Of What May Be - To the Black Hills (Attn Ata & Shep)

[Wolfsbane]

“What may be, and what may come, may yet still fall under the Shadow. What should be, and what will be are still to be fought. What may come to pass, can only be hoped to hurry the drums of war towards the end, the final battle, Tarmon Gai’don. For under the Darkness, all shall be un-spun from the great Pattern and none shall be spared. Beat on the drums of war. Let the Dragon dance and fly on the winds of Time, the Creator spun flesh; for he must not fail us.â€

—Translation Unknown

Documents pertaining to the

Rise of the Dragon, believed

recorded around 400 NE.

 

 

 

A wind rose among the peaks of Kinslayer’s Dagger, bent and twisted by the heat of the Aiel Waste, it rose among the jagged edges of stone and earth. Other currents joined it from the Jangai Pass, from the other mountains of the Spine, as the wind began to gust west along the Gaelin River. Over trails, and soon borders, it sped on, gathering the smells of grass and wood and death and fire, as it crossed the oasis known as Dumai’s Wells.

Death clung to this wind as it moved west, surging across the banks of Tar Valon itself, the Shining Walls glistening in the noonday sun, but the wind pushed ever westward. Circling the smoking mountain the wind drew in the heat of Dragonmount, the burning ash and sulphur stirring in it, filling it, until the wind could sustain no more and rushed down the mountainside. Over the Luan River the wind gusted until it brushed the slopes of the Black Hills filling the air with its acrid smoke and reek of death. But Death already stalked the shadowy hills of Caralain Grass.

 

Small countryside farms littered the slopes of the Black Hills, tiny villages of farming folk that new little of the outside world beyond their crops of wheat and the borders that had once defined them as a nation. Few remembered Old Caralain, and many fewer wished to, when harvest season did finally come around in this Light forsaken weather. Darkness crept in closer as man’s delusions and paranoia consumed him. Just north in Brohampton an entire village was set ablaze by the farming folk, believing the sins of Darkfriends would be consumed in the flames, as the young and old and innocent burned for what was not truly there. Just along the River Ivo just before the Arinelle woods, a small town named Ashan Doon, though memory served it known as Brookside only a few winters ago, found its Council chambers ripped apart and the Mayor slain by Shadowspawn, not a week past. Word spread like wildfire in the Hills of Shadowspawn with glowing eyes and flaming mouths and black leathery wings that would drink the very crimson life that beat in a person's veins.

 

Kjarl found himself wondering the same thing, holding the same doubts what was happening around him. The whole countryside was up with torches in mobs, hanging well-respected families, burning and beheading as they rampage through the farms and settlement housings. Old Samuel of Braemton was hung from the very tree he grew up under, he must have been the oldest man in a day’s hard ride, for apparently naming the Dark One but eight winters back. Kjarl didn’t know if that was true, but he had heard stories already of Samuel killing two sheep, of the old man sending his spirit on people in their dreams! No one failed to notice that it was all of the people who had borrowed from Old Samuel over the years that led the rabble to his house; it just happened that Cameron Barlow, who refused to admit the land he had claimed was his was marked under Old Sam’s property lines, happened to have a rope ready to string up the beaten old man. The whole thing scared Kjarl while he-

 

HUNT… MUST FEED… FLESH, MUST RUN AND TASTE FLESH.

 

The voice was so strong… So overpowering… Ever since the wolves started talking to him when he was working the hunting trails hoping for some meat… Nothing’s been the same. Am I mad?

 

THIRSTY… SMELL TWO-LEG… RUN. MUST RUN. KILL. THEY WILL KILL. RUN.

 

The voice was so primal, so beyond anything Kjarl knew and struggling against it had proven to be a losing war. He sat there, golden eyes blazing in the shadows of a farm he faintly remembered, focus locked onto the sparse cloudy shapes of sheep as they grazed on the few clumps of grass. A pink tongue slithered across his teeth, hands dry washing themselves on the few scraps of cloth that still clung to his body, nails filled with dirt and dry mud. His cheeks were hollow and his once shining blonde hair lay matted and filthy against his head, dirt covering every square inch of his body.

Kjarl had never been very large, never the strongest or the fastest, but after the wolves met him in the woods… after the voice in his head began chattering away… He had done things he couldn’t believe he was capable of, didn’t want to believe he was capable of.

What was another sheep? Kjarl justified in his mind stepping from the shadows as a cloud drifted over the warm sun. He tested the air. Another one of his abilities enhanced, he could smell blood from a 100 paces off, he could see in darkness like it was morning… The air suddenly smelled of smoke, of charred wood and-

“Death,†Kjarl said and wasn’t surprised by the hoarse whisper that came from his lips, hands pressed to the grass and he began to stalk his prey.

 

MUST FEED… FEAST ON FLESH… BURY TEETH IN SINEW… CHEW MARROW… FEED!

Kjarl meant to oblige the voice. He could already taste the mutton between his fangs.

 

 

******

 

 

The sending, like a shining pinnacle pointing east in his mind, thundered into his skull like a hammer blow and gave Erik enough of a startle to drive his feet from underneath him. He slammed to the ground, one leg sprawled out behind him and the other’s knee speared into his chest.

“Light, and bloody merciful ashes…â€

Just catch your breath.

He turned to look over his shoulder like he expected the new Kin to be standing behind him, but all that greeted him were tall oak trees and cedars shadowed by the dense brush of Arinelle wood and the setting sun. Red and pink light glittered off the leaves of ferns and brush as Erik looked east.

“I just bloody came from there...â€

 

The sending was passed from wolf to wolf until someone picked it up, until someone could help the poor tenderfoot. The message was different though, like nothing he’d experienced before, odd and…

A flickering flash to the beast that purred and growled inside him hungered and pawed and gnashed its teeth before he firmly quashed its voice.

