by Ryan Cahill
It didn’t take long before they heard the burbling of a small rivulet through the constant haze of forest sounds. Calen stopped, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. If he focused, he could pick out each of the sounds on their own. The sweet chirps of small birds as they went about their day, oblivious to the world outside their own. The buzzing and clicking of the thousands of insects that ruled the forest floor. The cracking and snapping of branches broken under the weight of rabbits, deer, and the occasional kat flitting between the trees.
“Calen… Calen!” Dann’s voice pierced through the wall of sound. “Will you stop daydreaming? I’m thirsty, and we need to get to the cave before it gets too late. We don’t want to be wandering through here in the dark.”
Calen opened his eyes, let out a soft sigh, and jogged after Dann and Rist. The few deer who were drinking at the rivulet when the boys arrived disappeared into the brush almost as soon as Calen laid eyes on them. Dann and Rist knelt down at the water’s edge and dipped their waterskins in. A welcome silence replaced their usual back and forth as Dann continued to mope over his foggy headache.
“Well, so far, so good,” Calen said as he hunkered down beside Rist and dipped his waterskin into the rivulet. “No wolfpines in sight, none of the kats have taken a liking to us, and we haven’t eaten any poison berries.”
“I like the positivity,” Rist replied, “but we have a long way to go yet.”
The sunlight waned as they made their way through the forest. Calen’s stomach ached. He had eaten nothing since that morning, when Ella had given him a morsel of cheese and bread. And judging by the fading light drifting through the canopy, that was quite a few hours ago. Dann took down a pair of rabbits with his bow as they hiked through the trees, but that would not be much meat to split between three of them.
None of the animals seemed to pay them much heed at all as they traipsed their way through the forest. They spotted the occasional kat watching them from a distance, but they never came too close. According to Dann, they were only young, which worried Calen a little. Those “young” kats were already nearly the same size as Faenir. They hadn’t seen a single wolfpine either, which Calen wasn’t exactly disappointed about. The wild ones were not as friendly as Faenir was.
Dann seemed to have recovered from the mead-induced body ache that had plagued him earlier in the day, and slowly, he became less brusque.
“How long until we reach that cave, Dann?” Rist called out from a couple of feet behind the pair in front.
“Shouldn’t be more than a half-hour at this rate,” Dann called back.
Where to camp had been a topic of discussion many times in the days leading up to The Proving. They needed somewhere that had shelter from the elements but was also close to a water source. Having a source of water nearby was crucial. Not just for drinking; it would also be the easiest way for them to find dinner without having to go too far. There were fish in the river, and deer or rabbits needed water just as much as they did. A bit of patience, and they would be far from hungry over the next few days.
“I can see it just up ahead,” Dann called, picking up his pace. He gave a short shrug to his right shoulder to shift the two rabbits that dangled there into a less precarious position.
Calen lifted his head from the forest floor and saw the trees open up slightly into a rocky clearing. A stream meandered through its centre; it was quite a bit larger than the rivulet they had stopped at earlier, but its pace was far more lackadaisical.
On the other side of the stream, Calen saw what they had come for. The mouth of a small cave, nestled into the jagged rock face, smothered by the dense forest around it. It could easily have been missed by someone who wasn’t looking for it.
Without a word, Dann leapt from the bank of the river, landing deftly on a rock that stuck out above the surface of the water. “Tonight is going to be cold enough without our clothes being wet,” Dann shouted back when he caught Rist raising an eyebrow at him. Rist looked at Calen and shrugged. With Dann at the lead, they made their way across the stream, hopping from rock to rock.
“Ah, fuck!” Calen yelled as his foot slipped on the slick surface of a flat stone covered in green and brown moss. It was all he could do to stop himself falling headfirst into the water. He let his shoulders sag and resigned himself to slogging the rest of the way through the languid stream. The smirk on Dann’s face only made it worse. When he reached the other side of the stream, Calen kicked out at the air as he tried in vain to shake the water out from inside his boot. He should have known Dann would make it look easier than it was.
