Chapter 3 – The Chase;

In Which The One Formerly Known As Prince Is Not An Artist; In Which a Forward Curving Blade Makes an Appearance; Our Hero Reflects; Tranquil Beauty and Invigorating Breeze; The Virtues of Hare as Hair Tonic;

The deerhound bucked and galloped through an uneven wood. Its rider, the being formerly known as Elil Hrair Rah, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, held on for dear life.

Formerly known, because ever since he was found out to have stolen someone else’s name, he’d taken the name Ajax instead. It was an unremarkable name, and completely unglamorous, being the name of a thousand other men, beings, and things, but it helped ease four and a half decades’ worth of infamy off of his back. Besides, it was a name with potential, one he might yet make his own.

But first he had to survive this.

At first glance, Ajax looked hare-ish. Only, he stood more upright, taller, and thinner, with omnivore teeth, and he had well-defined, elongated digits, as well as opposable thumbs that let him grab and grasp things, which he thought was quite nice. Ajax was proud of his general purpose grabbers (they were quite nifty, like pockets on a dress kilt). Not least of all, he had a pair of stubby black antlers that he did his best to keep as prettified as possible.

He was no mere hare, obviously, but a sprite. A hare-ish sprite with a gash in his side, pursued by a pack of wolves and presently being rough-handled by his trusty deer mount that he’d only met half an hour ago. They had matching antlers, and that meant they have to be best friends.

Though, the buck’s antlers were bigger, if one were to compare. Ajax was above such crude things, however. He knew that size doesn’t matter, even if the buck knew better how to use them.

The deerhound was obviously male, and very noticeably male, not to mention it was very male indeed. It was the middle of mating season, too, as evidenced by the state of its antlers. It seemed a bit upset about being kept from activities it had rather been looking forward to so, understandably, Ajax’s comfort was the least of its worries at the moment.

The hare sprite’s loins had gotten quite sore. His scabbard, which he had slung across his back top end down, clattered and rattled and occasionally knocked the wind out of him when he failed to predict its temper. He absentmindedly touched the hilt of the forward curving short saber (people keep calling it a knife, but it’s a short saber, designed for normal-sized beings like Ajax), just to make sure it was still there.

Ajax looked back at his pursuers. They were catching up, especially since the deerhound was slowing down, finally stopping just short of the border to the Dead Place, where the grass stopped growing and gave way to bare grey rock and barren soil.

It seems even an animal as painfully male as an alpha buck was at least smart enough not to walk into the near tangible wall of deadness. It wasn’t even a wall, strictly speaking. It was deadness all the way down.

Ajax drew his shortsaber (not a knife). It curved forward towards the end, like a narrow falcata, its weight distribution quite like an axe. As such, it was impossible to make a bad strike with it, and when it struck, it struck heavily. Ajax rattled the saber and made silly faces, trying to stare the wolves down. The wolves stopped a few yards away.

“Stay back! I’m warning you, I’ll cut you!” He made himself look as big and intimidating as he could with his cutesy bunny body.

The deerhound stirred, but Ajax kept his balance. The wolves tensed up. From behind them, two fully black gnolls walked up.

Ajax recognized the pair. They were always just walking up, these two, and never hurried themselves above a brisk jaunty pace. Hraka, it’s whatshisface. Croup and Not-Croup.

“Hyeh hyeh hyahyah-haah!” The melanistic pair laughed. It was not the yipping laugh one would expect from gnolls, if one associated them with hyenas. This laugh was a rough, guttural yap. Hyenas laugh when they are anxious, usually, but there was no hint of that between these two. They looked rather eager, raring to go.

Ajax could feel the tension in the air almost solidify, mingling with the thick dullness of the Dead Place behind him. The wolves bared their teeth, ready to pounce, and so did Ajax as he twirled his short, forward curving saber which was not a knife. The gnolls puffed air through their snouts amusedly.

Just as Ajax was about to go nuts on the buggers, there was a dull snap, and suddenly, the Dead Place stopped being dead.