Something’s wrong…

 

Erik had never been a conduit for the sending, always receiving and leaving to find the poor new wolf before the elements or rabble swallowed them up. He knew where the young one was, he could point with absolute certainty where the wolves told him, and that was what he sent along.

It was unpractised; he had never been very good at the communication or the Dream, two very intrinsic parts of being a Kin as Erik was slowly learning. But time was running short, and Erik had already collected himself before the sending was done.

Wolves were very good at finding the best suited for the retrieval of a new Kin, but Erik knew something was different with this young one— and time was against him.

 

Help. New Kin. Different. Help. Come quick and bring steel. He ended the message with the same golden marker burned in his mind, glittering somewhere over the Black Hills, before the Luan River.

 

“Back into the steel and fray, once again. Far ji, far kiserai, Far al Esch din.†For honour, for glory, Brother of the Wolf.

 

Night’s howl cackled in the back of his mind as Erik set back the way he had come.

Change is inevitable, Esch din. Change is always inevitable.

 

 

OOC: Ata- I figure Scar’s next, finding something happening with Kjarl… I’ve left it out to the open so play with it and have fun. Shep- I figure you’re the one getting the sending (the Shinning :P ) so play out your reaction and coming out of your fortress of solitude.

 

PS~ Rammstein really helps pushing out a post ;) this thread looks good, looking forward to it.

[Liitha]

Scar lapped water out of the stream, he had left home after loosing his family. That was in the past, then found two legged once again hunting with his brothers and sisters, a batle, a new son on two leggs had been adopted, and then he lost touch during the figth with him.

 

More past, he had been wounded and when the figth rolled over had withdrawn from the turmoilt leaving the two legged to sort out the mess. He had been hurt in the figth and had grown a limp to his left back foot, but it had healed mostly by now, and slowly he was adjusting his walk so it didnt hamper him.

 

There where two legged in the woods, and something else. Scar descided to check and as he walked up a hill he saw a clearing bellow. Those dumb white animals who had cost him his family to two legged where bellow, and so was one stalking them, a brother. He could smell other two legged come from the other side, the wind thus from his heigth he caugth the smell, but in the valley the cub wouldnt and something was wrong with him as well. It wasnt as much he could see more as a feeling Scar had, but he bether get out of there. ~danger...flee~ would he pick it up...Scar lay nervous, there was litle to be done it was to far down into the valley and the other two legged would be there sooner than he could find a way down the sharp terain.

[Wolfsbane]

Kjarl smiled at his luck.

Was it Kjarl?

The name felt foreign and unpleasant, a rough curdling of sounds upon a tongue that slithered and slathered around.. No, not his name.

 

We are 'Red Maw that Shines like Black Stone in the pale Moonlight'

Even then, it was sensations of smells, and sights and the sound as the cool dripping of the blood resounded, and a deep howl rippled through the air.

Red Maw moved closer to the thin sheep, golden eyes blazing with the heat of the predator, watching, weighing, hungry. His muscles tensed as they prepared to run down the nearest ewe, her once white wool dingy and thin frame barely worth the effort, but it was more than meat he hungered for. Red Maw wanted nothing more than the dark crimson life to spill out on the downy wool as the final bleetings of the poor creature ended with a satisfying crunch as his teeth collapsed the throat and-

 

~danger...flee~

 

The emotions, the message... where? The wolves! Kjarl remembered the wolves that had met him in the woods, their thin golden frames shining in the light of the Harvest moon as their amber eyes stared into his soul.

Red Maw hastily suppressed the memory as well as the last traces of Kjarl Moesiv, and looked up to the top of the hill. A single wolf stood at the top of the valley's bowl, over the small pasture and away from the thick forest.

 

~MY KILL!!~ Red Maw sent back, lips pulled back into a silent snarl as he edged closer to his prey, burning eyes staring at the mysterious wolf.

 

LET WOLF GET UPWIND OF RED MAW.. MY PREY... ONLY WANTS MAW'S PREY...

 

With a quick pound of his hands against the ground to get himself moving and to startle the young ewe into making a reaction, Red Maw sprinted forward. The green grass blades felt cool and soft under his thumping feet, his long strides taking him one more step closer to his prey as the young sheep looked right at him, dull eyes staring into fiery golden orbs of bloodlust, and banked hard right.

A quick howl left his lips as he twisted his body round to pursue the ewe as hooves competed against fleshy man feet. NO. They were paws! Tearing up the earth Red Maw dared nearer and nearer to the frightened lifestock, saliva dripping from his gaping mouth across his chin like a rabid dog.

 

The other wolf sent something, Red Maw pushed it away as his feet left the ground, body fully outstetched and the air whipping through his hair as the prey bleated futiley- it knew as well as he did- and two hands, paws caught the wool coat. Both rolled, but it was the prey's leg that gave a loud CRACK and it was Red Maw that ended on top. The creature still wrestled, fighting him as Red Maw's clumsy paws tried to claw at the creature through its coat. A screaming bleat erupted from the ewe, it pierced the twilight air like a tooth opened the vein, and sounds from the woods answered it.

 

IGNORE THEM.. SO CLOSE.. No one answered back, for there was nothing to answer.

The clumsy paws gripped around the thrashing head of the sheep, hands tightening around the sides of the head, and twisted the neck backwards towards him. The bleating cut off instantly with a sickening crunch from the vertebrae collapsing.

Warm drool foamed from his mouth as Red Maw buried his lips into the neck of the creature, teeth chewing and tearing, rending and ripping thin folds of flesh hunting for the hot red liquid buried within. The warm iron taste lathering Red Maw's tongue in ecstacy.

