King of the Hill

[Tribal]

Gavin was a dark haired man of average height with long, thin limbs and a season’s worth of stubble on his face. He looked to be in his mid to late twenties, and barely strong enough to keep control of the Akinva Deerstalker at his command. The dogs, though strong, looked relatively thin; Clive believed that made them work harder. Shahar was smart to follow at a safe distance; the revered pit-fighters had powerful noses, but tended to rely on their sight more than anything, as likely to bark at a passing bird as they were the Drykas man that stalked them.

“Roland, I’ve got a bad feeling about this, that Drykas guide told us not to do too much travel, least we get caught.”
“Forget ‘em” the taller redhead waved, standing at five foot ten, Roland was somewhat taller than his comrade, but just as dim-witted. He had a beer belly and burly limbs, which made walking difficult in the too-tight leather armour he wore.
“But they winter just south of here.”
“But they winter just south of here!” Roland mocked, “Would you quit it, you’re starting to sound like my ex-wife. We have two seasons to go and in the summer we return to Syliras as rich men. If the Drykas want to pick a fight with us, we pay them off just like we did last summer and lay low for a while.”
Gavin stopped momentarily and wiped his brow, “This thing is heavy, what is it anyway?”
“No idea,” Roland shrugged, “But I’m sure Clive’s slave can tell us.” The two of them laughed and continued on foot towards the lake.

Half a bell had passed by the time they got back to camp and the sun was now high in the sky. Both men took their tool belts off, leaving their weapons strung up to the wall of a makeshift log cabin. The trees around the camp masked the building well, and the smoke that billowed from the chimney could be passed up as nothing more than a campfire in the woods to an untrained eye.

The dogs were hitched to a tree and seemed content to curl up in the shade. The trees used to build the cabin had been cut away from the hillside, taken sporadically as not to raise suspicion. There didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary on this side of the cabin but on closer inspection of the west side, one might see the upright wooden pillars, like washing lines, there for the sole purpose of drying out pelts. There the silver skins of the Metallic Asp snake were hung, not hundreds, but thousands, row upon row, thick enough to block out the view of the trees and lake beyond; more snake hides than the city of Endrykas might take from the land over ten summers.

It wasn’t just snakes, but boar, deer, horse hide, and wolves, all strung up, skinned, stretched, and tanned to dry in the sun. Perhaps then the hunter would realise the smell he had caught on the air this morning was indeed tannin, extracted from plant matter and bark, used by the Drykas and other races of men it seemed to tan hides. The trees around the campsite had been stripped of their bark and were slowly dying as a result.

Gavin tied the back legs of the Spearback and pulled on a rope to lift the animal up into the air so that it would be easier to work. He opened the animal’s throat effortlessly with his skinning blade and left the blood the drain away while he disappeared inside with Roland. The Spearback flinched and shook until its nerves too were dead.

[Colt]

Shahar followed, and as he followed he listened. The dogs didn’t notice, and so he was able to pick up bits and pieces of the conversation with his broken knowledge of the Common tongue. Drykas guide. Desire to not be caught. They, Drykas; the men spoke of the horselords as others, not-like-me. The two men were non-Drykas, as if the fact that they didn’t know a spearback on sight wasn’t enough. Two seasons to go, and then wealth. Syliras. A slave belonging to Clive. The trek led them deeper into the trees, and Shahar remained hyperaware of their surroundings, particularly in regards to Snow; he kept himself oriented to her position, in case her superior senses picked something up that they would be forced to react to. On they went, until Shahar spotted a campfire and drew attention to it; by the time Syna reached her peak they were nearly there.

The camp they were led to was strange to the Drykas hunter. Accustomed to a world of tents and wind and horizons, the log cabin took more than a few moments for him to wrap his head around; it was a dwelling, like those in Riverfall, but… wooden. Made out of trees. A home that didn’t move, and inside the home was a fire of some sort, belching smoke out of the chimney. It was here that the dogs were secured to a tree, weapons unshouldered and strung up on the wall, while the man carrying the spearback made his way to the west side of the building as his companion stepped inside. Shahar followed the spearback, circling, relying more upon his ears to judge distance so that he could minimize the risk of alerting the dogs.

