A Sacrifice for Varkanah: Chapter Five

The party is beset by wolves, travels through the frightening Darkmeadow Woods, and must defeat a creature of legend. One of the stranger days in the life of Saeran Randsly.

Chapter V

 

The Narrow Road was seldom traveled. In places, the brush had grown over the dirt roads, so thick that it made travel impossible. Each time they arrived at one of these thickets of undergrowth, the party halted and waited for Hesio to hack through the brush with his sharp hand axe.

One such time, the brush was particularly thick. Saeran had told Hesio that he would help, but Hesio brushed him aside. Lark leaned against a tree, as far from Hesio as he could get, nursing his wounded pride. Drennan stood apart from the others, lost in his own thoughts.

“I’m worried, Saeran,” Hathien muttered to him. Hesio had been hacking at the brush for several hours now, all the while cursing under his breath and spitting at the ground. The road was growing darker, and night was falling, as far as any of them could tell.

A distant wolf’s howl split the near silence. Hathien inched closer to Saeran and took his hand, a frightened look on her otherwise-perfect face, so Saeran thought.

“We should stop for the night,” Saeran said loudly, addressing Hesio.

“We stop for the night, that bloody wolf will kill us in our sleep,” Hesio spat back at him. “We’re not stopping ‘til I’ve cut through this bleeding bush and we’re long gone.”

Hathien whimpered.

“If you’d let me help you�"”

“I don’t want your bloody help!” Hesio snapped.

Saeran fell silent, not wishing to provoke him any further.

The wolf howled again, closer this time. Another answered him, and another. Many wolves took up the chorus now, the forest resounding with their mournful cries.

“Gods, they’re getting closer,” Hathien said, looking around. She was pressed right up against Saeran now, her eyes frantic.

Saeran gripped the hilt of his shortsword tightly. “They’re coming here, Hesio! They’ll be upon us any minute!”

Hesio lifted his axe high into the air, then brought it down heavily, cracking one of the bush’s many thick branches. He cursed and threw the axe aside, drawing his longsword. In the dark, the blade glowed crimson!

He hacked viciously at the bushes base, trying to get it from the roots. It only took three powerful swings, and the bush was gone. He took his axe from the ground, looped it in his belt, and began running down the dirt road, calling back to them, “You don’t want to be wolf’s food, do you?”

They did not. Gripping Hathien’s soft hand in his, Saeran ran after the tall man. Lark and Drennan quickly followed suit, catching up to Saeran and Hathien quickly.

Hathien held up her skirts with her free hand and ran as fast as was possible. With Lark’s large stride, he easily caught up to Hesio in the front, then overtook him. In his mad dash, he was lost to sight soon, along with Hesio.

It was then that one of the wolves caught them. It leapt out of the trees and onto the road immediately ahead of Saeran, Drennan, and Hathien, gnashing at the air with yellow stained fangs. A disgusting, white froth poured from its mouth and down its chin as it slowly approached them.

Saeran began to back away, putting his arms out to block the other two. “Your sword, Saeran!” Hathien said.

He fumbled around a bit until his shortsword was in his hands, under an iron grip. He clumsily slashed at the wolf a few times, each time missing by a small margin.

Then, the creature jumped forward, and tried the bite Saeran’s leg. With a quick hack, the blade lodged itself into the wolf’s diseased brain.

The hideous beast howled viciously in death and fell heavily to the ground. Its howl was met by others, very close by. “Run!” Saeran cried.

Hathien stood still, looking at the dead wolf, mouth agape. “That…thing…could’ve killed you,” she muttered.

“And these others will kill you! Run!” Saeran boomed. She listened, gathering her skirts and dashing away, followed by young Drennan, who had a frighteningly bored look on his face.

Saeran stood firm, waiting for the oncoming wolves. “Come here, you bloody creatures!” he swore, waving his sword threateningly at the air.

A pair of bloodshot, golden eyes were visible in the dark ahead of him. “Come on, wolf!”

It took a few, slow steps forward, followed by half a dozen others of it’s kind. They were scrawny beasts, like they hadn’t eaten in days, but none of them were visibly rabid like the first.

An arrow whizzed past Saeran’s ear, to thud into the lead wolf’s skull. It was followed by another, and another. Arrow after arrow shot through the air at the wolves. “Bloody fool!” he heard Hesio’s voice behind him.

The big man lifted Saeran in the air easily, and turned away. Fifty paces behind him, Lark nocked and loosed another arrow.

The wolves howled angrily, then turned and ran, their numbers much less than they had been not half an hour earlier.

After he’d run a great distance from the wolves, Hesio dropped Saeran onto the hard-packed dirt road. “In the name of all the Gods, you’re a bloody fool, Saeran!” Hesio shouted. “You got lucky with the ogre, and with that one wolf. That does not mean you can take on the whole bleeding pack! How do you expect to ever get to Valdi if rabid wolves kill you before you’re halfway there? If you die, these folks are going home, and I’m not carrying your mutilated corpse all the way to Valdi! You can be sure of that!” The tall man spat at the ground.