The bubbling howl was barely from his lips before the first arrow buried itself into him. The left shoulder burned, piercing through to the other side until only arrow's fletchings stuck out. The force of the impact drove the wind from his lungs and his knees buckled before the second arrow buried itself deep into the flesh of his thigh. A low moan erupted from from his crimson lips before the hunters from the woods emerged, torches lit, and arrows nocked prepared to make a pin-cushion of..

 

Warm haze closed in around his vision as blood that tasted very much like his own dribbled across his tongue, long before a club came swinging down to send him into hurtling darkness.

~NOooooooooooooooooooooo~ was Red Maw's last sending, before he lapsed into unconsciousness, and the hunters hoisted his body along with the dead sheep.

 

-Red Maw-

 

 

 

OOC: Kjarl/Red Maw ain't dead, but pretty damn close to it. If you want to follow them Scar, and give some details to it while we wait for Shep & Erik to catch up.. certainly feel free.

Shep, are you RPing in the Wolfkin Stedding board then rping here? It'd just be easier and more continous doing it here from the start off.. MoM, close enough to the north..

 

PS- I LIKE ITALICS :D mwhaahaha Anyone gonna see Silent Hill? I figure it's a good flick to take a girl to, but I'm debating whether it's too scary cuz it just aint cool if they piss themselves.. or if I do.. :( *would be ashamed* Cheers,

 

Erik

[Wolfsbane]

Erik drew the long knife across his face, angling and rearranging the razor edge around his cheek bones carefully, with more than half a dozen years skill accumulated back when mirrors were a luxury.

And Owen acted like he was still in coddling!

Erik dipped the blade back into the cold stream, rinsing the lather of soap and a week of hair growth off in the bitterly frigid water, before resuming his grooming. His head felt better with a night’s rest and a stomach full of round turnips and small mushrooms that tasted like boot leather and the scrawniest chipmunk that had ever had the unfortunate toss of the dice to cross Erik’s path.

Hole myself up? Wait for the cavalry to rescue my miserable hide?

Questions and doubts over his aptitude as a Wolfkin brother were simply squashed, even if they were sewn by Owen himself, which had not been such an easy task before. Jokes and jests had rankled his nerves when he was still training, left him wondering if he was good enough to be among the wolves, if he was capable to do what was expected of him; to do his duty. He had done that and more, done what he had not thought he could and tenfold that.

For Correine…

For Maethius…

 

Owen had made decent sense and had gone on about the importance of this Chachin being known about to the Wolfkin Council, to anyone that can make a difference, and that Erik surviving was… important…

Near two years of headstrong recklessness, moving and living and fighting from moment to moment, brash… It was strange stretching his own thinking back to the greater good, the possibility that leaning his neck against the chopper’s block each time may not be worth it…

“That other lives are counting on me,†his voice was still hard and almost in a cough. The bruiseweed made the pain in his lungs die down but he could still taste the iron grit at the back of his throat; Erik could still feel the dribbles of blood gliding down his chin, as his lungs tried to spasm out of his chest. Waking from the Dream with Owen had ended all barriers from the pain he had been ignoring, something told him it was not beyond the Ranger’s ability in the Dream to break apart his mental barriers and concentration, but he ignored the feeling. Have I always been this suspicious? Of Owen even?

 

A life in the wilderness changed you, but you never saw the changes until someone else held up the mirror. A strange thought, Erik considered before scraping off the last gritty part under his chin, rinsed his blade, inspected its edge and slid it back into sheath. Hopefully we won’t have to use that this night.

 

Twilight fountains of purple and pink clouds billowed across the sky, knowing the little light left were filling his eyes until they glowed with an unearthly hue Erik shrugged on his thick traveling cloak and readjusted his wide brimmed hat. A large quiver hung at his thigh and his long bow, newly strung and ready paralleled his own emotions. Tight, coiled, ready to spring, he was ready to do what he must. Risking what Owen was ready to die for struck Erik as more than ludicrous, or at least an Erik that had once been, but he was not about to abandon this Kin— Or hole himself up in a bloody burrow until the bloody storm weathers past! —If he was to face the winds and rain and thunder bolts, so be it. So be it.

 

“If I fall and should never be given to you, forgive my sins and lacking Mother. I commend my bones to the ground and my heart to nurture the earth, my soul to be woven as you will. So it is, so shall it be. I am dust on the wind, I am the falling snow. Until the Weave is woven, and must be woven once more, a thread is what we are and all we may be. Far ji, far kiserai, Far al Esch din. Far Owen al Esch din.â€

 

Despite his changing moods towards the Ranger, the idea that the man wouldn’t be looking at him, towering over him, as Erik lay on his back panting, disarmed, and a sparring blade in Owen’s hand while the big man asked him what he had done wrong that time.

The moon, the sun did not seem constant when compared to the invincible white man that could move mountains with a frown and juggle hurricanes while playing his bloody awful flute music.

A grin slid across his face before grim determination overlapped it. Brohampton was not a hundred paces away from him, squat thatch-roofed houses that huddled together, pressing in tight around the core of the town. A garrison stood out among the two storey buildings, a big enough of a surprise with a smithy and an inn backing onto it, it had seemed a normal Black Hill village from what he knew of them. Scarce enough to hear good stories growing up along the River Ivo, mostly stories of how thieving and conniving they were to the East, closer to the Tar Valon the worse the people the stories went— though he never understood where the idea that the Black Hill folk all had to have thick bushy eyebrows that met in the middle of their forehead and never stopped sneering.

 

Repeating his little prayer as he began his slow climb up the alder tree, he left the last part on again, as if he really did have to pray for the great White man. Far ji, far kiserai, Far al Esch din. Far Owen al Esch din. For honour, for glory, for Wolfbrother. For Wolfbrother Owen.

