Open [Open] Outcast

[Amaric Singspear]

Fall 5, 515AV

The fall afternoon was not hot, but sweat streaked down Amaric's forehead and stung his eyes. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, and took a restrained sip from his waterskin. He would have to replenish it soon- but that would mean turning from his trail to find the river, and he was already making slow progress.

He looked down in disgust at his boots. Footsore. He could not remember a time when he had had to rely on his own feet to traverse the Sea of Grass, like some pathetic Unbonded. He felt crippled and dull witted, as though some vital part of him were missing.

Breezeflank, he muttered to himself, and forced himself to move on.

It had been six days since he had set out, and it had taken four just to get back to the scene of his disgrace without Breezeflank's swift, loping gait to bear him. By then, the tracks that he returned to had gone; disappearing as the grass shifted in the winds. His uncle's corpse was still there though.

Lost in self pity, Amaric had disturbed a pair of snarlwings, feeding on the body. It took him longer than it should have to react, not registering his danger until the male of the pair had flown at him and sunk its gore-flecked teeth into Amaric's shoulder. Some final, biting criticism from his uncle Samal, Amaric had thought as he hacked at the beasts with Clan-Debt.

Guessing, he had then taken to the road and turned north. This was the direction that the caravan had been travelling when he and Samal had watched them. It made sense to think that this is where they would have gone. Amaric had no idea where the road led, or where they might have been going. But if nothing else, it would take him further from Endrykas' fall run.

So at least I won't be rode down by my own people, like some pitiful Walker Amaric thought bitterly.

Meanwhile, the bite on his shoulder throbbed and began, so gradually that he had not noticed it, to burn.

He had cleaned the wound as best he could, and dressed it in leaves of grass, but it was livid red, and hot to the touch. And he was sweating, and shivering.

Stopping, he sat in the shade of one of the great obelisks lining the road, and pondered how to proceed. He could not afford to fall further behind his quarry. But how long did he have to catch up with them before this infection left him unable to do anything more than fall at their feet in the dust? How would he find healing in this land, so welcoming and yet so alien-seeming now that it was closed to him?

"Samal, you old bastard" Amaric muttered to himself, aloud this time, as he closed his eyes and leaned back against the obelisk, draining the last of his waterskin.

[Amunet]

There had to be a better way to check on the camps on the outskirts or the ones who didn’t choose to move very much. It was their choice of course and often these outlying camps often were very self-sufficient. She answered a request from the Riverflower to check on a pregnant woman of the Emerald clan that had settled their pavilion remotely for optimal hunting. It was along the north side of the river, north a little till you get to the craggy half dead tree, then go east a little bit.

Fortunately the clan hunters found her before she found them. The girl did her check and scheduled to come in about fourteen days. The woman was at close estimation was around two hundred and sixty days. Considering that this was her third child, she could go early, but one never knows exactly when babies will decide its time to be born. The irregularities with the information provided the number of days pregnant may not be accurate. Still, the little midwife will do her best to help her. She casually mentioned that they may want to move closer to Endrykas before the big Glassbeak hunt, just in case. It was the Ankal’s decision of course.

The ride from the isolated pavilion she hoped would give her enough light to get home. Her horse cantered along the easier caravan path of the run looking for an opening in the sea of grass that was marked by a rock shaped like a boot. The girl stayed close to the edge of the taller grass as you never know what you encounter on the more common routes. Her eyes spied something up ahead as she pulled Shetanae up slowly settling down into her back easy like as she slowed from a canter to a trot, a walk then to a stop as she shielded her eyes. Amunet wondered briefly if her eyes were tricking her or if the Sea of Grass was tricking her or Both!

There leaning up against the stone was a man. He looked to be Drykas. He also looked to not be moving hardly at all. The girl edged her horse into a trot to make the distance closer to the man. When his face turned at the sound of her approach she saw the black arrow on his face. The little woman also looked around to see if there was anything around that could be dangerous before moving around more to face him. Her red hair would catch the sun as it flowed behind her. The part around her face was braided more to keep it out of her face than any decoration. She noticed the leaves plastered to a bloodied spot on his shoulder. It didn’t take her long to decide to dismount.

