A Master Is Born

Untitled Part 3

                                                                    III

In just several hundred yards, the world entirely changed.

Douselmeir would never sleep. It was a city of lore, enclosed and one of the largest in the Eastern Expanse, and as the Crestfall clan trudged closer, they could see the lights exploding in the cold of night. For Roscoe, the energy of this place was not enough. After such a close brush with death, all he wanted was to sleep. Maven, however, already seemed to have forgotten the carcass of the strange fenris, the very carcass that he was pulling along.

After a minute or two, the man-giant stopped dragging the dead beast, stretched free of the countless bags slung over his shoulders—containing the clan's sundries—and allowed it all to rest against the stone-and-mortar outer walls of the fortified city. A big, stupid smile smeared his face. "I wag'r ahore ertree wull b'mine fur da niide."

Something was amiss. Roscoe couldn't be sure, but out of the corners of his eyes he kept capturing the same thing—at a nearly unseen distance—slivers of glowing orbs afloat in the black.

The other hunters, however, were watching ahead, and as they ventured past the bastions and the grey monoliths of the unmanned outer guard posts, far below those towering pinnacles and flying buttresses like giant stone needles and arms, the lights of the place warmed their faces.

Inns, taverns and everything else ready to liven the spirit.

People danced and drank in the music-filled streets.

Nearby, a giant banner strewn across a blank wall read: They Shall Not Return

Roscoe knew, during months of a certain time, those bastions and ramparts and belvederes would have been filled with the human defenses of hundreds of guards. The Front Line. In a time of war, a half millennium before... a time, Roscoe hoped, would never come again.

Somebody nearby, one of the trappers exclaimed: "My lucky lady awaits!"

Culgur and Arsen did not look amused.

"We will meet the rest of you at the Feat of Crows," Culgur said then, and he motioned to Telmore, Maven and Arsen. They broke off down a cobblestone road, disappearing into the ruckus. The headless carcass of the fenris remained.

Roscoe rubbed his face. He didn't wanna deal with these people. The merriment was too much—and for what reason? Did any of these townsfolk know what it was like? Sure, they ran their crafts, their shops and their bartering, but did any of them know what it was like to live the life of a hunter?

It wasn't a life Roscoe had necessarily wanted. A lot of things in his life, thus far, had just... happened. As soon as Roscoe tried to make sense of the way things had turned, the angrier he became. Sometimes, he wondered if anybody could see it, the incredible rage burning right beneath the surface. That hot blood, gushing through his jugular like lava.

As hard as he tried, he couldn't. Couldn't couldn't could not recall. Like a literal wall of haze placed in his brain, preventing him from recalling anything about anything past a certain point...

An injury from hunting? A head trauma from something else? Roscoe didn't know, and if his fellow hunters did, they sure didn't show it.

"Hey." It was Jeremiah, right at Roscoe's side. With his thick beard, easy eyes and hair in a bun, he was a portrait of calm and collection. Only his biceps gave him away. Those exposed muscles flared, an inky intertwining of serpents and bloodied helms.