Chapter 4 : Ammolite

“Won’t even cover the cost of lugging back its head.”

Red spurted up; a groan from the axe’s fall. The corpse spazzed under its weight. The wielder dug his blade inward, then, with his feet locked at the either hip of the muscled mass, tore down as if he were tearing bark from its tree. Light blood spat out from the cut, alow his straddle. He gazed down upon mangled flesh--seared and garroted--ribs split apart like a welcoming tundra, and an inordinate mess of organ and gut. Picking the axe up in one hand, he plunged his other down and through, into the ruptured stomach of the beast. He fished through its grime with picky fingers under a begrudging gaze, keen to distract his eye with anything but, then wrenched out a hearty, blood-baked kidney.

“Put ‘er on the fire,” Eidrik said glumly, deeply, offering up the clump.

His companion hunched seated by their fire, poking its sparks as morning reared its burning head. A decade or two his senior, even mute did Horral seem jolly, sated, as if of impressive patience, and of course compliant to his near-kin’s qualms. He snatched the dripping kidney, staked his poking stick through its center and propped it hanging over the flames.

The fire was quick to tan its flesh. Under the fat, it bubbled black. The meat tightened, texturised. It spewed smoke and smelled of pork. Horral admired the affair, pleased, held at nature’s bounty. He knew all too well that elsewhere, on a dawn no less fine, none the warmer, stomachs starved without the hands to hunt. For their sake, he smiled, watching the kidney burn.

“They say a borsork’s fat can stave off hunger for a week,” said Horral in his sage and enunciative manner; never rushed, always chewing each letter in thought. “But that its liver can poison you worse than the Patch.”

Eidrik heaved the corpse onto its belly, then hacked against its spine. Borsorks, as things headless with their eyes set in the chest, bore spines of the greatest worth; trophies the most valuable that their killers could sport. Spiked and lucid, like gooey serpents, distinct were their backbones, but of course grotesque. In the hands of accomplished beasthunters however, grotesque could be nothing short of traumatic, yet their minds already were direly seasoned.

With his axe lashing and wedging, Eidrik brutalized the monster’s hind until bone peeked through its dark blue flesh. He struck the axe then mightily down upon its skull to offer it a firm mantle and, with two hands tensed, latched onto its unearthed spine. He yanked, caught a wet noise stretch, then pulled again--harder, longer, until a snap sounded and the long, gushing bone came out. Eidrik compressed it, packed it inwards, nearly popping it between his fierce grips, then stuffed the spine into a small satchel to endure the journey back.

“They say too that when the winds roll fierce,” began Eidrik, “that it’s the All-Father speaking to us.” He ripped his axe up out of its hold. “But all I’ve ever felt is the fucking cold.” Brains gooped out after his armament’s edge.

The woods shook then with a proud gale. He hawked and gave the trees a stare, stern as warning. Eidrik scowled, bringing his dry lips low around his jaw and aiming that contempt at every flicker and flash alive behind the foliage. Nature’s curtain, he thought in derision, certain a play of candid evil was bound to resume at any moment’s notice, certain green’s bliss was soon fated.

Horral admired his comrade, his unfettering watch, all the strength of body and mind that sustained it. Eidrik was indeed a commendable sight. He wore a belted gambeson of border black. Its top was flapped open, revealing a breastplate of poor, raw iron. A crumpled cap sat upon his bald head. A measly spume hemmed its center, and at its sides curved two flaps with razored, uneven edges that hugged the hat’s heart. Eidrik was of a stout brown beard, eyed with a dazzling green, and molded by bruise and hunger, though powerful all the same. He wore brown gloves that snuck under his sleeves, though on his left hand two sockets hung hollow, as the fingers inside were long lost.

“I say they speak swinetell,” he said, resting his axe over his shoulder. The blade--doubled--was boiled ammolite. In its face swirled fertile greens like pastures, oceanic blues amiss and an amber plate as bronzen and as strong as a mountain-man’s shield. The weapon was a rod of raw obsidian, crude and crooked but unflinching, with an opalish head that could sever steel if its bearer but bore the resolve. Eidrik Corralain did indeed, and in his hands the axe could bring the finest executioners to shame. To their fortune, the bloody deeds of the furrfiend never ranged far beyond the woods, caves, and crawling swards in which killing beasts laired. As testament to their unending slaughter, that axehead of ammolite was chipped despite all of its strength.

