21 Die

Ilsebek still couldn't hear. This was not the greatest of irritants though. He hated running. Despite breathing like he was taught, it always felt shallow. Despite the cool air crossing his tongue he always felt like he was overheating. It hurt too. His feet were as padded as any but this forest was more bramble than tree. To think of it, he hated everything about these scoutings, these treks. First, they sent him up to the Blacklands with a mute, a freak, and apparently a near-feral kesit. He was an eater. He was supposed to look at the fauna test and see if it was palatable and what its uses were. He was not a healer. Healers were too close to unnatural for his tastes. The weak should lay down and die.

He plodded further away from the leap. Hearing slowly returned. Reality was masked by a dull ringing. Ilsebek recalled the fight. He recalled wasting the last of his cauterizing powder. Most importantly he recalled seeing the way minder running carrying the freak. He could give a dozen uses for a leaf. He could say what meat was good and what was poison. Navigating though, that was something he was neither inclined to learn or do. If at all possible the eater would rather be at Falle acting as medic and siring children. Still, he needed to find the minder first.

His eyes looked around the unfamiliar forest. They crossed over ferns, fungi, briars, and nest. They attempted to recall all the lessons he learned under the Shamen of the Plains. It was an unfortunate amount of nothing that he remembered about tracking. He was sure they went this way. Lerch trees and their tangle roots surrounded him. Spike of rikked plants and their red bulbous leaves filled in the gaps threatening to devour most of the forest floor. A common sight of the colorful where there was floor there was that damnable haktet bramble. It was late in the turn as evidenced by the yellowing of the green sky, and he was quite confident in his assessment that he was lost.

The eater knew not to be around in the forest at night. That was something neither survivable or desirable; both points were made quite clear during his time as a chela. Everything around him sank in as he looked around. Understanding how and why his environment formed the way it has asked to come in. This he ignored. It was not the time to revel in the taste of nature. His mind focused and he constructed what he needed and found the pieces which fit.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The vines whispered their thirst for snowmelt and drops of blood. They were sturdy, but their tensile strength did not stop him from cutting several of his lengths. The cured leather wrapped around the small fangs he held. They were not true fangs, but shards of strange red stones he'd chipped away. They were perfect for this more delicate work. Hundreds of thorns fell into a neat pile as he stripped the haktet vines. End to end he tied the vines into clever knots.

Not seeing anything of significant weight he stooped down to look through the forest dirt. Hands sifted through the rich decay of scat and leaves. He smelled it, tasted it. There will be further uses for it. His now empty sack of oyuyu powder still had its use. Never let even the mangiest of scrap go to waste. Dirt made its way under his nails as he shoveled it into the sack. It would neutralize the caustic remnants of the powder and be useful later. Hefting it, he considered its weight and once considered tied the improvised rope fast too it. He coiled the rope and gathered the thorns into a smaller scrap of leather.

He cringed as he cut the fat red leaves from the rikked spikes. They were edible, yes but they also dried one's mouth out and tasted worse than festering meat. It was that sickly sweetness that he made him so adverse to them. Still, they would sustain him. Gathering as many as he could he set them near the base of an old lerch tree. One that did not have the biting birds swarming it. Dislodging their nests would be tedious and painful.

Ilsebek grabbed the rope and came to the tree. Looking up to where the branches wove back together into their an almost egg-shaped dome he swung the rope. After allowing it to gain enough momentum and making sure the dirt wouldn't come loose he tossed. It flew straight towards the high. The sack sailed through the largest opening in the tangle and out the other side. The sky was now green with blue and yellow clouds.

He had to jump a few times to reach the sack, but eventually re reached it. It came down, was unbound from the rope, and was fastened back to his waist. He led the end of the rope around the tree and knotted it again to the other end. It was now a loop. Using both sides he gripped with his hands and his toes and pulled himself up. Once he was to the base of the top tangle he started to cut away with his longer more traditional dauver fang. It took some time, but eventually, he made a hole through to the inside of the tangle. Thin pungent liquid sprayed out. It drenched him and stung, but it was better than sleeping in it and having his fur and skin stripped off.

He climbed down and began eating the leaves. They made him retch. He held it down and told himself he needed the energy. Forced to wait until it the lerch tree was drained he idly swatted at the biting birds, catching them when he could. They were smaller than his thumb but their crunchy bones and blood were perfect to chase down that foul sweetness. Eventually, the tree started to drip and then stopped. It was near dark enough to be considered night. After tossing the disgusting leaves one by one into the lerch hollow he climbed back up spread the dirt around in a shape that was roughly larger than himself and lay down.

The eater let himself sink into his environment. They whispered their tales to him as the sky shuttered its lid and the sun died yet again. Its spawn would hatch again and wake the world in the morn. Ilsebek slept. Maybe tomorrow he would not be so hopelessly lost.