Ezril woke to the smell of roast meat wafting through the shelter as well as the absence of the old man. He stepped out of the shelter, wondering if the old man had gone on his way.
Ezril found the snow elevated at least three feet high. A small path waded through it, an obvious track left behind by the man in his departure. Yet, the smell of meat followed through, up to the high ground. It left Ezril with questions.
Wondering what was going on, he cautiously climbed up to see what was above him.
The old man sat roasting a snow hare over a flame in a small clearing. The smell was torture to an empty stomach, and Ezril wondered if the man did it intentionally.
"I didn't wish to wake you,” the old man called out, “but since you're up, I could use the company."
No use hiding, Ezril thought. He climbed up and joined the man at the fire. The man offered him a piece of meat. In the morning air, and an empty stomach, it smelled with a promise of better things. Ezril pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth and shook his head. He rejected it, as he had done the night before.
"You had better eat something, child,” the man said, worry glazed his voice, “you're all skin and bones, which shouldn't be so for a boy your age."
True, Ezril agreed without having look down at himself. He knew he looked like skin and bones because he felt like just skin and bones.
He rose to his feet and headed back to the shelter. He had not seen himself fully. But from his hands and the brief reflection of himself he caught in a nearby lake after breaking a portion of the ice in search of water over the weeks, he knew he was not one for a fight.
When he emerged from his shelter with his bow, arrows, and hunting knife, the old man was waiting patiently not too far away. They were both aware of his intentions and, with the knowledge, Ezril figured he didn't have the time or energy to convince the man to leave him be. I'll just outrun him if I have to.
Ezril found his snares were destroyed by the blizzard. There were no signs of a catch anywhere around them by the time he got to them. It did not surprise him. The blizzard had done as he had expected. His snares had caught as he had expected.
He walked the forest in search of prey, trying not to let the failure bring him down. The snow made movement a tasking ordeal made worse by his lack of food and his hunger. Behind Ezril the old man sang songs. The songs the old man sang as he followed behind were worthy of the pyre as far as Ezril’s ears were concerned. No doubt his voice would subdue a Tainted.
Ezril made to outrun the old man at various points but the man remained a good distance behind, not too close and not too far, ever gliding through the snow with such ease that Ezril wondered if it was an acquired skill from years as a wanderer.
The sun was at its apex when Ezril came across his first prey. He motioned the old man to silence, nocked an arrow and took aim at an unsuspecting snow deer, its fur as white as the snow around them. The bow string proved tauter than Ezril remembered and seemed to drain whatever energy was left in his arms. Knowing his release would prove inadequate he crept closer quietly, then let the arrow fly.
At the final moment Ezril’s strength failed him and his arrow missed its target. It was a failure in proportions unseen, even from Takan.
Alarmed, the deer ran off.
The old man struck Ezril, hard. He cuffed him behind the head as the elderly do with a child who’d done something stupid. It carried no pain but the weight of the man’s disappointment was more than evident. Ezril’s disappointment in himself was quickly replaced by rage.
He rounded on the man, eyes livid. "What was that for?!" he yelled.
"They teach you how to shoot like that, or are you just horrible at this?" the man mocked, unfazed by Ezril’s outburst.
Ezril growled in silence, paused, thought better of his anger and walked away from the old man. He fought the urge to respond, understanding very well that his failure was a shame. But it hadn’t been his fault. He was weak, hungry—starved. A perfect shot couldn’t have been expected of him in such conditions. Still…
If priestess Ellenel had seen that... he thought as he moved forward, wishing to leave the man behind.
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The old man resumed his ghastly-toned song behind Ezril. He whistled like a dying bird, clapped at the oddest moments, and jiggled his shoulders occasionally, like a laughing monkey. He was like a man on a holiday free from his worries. It helped Ezril in no way.
Evening came fast. With it, another opportunity arrived. Another snow deer fell in sight. Ezril watched his new prey, wondering where the strength to draw the bowstring a second time would come from.
The old man snuck up beside him and raised a suggestive finger. "May I say this,” he said primly, “I understand that you are hungry. But don't you think all that fretting is going to chase your prey away."
The old man's words informed Ezril of his wasted movements and he stilled his fidgeting. He calmed his body’s worrying and brought out an arrow. He nocked it and wondered just exactly how the deer had not fled. He took gentle breaths as Ellenel taught them would calm their hearts. They calmed him as was intended and he took aim.
