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ORIGINAL DRAFT - PRE-EDITING

This story was written as part of the 2016 National Novel Writing Month. It was written without edits between 12:01am, November 1st and 11:59pm, November 30th.

This story was written by David J Rust, aka Sylvan Scott, and is in a pre-edited state. The characters, situations, and concepts herein are property of the author and may not be distributed or altered without express, written permission.

Skylands: the Scorpion Spear, Part One - "Saeldrin", Chapter One: The Hunters

©2016 Sylvan Scott

Towers clad in hammered leaves of bronze to catch the pale, cold sunlight, Bartharran had been the jewel of the north. Raised over a thousand years ago by ramessin traders from Hammer Island outposts in the Vayde Empire, it was the first outpost of civilization on the frozen, northern continent. The simple and primitive dagdarra dwelled there worshipping their death goddess. As the ramessin pushed north with a pack-bourne drive, they conquered everything in their path. The dagdarra fell to sword and, later, flintlock and powder. The enlightenment of the eight wolven gods and their celestial court came to hold sway at the edge of the tundra. Temples were raised; commerce: founded. The fabled Bronze City, in its sheltered valley between two rivers, was the last great settlement before the unification of the ramessin people.

Rith's eyes, though, beheld nothing but ruin. Where once trees thinned out to give way to the majesty of civilization there were only crumbling rocks, cracked ice, fractured earth, roaring winds in a vertical wall, and--finally--void.

Nothing.

The ground fell away at the base of the wall of clouds and wind and snow and ice. It fell away and down into a grey darkness made of shadow and chaos. Again and again, the ground would tremble as chunks were worn free of their moorings and cast into the maelstrom.

How big the storm was, he didn't know. Rith had wandered in its interior for days. But with what seemed to be its southern edge crumbling inwards across Saeldrin, he guessed it encompassed many miles of the northern continent.

Urges seldom felt, bubbled up around his mind. Drowned in grief for the loss of so grand a symbol of his people's history, he titled his head back and howled to the indifferent winds. It was a gesture he had not made in many years. Even at his own grandfather's funeral, despite being called back to pay tribute, he had been forbidden from showing so familiar an expression of grief. The patriarch of his family and clan had died. Those who would vie to replace him did not want reminders of an accursed in their midst. Rith had howled within, though. He had howled within and then left: back to the wilderness.

Here, there was no one to care, so he howled deep and long and mournful.

For a brief moment, he allowed himself to forget his outcast, damned status and just feel his ramessin heritage.

Louder than the smaller, feral wolves that were his people's distant kin, he wondered just how far the winds would carry his grief before drowning it out.

Another tremor came followed by another.

A crack of frozen stone, stressed to the breaking point, shattered along the trail above him, collapsing part of the nearest cliff. A landslide of ice and stone rumbled down. He turned and ran, diving into the thin, widely-spaced trees.

He lost his footing.

Skidded.

Fell.

Scraped.

Slid.

Rith grasped with his short claws for anything to stop his plummet. He lost his pack and felt his tattered, patched-together clothes rip. Almost without noticing, his palm impacted something narrow but solid. It bent with him and slowed his descent. Before him yawned the chasm. It crept towards him as if intent upon devouring him as it had devoured Bartharran and its shining towers. But as landscape tore free and crumbled into the abyss and wall of winds, his slide, stopped.

He glanced back and saw that he had grabbed the lowest branch of an evergreen. It was bare of most of its needles; sickly and wan. But what strength it had, what strength he matched with his own, was sufficient.

Between subsequent tremors, he pulled himself up. Then, tree by tree and rock by rock, he climbed back up the rough slopes before they cold further collapse.

Rith didn't know how long it took but, eventually, the tremors subsided. Eventually, he reached level ground. The range of hills had been sheared away but the pass still stood back to the other side. How much longer it could stand sentinel against the elements, he did not know, but he had to--

His thoughts froze.

There was a figure in the rubble. Standing solitary and tall, it looked down upon him from the shadow of the pass.

She--for he could see her figure even beneath her discoloured and ragged robes--was all black. Coal-colored feathers covered her body like the white fur which covered that of the ramessin. Her head was not wolven, though, nor was it anything like the dagdarra. There were no other races, though, so Rith's first thought was "monster". But as the shape resolved itself in his mind's eye, his categorization changed.