“You’d not believe the All-Father himself,” Horral laughed, glee shimmering in the lines of his old teeth. “If he deigned to bless us his word.”

“‘Bless us,’” scoffed the younger beastfoe. “We’d be two fingers richer if he ever shut up.” Eidrik spat, his tongue’s discolour spoiling the earth’s green. “Rather the clouds shit hail than bow to a lie.”

Horral smirked. A question stirred his gaze, but in his ponder was unearthed some pleasure that spread his grin from cheek to cheek. He swooped an object up from behind the log on which he perched. It was a cane--long ebony with a white handle. With two hands on its hook, he leaned in, nearer the flame, nearer to Eidrik, with the light of fire embracing his merry watch.

“A lie, is it?” Horral indulged. “And then what is your truth?”

The flame cast light to his apparel, which was gray and sullied. He wore a white scarf that wrapped his neck and hung across the chest of a soft gray coat, ribbed in iron bands. Beneath was unseen, but steel still; cheap and light. Dirt, weather’s stains, and incomplete cuts maimed his attire, as it did Eidrik’s, shaping them to the image of utter ruffians.

“My truth?” said Eidrik, unbelieving of Horral’s sincerity. “Truth is you talk so much your words lose sense.”

“Oh,” Horral feigned. “So Eidrik the Fierce has found no wisdoms from his travels.”

Already did the morning air draw away his senses. Eidrik threw focus to the sunlight slipping between oaks rather than Horral’s panderings. The fields and cliffs of Arakvan had trialed his resolve, tested him to seek that which, in a shift of light, was not there before. In darkness lived evils surely, but some came only with the light of day, and so when sunlight arrived, just as when moonlight left, Eidrik found himself stargazing, with all of the perception and none of dawn’s longing. A decade at sentinel had taught him to hate the stars.

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“Eh, you’re a regular prayer now, are you?” Eidrik mocked. “Gerald will be wounded.”

“When’s he otherwise? And he believes in the All-Father, same as me.” Horral chortled, twirling his poking stick over the fire. “Just knows he’s a right bastard, isn’t he!”

Horral thundered with amusement, nearly losing their breakfast to the flame in the rock of his joy. Eidrik rolled his eyes, then turned to hide a coming smile. He faced the trees again. The wind droned on. The sunlight sunk deeper. Time was wasting by, and with a quiet sigh Eidrik surrendered his smirk.

“What is it we’re doing here, Horral?” he asked solemnly. “Playing hero in the woods…”

A moment of consideration fell upon him from Horral, before the hesitance subsided and his smile strengthened. “Better us than no one-” he began, until Eidrik whipped back to cut him off.

“Better nothing,” he denied. “Even now, folk perish back home, Horral. You know it, same as I do.” What took Eidrik’s eyes seemed a murk of fear, but those that knew him knew better, and saw a concern--a grave concern--for only those dear to him. “Each moment here, no matter how nobly spent, is a time wasted--a second more that our friends are left to fate.”

“Fate must be a wondrous thing, then,” said Horral, coltish, undecided on defense or a kind lie. “That it can exist back home, for those dear to us, and not each stranger here. We should tell the commonfolk not to fret, aye? As surely their nightmares leave with us.” His tone was jolly, but the iron in his stare promised truth.

“How many scourgers do we kill, ‘fore it’s enough?” Eidrik shrugged. “It’s a good aim, Horral--truly, but there’s no end in sight, y’see? Eventually, our backs turn. And when that happens… these people--they can’t be saved forever.”

“I’d hope not, my friend.” Horral turned his stick again. “I’m far too old to fight forever.”

“Whatever you’re looking for out here… whatever chance you’re risking yourself over…”

“Enough, Eidrik,” he said, prompt, with a pleasure in decay.

Eidrik stepped nearer, unknowingly booting dirt unto flame. Sparks spat out, and Horral raised his eyes to spot what malevolence spawned the shadow he now squatted within.

“It’s not here,” said Eidrik. “There’s just the woods, and all the scum that pours from it.”

“And then there are those who stand above it all, who outlast it,” Horral repelled, this time with a fire of force that vexed the veins in his aged temple. “I will not hide my eyes, Eidrik, while unfound there is still a chance we can win.”

