In one of the cramped apartments of the newly built cabins, Orathone hung over the satchel containing the silver egg. He watched dully as Litheiuss came and went, assembling a meal for his young colleague as well as a herbal mix. The younger buck hadn’t seemed to calm after taking a seat and had been shaking on his way up the fortified housing. If proper nutrients weren’t going to settle the instability in him, Litheiuss was reasonably confident a simple medicine man’s cure would. As he worked the mortar and pestle, the door squawked once, admitting a single set of hooves. Before Litheiuss could take the measure of their guest, he caught the voice and knew he needn’t worry.
“Orathone! Thank the stars, you’re alright. Father wasn’t sure you’d make it to us in time,” sighed the young elk as he took a seat across from the deer.
Orathone forced a smile. For a moment, it was an insincere rictus; however, it quickly formed a more genuine shape, “There wasn’t any reason to worry about me, there’s reasons to worry now, but we’re all safe for a bit, I believe.”
“Safe until you open your mouth again around the Wyse of Roya or the Baylen, Jaium. I worry what they must think of us after that,” Litheiuss cut in.
Terlynn glanced briefly but continued, “Did you see that big tree? I swear it must have shot up overnight after we parted ways.”
“Not overnight, far from it. It must have been tall enough to see from leagues off by night, but it hadn’t even unfurled its limbs by then. As it stands now, it’s almost twice the height it was on the first day.”
“Incredible. I can’t imagine the fruit on that thing. It must have apples the size of boulders.”
“No fruit, I’m afraid. A leaf, however, would be a right fit to cover the roof of these houses.”
“What do you got there?”
A second passed before Orathone looked at the bundle in his paws. A shed of silver was barely just visible at the mouth of the sack. He smoothed his features away from any irritation to attempt an explanation. Though he could have easily spilled the entire truth, Orathone found that insisting an inexplicable voice guiding him and giving him the orb would be a hard point to make sense of. There were lies he could sow to convince his friend it was nothing more than one of any number of artifacts scattered across the land, but that would deny its purpose and his task.
“I am to deliver it to one of the wolves in the camp.”
“Who’s that? Terl or I might be able to take it for you. You need your rest, or have you forgotten?”
A bowl, carved of hardwood, not forged and metallic as Orathone half-expected, was sat on the table beside him. Orathone eyed both men, one with eager eyes and the other showing a sense of disapproval or, at the least, concern. There wasn’t much point in hiding it, so Orathone unsheathed the silver orb. He held it aloft, not out of reach but just far enough from himself to allow inspection by eye. In both men’s expressions, he could read that even this simple viewing had excited both, the orb beguiling every eye save Orathone’s. Paws reached for the shining egg but were denied purchase as the buck jerked it back into his lap.
“I need to find the wolf it’s supposed to go to. I was told that I should know them by the way it reacts to being near the recipient.”
“Lad, I hate to put it to you like this, but I think you need to lay down and take a good rest. Will you listen to yourself? Running around going on about shadows and strange artifacts, maybe even just one of Sha-Sha’s eggs. You’re a bit worn down and need to take your ease for a day or so.
“Lith is right,” Terlynn interrupted, “You look spent. How about this? We’ll look after you and this stone. He and I can take turns carrying it through camp and around all the wolves, and if it shows any sign of wanting for one or another of them, we can deliver it.”
“No, I’m supposed to be the only other one to handle it. I wouldn’t want either of you to even grace it with a finger. I’ll take my rest, a day, one day, that should be enough postponement for it. In the meantime, I need a favor from both of you. Lith, I need you to make clear to these easterners that we are going to be at war with a force easily double our own before long. And, mad as it might sound, you need to explain to them that I was attacked by some spawn of the shadow itself. It was no bloodkin nor a spirit. It was a writhing figure of darkness. Terlynn, I have no right to ask any favor of you, but while I rest, could you keep an eye on me? After my run-in with this assailant that strung itself together from the shade of the Aln tree, I’ve had trouble sleeping in the dark.”