“That bloody man can juggle hurricanes. I’m the bloody one who needs some bloody praying and a little bleedin’ luck too... Weave willing.â€

 

The first arrow whispered into the night with a hush, bit deep but silent, as Erik drew again, and the other sentry on watch folded in on himself just as quietly. He eased himself from his branch perch and slid down the rest of the way, eyeing the two bodies in front of the town’s gates. The next rotation would be in two hours’ time and there was work to be done.

Even if it was bloody, work had to be done, in the mud or in the brambles.

A tune buzzed in his head and he caught himself whistling it, something telling him he knew the words to it too. Almost.

“…We’ll dance all night… while the moon runs free…†he whispered to the darkness as the town’s darkness slid across his shoulders and he passed through the gaping West Gates, knowing there was no going back until what had to be done was.

“Or I’ll be Jak o’ the Shadows.â€

[Wolfsbane]

OOC:

 

okay, so maybe a little explaination is in order?

er-hem

 

Shep's been out of commision for awhile and two threads were slightly waiting for his epic return from the Computer Underworld- but no such luck. So I did the most logical thing

Viciously excluded him and continued on with the story.

 

Owen and Leila (and Envy) were up in Chachin waiting for Shep to contact them in the Dream, so I decided to take it on myself to contact Owen (as Erik) instead. Erik had been searching for the feral kin, which he doesn't know IS feral yet, for days before the beacon directing him to it stopped. So that would mean the wolves have lost contact with "him," ergo, he's captured by the people of Brohampton and thrown in the garrison.

Panicked, Erik contacts Owen who tells him to "hole himself up and wait for help"- Erik's one to listen to Owen, but that's a bit much for his new found sense of independence to handle so he rests up and prepares to enter Brohampton by nightfall to rescue the Kin.

This is the same post I put on Owen's "Exsanguination Suits You" as it is the bridge between the two. I felt that either you or Shep would be able to jump in still to RP as that was the main idea behind the Black Hills adventure. Chance to explore and get our characters going again.

 

So any road, the cavalry's coming in while Erik's in the town now trying not to get his throat slit and not expecting the most likely person to kill him is the Kin he's trying to save.

 

Cheers and what-forth,

-wolfs

[Liitha]

He watched as his message either failed or was ignored and the two legged came on the brother. Withdrawing he started watching for a way back and out of this place before he could be discovered.

 

Scar kept in cover of trees as he silently snuck away part of the shadows. Safe that he had laid enough ground between himself and the two legged he picked up the speed to lay even more ground between him and them as memories of old times haunted him.

 

ooc will keep paying attn to this, 2-3 weeks now and i'll be back as school year starts :D

[Wolfsbane]

Erik could feel a wolf in the outlying distance, somewhere outside of the town, lying in waiting and watching. He had known somehow before... had recognized the scent and image attached with the message... The wolf that had found the Wanderer. The male wolf's scent was like a dry dust tinged with a trace of iron, like dried blood crusted on the maw.

He shrugged off the feeling as he tied another knot in the soldier's bindings. The man's limbs were as limp as bloody whistlewood after rainfall but as heavy as a chord of wood and it took all of Erik's muscle to heft the man into the round barrel- quietly. At least the poor bloke would not wake up 'til morn, which Erik still had more than a few hours left before, and with a nastier headache than most brews invoke.

 

"After I'm done with this place I'll need a brew," his growl whispered into the dark alleyway's silence, the creeping darkness of night surrounding him as he moved to the side of the garrison.

Old stonework, heavy and gouged over the years of standing alongside the Ages of townsfolk and commonplace civilians, it could even be a lasting creation of man from a time when most things were done with Power even. Erik couldn't control his shudder, nor should he, the One Power was not something to be taken lightly by anyone and something no Light-fearing man should want to be around.

 

Straining his senses, he could hear the low buzz of a shuffling walk echoing in the stone, like a scratching against the stone beside him. He followed.

Feet padded along the alleyway as he trailed; eyes moving back and forth picking up everything as if it was high noon and glowing with that eerie golden gaze he knew was almost feverish in this dark.

A door swung open in front of him suddenly, and he nearly fell over himself coming to a stop and crouching. Light blinded fool!

A rough hand grasped the door, nails blackened and swollen, and the man was breathing low and hard, like he'd been running. A head eventually slid out from inside and pushed itself past the door to inspect the alley. The man was breathing hard, and his eyes stared around wildly, his jaw moving up and down churning his tongue in his mouth. What madness is this?

"... Monster...." the man whispered to the darkness, his eyes shimmering with wild terror as he pushed himself off from the door and began tearing down the alley towards him. Erik kept his head pressed to the wall; eyes obscured partially by some crumbled brick, and crouched between an old wagon wheel and a box of foul smelling fruit.

"MONSTER!" the man shouted as he nearly reached Erik, feet pounding the cobblestones as he moved awkwardly around a bad hip. Filled with fear, those eyes never moved towards his hiding spot while the soldier ran, probably five or six Winters older than Erik maybe even Owen's age if the wrinkles on his face were not the contortions of terror. He would have let the man go; he had secured him a way into the garrison and would have snuck in without any alarm. But he was drawing too much attention.

Erik slid from the wall just as the soldier passed his hiding spot, silent feet carried him swiftly to his prey. There was only a split-second recognition as the man turned towards Erik, a new horror filling his face and a strangled scream held back in his throat as all of Erik's weight was thrown into the man and smashed him against the garrison's wall.

The man made a small mound on the ground, limbs twisted awfully, but a harsh wheezing coming from him pronounced death had not taken him. Then he smelled it, that hard smell of fresh blood dripped from this man and swirled in the air.. Not just his blood, but several different people's.. splashed across his face and clothes. This man had seen violence, enough to scare him that bad.

