[Sunberth] Survival

by **Harman Dayis** on July 25th, 2016, 7:39 pm

Survival
21st Of Summer, 516 AV

Harman walked through the thin strips of trees, and kept going until the covered wagon that he was seeking came into sight. He could feel the reopened scratch from the zith, that was over his right eye, scabbing over once more.

The wounded dog in his arms was breathing rather steadily now.

When he came up to the back of the wagon, Harman glanced around the clearing that it was in.

The zith could fly, if there were any of them left, they'd likely find him if they wanted to. Still, it was safer for Harman where he was, than it was staying in a camp full of corpses, where any surviving zith would know humans might be. He needed to help his dog, and while a part of him wanted to go out further into the woods, he also needed to follow the wheel marks from the wagon back to Sunberth - it was his and Champion's only chance at escaping the forest.

Harman hefted Champion up, and laid the dog in the back of the covered wagon.

"I'll be back for you," he whispered, and simultaneously pet the dog on his snout.

The black Deerstalker grunted, and then tiredly licked Harman's hand.

He's not as bad as I thought, Harman realized. He knew he was no doctor, but if his dog wasn't dying, then maybe he could help him. He didn't have bandages or any medicine, but neither of those things would stop his companion's bleeding anyway. The way he saw it, there was only one thing that could insure that Champion didn't keep losing blood indefinitely.

The sixteen year old walked to the nearest treeline, and began to collect sticks in his tired arms. Syna was already high in the morning sky, and he was exhausted, he realized.

Maybe it was better that it was day, he considered. The zith had attacked at night, which probably meant that they would be just as tired as he was, now that the sun had begun to rise; it might even mean that the creatures were nocturnal. Judging by their bat like appearance, Harman wouldn't doubt it if something confirmed to him that the zith did indeed shun the sunlight.

As he collected the branches and twigs in his arms, Harman observed that some of the blood that was all over his body rubbed off against the kindling. In all honesty, he didn't know how much of the life fluids were from humans, how much was that of a dog, and how much was from the zith raiders. He hadn't taken much damage thanks to his leather armor, although he knew himself to be quite bruised and chaffed underneath the animal skin garments - so most of it couldn't have been his.

He was better off than everyone else that the zith had attacked, though, he remembered. For a moment, flashes of the faces of the slavers that he had befriended flew through his mind.

Harman sighed.

Nothing was permanent, except for him and Champion it seemed, nothing lasted.

Which is why I have to protect us, at all costs, he mused.

Series So Far, And Permissions :

by **Harman Dayis** on July 25th, 2016, 9:22 pm

Survival
21st Of Summer, 516 AV

Harman bent over and dropped the bundle of sticks that he was carrying. The timber roughly remained in the stack that it had been carried in, as it hit the ground - save for a rolling twig or two.

The boxer stared at the pile of wood. Did he even know how to start a fire? He wondered how he was going to get it done.

Harman shrugged his backpack off of his shoulders, and shifted it into the grasp of his hands. He leaned down towards the ground once more, just as he had to drop the sticks, and placed the canvas bag behind himself.

The boxer flipped the backpack's flap back, and began to dig through it. After a moment of ruffling through a spare change of clothes, he withdrew a small piece of steel and a shard of flint from out of the bag’s folds.

The boxer took the flint and steel and held it over the pile of limbs and sticks, and then went ahead and smacked the rock and metal together. At first, he tried rubbing the tools up and down against each other. When sparks only resulted from the downward strikes, he began to only utilize those.

Harman could swear that he felt the heat of every spark, as he showered the occasional sliver of fire down onto the pile of sticks that he had assembled.

After minutes of trying, despite Harman’s success in creating the sparks, not a single piece of wood had been set ablaze by the boy’s hands.

I should have watched the others make the fires, he told himself. I'm might be petched, he mused, but I've got to figure this out - for Champion's sake, I don't want him to hurt anymore. We survive, we have to, it’s what we do.