Request or order, it did not matter to Orathone’s associates. They set to work doing as he bid them. While Litheiuss made himself decent to return for further drilling with his men, Terlynn made up sleeping arrangements for Orathone. For his part, the buck slurped down the broth made for him before picking at the soft tubers on the bottom of the bowl with stick-like utensils left to him. They were uncomfortable in his fingers and turned to pikes ramming exposed flesh instead of delicately lifting the pieces. Upon finishing the stew, Orathone took the milled herbs and dumped them into the bowl. Litheiuss knew what herbs to use but hardly how best to apply them. Working them through the last bits of moisture in the bowl, Orathone made a poultice from the mixture and applied it to his horns, brow, throat, and chest. Finally, smeared with the odorous material, he began to feel lightheaded and drowsy.
He reclined again in the chair Litheiuss had set him on at first arrival. Without much consideration, he divested himself of his satchel and knife, his jerkin and undershirt so as to only have his trousers in proper order. Balling up his tops, he rested his weary head on them against where the chair’s back and arm met. Careful not to knock the bowl from its place, he slid the table over and rested his hooves across it. The position was not overly comfortable, but the aura broadcasted through the room put Orathone at ease. It was not a large room, well lit, and with a window that, though facing nothing more than trees, let in a calming draft and offered a pleasant sight to become lost in. Before he could think of the mistake he was making, Orathone shut his eyes against reluctant muscles and was snoozing not long after.
‘You, a distant star, yet I hear the songs of your spheres from the void in which you lurk. Moon’s Shade crawls across you, seeking purchase in warm flesh once more to make puppets of mortals. But as he lays his head to rest for eve or day, he is my toy. In dream, I have seen our encounter, our coming collision. In nightmare, I have seen that one which you must seek. The tarryen, it must be delivered to its rightful target, else all will have been in vain. Child of Casseda, you must ensure it is done now.’
As though thunder had crashed beside his head, Orathone sat bolt upright as a door clapped against its frame. Seeking reality through the blinding haze of sleep, he thought at once the speaker had been a tendril of shadow come to life. The thought he could have been so easily taken unawares toppled the buck from his seat and found him searching for contact with the earth. It was nearly out of reach, and once it was within his power, Orathone was without a need for it. The trembling dark that he had thought stocked him was, in fact, an apparition of his mind, the closed door was not.
Finding his hooves, Orathone crept to the door and peered out into the dim halls of the bunkhouse. There could have been any number of people coming and or out of the lodge, but it seemed unlikely for more than a few culprits to have shut his door. Tenderly he considered the most likely reality; Terlynn had returned to call him to bed and found him sleeping. Looking out for him as requested, the elk had shut the door to allow Orathone to sleep undisturbed. Why the boy would allow the door to close with such force came across as odd but not out of the question. Awake now, Orathone would find whatever accommodations had been made for him and get a proper rest. However, as he returned to the overturned chair and table, Orathone found an article absent.
Someone, the culprit behind the closed door likely, had absconded with the satchel and orb that Orathone had nestled in beside him. Clearly, they were not a wholly malevolent faction as the dagger just beside it could have slid across the buck’s throat just as easily, leaving no soul to search out the stolen item. Either way, be they friend or foe, Orathone knew he couldn’t allow the item to remain missing for long. Not bothering for coverage, Orathone stormed out of the cabin into the balmy late afternoon that had pressed on in his hibernation.
The camps were beginning to congregate where the members of each race were not slipping away to seclusion with the coming evening. Most grouped around the cook fires and circled one or two higher-ranking officers who were clearly giving further instruction after the day’s drills. Orathone couldn’t imagine that Terlynn was bumping through these networks of wolves and foxes and so on with the orb. If the boy, hardly a boy being nearly his own age, found the rightful target, he’d have to concede apologies in doubting him. Yet, still, he couldn’t be completely confident in his measure of the situation. It was just as possible for Litheiuss, fatherly in too many ways, to have hoisted the burden from him and set off to find a suitable candidate. After all, the former resistance leader would better know those in the camp and the proper manners to approach the easterners within his search. However, any thoughts of such a proper and well-assembled search fell away as Orathone caught sight of a commotion leading toward the edge of a copse.
Without much else to guide him, the buck bolted off behind a smattering of the easterners. Before a question could come to mind or the notion they may be headed to handle a situation only pertaining to those of the land, Orathone caught sight of Imfay. The elk made massive strides towards the forming crowd that stood still as a battlement rather than jittering with life. Before they penetrated the group, Orathone could see the Yerra was vexed, his expression knotted into a network of taut veins. As he reached the perimeter, the elk exploded through the milling folk who had come to watch the spectacle unfolding at the base of a mighty oak. Orathone fell in step behind the elk, letting him slip beyond his reach just at the ring came to its innermost depth. There was no more enthusiasm in the buck than as he set sights on what had garnered such attention.