A hand around the back of the man's neck and another at what he suspected was the seat of his pants, he hoped was the seat of the man's pants, and heaved him into the fruit box. If the man lived past this night, he'd have a story to frighten the children but appear a drunkard to rest of the town. He hoped that was as far spread as this 'monster' business.

Had the Wanderer gotten free? He couldn't decide whether the thought was reassuring or not. Either way he had to find the youngling before a spear was put through either of their ribs.

 

Erik lowered his head as he passed beneath the side gate's threshold and into the garrison.

 

******

 

Kjarl laughed, blood spilling across his face as he chuckled against the flesh of the one named Marrigan. Or was it Charek?

The laugh was a rolling growl gurgling into the crimson bath that dripped across his bare chest and down his tattered robes.

NO FIRE... NO MORE BURNING!.. FEED. FEED ON THE FLESH . THE MARROW. EAT THE MARROW OF THOSE THAT BURNED!

Nodding his head he agreed with Red Maw, eyes glittering with a sheen of maddness.

"They had meant to cure us, brother. Meant to excercise the demon from within me, remove you from us. Well they found me, dear brother, they found me," his hard voice echoed in the chamber with a coldness he has never known.

There were many things he hadn't believed he could do, not before Red Maw had suppressed him, not before this two-legs had found and bound and carried him away. Hadn't known that he could kill a man until the Chaplain... Lor?... The name escaped him.. had tortured him.. Awoken him.. And to end the pain he had forsworn everything to the man, but in his heart he had grown to despise everything the man was. The Light. He forsook the Light in his time of need, sworn his soul away to the Darkness that eclipsed his heart now. The Darkness gave him strength, gave him sanity and… revenge.

Wiping the blood on his hands off on the Chaplain's robes he now donned, Kjarl giggled in ecstasy as he smelled the air and smelled death.

 

But he sensed something else... Like another... wolf.. like the one on the hill... but different...

ANOTHER WOLF TO TAKE KILL. WANT BURN. WANT KILL RED MAW. SLAY. CHOKE THE THROAT AND SPILL THE BLOOD.

"Yes," Kjarl agreed as he followed where he sensed the wolf's movement, coming towards him slowly, "we will choke the life from him."

 

His howl ripped through the silence of the garrison as he felt every muscle tense and ready, nails long like short claws and golden eyes blazing with malice. "Come wolf, come to your death."

[Wolfsbane]

Erik recoiled, teeth bared, eyes wild, gleaming in the low torchlight. Every muscle was tensing and each limb felt like there were weighted stones attached to them. Cool dampness spread from his left shoulder- and a numbness creeping downward as well- where he knew a neat slash dug deep into the sinew and tissue through his leather vest. Every breath was ragged, this had gone on too long, and he felt his body draining of energy as his blood slowly crept out through the small gashes ruining his clothes. Do you know how many pants of this quality I can find in Baerlon?

 

Keeping his mind on the pain and anger focused his thoughts, swelling out all thoughts of losing ground and... dying..

 

"Is that your best, Wolf-walker? I had expected... more."

The voice was a rolling mingle of hard vowels and half-roared words, softened by the cold words of a youth not much younger than he spliced in. Matted brown hair stood up in squashed angles, held down by crusted blood and filth. Tattered blood-stained robes gripped onto his thin frame, exposing a chest cursed with the scars of heavy "questioning." Two hollow eyes glittering like fat marks stared out of a face gaping lean madness, he would have known just looking, if not for that rank smell that slammed against his nostrils like a mallet to his forehead. Smelled like...

Gangrene. Rot. Disease. Choking phlegm clogging the windpipe, frothing spittle.

 

The name had taken him several beats to pull out his learning’s in the Stedding, a seldom spoken of topic but one necessary for Kin- especially Trackers he understood now- to know.

Feral.

A Kin corrupted by the Beast inside.

 

Yet this Boy..

 

Erik's thoughts shattered as the boy flashed sharp teeth and claws. Move! Fool move!

Dropping his head Erik kicked out his leg where the boy's stomach had been a moment before- before the boy ripped his nails across Erik's thigh and landed a foot against his chin. Lights spinning Erik felt his body slam against the chairs thrown about the room, felt the already broken chairs give as his weight carried him to the stone floor.

 

He's too fast.

 

Bare foot steps, fast, almost leaping, on the balls of his feet, moved towards him with a speed he had reserved for light cavalry and rolling timbers. Woozy thoughts floated in his skull and his head tried to focus in the few seconds... Act now, or die fool!

Clumsy hands found a grip, Erik lifted his head as the creature was almost ontop of him, fingers outstretched, teeth bared in a soundless howl as his eyes poured out with hate and malice, and he lifted with all his might. In a split second a heavy oak chair exploded as it smashed into the youth, a choked scream pulled from his lips as bits of broken wood scratched against his skin. The boy slid across the stones, half rolling the last few feet, curled up, while Erik's head spun around the room another few times.

On hands and knees Erik coughed blood onto the rough stonework, eyes watering as he felt ribs ache against his side, a searing pain dug in between the cartilage and muscle.

 

But the boy spoke.. Not just growled or struck out or what he had heard those submitted to the Beast had become.. When the thought of giving over to Night's Howl.. There would be nothing left of his humanity, of Erik Hammar.. Only a wolf's mind in a man's body..

 

The sound of spitting pulled his eyes up from the stone tiles. The Boy, right arm limp at his side and bruised over all the flesh that was visible, rolled up onto his good arm as he spat another few bits of flesh out of his mouth- his grin half twisted by his bruised face, laughing into his own blood.

 

"The Darkness does not desert those that.. ahh.." He somehow found the strength to stand, his legs wobbling and his body shaking, ".. desert those that pledge like.. I... like I have.. Wolf-walker.."

