(USFB): Six: A Place of Death, and Life

Night brought silence and rest for all but the tortured mind of Orathone. He tossed and turned, thinking of the myriad ways he could have circumvented the tragedy of Terlynn’s demise. Regardless of his father’s blustering, Orathone had the truth of it in his heart and wasn’t confident it was a light he could shine on anyone’s life but his own. Litheiuss might have understood. He had seen so much in his time that the incident could be very obvious to him. Yet he had not led on knowing all the facts of the situation, likely because even having held the sphere, Orathone still lacked insight.

Hours into the dark of night, the buck was shifted from rest into anxious pacing and then to a moonlit stroll through the foreign woods of the east. Terror of the lurking shadow would have roused him to fearful steps not far from light, but the immensity and fullness of the great green stone in the sky illuminated all but the most hidden holes. He began with a basic path, one not leading too far from the cabins to avoid exciting any nightwatchmen that might detect him. It was unlikely they would do little but insist he return to his bed, but for what Orathone could comfortably assume of the tribalistic people of the land, he felt safer not arousing suspicion. No better than he could imagine the function of the silver egg could Orathone assert these simple folk even knew the outline of their oncoming foe.

There was very little in the way of information being passed between his people and their host. Without question, Orathone assumed if no one else, Litheiuss had tried his best to explain the Kammherit Legion to fox and coyote and lynx alike. Yet, even had the elder buck been so forthcoming about the threat they faced, it would be impossible to say how much was believed. Though pumas might be native to the north of these territories, explaining that so many of their adversaries appeared as variations on that race likely seemed far-fetched. The notion to them would be as equally absurd to them as it was to Orathone that his duty would have done anything but bring harm to whichever wolf was intended to receive the orb.

As he pondered the mysteries of that artifact, pulled from time unknown to any walking Verillia then, Orathone found himself wandering in the direction of the oak and mound. It had not been a fully cognisant action, though he had considered if the egg would reemerge sometime after the debacle earlier in the evening. However, whatever thoughts Orathone had before making a break for the mound were erased as he noticed two figures beside the oak.

Racing for all he was worth, moving at a speed that Sha-Sha would struggle to keep at such a short wind-up, Orathone nearly met the oak before considering the consequence of coming on the two strangers by night. He could not tell their races from afar. Their features were blurred and cloaked in shadow as the oak’s boughs soaked up the might of the moon all around it. For all he could know, the two lurking figures were duplicates of the shade that had attacked him by the Aln. Yet as reduced from a sprint to a trot, he confirmed there was more detail to either man. Once he was nearly back to a cautious amble, he could discern the features of two wolves, neither of which looked terribly pleased to see him.

“Well, there you are, you can ask him,” condemned the first voice before shifting away towards the tents. For a moment, the visage was estranged to Orathone as had the voice, but only for a brief breath. Jaium did not so much as glare at Orathone as he weighed him, taking in more of the deer than he had on first meeting. With the highest-ranking man in the eastern army fading from sight, Orathone had to wonder who he was meeting with.

Stepping out of the shadow of the tree was another familiar face, but no more concrete or attached to a name as Jaium had been. However, as the red-furred youth spoke, it came back to Orathone, “That’s a real nice trick with all your roots and leaves. That might be how you settle in the west, maybe that’s why you were chased so far from home, but it’s not how we go about it here.”

“Go about what, exactly? My friend, the only heir of Yerra Imfay, passed, and you find netting him with ivy to protect his flesh incorrect?”

“We have rightful places for the dead; under any old maple isn’t proper. Had you asked, we would have gladly shown you, burn it all, but I’d have helped you carry the body off. But not a word, not a single concern for custom. It runs deep with your kind.”

Orathone was taken by surprise at this condemnation. Something in the comment struck a deeper chord, but he couldn’t assess why. The soreness in the wolf’s voice told well enough that it was not a matter to debate, let alone question. Finding himself without response, Orathone pressed on, “Yes. My apologies. If I remove the ivy, will you help me? All you need do is show where and how you care for your dead.”

“If I must. But I will not be the one to pay the wrath of your master. He had us burn the other two. Their spirits dance down the Camora now, through the Lifeless Grounds tomorrow, and to the filthy clutches of the Goredrinker thereafter.”

“Burnt? Were they afflicted?”

“Very. Afflicted wholly with lies of my people. Now let us be on with it if it should be done still.”

The glare the wolf jabbed felt to be one of a certain immaturity and ignorance, but it was no less sharp for its bluntness. Orathone sew the plants back into the soil to unveil the body, once more built of flesh. He moved past the wolf and examined the dull and still stone-heavy child that lay beneath the oak. Before hefting his friend, Orathone remarked to himself on the strange nature of beauty and how even the removal of life could not shatter the most fragile contours and structures. Though it pained him to disturb the eternal sleep of his vanquished brother, Orathone saddled the man to him and tarried at the tail of the wolf.

They went beyond the furthest extent of the camps, further down the path of the falling moon and into the shade of a weedy copse. As they came to the limit of the camp, Orathone began a slower gait, needing to readjust the limp limbs time and time again. Attempting to keep from falling, the deer kept his eyes trained on the grass, expecting a call from his guide if he was headed off course. It wasn’t long after Orathone ceased visual contact with the wolf that his load lightened. The wolf took up the back half of the burden.