The boxer kept trying to ignite the makeshift pile of twigs to no avail. The sticks just wouldn't light.

"Dammit," he growled, under his breath.

Harman slammed the flint and steel together one more time, and caused a small shower of sparks to dance down and pepper the kindling below the tool.

Nothing happened, despite his attempt.

Harman simply wasn't making the bark of the wood hot enough to ignite, and he began to realize this.

The sixteen year old sat back, and glanced around. The sticks wouldn't catch flame, that much was clear. He'd have to get something that would. Realistically, that meant gathering dry leaves, or something of a similar ilk.

Harman climbed to his feet and made his way back to the forest's edge. Leaf after leaf, piece of foliage by piece of foliage, he gathered and bunched together the kindling in both of his hands.

When he was forced to hold both of his leaf filled hands together, just to keep from dropping his bounty of dead tree trimmings, he turned back towards the cart. For the third time that day he left the forest's edge to move near to the covered wagon.

Harman bent down in front of the pile of sticks, and momentarily glanced back to the cart.

You’re going to be okay, Champ, he thought.

Harman shoved the leaves under the sticks, and shuffled the wood a bit, to make it at least look more uniformly like a fire.

by **Harman Dayis** on July 26th, 2016, 9:48 pm

Survival
21st Of Summer, 516 AV

Harman held his hands over the pile of sticks and leaves, and then struck the flint and the steel that he grasped against one another.

Neither the wood, or the foliage, under the tool ignited.

The sixteen year old smacked the flint and steel together once more.

The edge of one of the leaves received a single ember that spiraled down slowly and blissfully, from where the contact of the rock and metal occurred. Harman watched as the leaf absorbed the fire into itself. First a small hole from where the ember struck formed in the leaf, and then the borders of the hole began to glow a bright orange and widen.

The leaf began to evaporate and break into ashes - some of which were red hot and some were a dead, and lifeless, charcoal like black. The pulsating and descending ashes began to spread and fall onto the leaves surrounding the first one to ignite.

Harman felt relief, as he saw the sticks above the - now flaming - kindling began to crackle and snap. Soon, the blaze of leaves and timber had become an honest and proper campfire.

The boxer dropped his flint and steel back into his backpack, and then replaced it in his hands with a dagger from out of the bag.

Harman looked at the weapon, and took a deep breath. What had to be done, he didn't look forward to doing.

The sixteen year old placed the dagger into the edge of the fire, and slid its blade into the blaze while still leaving its handle outside of the flames.

He watched the metal as it began to glow orange around its sharp edges.

Harman didn't know how long it would take for the dagger to become hot enough for it fulfill his purposes. Forgoing spending the wait watching the dagger, Harman rose to his feet and lumbered over to where Champion was still sleeping. He looked at his dog, not sure if the animal was asleep, or just too weak to keep his eyes open; the teenager's eyes were sad as he watched his injured friend's chest rising and falling weakly.

"Come on," he said gently to the dog.

Champion slowly opened his eyes, and revealed his one golden eye and one scarred and empty eye socket. The canine mumbled a sleepy growl.

Harman reach into the back of the wagon and pulled the dog that was inside it into his arms.

Champion's breathing grew a bit more strained, as he was lifted into his master's arms.

The boxer carried the dog and moved towards the fire that he'd built. He was hesitant to lay the wounded dog on the ground, due to the risk of getting dirt in the animal's wounds, but knew that it was a necessity - despite his fears. Harman sought out and selected a soft patch of grass, and then gently deposited the dog atop it.

by **Harman Dayis** on July 26th, 2016, 11:08 pm

Survival
21st Of Summer, 516 AV

Harman wrapped his hand around the dagger's leather handle, and then withdrew the weapon's glowing blade from out of the fire. The pulsating heat rolled off of the knife's steel body in sluggish waves, and Harman could feel it drying and scorching the flesh of his hand.

"I'm so sorry, boy," Harman said to his companion.

The boxer braced his free hand against Champion's flank, in a bid to keep the dog from moving during the ordeal that was to come.

