Chapter 7: Culling
Inaya increased her pace through the trees, shifted to the outskirts, rotated with Shal through the lines of their crusade and all the while doing so without so much as a stumble. She did this partly to scout for dangers, animal or otherwise. The rest was to avoid the sorry attempts at pleasantries from Cendric. The man had been following her like a puppy, desperately trying to make conversation of which Inaya had no interest. Somehow the failed attempts did not deter him, but rather spurred him on further, like defeat in this realm was something he could not accept.
He was closing in again. Even upwind, she could smell whatever exotic fragrances he coated himself in. Being in the rainforest did little to strip the man from his lifestyle, it seemed. However, he was not quite himself. Cendric had a nervous, awkward look about him, like he kept wanting to say something but couldn’t find the heart to do it. This time, she wouldn’t give him the chance. The night was coming, and she was growing weary.
“Captain,” she called out, merely to talk to someone new, even if it was the balding, sweaty man leading the charge. “The sun’s about to pass. The animals here are nocturnal. I cannot maintain a connection with them through the whole night. The longer we push, the less likely it is Shal and I will be able to placate if they decide to strike out.”
Alarik paused at the front of the line. He’d worn a determined expression through the entirety of the crusade since the moment they set foot in the rainforest, and it genuinely seemed he had almost forgotten just how late it was. “I believe you’re correct. Cendric, make camp. Farmund and Edda, please assist him, if you may. Shalmanesser and Inaya, scout the immediate area. Check for any would-be killers. If you can bring back an animal for the morning, we would be grateful.”
Shal snorted. “With what? Are we to tackle them?”
“Up to wrestle a snake or two?” Inaya joked.
“What’s the problem, then?” Alarik asked, exasperated.
“We’ve come all the way from Khorsul,” Inaya explained. “I think you know the place, captain. We didn’t exactly come equipped with hunting accessories. Find us something to shoot with, and we’ll catch your meal.”
Alarik frowned. The preparations for the crusade were not on him, but rather Colonel Willamar. He was just told to carry them out. “You’re lucky we have a shaman. Hilda!” The poor woman was already scowling. “They’ll need two bows, and a set of arrows. Surely there are enough rocks around here to sculpt something from it. We’ll need them by first light. You can begin your search now, and you may rest past our waking hour to compensate.”
“And just what is she going to do with those rocks?” Shalmanesser asked. “You do realise the hunters of Khorsul are more civilised than beating animals to death with blunt objects?” He paused for a moment. “Oh, you do know that, don’t you?”
“Just ask Hilda, she’ll tell you just how civil we were when we cut out her tongue,” Inaya whispered to her friend.
Alarik smirked, taking his opportunity to finally show the woman he knew something she didn’t. “I believe you might be underestimating the powers of the Vanderik shaman. Give us a mineral from the earth and we can do wondrous things,”
Inaya placed her hand on the ground, closing her eyes. Keeping them closed still, she turned to Cendric. “Look to your left.” Cendric followed, and then stepped back with a yelp. A snake was inches from his face, but surprisingly calm. “I was going to let it kill him,” she continued, “but since you decided to tout your shaman’s strength, I feel it would be time to show ours. Give us the tools to hunt and you’ll have your morning meal. We’ll be taking our rest now. I suppose if you wish, you could eat the snake.” The moment lost some of its sting when Shal began to laugh uproariously.
Alarik shook his head in frustration. “Cendric!” he yelled, needing to take out his fury on someone. “Didn’t I tell you to prepare our camp?” He half-turned before spinning back to the navigator again. “And throw that damned snake in the trees or something.”
–
Hilda loathed her birthright as a shaman. While for most it would have been a badge of honour to wear the shiny, orange-painted metal, to her it was a limitation. She had powers, but no power. She felt now, being ordered into the night to fetch rocks by an oaf that had led her fellow soldiers to slaughter, was the perfect embodiment of it all. Of course it was only made more difficult by having to do it by the paltry light of a half-moon, as her brave captain decided to show that even at his advanced age he could still hoof it like the rest of them at the cost of forcing camp preparation to enter into the night. So, the honoured role as shaman was relegated to this. Searching for rocks while tripping over logs.
