Flashback The Power Of Bones

[Razkar]

Continued from here

36th of Summer, 508AV
Village of the Shorn Skulls
15th Bell

His mother always taught him that food caught by ones own hands always tasted the best. As usual, Yurta turned out to be right. Razkar had dined on roasted monkey since he had teeth, and yet gnawing strips of sizzling flesh from the bones of the little beast he'd taken down... it certainly added a certain flavor to it.

The rest of the family seemed to think the same way. A dozen Myrians sat around the bonfire and jabbered away with mouthfuls of succulent meat, socializing as all cultures did with food and good company. Now and then thanks or praise would be tossed his way, or to Zek. Even Querix, his ever-disapproving older sister - gave him a grudging complimnt.

"Nice to see there's something you can't petch up."

"Shut up!"

"Razkar?!"

"Sorry, motOW!"

Zek stifled a smile and jerked off another limb from his own monkey. Between the two of them, a score of the little meat-bags had fell under their poisoned arrows, dragged back to the village just as Syna had fell to her rest the night before. But that wasn't the night for feasting, of course.

"Give it a day for the poison to die in their veins," he'd told his son as the two had skinned the pile of dead primates, "Eat them too soon and you'll end up as stiff as them..."

But the meat wasn't all he focused on that afternoon. While the rest of the clan was tossing bones festooned with fat and charred gristle onto a basket for disposal, he noted Razkar was carefully hoarding his own... and only from the animal he'd killed.

The male's flickering, flinty glare caught Yurta's, and words were not needed to convey the same thought.

Yes, I see it, too. Yes, I know what he's planning. No, I won't let him traipse off without a guardian.

The War Mistress of the Shorn Skulls read all this in her husband's eyes and nodded shortly, going back to savaging a tasty thighbone. The male didn't bother with the stifling that time: she was allowing her son to grow, even if it was in a way neither of them particularly approved of.

The Power of Bones was not an exact art. Much could go wrong, as they'd seen from Mayla's experiences. The Witch of the Wilds was a powerful mage, true, and a master of the Power of Bones... but even she was a novice once, long ago, back when they were no older than little Jakuo, nibbling determinedly at a roasted shoulder.

"So..." the older male said casually, voice low at Razkar's side, "... when will you be doing it?"

"Doing what, father?"

A single stern gaze that screamed "don't fuck me around, son" was all it took.

"... when night falls, I think. All I need is the ink and something to carve with."

"I shall go with you."

Razkar's gaze jerked to his father like it had a line attached to it, but he knew better than to question that statement, simply because it was that. Young who questioned their Elders were not tolerated among the clan: when someone of Zek's age and status said a thing, especially to a younger male, that thing would happen. Instead he regarded his peaceably chewing father for a few ticks, then went back to his own half-eaten bone.

"You fear for me?"

"I fear for the unknown, when it concerns my son. You have but one prior experience with the Power of Bones. That does not make you a master of it. Should the worst occur, I will be there to end it."

In any other culture, it would have been a heartwarming statement worthy of a fond smile or even an embrace. But Razkar knew differently. His father loved him, love all his brood, but loyalty to the clan as a whole surpassed that tender emotion. Tenderness killed out in the Wilds: it bred hesitation and doubt and thus error and failure.

He knew his father would be there for him... and if the worst did occur, and he could not control that which he conjured forth, Zek would end him before the mad wyrd could spread.

Razkar ate in silence as his family laughed and joked around their bounty. Syna would be falling soon, and the night was ahead.

[Razkar]

There was never a true "silence" in the jungle. When one world fled the night and burrowed or bedded or slept, a whole new one opened bleary eyes and prowled around the darkness without it being a hindrance. Razkar could hear a myriad of unseen beasts slither and stalk, rustling leaves and patient footfalls the only sign to their passing... and the occasional squeals and growls of predator and prey, enacting an eternal, fatal dance.

That and the sodding bugs.

SLAP!

"Myri's Oath, buggers are big this year."

"You say that every year."

"Maybe they're getting bigger every year."

