by P D Dennison
He saw the mask of the wicked old witchdoctor, Kadok. It was a menacing grimace of a horned, almost demonic looking, wolf with its jaws open wide. The firelight danced off the teeth and they moved with the light play. The old conjurer danced around the fire, shaking blood at the flames from a rod with a small crop of feathers fastened to it. He chanted words Ravak couldn’t make out. It was a curse; he knew that much by the emotion and the movements, but the words he used sounded unfamiliar to Ravak save for the words; “Ekback Cecilia,” which was the Old Nordish Speak for the name of his clan, the Winter Wolf, but the term was also used by the Shaman himself and the other village elders to refer to a particularly long winter, which they had just had.
The dream stirred his mind and it began to conjure images of war and of the Winter Wolf warriors fighting the people of the South in a dark battle. The scene was mottled by snowfall and a ferocious wind that would not cease. Blood spotted the white snow everywhere he looked. Bloodied limbs, heads and discarded weapons lay about. The fighting happened in a narrow stony pass Ravak did not recognize but he knew enough it must be in the Mystpeaks judging by the rock, the High Pass, by which the traders from the South made their way north.
The elders had spoken of war with the South at the Council meeting. A pre-emptive strike to instill a little terror into the hearts of the Southerners, who they feared had taken up allegiance with the Goblin Kingdoms under the rule of Dark Fang Castle in the East. The Southerners had always slowly encroached upon their lands. Yet Ravak knew in his heart war was not the answer here. He didn’t even believe the Southerners aware of the goblin attack on his village, much less having planned it.
He’d opened his mouth before he’d thought out what he wanted to say.
“Why don’t we try to reason with them and help them to understand our ways? What of diplomacy?”
The words literally fell out of his mouth before he could stop them. It seemed a harmless enough sentence. Talk of peace, talk of reasoning, these to many, would surely seem a sensible path. The problem was his tone and demeanour were accusing and cynical and he’d been specifically instructed by his father before entering the meeting not to speak, but only to observe and learn.
He tossed and turned through the rest of the night as he fought off the dream and awoke in the morning to a smouldering bed of coals and a chill that shook him to the bone. He stretched out long on the ground and rose to greet the sun peeking over the eastern peaks. He packed up his rabbit jerky and stomped out the last embers of his fire before heading up into the hills further toward the base of the great Mystpeaks in search of deer or elk trails.
The morning was bright and the air crisp with sundogs rising. This forewarned of colder temperatures to come and Ravak knew if he intended to make the Mystpeak crossing, he would need to gather hides for blankets, and warmer clothes. How odd it was to see sundogs, in spring, perhaps the last bite of winter before the big thaw.
He munched hungrily on the rabbit jerky as he made his way through the brush further up the foothills and by midmorning had reached a small lake known as Deep Fiend. It was named for a children’s tale told of a creature living in the caves beneath the deep waters of the lake. It was said that from time to time, the creature emerged to feed and could take down a whole goat, deer, or elk, and had even been rumoured to pull in a few men who may have ventured too close to the dark, foreboding water’s edge.
He stopped and crouched as he peered into the clearing around the lake. There he saw a buck about two seasons old drinking from a hole in the spring melt at the water’s edge. He could shoot the deer now while downwind and take his first hide back to his camp for preparation or he could watch the animal and follow it back to its companions learning its trails and habits in hopes of finding more. He chose the latter.
The buck was lapping up the cool glacier water; a fine looking specimen, two seasons at most. The serenity of the scene was cut short as the water bubbled violently about three feet in front of the deer and a massive creature lunged from the water. The entire scene was a mess of claws, water, and blood. The helpless terrified squeals of the buck echoed in the hills and off the north face of the mountains as the beast slashed, clawed, mauled and then finally dragged back down the helpless buck into the deep.