“That chance is miles south of here, in Galehaven.”

“That chance is on every wind. On every path. In every moment.” Horral’s tone grew desperate, but sure, and its vow stirred Eidrik’s belligerence. “I will spare none,” he assured him.

A nod from Eidrik surrendered the affair, and he returned soon to his sentry at the clearing’s edge. He breathed deeply, observed deeper still, until the woods’ very sway answered to his eye. Its mastery meant naught while mere meters to his flank rested a resolve he was hopeless to deter.

Faraway, the call of loons sounded. Morning was woke in full.

“You must admit it makes sense, doesn’t it?” Horral asked, calm but probing. “Will you not admit me that?” He reclined his stick, slid the meat off its end. It was charred at its edges, hearty at its core.

“There’s seldom sense in gambles, Horral,” Eidrik shrugged.

“We know they’re looking for something up here,” his eyes glazed over the kidney and fell to the fire, filled with a bright boldness of action. “Stories of red riders… We’ve heard tell of the digs.” Horral shook his head, hatefully. “That pig of the Isyncra is looking for something. We find what it is, we find leverage back home--a chance, strength for everyone.”

He bit into the kidney. It was rich with flavour, flooding his gums, but dense and stringy, hardened with heat. A black blood slipped out thinly from his chewing lips. He threw a nod to the slain borsork; their morning’s handiwork.

“Might as well kill some beasts while we’re at it,” he swallowed. “Not every sorry bastard out here has the luxury of ‘going home’ like us, pampered fucks we are. For some--nay, for all too many, home’s the thin space between the wars of men and the wrath of monsters.” He took another bite, then tossed the kidney over to Eidrik, who swatted it into a tight fist. “For some, they need bladesmen to man the line.” Horral spat black blood into the dirt. “They’ll have to settle for us.”

The old fellow chuckled to himself, but Eidrik could only nod.

Sunlight at last breached the treeline. Golden rays pierced Meddlelfore to set the leaves aglow and warm the grass to a dewed shine. The stingered, webfoot insects of twilight crawled under roots and behind bark, while the air at last fell to their fat cousins of the day, with pink and blue riding their wings. The sky was a mosaic of crossing tree limbs laced over lime foliage, with a hint of blue in its few cracks and, beyond that, a hot shimmer. Daylight arrived in torrents, and in its wake survived only puddles of shadow that the waking critters stamped and trodded through. The call of birds littered the air, the crackle of weartogs bounced branches, and the throated yawns of nunnols coddled the vast woodland into its rise.

While there was indeed a beauty to be sapped by patient eyes, for beasthunters day meant only that the cover of night was gone, and that the next hunt loomed nearer. Under a flashing sun, Eidrik devoured the borsork’s kidney. He permitted himself a lone moment of tranquility, as the sounds and the smells of life embraced him, then he swallowed, turned, and sulked deeper into the wilder sections of the forest to bring its vilest denizens death. With his axe over his shoulder again, Eidrik strode from their clearing.

Close behind, Horral arose wearily. His cane curved to a cut, slashing the fire wide and scattering its burning embers. With a dragged leg, he swept his boot through the trail of flames and, at once, snuffed its every ashed member. Behind him was a spree of black, a slaughtered monstrosity, and the grace of day, and in that moment their sum was worth nothing compared to the way ahead.

Yet Horral did indeed look back, just before he crept into the deeper foliage. It was not the slain foe or the day’s beauty or the threat of fire that called to him, but rather an instinct alone. His spine tingled, like an alien wind had just pierced the forest. With a cautious gaze, Horral’s glare fell over all at once. He spotted critters on treetops, bugs in their hills, beasts in their tree hollows, but nothing that could invoke such a strange twist of sense. Perhaps it was paranoia, he thought, as he beheld quiet day. Perhaps it was not.

With an uncertain sneer--bolstered by such unfamiliar passion--Horral relented his stalk, then crept after Eidrik, leaving whatever he felt behind him to the madness of the woods. Shades of green, brown, and gold covered the space. All was unmoving, even after his departure, until his departure was ancient and minutes were spent.

The leaves rustled, the branches parted, and phasing out from behind them was a form of tall, sheer black. Its shape was lofty, light, but of a dark power. Eyes of burnt brown found the tracks of Eidrik and Horral, and it was Ulf Eldric who followed them true.