It was very late, Saeran knew. But in his adrenaline-filled state, he could not imagine stopping. “We should continue. Those wolves will be back, and I don’t want to risk that again.”

Lark strode into view. “They’re not coming back.” He hefted his longbow. “My arrows killed a little more than half of them, and I wounded all the rest. They’re not coming back, even if they don’t bleed to death in the woods.” A proud smile touched his lips.

“Don’t get full of yourself, elf,” Hesio warned. “Get too arrogant, and next time it’ll be you full of arrows.” He ran his fingers through chestnut hair, glistening with the sweat of the chase.

“Do we continue?” Saeran asked, the adrenaline wearing off. Everywhere hurt. His legs ached from running, his arm from fighting. He wanted to stop.

Hesio looked around at the others. Hathien and Drennan did not say anything, they just looked terrified. Lark, wearing his proud smile, said, “Why don’t we stop for whatever’s left of this night? Those wolves won’t bother us again, and these poor people,” he looked at Hathien and Drennan, “need to rest.” 

“Fine,” said Hesio. “We’ll stop. Since you’re such a fine shot, elf, why don’t you take first watch?” His words dripped with sarcasm.

 “I will, thank you,” Lark replied, taking his bow from around his shoulders.

And so they slept. They did not make camp that night, but slept in their bedrolls on the road itself, for fear of waking something in the trees at this hour.

 

Lark leaned sleepily against a tree, the end of his bow grounded in the dirt below. His companions had long since drifted into uneasy sleep, each of them tossing and turning. Drennan muttered in his sleep, horrible things about blood and death.

He had decided he would take watch for the whole night. He’d not seen anything in the dark woods around him, so he assumed that all was safe. He didn’t bother to wake the others for guard duty, and although he would have liked to force Hesio to do it, the man had stalked off into the woods a few hours earlier.

He did not like that stranger, he had decided. He was arrogant and obnoxious, thought he was so wise, so much better than the others. That’ll get him killed, one of these days, he thought, if I don’t kill him myself. 

But he knew that the people he considered his friends thought of him the same way as he thought of Hesio. He knew that Hathien thought he was obnoxious, that Saeran thought he was haughty. Maybe Hesio isn’t at fault here, Lark silently confessed, hoping he was wrong about that.

Suddenly, Lark stood up perfectly straight against the tree, pulling his bowstring back. He had heard a loud rustling sound far to his left, so he turned that way and aimed his bow into the trees. “Human?” he called for Hesio. He didn’t want to show that stranger any respect, not after what he had said earlier. “Are you out there?”

Then he saw the source of the sound. An immense buck stood terrified about fifty yards from his position. Then, the beast turned and fled.

It had been huge, the deer, and it had had enough meat to feed the whole group for days. If he could catch that, maybe he could prove his worth to the others in the group. He took up his bow and began to run, silently chasing the deer through the dark woods.

It was a speedy deer, like deer are wont to be, but Lark was an elf, and was almost as quick at full speed. He dashed around trees, leapt over bushes and shrubs, until he caught sight of the deer once again. He took aim at the beast, carefully sighting the deer’s heart, and loosed his arrow.

The projectile hurtled through the air at an enormous speed, to slam into the deer’s chest exactly where he had been aiming. With a proud grin, Lark marched over to claim his kill. He ripped the arrow out of the torn flesh, cleaned blood off of its tip, and shoved it back into his quiver. With a heave, he lifted the deer up and set it onto his shoulders.

It was a heavy load, certainly, but he was strong from years of logging in Rosehollow Village. He was the blood of kings, so being a lumberjack in a tiny village in the middle of the forest was a demeaning job, but it was all he had after he had been made to flee his home, the land belonging to his father. It hurt to recall these matters, so Lark set his mind on the task at hand: carrying the buck back to the others.

As he walked, the deer’s weight shifted from shoulder to shoulder, and he knew that this would hurt later. He didn’t mind the pain, though, as the glory of catching this magnificent beast was so much greater than that. He kept on moving, trying to remember the way he had come.

That proved difficult, however, as he had been too focused on chasing the deer to watch his steps carefully. His surroundings looked familiar to his sharp Elven eyes, but that was little help as the forest looked the same to him wherever he was in it. He was lost.

With a start, he realized that he could hardly see a thing! Mist was rising from the ground to distort his view. He could see the shadows and outlines of the trees, but nothing more than that.

I’m lost, Lark lamented silently. I’ll never find my way out of these god-forsaken woods! And the others don’t have a guard…. We are all going to die in these blasted trees, and no one is going to care. These thoughts made Lark shudder.

“It seems I’m going to save you once again, elf.”

“Gods!” Lark shouted and turned around in a flash, instantly drawing an arrow from his quiver and nocking it to the bow.

Hesio chuckled. “It’s only me, elf, you need not kill anyone.” He held aloft a torch, burning bright in the darkness. “Let’s go back to the others, before they wake and start worrying for us.” He patted Lark on the shoulder, making the elf cringe.