The dog had closed his eyes again, moments after Harman had laid him into the soft grass. His master's touch prompted the canine to slowly open and then look to the teenager with his one golden eye - a beautiful orb that grew wide, and glowed with apparent unease, when it first saw what Harman held.

"Shh," Harman ordered the dog.

Slowly he moved the scorching, glowing dagger towards his dog. The animal's wounds were deep enough to be having trouble scabbing over - which was what had prompted what his master was now doing.

Harman moved one side of the blade that he held to hover over the length of the biggest of Champion's wounds.

He took a breath, and hesitated. Hurting Champion was hell for Harman.

The boxer pressed the burning flat of the blade against the partially open wound.

What he did had to be done, he reassured himself.

The moment the heated metal touched Champion, the dog screamed and thrashed.

Harman was forced to repeatedly shift his free hand to different portions of Champion's body, to hold the dog down in a laying position. The boxer's body was tense, and his visage clenched in emotional agony, as he went about his unsavory work.

He wasn't sure how long he should hold the dagger over his dog's wound to cauterize it, but after a few moments he lifted the blade to check the gash's progress. As Harman lifted the weapon, he observed that the previously opened gash was seared shut.

Harman saw that Champion has stopped bleeding, and realized that his ploy to close his dog's wound had worked. He felt himself become more confident in his work, because of this - despite still disliking it.

The teen flipped the hot dagger in his hand. Harman then pressed the side of the knife that had yet to touch Champion, against the remaining portion of the wound that he'd partially cauterized.

by **Harman Dayis** on July 27th, 2016, 12:38 am

Survival
21st Of Summer, 516 AV

Harman spent the next hour burning Champion's wounds closed - on both sides of and all over the dog's body. The animal's pain had been so great, that multiple times Harman had to stop and give the dog a break. Keeping the dagger hot enough to effectively sear flesh had also become a concern, as he worked.

Harman looked down at Champion, when it was all said and done. The dog's torso was crisscrossed with pink, hairless and burned flesh, and clumps of dried blood. His master suspected that the Deerstalker would have quite a few scars from the whole ordeal. Still, the sixteen year old figured, that it was better to give his dog scars and a few more years of life, than to let his friend die with open wounds.

Champion stared at Harman, as if he was anticipating something. The boxer noted this with sad eyes.

"It's over now," Harman said to his best friend, in a tired tone of voice. "It's all over, and I'm so sorry."

The teen held up the dagger that he'd used to burn his dog. He didn't break eye contact with Champion's one golden orb, as he held the weapon up.

"This isn't going to touch you again today," he promised, and then tossed the weapon back into his backpack. "And hopefully, not ever again."

Harman pet his dog's snout. Champion seemed calmer after the knife had been removed from sight, he noted with some muted - and conflicted - satisfaction.

"I doubt you can walk, boy," Harman addressed his dog. "It'll probably hurt, but I need to pick you up again."

Harman wrapped his quivering arms around his dog. The tired human hefted his animal companion up off the ground. He could smell the burnt hair on the animal's flesh, as he carried him back to the back of the only covered wagon in the clearing.

The teen slid his dog once more into the cart. He then momentarily left Champion alone. Harman retrieved his bedroll and his backpack, and then walked back to the cart and climbed up into it.

The mercenary was dead tired, even though it was still early morning. He'd been robbed of the night's sleep by the battle with the zith, and by his flight from the camp they'd attacked. Now, he knew he couldn't fight sleep for another second longer.

As he spread his bedroll across the covered wagon's floor, he hoped that the zith were indeed nocturnal and wouldn't find him, if they were looking for him at all - or better yet, that none had survived the battle at all.

by **Aladari Coolwater** on September 23rd, 2016, 9:42 pm

Hey Harman. I already PM'd you about this, but I'm gonna need you to update your ledger with Summer expenses before I grade your threads. Let me know when you've done so and I'll finish up your grades.
Thanks.