 

"You.." talking hurt, but talking was better than taking more of a beating from the Youth, ".. you are Feral.. boy.." His own feet felt like lead and his hands already dripped blood from their fingertips; least he couldn't feel his right side any more, if that was anything to be optimistic about.

 

More laughing through smeared blood.

"Boy?.. Is that.." his wheezing coughs sent tremors down Erik's spine and set his hackles on an edge he hadn't know they could achieve ".. what you think this Avatar before you is? I am far beyond some common boy I-"

He paused nodding to the darkness, eyes lazily lolling about in his skull and his twisted his fat purple tongue between his glittering teeth. "Yes.. We are much more than that youngling.. The Darkness and fire has reborn us. Quench the flames and fed off the Shadow, we are your end, Lone Wolf."

 

"Shadow? You.. You're shadowspawn!" The words left his lips before he realized they had occured to him, his fists clenching through bloody grit and slivers he forgot existed. Dark-sworn. One akin to Twisted Ones and Neverborn and...; the wolf inside stirred and shook with rage.

 

"Shadowspawn.." The creature tested out the word, his eyes delighting in the disgust Erik knew was plain upon his face. "Hmm.. Heartsbane fills me Wolf, like sweet rapture the Darkness wraps me and strengthens me. See," he flexed the arm that had been limp and sagging only a minute ago; Erik's eyes shimmered with bloodlust, "he completes me and makes me-"

 

"All he has done is rip your soul from the Creator, and damned you to a life away from the Light." Erik's voice felt cold, concern slid on the outside of the raging inferno inside him, his fingers flexing around the broken wood about him.

"The Light?!" The Youth howled, "The LIGHT?!"

He moved. Erik stretched his arm back as the boy rushed.

Flashing claws feigned for his throat and cut down, but a his long belt knife turned them away as he countered for the Youth's jugular. Nails scratched blade as the boy turned his blow and struck with his other hand, swiping sideways for his eyes.

 

Quick hands.

The knife hardly made a sound as he twisted it down and across, jaggedly sliding through the thin tendons wrapping the Shadowspawn's arm.

 

Quick.

Leaving the blade half-way in the arm, Erik caught his fist beneath the boy's chin- a boy that could have been his cousin, looked like any of the boy's he had grown up along the Ivo with- and brought the shattered chair leg crashing down, ripped wood and exposed nails whispering through the air. Like the anvil and the hammer.

 

The body tremored against his own; a stunned shivver before the rest of him admitted there was no more fighting death. A shivver he had become used to seeing, used to feeling against his body as a life slipped away; Light he had buried enough bodies.

 

Oil. I need oil. The sluggish movement and need to do something helped him ignore his eyes burning. He was only a Shadowspawn. He had killed too many people.. He couldn't be saved.. Almost killed me.. Had to be put down.. He had to..

Not even Night's Howl responded, didn't try to answer, curled up, within his mind, ignoring him, as it rested and recovered.

 

 

* * * * *

 

Erik smiled into the bowl of his pipe, fingering the thin leaves deeper, before he pulled the small metal box from his coat and coaxed the coal to light the bloody thing. He pulled in the smoke contently. He could still feel the warmth of the garrison against his back, flames gutting the ancient stonework.. destroying bodies and blood and.. golden eyes...

"I don't think I've ever burned a garrison down before.." Erik said to himself, the thought twisting his mouth around the pipe into a small grin. The warm rays of morning stretched out through the trees around him, reflecting across the little dew and rock about, feeding light into him.

A cleansing, a baptism of Light falling around him, of sorts, pouring all over him, enveloping him.

Bandages wrapped his shoulder, covered by his short green cloak, while the salves on his hands gave them a greasy feel. Whatever closed up the bloody holes, he’d put up. The flaming bloody holes.

 

Stretching his mind out to the wolves, wrapped in sunlight as he sat his perch on a small boulder not more than a few miles from Brohampton, Erik felt out the area. Searching, pulling himself to reach, he found him.

The wolf.

 

"Scar," the name sounded rough on his lips, but he smiled again anyway while the pipe's bowl glowed red as he puffed. "Care to join me Scar." He spoke the words as he sent them, not an exact translation as how the wolves and Wolfkin talked, but close enough. "Keep me company until the cavalry arrives." He sent the images and scents along, the idea of them or the memory, there will still things of the wolves that made him question and wonder. "He's not that bad.. Well... He's Owen. There's not much helping him, Owen's Owen. You might like him, just look past the lack of colour.. and the wrinkles.."

Smoke rings danced over his head as he blew them out, the sun a glowing ball above the trees, a breeze rustling the forest, and all he could think of was a good stout ale.

 

"Light I miss home."

When're they going to get here? I can't sit around like this all day... Rusty axe in the trunk, they know how to take their time.

 

-wolfs

[Liitha]

yawning he rose his back part and steached to get the sleep out of his limbs. He could hear his stumoc grumbeling and lifted his head sniffing the air as the pictures rolled into his head. Another of the two legged brothers, this could comunicate like the others.

 

The batle images rolled in his mind, he howled before answering, ~Another batle? come hunt while waiting..~ He sent the smell of blood stil hot as he started troting towards a hill to get in the higth thus to get a bether sniff on the wind to catch a trace of prey.

 

The hill contained a weird stone pillar and the image floated out, hoping that the other was close and could see it ~come hunt brother, fill the stumock for strength~

[Wolfsbane]

~Another battle? Come hunt while waiting..~

 

Blood. Not just the smell of it still lingering on your paws as you cleaned your maw, the hot flash of delicious crimson, but blood- pounding, coursing, adrenaline soaked and seething. The drilling rhythm of it filling veins and capillaries, snaking through his brain to an insane dance and melody he would hunt by. Breathe by. Think and feel and reverberate in his soul.

