While four gods and other emissaries left the Thrall-King of Hor in their realm after failed negotiations, and as the great warrior of the Swarm arrived at the Dungeon with his troops, in the mountains at the northern edge of the Chilvalean plains, Yora knelt down inside of the sacred cavern before the Elder Shaman of the Frozen Mountain.
The cavern was dark despite barely cutting into the hardened stone of the mountainside. Every wall and surface was covered in treated skins and connected with hemp ropes from which dangled myriads of charms that Yora supposed contained mystical powers. She had fought her way from her family's camp in the summer territory of the Plane Gazer's Soulda. For five days and five nights to reach this sacred place, and she would not let something as trivial as impatience and cramped quarters stop her now.
Yora knelt respectfully on the dirt floor with her hunting hook presented before the old one and with her head bowed as one expected of a petitioner.
"Huntress you come to my cavern to seek the path, head bowed and tool presented as one would expect of an honorable girl."
The raspy voice of the old man ended silence as he reached out a withered pale hand to touch the hunting tool on the floor before him. Like Yora he was unlike the rest of their people, at a mere six feet he would have been considered a runt among his kind and no great beauty at that. Just like Yora at seven feet attracted more amusement and scorn than the respect that other hunters among the Loira engendered.
"Ahh a hunting hook. Typical of your Soulda, a spear is not enough to satisfy your bloodlust ey? Well, I can sense that you have treated your tool with respect. The spark within is dormant but happy in its slumber, that is good."
Yora heard the old one's voice go from an imperious tenor down to a bemused chuckle as he praised her. A gust of wind briefly fluttered through the exposed crack and flowed through the moss on her head which caused a piece of thistle to gently drift down and onto her stubby hands.
"So you come here like an agitated wolfling pup, eager like a human and with the tenacity of a shrike. Yet all of these things are burdens you must throw down to carry the burden you seek."
He chided her as she steadily knelt and refused to flinch or show any of her emotions as he continued. The withered and pale moss that covered his head and chest flaked off as he moved past her offering to stand behind her. Yora wanted to shiver as a clammy hand grasped her shoulder in a vice-like grip that showed a strength that his age and scrawny appearance had belied.
She could feel him sniff and snort as his head moved parallel with her neck while his hand did not move once from her shoulder. His other hand moved down to her sheep skin sack and searched through the contents casually as she waited. At one point she could hear him eat the goat cheese that her mother had given her as part of the Soulda's offerings and the wet crumbs fell down into her moss and on her neck.
Personally, Yora had not eaten anything and only drunk the water she could find outside for the days and nights she had spent wandering the mountains to reach the cavern. As the traditions dictated that the pathseeker had to do when approaching the lair of a shaman. It was what would come next that she had truly dreaded, beyond the temptation of food after days of abstinence.
"Your Soulda has sent.... acceptable offerings to me. Their tribute has paved the way and as such I will put you on the path."
His teeth sunk into the flesh on her neck as he proclaimed his acceptance and Yora shivered as the true first part of the rite commenced.
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The old man crawled onto his improvised mattress of straws and furs leaving Yora still prostrate on the dirt floor only with the sickening feeling of wet and pungent cheese on her neck and the rasps of nails along her back. He had planted the seed and only now would she be allowed to begin her part in it all.
A brown clay bowl stood before her, previously invisible to her sight but now clear as the morning sun and ready for her touch. It was a crude thing by human standards, uneven and with bloody markings indicating various wild beasts and primal glyphs. But humans had always been short-sighted cousins of the Loira. Unable to truly appreciate the hidden meanings in things, and what could lay behind the supposedly crude.
The blood of the ancients called to Yora and she did not wait any longer as she put the coarse clay to her lips and inhaled the aroma of ancient fire and iron as she gulped down the halfway coagulated blood. It went down her gullet almost like a clump of slime and with it passed a trail of heat which caused her yellow pupils to dialate and her head moss to bristle.
"Go, my child. Seek the path and meet the grandfathers with respect and honor."
Yora barely paid attention to the panting old man as she rose to her full height and grasped the hunting hook on the ground. She was finally allowed to pursue the quarry, to hunt a grandfather as only the most respected hunters could. The huntress of the Plane Gazers turned away and stepped out through the crack in the stone.
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Scouting and Minor Base Establishment Team Twelve arrived at the base of an impressive mountain range at the edge of the plains. The Antmite General was busy sending the primary armies of the Swarm to ravage the plainlands, but one of the critical resources that were lacking for the Swarm was minerals. So far the tentative diggings around the great forest and in the conquered areas along the plains had done little to improve the situation. Therefore, the Logistics-Collective and the Antmite General sent out joint groups of scouts, laborers, and combat units to begin working on the possibility of establishing a mineral extraction settlement.
