A Master Is Born

Part One - T H E S P L I T I N T H E S E A M

                                                                         I

One mistake and he was dead.

One misstep, one mis-breath, a second's lapse in thought and action, and they'd have him. From the darkness they'd spring on his shivering bones, shredding skin, muscle and fat like a whirlwind of knives, seizing his sputtering heart in its bloody tracks.

Annihilation. In seconds, fractions, from living and breathing to a certain, gurgling demise.

"You have nothing to fear, only to conquer," Roscoe whispered, lied, as his fingers twitched. Even as the warm blood thumped at the back of his skull.

Across the void of that frigid night, those deathly howls continued to grow, the thin, crisp air trembling with their message. Everything was now different.

Beneath Roscoe's feet, the wilted grass of the Green Pass was succumbing to winter's approach. The frosty air carried a foreign scent, not smoky or fragrant, but sickly—like the rotten corpse of an enemy unseen. After all these years removed from danger, all those hunts and countless days and nights in the wind-blown fields and heavy woods beneath the starry folds... Tonight, Roscoe Coats was finally a chaser.

"Keep your head clear," said Culgur, his dark eyes reflecting the small fire nearby. The stoic hunter took a moment to examine his blade, a broadsword sharper than the fang of a dragon. At his belt, an array of knives glinted with the graying moon. His body, unguarded. A figure of rippling muscles and ghastly scars. No armor or shield in sight.

As the veteran chaser had said on many occasions: the name of the game is speed.

Pushing the bronze curls from his narrowed eyes, Roscoe tried once more to tune out those shrieking howls. It was one thing to hear the cries of a coyote or dire wolf, but here in the Grey Willows, it was the fenris that reigned supreme.

"Tonight the Nether Moon is ours," Culgur proclaimed, stepping to the forefront.

The moon above them was different. Dark, calloused, a sickly distortion of its normal polished white. Like a contusion in the sky. And with it, Roscoe's nightmares now worse than ever, seemingly, recollections of a forgotten time.

"Everybody listen," said Culgur. He motioned to a wiry trapper with a muddy complexion and thick beard. "Jeremiah, take the prime vantage. Timothy and Gregorius, the northwest and northeast."

Nearby, the massive Maven smiled. "Sound ungree tanight," he remarked, his nearly toothless mouth the result of one too many close calls and way too many bad habits. At his size, he could drink the ale of a dozen men and never get drunk—a testament to the ogre's blood that supposedly ran through him. A juggernaut with a giant club.

At his side, the comparatively smaller chaser, Arsen, sharpened his blade. With his shaved, reptilian head and forward-leaning posture, he appeared ready to take off at a moment's notice. For all intents and purposes, he was the fastest person Roscoe had ever seen. All the other hunting clans were scrambling just to have him.

"You'll be fine, kid," he said to Roscoe with a wink. "Just remember, you follow our lead, got it? Maybe we'll even give ya a kill shot."

Farthest from the wavering flames of the fire pit, an older man crooned to himself. He wore a simple gown of faded brown, and he was rocking, his pepper-gray wispy beard clinging to his wrinkled face, his pursed lips emitting strange words.