The young pan struggled against the bindings, his head pinned awkwardly against the rock by the ropes where his horns caught. He did this to himself. His anger, his fury, had driven him to this end. Worse, the elf responsible for the deaths of his herd was gone. He stabbed the foul creature with its own weapon, all but guaranteeing its death but the one in red changed things. Proverbially pulled the pergola out from under him.
He hated the red one. Almost as much as hated the Wild Elf. It smelled wrong. Acted strangely. Nothing like the elves of these woods.
It was a curious emotion, this hate. He had never known such feelings before, nor had he known the hunt before his herd was slain as if they were nothing more than diseased livestock. He always heard about the elves of the Shalis-Fey. His Pundit mentioned it during preparation for his spirit journey, his Takewatha. But he was denied his acceptance to the World Spirit in his death, forced back, and unable to die until his task was complete. A revenant, risen for vengeance.
The wind ripped by him furiously, slapping his body with leaves and sticks caught up in the maelstrom of the open channel he resided in. Suddenly a large limb slammed into his flank. He felt his ribs shattered under the assault. He mewled in pain. Though he may be risen, he was not immune to pain. Moments later the bones mended, and he waited again for another impact.
Lightning flashed, and thunder bellowed through the sky. He blinked the pelting waters out of his amber eyes, and then he saw a movement. It was blurry, but he knew it was there.
The pan tried to turn its head to face the movement, but he only managed to slide the ropes lower down his horn, burying his fury arms into his snout. He snorted his displeasure vehemently.
He struggled once more to try to see where the movement came from. He took deep breaths to gain its scent. No use. There were so many scents blowing by second after second, he couldn’t tell what it was.
There was a flash, something glinting, like metal. The pan yanked and mewled. Though it was an unliving thing now, it wasn’t sure how it might regenerate if it were say, eaten, or his head cut from his body.
Immediately its head slammed back against the stone and he felt the bindings grow tighter. The pan roared in frustration, slamming itself against the stone in hopes of giving whatever predator might be out there, a second thought before committing itself to killing him.
The lightning flashed once more, and then he saw it. The red one. Well not so much anymore at least.
The red one’s armor was gone. Instead, its chest was naked. Bare olive flesh streaked in mud greeted the pan’s amber eyes. The mud was thick, and he could see shoots of sward sticking out at odd angles across the narrow frame of the creature. It was strange to see something so hairless before him. It was an ugly thing, too.
In its right hand, he could see it held its knife, in the left something long and dark, probably its bow covered in mud as well.
The pan knew then that this was how it was going to finish him off. Close. Personal. Perhaps it is what he deserved. His body should not heal as it did. He should be dead three times over. Perhaps the Great Spirit, Brahma, would reward him in his Takewatha if he endured the torments of the knife.
Brahma never was about violence. He was a peaceful god, and the Gaur a peaceful people. At least that was what his Pundit had trained. Pan studied this for his long winters. But something was different now. Changed. Was it the Great Spirit? Or his undeath?
In his raising, he became an arbiter of vengeance. He brokered a violence that he had never known. Used his abilities to create harm to others. Those that killed his people. He sought to honor the fallen herd that died for him.
He was the reason for the migration. They were on his spirit journey. The blood of the fallen was on his hands. Perhaps that is why Brahma would not accept him. Because the deaths were his, until he could atone. He would not succumb to this hairless ape.
Still the grey-eyed creature moved forward. Pan shook, raged, and fought with all his might to break his bindings. Once he thought they might slip, and he even watched the red one take pause. Still after a moment’s hesitation it continued forward.
The thing’s mouth began moving, and the pan realized that it was trying to speak to him. Bizarre chittering came from its mouth. It sounded like some small dainty forest animal. What was it doing? Praying to its deities? Was he an offering?
Then its mouth moved again, and the sounds were different. It was definitely speaking to him, but he had no clue what it was trying to convey. It swung the knife in short controlled movements in front of him. Jerky little movements. Again it spoke in even more different words.
Pan didn’t know what it was doing, taunting him perhaps? Showing him what it was going to do to him? Were the words a spell or an attempt to heckle him? Pan never tried communicating before with it before.
An image of one of the feathered arrows sticking out of the chest of one of his herd flashed in his mind. The slumped form, in its final resting pose, waist deep in a pond. Blood like pink ribbons moved about it in the shallow pool. The maul only a few feet away. The red one did that. The red one caused it. And there was a body of water right there. A large one. Why hadn’t it tried communicating then?
The gaur roared with all its might at the approaching red one. He didn’t want to talk. He looked at the puddles around him. It was possible to, but Pan was in no mood for taunts and jeers before the end. The red one wanted to kill him, and it wanted him to know it was going to kill him. Pan bucked and writhed angrily and he watched it flinch at his might. He thought, for a moment, he may have truly scared it, but was surprised when a grim determination took over its strange hairless face. Pan knew then that it was committed.