She knelt for a moment to clear her head. Living in perpetual bitterness was taking a mental toll, but her grievances with her captain were too much to put to rest. Once, she was a respected, highly-ranked shaman, her skills admired all across her battalion even if her kind were rarely given positions of true leadership. Through the Khorsul campaign, she supplied hundreds of soldiers with the highest quality arms and armour they had ever had the fortune of obtaining. Then, they were cut off from supplies, and unable to find the appropriate metals in an empty desert, and she found her skills had become useless. They were hounded endlessly, surrounded, and eventually captured. The Khorsuli cut out her tongue when she cursed at them, leaving her to die in a foreign, barren wasteland. But she fought, endlessly, tirelessly, to work her way back. There were no medals given for her heroism, no higher rank in the military for her bravery, no acknowledgement of her determination. Those were not given to the poor souls returning from failure, no matter how desperate the attempt.
She gritted her teeth, making her remember the empty space where her tongue had been. It was not the pain nor the loss of taste that aggrieved her the most; it was how they stripped the ability from her to tell the ones that sent her to such a hopeless mission just what she thought of them.
An aura caught her attention, dragging her out of the ever-circling remorse and anger. A single boulder, just what she was looking for. Her shamanistic powers made it so it practically called out to her, the rock pulsing in her vision. It was large, too heavy to carry. She’d have to do her work here, praying a snake or other such rainforest animal wouldn’t find her while she crafted. Her shamanism would take great concentration and she would be vulnerable, but such was her task.
Her hands drifted gently across the stone. Under her touch it began to yield, becoming softer and more malleable. Their god provided a communion with the stones, rocks, minerals and metals of the land, and when she asked, never demanding, they would do as she wished. Soon it was soft enough to pass her hands through the rock, cutting into it as if it were melted butter. She pulled back a large slab, praying for it to become softer still, bendable in her hands. She formed it into an arch, gently shaving away pieces until it fit her specifications. Finally, holding a small piece of it between her thumb and forefinger, she pulled and stretched until it became a very fine thread, hardly thicker than a spider’s web, and attached it to the arch.
She held her creation up to the moon to inspect her handiwork, the light glinting off the stone. It was flawless; a bow that was lightweight but incredibly strong, near unbreakable. The rock changed its form to be soft and bendable enough to curve with the pulling of the “string”. It was a marvel to behold, and a feat of Vanderik shamanism. She quickly got to work on a second, one for each of the hunters, and the latter held no less quality. Hilda even fashioned a few stone arrows, hollowed in the centre and light as a wooden one. Even if her people left her to rot, her god still held her in favour.
“It is an impressive weapon,” a harsh, raspy voice came from behind her. She nearly screamed before realising she couldn’t anyway. Instead, she turned and held the bow towards the attacker, an arrow set in place. She was no archer, but she hoped the threat would serve to make whomever it was think she might be. The ruse seemed to fail; the figure, shrouded in the darkness beneath a tree, did not move nor turn from the threat. “I would not recommend you point that towards me. Remember that you are alone here. Your friends would not hear you call... even if you could.” The man emerged from the trees. The moonlight caught his eyes, revealing them to be empty of soul and colour. His red mask was pulled up just above his nose. It could be no other. Majad, the bodyguard sent to follow them.
Hilda wasn’t particularly scared of the man - just startled at his arrival. If he had wanted her dead, there would be a knife in her back already. If he wanted to kidnap her, he would have brought more than just himself. He had something to ask, or something to offer. Nothing to lose, then. She held her hands out wide in a gesture meaning him to say what he intended to say.
“I’ve been following you and your crusade since the beginning. That is no secret.” To this, Hilda nodded slowly. “You have no respect for your captain.” This time, she hesitated. Eventually, she nodded again. Her actions were not disguised in the slightest, and he seemed to know well enough regardless. Such was the life of one without a tongue; the axiom that actions spoke louder than words was true due to necessity. “You desire that leadership. Don’t you? You’ve seen the foolish actions of your captain, and had it not been for his error, you would have the ability to lead better than he. Would you say I am reading this correctly? After all, we each have our… impediments,” he said, tapping the space beside his eyes.
Hilda hesitated further. She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, but still never took her gaze off him. Finally, she nodded, just once, and only slightly. She feared some kind of trap, where Majad would pass to Alarik her grievances in order to stir up trouble amongst the camp. She acknowledged the truth only because it would only be saying what everyone surely already knew. Her feelings were thinly veiled.
