by B T Litell
Joshua knelt on the ground a few feet from Michael, building a tent of kindling for a fire. He had placed some unraveled twine in the center and surrounded that with small sticks and twigs, some of which had clung to the saddlebags during the sudden tempest south of Feldring. A few pieces of bark surrounded the small tinder, with two logs on the outsides of those. Joshua struck a match on a similar stone as the ones Michael carried, and buried the burning tip in the nest of unraveled twine. Within a few moments, the kindling blazed in a glorious display of orange, red, and yellow.
With the fire lit, Joshua sat back, adjusting his robe around his knees. Fully situated, he reached into a small knapsack that had been in his saddlebag and produced a pipe with a stem long enough that he could hold the bowl on his knee and still smoke his pipe. Michael watched, puffing on his own pipe, while Joshua filled his pipe with loose tobacco leaves. He lit his pipe, and the smoke carried a sweet fragrance through the air as the smoke dissipated.
“Most would greatly judge a priest for smoking a pipe. You’re the first I have encountered that has said nothing about it,” Joshua stated, punctuating his statement with a ring of smoke.
“I have no reason to sit here and question anyone else’s life choices, especially since I also smoke a pipe. Life is easier without casting needless judgment upon others,” Michael replied. He tried once again to make a smoke ring, but as always, it collapsed before it was even formed. Something else he could practice, he thought to himself.
“This life would be easier if more people followed that mindset. You’re wise to practice that, Michael,” Joshua replied, forming another ring with his smoke, and blowing a smaller ring inside the first. This was the first part of their journey since the temple that he had doffed his hood intentionally. He held the pipe in his raven-marked hand, and the fire cast a glowing orange light upon the dark bird.
They sat smoking their pipes contentedly for a few minutes and when Michael’s tobacco was finished burning, he tapped the ashes out into the fire and cleaned the bowl of his pipe thoroughly. As he packed his pipe back into its pouch, which he placed in his knapsack, Michael gazed up at the night sky. A small sliver of the moon shone in the sky, providing a minute amount of light through the darkness of night. Stars in the sky appeared like pinholes in a dark blanket draped over the world. He wondered how far away the stars were, and how many of them were the centers of other life-sustaining planets. Perhaps this was a mystery that would never be solved, at least in his own lifetime. He knew an old man in Feldring who made it his life purpose to study the stars with an immeasurable curiosity.
After packing his pipe back in his bag, Michael pulled a woven, wool blanket from the saddlebag. Joshua began his journey fully prepared that Michael would choose to leave Feldring. The blanket felt rough against his hand, but it would be warm enough in the chilly night. Before lying down, Michael cleared the ground of stones and other debris. With the ground cleared, Michael lay down and wrapped himself in the blanket much the same way a caterpillar formed its cocoon. Sleep visited him slowly, but as he drifted off, Michael felt a new sense of warmth and safety he had not felt since his mother carried him as a small child.
Darkness closed in as Michael fell deeply into a slumber…
Chapter Two
Wind howled across the tundra and picked up loose, powdery snow. Everything was frozen, not unusual for this tundra. Winter had not fully started, and if it was already this cold and frozen, there was no chance it would get any better for months. There was snow as far as the eye could see. The snow and ice created a desolate land uninhabitable to anything but animals with large fat reserves. There was only snow and ice. And blood. Too much blood for the mangled, frozen carcass laying atop the snow to have been killed by wolves. Wolves had certainly found the carcass, but they had not killed the creature. It looked like it might have been a caribou or elk, but too little was left for the hunter to know for sure.
Looking up from examining the carcass, the hunter adjusted his coat and mask to protect his face from the bitter wind. Only his eyes could be seen above the top of his mask. The fur on his heavy coat waved with the gusts of wind. The cold alone could kill a man in a few hours. The wind could kill without finding any shelter. And out here in the tundra there was often no shelter. The hunter had had to dig his own shelter downwind from the carcass to block the wind. He wouldn’t have been able to stay out nearly as long as he had otherwise. He had no intention of becoming a meal for the scavengers. Not yet, at least. Not for a long time to come.
