The trees were complaining. They didn't care for the frost that had come last two nights and were making their displeasure known with a rapid shift from verdure to auric glory. Sunrise that day would go down as the most beautiful, poignant, moment of Ulric's life to that moment. Red gold light, filtering through emerald and gilt branches. A sharp morning air, still, that brought out awareness of one's entire body. Heavy silence, unbroken yet by the wildlings of the canopy. It was one of those moments that lived ever on in your mind, that had become the ultimate expression of fall in Ulric's mind forever more.
Soon enough the spell was broken by birds crying and various creatures stirring. Ulric had left camp an hour prior to dawn, to find a position in a low, Ha! branch in the nearest bower. Low was relative, of course, even the least of those massive branches was a near half kilometer up. The greatest heights might be anything up to a kilometer, maybe more. He had failed to bring home meat the day before. Today he hoped to down something prodigious.
His dried [Forest Lord] meat was down to around a scant quarter of its original 600 kilo bounty. He hunted fresh game whenever possible and, lately had improved enough to make a kill once every three or four days. Four of the [Bolt Deer], his name for the small green and yellow deer like creatures that had stampeded his camp, had been taken, each dressing for around fifty kilos had been taken over the last two weeks and their meat mostly preserved, what he hadn't eaten fresh. A single [Bladefern Elk], the moose sized elk that had the fractalized recurve horns, had yielded him nearly one hundred fifty kilos of meat, most of which had also gone to the smokers. It sounded like a great deal of food, and it was!
However, Ulric's current diet was extremely game dependent and he'd calculated a few weeks ago that his natural caloric needs were consuming about eight kilograms of meat daily. Given his lack of data, he couldn't make projections about the availability of prey during what was probably going to be a cold winter on the forest plateau. He didn't even have a way to determine, with any certainty, how long the days were or how long the seasons would last. The probability of this world having the exact same seasonal durations as Earth were infinitesimal. His instincts were telling him winter would be brutally frigid and longer than on Earth.
Towards that end, food preservation and wood processing were tasks on which he was spending substantial time. It had turned out that his original plan of traveling in a leap frog manner from one camp to the next had been made in gross ignorance of how difficult it was to survive in the ancient glade. The post stampede reconstruction of his camp, the rainy season making travel unwise, the creation of his Forest Lord bone tools, identification of edible plants, learning to control mana, exploring the canopy, everything took far, far longer than Ulric had anticipated. There had been so much to learn. Mistakes to make and then correct. Bad habits to unlearn and replace with good ones.
The Akashic record had acknowledged his improvement within his status, so it felt good to know that progress had been made. But he had dramatically failed to effect travel away from his starting camp.
Sitting in his hidden nook between two branches Ulric had an arrow affixed to the bow, a light tension on the string. The composite bowstave had proved its power many times, driving glassresin tipped arrows through all the living targets he'd hit. Fletchings had come from dog sized toothed birds killed by [Wind Blade]. The long wing feathers kept the arrows flying true for farther than Ulric had the skill to aim. He was currently using a hollowed tooth arrowhead, loaded with a few grams of liquid consisting of paralytic and cardiotoxic plant extract. He was hunting in the canopy today and he had immense respect for the monsters that roamed these twisting bark pathways, hence the poisoned arrow. Better to be safe and have his most dangerous tools at the ready
Since his aim today was something big, he would want to switch to a broad head arrow when his prey was close enough and have two or three arrows available for quick follow-up shots. He'd practiced these for several hours, daily, in the previous two weeks and felt good about getting three arrows onto a basket-ball sized target thirty meters away within around five seconds.
Ulric's back muscles had grown noticeably stronger pulling that heavy bow so many times, from both sides. He'd long since decided that if you were going to learn to do things from scratch, learn to do them ambidextrously. He was definitely favoring a left handed shooter's posture but was trying to break that predilection to build a balanced skill.
Various large birds flitted from highway wide branch to highway wide branch, some hunting sloth like critters that hid in the nooks of bark when they saw them coming. Others were cracking head sized nuts in their beaks, a display of radical crushing power.