For a split second, Ravak saw the creature’s eyes; murky and pallid, pale purple and slightly illuminated like that of a cavefish. He was not sure if the creature had spotted him as he crouched low at a distance from the kill but he had seen it. So the legend of the Deep Fiend was not just a children’s tale after all. What other tales that he’d dismissed were also founded in truth?
The entire event was over in seconds. Nothing now remained but a gentle ripple on the surface of the bloodied water where the Fiend had dragged down the buck. Ravak shivered at the sudden enormity of the silence around him. A creature able to cripple and drag off a buck ought to have left a sign of its passage and yet none remained, save the bloodied waters of the Deep Fiend Lake. He would steer clear of this lake at all cost and only seek deer that made their way through the hills to the southeast a little closer to his camp.
The afternoon grew colder as Ravak had predicted and clouds began to move in from the west along with a chilly breeze.
Ravak followed the trail of some deer for about an hour when he came upon them in a small clearing. He stopped dead and checked the wind. He headed southeast. The wind was against his face and the deer would not smell or sense his approach until he was almost on them.
He might be able to pick off two of them if he was quick enough. He deftly sidestepped off the trail and headed into the low brush, dropping into a quick and quiet squat to gain position for the shot. If he wished to get off two arrows, he would need to be fairly close and have the second arrow at hand, for his second target would be moving at full speed as he took aim. He looked at the trees near him and those in the distance to estimate how long of a draw he would need to take and planted the second arrow into the ground in front of him, as he drew back for the first shot. He took in a deep slow breath then let the arrow fly.
The first deer dropped instantly and the remaining two sprang to their feet and bolted. Being downwind gave him the element of surprise. One of the deer, another young buck of about three seasons ran straight at him, unaware of the hidden Winter Wolf lying in wait for his prey.
With speed and precision, Ravak nocked the second arrow and drew for the shot. This one he held for a split second to account for the movement of his target and ensure the shot would find its mark. It did. The deer fell some twelve feet in front of him in a crumpled heap in the snow and brush, skidding to a halt as it fell.
The third deer could still be seen, but was now too far away with too much brush between it and Ravak for him to attempt the shot. None the less, the young Winter Wolf had taken two deer in under ten seconds, a feat his father would be proud of. The animals were of fair size and weight. He bled and skinned them, then fashioned an A-framed sleigh formed from pine boughs to haul the carcasses back to camp.
It was nearing dark by the time he finally got back and lit a fire to ward off the chill setting in as the sun sank slowly behind the Mystpeaks to the northwest. Although spring was dawning and the land warming, the sun still set fairly early this close to the mountains. With the approaching clouds and wind that had picked up throughout the afternoon, Ravak was chilled to the bone and exhausted from hauling carcasses alone through the snowy brush and damp, wooded hills.
He ate a hastily prepared supper of venison and some mountain berries, took a few large swigs from his ale skin and curled up for the night.
The next two days were spent in a similar fashion tracking, hunting, gathering hides and berries for the journey that lay ahead. Ravak even captured a goat. The local hill and mountain goats were quite tame and easily manipulated with a constant supply of food and some regular affection. He snared a young ram for a pack animal and a pet. He’d had grown somewhat lonely in the wild and the willing companionsh
ip of the young ram warmed his soul and renewed him. It gave him someone to confide in that didn’t answer back to his brash boyhood dreams of high adventure in the South. He named the ram Sleipner after the great eight-legged warhorse of his people’s god, Avgud. Sleipner was no mythic giant eight-legged warhorse, but he looked to be a fine specimen of a ram.
Sleipner was a dark ruddy brown with deep, warm, hazelnut eyes and a small set of slightly curved, still fuzzy, horns that he wore proudly. If Ravak could tame him through the first spring of the ram’s life then he was sure he’d be able to completely domesticate the beast and put him to work in no time.
The Northern clansmen began domesticating these goats centuries ago and Ravak was quite familiar with the methods. He would wait out the rambunctiousness these young mountain goats experienced during first thaw before he headed any further south into the Mystpeaks and allow both the ram and the weather to warm up to him a little further. It would also give Ravak time to prepare himself better for the dangerous journey.
