by David Greer
Chapter 23
Sparks flew onto a pile of dried leaves and twigs but nothing caught. Another wave of sparks flew which quickly faded out.
“Losing your touch?” Grimey asked.
Leo gave him a disdainful look before striking his flint again. At last the sparks caught and generated a small flame. Leo gently blew onto the flame until it grew large enough to burn on its own.
“And the lad makes fire! Hah!” Grimey bellowed.
“Now you're the one who's chipper.”
“Of course I am. We made it out of those blasted hills and got through those buzzards.”
“They're actually known as reapers.”
“Don't care! Calling them buzzards.”
It took the hunters well into the afternoon to get out of the Windy Pass. The rolling hills brought the hunters to an arid plain. Mountains rose in the distance and Leo indicated that was where they were headed. But the islander was weary from focusing on the buzzards and then dragging himself over the hills. He needed to rest. A nearby stream gleamed in the fading sunlight and Leo decided set up camp there for the night.
Grimey had taken a seat next to Leo. The bearded hunter's body ached from the beating he took from the buzzards that morning but despite his bruises and cuts he couldn't stop playing with his beard. Being in the wind for so many hours left him windblown and his face tingled with every beard stroke. Grimey stroked his beard and chuckled. He patted it on one side and chuckled again. Leo shot him another disdainful look. The islander had been trying to get Grimey to tend to the gash on the back of his head, a little gift from the wing of a buzzard, since they settled. Grimey was content to sit back and mess around with his beard instead. Until he caught a glimpse of Leo.
“Oh don't worry.” Grimey said. “I don't need a bandage. There's plenty of hair back there. Stopped the bleeding a long time ago.”
“At least clean it up.” Leo replied smoothly.
Grimey rolled his eyes and with an effort stood, grabbed a flask, and went downstream to rinse off. The blood had long since dried and left his hair a matted mess of deep red. He filled the flask with cool stream water, lifted it over his head and poured it onto himself. The water trickled through the blood-stained hair and dripped to the ground.
The hunter's thoughts drifted back to the buzzards. Wicked black flying beasts with snapping tails. They reminded Grimey of a kingpin. Especially the eyes. Both monsters shared the same green eyes that burned in their sockets. The difference was that kingpins used banshees as their pawns. Banshees are no more than a nuisance on their own trying to steal food or harass livestock. Only when under the influence of a kingpin do banshees become organized and change tactics. They attack as a group and use distractions. They become lethal. What pawns did the buzzards use? None from what Grimey could remember. Then a strange thought occurred to him. What if the buzzards were pawns of something else?
Mixed thoughts swirled through the hunter's mind as he washed up. A crimson puddle had formed in the dirt. He gazed into it. Unsure if it was a shadow or something else, he saw a line of black creep down the center of the puddle. It looked like an eye. Probably some trick of the fading daylight. The bearded hunter shook his head and continued to comb his fingers through his hair. The dried up blood mixed with the water and steadily colored the small pool of water a deeper and deeper red. He didn't realize he lost so much blood. When Grimey looked back into the pool he jolted back. A bright red eye stared directly at him. The same eye from his dreams. Dizziness invaded the hunter's head and his legs went weak. He dropped to one knee. The eye continued to stare at him unblinking. His vertigo morphed into a splitting headache. It felt like a pair of tongs were clamping down on his temples. He grabbed the sides of his head and shut his eyes trying to block out the pain. His face grew hot as if a fire had erupted in front of his face. Not sure what was happening, the hunter took a deep breath and focused on flushing the pain out of his head. Bolts of agony shot through the hunter's mind but then just as suddenly as it began it ended. The pain, the heat, and the dizziness dissipated like a campfire doused with a pail of water. The hunter opened his eyes slowly and saw nothing more than a small puddle of reddish water blackened by the dawning of night.
When he rejoined the other two at the campfire Kane was tending to a pot and Leo sat gazing upward watching the stars light up the sky. Neither of them said anything and were unaware of Grimey's episode. He wasn't about to share it with them either. Probably just a result of exhaustion and loss of blood anyway. Although the pool did look just like the eye from my dreams, Grimey thought. Was there something to it all? Maybe that great beast Leo believes in is actually real. Maybe that eye means something? Nah, couldn't be. It's just blood loss. They'll travel north to the farthest reaches of Arlynd to find a mountain. A great lonely mountain, but just a mountain. There will be no great beast, it will all be for nothing, and then they can return home. So why am I even here then? Grimey wondered. He couldn't find a suitable reason. And red rain falls when the beast flies. The thought just popped into Grimey's head. A line from Leo's so-called prophecy. Had to be blood loss, the hunter reasoned.
Grimey sat quietly wrestling with his thoughts as Kane cooked up the night's meal. A pot of stew. The bearded hunter ate in silence and when finished immediately turned onto his bedroll. He was in no mood to talk and was snoring in no time. Kane retired soon after eating as well. He still had a headache from the knockout blow he took and needed rest.
Leo, as was his tradition, stayed awake to watch the stars but no matter how the stars burned that night or how Orion glowed Leo's mind was distracted. He couldn't stop reflecting on the reaper attack. Like every other monster of late, the reapers were more aggressive than usual but something else was different. Why did they leave him alone? Why did they target Grimey and Kane? Even when he focused and began taking out reaper after reaper the monsters continued to dive for the other two instead of attacking him. It didn't make sense. In the past when he and Kane would help the hunters of Khurt deal with reapers the flying beasts attacked both of them equally with no sense of strategy. They swooped down on anybody nearby, simple as that. But today they were coordinated and changed tactics to counter Grimey's axe and Kane's spear. The monsters were picking their targets and adapting.
Leo gazed between the stars, in the blackness of night hoping to come to an answer but he found none. Just an empty blackness that left his thoughts unfinished. Then a new question came to mind. Were the reapers after both of the larger hunters or just one of them?
While Leo pondered the torrent of thoughts coursing through his mind Orion burned bright in the sky above. Betelgeuse, the shoulder star, was a bright red. Rigel, the leg star, which normally burned a hot blue, was a scorching white. The legendary hunter, the watcher of the horizons, guardian against all beasts, was sending his warning. Even his hunting dog Canis chimed in. The eye star of Sirius, burned brighter than it ever had in centuries outshining both Betelgeuse and Rigel. Its usual bright white shine had transformed into a deep purple. A clear sign that something terrible approached.
Eventually Leo did notice the signs Orion and Canis gave. He noticed Sirius was darker than the previous night. It solidified in him that they were on the right path. According to the maps, they were not far from the Iyre Mountain where whatever beast was approaching would rise from. First things first though, they would have to make it through the Tunnel of Lights. He knew very little about that place beyond how to find it. There were no records documented about the tunnel depths and what lied beyond it. The reason for that was simple. Every traveler that attempted to pass through the tunnel never made it back.
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