Suddenly several birds went still before taking to the sky with a sound that was remarkably similar to a helicopter. Ulric froze, breath held. He felt a heavy cloak of threat pressing down on the layers of forest before him. He saw nothing.
Crashing foliage, cracking limbs, and an explosion of motion heralded a massive bovine form. Built like a crimson brahma bull but with horns made of polished onyx, the animal tossed its head as it broke free of the aerial thicket into the open. Even as its massive haunches cleared the last of the limbs, cloven hooves gouging the bark beneath, it was pursued by a living shadow. The creature manifested as it leapt to the [Crimson Bull]'s back, jaws locking onto its victim's spine.
A panther twice as large as a Bengal tiger, shoulders rippling beneath pitch black fur, had buried its foreclaws into the bull and was biting down viciously, canines piercing deeply into the backbone.
The [Shadow Panther] broke the bull's back with a sound like a sledgehammer on stone tile. The report could be felt through Ulric's feet. Hind legs went dead and the predator swiftly repositioned to take a new hold on the bull's throat, crushing it easily.
It had taken mere moments, from sighting of the massive horns to the killing bite. Ulric was stunned by the incredible ferocity of the attack. If this thing had ambushed him, rather than the [Forest Lord], there was little chance he'd have lived long enough to do much other than scream. The [Forest Lord] had been so large, so powerful, so without fear that it had hunted with no urgency. The [Shadow Panther] had none of this overconfidence. It killed with lightning aggression. An overwhelming yet graceful strike at full speed from its foe's blind spot. The way a veteran warrior killed.
Ulric never even considered taking a shot at the panther. The [Crimson Bull] was a mighty enough beast that he'd have probably avoided risking its attention. About five levels of "fuck that" above the bull stood the panther. No, Ulric was going to continue pretending he was the bark of the tree and hope the [Shadow Panther] ate well enough to sleep for a few years, never finding out that Ulric existed.
Fate was a fickle thing though. As the [Shadow Panther] opened the bull's belly, spilling entrails, ripping at soft flesh a twelve meter long [Venom Bolt Viper] rushed out from an overhead vaulting limb, fifteen meters above. The viper had an almost navy blue color with blood red diamonds running in alternating rows along its spine. It paused only long enough to direct a stream of smoking venom towards the panther. Even distracted by fresh prey and in the middle of a mouthful of meat, the panther was insanely quick, leaping into the air hind legs pivoting around to place it in line with the viper.
The viper followed the jet of venom downwards having expected to land a crippling blow against an unguarded competitor. The massive cat was already leaping, claws outstretched to meet it in mid-air. They collided and fell atop brush, crushing it with their weight and shattering it with the violence of their struggle. The [Venom bolt Viper] was wrapping its lower third around the panther, but couldn't bite down and deliver a mouthful of dripping fangs into it because the [Shadow Panther]'s claws had locked into the scales on the back of its neck and were dragging the head to point vertically into the air. The two rolled, revealing a bleeding ragged wound along the cat's rear left leg, where it had failed to clear the venom bolt completely. That leg was clearly without much strength, but the rest of the animal was making up for it. Roaring panther calls were mirrored by a Mac truck air brake hiss from the snake.
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Locked as they were in their conflict, Ulric decided the better part of valor was to be honored and began to slip away, quietly as he could manage. Just as he was about to make his escape, nine large Vikings tore shouting into the rough-barked causeway, hefting weapons that ranged from a massive battle axe with a bit sized for the tree trunk below, half a meter wide, to a broad two meter curving great scimitar, to a three-meter long shaft terminating in a barb tipped trident clearly coated with some substance.
The warriors were definitely aiming to kill both panther and snake while they were locked together. The panther released its hold on the ribs of the snake's trunk to bite at a man, apparently human as far as Ulric was able to see. The man had tried to swing his two-handed scimitar into the panther's neck but the creature shifted, taking a glancing blow that removed an ear and the fur on the side of its head. The counter bite caught his arms at the forearms and tore messily through them, sword tumbling to the canopy floor.