In his circling, he noticed the trees. Within the reach of a human arm, nearly all the trees around him had been stripped of their bark, exposing the dampness of their wood to the unforgiving winter cold. The air reeked of tannin, which Shahar recognized readily enough from his time spent around the Spit Fire, but this… the sheer volume of the destruction was unlike anything he’d ever seen. The trees were dying, withering, and their blood was in the air. These men were tanners, if the smell was anything to go by. Did they intend to tan the spearback’s hide, then?

The answer Shahar found on the west side, he was entirely unprepared for.

Racks and racks of skins, drying and curing in various stages of being processed into leather. Not just some skins; there were thousands. Snakes, deer, wolves, predator, prey––horses. It was as if he had been dealt a physical blow. Shahar gagged against a sudden blinding, overwhelming revulsion, and he had to stop to regain his breath. So many dead, strung up side by side; it couldn’t have been a more disgusting sight if they’d had human skins in the number. Endrykas couldn’t take this many skins in years of hunting. And it was the snakes that had the greatest amount of representation; Shahar could barely comprehend the number as it stretched into the forest beyond, seemingly without end. This was all wrong. It was as if the Sea of Grass itself had been gutted and stretched out to dry.

The man tied up the spearback and slit its throat before joining his friend inside. The animal spasmed as it was drained dry, and suddenly Shahar felt a wave of unjust to you, sympathy, deepest I’m sorry. It hadn’t been hunted, it wouldn’t feed anyone; the creature was going to be dissected added to the wall of… evil that was the west side of the cabin.

No, he couldn’t––this wasn’t––Shahar gritted his teeth. This was evil. Anger swelled up, white-hot, piercing his haze and throwing the world into crystalline clarity. No. This was not how it was meant to be!

Blazing fury coupled with determination, spilling over to Snow even without Shahar’s conscious command. He was a hunter. Death was his trade. Blood was his currency, flesh his barter. His spears were his claws, dappled shadows his camouflage. He was a predator, who carved a life out of stalking animals and slaying them. That was his place on the food chain. That was his part in the perfect, proper order of things.

But the men, Gavin, Roland, they were not like him. They were outside the proper order of things. They were beneath it. They were beneath every snake, horse and spearback on their racks. They were disgusting.

And now, they were his prey.

There had always been a particular beauty to be found in hunts. Emotions and logic were both intertwined––logic, in the predetermined, far-reaching plans, in laying out traps and paths to follow, and emotion, in the gut reaction, the instinct to change, in the niggling feeling of being watched that could mean the difference between life and death. The world was separated from the rosy colors of wants and reduced to the sharp, cutting facts of needs and survival and getting from one point to another. There was what needs to be done and what stands in the way.

They needed to be stopped. And if that meant they needed to die, then so be it.

The weight of his revelation threw the camp into sharp relief. Disgust was defeated and stored away; if he wanted to revisit his revulsion, he could do it later. Right now, there was work to be done.

There was a cabin. On the west side were the skins, on the north, the dogs. And also… yes, the tool belts, strung up on the wall, alongside their weapons. Stealing them wouldn’t be major, but it would be something; weapons were power, and if whittling their power away one chip at a time was what it took, then Shahar had no qualms over it. If the hunt took days, then he would stay for days. He crept away from the west side, arcing a wide path back to the east as he sorted through what he knew, didn’t know and began to piece together the skeleton of a plan.

They were foreigners, of that much he was certain. His first thought was that such a thing gave him an advantage, but it was quickly dismissed by the logical half of his mind; they had already managed to hide from the Drykas. Their camp had been expertly concealed. They had managed to find, kill and skin more asps than Shahar had seen alive in his entire life. They obviously had at least some degree of skill in the grasslands; Shahar couldn’t afford to underestimate their abilities. To his knowledge, there were at least four people involved: Roland, Gavin, someone named Clive and then a slave. He had no knowledge of their comfort in combat, only the outward facts of the appearances of two of them––one of whom had been wearing armor.