The head was avian. It had glistening, black eyes and a broad, blunt beak. Easily the size of a full-grown ramessin, it had wings sprouting from the backs of its talon-handed arms. A broad, black spray of feathers formed its flat tail above slender, muscular legs ending in, like the hands, large, bare talons.

Had he not been damned, he might not have recognized her. But Rith had seen every embodiment of god and devil his people's' religion had produced.

Years ago, in the primitive times, Malrune--god of life and procreation--had been depicted not as a ramessin but as a four-legged wolf. His bride, though--goddess of death and endings--had been shown as a raven. Her name had been the same, Ishmar, but its meaning of "Dark One of Endings" meant more, contrasting as it did with a raven's form.

It was said Ishmar was unhappy with her marriage to Malrune and, as such, occasionally sent her hands into the world to seek solitude and offer shelter to those on the brink of death.

Rith realized there was no better description for his position than being literally on the brink of nonexistence.

This, mad as it might seem, could be nothing but the Hand of Ishmar.

Climb.

The words were not heard with his ears but, nonetheless, resolved in his mind into the tone of an old, ragged voice. It had a womanly tone but touched and dragged down by the years. It felt both sad and resolute: like a coffin-maker's nails. Rith obeyed.

It hurt. His shoulder had been wrenched in the fall but he did not feel it until now. His knees were also badly bruised beneath his fur. He was sorely out of breath. But at least nothing felt broken. He climbed up the slope, only stopping when faint tremors shook the ground, again.

He climbed towards the broken, old trail. As he did, showers of gravel, snow, and ice were joined by the occasional pinecone and threadbare tree branch. He tasted the copper of blood in his mouth but pushed on up the steep slope.

Finally, as the shadow of the cliffs rose on either side of him, he succeeded. Panting, he looked around in the swirling snow.

The figure was gone.

He shivered deeply; to his core. Moans of wind taunted him with pained sounds of torture and dying. He had heard those sounds every time he fell asleep. They were familiar, though, not because of that but because, in his dreams, those were his sounds. Now, in the waking world, they bore an ominous portent.

Exhausted and wounded, he nonetheless ran.

The world was crumbling around him and he knew he couldn't stay. He sprinted and limped his way back through the pass and down the winding road that he had once thought offered him hope.

Another rumble; another tremor.

A crack resounded across the hills and out over the tundra below and before him. He looked back and saw an icy sheet break down the slope towards him. He cried out in shock and dove for the sheltered side of a large boulder. Seconds later, the sheet of ice, doubtless deposited by the storm over the past days, crashed into it and filled his world with shards as if from a broken window.

Stone shielded him from ice for the most part. What other wounds he suffered, he didn't feel. But staggered, he got back up and continued down the road.

Minutes crept into an hour and the way grew dark. His vision blurred as his muscles slowed.

"Goddess, please: guide me..."

Whether he passed out and kept walking or banished the memory of his trek, he didn't know. But as he approached the foot of the trail, he found he had no clear recollection of how he'd reached it. Large swaths of road were covered in fallen ice and debris. He clung to the cold surfaces for support as he tried to make his way, further.

He rounded a cluster of fallen rock and came face-to-face with a steely gaze and sharp spear.

"Halt!"

He obeyed the barked command but stumbled on his feet and crashed backwards into the snow. In a flash, the spear-point was at his nostrils. The shadow of a powerful ramessin loomed beyond followed by others.

"What's going on up there?"

The shout was annoyed and angry. Rith was too tired to hope it wasn't aimed at him. He collapsed backwards and lay in the snow. Shadows closed in around him. Above them, in the lighter patch of dark that was the stormy sky, he thought he saw wings.

"Ishmar..."

"By the gods, he's invoking death."

The spear hove about into his vision, taking unshaking aim at the space between his eyes. Rith closed his eyes.

"Stay your hand!" The voice was the same one that had demanded to know what was happening. "Don't you see his markings?"

Even over the wind and storm, he heard the crunch of snow as footfalls approached.

Gloved hands gripped him beneath his muzzle and turned his head from side to side.

"I know him," he heard. The voice sounded almost pitying. It was a tone he was used to; almost as used to as he was to sounds of repulsion and hate.

Blearily, he opened his eyes and tried to see. Recognition came slowly.

When it did, he almost laughed at the gods' cruel joke.

"Tephen," he muttered.

The ramessin, in the winter armor of an Iron Patrol, knelt closer. "Hello, Rith."