No word of acknowledgment passed either set of lips. Together, they ploughted on into the green ether of night until they reached the perimeter of the copse. As they slowed, Razien let down the back half of Terlynn once more to quickly survey the grave grounds. Finding a break in the madly growing greenery, he mentally marked the spot and returned to Orathone. He removed the elk from the buck’s shoulders and indicated Orathone to bring up the rear. However, the gloom and pitch-dark shades that filled the wooded area gave the deer pause.

With patients no longer than the deer’s tail, Razien turned on his guest, “I alone will not lay your friend to rest. You should find yourself fortunate I have come thus far to aid you.”

“I’m terribly sorry. It is very dark in there, and my vision at night isn’t quite as good as yours must be. What if we encounter something?”

“All that we should find inside is long dead or carrion eaters. If you fear the Blood or his brood, you needn’t. I could cut you from naval to nose and not worry a lick for that grim one. These are sacred grounds where the dead may dream. Your friend will find himself honored to be the only elk ever set within this place.”

The response was not reassuring to Orathone. It wasn’t a creature of tainted blood he feared but those that lurked in shadow. Stomaching the raw emotions burgeoning in his breast, Orathone lifted Terlynn’s stiff legs and followed his guide into the forest ripe with rot.

Step by step, Orathone began to paint the mental image of the forest festooned with loose organs and desolate flesh. He could imagine puddles wherein putrescent blood had collected and mounds of bones still stuck with filth from where exposed tissue had been further soiled. The thought of bushels of entrails and maggot-infested hearts were to be expected, as were the half-devoured brains and soft meats contained in the skull. The sight would be hideous, the scent of rot and raw earth, an odor to become a flavor on the tongue, would be wretched as would the sound, the feel of his hooves passing through the discarded remains of long forgotten loves churned his stomach, but that wasn’t all. They were trekking into a darkened corner of Verillia. A place wherein the shades would be welcomed, a region they might even call home. There was no telling what that furtive shadow required in life; a host, fresh flesh, or simply lives to collect. Orathone half expected to feel a grizzly claw tear through him, his insides joining the forest floor already consumed in wet, sticky flesh, but as he cleared his mind and opened his eyes, he found they were deep in the copse.

“Here will be fine. Nothing but low creatures can touch him here, and they will return him to the world as we all must one day,” Razien remarked, stopping almost arbitrarily in a moonlit clearing.

Orathone gazed around the clearing and was taken aback. His surroundings were beyond his wildest machinations. The weeds rose the height of his knee but were indiscernible from any he had walked on his course to the east. The willows loomed and swung in the slight breeze but did little more than a melodic dance as though to ensure these foreigners in the land of the dead that all was well and they were welcomed. Here and there were scattered stones and bushels of flowers whose sweet scents masked all but the barest scent of moss and rust. Heliotropes and hemlock and burhens, splayed like massive snakes bursting at the seams with fleshy blooms, made curtains between trees. The copse was not a grave resting place for rotting flesh but a quiet village of ancestors long left but not forgotten.

Razien settled Terlynn on the cold mossy ground before flatting down some of the weeds leading to the base of one willow. Crawling beneath the overhanging boughs, he issued Orathone to help move the elk prince closer. Once he was within reach, the wolf slid him through the weeds until his antlers were nestled into the roots of the great tree. While Razien busied with rites that Orathone wasn’t sure were wholly correct, he examined more of the site. Here and there, he began to discern the dull cream colors of bone peering out from hollows and wild myter nests. They looked neither grim nor sad but plainly accepting of their position in the world. More sleeping bulbs erupted from some, be it through eye sockets or ribs. Life intermingled with death, but what mixed foremost among them was the shadows that now began to form claws and hooked teeth.

Taking care not to disturb any pieces previously upset by the elk’s body, Razien extracted himself from beneath the willow. Before he could remark on the completion of the job, Orathone had taken him by the wrist and yanked with a mad burst of force. The wolf allowed himself to be pulled a moment before twisting to lead the deer, aware the man would otherwise carry them through densely populated regions of the grave grounds. With Razien taking point, Orathone contented himself with only needing to move his hooves, all the while glancing about madly. Beneath a tree, the shadows formed basilisk faces, beyond a stone, the form of a spirit hand, and at his tail, the visage of Kammherit or at least one of his race. All three were closing in, not seeking to cut off the wolf’s egress but singling out the deer, seeking to take him alone. They were not biding their time; however, they were whisked forward by encroaching dark as the moon was masked by one of the very few lingering clouds dancing across the night sky. Without light, they would surge ahead, they could conquer the space between in a second, and Orathone knew his fate was sealed.

Lightning bugs danced about the entrance into the grave, hardly moved by the flight of the wolf and his charge. As they returned to the grassy field between the tomb and camp, Orathone’s narrowed world expanded once again. The pale green light of the moon bathed his fur and almost made it glow that same paler of that tremendous heavenly body. So enraptured with his security was the deer that he hardly noticed the loosened grip on his paw or that Razien had sunk to his tail while he carried on a trot for a few more paces. Under the prancing insects, Razien watched and weighed his guest all the more until the buck meandered back.

“I thought I saw something, but it looks like you were right. There was nothing at all there to fear.”

“It is a great honor for both of us. Your friend will be the first of either of your races to find refuge in the den of our ancients. They are graced by one from so far off, of such status, and of youth. I set him beneath that most ancient willow as it is custom for those most high. If your exultants are given such regard in your homeland, we must meet that honor.”

“It is, and it would be an honor to me if I were to fall when they rise to meet us. To have my own bones join those of your forebearers.”