The cave itself only stretched back into the rock face about twenty feet, which suited Calen fine. He didn’t want something sneaking up behind him from the depths while he slept. The walls were overgrown in patches, thick with green moss and small purple flowers streaked with crimson veins. There was an unpleasant aroma wafting into Calen’s nose that he couldn’t quite place.
“Well, it’s not the palace of Al’Nasla,” Rist remarked as he brushed a pile of stones away with his foot, “but it’s not that bad. Cleaner than my room – it even has flowers.” Rist reached up and plucked a purple flower from amidst the moss.
“Don’t touch that!” Dann roared. He smacked the flower straight out of Rist’s hand in a blur of motion.
“Why did you do that?” Rist cursed, caressing the now reddish mark on the back of his hand.
“That’s Purple Ember. If you had held it any longer, your hands would have felt like they were on fire,” Dann sniped. “Did you not read about it in those books of yours?”
Rist glared at the back of Dann’s head.
“You two are like children, I swear to the gods,” Calen laughed. “But seriously though, Dann’s right – don’t touch those flowers.”
Rist scrunched his upper lip and took a step away from the wall of the cave as he eyed the purple flowers askance.
Calen had to suppress a laugh as he looked at Rist. “Okay, Dann, can you hold the fort while Rist and I gather wood for the fire before the night sets in? I want to see if I can find any useful plants and herbs as well. They could come in handy.”
Dann was already lying down on the packed dirt, his head propped up against a rock. “Sounds like a plan to me, Calen. Consider the fort held.” He closed his eyes as he pulled his bow up to his chest and dragged his quiver to within arm’s reach.
Calen started to protest but surrendered to the reality that Dann probably still had a better chance of putting an arrow in a would-be attacker in that position than Calen did with his eyes open, standing up straight. As much of an idiot as he could be at times, it was like he was born with that bow in his hands.
Rist just shrugged at Calen and nodded towards the forest.
The juices from the rabbit tumbled down Calen’s chin as he sank his teeth into the leg, eager to get the meat off the bone and into his rumbling stomach. He used his sleeve to wipe away the brownish-yellow beads glistening from the firelight.
With a bit of luck, Rist had got the fire going just before the sun had set. Calen had never mastered the trick with a knife and a rock, not that it mattered as long as his belly was full.
“You know what, Dann? You’re a bit of an ass, but you sure know how to cook rabbit,” Rist said matter-of-factly as he picked the bone clean with his teeth. Calen never cared too much for rabbit meat. It was usually dry and tough, but he was not going to complain.
Dann let out a snort, sending pieces of half-chewed rabbit spraying across the fire, which drew a chorus of laughter from Rist and Calen.
“You okay there, Dann?” Calen laughed, coughing as he attempted to suppress the waves of laughter.
“Fuck off,” Dann choked, taking a deep breath inward to settle himself. When they were finished, Dann gathered all the bones and threw them into the river. “We don’t want any kats or wolfpines strolling in here, looking for the meat that used to sit on those bones.”
Calen felt sleep creep up on him. With his bel
ly full and the fire pulsating heat throughout the small cave, it was all he could do to keep his eyes open. He pulled his coat tighter around himself and shuffled down into the dirt. It wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep, but he found it incredible how a hot meal and a warm fire could make hard clay feel like a goose feather mattress.
He saw Dann and Rist’s eyes drooping as well. A bit of sleep was well deserved for the three of them.
Calen awoke to the sound of what he thought was someone rummaging through one of the bags. His eyes were stuck together with crusty flecks of sleep, which he rubbed away with the back of his hand.
“Dann?” he whispered, his voice still hushed with tiredness. His half-awake eyes saw a shape at the other side of the smouldering fire, near Rist’s bag. We must have all fallen asleep without putting out the fire.
A low rumbling sound, interrupted by the occasional muffled snort, came from whoever it was at the bags – or it could have been Dann snoring. Calen heaved himself upright; the fatigue from the day’s trek made it a greater task than it should have been. He rubbed his tired eyes again, pushing his fingers into the creases and dragging them down his face as if to pry open his lids and bring his vision back to normal.