Time broke and seemed out of order. Huge chunks of events seemed torn from their natural course. He was lifted, dragged, and pulled. Voices and parts of conversation moaned in and out of his hearing. Then, flame; heat. The wind became muffled and the shadows started to congeal.

Rith sat in an icy cleft with two soldier's lean-to's erected against the wind. A small fire had been lit from an iron lamp. Heat sent unexpected shards of pain through his large paws. His shredded remnants of boots and wrappings had been lost.

He found himself trying to remember when.

"Lieutenant; he's coming 'round."

It was an entire patrol. Rith counted at least a dozen. Tephen, looming once more into view, made it thirteen.

"Lieutenant?"

"Aye." The other man's voice was surprisingly soft. Rith knew it wouldn't last. "What are you doing out here? Get turned around or did the Bartharran guard turn you out?"

"Didn't get ... the chance," he replied.

Tephen scowled, dewlaps pulling back to expose his canines in anger. "Damn you, Rith. What did you do?"

His voice was the same. Years later and it held an identical combination of accusation, revulsion, and remorse. It was as if an ages-old conversation had suddenly resumed without recognition of time's passage.

Rith smiled.

"Nothing more than usual," he said. He pointed to the discolored dark pattern of fur on his forehead. "Nothing new."

Tephen spat and looked back at the others before looking with concern at Rith. After a few moments, he bent forward. "Damn it, Rith; why'd you come here? Why now? We've lost four to the weather already; I can't carry you over the damn mountain!"

"Don't worry: you won't have to."

His vision went blurry again and he lost track of time.

When the world came back into focus, his childhood friend was gone. Instead, two soldiers sat nearby, casting knucklebones in a shallow, wooden box. The fire had grown and his whole body hurt with the resumption of heat.

The glint of silver coins caught his eye.

"Can anyone get in on this game or only those of you with money?" he rasped.

The two exchanged glances.

One rose and took several steps closer before leaning down and cuffing Rith, hard, across the muzzle. "You speak when you're spoken to, tethic!"

The old slur; the old insult meaning "weak" and "poisonous". One rejected by gods and mortals alike.

The strike lent pain which he grabbed onto and used to focus his attention. He smiled weakly and, whimpering, nodded. It was an old dance. He knew the moves, well. He had, after all, been trained since birth.

The two went back to their game. Before long, the one who had struck him got up and returned. He knelt and Rith pulled back.

"What did you mean, by 'it's gone'?"

Confusion crossed his face. The black chasms in his memory beckoned but he couldn't see past their shadows. "I ... I don't know what you mean."

This time, he was ready for the back of the patrolman's hand.

"Earlier. When you told Lieutenant Aberson that 'it' was gone. What's 'it'?"

Rith didn't remember any such conversation but, seeing as there were fewer shadows around him than there had been, before, clearly things had changed. Where was Tephen? What had he said? The only thing he could recall being "gone" was...

He sighed and shivered at the memory. "The Bronze City," he said. "It's gone. The whole valley beneath the pass--the Fourth-Waters river ... the Semm; even Lake Alva--it's all ... gone."

"What? Buried by the storm?"

Rith felt himself start to sob. He shook his head and half-howled, half-cried, "Not buried: gone! There's nothing left! The world just falls off into ... into nothing! There's only storms, out there. Storms and emptiness!" No hand came, this time, at his outburst. More had approached, migrating from shadow to flickering firelight. "This storm; it ate it all..."

The patrolmen exchanged glances and all of them took steps, back. The image of large, powerful, wolven soldiers shivering in cold and fear backing away from a scrawny, runt of the litter would have been funnier if Rith hadn't been wracked with coughs and ensuing pain.

Eventually, he gained enough composure to focus his eyes on the nearest of them; the one who had cuffed him.

"Where's Tephen? Where's your ... lieutenant?"

If the man were inclined to strike Rith, again, he didn't show it. Instead, he just turned and walked outside of the makeshift shelter. The other one, the one who had been gambling with him, cast a sidelong glance at his fellows before responding.

"Lieutenant Aberson went up the road. He took three others with him."

Rith grew quiet and imagined what they would find. He stared into the fire for a long while before lifting his face to those surrounding him. He almost spoke, almost asked them for the one thing he could always demand, but stopped. Between them, in back, was the raven.

She stood in tatters, dust and mold upon her shoulders. Her right wing feathers swept the ground as she raised a talon to her beak as if to shush a talkative cub. None saw her. She loomed behind them all, crisp and clear without tinges of hallucination or dream. The chill that went through him forced his voice to stop before the words could come out. His eyes fixed on hers, wide and dilated. She stared back in the flickering firelight until, from one moment to the next, she simply was no longer there.

