King of the Hill

[Tribal]

4 Winter, 515 AV
6th Bell, Sunrise
Stardown

Everyone at the Hunters Allegiance had been up in arms and news of the attack spread through well-known hunting circles. Spearback were a relatively new species to the Sea of Grass, and like all new fauna that had appeared after the djed Storm of 512 there had been a settling period. Hunters and animal enthusiasts from all over Cyphrus had spent a full cycle of seasons watching, stalking, and recording the behavioural patterns, territories, and habits of these strange creatures, and of three things they could be sure; Spearback were afraid of humans, they hibernate during the winter in underground burrows, and attacks on campsites were up until now unheard of. So what had caused the Spearback to brave the season's first frost in favour of their warm winter dens?

"A blood trail in the snow leading north towards Stardown," one young man piped up, "that's all they were able to find."
"Suicide," an elderly man grumbled and shook his head rebelliously; "I won't be sending any of my sons out to track them down, not in those kinds of numbers."
"What if they come back?"
"They won't," he tried to assure everyone in a gruff tone of voice "Spearback always hibernate, they can't survive above ground in winter."

[Colt]

Whisper.

It was a word he was familiar with. ‘Whisper’ was the name he had chosen for himself, and not without cause; Shahar Dawnwhisper was more than a quiet man––he was a man made of quiet. The whisper of wind in the grass. The whisper of earth beneath a wayward hoof or paw. The whisper of birds as they called back in forth, not out of alarm, but out of love and reassurance of presence. In many ways, the times the world whispered were more telling than those times it chose to shout.

And it was whispers that welcomed him home.

Shahar and Snow had begun their trek more than an hour before sunrise. The shallow overhang they had tucked themselves under hadn’t been that far away from the city of tents to begin with, but Snow wanted to get started early––the echoes of defeated anger and hurtful thoughts had made her sleep restless, and she didn’t want to linger in dreams that plagued both of them with guilt; their fight was over, their feelings lain bare, and both of them wanted to leave behind those things they would rather forget they had done to each other. She wanted to heal in wakefulness before wallowing in slumber, and so they roused themselves during the gray time before dawn and made to return home, silently reveling in the renewed strength of one another’s love. They would see their family within hours and apologize for their absence and then things would return to the way they were supposed to be.

It was by sheer chance that they came across the rabbit, injured by an unfortunate night and unable to run from Snow’s teeth and Shahar’s javelins. They dispatched it with practiced fluidity just within sight of the pavilions dotting the horizons, and on a whim Shahar decided to make a small detour to the Hunter’s Allegiance––the rabbit’s pelt and heart would be a fair exchange for assistance in preserving the meat. Perhaps a small addition to the Dawnwhisper’s stores would stave off ill will from Naiya over his two-day absence; he hadn’t meant to be gone so long.

He felt the whispers almost the moment he set foot in his destination. It was the thick feeling of something being not quite right, birthed by the gentle susurrus of the other hunters murmuring to one another in tense, worried tones; ‘Never happened before,’ they said. ‘No explanation.’ ‘All dead.’ ‘Scout’s Bane? There were no scouts in that pavilion.’ ‘Poor bastards.’

A blood trail in the snow leading north towards Stardown.

But the trail was dismissed; it was suicide, others said. Nothing to do. It would be foolish.

But what if they come back?

They won’t. Spearback always hibernate, they can’t survive above ground in winter.

That was true, as long as one didn’t count the fact that they had just come above ground, in winter, and attacked an outlying pavilion in an entirely non-hibernating manner.

The rabbit found itself another use in parlaying more specific information out of the others populating the Allegiance. In exchange for his kill, Shahar was granted the indescribable relief of learning the pavilion’s name––and that the name was not Dawnwhisper. No, it had been another unlucky family that made its home on the outskirts.

But it hadn’t been far at all from the camp the Dawnwhispers called home.

With less weight in his hands but more weight in his heart, Shahar followed the whispers out of the Hunter’s Allegiance. He knew that stretching his absence longer would put further strain on his family and Naiya, but surely there would still be plenty of time in the day once he was done. He couldn’t go back yet until he knew for certain what had been wrought, because he needed[/color] to see. He had to find the blood trail, at least. Just to see where it went. He would find the trail, and then he would follow it north for as long as he needed to; the old man’s reassurances were empty in trying to say that something would not happen again, when the exact thing had literally just happened.