With this in mind, Shahar concluded that the most thorough course of action would be to hunt them individually. If they were alone, he had a greater chance at controlling the situation. It would take more time, yes, but time was as much an advantage as it was a disadvantage.

The dogs would be more of a problem, however. If they noticed him, he assumed they would come after him without pause; while it was not a great concern while they were tied up, it would be a concern if they saw him and began barking to alert their masters. As such, it would no doubt be prudent to do his best and avoid the dogs altogether, if he could. And if he couldn’t, the first thing he needed to do was to make sure the tanners didn’t unhitch them, because as long as they were chained he simply had to stay out of their reach.

Shahar called Snow close and knelt before her. Love, pride, trust, he said, running his fingers over the crown of her head and digging in behind the ears, where he knew she liked it. Request, need, important, careful. He rested his forehead against hers. Dogs, distract, away from cabin. He flashed the image of the weapons into her mind. Me, acquire. Dogs, no see. Action.

When he was certain his message was understood, Shahar rose and carefully picked his way towards the north side, as close as he dared with the dogs still there. When the plan was put into motion, he would move as swiftly and quietly as he was able to filch the weapons from their hanging places; if the dogs began barking, their masters would almost certainly follow without delay.

And when they did, Snow was to run; stranger, no see, danger. She was to risk being seen only by the dogs, and none other; the only thing that could unnerve the clarity of the hunt was the thought of a white, blue-eyed pelt strung up on one of the racks.

[Tribal]

Snow slipped away quietly, deciding to flank the tethered dogs by going around the cabin and up into the woods through the trees. From the thick undergrowth she watched as Shahar made a beeline for the tool belts and weapons hung up outside. The camp was littered with skinning knifes, but without their swords the tanners would be a lot less prepared to defend themselves. One of the dogs noticed Snow then and within seconds the rest were on their feet, barking and pulling on their restraints.

“Well what is it then?” Roland’s voice boomed like thunder from within the cabin. The sound of a hand lashed against skin rang out, followed by the whimper of a young man and the rustle of metal chains.
“Scout’s Bane,” an unfamiliar voice spoke up in broken common, “Drykas hunt for medicine.”
“Medicine? What kind of medicine?”
“Pain relief; the spines block pain.”
“Are they dangerous?” Gavin asked.
“Spines?”
“The Scout’s Bane you imbecile!” Roland barked.
“Very!”
“And are they worth anything?” Gavin inquired.
“No, not outside city.”
“Told you,” Roland growled, “cut it up and feed it to the dogs!”
“Me?”
“What, you expect Clive to do it? Hurry up before I cut you up and feed you to the dogs!”
“All right, all right!” Gavin hissed and left the cabin to return to the carcass.

Gavin was wearing a blood stained, leather apron and a pair heavy boots. He took a set of gloves from his pocket and pulled them on before yelling at the dogs to pipe down. The cabin door swung closed and no more voices could be heard from inside, just the sound of a chair being shuffled closer to a table across the wooden floor, no doubt with a heavy set man sat on it.

The lone tanner set to work, removing the javelin from the Spearback’s form to toss aside before he opened the creature up and stood back holding his nose. “Smells worse than Glorg’s toes,” he spat before hacking his way through a leg, and then another, a process he would continue until the Spearback was fully dismembered, unless he was otherwise interrupted.

[Colt]

Snow padded off into the underbrush, circling the cabin to reach her place at the dogs’ opposite. They spotted her and began to bark immediately, jumping to their feet and yanking at their chains. Shahar darted forward and set to work lifting the heavy belts from the wall. He took care to keep them stretched to their full extent in an attempt to minimize one metal thing clanking against another, and in his efforts he was able to pick up snippets of a conversation from inside.

A hand smacking skin. Scout’s bane. Drykas, medicine. Worth. No. Cut. Feed. Dogs. Hurry up.

Shahar took the belts and returned to the brush around the cabin, stowing them under a bush, doing his best to remain out of sight and flashing off a brief concern safe?