Momentary distraction cost the panther though, its monster foe bit it in the abdomen, delivering sizzling toxin into its guts. The panther howled, and started biting the snake violently all about its mid-section, ignoring the remaining tormenters. Two of the hunters, also human, tried to circle around the viper's back, one drawing back a silvery black bow, the other readying a vicious looking spear to throw.
The Viper once again lived up to its name, turning its head, low and parallel to the ground, faster than Ulric would have thought possible wrapped around the cat as it was, and launched a stream into the would be ambushers. Venom took both in the upper chest and head. Both immediately started to scream but voices were quickly choked off as throats dissolved.
Nine hunters was down to five fighting members, in as many seconds. Still, numbers had achieved something. The barbed trident stabbed forwards, driven by a hulking man shaped creature who appeared to have a man's body and limbs but the shaggy head of a wolf. Over two and a half meters tall, this creature drove the trident deeply into the snake's neck just behind its head pinning it do the underlying bark. While the panther bit viciously into the snake's chest, breaking ribs like kindling, a blue-green skinned humanoid with obvious tusked lower incisors swung the massive axe into its head. The skull cracked loudly, crimson blood splashed as axe buried deeply in a killing blow.
While their algae-colored compatriot tried to extract his snagged axe from the slain panther, two more humans with round shields strapped to their backs and one handed, broad bladed swords went to work on the pinned viper, cutting behind the trident to behead it while the Wolven-headed beast-man held it down with all his strength. The last of the group, also apparently a male human, tall, bearded, with gray hair pulled back into a ponytail was standing with his boot on a pale-skinned shape.
Ulric's plans had shifted drastically as these events unfolded. Silent retreat turned into shocked stillness, seeing, for the first time in over two months other sentient creatures. Stillness turned to murderous intent as his eyes slid over a naked, bound shape strung between two poles. A long haired youth, blond haired, wide slanted eyes, and badly beaten. The face had a shape that was almost Mongolian but forehead was slightly too high and chin too sharp. The ears were a hand long and pointed. The hunters had been hauling what could only be a badly injured Elven child. They had almost certainly been the cause of the child's wounds, if the none too gentle boot on the child's back were any indication.
It had always seemed like an obvious truth to Ulric: those who hurt children earned misfortune. Misfortune being a euphemism for a prompt, painful, if possible, killing upon sight. Here, he had witnessed his first opportunity at civilized company. And it was fucking ruined by a bunch of child-hurting assholes. Well. At least he knew who got to test his envenomed arrow.
*PING*
Another blue text box appeared but was swiftly discarded, he didn’t have time for that shit. Cold certainty burned away the unnecessary. The bow bent swiftly, fletching reached Ulric's ear in a mere moment, breath steadied and exhaled quietly, Ulric's fingers relaxed and the arrow loosed. The string slapped with a dull thud, furred muffler doing its job and cutting the sound. Eyes on the battle now well in hand, the man standing on the Elven child never saw the arrow that landed between his shoulder blades. He fell without sound, a puppet with strings cut.
Ulric figured he had one, maybe two more shots before the Vikings figured out somebody was shooting at them and decided that the men with the shields were going to give him more trouble than anyone else still fighting. He drew two arrows from his quiver, stabbing one into the trunk and fixing the other to his bowstring.
Another smooth draw, arrow trained on the space where the head would be when the swordsman on the left raised his weapon for another two-handed swing, breathe in, hold, sigh, release. The man dropped as his head rocked forward, glassresin tip exploding halfway out of his forehead.
His partner jerked around, missing his swing on the nearly expired viper, and called out in a high-pitched screech "There's more of the fucking knife ears out there!"
The Wolven beastman keeping the snake pinned snarled at him "Then get this godsdamned snake dead and get yourself after him. Else I'll pin you next."
