, then wrenched out a hearty, blood-baked kidney.

  “Put ‘er on the fire,” Eidrik said glumly, deeply, offering up the clump.

  His companion hunched in his seat by their fire, poking its sparks as morning reared its burning head. A decade or two his senior, even mute did Horral seem jolly, sated, as if of impressive patience, and of course compliant to his near-kin’s qualms. He snatched the dripping kidney, staked his poking stick through its center and propped it hanging over the flames.

  The fire was quick to tan its flesh. Fat bubbled black. The meat tightened, texturised. It spewed smoke and smelled of pork. Horral admired the affair, held in delight at nature’s bounty. He knew all too well that elsewhere, on a dawn no later, none the warmer, stomachs starved without the health to hunt. For their sake, he smiled, seeing the kidney toss and burn.

  “They say a borsork’s fat can stave off hunger for a week,” said Horral, in his typical sage and enunciative manner; never rushed, always chewing each letter in thought. “But that its liver can poison you, worse than the Patch.”

  Eidrik heaved the corpse onto its belly, then hacked against its spine. The eyes of the borsork sat in its chest and it went headless, thus were their spines of the greatest worth, chiefly for the nomads who traded trophies for supper. Spiked and lucid, like gooey vipers, distinct were their backbones, but of course grotesque. In the hands of accomplished beasthunters however, grotesque could be nothing short of the forever scarring, yet already were their minds seasoned, stripped of all shelter's reservation.

  With his axe lashing and wedging, Eidrik brutalized the beast's hind until bone peeked through its dark blue flesh. He struck the axe then mightily down upon its skull to offer it a firm mantle and, with two hands tensed, latched onto its unearthed spine. Eidrik yanked out a dribbling stretch, then pulled again—swifter, until a snap sounded and the long, gushing bone spewed out. Eidrik compressed it in his broad fists, packed it inwards, nearly popping it between fierce grips, then stuffed the spine into his little satchel, to endure the return journey. The bag was without other ownings to sour, stained and worn thing by past and repellant claims.

  “They say too that when the winds roll fierce,” began Eidrik, “that it’s the All-Father speaking to us.” He ripped his axe up out of its hold. “But all I’ve ever felt is the fucking cold.” Brains gooped out after his armament’s edge. The wealth of the fronds was then by iron foraged, thus the wilds' levity went without.

  The woods shook then with a proud gale. He hawked and threw to the trees a stare, stern as a scolding. Eidrik scowled, bringing a crest of dry lips low around his chin and aiming that contempt at every flicker and flash alive behind the foliage. Nature’s curtain, he thought in derision, certain a play of candid evil was bound to resume at any moment’s notice, certain the bliss of the battered greens was soon fated.

  Horral admired his comrade, his unfettering watch, all the strength of body and mind that sustained it. Eidrik was indeed a commendable sight. He wore a belted gambeson of border black. Its top was flapped open, revealing a breastplate of poor, raw iron. A crumpled cap sat upon his bald head. A measly spume hemmed its center, and at its sides curved two flaps with razored, uneven edges that hugged the heart. Eidrik was a voice behind a stout brown beard, eyed by dazzling green, and molded by bruise and hunger. He wore brown gloves that snuck under his sleeves, though on his left hand two sockets hung hollow, as the fingers inside were long lost.

  “I say they speak swinetell,” he said, resting his axe over his shoulder. The blade—doubled—was boiled ammolite. In its face swirled fertile lime dyes like clean pastures, oceanic blues amiss, tides bereft, and an amber plate, as bronzen and as strong as a mountain-man’s shield. The weapon was a rod of raw obsidian, crude and crooked but unflinching, with an opalish head that could sever steel if its bearer but bore the resolve. Eidrik Corralain did indeed, and by his hands did the axe time and again bring more honoured executioners to shame. To their fortune, the bloody deeds of the furrfiend never ranged far beyond the woods, caves, and crawling swards in which killing beasts laired. Settlements were unvisited by such swung despoiliation. Despite all its strength, the axehead of ammolite was chipped.

  “You’d not believe the All-Father himself,” Horral laughed, glee shimmering in the lines of his old teeth. “If he deigned to bless us his word.”

  “‘Bless us,’” scoffed the younger furrfiend. “We’d be two fingers richer if he ever shut up.” Eidrik spat, his tongue’s discolour spoiling the earth’s green. “Rather the clouds shit hail than bow to a lie.”

