The Hunt

[Cheomesh]

The first of two stories I wrote for an old setting.  They're nothing great, in fact this one is pretty poor IMO, but I thought I would share it so if I once day feel like revising it I can.  Also, if I actually practice some writing skills that I have forgotten since early on in college, maybe I'll write a few more for my current setting.

HUNT
   Roland had heard that riding alone in the forest is bad luck. As much as he would have preferred to bring his friends with him, today's activity was something he felt he needed to do by himself.  It was early too, and the task he was set out to do was dangerous.  Dressed in warm clothes and wrapped in a cloak to ward off the chill of winter, a boy sat upon the back of an old riding horse.  It was solid beneath him; its strength belying the age to which it had served his master, the boy's father, a noble with his own lands outside the walls of Rom.  The boy, so perched in the saddle, was the nobles' third son, and far removed from the traditional inheritance of opportunity granted to the first offspring in a family.  He was the most like his father in looks, with the same dark and curly hair, the same thin lips and stubby nose.  Unattractive by the standards of his sisters and their friends, he was never a charmer.  He had, however, trained hard and knew how to lead well in spite of his age.  Much like his brothers and those before him, he had trained in the art of warfare for many years before this day, and he hoped inside the years of instruction would serve him well.
   It was misty in this early hour.  In the darker and colder season of winter, the vapors from the rains would trap around the trees and create a fog, obscuring details in the distance.  Today he sought to kill a creature, any creature, which he could kill and bring back to his brothers as proof of his manhood.  He sought to impress Worren, his eldest brother, the most.  Worren would be inheriting father's lands and properties upon his death, and if he could win good favor from him, perhaps his brother would allow him to sub-let part of the property, or serve as a soldier and retainer in his personal guard.  It would be a good position, he thought to himself.  He was untalented in the arts of healing and, unlike his older sister, completely non-magical.  He also did not care much to travel far from home and do deeds under someone else's banner as a mercenary.
He thought through likely targets for himself as he shifted in the saddle, adjusting the three foot long sword at his side.  The giant spiders were common in the forest, especially since the magical beings which had hastened its growth settled down for their long sleep, but were not particularly difficult to kill, nor something one would want to mount on their wall.  Spider eaters could sometimes be found, but with their twenty foot wingspan and ten foot long body they would prove tough to kill.  The females are the worst. Using their nasty sting, they are able to implant larvae within those that threaten then.  The boy had lost a cousin from this, eaten alive from the inside out before anyone knew he had been implanted.  The minotaur also dwelt in the forest, but most of them could easily toss the hunting boy to his death with no effort on their part.
   He brought his horse to a halt.  A tiny clearing stood ahead, a perfect spot to set up the camp from which he would search for some fell creature to bring to its doom.  Sliding from the saddle, he unpacked his supplies.  He had brought several days worth of food, mostly dried meats from the smokehouse back home.  He was particularly fond of the jerky made from ketter, the small feathered lizards kept and raised in pens normally for their eggs.  A tent made from the hide of a tridon would serve as his shelter if he needed to stay for more than a single day, which he vehemently hoped he would not.  His bow, well crafted and well used, was unstrung from travel and was laid out with the rest of the camp gear.  A heavy bag from behind the saddle was next, and dropped noisily to the ground.  Inside was a coat of maille, an expensive armor made from thousands of interlocked iron rings.  It was Worrens, a gift from father.  He didn't have permission to use it that day, but his brother rarely ever had to don the forty five pound shirt of iron anyway, so he was sure he wouldn't mind so much if he brought back a particularly fascinating beast and exciting tale to go with it.  The last bit of unpacking was simple, just removing the buckler from the bridle it had been tied to.
   He tied his horse to a tree, and sat down to eat.  He had been far too nervous to do anything earlier in the morning when he had snuck off, leaving only a note explaining why, and now the sun was climbing in the sky reminding him that his stomach was empty.  Chewing on some bread, freshly baked the morning before, he sat with his back to a tree, thinking through what he could bring home to impress his family.  A satyr, he thought, would be an interesting foe.  His father had a distinct dislike for satyrfolk, as they were outsiders once serving under some evil master, or so the stories say.  It was from these creatures that minotaur were created, an experiment of hobgoblin wizards for some military application.  He was sure, however, that no satyr lived in this part of the forest, and if they did they would be insane and probably hard to nail down in a fight.  He had heard tales of adventure in the past where certain satyrfolk could fly into a rage of death in combat, becoming neigh impossible to kill save with potent spells or powerful combat skills to thwart them.