He tensed, preparing for the pain as the knife flashed forward. Instantly he felt its tip. Cold and sharp against the sensitive hair follicles on its torso. It was going to cut out his innards! It slashed down quickly.
Pan jumped away in terror at the idea of having its entrails removed. He no longer felt either the resistance of the binding or slam of his back against the boulder. Instead he moved away from the stone and the red one.
He stumbled backward, unprepared for his sudden freedom, and ended up tripping over his own hooves. He tumbled to the wet ground. He tried to brace himself, but still found his arms solidly bound. His elbow struck a gnarled root with a loud crack and he collapsed on his side.
Confused, the pan looked up at the approaching red one. He knew his entrails had not spilled out, and it was clear that the hairless thing before him had not missed. It intended on cutting him loose.
The gaur could see its knife was back at its waist, yet it still held something in its other hand. With one more ominous flash of lightning, the gaur finally made out what it was looking at. Horror set in. The red one held in its hands the pan’s last chance at redemption. It was the Pundit's totem.
~ ~ ~
Ashyn tensed as those amber eyes stared up at him in malice. He instantly knew why. It recognized the staff. Ashyn shook his head. So far he tried speaking to it in Trade tongue, Ferhym, Lefhym, and even Gnomish, but it was clear the creature didn’t understand him. Since principal communication was out, he knew he was going to have to rely on physical gestures. But he didn’t know anything about the race before him, other than it was not a minotaur.
It slammed its bound hands down in the mud in obvious rage. Water splashed about both the wizard and the bull. Its small eyes continued to stare at Ashyn with menace.
Ashyn tapped his chest. “I freed you.” He then pointed to the tree line. “Go!”
The creature snorted and stood up to its full height. This was closest he was to it while not camouflaged. It was enormous. What little light cast in the storm was muted by the shadow of the monstrosity before him. It beat on its chest and bellowed at Ashyn so closely its roar cast spittle upon Ashyn’s face.
Though disgusted and petrified at the act, Ashyn noticed one thing when it roared at him. Its teeth were long and flat. Ashyn’s suspicion was confirmed: the one before him was a plant-eater. He only hoped that meant it wasn’t inherently violent. That everything that happened was due to provocation.
Ashyn pointed to the staff, and then touched his chest again. “I need it.” He tried Draconic this time, it being the oldest language that he knew fluently. Still the effect was the same. The thing before him just didn’t understand.
Ashyn watched as it slammed its hoof down and pitched its head wildly. Like the elk, he realized. It may be sentient, but its mannerisms were still like its four-legged relatives.
It was threatening him, but not attacking. It was attempting to establish dominance without violence. He supposed that was a start. Every other time it just tried to kill him. Now it was only acting as if it was going to kill him. Had Ashyn earned its respect?
No, it was trying to take control. His respect wouldn’t drive it to take control. Because he saved its life, perhaps? Some code it may have. A debt?
Ashyn need only look in its eyes to know it still very much wanted to kill him. No this was definitely something else. Was it because he had the staff?
That was the only way to explain the creature’s behavior. It wanted him dead. Ashyn could read that clear as day from it. And it wanted him dead for more than just the Wild Elf. If it were just his alliance to Jenhiro that facilitated the hunt, it would have never attacked him at the waterfall. No, Ashyn knew with more clarity. It was the staff. He controlled the staff. He contained the beast.
So, Ashyn said the one word that was universal in every language he knew, “No.”
Whether it understood the language or not, it definitely understood the context. Immediately it slammed its fist into the boulder and roared at him with everything it could muster. Even with the pounding storm all around him, the noise was deafening. Ashyn refused to back down from its blustering. He stood tall and defiant against it, as his hawk-like gaze pierced the beast’s.
Ashyn did as his conscious dictated. He spared the bull from a very agonizing death. Now he had to try to save Jenhiro, and through that elf, reach his sister.
The wizard slowly backed away. The bull, remained, staring and slamming its hooves into the ground. Ashyn made it five feet, then ten, then fifteen.
The pelting rainwaters obscured the creature’s form into a hazy shadowlike wraith once more. He was almost free of it. Almost ready to take the staff back to Jenhiro and try to start a fire. Almost.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a sudden movement. Ashyn dove out of the way as the beast charged head first past where Ashyn was seconds before. Its horns slammed violently into a sequoia with a loud crack. Dazed, it shook its head and began searching for him. But Ashyn was already running once more.
~ ~ ~
Stupid! Stupid! he chastised himself. The creature had been pinned and had he not intervened would have died. Why couldn’t it see that he meant it no harm? Twice now he spared it. Couldn’t it see that?
He desperately wished he could communicate with it in some way, let it know that he was only defending himself against the other one that he killed. That if there were any other way he would’ve taken it. But would he have though?
Ashyn slowed slightly as the thought came to him. He made the decision so quickly to kill. Agreed with Jenhiro before even knowing his adversary. He judged it on look alone and deemed it worth death.
A crash behind him shook him from his thoughts, and he pushed through the tall ferns and around another one of the massive trees.