SMBET12 had used the information provided by the more cosmopolitan Subjects of the Swarm to seek out the so-called "Unyielding Mountains." Or more colloquially known as the Land of the Mossheads, who were apparently some kind of human off-shoot that eschewed lowland living in favor of harsher climates. The most notable differences between the two species were height and that instead of hair the "Mossheads" had some sort moss-like substance.
SMBET12 had only two Subjects within it along with a dozen Workers, ten Soldiers, and a small collection of Fungal Zombie Birds. The subjects in question were a former miner and a charcoal burner. Leon and Maltize, two inhabitants of Hor who unbeknownst to their fellows had been embroiled in a secret love affair for years. Since Leon was a former miner and Maltize was his lover and himself a sturdy human.
It had been easy for the Collectives to pick them out for this particular mission along with other, less suitable Subjects who had gone with the other teams. The two men watched as the Workers immediately started clearing lumber at the edge of the mountain's foot so that they could prepare for the initial digs. Leon grasped Maltize's hand as they watched the Units work with furious efficiency and the blonde ex-miner smiled.
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"Well, let us hope that we can get something useful for the Swarm from this one.
Maltize did not reply as the loud sounds of mandibles carving through wood made a blanket of noise that made conversations...difficult at best.
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Yora stalked along the slopes of the mountain her senses enhanced as the fire of blood and iron burned in her guts. She was an experienced huntress and despite lacking the strength of her fellows she had always been prized for her excellent senses. And she could already smell the scent of what she sought. A grandfather had walked the same slopes as she now descended and it was a close.
In spite of the excitement and the primeval instincts coursing through her body, Yora did not speed up as she stalked along the mountain. Patience was a virtue for any hunter and the grandfathers were famous for being the most patient beings in the mountains and forests that the loira made their homes in. Rushing after it would doom Yora to fail in her pursuit of the Path, and that she would not allow. Her entire Soulda was counting on her success and she could not disappoint them now.
As she stalked through the night her sensory input expanded from smelling the grandfather to hearing it trundle along a stream. The massive prints it left in the looser earth made it easier to follow, no efforts had been put into obfuscating the way it had wandered. After all? Who would hunt a King of the Stone and Trees?
Only a pathseeker in truth, while senior hunters among the loira were sometimes called upon to hunt them. Only pathseekers had a true need to do so and were the only ones truly allowed to break the sacred taboo of kinslaying. Any warrior or hunter could be forgiven for slaying or maiming a human, after all, cousins fought more than siblings. But slaying a grandfather? Such an act was not forgivable in the slightest, it stained one's honor and marred your testament in the eyes of the ancestors. And yet the act was necessary.
Yora followed the trail made by the grandfather until she saw it lounge by a boulder it almost dwarfed. A bear larger than what the humans called rhinoceroses was gently napping in the gloom of the fading night. The huntress sighed as she saw the beautiful grandfather in its slumber. It was a truly ancient and wondrous specimen of his kind.
Golden fur with tufts of silver was shiny and resplendent in the light of the hunter's moon and it complemented the many scarrs covering the back of the ancient one. It snored gently, which was to say that it almost caused pebbles to dance with the volume of the sound. But Yora could only smile in awe in spite of the noise. After so long she could finally take the step onto the path, all that was left was waiting for the grandfather to wake.
She sat still on the soil as moving or whittling or similar pursuits while waiting for the giant to wake would be the height of disrespect. And waking it or beginning the hunt while it slept would break the rite. Kinslaying was dishonorable enough if one were not going about it like a craven fledgling. So, she crouched in the grass and waited patiently as the grandfather napped.
Even while preparing it still caught her off-guard as its eyes snapped open as the light of the moon dimmed and it stared right at her. A golden iris focused on Yora and easily saw her despite the covering of the grass and hunting attire that she wore. The grandfather darted up and rushed towards her like a stampeding herd of goats.
Yora was startled by the speed of her quarry and despite the countless stories that had been passed around the fire and the camps that Soulda had, she still could not fully believe the speed of the bear as it came at her. How could something so massive run like a whipping gale?
Before her questioning mind could kill her, Yora's instincts kicked in and caused her to dive forwards and slightly to the side in a roll to avoid the charging bear just before it could smash through her like a figurine of twigs. The ancient blood in her stomach burned like fire and caused her to move more quickly than she could ever imagine, and yet it was only barely enough.