 

~Come hunt brother, fill the stomach for strength.~

 

The ignored growls coming from his innards finally clicked while Night's Howl, the Beast within, pawed and yipped and growled for running, for hunting, for the woods.

A memory. A flash of an picture, a towering rise of stone atop a hill, erroding his thoughts as it filled his mind. Maiden's bliss and pollen fill the air, the quick familiar scent of grass freshly passed through and crushed.

Erik's head spun in the direction he knew it, the sun was still only hovering to the east, far from its zenith, but light poured out over this pillar.

~We hunt, Brother. Night's howl come. We hunt and taste flesh this day, Brother Scar.~

 

Kicking his bag and cloak, anything that would weigh him down but wasn't necessary for keeping his fluids in his body, beside the rock, he placed his walking stick and long belt knife atop, pointing east. Easing a worn hatchet through his belt loop, though its blade gleamed bright and sharp, Erik scratched a quick note into the boulder side using mostly symbols and short-hand.

 

It read:

I'm hunting. Follow if you can Ranger. See how easily a Tracker can be tracked.

 

Content, Erik bent a small twig low to the ground, pointing north, before he started moving towards the ever rising sun. The Ranger was better than that little trick, Erik hoped- old age could do things to a once intact mind that one would think could only be Heartbane's work- the point was to make the game that much more interesting.. Knowing that what your keen eyes saw, were trained to pick out, would automatically misleading.

 

"A little sport, before we start bloody running West," his stomach answered him with a pestering ache and gargle, "and some rabbit wouldn't go amiss either."

 

-wolfs

[Liitha]

Well onto the hill he lifted his head against the wind and sniffed in the sentances it brougth with it. It was shadow enough here from the stone pillar to hide in and he would wait for the other, meanwhile sorting out the fragments of info that the breeze brougth him.

 

He could feel a faint smell of a elk, but much closer that of a dear tingled with the blood of life, youngling meat where soft and well tasty if found. Hidden in high grass they wherent easy to track, but worth the try. He could hear his stumoc growl with the thougth of riping into the meat.

 

Flexing his ears he listened for the two legged brother, it would soon be time to hunt, to run with the wind across the steps searching. A low growl escaped his thougth, as long as other two legged whernet about with the stupid white creatures.

[Wolfsbane]

His eyes took in the surroundings, ears straining to hear the shifting of each blade of grass, the smells of a thousand different things being processed and sorted in his mind unconsciously. Fewer and fewer times did it occur to him how advanced his senses had become since his "becoming," taking them for granted truly; it had been many Winters since his eyes had shone with anything but the golden orbs that now gazed at a squat stone tower atop a grassy carpet, along the southern portion of the Black Hills.

A pink tongue wet his lips, an unconscious way of tasting the air for a scent while appearing to relieve chapped lips, as he crouched by the Age old stone work.

Before he knew it he was sliding his hand across the weathered rock, feeling the cracks and crevices in its side, the chipped away pieces over time, but that he could feel no space between one block and the one below it. Doubt my blade would even fit between those two; he knew it wouldn't. Such relics of a time long since passed still existed, poking out of the earth or proudly displayed atop a civil centre, held onto by the rich and the poor for whatever reasons may possess them- Erik couldn't imagine how or why.

Some such things, like books, would be precious and near priceless if they could be understood and comprehended and the knowledge bestowed could translate to an Age not of its own. But most he had heard of, none he had seen of course, were in the Old Tongue and just as useless to him as if it had been written by a fish.

Legends and myths and fanciful tales of heroes and heroines, of mighty Kings and chivilarous commoners drew him in. He knew the difference between what was fact and what was the imagination of a man with a quill, but there always seemed to lie within a hidden truth; a piece of humanity enclosed inside to be discovered and appreciated.

You know, writing a book wouldn't be that bad an idea... Three men finding their way to manhood.. needs more.. and.. they're set against impossible odds.. Hmmm.. Yeah that's alright.. Now their names will be.. uhmm Bill, yeah that's safe... and Steve, and Perrin..

He could smell the wolf's musk as the wind changed.

No... Perrin's a stupid name.. Scratch the whole thing, I'll stick to what I'm good at..

 

~Scar~

Erik stood as he recognized the wolf, slowly loping towards him. Light it was good to see one of his brothers again; that would have seemed odd to think those many Winters back, but now it was the absolute truth.

~It is time. Now we stalk the prey. Come. It is time.~

[Liitha]

He could hear the ruzles of leaves and smell the other aproach into the two legged where so close that Scar turned and closed the distance between them with a few loops. Tilting his head he looked up at his brother, the consept was still a litle strange to scar even though he had seen plenty of them at the batle now past.

 

~It is time. Now we stalk the prey. Come. It is time.~

 

Scar waited a moment longer then spun around and started troting to circle into the wind, lifting his head he again sniffed to localise the deer calf, he was descisive on wanting the fresh young meat this day. Raising on his legs as they got futher down in the terain gave him a bether picture of the smell in the air. They stalked through the high grass, he knew the calf wouldnt run unless it had its mother close but press instead making it an easy enough prey if it could be found in the tall grass. As they came closer he grew more quiet and carefull with his steps to not spook up birds to alert their progress.

[Wolfsbane]

Eagerness. In his sweat, his musk, his very breath, it reeked a musty eagerness.

He bent himself to hide better in the high grass, hands palming the soft dirt as he eased his weight on all fours. Sweat already began to channel between his shoulder blades, stinging in his pores, as he caught the scent.

Young. Playful. Energetic... Ready to be reaped.

 

His ears pounded with the rhythm of his own heart, his every breath, the soft whisping sound of Scar's mane in the breeze, the calf's quick snort as it cantered a few feet closer.