Amunet was five foot four and a diminutive stature but she walked with a spirit that shined like the sun. “Hi.” The voice was soft and calm. It was in a pleasant tone as the girl had developed a decent bedside manner. “ I am Amunet. “ The young lady introduced herself carefully as she had no idea how he earned the black arrow mark. There was no strider, though he had windmarks. Guesswork would serve no purpose here, so she left that be. If he chose to divulge his circumstances, then so be it. “You don’t look too good. Do you need help?” It was a medical premise to ask for permission before rendering aid.

[Amaric Singspear]

Breezeflank Amaric had thought as he turned to see the rich brown strider approaching him.

The hoof falls had woken him, and his thoughts were muddy and throat dry. He had no idea how long he'd been asleep, but the sun had moved and looked close to setting. Or it was rising, maybe. No longer in the shadow cast by the great black stone, he was sweating.

Lost in reverie, he hadn't noticed the stranger at all until she spoke to him. He started at the sound of her voice and hit the back of his head on the stone behind him, and grimmaced. Immediately, Amaric realised two things. He wasn't dreaming of his strider. And he was in trouble.

With his left hand against the stone, he climbed to his feet. His limbs were still sluggish with sleep, and his back ached from the hard stone, so the action was more difficult than it should have been. Above all else, Amaric could not afford to appear weak.

He was not sure why he squinted when he looked at her. The sun was dim, and not behind her- The sun was setting he now judged; she was standing south of him- but it hurt at first, looking directly at her. He shielded his eyes with his left hand.

"You don't look too good."

Amaric laughed a short, empty breath. What does she mean? he asked himself, urging his addled brain to assess this situation faster. My condition, or my mark?

Nervously, his right hand moved to the handle of the curved black sword girt at his side. He loosened it and drew the blade a few inches as if in readiness, but soon thought better of it. If he added spilling the blood of a bonded rider to his crimes, he would be forever iredeemable. Besides, her manner and stature did not seem threatening... Could it be she did not recognise the arrow? Impossible.

She was short- a full head and shoulders shorter than Amaric- and young. In fact, she could not have long come of age. Her clothing and windmark identified her to Ruby Clan. Had word of his exile reached the other clans yet?. Her hair was red and long.

"Do you need help?"

"No help. You mustn't." Amaric managed to rasp, through his thirst. Stay away; he gestured in pavi. Outcast. He was not worthy of Drykas help. He must avenge Samal and find Breezeflank alone.

[Amunet]

She had lost her windmarks to the Gods. Amunet was very bonded to her strider and there was much debate of the issue. What wasn’t debated was because she was bonded, she was indeed Drykas. Her skin was without mark. The slender girl quickly got a water skin off of her strider giving the strider the sign for stay before moving back to the stricken man with the dirty golden hair. Her hand moved gently to move the hair from his face to look into his eyes with her own sky blues. That gentle hand would lie smoothly across his forehead and felt how warm he was.

She looked at him with a curious expression and an arch of her eyebrow after he tried to say no and signed outcast. Those little fingers and hands gracefully danced the sign of the Pavi. ‘One, People, Drykas’

“You are Drykas. “ There in were certain inalienable rights according to Drykas law. The specifics of what occurred with his Ankal regardless. Unless he did something horrific, the man was Drykas. “Rak’keli teaches to treat all persons with care when you can. I turn no one away. Please try and be still.“

She hadn’t been graced by Rak’keli but she did follow her tenets as closely as she could decipher. She put the skin of water in his hand while she scooted to the side where the shoulder was wounded to take a look. Even with the leaves covering it, it did not take a Doctor to see it was infected. Once the man got a good drink of water she took the skin back and poured a little on the wound as the young midwife peeled the leaves back ever so gently to reveal the wound itself.

“sorry, I know it hurts.” The young lady said with a genuine face of concern as the leaves took a bit of doing to get unstuck from blood and fluids. Those fingers would lift up a corner of a leaf and let the water drizzle under it to loosen the partially dried blood. It would lift slowly as with patience she started peeling away the make shift bandage. The ones on the outside were not too bad as the middle ones. She idly wondered what grass did he use, but that was shortly replaced with the angry puncture marks of the teeth. The girl smelled the puss in the wound that slowly revealed itself as a bite.