The deerhound felt it too, and so did the gnolls, apparently. They snarled, sensing their prey about to get away.

The deerhound bolted, jumping down onto rougher and more uneven terrain of the dry riverbed.

“SILFLAY HRAKA YOU EMBLEER FUCKS!”

With one finger, Ajax made a rather crass sign of the cross towards his pursuers. He wanted to look very cross indeed. Better than admitting just how terrified he was.

The deerhound’s hooves clattered on the rock, splashing water from the stream and slipping once in a while. Blood rushing in his ears, Ajax turned forward. This was an even rougher spot he’d found himself in.

Should be fine, Ajax told himself. Goats climb mountains all the time, so a small ravine should be no problem for a deer, right?

“Alright buddy, fair’s fair. If we live through this, I’m gonna have you spayed!”

Celia sniffed at the air and scowled at the ground. When did it get so hard for a pretty girl to catch wolves’ attentions? I even wore a red cape. The cape flowed over her brown leathers and her lean, wiry frame, stopping just above the small of her back. The glossy red silk didn’t go well with her wood green complexion.

It had been a good hour and a half since the wolves stopped following her, and she’d had to retrace her steps to where their tracks split off. This was the third time she’d lost and found the trail. She had to hurry. Any longer and the tracks would be lost in this rain. Killing things shouldn’t take so much work.

It seemed the pack had caught the little jackrabbits scent once again after they gave up on chasing Celia. She sneered and huffed as she sped into a light run, gliding over dirt and shrubbery.

The tracks led her to a clearing beside where the old river used to be. It had dried up half a century ago, when Men diverted its source to water their fields. The idea was to leave dry the lands they couldn’t assimilate, but the land was stubborn, and Men were generally ignorant of its ways, even as they tried to tame it all willy-nilly.

Now, trees and brush grew in the shallow depression through which only a small stream flowed, fed solely by the watershed of the naught but the nearest mountains around.

Celia’s jog ground to a halt as she reached the place where things stopped growing.

The dirt here was just a little bit more disturbed, not enough to suggest a scuffle so much as a brief standoff. The trail of red alongside the tracks became a red patch of ground a few inches across. Ajax was bleeding. Since he was a sprite, it shouldn’t bother him as much as it would some of the more fragile mortal species, but it would add up over time.

The tracks continued into the Dead Place, up and over the little dirt wall. Celia felt at the air and found that the taint of Grimdark was gone. Just gone. How odd, she mused.

She couldn’t help but think back to the war. They had beaten the Edgelords back, in the end, and their link to this world was cut off, but not without cost. The Curse of Grimdark had left the lands permanently damaged, or it would have, if not for the sacrifice of many dryads, nymphs, and fairies. Even the Fair Queen was severely weakened after, if only Men knew.

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But at least the land was rid of the curse. All that remained of it was reduced to a small area rendered dull and drained of all Wonder. And now, even that was gone.

Celia looked at the tracks again. From this point in, the pack had settled into a more leisurely, or rather, cautious pace. She might yet catch up in time.

If not, then oh well.

“Come on, Mayhew,” Ajax tried to coax his mount, “just a little further.” He’d decided to give it a name, just for the heck of it. Mayhew sounded like as good a name as any.

The deerhound was exhausted; it was not meant for prolonged gallop. All the same, it tried to go on, weakly.

In one hand, Ajax held a small branch, which he’d taken off of some bush, and that he had intended to use as a switch. He didn’t have to do so, however, at least not at first. The buck had been more than willing to cooperate after catching sight of the wolves. A ways into the formerly Dead place, however, its pace had slackened.

The place was no longer as dead and draining, and the miasma was gone, but there was still very little life in the thin air. Ajax had given the buck a tap two or three times thus far. He tried not to do so too often. A few more minutes of this and it would be on its last breaths.

“Alright, you can let up,” Ajax said, “We’ll rest a little.”

When the buck slowed down, Ajax let it. It came to a halt and laid itself down beside a large, water worn boulder. Ajax dismounted.

“This is tougher on me, you know,” he chided, “I’m bleeding, and the blasted thing just won’t close up, no matter how much I tell it to.”