Safe. She was alright. The dogs barking had been a minor annoyance, at most, and not something the men inside felt like investigating. One of them stepped out of the cabin, the lean one called Gavin. He was wearing an apron now, armed with gloves and a knife.

Dogs, distract, longer, Shahar alerted Snow, creeping to follow the tanner as he made his way back to the west side. There, Gavin set to work sectioning the spearback, yanking out Shahar’s javelin and hacking the animal into pieces, presumably for the dogs.

This was his chance. If he acted too quickly, he would betray his presence; too slowly and he would lose this ideal opportunity. It was on the west side, out of sight of the door but not out of sight of the dogs, and as long as the dogs were chained then Snow would be relatively safe. Gavin was focused on his work. Shahar had the element of surprise on his side.

He circled around the skin racks, drawing a javelin and his knife. Gavin had a knife of his own, although it was more tool than weapon; ideally, Shahar wanted to neutralize him before he was able to fight back. He also had the advantage of range, but wasn’t certain how effective it would be at keeping Gavin quiet. If Gavin was silently absent for long enough, then one of the others would certainly come looking for him. But if he struggled and shouted, then all of the others would come looking for him.

The dogs were barking, though; that could cover at least some of the noise. So long as Gavin wasn’t allowed to scream. Shahar was suddenly brought back to fight seasons ago, outside the gates of Riverfall, when he had been faced with the similar task of killing someone unnoticed. His solution then had been to strangle a man with the cocking string of a crossbow, which, while slow and somewhat ineffective as a weapon, had managed to keep the man silent until a proper knife could finish the job.

Shahar needed to go for the neck, or the lungs at the very least; as long as Gavin wasn’t screaming, he could afford to be as messy as he needed to be. But how?

If he could get his spear between the man’s shoulder blades… yes, it was worth a try, and appeared to be the closest thing Shahar was able to do with such equipment. It was a smaller target than he was used to, but there wasn’t much else he could do in way of injury. It was entirely likely that he would miss, but Gavin as a whole was a relatively large target––if he couldn’t hit between the shoulder blades, then he hoped to at least hit something. He could rely upon the pain to provide enough sudden shock to run into close quarters, where he could use his javelins in a closer, more upfront manner. He sheathed his knife.

After the undergrowth, the racks of skins were his second cover of choice. There were gaps in them, though, so he still did his best to approach from behind, drawing a second javelin from the quiver so he wouldn’t need to waste precious seconds in the case he needed it after throwing the first.

With Gavin’s focus on the spearback, Shahar brought the spear to his shoulder, stepped out from behind the skins and into the open, where nothing stood in between him and his prey. He coiled, took a breath, and set his javelin free.

[Tribal]

The skilful throw found its mark and Gavin's hand opened to drop the skinning knife. His head bowed to look at the alien object that had gone into his back and erupted through his soft belly. He turned to look at the man who had dealt him his end and clutched the bloody sharpened point of the javelin before falling back on the weapon which kept his body from meeting the earth completely. Gavin coughed and lay on his side as he bled out through the hole in his gut, alerting the dogs to Shahar's presence.

They barked madly, clawing at the ground and jumping over one another to try and get a better view of the man. Snow barked in order to steer their attention away from Shahar but the ploy was no good and from within the cabin, the sound of Roland's chair rang out again as he got to his feet, "what's going on out there!" He growled and trudged to the door.

The door flew open and the heavy set man stepped out into the yard in search of Gavin, his attention drawn first by the hunting dogs, then pointed in the direction they seemed to be going crazy over. Roland went out to the east side of the cabin in search of his sword and when he discovered that it was not there, he marched over to the woodpile and took up the rusty axe he found there. "Gavin, did you move our weapons?" He called before rounding the corner to accost his comrade about his poor organisation skills.

[Colt]

The spearhead cut through the air, finding its home in Gavin’s mid-back, then settling more comfortably into the softness of his belly.