She wanted to ask what made him an outcast but the pressing matter was what caused the bite. “What bit you?” The girl asked as she went to her pack and took it off of the yvas to get closer. She looked around nervously as he was not going to last out here that was for sure. The vial of wintergreen was brought forth along with the last of her linen bandages. It was becoming apparent she would not be able to tend to this fully here and he might need the aid of a more experienced Doctor. She knew medicine well enough, but the anxiety of something else smelling this, bandits or worse worried her.

[Amaric Singspear]

Amaric's injury was indeed tender, it was true, but this was not the pain that made him flinch aand draw back from Amunet's gentle touch. It was no worse than the discomfort of a riding sore, or tatto knife etching his skin.

Ever since that shameful afternoon, when his indiscipline had cost him his mentor, his dearest friend, and his family, Amaric had been in shock. He had not stopped to consider his situation and the customs of his people; the possibility of finding help in the strong, tanned arms of the Drykas people. It was only his singlemindedness in pursuit of Breezeflank that kept his despair at their separation, and at the fury of his ankal, from overbearing him like one of the great grass fires that often charged across the grasslands after summer storms.

It was her touch itself that shocked him, stung him. His face burned red with the shame of his arrowmark, and he seized her wrist in fright. He loosened his grip, then let go, dropping his eyes and signing a hasty apology. Gratefully, he took the waterskin that she offered, taking one, two, three, four deep gulps, before handing it back to her and wiping his chin on the back of the leather strip wound about his right arm.

Looking into her face, he saw blue eyes. Eyes like his. Drykas eyes.

"Thank you" he said, softly. "I'm Amaric".

A horse cannot survive without the herd. Amaric needed help. He leaned back against the obelisk while the young healer tended his wound and its clumsy dressing with deft, gentle fingers. He eased himself, imagining that he could feel his strength returning as the water cleansed it. Of course he needed help. Even uninjured, he never could have survived much longer on his own- especially not with his tent and most of his gear miles away in Breezeflank's Yvas.

Samal he thought to himself when Amunet asked what had bitten him, and laughed warmly. The rippling of his shoulders sent a shock of pain through the skin around his bite, stopping his laugh almost as it began, but there was no denying that he was feeling a little more sanguine.

Snarlwing he signed, in answer to her question, and went back to absentmindedly gazing off at her horse. At first, the sight of Amunet's interaction with the beautiful animal had filled him with a sorrow to which he saw no end. It reminded him of Breezeflank, and how he had failed her, that he may never see her again. But now, there was something soothing and almost maternal about the animal, and he drew comfort from the gentle shifting of its feet, the flicking tail. The gentle snorts. The swivelling, snapping motions of her ears, and craning of her neck from side to side.

Wait.

Amaric stood instantly alert, wincing as he wrenched his wound. The strider could hear something; something that he could not.. Her ears were pointed like darts at the long grass on the other side of the road, and she was turning her head, trying to train her eye on something hidden from view.

Amaric dropped to a crouch, and had to steady himself against the stone pillar. His limbs were still heavy and slow. Signing for Amunet to do the same, he slipped as quietly as he could into the cover of the grass at his side of the road, drawing his cloak about him and over his hair, before turning to peak back out onto the path.

[Amunet]

The combination of quickness and the strength of his grip was startling and just as startling was the sudden release of her wrist. This allowed the young lady to continue cleaning the wound. It would need more than water. When he laughed she smiled at hearing it as at least he had cognitive function enough to recognize the humor of the situation of whatever the situation was. Amunet rolled with it as she focused on the shoulder.

Her back was to Shetanae and didn’t see the signs the sixteen hand mare was hearing something or noticed something else. The man said his name was Amaric and he suddenly very quietly scooted back into the grass. This caused her to turn around to see what was being the object of scrutiny. The movement across the road alarmed the girl. She had no experience with martial disciplines. The girl beckoned her Strider into the taller grass. The mare reluctantly scooted into a section that was not too thick. Hopefully the relative veil of tall grasses would be enough as she crouched down with her mare.