  Horral smirked. A questioning stirred his gaze, but in ponderance was unearthed some sly pleasure that spread his grin from cheek to cheek. He swooped an object up from behind the log on which he perched. It was a cane—long ebony with a white handle. With two hands on its hook, he leaned in, nearer the flame, nearer to Eidrik, with the light of fire embracing his merry watch.

  “A lie, is it?” Horral indulged. “And what then is your truth?”

  The flame cast light to his apparel: grey and sullied. He wore a white scarf that wrapped his neck and hung across the chest of a soft grey coat, ribbed in iron bands. Beneath was unseen, but steel still; cheap, light of weight. Dirt, weather’s stains, and incomplete cuts maimed his attire, as it did Eidrik’s, shaping them to the image of utter ruffians. A quick guess could not decipher the filths that clung to them.

  “My truth?” said Eidrik, disbelieving of Horral’s sincerity. “Truth is you talk so much your words lose sense.”

  “Oh?” Horral feigned. “So Eidrik the Fierce has found no wisdoms from his travels, far as we've come.”

  Already did the morning air draw away his senses. Eidrik threw focus to the sunlight slipping between oaks rather than Horral’s panderings. The fields and cliffs of Arakvan had trialed his resolve, tested him to seek that which, in a shift of light, was not there before. In darkness lived evils surely, but some came only with the light of day, and so when sunlight arrived, just as when moonlight left, Eidrik found himself stargazing, with all of the perception and none of dawn’s longing. A decade at sentinel had taught him to hate the stars.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “Eh, you’re a regular prayer now, are you?” Eidrik mocked. “Gerald will be wounded.”

  “When’s he otherwise? And he believes in the All-Father, same as me.” Horral chortled, twirling his poking stick over the fire. “Just knows he’s a right bastard, isn’t he!”

  Horral thundered with amusement, nearly losing their breakfast to the flame in the rock of his joy. Eidrik rolled his eyes, then turned to hide a coming smile. He faced the trees again. The wind droned on. The sunlight sank deeper. Time was wasting by, and with a quiet sigh Eidrik surrendered his smirk.

  “What is it we’re doing here, Horral?” he asked solemnly. “Playing hero in the woods…”

  A moment of consideration fell upon him from the old furrfiend, before Horral's hesitancy subsided and his smile gained conviction. “Better us than no one,” he began, until Eidrik whipped around and cut him off.

  “Better nothing,” he denied. “Even now, back home are fates gambled, Horral. Toyed with, by the hands high and infernal. You know it, same as I do. Hell, I may well hear it on the winds.” What took Eidrik’s eyes seemed a murk of fear, but those that knew him knew better, and saw concern—a grave concern—for only those dear to him. “Each moment here, no matter how nobly spent, is a second forfeited—another instant we roll the dice on our fellows. And rich breakfasts do we fetch.”

  “Fate must be a wondrous thing, then,” said Horral, coltish, undecided on defense or a kind lie. “That it might conquer at home, against those scattered packs dear to us, and not each stranger here. Each unarmed and quivering, praying against moonlight. We should tell the commonfolk not to fret, shouldn't we? As surely their nightmares leave with us.” His tone was jolly, but the tenacity, the firmness in his watch promised truth.

  “How many Scourgers do we kill, ‘fore it’s enough?” Eidrik shrugged. “It is a grand ambition, truly, but one without an end. A march through mists. Handing out bandage, while behind us sickness spreads. Eventually, our backs turn. And when that happens, these people... no, they cannot be saved forever.”

  “I’d hope not, my friend.” Horral turned his stick again. “I’m far too old to fight forever.”

  “Whatever you’re looking for out here… whatever chance you’re risking yourself over…”

  “Enough, Eidrik,” he said, prompt, with a pleasure in decay.

  Eidrik stepped nearer, unknowingly booting dirt unto flame. Sparks spat out, and Horral raised his eyes to spot what malevolence spawned the shadow he then squatted under.

  “It’s not here,” said Eidrik. “There’s just the woods, and all the scum that pours from it.”

  “And then there are those who stand above it all, who outlast it,” Horral repelled, this time with a fire of force that vexed the veins in his aged temple. “I will not hide my eyes, Eidrik, while unfound remains our chance at victory.”

  “That chance is miles south of here, in Galehaven."

  “That chance is on every wind. On every path. In every moment.” Horral’s tone felt scouring, desperate, but sure. Its vow stirred Eidrik’s belligerence. “I will spare none,” he assured him.