Shahar saw the hit, measured the distance it sank into the man’s body and calculated how deep it must therefore be. The skinning knife thudded to the ground, and that was the signal to get moving; with Gavin unarmed and sporting a fatal hole, Shahar darted forward as his quarry wobbled and fell back onto the butt of the javelin, shoving it farther into his body before rolling to his side with a cough. Shahar scooped up the fallen skinning knife with his free hand and closed the full distance. While his disgust for the tanner had spurred the javelin, habit and routine still made him desire a clean kill; he wanted to slit the man’s throat, give him a shorter death than the gap in his stomach promised to give him.

But the dogs were barking, and someone was shouting, standing inside the cabin. If there was time to open Gavin’s neck, then he would do so; if not, then so be it. Whatever the case, Shahar dropped the skinning knife the moment he heard the cabin door bang open as Roland stepped out. Shahar froze, every fiber of his being coiled for whatever move his new enemy would make.

Roland moved east. Opposite the house to the tanning racks. Shahar didn’t allow his tension to fade. Roland shouted some more, and Shahar picked out ‘weapons’ and ‘Gavin,’ right before he picked out the sound of more footsteps, this time headed back around as the elder tanner decided to confront his teammate.

Shahar pinned himself against the cabin wall, switching the extra javelin he had drawn into his primary hand. There wasn’t any cover that would block Roland’s line of sight once he rounded the corner, but the corner itself would hopefully serve as such a thing until he did.

Steps grew closer, and Shahar coiled. He raised his weapon, not to throw, but to stab; with their own weapons hidden in the bushes, Roland would be unarmed. Probably. Hopefully. At least, less armed than Shahar, if he was lucky. Shahar’s knuckles were white with the grip on his spear, every nerve a livewire as he listened to the steps come closer and closer until they were just around the corner.

Return! he heart-shouted for Snow.

There was no time for quiet subtlety now. It was direct, upfront and desperate; Shahar leaped out from behind the corner first, teeth bared, weapon raised, and attacked.

[Tribal]

Roland was taken off guard and pierced almost directly in the heart, swinging his body back just in time, his leather armour his only saving grace. His features contorted with disgust as he took one look at his attacker after a quick glance at Gavin, dead in the dirt with open neck and belly. “I’ll skin ya!” Roland hissed and swung his axe, throwing his weight behind the attack as if handling a sword. The heavy iron end of the axe caused the man’s body to twist more than he anticipated and his recovery time was enough that Shahar would be able to get in a solid blow or kick, depending on his preference and reaction times.

There was a clattering of chains from within the cabin and something shattered against the floor which sounded like a clay plant pot falling from a shelf. The door creaked shut slowly and there was no more noise after that, just Roland’s out of breath attempts to catch the Drykas man with his axe; bouncing around like an out of shape boxer with two left feet.

He stumbled and managed to knock Shahar back with the butt of the weapon before a guttural cry was ripped from his throat as Snow dug her teeth into the man’s left leg and put him on the ground. He raised his weapon to swing again, or block, and the white dog took hold of the wooden handle in an attempt to wrestle it from the man’s grasp.
“Wait, wait!” He panted, “Wait, wait, wait! I’ll give you anything, pelts, weapons, gold!” Roland begged Shahar, “Horses? You like horses? We have two!”

[Colt]

Roland was indeed surprised, entirely unaware of the man that had been waiting for him around the corner. But he was also quick, possessing the reflexes to swing himself back, and his leather armor was enough to soften the rest of Shahar’s blow. In the split second of leeway, the tanner was able to see through the skins to the western side, and take in the sight of his teammate dead.

It didn’t take fluency in Common to know that what Roland shouted next was not particularly pleasant. The armored tanner heaved up his weight and threw it all into––an axe.

Of course he had an axe.

There was a heartbeat’s pause as Roland overestimated the weight of his blow, a heartbeat that left him wide open. Acting on instinct, Shahar kicked at his opponent’s legs, shins, knees, feet––wherever he could land his blow, he would take.

Inside the cabin, something broke and clattered to the floor.

Roland stumbled forward, Shahar stumbled back. The Drykas needed space to use his weapon, short as it was, and he feared that the axe would cleave straight through his javelin if he tried to block. And so he tried to evade, which was a struggle simply due to their environment; trapped, cluttered, closed in by skin racks and who knew what else. He couldn’t run, and now Roland was bringing up the axe again and it was too close and Shahar raised his javelin to block because he didn’t have anything else and braced himself for the pain––

––before being saved by the Gods. No, he was saved by Snow. His companion was lock-jawed around Roland’s leg, snarling, pulling, uprooting the man and dragging him to the ground.