He tested his muscles, felt the small hatchet between his fingers as they tightened on the bone grip. The blade wasn't as sharp as it could be, he'd honed it down not a week past, but the blade has bit into a number of things since then.

Tendons like springs, he nodded to himself, then watched for Scar's movement. The wolf would beat him to the calf, he could never outrun one least match the acceleration built into their muscles. Wolves were meant for that kind of speed and ferocity.

And I am meant to kill.

 

~Circle. Split cow from calf. Scare calf to Night's howl. Night's howl cut down. Then we eat. Scar?~

 

-wolfs

[Liitha]

Then he could see the calf between the straws, crutching low he waited for his two legged friend to catch up. The mother where grassing not far away, ~Circle. Split cow from calf. Scare calf to Night's howl. Night's howl cut down. Then we eat. Scar?~

 

Every muscle thigth in his body as he slowly crawled backwards untill he where at safer distant, then circeling with the wind in his face to not give off any scent to call his disguise among the softly swaying straws, as he slowed to a troth when he came closer again, crutching lower he could again feel his muscles streatch. Slowly creaping forward laying fully down each time the mother raised her head untill he was almost between them, before raising his head with a howl and jump in leaps towards the calf.

 

He could see it jump and try for his mother though the distant made it easy to run back and forth cuting the inexperinced calf off, slowly pushing it backwards away from the mother who where occupied nervously looking for other wolves.

 

A low gutural growl where rolling out of his troath as he slowly closed on the calf which now wherent so quick to skip everywhere, energetic but soon to tire the young ones, he could see it shiver, smell its fear as it steped backwards one step at the time as he pushed closer, a skip to the left and then a full stop as he cut of the feint, backing more, scar knows soon it will fall too his friend.

 

Focusing knowing that he soon will fill his hunger with warm fresh blood and young meat. Everything is silent around, he can most feel the birds nervous looks to frigthened to quiper, only the music of the breeze moving through the grass makes any sound.

[Wolfsbane]

There's a rare beauty in the chase, the hunt. The pounding of limbs, the frantic stir. The rustle of bodies as they move- one clear end as inevitable long before the first movement took place. Where to shift, where to lean, a spinning, sweating dance for life. The poetry of the swaying long grass, the bloodlust hum in his ears, the silent roar held back in his throat, vibrating, could not elude him even as deeply attuned with the beast as he was. A long silence stretched where it was only the thud of paws and hooves as the birds turned to gaze down and silence their calls- they knew to respect the death and fall.

 

Standing, he knew it was time as Scar cornered the calf and hustled it almost on top of him, he felt his left hand hesitate for a split second then carry through. The moment stretched for an Age- Erik's eyes full of wanton bestial wrath, a crimson spray of lifting into the breeze around him, teeth bared as he stared back into two brown dull eyes, hatchet slick with blood.

Two staggering steps into him and the calf buried its thrashing head into his legs, a hard whistling sound coming from the ruined windpipe as it tried to call out. The doe would be long gone, cutting her loses already. Another one lost to the wolves.

Resting his knee down on the young's neck he wrenched the head up with a satisfying crack- even wolves ended undo suffering. Not Twisted. Not like Heartsbane.

Scar stared back over the carcass at him, a wordless expression even to the Wolfspeak Erik had become used to, not even that- like the bloody wolf was smiling at him.

The hatchet had more work ahead of it.

~Before blood goes cold, feed.~

 

Obliging, they both knelt down. The birds quietly humming in the background, a low buzz, fit for a feast, or a funeral.

 

-wolfs

[Liitha]

Then his brother rose and next he where sprayed in the fluid of life, Scar laped at the air catching a few droplets of blood. Then watched as the calf went down, then the music of death from the troath of the animal. Scar waited as his brother finished the job, the crack signalising the final end of suffering to the prey as it sudenly lay still.

 

He blocket out the cry of a crow waiting to feast as he bendt down his head and sunk his teath into the troath of the animal , feeding of the blood still runing slowly from the calf. Burying his snouth into the calf laping and using his teath to tear slices of young delicious meat. One look at a crow geting to close had it scurying again, the scavengers of the dark would eat soon enough, that was those who managed to keep out of his reach, he had no love for the black birds and would as soon as anything snap his jaw around one to kill the pesky creature.

[Wolfsbane]

The crows circled in the sky patiently, Erik's eyes glinting with the sun's light in the shadows of the Black Hills as his teeth slid along the smooth bone rhythmicly. His gut was full, his hunger slaked and the Beast happily content in the corner of his mind, tucked away and sleeping.

 

~Leave now?~

 

The message surprised him, many times the wolves knew what he was going to do before he knew it, or even considered it. There was no choice though, only responsibility.

~Duty like the passing of the rain, of the turning of the sun. Must be done, must be done. We all must do what must be done.~

 

 

Erik's pack still sat neatly as he had left it, waiting for him, though no sign of his friends yet. A pebble bit into his ankle as he stared off into the distance, eyes straining to see something that would hint at them. Sitting back down on his rock, Erik tipped his boot over, tapping the bottom with his hand as concern began to drift across his thoughts.

They should be here. They should've beaten me here yesterday.

Worry began to spike into his thoughts, like a sharp pebble, disturbing the surface as it bit into him. And there was no tipping it out, not until the pebble became imaginary or a boulder.

 

-Erik

[Wolfsbane]

OOC: Hey Ata, Owen and Lwena finally caught up and we're in a thicket camping out a few miles west of Scar. There're are two other wolves with them, in the outlying areas, and we're expecting the usual mob of people chasing them. If you want to jump in, please feel welcome, like to keep this Rp on a roll. :) And thanks for being a sport about this. My exams are almost done, then you can tell me about how I'm gonna become your Sea Folk char's Master of the Swords.

adios,

 

http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=724&start=15

-erik