Razkar managed a snort and felt courageous enough to level a sharp retort at his father as the two helped one another over a massive fallen tree, downed for generations and now a horizontal habitat for a plethora of insects, mammals, reptiles and birds.

"Maybe... you're getting smaller... in your old age?"

"Old?" Zek's eyes went from full moons to half ones as he scowled at his son in the darkness. "If I were old, would I trust myself to watch over my foolish son as he endeavors this in the Power of Bones?"

"There is such a thing as senility, father."

"And when it takes me-" Zek said as he heaved his son back to his feet on the other side of the trunk "-you shall be the first to know. Until then, trust to your elders, for they did not live to be that way without some strength and guile."

Razkar was bold that night, heart humming with anticipation, but he was not so foolish as to press his father on that point. Myrians raised in the jungle, such as their clan, without the high walls or population of Taloba to aid them, learned fast how to survive. Sometimes that required strength and tenacity; mostly, though, patience, common sense and training won the day.

His father had seen nearly fifty Summers in the world. One did not walk that long the jungle without having all of the above.

"Does this place suit you, boy?"

Razkar stopped and looked around, for all the good it did. Syna was sleeping and Leth waxed high above them, but unseen thanks to the choking canopy. Slivers of silver cut through it in places, casting weird shadows and pale light on still leaves... occasionally on flashes of fur, fang, scale and feather.

But they'd been marching for chimes enough to get accustomed to the gloom, and now he could see they were in a rough clearing, probably made by the fall of the tree. Young trees and shrubs had spread across the bare earth in a matter of days, probably, greedily devouring the unclaimed ground. But most was still grass, enough room for a fire, and to work.

"Here will do."

Neither male needed to tell each other what to do. In silence, Father gathered sticks and dried moss; Son gathered slippery, fungus-encrusted stones, large enough to arrange them into a circle. He did so and Zek propped up the larger sticks so it was alike a tent without skin covering it, filling in the gaps with dried leaves, moss, twigs, kindling of all kinds.

"Father...?"

The old(er) male turned and gave an indulgent sigh. "You do so love to birth the flame, don't you?"

"Yes!"

"Then go to, boy..."

He wasn't idle as his son worked, however. As soon as he turned from Razkar, Zek's smile faded and he stalked around their clearing, one hand on the hilt of his ax, another on his dagger. Things big enough to crush branches, not just twigs and leaves, prowled beyond the flickering sparks Razkar was scraping from his gladius. Zek knew them of old, and they were far from the lights and noise of the village now.

Darkness died, however, as Razkar played midwife. With each high scrape of his flint against his gladius he seemed to spoon light and heat into the kindling until they gained purchase. Smoke began to twirl in the darkness, assailing his nostrils. Light joined it, little flecks of glowing kindling that eventually became flames, orange and red and yellow and casting their glow into a circle.

Zek locked eyes with the gimlets suddenly revealed by it. Pairs of eyes, feline and reptilian, that watched them with hunger and curiosity both. After a few more chimes, a crackling roar issued from the fire and he was satisfied.

Too hot. Too bright. They still fear the fire...

"Ready?"

Of course I'm not, Razkar suddenly wanted to say, honesty overcoming his mind's confidence and eagerness for a moment. Three breaths, however, were enough for him to quash it; time to reach into his bag and array his tools before his kneeling form.

A file with a fine, sharp tip. An offering bowl. And one by one, five bones, yellowed and still glistening in places with viscera. Two shin bones, two forearms... and a tiny, grinning, staring skull.

"Yes." His voice was low and he stroked the skull with reverence, even affection. "We are."

[Razkar]

Myrians, as finer scholars than I have noted, are not a particularly patient race. Hot-blooded as tigers and ferocious as piranha, they thrive on action, conflict, competition, challenges. Only on the hunt are they slow and methodical, and what Razkar embarked on now was... far from that.

Which was somewhat ironic, since it was hunting that gained him the precious bones to work this wyrd. But now the young male had to stow his eagerness and force his hands not to tremble. Lit by the flickering firelight, his file scratched against the bones and his lips moved endlessly in an eternal, comforting litany.

"Glory to Myri... Glory to Myri... Glory to Myri..."