Amunet was right by the foreleg of her strider when she was settled as quickly as she could manage. She was no Outrider and she was not of the Watch. The girl peered through the small slits between grasses to see what was going on, what was coming through the other side?

[Amaric Singspear]

For a tense minute, Amaric watched across the road; his eyes darting to every blade of grass stirred by the breeze. His senses had been dull and groggy, but now he was fully alert- although his limbs remained reluctant and stiff. His joints and back ached under the awkward position he was now hunched in; leaning forward on the balls of his feet, ready to run, one palm on the ground to steady himself while the other brushed the long, stiff grass stems from his view as deliberately and soundlessly as he could.

The mare behind Amaric and to his left shuffled her feet occasionally, clearly uncomfortable. Each movement sent a pulse of cold, nervous energy rippling up Amaric's spine as his heartbeat throbbed in his ears. He imagined he could feel them twitching in the same way that the horse's did, craning to hear what she had heard. His nostrils flared and his breath came in deep, measured lungfuls as his muscles tensed and creaked, readying to fight or flee. His head swam- Amaric was in no real shape to do either. He pushed this unhelpful thought from his mind with some concentration.

Somewhere beneath the surface of his conscious thoughts was the thrill he'd always felt at moments like this- the awareness that a quarry was just out of sight, that days of poring over indistinct marks in the ground and the slight bend of a broken blade of grass were about to come to a short climax- that whoever laid sight on the other first would choose the route of approach or escapee and likely prove the victor. Amaric had thrived on such moments of instinct and ferocity, but the old excitement was buried in layers of self doubt, and he had to search hard to find it. It was in just such a moment as this, after all, that all of his instincts had failed. He had not even realised he was being hunted, and had awoken horseless and in pain, never hearing or seeing his attacker.

Movement in the grass across the wide, beaten road drew him from his trance- not the wind sweeping the plants gracefully aside like the wake of a herd of horses in flight, but definite, careful movement.

A muzzle appeared, low to the ground, dusty brown fur, followed by ears and paws. The wolf crept along, nearly on its belly, hind quarters raised and ready to leap into a loping run. It paced back and forth over Amunet and Amaric's tracks on the path, clearly confused at how they crossed eachother, or perhaps filled with doubt at the scent of the strong, well kept horse. It stood for a few minutes and stared down off the road in the direction that Amunet had come from.

It was a mangy looking animal, ragged and thin, with dirty fur and a piece of ear missing. Its tongue flagged from its mouth in exhaustion or thirst, but Amaric still didn't feel confident about fighting the animal. A snarlwing was more than enough bite for him, it seemed.

Amaric wondered how long the beast had been following him, hunched over his scent, padding tirelessly, patiently, only allowing itself to risk getting so near when he sensed Amaric's weakness. Certainly, it must have picked up his trail after he had left Samal's corpse- as pitiful as he was right now, there was no way a wolf would risk an unsuccessful hunt when there was already dead flesh to be scavenged.

Wolves seldom hunted alone, but from the sorry state of this one, Amaric decided he had no choice that to hope that this was the case. Maybe it had been driven from its pack to struggle to survive in the brutal plains as best it could. The similarity was lost on him in that moment, however.

Without taking his eyes off of the hesitating animal, Amaric cast about on the ground with his hand until he felt cool, smooth stone. It was half buried in the dry, tight packed soil. Amaric dug with his fingernails, scrabbling until the rock emerged; roughly the size of his fist, flint coloured and many faceted. Grasping it tightly, he hurled it as hard as he could through the air, over the road, to the grass on the other side. He hoped that the sound it made when landing would distract the wolf enough for he and Amunet to slink away.

[Amunet]

She stayed close to Shetanae’s foreleg. Her little hand was on the big mare’s shin to steady herself in the crouch. It wasn’t that Amunet was not used to crouching, as the act of birthing babies has her in this or kneeling. It was sometimes the case of an odd place of position. The act of being quiet of the art of being small was not in her skillset.