The wind picked up and grew colder as the hunter looked up from the carcass again. The icy wind stung his eyes, making them water instantly. He had to get inside soon or there would be problems. But the traps had to be set.
The hunter stood, taking one last glance at the mangled remains of the animal, its form appeared to merge with the ice of the tundra. Flesh had been torn from the body in sheets, muscle, where it had been exposed, showed extensive fang marks. Those were likely left from the wolves. In the snow he saw several sets of bloodied footprints that led east from the carcass, away from the settlement. Probably a hunting party, too few sets of tracks to be the whole pack, the hunter thought, counting four, maybe five, sets of tracks.
One set of footprints went north from the carcass. These tracks were deeper and larger than the wolf tracks, but there had been too much snow pushed by the wind to identify the species. The shape of these footprints still resembled a wolf, but they were far too large. Unless there was a wolf out here that was four feet tall at the shoulders. The only other predator the hunter had encountered that was larger than a wolf, at least in this tundra, were bears. And a bear wouldn’t have been chased off by a few wolves. The hunter had seen enough wolf carcasses that a bear had torn through to know that. These tracks weren’t from a bear, that was very clear. Bears have a very wide foot and long claws that leave marks above their tracks, and after examining one of the prints in the snow, these were narrower without the distinct claw mark. They really did look like large wolf tracks.
With the next gust of wind, howls rushed over the tundra and dashed across the tundra. Wolves, he thought to himself. Spent too much time at the carcass. He still had to set a trap before going back. Something else was likely to come back to eat what remained of the frozen carcass, and whatever that was, it would have meat. Quickly, the hunter set his trap in the snow near the carcass, covering the edges of the trap with loose snow, made sure it wasn’t easily visible, and then headed south-southwest. No sense going directly back to the settlement, leading whatever predators were out here back home. They had defenses, but precautions still had to be taken. The settlement was only a couple miles away, and even with the wind, he would be able to make it back before freezing. Moving would keep his temperature up. If he stayed still, he would freeze.
About a half mile south of the carcass, the hunter found a small copse of trees, buried in a deep bank of snow, which he had used as a landmark. Continuing south, a small river ran through the tundra and the water had somehow not frozen in the cold. This river ran east-west then banked south toward a lake a few leagues away. The hunter crossed the river, his feet instantly feeling the cold through his boots. He trudged westward through the snow toward the settlement. Walking through the water broke the trail of his scent, in case the wolves had followed him. On the other bank he could continue walking through the snow. ‘Walking’ was a generous term for his arduous trudging. Without the snow, this trek should have taken an hour, maybe a little more, but it was closer to three hours with the snow. The hunter found himself lost in thoughts of warming beside a fire, the sizzling of some meat, they still had reserves for now. He could imagine the warm tingle of whiskey as it ran down his throat.
About a mile from the settlement, the hunter reached a tree line, the edge of the forest they had claimed as home. The forest was thick with tall trees, so less snow covered the ground, allowing the hunter to walk easier. The wind broke on the trees, mostly, which kept the i
cy gusts off his back. It was a welcome reality, finally being in the woods.
Twigs snapped nearby and the hunter stopped and reached for his bow. Perhaps it was a caribou that had sought the forest’s shelter from the wind and snow. That amount of meat would feed the village for a while. Leaning out from behind a nearby tree, the hunter set an arrow and got ready to let it fly at the animal. But there was no caribou. He saw no signs of any animal that had snapped twigs but decided to hunt momentarily before heading home. He would be late, but if he returned with something that would be forgiven.
The sound had been close, and within a few minutes the hunter found the broken twigs. As he knelt to examine the twigs, branches overhead rustled, like when a squirrel runs through the trees. It was too cold for squirrels to be out. It was too cold for him to be out, but here he was. Ignoring the rustling overhead, the hunter continued to exam the twigs. They were broken cleanly, as they were older twigs. The ground was too frozen to leave any prints in the dirt, but rubbings against the tree showed a possible path a deer had taken through the forest. This path lead northeast to southwest, and the hunter started heading southwest.