Something was wrong. The whispers told him that no one was going to follow the trail of blood. And if no one else was going to find out what was wrong, then Shahar would take up that task himself.

[Tribal]

The hunting season was over, not that hunting truly ever ended in Endrykas. People needed to eat and come spring the Drykas could usually count on there being more and more mouths to feed. Shahar’s offering was readily accepted and the information he managed to gather as trade put him on the right track to finding out where the Spearback had come from. Hazelweed had been the name of the pavilion devastated by the late night attack where the Scout’s Bane has come in and wreaked havoc on the young pavilion, leaving in their wake a bloodbath for the campsite next door to discover early this morning.

“They only come out at night to graze and eat snakes,” a man had told Shahar, “poisonous ones, that’s how their quills produce a toxin that can paralyze a Glassbeak long enough for them to start devouring it while it’s still alive.”
“The toxin won’t kill you,” his younger brother admitted as they carved up the rabbit and started divvying it up to roll the meat in salt, “but if a handful of those barbs penetrate your flesh, you’re done for.”
“Two chimes,” the older of the two brothers held up his right hand with fingers splayed, “After that, you won’t be able to move and they’ll come for you.”
“They don’t hunt in groups… not like this.”
“Especially during the winter, something seems off if you ask me.”

The blood trail took Shahar across country, the light blanket of unusual snow this far south helping to preserve the trail, at least until the sun came up or the rain rolled in. Of course, the weather over Stardown seemed to have its own agenda, the high walls of the crater often trapping cloud that warmed up and saw that the area got a lot of rain, promoting healthy plant growth and the surrounding biome to thrive.

Stardown was hollow and for the most part covered in lush, green grass, while its walls were dotted with groupings of trees and thick undergrowth which made them difficult to climb. It was not only the inside of the dome that benefited from all the rain, but the outside of its high walls which grew just as thick with flora. To get to the top would take a man half a day on foot at least, though the blooded footprints in the snow outside of the crater seemed to suggest that Shahar wouldn’t need to go that far to track down the Spearback that had made the trek to and from the city of tents overnight.

The treeline at the base of the crater was silent and still, and other than the odd low song of a bird or the gentle caress of the winter air, Shahar might be led to believe that he was alone, perhaps even safe. The prints that littered the snow laden earth grew thin here before fanning out and snaking into the undergrowth in different directions. The trees scattered along the base of the crater cast long, dark shadows across the earth, and at a glance, the mouths of the Spearback burrows weren’t hard to spot, dotted here and there amongst the undergrowth, usually a good fifty metres away from each other.

[Colt]

The rabbit’s absence was palpable when it left––perhaps it would be best to not mention to Naiya that it had ever existed––but the information he gained in return was well worth it.

Hazelweed, the pavilion was called. A young pavilion, with only two survivors.

The spearbacks were snake-eaters, of the nocturnal variety. Snake venom became spearback venom, which lay in the points of their quills––quills that they could stick in any man or animal that hunted them or otherwise intended them harm, and venom that would paralyse him within two chimes.

But, despite what the old one had said, there was something else. Something different about these spearbacks, because they weren’t supposed to hunt in groups, not the way they had hunted down the Hazelweeds.

With this in mind, Shahar began his search with utmost caution, something that spilled over to Snow without needing to be requested. When they found the trail, she surmised on her own what it was they were doing; she knew the pavilion wasn’t theirs, but she also knew that it very well could have been, and so she knew that, immediate or not, there was a very direct threat to their home––something to be investigated before all other things.

Akaidras, too, was on edge at the sight of the trail and the scent of what had happened to the Hazelweeds. He walked quietly, uneasily, hyperaware of his rider and of the white canine that fell into practiced step on the right-hand side, and also of the empty space on the left-hand side where Tuka was not with them.

But the sight of the trail caused something entirely different within Shahar. The snow, pure and pristine and soft all around, and the shimmering drops of red leading into the open grasses like rubies––it was familiar to him. It made his stomach turn with a myriad of emotions: recognition, deja vu, confusion, worry.

Follow, She had said.

Follow, to what? The image of the tree and of Her lay sharp in his mind, as if he had seen it only yesterday. Because it was impossible to deny to himself that he had seen this before.