When she saw the mangy starving wolf, her hand went to her mouth to keep herself from gasping or making a loud noise. Shetanae remained uneasy. She remained alert as well. A single wolf the Strider would be able to fend off if she was alone, but she had a human with her. That complicated things for the mare.

The young woman thought about moving to under the horse as the idea of hiding her scent with that of the horse would help. Then the thought of being accidentally being kicked or trampled if the mare had to move quickly came to the fore as she blushed a little. Those eyes turned to Amaric as in bad shape as he was, the man was the one equipped to handle this situation. She swallowed hard as she carefully and slowly pulled her dagger. What she was going to do with it, she hadn’t a single strategy. If the wolf was having puppies, she would have some clue.

Fear, Ignorance and a protective nature swirled in with her scent. Shetanae was a protective mare that can fiercely react to a danger to Amunet. The young woman wrapped her other arm around the leg patting the leg to hopefully keep her from bounding out after the threat. The rock flew.

Her heart thumped loudly and she swore the mangy wolf could hear it. Slinking was not her forte. When Amaric moved, she would try to move with him only not as quiet or graceful. Every single sound was like a flight of birds it seemed like.

[Amaric Singspear]

Amaric caught his breath as he watched the rock fly. Absentmindedly, he rubbed his wound, as the action of throwing had stretched it uncomfortably again. His fingers came away spotted with blood.

The rock landed with a distant thud, and the wolf lifted its head warily. The throw was not as good as Amaric had hoped- the rock had landed only just behind the grassline on the opposite side of the road. Amaric swore in his mind, and realised that he had been holding his breath. He flared his nostrils and released the stale breath with as much control as possible, hoping that the noise would be masked by the light breeze.

The breeze Amaric thought to himself, and cursed again. They were upwind of the fleabitten animal.

The wolf hesitated, swinging its head back and forth between the source of the sound, and the grass which barely masked the two Drykas. Its forepaw hung indecisively, and it sniffed the air. Its hackles were raised, and for a moment, it seemed to Amaric that they made eye contact.

Amaric counted heartbeats as he urged the wolf to turn and leave, imagining electricity flowing from eye to eye in a critical contest of wills between the two wounded hunters.

Eventually, the wolf turned its body, legs bent, flanks heaving but tail straight and high, ears alert, as it crept to the other side of the road, growling low, investigating the sound. Amaric briefly considered taking the opportunity to smother himself and Amunet with broken grass leaves to cover their scent, but decided against it. There was no outsmarting a wolf's nose- not at this distance. And he didn't think they could afford to spend the time, or to make any kind of commotion that might swing the animal's attention back to them.

Treading as lightly as he could, he backed further into the grass, signing for Amunet to follow.

[Amunet]

She was scared. The smell of the wolf was horrible. Amunet felt the tense muscles tremble from Shetanae as they both felt the strain of being so close to a desperate animal. The girl jumped as the rock lands. Her grip tightened on her mare’s leg as the wolf got closer and sniffed in their direction. The little hand was over the little mouth as she trembled. Her vocal chords froze as did her body. Those eyes widened as she stared in the bare slits of grass that held the shadow of a slowly moving body of fur.

The wolf moved away. His movements seemed to take a lifetime to reach across the road to sniff where the rock landed. The girl barely caught the sign to move back. How do you move a strider and a inexperienced girl back with little noise? The girl tried, as she stood up and put the flat of her hand on the big mare’s chest to beckon her to move back. The sound was horrid as she crunched into tall grass.

In a flash, Amunet gasped as she swung up as soon as possible and extended her hand towards Amaric to get behind her as they needed to run. If he took her hand, Shetanae was weighed down by two riders. Her heart thumped as the mare took off in the panic the mare felt in as much as her bonded rider. She honestly didn’t know if the wolf was in pursuit or not. The panicked girl didn’t dare turn her head for fear what breath she had to focus on guiding her strider would be taken from her out of the unsettling site of the predator on their heels.

Unsure of how long they were running the mare slowed down and Amunet dared a look behind her. She checked for Amaric to see if he held on, fell off or worse, got left behind. Her breath was labored and the heart beat wildly.