The buck looked at him sullenly. He ignored it, and instead surveyed the surrounding rocky bed.

“We’ll go left,” he said, and continued to look around, muttering, “Wolves. Why did it have to be wolves? Why couldn’t it have been snakes instead, or a bear. Pursued by a bear. If it had been a big bad brownie we could’ve just sat down to have some tea and a chat.”

Ajax let his blood drip onto some rocks. With every drop of blood, he lost a drop of essence. If the wound wasn’t going to close up, he might as well make it useful. With his digits, he marked the rocks with the blood, pushing more essence onto them.

“There’d be poison involved, of course,” he continued, “in the tea, and in the words, like as not. Hopefully by the time the jinx drove him mad, he’d be too weakened to cause any trouble. Be a good drink of essence too. Not to mention the hide, oh the hide. I could get me a big strong stick, for a good bear hide.”

Ajax finished up. He was no artist, but this would do.

“There, that should obfuscate them well and good.” He wiped his trusty grabbers on the fur of his haunches, and walked back to the deerhound. It wasn’t often that he made so many Workings, or any at all. He didn’t have enough essence to use it all careless like.

“You know, I could’ve left you behind. The pack would’ve probably gone after you and forgotten about me, what with how strong and mighty you smell. I could still leave you here.”

A tip had broken off of one of the buck’s antlers at some point during the chase. Ajax raised his paws to his own stubby black ones to check on their condition, and sighed in relief. He made a note to himself: if one of the deerhound’s antlers broke off, it could make for a fine wand. That would more than make up for the bear hide.

“Even if they got me in the end, I’d just re-form. Might take a while, and I’d rather not risk botching it, ‘cos I like my current body, thank you very much. At this point I’m only in this for your sake, so be a good mount. Then at least I’d get something out of this sorry mess.”

Ajax left more Workings on the stones a little way further, some to befuddle minds, since the wolves shouldn’t have any defense against such things, and a few illusions to confuse them on the way out.

Walking back, he decided he could spare some essence for a quick glamour, so he formed a saddle onto the deerhound’s back. The buck made quite a fuss when Ajax put reigns on, shaking its head from side to side so that Ajax had to duck and grasp it by the antlers. Finally he climbed onto the saddle.

“Right then,” he said, “off we go,” and broke the tether. He led the buck down towards the mound and the cave.

Did you feel that?

Echo had vanished, after she said those words.

Hero didn’t bother to follow her. Instead, she wanted outside again, just to be alone, just to clear her head. Next thing she realised she was atop the mound, breathing in cool, damp air laden with the smell of petrichor and sun-kissed pine. It had been ages since she last smelled anything like it.

There must be a forest further upslope, from where a gentle land breeze was blowing out towards the sea. And it must be pretty late in the afternoon already. Hero couldn’t tell based on the sun, as the sky was completely covered in clouds. She turned to look at the mountains further out towards the sea, to the . . . west?

This must be the tropics, judging from the color of the mountain forests and the valleys between. And Hero had a good eye for color. Yes, this must be the tropics, but it was quite cold, and there were pine trees. It all felt very familiar, and weirdly comforting.

Even the naked rock and soil around her—the white and pale brown cliffs of limestone skarn, the orange brown sandy clay, and the occasional spots and patches of black quartz or grey granite—Hero felt like she’d seen it before somewhere.

Tranquil beauty and invigorating breeze . . . fragments of a half-forgotten song played in her mind. Your verdant hills oft kissed by clouds of pearl . . .

It was definitely less stuffy out here. Hero felt like she was out here out here, rather than just suspended within herself in isolation. It may have something to do with the place not being completely soaked in her essence.

On the other hand, it had been warm inside, where the essence insulated her, protected her. Out here, she felt cold and exposed, and felt the low distant rumble of high winds—not thunder—in her bones. She could feel her tether urging her back inside. Was it possible for her to catch hypothermia? She decided she won’t to stay long enough to find out.