“Fine, human. You lead the way.”

So Hesio led Lark through the trees, carefully picking his way around the undergrowth. “There are nasty plants that grow in the deep of the wood, elf,” he said, “plants that’ll tear your legs right out from under you if you’re not careful. I once saw a flower�"a harmless thing, it looked like, and pretty also�"but when I tried to pick it, it bit me!” The man laughed loudly.

Lark rolled his eyes. He did not care about this man or his stories, nor did he care about plants either. He just wanted to get back to the others.

And he got his wish, about half an hour later. Rays of light were streaming through the trees with the dawn just as they arrived to find Hathien, Drennan, and Saeran still sleeping soundly.

 

Saeran stirred to find the others skinning an enormous buck. Lark looked tired, but that was to be expected after he’d taken watch all night. Drennan had a bored look on his face, which still frightened Saeran. It seemed to Saeran that his young cousin was not interested in anything anymore.

“Gods be good, where did you get that thing?” Saeran said incredulously.

Hesio laughed and pointed the tip of the knife he used to skin at Lark. “Your friend here left camp in the middle of the night to catch it. If I hadn’t gone to rescue him again, he’d be dead right now.”

“You left us without a guard?” Saeran questioned Lark.

“I’d already killed those wolves, there wasn’t anything that was going to get you. You’re alive now, anyhow.” Lark leaned against a tree and shut his eyes, trying to get a little sleep before they had to leave again.

Hathien looked disgusted. “That stench…” she muttered. She was looking green, and Saeran thought she was going to be sick.

It was a few hours before the whole group was sitting carelessly on the road, wiping grease off their chins after eating a full dinner. There was still plenty of the deer left, so they wrapped it in cloth and put it into their packs, Hathien stubbornly refusing to allow them to put any into hers. What if the blood soaked into her clothing! That would never do.

“That was delicious,” Saeran said, patting his belly. He felt he would burst if he had another bite. “We had better not eat this much again tomorrow, or we’ll be out of food in a week!”

“No danger of that,” Lark began, but his sentence was cut off by a terrifying, unmistakable sound. They had all heard the stories growing up; they knew the mournful squawk of a harpy like they knew the backs of their hands.

The friends were frozen where they stood. They had been seen by a harpy! Flying right above them and outlined by the light of the sun was a horrid beast, with the body and wings of an eagle and the head of a woman. Red hair streamed from the beast’s head, flowing in the wind as it flew.

The creature was horrendous, but beautiful at the same time. It swooped down through the air, attempting to grab Hathien with her viciously sharp talons. Saeran pushed Hathien out of the way.

Desperately searching the depths of his mind for a way out, Saeran suddenly stooped for a rock and threw it straight at the harpy. It hit the beast square in the chest and it let loose a blood-curdling screech. The evil harpy flew directly towards the terrified adventurers. They ran in every direction to avoid the creature that had landed right in the clearing where Lark had been standing.

The harpy screeched once again as it lunged at Lark, and swiped its razor edged talons at the helpless forest elf. Being the only one armed, Hesio knew he had to help Lark, despite how he disliked him. With his large strides, Hesio was thrashing at the beast in a matter of seconds. This further agitated the evil creature and sent it into a terrible fury. Slashing and swiping its arms, the harpy sent Hesio flying and the warrior lost his glowing crimson longsword in his flight.

Lark was screaming like a banshee from his newly inflicted wounds, which were not only scratches, but deep gouges that seemed to fester as soon as they were opened, but when he saw Hesio go down he launched himself at their cruel attacker, landing right on its back. He pulled on the harpy’s arms, preventing it from ending Hesio’s life. Saeran and Drennan seized this newfound opportunity and began tossing rocks at the harpy.

But the creature proved too strong for the villagers’ attacks, and thrust them all away with one fell swing of its powerful wing. All hope seemed to be gone for the brave men. They prepared for a brutal beating and all of their untimely deaths, when Hesio Arishan grabbed his mighty blade, summoned up all of his strength, and with a final swing he sliced well into the right wing of the harpy. The beast shrieked horrifyingly, and swatted Hesio again, knocking him to the ground and leaning in to finish him.

Almost sick with fright, Saeran flung another rock at the wounded harpy. It flew straight and true, striking the creature in the eye and blinding it.

The harpy, now bleeding to death, abandoned its attempted prey and limped out into the trees.

Saeran, Lark, Drennan, and Hathien all stepped up out of the dirt at the same time, and they walked over to their unconscious friend. Saeran and Lark lifted Hesio from the ground and carried him as they walked. Drennan had picked up his sword and was guarding their way with it.

It was this way when they began walking along the road again, carrying Hesio’s unconscious body and carefully watching the road ahead and behind. They marched for hours and hours; the sun was turning the west into a canvas of deep reds and purples when the trees around them began to thin, and then disappear entirely.

They all collapsed in a tired heap, allowing their weariness to overtake them completely.    

Author's Note

Is there too much going on in this chapter? Is it hard to follow?