“Rist, what are you doing?” Calen sighed. The embers of the fire provided little light, and darkness still covered the mouth of the cave, obscuring the forest from view. Calen’s mouth bunched up into a frown, frustrated by the lack of response. “Rist, what—”
Calen leapt to his feet, stumbling backward. The figure huddled over Rist’s bag turned its body sideways, allowing Calen to catch sight of the immense shadow that it cast across the wall of the cave. “Rist! Dann! Wake up! There’s a fucking bear!”
The blood drained from his face as he saw the hulking figure of the bear for the first time in the dying firelight. Its thick, blackish-brown fur was mottled with tacky dark patches of dirt – or blood. It was hard to tell. It had a dished face, with short roundish ears. Eyes as black as jet. Teeth of alabaster and claws that dwarfed Calen’s fingers.
Calen saw Rist leap from his sleeping position, shaking his head back and forth as he processed what was happening. There was a look of pure horror on his face when the bear raised itself on its hind legs, its head scraping the jagged rock ceiling of the cave. It had to be ten feet tall.
A roar erupted from its now open jaws but was cut short by a sharp whoosh, followed by a heavy thunk. The turkey feather fletching of one of Tharn Pimm’s arrows now jutted from the bear’s chest. The roar that the bear had initially intended paled in comparison to the visceral thunder that now crashed forward from its open mouth. With it came a spray of spit and phlegm, accompanied by an abusive waft of rotting flesh.
Slumping its upper body close to the ground, the howling bear swept its hulking shoulders towards Rist. Its thick muscular neck collided with his sternum in a crash, launching him backwards into the darkness.
Whoosh.
Another arrow now protruded from the bear’s right shoulder. Calen didn’t even remember seeing Dann get to his feet. Yet, there he stood, bow raised, the string drawn back to the corner of his mouth, which was a thin line of concentration. He squinted to see in the bleak light.
The bear let out another earth-shattering roar. The natural acoustics of the cave amplified the sound, and Calen and Dann both winced as their ears drummed with pain.
In that moment, the bear charged, its solid, burly legs carrying its gargantuan body at a pace that Calen could not believe. He pulled his knife from its sheath as the creature careened towards him. Another arrow sank into its shoulder. The sound was drowned out by the crashing stones and lumps of clay lifted by the bear’s feverish charge.
Dann threw himself out of the way, crashing into the wall of the cave. Calen wasn’t so lucky. He swung his knife as the top of the bear’s skull caught him in the shoulder, sending him spinning to the hard ground. A searing pain shot through his torso.
As the bear lifted its head, Calen caught sight of his knife, buried to the hilt in the animal’s neck. It lurched to the right as its feet staggered. Both the knife and the arrows had wounded it badly, and the wounds were taking their toll. Its movements were slow; each careful step towards Calen seemed to take all of its energy. Calen’s heart pounded in his chest as the enormous creature got closer. The bear’s now wobbly legs heaved its towering frame by sheer will alone. With little warning, the bear collapsed. The ground shook with the impact, plumes of dust occluding what little light there was.
It took a lifetime for Calen to drag himself to his feet. The aching pain running up the right side of his body distracted from the pain everywhere else. He found Dann standing over the crumpled frame of the bear. Its sheer size still struck fear into Calen. It was still alive, its breathing slow and laboured. Each breath was heavy, rasping, as the bear attempted in vain to drag air into its collapsing lungs.
Dann pulled an arrow from his quiver and wrapped his fist firmly around the shaft. Even in the frail light, Calen saw his fingers turning white from the grip. He lifted the arrow and, with a grimace of regret, drove it straight through the soft tissue at the side of the bear’s head. The breathing stopped.
Dann hunkered down onto his knees and placed a hand on the fur of the bear’s neck. “Better it was quick,” he sighed heavily, his shoulders drooping.
There was a weighted silence in the air. The only sounds were the creaking of branches and the whistling wind, accompanied by the chirping of crickets. His shoulder would hurt in the morning. In fact, it already did.