If they survived, he was going to do… something, for Snow. He didn’t know what, but he would do something to thank her for saving his life, something big; right now, there was no time to think about what. Roland was on the ground, and he was trying to strike back, but Snow got the shaft of his axe between her teeth and then it was a wrestling match to see who would win it––a wrestling match to see who would survive the fight.

Shahar dropped to one knee to help his companion. Roland was shouting again, but now his voice was different; he was fearful, desperate, words coming out in a string of checkered meanings and images. Wait. Weapons. Gold. Horses. Two. He was struggling, because he didn’t want to die. Shahar knew vaguely that Roland was trying to bargain, but he did not care enough to decode the rest of what he was offering.

Instead, Shahar switched tactics; he had never faced armor before. Snow needed to win the axe, which meant Roland needed to lose––without his axe, he couldn’t cleave through javelins. In this short battle, Shahar decided to attempt a war of attrition: through the armor, he would try to cause as much physical damage to Roland’s body as possible in the hopes that the pain would give Snow an advantage of her own.

And so Shahar stabbed, focusing on Roland’s free arm and his shoulder and armpit in particular. He had no idea how to deal with armor, and so he simply avoided it whenever he could, trying instead to damage exposed areas and the flesh beneath.

Pressing close, on high alert for any secondary weapons his enemy might have on him, Shahar reached over with his free hand to join the struggle for the axe. He didn’t need to take it, he just needed it to not be Roland’s, and therefore be Snow’s; alongside the white dog he tried to separate the weapon from its owner.

[Tribal]

There had been a fatal flaw in the man's plan, he had wagered his life on the hopes that his greed was shared by another and failed. The Drykas weren't like the humans of the world outside of theirs, the majority couldn't be bought with gold or trinkets, livestock or fortune; they seemed to fear nothing but loss of liberty, and Roland had definitely lost the upper hand, not that he ever had it to begin with. The tanners had fooled themselves in thinking that they would have gotten away with their operation for too long and Gavin had been right to feel nervous about creeping around right under their noses.

Shahar had managed to find the chinks in Roland's armour, a soft spot under the arm where his javelin lanced the light covering of leather and bit into the flesh like teeth through the skin of an apple. Roland cried out in pain, one name on his lips, Clive. Oddly enough, he wasn't calling for help but for his commander to flee, looking back over his shoulder towards the woods and the vicious hunting dogs he wished he hadn't tied up that morning. Snow ripped the axe from Roland's clutches and the man made a grab for Shahar, grasping at his hair and trying to dig into the man's eye sockets with his thumbs in an attempt to blind his attacker.

Snow did not let the attack go unnoticed and dropped the axe, jumping at the tanner's throat where she again sunk her teeth into flesh, jerking this way and that in order to sever something important just as she did with her hunting kills out on the Sea of Grass. Roland tensed his neck, trying to protect himself with his hands, pulling and scratching at the dog's neck. Snow yelped when he managed to pinch a tender roll of skin and snaked backwards, only to spring at the man again, stopping him from going for Shahar and busying the man's defences long enough that her friend would be able to finish what he had started.

After that it was quiet, even the hunting dogs seemed to settle as the smell of human blood reached their noses. It not only confused but frightened them, for some their master's life had been ended, for others a mix of relief and deep concern caused them to fall quiet and roll over submissively with their taut bellies on display. Snow sat back on her hindquarters and watched Shahar, a feeling of relief, pride, and respect shared. The mouth of her once white muzzle was red with Roland's blood and her tail was lifted to thud against the ground slowly, unsure whether or not she had done the right thing in attacking a human; something which had never crossed her mind before.