  A nod from Eidrik surrendered the affair, and he returned soon to his sentry at the clearing’s edge. He breathed deeply, observed deeper still, until the woods’ very sway answered to his eye. Its mastery meant naught, while a mere pivot to his flank rested a resolve he was hopeless to deter.

  Faraway, the call of loons sounded. Morning was awoken in full.

  “You must admit it makes sense, doesn’t it?” Horral asked, calm but probing. “Will you not admit me that?” He reclined his stick, slid the meat off its end. It was charred at the edges, hearty at the core.

  “There’s seldom sense in gambles, Horral,” Eidrik shrugged. "They are, at day's end, a hope. We have seen such tramplings time and again."

  “We know they too are in search, so high in the hairs of the land.” His eyes glazed over the kidney and fell to the fire, filled with a bright boldness of action. “Stories of red riders, in the wheats… And the tell of digs: a rumour there then so quickly cut apart.” Horral shook his head, hatefully. “That pig of the Isyncra is looking for something. Hiding it. We unearth his efforts, we claim leverage. That is strength for our fellows, Eidrik. For everyone not yet blest in blue-gold.”

  He bit into the kidney. It was rich with flavour, flooding his gums, but dense and stringy, hardened by the heat. A black blood slipped out thinly from his chewing lips. He threw a nod to the slain borsork: their morning’s handiwork.

  “Might as well fell some beasts while we’re at it,” he swallowed. “Not every sorry bastard out here has the luxury of ‘going home’ like us, pampered fucks we are. For some—nay, for all too many, home’s the thin space between the wars of men, then the wrath of monsters.” He took another bite, then tossed the kidney over to Eidrik, who swatted it into a tight fist. “For some, they need bladesmen to man the line.” Horral spat black blood into the dirt. “They’ll have to settle for us.”

  The old fellow chuckled to himself, but Eidrik could only nod.

  Sunlight at last breached the treeline. Golden rays pierced Meddlelfore to set the leaves aglow and warm the grass, refine it into a dewed shine. The stingered, webfoot insects of twilight crawled under roots and behind bark, while the air at last fell to their fat cousins of the day, with pink and blue ridings of wing. The sky was a motley of crossing tree limbs laced over lime foliage. Its cracks bore hintings of blue and hot shimmers beyond. Daylight arrived in torrents, and in its wake survived only puddles of shadow, that waking critters stamped and trodded through. The call of birds littered the air, the cackle of wertrugs bounced branches, and those throated yawns of the nunnols so much like howlings, coddled the vast woodland into its rise.

  While there was indeed a beauty to be sapped by patient eyes, for beasthunters day meant only that the cover of night was gone, and that the next hunt loomed nearer. Under a flashing sun, Eidrik devoured the borsork’s kidney. He permitted himself a lone moment of tranquility, as the sounds and the smells of life embraced him, then he swallowed, turned, and sulked deeper into the wilder sections of the forest, to bring its vilest denizens death. With his axe over his shoulder again, Eidrik strode from their clearing.

  Close behind, Horral arose wearily. His cane curved to a cut, slashing the fire wide and scattering its burning embers. With a dragged leg, he swept his boot through the trail of flames and, at once, snuffed its every ashed member. Behind him was a spree of black, a slaughtered monstrosity, and the grace of day. In that moment their sum was worth nothing compared to the way ahead.

  Yet Horral did indeed look back, just before he crept into the deeper foliage. It was not the slain foe or the day’s beauty or the threat of fire that called to him, but rather an instinct alone. His spine tingled, like an alien wind had just pierced the forest. With a cautious gaze, Horral’s glare fell over all at once. He spotted critters on treetops, bugs in their hills, beasts in their stump-hollows, but nothing that could invoke such a strange twist of sense. Perhaps it was paranoia, he thought, as he beheld quiet day. Perhaps it was not.

  With an uncertain sneer—bolstered by passions so unfamiliar—Horral relented his stalk, then crept after Eidrik, leaving whatever he felt behind him to the madness of the woods. Shades of green, brown, and gold covered the space. All was unmoving, even after his departure, until his departure was ancient and minutes were spent.

  The leaves rustled, the branches parted, and phasing out from behind them was a form of tall, sheer black. Its shape was lofty but of a dark power. Eyes of burnt brown found the tracks of Eidrik and Horral, and it was Ulf Eldric who followed them true.

  ____

  The Gleeman's Hymn, and notably more intense ongoings than just two fellas chatting by the campfire. I can't wait to show it to you all (I'm talking to myself), but I definitely could wait on editing it (I loathe editing).