   Rising, he stretched against the tree.  It was still early, and too chilly still to do too much walking about in strange woods.  Taking up his uncle's sword, and the buckler so often seen in use by those of Rom, he began to work through his daily warm-up.  As he cut from ward to ward against the empty air, he kept an ear out for anything amiss.  The pteridon kept their squawk above as they flew through the canopy of trees, and no rustling of branch or leaf could be heard, so he continued his routine.  It was then, between a cut from second to first that he saw something from the corner of his left eye.  He couldn't make out what it was, but it left the impression of something standing erect in his mind.  Turning towards it, he saw nothing, but branches where he stared were moving as if someone had pushed through it.  Lowering his sword, he advanced towards the movement in the sixth ward, expecting trouble. These woods were simply not traveled by normal folk.  Nobody made settlement here and the only thing in the depths he had traveled to were monsters who killed humans.  He peered around himself upon reaching those branches, but saw nothing.  Looking up, taking guard against anything that may have climbed up to attack from above, he saw naught but leaves and trees.  He recalled a story from his youth about a being called an ettercap.  Failed experiments to merge man and spider done by a Kadist wizard from Rom itself, these creatures had slain their master and escaped to the forests before anyone could set persuit.  They were supposed to be ugly creatures capable of elaborate traps, or so the few who claimed to have met them told others.  He was not fond of those tales.
   Returning to his clearing, he checked on his horse.  It stood, grazing on some bush at the base of the tree it was tied to.  If it had seen what he had seen, it clearly wasn't spooked in the least.  He set back to his drill, fluidly cutting and transitioning from ward to counter.  Again, between assuming the crutch and transitioning to half shield, he saw something again from his left side.  This time the horse appeared to have seen it as well, raising its head and staring where the figure had been.  Roland approached this spot, but just before reaching the edge of this clearing where the branches once again moved, he spun around to quickly glance behind him, something he gleaned from tales of high adventure told by bards and scops back home.  What he saw then shocked him.  A woman, completely naked, stood on the other side of the clearing, peering from the trees lining it.  Her flesh was the color of well waxed wood, and if it wasn't for the shadows surely playing tricks on him, he would have sworn she WAS wood.  She quickly withdrew from the edge of the clearing the moment she was spotted.  He called out for her to stop, giving chase, but by the time he breached the clearing on the other side he had lost track of her.
   He returned to his camp site, somewhat confused.  It was early winter, but far too cold to wander around these woods naked.  That aside, he had never seen a woman like that before.  It was a strange skin color, though the shadow likely cloaked her true skin.  He realized that the two seconds he spent staring at her he spent fixated on her exposed breasts.  He hadn't gotten a face, or a hair color, so he could not discern where this woman could have been from.  She certainly wasn't Orcish, as the gray-green flesh of Orcfolk would not appear the warm brown hers did.  It wasn't Satyr nor minotaur, and ettercap have no breasts, so it was surely some human.  A witch, perhaps, he thought.  It is said that witches never dress like proper folk, instead exposing themselves to the elements regardless of season.  Deciding to hold off on further drill for the moment, he dropped his cloak and donned his gambeson.  Made of linen and stuffed with dried flax, it was warmer than the shirt he wore.  Sliding the coat of maille over the gambeson and tying the cloak back around him, he gathered his weapon and buckler from the ground where he dropped them.  He was an impressive figure, at 5' 10' and armored.  Reaching into the bag, he pulled out his helmet.  Unlike the maille, this helmet was actually his.  It was a functional if not beautiful piece, complete with nose guard.  He had originally intended to bring his shield but lacked room on his horse to secure it, and he felt it would be too long and encumbering if he was to search the forest on foot.  He was familiar with fighting in maille, as part of his upbringing required it as such, and was comfortable that he could take on anything that threatened him here.  In truth, he was spooked, and the armor and weapons helped him to feel more secure.  He was, after all, alone in the middle of a magical forest inhabited with all sorts of nasty creatures.