“This place would do well with sunflowers,” she said to herself. “Wonder if the stars will be out tonight.”

Hero let her thoughts wander. Whatever happened to Lucille Camaro?

Hero had been friends with the girl once, and they had both liked a guy named Roland. Neither had really made a move, and the three of them ended up being friends for all of a year before they grew apart. Four months in, Hero had developed feelings for the girl, too. She never told her, and it was probably for the best because Lulu was straight, as far as Hero knew. Still she often wondered about what could’ve been, after they had stopped talking.

A crush was all it amounted to, in the end, and she’d completely forgotten about it by the time she met March and Karen. How odd that she was remembering now.

Was it the view? But no, it actually reminded her even more of March and Karen, since she met them around the same place, with happier results. It was the two girls that picked her up after she, Roland, and Lulu grew apart.

The three had gone their separate ways: Hero had taken the semester off, and Roland had started hanging out with March and Karen, who’d only been friends at that point. As for Lulu, Hero had no idea what she had been up to.

If she even went by that same name these days. She had introduced herself as Cams, though Hero only ever called her that once out loud. Everyone called her Lulu or Lucille, since it sounded more ‘unique’ and ‘original’, and everyone knew at least a dozen different girls and even guys who all went by ‘Cams’ or ‘Camille’ or ‘Cameron’. Roland started out calling her ‘Ann’ at first, which earned him some weird looks.

It wouldn’t be strange if she did change her name. Even Karen did it, changing her name from ‘Kitty’ just because March made her listen to that song she liked. It retrospect, that may have been an early hint that the two were meant for each other.

And just like that, Hero was thinking about them again. Despite all her efforts to think about literally anything and anyone else. Almost as if every fond memory was connected to them in some way. Well, shit.

Hero had been exaggerating, when she exploded earlier. It wasn’t fair to call them ‘fucked up’.

Hero herself, sure, probably, but if there were only two people in the world who can be considered healthy of mind and well-adjusted, it would be March and Karen, who’d been Hero’s emotional support to the point that prolonged separation completely wrecked her.

Even now, she missed the strength the two provided. There had been times during her confinement when she almost hated them for not being there. It wasn’t fair, Hero knew. They’d desperately wanted to be with her too, and were kept away through no fault of their own.

She couldn’t bring herself to actually hate them in the end. After all, if it was that easy, then she wouldn’t have dependency problems in the first place.

At least they pulled through in the end, even willingly sneaking in and risking getting caught. But even then, they only had a few brief moments, nowhere near long enough to make up for the past half a year. And they all spent those moments being too cowardly to admit anything was wrong. There was much pain left unaddressed. They had to see her die, after all, it had been rather cruel of Hero to make them watch.

Perhaps if they’d cried more thoroughly, could Hero have entered this new life, this new world in better emotional state than she did? No, that doesn’t sound quite right. Still, at least she wouldn’t have been crying alone. If only there was a way for Hero to reach them now, to let them know she was okay, even if she died.

What the hell is this, anyway?

Why was Hero mourning them, when she was the one who died? How’s that fair? In any case, if she must mourn, it would take far more than a brief cry on a mound, serene scenery notwithstanding. Hero had things to do.

Thus she got up, decided to go find Echo, and blinked out.

Just as she was leaving, she felt a hint of some strange new presence, but she was already gone.

Celia came within sight of the mound seconds later, gliding over rock and boulder, barely touching the surface of the small stream before she was aloft again. She came to a halt a dozen yards away, herself sensing a new, unfamiliar aura emanating from the cave’s mouth.

It felt . . . it wasn’t the same deadness as before, that’s for sure. It felt foreign, otherworldly, and it was tinged with more than just a little darkness.

Celia had come across a trail of Workings on the way here, some of them sprung, the rest she left untouched, assuming the little jackrabbit put them there. He seemed to have a plan in mind. Good luck to him, then.

She decided to wait here and let it play out; no need to complicate things. Worse comes to worst, he’d give the wolves’ hides a nice, glossy sheen, the better for Celia to harvest.

Rabbit essence made for good conditioner.