Ulric was drawing his third arrow when the swordsman's next stroke severed the snake's head. The Ogrish man had freed his axe in the meantime, searching around at the call of "knife ears" and managed to spot Ulric just as he released. This closest Viking locked eyes with Ulric, grimacing as he heard the loosed arrow bury itself in the swordsman's chest behind him. The man gave a strangled yell as it punched into the holstered shield, vibrating agonizingly in his body.
The swordsman, dropped to a knee when the arrow hit. Hurt but not dead, Ulric had missed the heart. Definitely lung shot though. The man cried out again as he broke off the arrow and grasped his fallen sword, staggering to his feet. The wolven beastman, pulled the trident free of the dead snake and pushed the swordsman forward yelling something in a language Ulric couldn't decipher.
"Die here, bloody, Bastard knife ears friend!" the large muscular humanoid clarified in broken speech as he sprinted toward Ulric axe held two-handed to cover his chest from any incoming arrows. He was fast, probably a five second forty meter sprint time.
Ulric had been around sixty meters from the scene of the beast struggle hiding in a branch three meters above the thicket he'd been watching. The axe wielder would reach him in about six or seven seconds and that massive axe head would make a shot on a moving target difficult. Ulric decided he had better options. He shouldered the bow, string tight on his chest, put his hands out and drew up his will, focusing on his enemy's torso.
"Burn, you child-abusing fuck."
[Flame Crash]
Fire slammed into the Ogre-man's axehead and exploded into a three meter conflagration around him, rolling outward. Black smoke rising and a mournful cry made Ulric smile grimly. He watched as the Ogre-man stumbled blindly forwards, axe having fallen from melted hands. Face had been incinerated, blackened flesh nearly falling from skull and he made it only a few steps before he fell, breath bubbling out of charred lungs. The body burned steadily less than ten meters away from Ulric's branch.
*PING*
Ulric disregarded the notification. Later status, fuck’s sake.
The charging Wolven beast-man pulled up at the sight of potent magic unleashed on his former ally. The swordsman stopped as well, yelling desperately.
"Knife ears hired a battle mage! We can't fight him, I can't fight him with this arrow in me. Abyss below, Sigfur's over there bleeding out o' his arms."
Seeing the usefulness of his remaining ally was coming to an end, the beastman stabbed his trident down, planting it in the wood below, took the terrified man's head in his massive hands and jerked it savagely to face backwards, cursing in some strange guttural language all the while.
Ulric had dropped down now from his branch. He had been afraid that the two remaining foes would somehow get to the child and use it, he couldn't tell a gender from all the bindings and the awkward position, as a hostage.
When he saw the beastman kill his last fighting man he took it as a sign that the battle was at its end. He was shown the error of his thoughts when the beastman ripped his former comrade's throat open and took a handful of blood, wiping it across his muzzle in dripping streaks before throwing the corpse aside like trash. Probably not what somebody who was about to surrender would do. Probably more like a declaration of intent to fight to bloody death.
Ulric's blood was pounding in his head. Adrenaline. Fear. Anger. Excitement. Excitement? He'd always been told that violence was never the answer by his society. Which was confusing because the forebears of that same society shot college students protesting war, fire-hosed, beat and sicked dogs on its own people just for demanding equal rights under law in their own country, kicked in the doors of citizens in their own houses while they slept and gunned them down without warning, assassinated entire villages with remote bombs in foreign lands, and killed tens of thousands to protect the interests of a wealthy few. They had engineered the crippling of his world for endless wealth and used violence to keep everyone in line while they did it, right up until the Collapse. It had been a funny old world like that. Ulric had always suspected, deep down, that violence was indeed the answer to many problems and that if those problems weren't resolved, then it was because not enough violence had been applied. It had always been just a feeling. He'd chalked it up to a healthy misanthropy.
But now, feeling again the sheer energy running through him, the life flowing through his veins as he followed his heart's desire, he knew that that, mostly, human governments had been, historically, full of shit. They'd lied to protect their control. They'd force-fed people nonsense to dull their minds while the ones in charge did whatever they wanted. Well, that was enough of that shit. Ulric was a free man in a strange, wild, land where there were no gods and no masters, and these child-abusing fuckers were dead men.