The Jarl's Son, Chapter 6-2
Through the Forest Once More, Part 2
Deeper in she stalked, making her way down a shallow slope towards an especially sunny spot in the center of the grove where the saplings grew. A bull elk, tall and tawny furred with great sweeping antlers longer than both her arms outstretched, grazed languidly on grasses and wildflowers around the nearest of the saplings. He watched her with an uneasy curiosity as she approached, his entire body stiff save for his twitching ears. She paused a short distance away from him, meeting his eyes.
Why did he not run? Most elk were aware enough of the danger men posed them to run at their sight, understanding on an instinctual level that men would kill them to make use of their bodies for food, clothing, and tools. That alone was odd, but stranger still was the fact that Varro still patrolled the outer edge of the birch grove in search of a space wide enough to let him in. Even if the elk didn’t fear Gaiur, he should still fear the greatwolf’s scent upon the wind, yet still as stone he remained.
Gaiur glanced at the nearby sapling, then back at the large animal. Tentatively, she took another step forward. He still didn’t move, save for a slight turning of his head so that he could remain facing her. She took another step, glancing once more at the little tree. He remained still. Then she took a third and, as if possessed by a murderous madness, the elk thrust its head downward and charged full gallop at her!
She cursed under her breath and scrambled to her right! The beast flew past her, its antlers missing her by a finger’s width. His hooves skidded in the grass and soil as he banked hard and charged again, but this time she was fully ready for him. Hunched low, she made a wide, sweeping swing with her axe, stepping forward and drawing her hands together mid swing to maximize the impact. It worked. The steel head slammed into the beast’s neck, showering her in a spray of blood as it split his artery and cracked one of his vertebrae. The animal fell sideways, momentum causing the carcass to slide a short way down the slope on its flank. Gaiur planted a foot on its shoulder, wrenched her axe free with a single firm tug, then drew her knife from her belt and turned her attention to the sapling.
The tree was very young and very small, no taller than herself. It looked healthy, with white bark unmarred by the curled peeling common to the older birches, and with thin but flexible branches. Examining each one, she found that the lowest had grown thickest, the second lowest was longest, and the third forked into a pair of sturdy offshoots about half her forearm’s length from the trunk. She decided upon the third, noting that it was the cleanest and strongest of the first three.
Kneeling down, she leaned her axe against the crook of her neck and carefully started to saw and chop at the base of the skinny branch with her knife. It was slow work that would’ve been made easier by simply hacking the limb off with her axe, but given how Renald stressed that it must be a healthy branch, she had a feeling her axe might cause too much damage. There was also no telling if the weapon’s enchantments might interfere somehow. Gaiur doubted that they would, but she also saw no sense in taking the chance.
After a few minutes, she’d cut about halfway into the branch. Her wrist and forearm ached. Little though it was, the wood beneath the sapling’s bark was quite tough. Maybe she should’ve used her axe after all? Well, she’d already come this far. Rolling her hand back and forth to work out the tightness in her wrist, she started to resume her work when a strange realization came over her. The golden hue which bathed the grove just a short while before was gone, and shadows were starting to pass over her.
Gaiur looked up, and when she did she felt a dull burning at the back of her eyes. Clouds had formed above her where none had been before. Thick and swift moving, they undulated as they rapidly blotted out the blue sky. Something was coming, she was sure of it. She could feel it in her bones, in her soul; that sense of looming threat had deepened. Plunging her knife back into its leather sheath, she took up her axe and rose swiftly, scanning her surroundings.
The elk was missing. An unusual impression was left in the ground where it had come to rest, like a narrow crease that hadn’t been there before. Stranger still, a patch of new growth had come in where the body once lay. Rich green grass now covered that spot, sprouting equally green stalks topped with large buds. Those buds bloomed into little yellow and white daisies. What became of the carcass she could only guess, but a grim idea formed in her mind. Had that now flowering crease in the soil formed because the land itself swallowed the elk’s body?
She would soon discover just how right her suspicion was. The ground rumbled and quaked, sending her off balance. All around her, the birds which sang and squirrels which skittered fled, taking to the sky or scrambling along the ground to escape the sudden quake. Hunin squawked in startled alarm. He took to the sky, climbing with hard beats of his wings in hopes of escaping the grove by flying out above it. Gaiur followed him with her gaze, then spat a foul curse as she tried to brace herself against her axe.
Just like the daisy flowers, the narrow birch trees that bordered the grove were moving. Their branches and trunks stretched and twisted, and they closed in a tight lattice all around them, as if forming into a colossal bird’s cage. The rumble of the quake grew into a sound she could hear. Stones split and cracked as the soil between the saplings in the center of the grove shifted, opening wide to let something out, as if something was being passed through a birthing canal.