The cabin door stood slightly ajar, the building had no windows and the smoke that had been curling skyward from the chimney continued to sail out at a steady pace. A doe leapt out from the thick undergrowth and paused momentarily to take in the sight of Shahar and his dog before skipping back towards the woods, causing the hunting dogs to stir and start barking again. The trouble was over for now, but there was no telling what the man would find inside the cabin, dare he choose to step foot in there.

[Colt]

The spearhead found purchase under Roland’s arm, earning a scream and a name: Clive. Not Clive, as in help me Clive, but as in Clive run.

Whoever Clive was, Shahar was prepared to fight a third if he had to.

Snow tore the axe free, and Roland immediately turned his now-free hand to the Drykas, lacing through dark brown hair and scrabbling for purchase at his eyes. Shahar fell back, hissing as dirty nails dragged through his skin and tried to blind him. He twisted and lashed out at whatever he could find, but the hands in his face blocked his vision; he couldn’t see what he was doing, and his strikes weren’t landing.

Again, it was Snow who rescued him. Leaping forward, she latched her teeth into the soft tube of Roland’s throat and dragged him back, and then the hands were gone. She bit and writhed, like she did with four-legged prey, while Roland clawed at her neck to stop her. He found something soft and she yelped, retreating for hardly a moment before returning to her siege.

Shahar went for his hunting knife, something meant as a tool but more than capable of being used as a weapon. As Snow kept Roland occupied, Shahar sank the blade into the back of his enemy’s neck. Or shoulder; it was somewhere between both, as he was doing his best to avoid Snow’s face in the fight. He twisted the knife, yanked it out, stabbed again––this time just above the collar, then a third time an inch away, where it knocked against the bone. It was messy, bloody and inexperienced; Shahar had never stabbed a person with his knife, only animals that were already dead or dying. He knew the feel of it enough to know how much power he needed to pierce and part flesh, but that was it. By the time Roland was ended, the man’s neck and chest was a black, randomly mutilated mess of blood and torn muscle.

When Roland stopped moving, all was quiet. The dogs stopped barking, and some of them rolled over in recognition of their master’s defeat. There was nothing else moving from inside the cabin; there was only the wind and the leaves and the heavy panting of the two hunters as they took in the reality of their success.

Snow sat back, relieved and proud but equally unsure. Shahar chuckled breathlessly, his emotions mirroring hers; the entire day had been unsure, but he was proud of Snow. He leaned over their dead quarry and rested his forehead on hers wearily. Gratitude. They were both alive, and she had just saved his life twice; he had no qualms over her attacking a human, and let her know in the relaxation of his posture and in the love he felt for her.

Still, he remained on alert for any other sounds, and when none came he allowed them both a brief pause right where they were as he waited for his heart to slow down. In the meantime, he took Snow’s muzzle in his hands gently and wiped some of the blood away so it wouldn’t clot in her fur and irritate the skin. He knew she could do it herself with her tongue, but he needed something to do for the moments it took to regain his strength; it wasn’t clean by any measure when the time came to rise again, but at least it wasn’t dripping.

Not like his hands.

Shahar pulled his javelin from Roland and flicked away as much blood as he could, leaving red fingerprints as he did so. His knife was wiped clean on the material of his pants, then wiped again on the other leg just to be sure before it returned to its sheath. Then he fell back into a cautious stance and circled the corner, attention focused on the door that now stood ajar. The inside of the cabin was silent, but that didn’t mean it was safe.

Careful, he told Snow, inching closer to the door. His javelin was raised. His guard was up. For the sake of safety, he was going to assume that the moment he touched that door, someone else was going to leap out and bare their weapons at them. And if someone didn’t, then he would be pleasantly surprised.

And then there was a doe. It leaped out of the treeline, pausing at the sight of the bloody Drykas and dog. Shahar blinked at it. What, foolish, chastisement, go away, he signed with a frown. The doe certainly didn’t need prompting and quite hastily fled the scene.

And so Shahar poked the door with his spear. Or rather, stretched the spear out to nudge the door open further. Caution, he asked of Snow. Sounds, smells? Her senses were better than his, and he relied upon them to listen for incoming danger. If she heard nothing, Shahar would slowly, carefully sidle another few inches and crane his neck to peer into the cabin.