Mindful of his footing, the hunter stalked the path and looked for fresh signs of a deer. He promised himself that if he didn’t find anything in the next twenty minutes that he would make his way back to the settlement. There was no sense getting lost on the trail for animals that might not even be there. Branches overhead rustled again, but the hunter dismissed the sound. Squirrels had followed him in the woods before, curious little critters. It was likely no more than squirrels in the trees. To test his thought, the hunter stopped and looked down the deer path, as he longed for any signs of an animal. The rustling continued briefly, then stopped. Just a squirrel following me. Nothing to worry about, the hunter said to himself.
He took a few more steps down the path, when a sharp pain struck his leg. The wound burned, and the hunter groaned, though he tried not to make any noise. He looked down and found a thorn bush stuck to his leg. The thorn was large enough to go through his fur pants, effectively pinning his leg. With one hand, he reached down and removed the thorn from his leg, watching some blood soak into the fur. The wound was minor, but could still become infected, especially with that burning sensation he had felt. It was time to head home. The deer he had heard had not run this way and hadn’t stopped along the path either.
When the hunter turned, he immediately stopped. A wave of fear crashed over him like rocks on the shore. Down the path a few feet there was a creature. No, creature was too generous of a term. This was a monster, no doubt about it. Tall, dark and furry, it’s back hunched toward the top. Some of its features resembled a wolf, but it walked on two feet like a man, with hands that ended in large, sharp talons. The beast’s mouth was filled with sharp teeth, with protruding fangs in the front, much like a wolf.
The hunter tried to pull his arrow back, but his arms felt locked at his side. He opened his mouth to yell at the beast, hoping to scare it, like a coyote, but he felt only dryness in his throat, as if he had swallowed sand. He couldn’t make his eyelids blink, or his feet move. The beast took a step forward, the wave of fear forming into a tsunami. A lump formed high in his throat, which he tried to swallow but couldn’t. His heart pounded in his chest, threatening to break through his rib cage and fall onto the ground.
The beast took another step closer. Its large feel making little or no impression in the icy ground. Its feet look like a wolf’s but much larger. Narrower than a bear, without claw marks. This thing killed the caribou I saw earlier, the hunter’s mind shouted, his body still not refused to obey any of the things he willed it to do.
Something heavy and sharp grasped the hunter by his shoulder and his vision grew dark. He was forced to the ground, where he laid on his back, unable to move. As his vision went dark, he saw a second beast that fought with the first. Claws sliced flesh, snarls and howls sounded from both, the echoes resounded through the trees. The hunter felt the comfort of warmth embrace him, like he was sat beside a fire. Suddenly, a chill colder than the gusts of tundra wind sank all the way to his bones.
***
A shimmering, wavy doorway opened not far from the monsters. A dark man appeared in the doorway. Even as he stepped through the doorway, the dark robes he wore didn’t move. The man had a sinister aura around him, and he stood right in front of where the doorway had been, watching as the beasts devoured the body of a poor man dumb enough to venture into these woods. And without any silver weapons, it appeared. There may have been little signs about who the man was, or why he had been in the woods. But his body being in this place, was a sign that, no matter who he was, the man had been a fool. The man approached the feeding monsters slowly, as he knew how volatile they could be. They would likely attack if he interrupted their meal. That was the very volatility that he needed at this particular moment. And their supposed savagery was unmatched among other specimens that the humans called ‘monsters.’ Such a derogatory term, the man thought to himself.
As the man observed the beasts, he noticed they were large, especially for their species, roughly two meters from end to end. They did stand on their hind legs like the men they used to be and should be measured as such, after all. They had long arms that ended in claws at the end of man-like hands. Their faces resembled a man’s face with wolfish features. The ears belonged to a wolf, pointed and furry, and the fangs replaced the teeth that would have been in the mouth normally. Thick fur covered most of the body, tufts of fur covering the legs, arms, back and neck. The fur on their backs was raised in a ridge that went to about halfway down their spines. One of them bled from fresh claw marks cut into the flesh on the left-side of the ribcage. The blood glistened as it seeped from the wound.