Ashyn felt remorse for his actions of course, and it dawned on him that for some reason he didn’t feel as guilty as when he took the branch commander’s life, an elf who was hell bent on his death and the deaths of all wizards, and he had cried. Cried!
Yet, here he took the life of another sentient being, and all he felt was a little guilt? Was that because of his conscience, or the fact that he was hunted by its ilk? Did the fact that it looked so different from him make him think that it was somehow less of a person? That it was more animal?
The reality revolted him. That he, one who was to value all life, looked at the bull as if it was nothing more than a beast, even after knowing its sentience
He knew now how racism was born. How easy it was to judge what he feared and didn’t understand and brand it. “Like me,” he hissed to himself, thinking of all the winters of ostracization at the hands of the people of Bremingham for the color of his skin, for his strong intellectual mind that they couldn’t comprehend. He was called a freak, a pariah, a demon.
A dui Nuchada.
“I am no different than they are,” he huffed to himself while he scrambled back up the rise he had originally fallen down. He needed to get more distance between himself and the raging bull he wronged.
It was a difficult thing to swallow. That with all his intelligence, and higher learning at the hands of a wizard, he was still capable of such ignorance.
A roar and a shattering of branches behind him brought him back to the moment. He had hoped that in freeing it, that it would have left. It appeared that it was going to come down to who killed the other. The bull wasn’t going to stop.
Ashyn continued to climb the mud-slicked terrain. Heat rolled from his body even though pelted in water. Ashyn’s hair fell like long wet noodles against his head. The stubble on his arms and face collected grit from his trekking and had created long, grimy streaks on his body.
He thought that maybe if he could lose the bull quickly enough, he could hide in the cave and wait the storm out. As if answer to those thoughts a sudden torrent of downpour assailed him even harder. Ashyn reached out to grab at a gnarled root with his free hand to hold on lest he be hurled back down the precipice.
In his other hand, he struggled to hold onto the staff-like object. Suddenly the root gave way from the soft soggy earth and Ashyn felt himself wheel backward. Instinct drove the staff downward to try and steady himself, and he was alarmed when the staff sank into the ground of its own accord. He was holding onto an immovable anchor. He grasped it with his other hand and pulled himself close, trying hard not to question the physics of how an object only two or three inches into the muck was holding him as sturdily as one of the massive trees around him.
Water ran over the top of the grade he was standing on, and soon came tumbling down around him bringing with it all the loose detritus in its wake. It was a small landslide, and Ashyn was caught in it.
Ashyn screamed as he leaned against the staff. Water and refuse ripped at his legs threatening to pull him under. It grew in volume reaching up to his knees, tugging at his clothes and grasping at his body. The wizard’s hands throbbed as he tightened his grip against the staff even more. His knuckles were white, his breaths labored and ragged. Ashyn’s arms shook as the mud pulled viciously at him and his scream ripped at his throat until it died completely and all he could do was grit his teeth and hold on or be pulled below.
Then just as quickly as it started, it was gone. With trembling arms, Ashyn leaned against the staff and looked down at the churning morass behind him. Likely the bull was down there, buried now. If the creature was within that mass, it was lost.
The boy wizard looked back to the staff that just saved his life. What was it? He knew of nothing like it from any texts or tomes. The strength of it defied order. It was little more than a quarterstaff, with an unusual stone atop it, and a sharpened spear-tip at the base, and yet it was so much more.
Curiously, he reached down around the shaft and pulled, wondering if there was any way he could release it from the earth after it had anchored him so securely. He gasped as it slid free effortlessly.
He held it up and looked at it, almost in reverence in the dim light. This stick was a curiosity to be sure, but it could help him save Jenhiro, and probably help him save Julietta.
Ashyn looked back down the hill. If only he had the chance to learn more about that race of bull men. If only he hadn’t been so quick to judge. He shook his head angrily.
“Learn from this,” Xexial would have told him. His master believed in losing, so to speak. “There is either succeeding, or there is learning. Every failure is a lesson. And as long as you learned something from that failure then it was a valuable lesson,” his mentor told him often.
He would not judge one who looked so differently again. That was the lesson learned.
Ashyn finished his climb; the rain lessened slightly making the trek back to the cavern easier to navigate. Within minutes he could just make out the craggy rock-like formations that led to the small opening. Hopefully he could figure out how to manipulate the odd staff to ignite something. Perhaps there were dried bones in the cavern.
If he could get a fire, he could treat the wounds on Jenhiro, and cauterize them to keep him from bleeding out.
Ashyn bent down and ducked his head inside the opening. The same musky, dank odor from before assailed him. In the darkness a pair of gleaming yellow eyes stared at him. For the first time in a while, Ashyn smiled.
He felt a heavy impact against his right shoulder. He looked down in confusion to see two thick mud-covered fingers the size of bananas wrap around his collarbone. Before the realization of what it was set in, he was ripped out from the entrance and sent flying.