Dimly, Orathone felt himself reach out to the tree behind the thrashing body, engaging it, hoping it could nestle the boy into its hollow and defeat what scourge raptured his flesh. Yet, there was nothing to be done, nothing the buck could implore of any plant life in the area to affect his fellow with. Every bit of fauna worldwide could have fallen under his reign then but would have failed to find purchase against his malady. This was not a venom shot into the veins, a gash weeping profusions of life. It was neither a swallowed drop of poison nor the infection of blood brought on by that great lurking devil. All of this, the misery in Terlynn’s eyes, was a threat from beyond anything those present could know. Even having carried the arbiter of the man’s unwellness, Orathone could think of nothing to aid him now.
Imfay tried to clutch at his son, but the spastic movements that jerked him about would not permit a grip on the writhing form. At once, Orathone sought the perimeter, hoping to find the lustrous metallic egg, but it had seemingly vanished. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the buck conceded someone had nabbed the orb and would suffer the same fate soon. With any luck, Orathone thought it may just as well have been the wolf he intended to deliver it to. Providence had led to more absurd effects. Why not the acquisition of that relevant charm to the rightful owner? But would said wolf’s fate mirror that of Terlynn, he wondered.
The boy kicked and squealed until, finally, the very consideration of infected blood or a sudden seizure was ruled out. Terlynn’s fur grayed as though the vigor of life were drained in a gushing stream from him. Inch by inch, from hoof to horn, he began growing stiff. Initially, it looked as though his hooves had grown numb and were being limply battered against the earth until the joints of his knees turned rigid as well. After a moment, his thighs ceased beating the soil, his tail became flaccid, his abdomen stone, and not long after, his arms may as well have been the roots of the nearby oak. Finally, that list of pieces of life, the flickering of panic-stricken eyes, grew still and dull.
To Imfay, the flesh must have felt unreal, a rivulet of water plucked from the stream of life and crystalized into unforgiving ice. The youth slid from his father’s paws and graced the earth with a hollow impact that sounded for the world like a hollow willow struck by lightning. There was not even the slightest response from the recently live body. As though he had been turned into an all-too-mortal-looking statue, Terlynn lay motionless and unadorned with the dew of recent unlife. Orathone stomached a knot of shame, guilt, pain, and the otherwise distant humors that would rarely disturb him.
As Imfay whirled, corkscrewing up from his squat position, Orathone found his lips working, “I am sorry, Yerra, there was nothing I could do. It wasn’t blood nor poison, nothing I know a cure for.”
“The witch! Where is she? If anyone could make my son so cold, it would be that one!”
All was still. Not a body slid from its place nor a voice raised to the demands of the elk. Momentarily, Orathone worked his lips, reaching out a paw for the man’s shoulder in hopes of quelling some of his furies. Litheiuss penetrated the ring of onlookers before any words could pass, “Yerra Imfay, contain yourself this moment. Now is neither time nor place to demand the head of one you can’t even prove set sights on this slight.”
“Slight!? My son-“
“Terlynn wasn’t touched by Lady Greshalin. Hardly would he look in any such state if she had gone after him, which hardly would I believe she reason to. No, the late prince was not done in my mortal paws.”
Orathone felt his heart and was sure others could hear it deep within the crowd as it pounded a tempo so furious that a stream couldn’t match the cadence.
Litheiuss stepped around the elk to lend his ward his jerkin, “Your son was victim to the only enemy as ancient as the Blood. I’ve never seen it firsthand, but I have heard the Spiritcatcher’s attacks leave the victim in a state of unreality. Nothing could have been done, either to save him or prevent this occurrence. We will tend to him. You should retire for now.”
There stood an exchange that seemed to stretch into Summers to come as Imfay stared down Litheiuss. Orathone felt in that breath that somehow Imfay had seen entirely through the explanation and that, perhaps, Lithieuss wasn’t wholly confident his telling hadn’t been a lie. However, as easily as it had interceded, the tense flair receded. As the elk stalked away so did the waves of militants seceded from the scene. What remained of the camp to see to the fallen prince were the two bucks. Litheiuss had no thoughts on what should be done, while Orathone lay a shroud of ivy for his foremost friend.
Trazor 