It was the body of the elk which came through. Stripped of its flesh, its shoulders came first. Bulging through that earthen hole, its spine bent in a way that would’ve been impossible when the animal still lived. Wrenching back and forth, the skeletal form was bound all over in twining roots draped in ivy-like tendrils that bore broad green leaves. The head came next. Ripping itself free of the soil, the already large antlers were now lengthened, wrapped in sharp tipped branches that gouged great furrows into the ground.
The beast, whatever it now was, cried out with the sort of howling bugle it might’ve done in life, but at a volume which pierced Gaiur’s ears and rattled her bones. Then it ripped its hindquarters free and lunged for her, sweeping with those massive antlers! Gaiur dove aside, the quaking finished now that this forest fiend had freed itself, but she moved too slowly. One of the sharp points pierced through her mail and gashed her at the ribs! The armor caught on the beast’s horn, she was unable to free herself before it whipped its head in the opposite direction and sent her flying.
She crashed into the birch wall back first. Her head smacked against the close packed trunks and spots of dark and light filled her vision. She slumped forward. Leaning on her axe, she tried to rise. Her head spun. She stumbled, catching herself on the haft, and-
Hawr!
Reacting purely on instinct, Gaiur dropped to the ground. A heartbeat later, the elk fiend smashed into the birch wall, its branch warped antlers becoming lodged in the closely bound trunks. Rolling aside, she avoided its stomping hooves and pushed back up to her feet. Hunin continued to squawk above her, fluttering about in a panic as the beast tried to wrench its antlers free from the tree trunks they’d become lodged in. From the other side of that birch wall, Varro growled and barked, desperate but unable to get inside to help.
Steadying herself, Gaiur hefted her axe, aiming for the beast’s neck, but it loosed another deafening bugle. Gaiur winced against the sharp pain in her ears, but didn’t falter. She brought her axe down, then cursed as it passed through empty air! Engulfed in a sudden fire-like shimmer of gold and blue, the creature vanished, only to reemerge once more from the canal which it originally tore free of.
“Damnation,” she spat, holding ground as the monstrosity charged once more. Again she swung, and again it vanished in a burst of blue flame.
The otherworldly fire washed over her body, licking at her clothes, hair, and skin. She expected burns to follow, to be prickled and scorched with painful heat. Instead she felt a gust of cold, as if a winter wind buffeted her from the front. On its fading, which happened as suddenly as it came, a massive force smashed into her back. The elk fiend bowled into her, caught her in its knotted antlers, and hurled her up and over its stampeding body.
Gaiur spun end over end, and the grove turned into a spinning blur. She landed hard on her front, striking a knee against a partly buried stone. She’d barely managed to avoid landing face first, catching herself with her forearm at the last minute.
The fiend rounded, its hooves beating the soil. Its footfalls reverberated through the ground, adding to the cacophony made by Hunin and Varro. A tricky and tenacious spirit, it would see her trampled and gored before long. Indeed, it sought to do exactly that as it barreled toward her with its head lowered, sharp antlers ready to pierce and shred. Rising quickly, she readied to face it again. Pulling her axe back as far as she could, she willed its fire to light once more and swung with every ounce of strength she could muster!
The axe carved a great, flaming arc into the air. As before, the fiend vanished when the blow would’ve connected. This time, though, Gaiur didn’t stop. This time she overswung and, following the momentum of her blow, turned her arcing swing into a reckless and wild pirouette! The axe’s blazing blade slammed into the elk fiend’s collar. Bone and branch hewed with a deafening crack. The fiend bellowed its bugle and reared. Kicking out with its front legs, Gaiur let go of the axe haft and scrambled back to avoid the razor hooves. The fiend bucked, kicked and thrashed, but the axe was driven deep into its bones. A moment later, and the flames began to spread across the twining roots and vines of ivy that bound it together.
The earth quaked as the birches unwound themselves and shifted back to their original positions. The ground opened beneath the spirit’s thrashing form, swallowing it up in much the same way it was exhumed earlier. As it sank into the soil, Gaiur stepped forward, took hold of her axe, and wrenched it free. When the beast vanished, the clouds receded to reveal not the gold tinged sky of perfect clarity which she saw when entering the grove, but the lingering overcast which draped it like a tattered cloth.
Only one thing still differed about the view of the sky, a new form which appeared to hinder it. Silhouetted against the early afternoon sun, the towering form of that tallest sentinel pine loomed over the grove. Cast in its shadow, she gathered up the chosen branch from the sapling and left the grove with Hunin and Varro in tow. As she left, she could’ve sworn she heard the elk’s bugle. Real or imagined, she didn’t look back.
Thank you for reading.
The Jarl’s Son sees Gaiur the Valdunite return to embark on a new adventure and acts as the follow-up to my dark fantasy mystery tale, In the Giant’s Shadow. The previous story isn’t required reading to understand and enjoy this tale, but doing so will enhance the experience.
That was an intense read. Lucky for Gaiur, she carries that enchanted axe. Otherwise, she'd have been toast.