   It wasn't for another two hours that he heard anything other than the pteradon in the trees.  This time, it was a voice, and a deep one at that, making some sort of words.  He stood, turning towards the faint sound.  As he walked towards it, away from the clearing, he sounded almost like singing, but not in a language he knew.  Making sure not to be spotted, he circled around the sound, attempting to not meet the source head on.  He was successful and after a few moments of movement, he found what he was looking for.  There, in front of him between some trees in another, larger clearing, was a minotaur.  It was a young one, judging by the not fully developed horns, but it was already clearly taller than he was.  Cursing himself for not bringing his bow, he turned to make his way back to his things.  As he went to stand he saw the woman again, this time a mere five feet before him.  This time she did not run, but instead held her ground and studied the boy before her.  Roland got a good look at her.  A shaft of sunlight illuminated her, revealing her flesh to be quite the color he believed it first to be.  Her hair, a strange texture and a stranger shade of grey brown, looked almost out of place on a young looking person, or whatever she was.  Her eyes were alluring, peaceful, relaxing even.  She took a step back, and he stepped forward, not finding the words of greeting he was looking for.  The minotaur bellowed.
   The sudden sound of the minotaur broke his trance, and hearing it take steps towards his end of the clearing, Roland acted decisively.  Drawing his own sword and pulling free his buckler, he charged out towards the clearing at an angle.  Emerging into the empty spot to the right of the minotaur, he adopted a high guard, holding the buckler before him.  The minotaur held in its hands, standing seven or so feet away, a spear, apparently of fire hardened wood.  It was long, and held aggressively as the minotaur turned to engage Roland.  Dropping to underarm, he and the minotaur circled around each other.  It was the beast that struck first, and skillfully so, changing the direction if his thrust to avoid the oncoming weapons parry.  The tip of the spear hit the boy in his left side, hard, just above the end of his ribs.  The spear, having solidly connected with the maille, snapped.  Roland, receiving the force of the blow, stumbled back.  Ignoring the pain for the moment he adopted half shield as the minotaur held the remainder of his spear.  It was still just shy of three feet long, and thick, not to mention broken at the end and sharp enough to pierce exposed flesh.  The minotaur hesitated, and dropping to first ward Roland fell under the club of his enemy, using his momentum to pin the minotaur's arm, disabling use of his weapon, while simultaneously cutting to his adversaries head.  Against any man this would have killed him, but the damn horn, curling back away from the beasts face, received the blow.  The minotaur bellowed, falling back away from the swordsman, and coming at him from above with the club.  Moving forward and right, Roland cleared the line of attack while bringing his sword upwards from underarm.  This time, the blow cut clean across the exposed belly of the creature.  The blade bit deep.  Pulling back into half shield, Roland watched the minotaur grab for its now open gut.  Enraged, the young creature attacked, this time in a thrust covering its weaker point.  Moving forward and left, Roland kept his point up, moving out of line of the attack (which the minotaur moved to his left in an effort to head off Roland, who went the other way), and delivered the thrust directly into the minotaur's throat.
   The creature was, unsurprisingly, taken somewhat aback that it was suddenly dead.  Dropping its club as Roland pulled his weapon free from the minotaur's ruined throat, the creature grasped at its new wound while sinking to the ground.  Making a gurgling noise as air escaped from the bloody hole in its neck, the minotaur's eyes shut and its breathing stopped.  The clearing was silent.
   Wiping the blood from his blade, Roland was mixed inside.  He had never before killed something so large and alive.  He had slain the few random monstrous spiders that had crossed his path in the less dense woods closer to home, and had of course hunted for all manner of game, but this one felt somehow different.  This was a thinking creature.  It wasn't a very skilled fighter, but it still adapted quickly in combat and showed actual thought.  He wondered what had set it off after him in the first place.  It didn't see him outside of the clearing, and it couldn't have heard him over the sounds it was making, so how did it know just where to charge all of a sudden?  Was the strange creature that looked like a woman involved, or was it pure coincidence?  He picked up the killing end of the minotaur's spear.  As he suspected, it was simple fire hardened wood, precisely as he had been taught to do by his father when camping.  Near the tip, a cord of what looked like vine secured a few feathers hanging from the shaft along with some clay beads.  As he inspected his kill, he noticed near the spot where it originally stood a leather sack of some kind.  It looked suspiciously like an animal's stomach, in fact it probably was.  Inside, he found a few bones, a few tarnished silver coins, and what looked like an unfinished necklace, adorned with feathers and clay beads.  He then set to the corpse.  It was tough work, but he managed to separate the minotaur's heavy head from its body with repeated cuts from his sword.  Luckily, the wound had bled the creature, so no further dressing was required.  Carrying the loot and the head back to his camp, he placed it in the bag the maille was in.  Quickly he gathered up his gear and repacked the horse.  Cradling the bag with the head, and still wearing his armor, he urged the horse onwards, away from the site.  He took off back home, six silver and two stories richer.


M.

[Cheomesh]

Wasn't until today that I realized copy-paste gives us shit formatting.  I'll fix it in a bit.

M.