As she got back up to her feet the grandfather had already turned after felling two trees in its charge and it came at her again. Slowly this time, a cold intelligence radiated from the otherwise warm eyes of the ancient bear as it approached her. Humans often ridiculed the loira for their "nonsense talk of elder bears and spirits of the mountain", they pointed to the bears wandering in their woods and said. "These could not be said to be wiser than us, so how would the bears in the mountains differ." The loira let them laugh, humans were easily distracted by what they saw and rarely learned to grasp what their eyes could not yet see.
Regular bears were wise and worthy of respect, but grandfathers were just as wise as any human or loira could ever be. And unlike their lesser kin, the grandfathers were far stronger than they could ever hope to be. Yora got feel that strength as the golden bear rapidly probed her defenses with a series of quick jabs with its front paws.
Each strike was enough to shatter the trunks of trees and smash large stones to pieces. So, Yora spun her hunting hook around in a defensive pattern to deflect the strikes rather than trying to block them directly. Her polearm had been carved from the bones of a dire moose and blessed by the Hearth Father of the Soulda. And yet the probing strikes were almost enough to shatter the powerful weapon after only a few seconds.
The hunt had gone from a stalking to a duel and it was rapidly flipping over towards a mauling as the ancient bear pressed her persistently and with great ferocity as each strike deflected caused the hunting tool in her hands to groan from the strain, and each missed strike left deep gauges in the soil or debris from shattered stone and torn plants.
As the moon shone above them Yora realized with a start what the grandfather sought to do in their battle. It was driving her in the direction of two possible targets. The first was the small stream below that Yora saw reflected in the golden irises of her quarry, and the other was the boulder the bear had napped next to.
Truly it was a cunning and powerful opponent as it sought to use the environment against her, but Yora had not been picked for the rite for her combat skills alone. The huntresss let the bear drive her back towards the river as she rapidly slid with each deflection and dodge, she even began to exchange counter strikes as she stabbed with the spear tip of her polearm at the shoulders and face of the bear.
Her attacks caused no real damage to her foe but that was not the goal and it paid itself of as the ferocity of the attacks intensified after she scored a hit right above the left eye of the bear. It suddenly roared and charged at her rather than simply slapping and smacking with it's paws as Yora was driven to the muddy side of the stream and she fell back into the water.
As the bear practically dove at her it could not reverse gravity as it noticed that the hunting hook at been firmly planted in the stream as the loira huntress fell. Yora felt more than heard the thunderous roar that followed as the proud grandfather was partially impaled on the hunting hook. She did not get to see the act as she was busily rolling away through the water and mud before she had even fully landed on the ground. As the weight of the beast crashing down on her would surely be her end.
The momentum of the charge tore the weapon from her hands and as Yora's head rose above water she saw and smelled blood in the stream. Her gambit had not killed the grandfather but it was clear that it had been wounded by the effort. Blood flowed freely into the water and the panting bear looked down at the wound in it's chest. It snorted once and the golden eyes looked up at her with resignation and recrimination alike, before it charged again.
Yora took a wrestler's stance as the rushing bear caused a cascade of mud and water to explode out with each step as it tackled right into her and sent the two of them crashing into the rushing waters. The impact was enough to crack several bones in her body, but the rite protected Yora still and she snaked her arms around the thick neck of her quarry and she tightened her grip in that moment.
Power flowed through her in those trashing moments as the two hunters wrestled in the stream. First was the seed planted by the Elder Shaman as was his right and duty in beginning the rite, the second was the power of iron and fire that simmered in her guts from the blood that she had consumed. Spiritual magics made up for her natural weaknesses compared to her quarry and despite it still being stronger the wound that she had dealt was a death wound.
So as the two rolled and fought through the pebbles, mud, and water Yora could still press out the traditional prayer in between being dunked and slammed into the stream again and again and again. By her grandfather, by her quarry, by her victim in this greatest of taboos.
"Grandfather...forgive me for my trespasses. My failure is far greater than any clever word crafted by man's ability to convey it. I can only ask...that in my moment of weakness you find it in your heart to forgive me for my kinslaying. As your descendant, I ask you to lay your life down."
The words began as was tradition, as they were needed to be for the rite to be successful as the raging and dying bear struggled in the grip of their killer. Her voice was ragged, pained, and filled with uncountable sorrows as she continued.
"I am doing this because my Soulda needs me, and I need your power and wisdom to protect them. My wish is that my service in your name can wash away the stain of my sin in the years to come so that the testament is rebalanced. Forgive me... grandfather."
Yora sobbed as the bear slammed her into the soil on the edge of the stream one final time and with the power and finality to leave a dent in the mud. The once glorious bear now bloodied and muddied laid still as Yora tentatively let go and she wept against the fur of her victim. Her tears quickly went into the thick fur of the cooling body as the sacred taboo was fulfilled and the next step of the rite could begin.