After her nod, Majad reached into his crimson robes, the moonlight more than enough to show their brightness. From within, he pulled forth a small flask, leatherbound and sealed. With his knife he tore a small hole in the top. “I’ve seen you work with the stones of this land. You’re a shaman. I am not - but my benefactor is, albeit one of a different kind to yours. I’ve been instructed to offer you something.” He held the flask between thumb and forefinger. “This elixir will provide for you what you wish for. At a single taste, your camp will begin to see the leader that you know yourself to be. It’ll bring you the power and respect that you desire. At two, they’ll be at your beck and call.”
Hilda took one step towards him. Serendipity made the moonlight shine upon her tonight to allow her to communicate. She pointed to the pouch and tapped her fingers, one, two, three, four, five.
“The effects wear in time. What you have here is a supply for years. More than enough to rise to whatever heights you wish. But, be warned. One drop. Two, if you’re reckless. To take three would be to court extreme danger. All those that live will be drawn to you, desiring you; but there will be consequences. Take my advice. Use this sparingly.” He stepped forward, his soft steps hardly disrupting the rainforest floor, and handed it to her. She took it from him slowly, considering her options.
She held the small pouch up to the sky, a drop of the liquid catching a ray of the moonlight. Hilda looked Majad in his sightless eyes, big and round and empty like the moon itself. “They’ll hear me now,” she said, the words fumbling out of her and barely perceptible.
Tilting her head back, she drank two drops from the flask. Energy and confidence flowed through her. She could feel it in her heart, as she had become a leader - the greatest leader this world had ever seen! She knew that now she could conquer kingdoms, crush rivals under heel, march through the streets of Vanda as a hero! Her people would worship her image and charge into battle with her name on their shields and her image in their hearts. All that stood against her now would lie in ashes at her feet. She looked at her hands, believing they could build mountains and raise armies. And the ones that had betrayed her, the false ones that claimed competence, would finally bow. Retribution was hers. All she needed was to take it.
Majad was standing far from her now. She had not so much as noticed him move, so entranced she was by the liquid’s effects. “That’s two drops. Caution, shaman.”
She tilted her head, a wry smile moving across her face. Why? Perhaps this man wished her just to conquer the empire - her own empire. Would not more see the region fall beneath her? Would not more see the world at her feet? Majad warned her only to prevent the subjugation of his own kingdom. Throwing back her head, she poured another two drops of the liquid down her throat, each drop sending ripples of power and excitement through her, feeling the confidence brewing within her so strongly, the magnetism of her very being enough to draw the world towards her.
Did the leaves of the very trees around her suddenly shift and sway towards her, as if a breeze came from all directions?
Perhaps Majad meant the warning in earnest. But he didn’t know who she was, what she was capable of doing. Perhaps a lesser human could not undertake such a weight, but she was Hilda, conqueror of the desert sands, Hilda, survivor of torment, Hilda, breaker of the chains that have bound her for too long. They would know who she truly was. They all would.
And the first position she would take was that of captain.
She tilted her head back again and poured every last drop down her throat. The power, the magnetism, it felt… indescribable.
The moment was nearly ruined as a spider fell from the treetops onto her palm. Peculiar. She shook it off, only to find another had landed on her opposite arm. Busy swatting it away, a snake had begun to wrap around her boot without her knowledge. She shook her leg to see another slither her way.
“Irresistible,” Majad said dryly, perhaps drawn in somewhat himself. “To all things. Everything. You were warned.”
Panic set in now. She kicked off the first snake and tried to sidestep the other, but it was terribly determined to follow her at every turn. Bats swooped down from the trees to get close to her, dipping and diving in and out of the moonlight, only briefly perceptible flashes of black in the night. She tried to run, but stumbled back at the sight of a black figure stalking nearby in the trees, one much larger than the hunting dogs of Vanda. Howls and growls came from every direction.
“A single drop. That was all you required. Two would have been more than you could have ever hoped for.” Majad shook his head in disappointment. He turned, blood-red robe a stark contrast to the dark of the rainforest night.
The figure appeared and moved in, its jet black fur and razor sharp claws revealing itself in the scant light. Insects descended upon her in droves. Although always reluctant to use her voice around her crusade, she called out in panic, begging for reinforcements against the tide of rainforest wildlife. Her cries of pain mixed with the calls of animals enraptured in bloodlust.
Majad heard her from not far away. He felt no pity, nor remorse. He had been tasked to do this, and he did what was demanded of him. It was not for him to weep nor question.