Nearly a moon had passed. Ravak had accumulated a surplus of hides, many of which he’d already cured with brain, salt and sun. He was growing comfortable and confidant in his own skin living by himself in the wilds of the Winter Wolf Hills and he rather enjoyed it. He’d been spending the warming and slowly lengthening spring evenings fashioning tough leather rope into a bridle for Sleipner.
While he was familiar with the principals of climbing and had learned the basics from the other hunters in the clan, he had very little experience and felt he would need as much rope as he could get his hands on to feel confident in his limited ability. He didn’t know how to make fibre from the tall grasses so he made it from the hides of deer he’d hunted.
He also managed to fashion some very passable saddlebags for Sleipner that he’d been trying to harness onto the animal daily with no success. While Sleipner had taken to him right away and even allowed Ravak to lead him with a bridal out on his daily hunts, the ram would not be saddled as a pack animal just yet, and he was now in rut which made the training that much more of a challenge. Ravak simply kept on attempting to saddle the beast each morning for the last moon. Each day Sleipner would kick and whinny and leave Ravak bruised and beaten with no change in attitude toward the idea. Ravak knew the way to break an animal of this nature was routine and persistence coupled with affection and care, so he kept on and the days turned into seven-nights.
Eventually Ravak made himself new clothes, a fine set of saddlebags, and had even managed to get the bags saddled onto Sleipner once for a whole five minutes before the animal broke into a fit and knocked itself unconscious on a nearby tree as it bucked and kicked.
One morning, Ravak arose to find a much more passive ram lying nearby half dosing. He could sense that Sleipner was no longer in rut and the fact he’d managed to saddle the animal with the packs the previous day, even briefly, filled him with a renewed sense of vigour to break the beast once and for all. He planned to saddle the beast before it fully awoke and before being fed. Ravak walked with purpose directly over to the half-sleeping ram. Sleipner jarred from his slumber, instinctively stood up allowing Ravak to round his belly with the straps and fit the harness over the ram’s strong shoulder haunches. By the time Sleipner was fully awake, Ravak had him harnessed and was already fastening the packs on.
He’d experienced little resistance and decided he would feed Sleipner for having been such a good sport. The young ram made no attempt to buck or free himself from the harness and stood calmly by as Ravak fixed him a meal of berries, leaves, and cool mountain stream water. Sleipner proceeded to eat his meal happily while wearing the packs. Ravak decided that Sleipner had accepted his fate and was finally a broken beast.
He patted Sleipner on the haunch as he always did and called him a ‘good lad,’ then rubbed him on the small tuft of fur between the ram’s now growing horns. Sleipner lowered his head as a sign of submission and Ravak reached down to hug his beloved pet, but as he did, Sleipner took a step back very quickly and popped his head up into Ravak’s jaw knocking him back so hard that his feet went out from underneath him and he fell backward head first into the ground. Ravak saw the sky come up fully in front of his eyes through the canopy of trees above as he went over. He had little time to even contemplate what happened before the ground bit the back of his head and the blue of the morning sky went black.
When he came to, he found Sleipner sitting right by his side, licking gingerly at the injured Winter Wolf’s pounding head. Ravak slowly sat up.
“I guess now we’re even, hey, lad?”
After nursing his poor jaw and head for a few minutes, Ravak ate some venison jerky and decided it was time to begin packing.
“Well, lad, it seems we’re set to go. Let’s get all this stuff packed and be off!”
Ravak wrapped up all of the deer hides he’d gathered over the last moon and examined his handiwork one last time before securing them into Sleipner’s packs. He was proud of his work. He knew money was very important to survival in the South and that a nice pile of well cured hides would likely fetch a good price when he made his way into the first city. He had even managed to get a couple of elk hides and a few foxes too. He was sure he’d be able to barter for some coin in exchange for his handiwork.