"Two deer in such a space of time," the old man whispered, a smile tugged at his words, his tone suggestive as if he knew something Ezril did not, “quite the luck, wouldn’t you say? I wonder which god smiles on you."
Ezril quelled the urge to inform the man once more that there was only one god. There was a part of him that felt it was exactly what the man wanted. Instead , Ezril watched the animal saunter around, waiting for the right moment. The hunger was getting to his head. His eyes grew dizzy, his vision mildly blurry. It made it next to impossible to ascertain the animal's next movement.
For a moment, success proved itself a teasing but elusive dancer. Before he could make a choice on when to make the shot, Ezril paused.
What he saw was incomprehensible, worrying. Before him was a ghosting of shadows, like black smoke hovering about the deer before each step. He lowered his bow and blinked twice, trying to shake the sight.
The old man chuckled softly beside him. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
If only you knew, Ezril thought as he watched the deer. The ghosting was gone now, however. The mild distraction had seemed to banish it. Ezril saw only a deer sauntering now.
He took aim again, unsure of how long his vision would remain clear. He pulled his bow string until it kissed his cheek, then he saw it again. A black outline, like the edges of a faint sketch. It ghosted forward with each step, apparitions of the dark, ghosting mere moments before his quarry occupied the space. They seemed to herald where the quarry would follow. Ezril watched it for a while, and true as he was hungry, the deer occupied each space the smattering of shadows moved half a step after.
Ezril drew back his arrow, held the bowstring tight. Rationality did not support his decision. But it wasn’t risk that guided him either. It was not the same sense as he had done with the birds when he’d attempted to kill two in one shot. It was neither hubris nor arrogance. The quiet stain of darkness ghosted forward once more and Ezril fired at the head of the ghost. His arrow cut through the falling snow and the cold air. The snow deer occupied the space of the ghost a half-step after and Ezril’s arrow took it in the neck.
The creature staggered without ceremony but did not fall.
Ezril discarded his bow and fell into a run. He went after the deer as it fled, staggering with the arrow in its neck. He caught up to it easily. In a few steps he was on the animal and his hunting knife kissed its neck. Then he went to work, slicing and gutting it as was required after landing the final blow.
When the day darkened into night, he was seated, mouth-watering in his shelter. Bow unstrung and tucked in the corner, he waited for his meat as it roasted over a fire. The old man seemed to study him as he watched his meal. Ezril found himself wondering, and not caring, what he looked like in the moment. He was simply happy to have food for the night and the morrow. And perhaps longer. It was a full snow deer, after all, and he was just one child. If he managed it properly it could last him for weeks. No. Perhaps weeks was an exaggeration.
"Except for the hunger in your eyes, you look quite pleased with yourself," the old man observed.
Ezril was.
He had feared he would succumb and ask the man for food at some point. His hunger had been that bad, his starvation eating away at his resolve. The deer was Truth-sent. Ezril was convinced the man had no ties with the seminary, thus, there would have been no way the seminary would have known of it if he’d truly eaten from the man. But I would have, and passing this test would not have felt right.
Ezril went to bed with a full stomach and a smile on his lips. As far as he was concerned, it was the happiest night of the test.
Ezril spent three more days with the old man. He found himself growing accustomed to the man's songs and tales during his hunts. Each night the man told him tales of the worlds and people he had seen. There was a story of a man who had stolen the moon. A tree that used lies to form truths. A man who used runes to make magic. A jester who tricks those he entertains. A minstrel who sang to colors.
Often times he told stories of the Scorned. Of dwarves and creatures with sharp ears. There was a story of a man who’d made a boy out of wood. Its details were so outlandish that Ezril refused to believe it on nothing but principles. There were stories of serpents with the upper bodies of men and the lower bodies of snakes. There were squirrels that came up to Ezril’s waist and talked as humans did. The stories numbered almost endlessly and even slipped themselves into the songs the man sang with his terrorizing voice.
Ezril found his favorite story was of the boy who spent his whole life running from gods. He was a child born to no one, erupted from Vayla’s bosom. The simple form of his birth made him an enemy of gods and he survived their wrath at every turn. Sadly, the old man never finished the story, saying the end was a tale for another day.
Ezril noted how the old man never brought up a conversation that led to talk of the seminary or the church in any way. He wondered if it was an intentional choice. There was one more blizzard, but Ezril had fashioned a door out of sticks and buttressed it with his heavy blanket. It had sufficed to keep the wind out, but not so much the cold.
In this manner, more days passed.