You must be the guide. The voice echoed in his mind, exactly as before. You must be the grounding; the mortal hands to grasp what gods cannot.

"Why me?"

The others had fallen back and started talking in low voices around the fire. If any of them, acute hearing or not, heard his words, they did not show it.

The Hand of Ishmar did not answer him. Instead, the voice came again: more insistent this time.

Travel west along the hills. At the broken lands you will find a ship. Use it. Descend into darkness. Claim the Scorpion's Spear. Let no one stand in your way.

He felt cowed and scared. All his life the mark of the tethic had brought him pain and fear. Now, it seemed, it had brought him labor. Again, he felt like speaking up - felt like asking them to end his suffering as only a weakling could. It was the one power he had. He had never thought to use it. But, now, his world was ending; literally, it was crumbling away into storm and nothingness. What more was there? Toil in the name of something that had only hurt him his whole life?

The mark of the afterlife didn't feel any different than any other patch of his fur but it weighed on him with a pressure of a thousand lifetimes. He was weak; small. In ramessin culture that and his marking was a sign that the gods were to use him as an object lesson.

But, now, they were adding labor to his burden.

He shook his head and felt a sob escape his muzzle.

"I don't want to... I'm ... tired. The world's ending. Just ... just leave me be."

The patrolmen looked at Rith, nervously exchanging glances.

"Did he just ask us...?"

"I ... I don't know. The Lieutenant said to keep him safe until he returns."

"That was two hours ago! What if the little shit's telling the truth? What if he never comes back?"

"Doesn't matter; orders are orders, and--"

"Screw orders! The world's ending! Maybe the Saeldrin continent's all that's left!"

"Well, I'm not afraid of ending the little runt."

One of the firelight-tinged shadows broke away from the others, a gleam of sharp metal in one, gloved hand. Rith's eyes followed it as it grew nearer and nearer. He wasn't certain but he felt as if, without consciously meaning to, he tilted his head: baring his furred neck.

The patrolman's sword loomed through the fire-pierced darkness.

"Hold!"

Tephen's shout brought everything to a halt. His men spun about, staring as he stepped between the two windbreaks to become outlined in their campfire light. Snow mounded up on his shoulders and his wraps were wind-tossed and dirty. Yet his clear, blue eyes pierced the veil of darkness. Each of the patrolmen swallowed and, after meeting that gaze, turned away.

Last, was the one who had bared his sword.

"But ... but, sir: he asked me to!"

The Lieutenant said nothing but kept his azure gaze upon the man until he sheathed his sword. Then, he turned to face Rith.

"He's not dying, tonight," he said. "None of us are. There has been too much death, already."

"What did you find, sir?" A different patrolman. His voice was fear.

"The tethic was right. It's all gone, beyond the pass. I don't know if it's just the snow and storm but ... there's no going that way, at least."

"Then what do we do? Camp here until we starve?" This was said by the man who'd just resheathed his sword.

Tephen glared at him. "If you wish to give up, then you're free to stay and die a coward's death. Shall I carve the tethic symbol into your forehead for you?"

The man blanched and hung his head, stepping back into shadow.

Tephen continued. "No. We stay the night, here, and tomorrow we set a course west. Into dagdarra territory. There, at least, we can find meat. And, maybe, if we go even farther, we may find a settlement. Hope."

"No; Tephen, don't..."

The weary, snow-covered man frowned at Rith's outburst. He walked forward and knelt in the snow. "You didn't choose death all those years ago," he hissed. "Are you seriously begging for it, now?"

With a whimper, Rith shook his head. "But ... but I saw her," he whispered. "I saw the Hand of Ishmar. She was here and she wants me to go ... west."

Tephen's scowl deepened. Then, after a moment, he rose and turned to face his men.

"Set a more permanent camp. We'll take a long sleep and get going midday. Weather does not kill a ramessin; we die when we grow too weary to go on! We will endure! We will hunt and we will find one of the western shore settlements even if we have to march two weeks to get there! Do you understand?"

The men, wolves all, snapped to attention and shouted their agreement.

"Good," the Lieutenant snarled. "Then get to work."

Rith lay back and shivered. In the darkness beyond the suddenly agitated patrolmen, he could have sworn he saw a flurry of feathers and an enormous, black beak.