The trail of blood did indeed draw them north, to the wide bowl of the Stardown. There the land sloped skyward, gently at first but turning sharper as the peak shifted into the sheer inner walls. But the Stardown interior didn’t seem to be their destination; the trail led instead to the line of trees at the slope’s base, where shivering grass gave way to thicker brush and undergrowth, huddled neatly beneath the bare once-canopies of the timber. At the treeline the trail split into several, as the spearbacks that had wrought the carnage parted ways and slid back into their individual burrows.

Shahar dismounted lightly, careful to avoid a heavy thump as he returned to his own two feet; he didn’t know the perception abilities of spearbacks, but he didn’t want to risk disturbing even a single bird if he could avoid it. Snow’s caution was doubled as he joined her on the ground, and she placed herself at his side on high alert. Shahar was the elder hunter; if he was going to unravel the mystery he was chasing, he needed to be fully present in the world before him. And Snow’s ears were the sharpest of the two of them; while he put the entirety of his mind towards the ground, Snow would put the entirety of hers towards the rest of the world. If anything large or particularly antagonistic decided to take issue with the trio’s presence, she would be the first to know.

Trusting her with their surroundings, Shahar took gentle steps to the point where the tracks fanned out. The first question on his mind was if this incident had been spurred by something recent and this had been their first break from hibernation, or if they had been leaving their burrows regularly––had something been wrong with their hibernation, burrows, environment, or was something different with the spearbacks themselves that they were refusing to hibernate?

Second, Shahar wanted to see if there was anything besides the behavior of the spearbacks that was new to the area; the fresh snow could be telling, and he wanted to see if there were any areas that the local residents were going out of their way to avoid.

[Tribal]

The snow crunched underfoot and though Shahar and his four legged companions were careful, the footfalls of a horse were hard to disguise. He was wise, however, to expand his search, scanning the white blanket of snow for any clues he may have missed while focused on tracking down the whereabouts of the Spearback. The ground in this case was not quite as telling as the air which carried the faint scent of smoke, and mingled within, a bitter scent familiar to anyone who lived in a city that produced a lot of tanned hides; the smell of simmered tree bark and rawhide.

It seemed Snow had noticed it first, head lifted to sniff at the air. People, she told Shahar, tail wagging. An excited bark escaped the dog and she pointed with her nose, northwest of their current location towards Star Lake.

The dog’s bark had not gone unnoticed and up ahead in the thick undergrowth a lone Spearback male climbed out of the earth to stand at the mouth of his den. He looked about the size of a two year old pig, with short, sharp tusks, legs the length of Shahar’s arms, and clawed hands akin to that of a kangaroo, perfect for digging and holding down his prey. The Spearback grunted his warning and slammed one of his large mitts against the loose earth around his burrow. He was surprisingly thin for an animal expected to last the winter in hibernation, and his quills looked dishevelled and shaggy, similar to a chicken with ugly patches of missing feathers. Like hedgehogs, there was only one reason a Spearback would be out during that day.

Snow growled, strange, unfamiliar, she communicated to her keeper telepathically before jumping forwards in an attempt to intimidate the creature. When the Spearback raced back into its den, Snow leapt forwards into the undergrowth to give chase, sure now that she had the upper hand. She sniffed around the den, despite Shahar’s concern and gave a hair-raising yelp as barbs exploded from the entrance to catch her front right leg and the underside of her neck and muzzle.

The animal jumped back from the undergrowth, returning to Shahar with her tail tucked between her legs, closely followed by two Spearback which stopped just beyond the treeline, raking their mitts against the snow bravely with quills bristled and ready to fire. The hunter had two options, fight or flight; not an easy decision to make with a distressed, crying dog at his feet, but one he would have to make quickly.

[Colt]

Woodsmoke lingered on the air, something familiar and telling. Snow was the first to notice, perking up at the scent and barking excitedly, flashing off the feel of people! and pointing her nose in their direction.

It was a bark that did not go unheeded, however, as the built agitation of the spearbacks surrounding them drove one of their number to the surface––a male, solitary, somewhat large but nevertheless possessed of a certain… lack of health. He was thinner than hibernating animals were supposed to be so early in winter, with patches missing from his layer of quills; hunger was Shahar’s first assumption, as well as all those dangerous ailments that followed hunger in the cold season. Whatever the specifics, the spearback was clearly unwell.

Snow’s reaction was immediate, laced with unfamiliar and the desire to defend. She put her head down and her hackles up, entirely intending to frighten the thing off. And then when it turned and fled back into the brush, Snow charged after it, unheeding of Shahar’s wait no bad idea stop!

