Tribal Legends - Breath of Darkness
Tribal Legends
a suite of stories
Written down and translated by Sharpfang '99. You can copy this story freely as long as no contents are changed
Breath of Darkness ================== The Story of Earth
A tribal legend by Aris, translated and written down by Sharpfang.
Dedicated to Lupustooth
Ages ago, when metal was largely unknown but the tribes of furries had already left the darkness of speechless animals' life, there was a peaceful tribe of horses, living in a big, grassy valley among low mountains covered with woods. The life was relaxed and easy, there were very few dangers, so only a few warriors were needed to fight off the problems the tribe encountered.
One of the warriors was a young stallion named Korin. He wasn't the strongest nor even very brave, but he was quite clever and knew which problems he could solve alone and which he needed help with.
It was summer, early afternoon, a sunny day when he was patrolling the borders of the valley walking the path along the mountain crest, as was his routine. In such days no tradgedies occured. Predators sought easier prey, no animal could stand against his stone-bladed spear. He climbed the highest of the mountains and from the grassy summit he looked over his tribe's land. It was beautiful, calm and quiet. Yet he felt a cold wind run through his mane and felt afraid. He sensed something terrible behind him. He turned his head but saw only mountains around another valley covered with woods. The sensation remained, radiating from some place down in the valley. After some consideration, he decided to go there and check whether it was just his imagination, or a real danger. After long wanderings through the forest, still feeling the disquiet rising in him, he entered a narrow ravine in the forest. The vegetation revealed nothing surprising - broken old branches of trees, bushes, small plants beside the tiny stream which was eminating a rancid odour. The high trees were letting little light through their leaves and branches.
He continued negotiating the stream looking nervously around. The source of the unpleasant sensation was close. Shortly he stood over rotten corpse of some animal, apparently dead for at least a month. His heart was pounding heavily. He looked around. There was a small cave under bent branches of a tree in the wall of the ravine. There was no power that could force him to enter it now, alone. Korin turned back and retreated to his valley, to his tribe.
He told what he had seen to his shaman and the old horse decided to go with other elder horses to the top of the mountain where Korin felt the sensation before. They returned in the late evening and none doubted there was something there.
"We aren't a tribe of warriors. To investigate that place we will need help," announced the chief of the horses. They agreed on requesting assistance from the nearby tribe of wolves. The two tribes didn't like each other because when hard winters arrived, the starving wolves sometimes killed a foal or an old horse and then horse warriors took bloody vengeance on them, but in difficult times of danger or natural disaster they helped each other, knowing that it would be harder to survive without each other. The cave was located the same distance from the wolves village as from the horses valley - so the wolves should be equally concerned. A messenger was sent to ask the wolves for support and an explaination of the mystery, if they had one to give - and a plea to send their best warriors and shaman to meet the horse warriors and shaman on some neutral grounds - then both shamans would bless the warriors and cast their strongest spells to protect them before they entered the cave.
But the messenger returned much faster than they expected. Halfway to the wolves' village he had met the wolves' messenger going to the horses' valley with exactly the same message. The shaman and the warriors took all the necessary equipment and went to the meeting place.
Several wolves and horses met on a glade in the mountains, outside of the sphere of fear. Both shamans spent whole night on casting spells and praying, and before dawn the horse shaman told the warriors to sleep and worked a spell that revitalized them after just two or three hours of sleep.
The ravine looked unchanged since Korin left it. First the strongest ones, then other warriors entered the cave. The spells let them see perfectly in the darkness and protected them from many earthly dangers but couldn't fight the fear in their hearts. The cave was low and narrow but shortly they entered a bigger chamber. In the middle there was a lair made of hay and dry branches and a small wolf puppy was sleeping on it.
"We must kill it. It's the source of this evil." - said the leader of the horses. Suddenly one of the wolves stood in front of the puppy saying "No, I won't let you, that's just an innocent puppy." Some other wolves joined him, then one of the horses. Then one of the wolves thought the puppy should be killed. Soon the party was split in two groups, both sides with mixed furries from two tribes. The exchange of the arguments was getting harder and suddenly, without warning, one of the wolves defending the puppy attacked and killed with his spear the wolf leader who was in the other group. One of the horses attacked his leader too, and they began fighting. Shortly everyone was fighting. Korin understood that the evil puppy took over some of his friends... and now it was winning. Some of those defending the little wolf were dead, most of those who wanted to kill it, too, and the last of them were mercilessly murdered. Korin, unnoticed, snuck out through the tunnel and ran to his village as quickly as he could, to relay the news. He was shocked, he had never seen so much anger, senseless deaths and blood before. With difficulty he told the elders everything and the shaman replied that he was now their last hope and that the wolf puppy had to be killed.
So Korin, tired, hungry, and bleeding from several smaller wounds, headed back to the cave of evil. Without fear, feeling only in despair, he entered the cave and faced another shock: remains of a feast. Corpses of several horses and wolves half-eaten and many meat bones bearing bitemarks of wolves and horses...! The puppy was there too, while all the others were gone. Korin gripped his spear tightly and pierced the lovely small cuddly puppy with all his strength. The stone blade broke against the floor while the puppy's body wriggled on the shaft and it died. The anger in Korin suddenly began rising. Did they, in the valley, care about him? Why did they want this small, poor puppy to die? Because of ridiculous fear? Then Korin felt the hunger too...
That night together with other warriors he attacked his own nation, the next night - the wolves' village. After a few months last of their tribesmen were murdered - Only those few mad, blood-thirsty warriors were left searching for new victims. Other tribes, after being attacked a few times, organised themselves against the invaders, trapped and killed the unfortunate warriors.
Through costly effort of shamans and sorcerers from many tribes, trying to stop the strange zone of fear from expanding and growing stronger - they found it was impossible to destroy it, they only stopped its intensity from growing - and as it was increasing its range it was getting weaker and weaker. After many years, though weak, it covered the whole world... Nowadays no one can locate the cave and the source of the zone anymore, and what then was strange now feels natural, making us all afraid of the unknown and wanting to fight it, and from time to time making someone notice that others aren't fair to them and making them decide to try to change it using fangs
. . . . . Sharpfang Sun 15:10 10.10.99