The man stepped toward the beasts and one looked up from the mostly devoured body and lunged. The man cast a spell and caught the beast in the air and lifted the other off the ground. He brought both monsters close and spoke to them softly, though his voice still had great command.
“I’m forming an army. You will fight for me and bring chaos to this land. Gather the other werewolves when I command it and I shall give you anything you wish. Do you accept this arrangement?”
The first werewolf snarled and snapped its jaws at the man. With a quick motion, the spell that held the beast in the air swirled and snapped its thick neck. As the body went limp, the spell released and dropped the dead werewolf onto the trail they had formed in the woods. The other werewolf whimpered, its ears pulling back as the man turned his gaze, hidden in his hood, to the monster.
“What about you? Have you any objections to my proposal?” the man inquired.
The monster’s mouth worked to form words, eventually coming to her. “I accept your offer,” she acquiesced finally.
“Very good.” The dark man released his spell and set the werewolf on the ground gently. “Now, find more of your kind and bring them to me.”
The werewolf took a few skittish steps backwards away from the man then lifted her wolfish snout to the air and released a long, hollow howl to the sky. The forest came alive with the sound of responding howls, though it was clear they were not wolves…
Chapter Three
Michael stared in awe, approaching the castle city of Prikea. As they had come closer to the city, the roads transformed from packed dirt, to become loosely packed cobblestones, then finally became large, and then finally closely packed stones. The city spread across the landscape, like vines in a garden. A heavy aroma of salt filled the air, as expansive water extended beyond the southwest horizon. Few trees grew along the road, which gave the guards in the nearby towers a clear view of approaching visitors.
Guards patrolled the outlying areas in groups of three, venturing up and down the roads. The groups that went further from the city rode horses while groups of guards closer to the city simply walked. At this point in their journey, Michael and Joshua walked and led their horses by the reins; too many people were on the roads f
or them to ride the horses as they grew closer to the main part of the city. The break was necessary after such a long ride. Michael had not ridden a horse that far and his legs had started to ache a few days ago, though today the pain had dulled slightly.
Clusters of small houses and other buildings, likely small shops crowded the roadside. The population had exploded in this area since the construction of the original wall around the castle and caused many to move into the countryside. But the city kept expanding, and the countryside gradually grew further away. With an ocean on one side of the city, there was nowhere else for the city to grow except out to the north and east. It was a minor inconvenience for many, and the people seemed generally happy, Michael noted as they passed groups of people on the streets. Streamers and pennants that bore the King’s colors and crest flew on many of the houses, waving in the sea-borne wind.
Guards lowered their heads respectfully at Joshua, as they passed by. Clearly a respect toward the priesthood existed even if it was a little forced. Every guard wore polished metal cuirasses with mail underneath. The tan tabards they wore over their armor bore the same black striping as Joshua’s robe, though a black eagle stood out on their chests. Their weapons were the only unique things Michael noticed among them. Some carried long swords at their hip, a select few carried axes, even fewer maces, some had halberds, and others had pikes. Michael thought it was interesting that the soldiers here were given an apparent choice in their weaponry. In Feldring, all the guards carried the same weapons. A bardiche and a long sword. And the guards were lethal with either weapon.
A few dozen meters down the road stood a boulder of a man, his thumbs tucked behind the polished gold buckle on his belt, his fingers laced in front. He wore ornate plate armor, lacquered tan and black with an eagle embellished on his cuirass. He wore no tabard, and in the middle of his helmet rose a black crest, which rose rigidly several centimeters above the helmet. In place of a visor, he wore a black, ceramic mask formed in an angered frown that covered his face from the nose down, allowing only his eyes to be visible with his great helmet on. The handle of a great sword rose from his left hip, and the blade fell beyond his knee. On his right hip hung a club, covered in large steel spikes. This man was clearly important, visible even from this distance.