Into the rattling brown curtain of foliage she went, straight to the things den with pride and triumph warming her. At least until she was met with the spearback head on, which didn’t at all like being backed into a corner and informer her so with a faceful of quills. Snow yelped and raced from the underbrush, chest, neck and muzzle a pained pincushion, and two spearbacks followed her out. They stopped short of the open plains, squared and lowered in aggression. Their backs were exposed, their quills were up, and they were ready to fire.

The first thing on Shahar’s mind was the safety of the group. The warning of the other hunters rang loudly in his mind, warnings of toxin and the danger that came with it. Snow was at his feet, whining in pain, something that the spearbacks could surely hear.

Yes, I know, come close, this way. He placed a hand on her unpierced shoulders and guided her away from the pawing rodents, one step, two steps, three; it was more symbolic than it was practical, meant to signal their lack of aggression towards the spearbacks. Moving away was a silent submission that yes, this was their territory and Shahar and Snow were recognizing their territory. If they needed to get to Star Lake, they could go through another section of forest.

Shahar decided that if and when they made it back to Endrykas, it might be wise to invest in a good set of armor.

Snow, alright inquiry, able to move?

[Tribal]

Snow plucked a mouthful of the barbs from her shoulder and limped after Shahar. It seemed her yelping had alert a number of hunting dogs in the distance to their presence. Pain, Snow whined softly before stopping to look towards the lake again, body stiff and ears pricked on high alert, listening to the distant barking. Strangers, she glanced up at Shahar, looked him right in the eye and warned him dangerous.

The lead Spearback grunted and scratched the earth and before there was time to do much of anything, the bank was lined with at least half a dozen of his kin, of which were clearly visible, while a rustle from the undergrowth promised more to come. Akaidras reared up half-heartedly before moving closer to his bonded rider as if to act as a wall, and just in time as the Spearback were now numbered and bolder than they had been reported. One fired and was chased down by Snow, sending the lot of them back towards the treeline. Akaidras had seen the worst of the assault, but a handful of barbs had found Shahar’s legs. Snow kept them back but it was only a matter of time before they would find the nerve to strike again.

[Colt]

Snow was in pain, that much was clear, although she managed to work through it and yank out a number of the barbs that had found their way into her flesh. Then she stopped, suddenly tense, listening to something in the distance.

Strangers, she told him. Dangerous.

Shahar decided that it was an appropriate time to switch to defensive over evasive, pulling out two javelins just as the lead spearback was joined by a mass of others. Six was the closest the hunter could count to on short notice, easily half a dozen with the sound of more rustling in the bushes; they were drawn in by the sounds of pain and, presumably, the smell of blood.

Akaidras saw the projectiles before Shahar did, leaping in front of his bonded rider to shield him as one of the rodents fire off a volley of quills. Snow leaped into action, sprinting through the pain and towards their aggressors.

Shahar’s instincts guided his hand, moulded by seasons of hunting alongside Tuka and then Snow; he compensated for the movement, aware of Snow’s direction, and took a leap of faith to predict which direction the spearback would flee in. He set the javelin free to sail after the creature, flashing Snow an image of weapon going this way to inform her of his throw.

Whether or not Shahar managed to spear the beast was not his most immediate concern; there were barbs in his leg, which he quickly bent to rip out to the best of his ability before turning to Akaidras, who had sustained the worst of the attack. Calm, friend, I’m here; he tapped signs along the stallion’s uninjured side, assessing the damage as Snow finished driving them back into the undergrowth.

It wouldn’t be long until the rodents mustered their courage once more, and Shahar had a sneaking suspicion that they were being driven equally by fear and hunger.

Cover, he told Snow. They needed to find cover before the spearbacks regrouped; he could hear the hunting dogs now, the ones Snow had marked as dangerous. Which way did they go? If they ran, would the spearbacks be hungry enough to follow them? Did they have a chance against a score of spearbacks? And more importantly, did they have a choice at this point?

He needed to make a decision quickly, and so Shahar chose the median path; if he was able, he would do his best to guide Akaidras and Snow farther away from the treeline, but not directly into the grasslands; he wanted to follow the rim of the crater, away from the ragged burrows and away from the barking dogs. He was more accustomed to being predator than prey, and as a predator he knew firsthand that the prey most likely to survive was the prey that stood its ground––particularly against pack hunters. Which, despite what the others at the Allegiance thought, appeared to be precisely what the spearback had become.

They needed to find cover.