“Guys,” Rist called, “is it dead?”
Calen couldn’t stop his hands shaking. He heard Dann sigh, and although he couldn’t see through the darkness that had grown stronger as the fire dwindled, he could tell that he had thrown his eyes up to the heavens.
“Yes, Rist, the bear is dead.” Calen frowned as he looked towards Dann’s slumped silhouette.
“Okay, good,” Rist said. His voice was shaking, and Calen could hear the dryness in his throat. Rist must have pushed a log into the fire because it spat embers into the air, and the cave became a little brighter. He was fully visible now as he stood by the fire. Dried blood and dirt were matted into his dark hair. His coat was covered in clay and dust, and a few rips and tears raced down his left sleeve. In his hand was the skull of a deer – young, judging by its size. It was blotched grey with dirt and picked clean of flesh.
“I’m not going back to sleep.”
CHAPTER 6
More Than Bears in the Woods
I still think Anya will dance with you on Feast Night,” Rist said as he pulled his knife up the length of wood that rested across his lap, tapering it into a point at the end.
“Leave it, Rist. We are just friends,” Calen said, his cheeks reddening. Rist and Dann exchanged a look. Dann tilted his head and raised an all-knowing eyebrow, laughing.
Calen tried his best to ignore them as he held the sharpened end of his own makeshift spear just above the flames of the fire that sat in front of them. That was a trick his father had taught him long ago. Baking the tip of a wooden spear made it lighter and stronger. The thick pole of wood was about six and a half feet long, and just under two inches in diameter. He would have felt far more comfortable with a sword in his hands, but given the circumstances, the spear would do just fine.
They all sat just in front of the cave mouth. Even with the bear dead, there was not a chance any of them would sleep in there again. A few feet away, the bear’s pelt hung between two trees, stretched as wide as it could go. Dann had spent most of the morning and early afternoon skinning the bear with the utmost care and concentration. He made a point to open the ears, nose, and lips to remove all the excess fat. Without access to salt, he needed to ensure that as little moisture as possible remained to prevent the skin from rotting. Moving their camp out of the cave for the night had the added bonus of avoiding the damp air produced by the moss, and the evening sun was just warm enough to dry the hide without damagi
ng it.
“So, tell me again, why are you bothering to preserve the pelt?” Rist asked. A sharp tssk escaped him. He pulled his finger up to his mouth to suckle on a thin stream of blood that trickled down his thumb – the result of his over eager knife work. He threw a dirty look at Calen when he noticed the smirk on his face.
Dann was splayed out on the ground, head propped up on a thick log, chewing on a long piece of grass. He stared off into the surrounding forest. “Well, after we bring it back, we’ll be declared victors of The Hunt. I can’t see the others bringing back anything bigger than this monster.” Dann tilted his head towards the bear pelt that was suspended in mid-air a few feet away. “After that, there is no sense in letting it go to waste. Father could easily make a masterpiece out of a pelt like that. The gods know we could use the coin.”
Rist let out a mocking snort. “Last night, you were all upset it was dead, and now you want to turn it into a coat?”
“Yes, Rist, I was upset that an incredible creature died. Slowly, and painfully, for no reason, and I was the cause.” Dann’s reply was curt, his eyes still lost in the haze of the forest. His jaw clenched.
“Incredible creature? For no reason? Dann, it was going to kill us. Like, dead. Snap, gone—”
“You did what you had to do, Dann,” Calen interrupted. He gave Rist a look as if to say, please give him a break. Rist seemed to understand, giving a soft nod in reply.
Dann pulled his eyes away from the depths of the forest to look towards Calen. There was a heavy expression on his face. Calen hadn’t noticed the purple rims developing under Dann’s eyes, nor the slumping of his shoulders throughout the day. But when he thought back, he realised that Dann kept to himself most of the morning and afternoon, with few words passing his lips. Considering Calen once witnessed Dann have a drunken conversation with a tree, the silence should have raised some flags.