Ravak decided the journey would prove to be much less perilous than he’d originally planned. Spring had officially sprung and the weather was significantly warmer. But still he took all the precautions he could. He’d heard of travellers being frozen to death in the High Pass caught out in unexpected spring snow squalls where the temperature started out balmy and then dropped rapidly as a violent fast moving squall rolled through. He had fashioned himself new fur mittens from the hides of his first two rabbit kills. He’d made himself a warm and stylish hat from the hide of a wayward wolf he had come across. He even wore new fur-lined deer hide pants and jacket. He wasn’t a professional tailor, but all Winter Wolf Clansmen learned to fashion clothing from hides and sinew at an early age. As with all other things Ravak learned, he excelled at it.
By noon, he felt ready to set out for the base of the Mystpeaks. He would have to head directly past Deep Fiend Lake. Like a child fears the dead of night he dreaded the black pool after his brief encounter there only several seven-nights before.
Ravak knew the language used to describe the dragons and all of the tales of the Land of Shaarn from countless fireside stories. ‘Wyrm’ was the term used to describe one of the mature dragons that had lived for eons. It was said only a few wyrm had survived the First Age. They were said to be intelligent creatures and generally kept to themselves and lived in the vast expanse of the three conjoined mountain ranges that separated the North from the South rarely, if ever, seen. None of the races of the Land of Shaarn could prove their existence, so they became legends only to light up the eyes of children on long, cold winter nights.
The legends told that during the First Age of the Land of Shaarn, the dragons were hunted to what men thought to be the last of their kind, all either dead or domesticated by the Dragon Rider Clan.
Wild dragons were ruthlessly hunted for their teeth that were used to fashion necklaces of magickal power. The scales of a dragon’s hide could also be harvested for their use in armour smithing. Many a noble warrior had a shield of dragon scales and some wealthy royalty from the South were even rumoured to have had custom suits of scale mail fashioned from the scales of the great beasts, a task only made possible by the skilled hands of the famed dwarven smiths of Stonehammer Keep, a city deep within the Mystpeaks to the northwest. These mythical suits of armour, shields, and items of power were now lost to time and mythology. Some said these artifacts may never have existed as no one had seen a dragon, or any of these powerful magickal creations, in generations. Even more fabled and rarer than necklaces and dragon scale armor were the fabled Dragon Orbs. The legends told of magi, under the direction of Bragi, the god of magic himself, who formed the eyes of one of each of the species of dragons into
an artifact of great power. They were created with each orb possessing different gifts of enchantment of the dragon from which it came and different schools of magic dependant on the magi who created them. These, too, lost to time and legend.
Ravak always had a flicker of belief in his heart for the days of high sorcery, dragons, and adventure and somewhere deep down inside, he believed in it all. He had to believe. There had to be more to life than just basic existence in the horde. There had to be more than war with the South, trapping, and tanning hides, lumbering, and tending goats, otherwise what was the point of it all? A man, young or old, had to have a legacy. Ravak realized he might be naive about some things at the age of seventeen, but he was wise enough to know not every man’s legacy was to be one of greatness and historical tales. A man had to feel he had accomplished the dreams of his youth. He had to feel he had done what he set out to do in life in order to live with a smile on his lips and pride in his heart through to the end of his days. This journey was the start of that for him. Yes, the dangers of travel into the region where Ravak headed were terrible and many, but he sought adventure, so Ravak swallowed down the lump of fear in his throat as he headed out for Deep Fiend Lake, which would be the first leg of his journey over the Mystpeaks.
The trail was not a long one and he quickly reached the spot where he had seen the young buck slaughtered. The lake looked far less foreboding with all of the ice melted from where the forest met the water’s edge. Birds were chirping. It looked almost peaceful and welcoming with the new growth of spring just starting to show buds on the trees that lazily swayed in the warm spring breeze. The water was placid; unlike the torrent of bloodied water he recalled when the beast had surfaced to maul the young buck.