Foraging

In the dark of night Runt was close to invisible. He still moved silently, and with cunning, and with skill, but his job of staying hidden was much easier. The people of the city carried oil lanterns to guide their way, but this made them blind to anything beyond the flickering circle of light. Runt learned, from an early age, to rely on his night-vision and hearing. In the dark he became a ghost.

The puppy changed things. Tyron kept Runt to his word and he was now required, every night, to forage. The rapidly growing hound needed food and Runt’s job was to “find” it. He would wait, impatiently, each night for dusk, peering over the fence every few minutes willing the sun to sink faster towards the mountains. He always paused, though, as the sun dipped, and admired the glow across the horizon. For a few minutes just as the sun set the mountain range would glimmer with a strange colour. He heard Tyron call that glow “the spirit of the dragon” once but the kennel master only growled when Runt asked what that meant. Then, as dusk descended, the glimmer would fade, and Runt got to work.

Chook-houses, pigpens, and scrapheaps were his hunting grounds. Runt darted from place to place with a bucket in his hand, collecting morsels of their food here and there, never taking it all and never leaving a trace. Some of the animals began expecting his arrival. One hairy boar liked being scratched behind its ears. One of the roosters seemed to enjoy chest rubs. Behind the tannery junk pile, where he scrounged for discarded scraps of meat and skin, a cat had made a nest and the kittens would curl in and around his legs while he foraged.

The other nightly task was more risky. Tyron decided against painting the pup in the end. Paint was expensive. But the pup’s stripes needed hiding. Runt put down his bucket of scraps, adjusted the leather pouch tied to his waist, and began climbing the wall of the tannery. It was delicate work. Some of the planks creaked, others were loose. These were avoided. He nimbly climbed to the roof and crept to the large chimney that, during the day, belched out clouds of black smoke. Each night the fire smouldered out.

Opening the pouch, Runt carefully and quietly began scraping the insides of the chimney. He filled a pouchful of soot and pulled it shut. Another job finished. Runt turned and looked around from his perch up high.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Lantern lights dotted the hillside of Demonia in groups where the houses stood. Looking up the hill, the lights became larger, brighter, and more frequent. The inner-city glowed like a beacon. In the other direction, towards the Wilds Beyond, and the mountains framing the horizon, it was nearly pitch dark. A tiny island of light appeared, here and there, where a lonely cottage lantern stood against the inky blackness.

One last job, the best of all, and the one he dared not tell Tyron about. Looking back towards the kennels, near the crossroads, Runt saw the cluster of torches encircling a campfire. Carefully climbing down the tannery wall, he collected the scraps, and made his way over.

“…easily as big as a horse. Bigger, even. And twice as wide.” The old man sat, wrapped in blankets, on a log near the campfire. His voice was low and raspy like a sword being scraped across stone. “Mammoths. Ugly brutes. Long, shaggy, brown hair across their backs and down their four tree-trunk legs. Sometimes you don’t see ‘em right away coz they blend in. But if they see you first… look out!” He was surrounded by children who sat on the grass, or on rocks, or on one of the long logs arranged around the fire. No matter where they sat, they sat in wide-eyed silence, while the old man recounted tales from the Wilds Beyond. “Massive heads, they have, and big, ugly faces. But with beady little eyes that peek out behind a bulbous nose. A sort of squashed face. From pushing over the trees. That’s how they eat, see? Push over trees to get to the tastiest leaves which, of course, are near the tops. Massive chompers. They can eat trees whole. Bark, sticks, and all.”

“Do they eat people?” one little boy asked, clutching a toy bunny tightly to his chest.

“Nah. But they’re still dangerous. If they see you first, you’re toast. They drop their head and charge. I was out there once. Chasing a sheep we lost the night before. Found it about half a mile in. But before I could grab it a mammoth burst out the scrub, outta nowhere, and lined that sheep up. Knocked the poor old thing about fifteen yards. The sheep never even knew what hit it. Killed it, of course.”

Greybeard, the storyteller. He entertained the children who were too young to work but too old to be stuck at home. Runt always hid in the bushes nearby. Within hearing but out of sight. And when it was over, he would pick up the bucket and the pouch and sneak back to the kennels.