Although Shahar was too small to serve as a shield for Akaidras in the way his strider had done for him, he still put himself tree-side as he led the way sidelong to the line of timber. It was more than guardianship; from this side, he would be able to see threats from the trees and react accordingly. He asked Snow to stay close to him as best as she was able. Together, they made a path parallel to the treeline to separate themselves from the pack, although Shahar would have no qualms about directing them into the grasslands proper if the trees revealed more danger.

[Tribal]

Out of sight, out of mind; It seemed they had been forgotten by the Spearback and beyond the scattered dens to the east where the sun rose, there were no more Spearback burrows to be found, nor was there much of anything else. Snow sat and tugged at the barbs she was able to reach, while Shahar's Strider stomped his front, left leg, highlighting his irritation. Two chimes and then five had been and gone and neither animal seemed afflicted by the poison of the Spearback quills, even those that had lodged themselves in Shahar's legs had done little but cause a slight itch when on any other day all three might have been subjected to enough of the toxin to see them all go down where they stood.

The Spearback were out during the day, they had attacked in numbers, and their main form of defence had been rendered ineffective. Something was indeed amiss, and fitting together the puzzle pieces wasn't easy.

The hunting dogs were tethered to long chains, short, muscular beasts with broad shoulders and narrow hindquarters; built for fighting and short bursts of energy rather than the long treks Snow had the stamina for. Two men handled four dogs each and as they stumbled across the patch of earth Shahar had tread only minutes before, one of them caught sight of the discarded javelin, stood upright in the twitching body of a lone Spearback.
"Gavin, look!"

Snow crept closer to the tree line, hide, sneak, fear, heavy on her mind. The men's voices were muffled and sometimes broken by the barking of their dogs, but audible enough just the same.
"Hunters?"
"A hunter, more… likely dead."
"Saves us a job," Gavin laughed, "do you think Clive… it?"
"That thing?" The man grunted, "let's drag it back to camp and…”
“All right.”

[Colt]

Shahar led them onward, fear building within him with each passing moment. It wouldn’t be long before the toxin took hold; it was only a matter of time before they began to lose mobility, and they needed to be out of sight by then. As he went, he did his best to pluck the quills from his strider’s side.

It was only a matter of time.

It was only a matter of time.

Any time now.

Any time at all.

Akaidras slowed, the pain and irritation of the wounds interfering with his motion, without the need for toxin. The stallion stamped, snorted, and Shahar looked closer at the myriad of quills stuck in the horse’s flesh. Time passed, and the only thing the quills imparted, besides the obvious pain of being pierced by them, was a minor itch.

More immediate than the quills was the rapidly approaching sound of dogs as they stumbled upon the scene of the altercation, and upon the single spearback Shahar had managed to send his javelin into. Shahar gave Akaidras the command to remain out of sight, careful, and then he and Snow took on the new task of observation. Pulling out what quills he could in such a short time, Shahar dropped into a hunting crouch and followed his dog to the point that they could listen to what was being said, and to see who it was who said it, biting his lip to keep his pain silent.

From what he could gather from the noise and from behind his cover, there were two men and eight hunting dogs. They came across the spearback and the tracks Shahar and his companions had left, and from the snippets of conversation seemed to assume him dead. “That thing,” which Shahar could only assume to mean the dead spearback, they agreed to take back to their camp.

The pieces didn’t fit together. Spearback above ground in winter, in daylight, in a group, without their poison. What had the two hunters told him?

They only come out at night to graze and eat snakes. Poisonous ones, and that was how they got their toxin. Non-fatal, but if pricked, it was two chimes before paralysis set in. They don’t hunt in groups. They don’t hunt in winter.

If they got their toxin from snakes… then of course they wouldn’t come out in winter, because snakes didn’t come out in winter, either. Poisonous or not, snakes hibernated. If they got they poison from snakes, then did it stand to reason that the absence of snakes equated to an absence of poison? Spearbacks were supposed to hibernate as well, and something was preventing them from it.

Snow, Shahar said. Careful, people, follow, hidden.

If the men did indeed set themselves to dragging the spearback somewhere, then Shahar would follow them. He checked the wind, and, if possible, oriented himself downwind as much as he was able. Beyond that, he would follow very loosely, out of sight and focusing primarily on the tracks to remain on the path. He knew the basic information: two men, eight dogs and a dead spearback. For now he would focus on the tracks, and if he could remain in earshot, any farther conversation.