Chapter 3
“I think the architects of that ancient peace treaty never saw Tarafel with their own eyes. ‘Every elf man, woman, or child, are hereby banished to live out their lives within the borders of Tarafel…’
“Have you ever seen that place? Or a map for that matter? It’s the single most enormous geographical landmark in our known world? Its sheer size is even larger than the bay! Lake Ascension bleeds into it from the west, combine that with the fact that nearly all our wildlife live in those trees and our ancestors had given the elves a home where they would never be left wanting.
“I can’t speak for our people and what they might’ve been thinking back then. The war was still fresh in our hearts, perhaps just putting the elves in a box somewhere seemed like the most humane thing to do. We had just fought a war. A war that lasted for a generation. Too many lives had been lost, the hills of our homeland were stained with the blood of our people. No family was left unscathed. No matter where you went, you always saw the same broken homes. A cloud hung over every mother’s head. They mourned their sons, their daughters, and their lost loves.
“Maybe just reclaiming what was ours was enough. Starting over, but with just us this time. Let the elves rot in their trees. It was their hands that struck us down. Goddess Kariia burn the forest to the ground. Let the beasts rise up from the dirt and drag them under. Let them choke on the suffering they brought down upon us all.”
-Malen Brown, smithy from Birch. Written verbatim. Cynical. Bitter. Not the best person for opinions on elvish relations. GTT.
Velik was in the middle of his breakfast when Ishmael arrived in the doorway. He dropped the crust of bread from his hand and coughed up a mouth full of berries.
The woodsman was a large man by any reasonable standard. Compared to the elves native to the forest, he was nearly a giant. He wasn’t quite an old man, but he was far from young. His beard was freckled with just as much grey as his natural black. If one looked close enough they might see the blues and green of the tattoos that covered his arms and back. He skin was also much darker than any of the elves and as such, they rarely noticed the shamanistic markings.
“Ishmael!” He shouted through a stream of spittle.
Ishmael looked like he had been dragged through hell and dropped off on his doorstep. His black coat was filthy and his legs were matted with something thick and green. Ishmael dropped something from his mouth, and it crashed onto the wooden floor. Velik didn’t even regard it, the wolf was in too dire a shape for him to take his eyes away. He looked exhausted, like each pained breath could be the one to topple him over. Then one did, and the man leapt from his seat towards his friend.
He was at the wolf’s side the moment he fell. Ishmael’s normally yellow eyes were so bloodshot it appeared like a cloud of red cataracts was suffocating them. It was a warm day, but Ishmael felt hot. Too hot. A lesser man might’ve attributed it to just a fatigued animal on such a sweltering afternoon, but Velik knew better. His nose was dry and some slimy discharge was leaking out.
Oh God, what did he get into?
The man tucked two dark, tattooed arms under the wolf and brought him to his table. He shoved the plate of food to the floor and laid down Ishmael. Velik felt his arms now covered in the same green sticky substance that was all over the wolf’s legs. It was warm and clung to his skin like a sock.
Velik frowned at the sunlight shining upon Ishmael through his open window. The wolf’s breathing was slow and labored. His eyes were still open but they unfocused.
Think! Thoughts were screaming through Velik’s head at a baffling pace. What could do this to him! He didn’t have much time! A bite, or a sting, perhaps? More like hundreds of stings. But why the green liquid all over his coat? He didn’t know!
He ran his hands through Ishmael’s coat in a desperate search to find some clue. Searching through the fur on his legs was particularly challenging. The slime both clung to his skin and made his fingers slip at the same time. It was maddening! Still, he found nothing else on him. His back, legs, tail, stomach, face, all nothing.
Velik looked upon Ishmael’s face. The wolf was suffering. It was breaking his heart. He held up the wolf’s head and rested his forehead against his. It’s what he always did with Ishmael when he needed it.
“Come on, boy.” Velik whispered. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
That’s when he smelled the acrid, bitter aroma of the slime. He hadn’t noticed it before, but now he was closer to the wolf.
Closer to his mouth. The burning smell was all over Ishmael’s breath.
Did he eat it? But, why? Ishmael was an adult wolf who at countless times had proved a level of cunning and intelligence that left Velik in awe. He knew better than to eat something that was potentially toxic.
What else was toxic? Ishmael’s wouldn’t touch some of the poisonous berries that were out there in some of the brush. Could this be a reaction to himself getting attacked? By what, a snake? Unlikely. He’d seen Ishmael catch and kill snakes three times as long as he was. Velik couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen one of the great spiders that used to hunt around those parts. Even if they were the guilty one then Ishmael never would’ve survived. He would’ve dropped motionless upon the first bite, and never awoken. The spiders never let anything escape. Velik even warned Ishmael himself about the caves and-
Lurkers!
As if the sticky slime had heard its name, it began to burn faintly on Velik’s arms. It was worse on his fingers where he had been combing through the source of it on the wolf’s coat. The blood, it burned with the toxin too. The lurkers were like some creeping sac of sickness and death. Deadly even to those who won the fight. He wanted to look into Ishmael’s mouth to see any signs of the toxin but he dared not get close with the likely culprit already spread thickly on his hands. Velik ran to a barrel on the far end of the room and emptied it out on his hands. The water was helping but he knew it wouldn’t be enough to sanitize him. He went to his cabinet and searched through all his carefully arranged boxes, jars, and pouches. They were all etched with the ancient ishcar language. Some mementos from his past.
“Ah ha!” Velik shouted.
He pulled out one of the larger jars from the back of the cabinet. It had a large cap pressed tightly on the top with the word Ghareschi etched deeply on it. The sap from the Blanchwood tree. It ran coarse and black, and served as a method to scrub skin clean of most contaminants where most traditional sanitizers were not within reach. The elves called it “ghost tar”. An apt name Velik always thought, because after it killed whatever was on your skin it was only the ghost that remained.
“Stay here, boy, ok?” Velik called to Ishmael in his best clerical voice. “I got you covered. Just stay with me,” He tried for several seconds to rinse the sap off, but gave up when it took too long. He went back to Ishmael and opened his mouth. The telltale black sores were everywhere. He must’ve gotten quite a mouthful. There’s no way this lurker lived. Velik had to stifle a smile. Crazy wolf wouldn’t let the bug stop him.
Next, he grabbed a different jar, a pouch, and a mortar and pestle. A handful of paige leaves should hopefully detox most of the toxin, and the landon oil for application. He tossed it all into the mortar and made a loose paste.
When he returned to Ishmael, he was relieved to notice his breathing hadn’t gotten worse. Velik opened the wolf’s mouth and spread the paste all over his gums. Ideally, he would’ve like to see Ishmael eat it, but he was in no shape to do that now, and pouring it down his throat would be too risky. There was no telling how much strength was left in the wolf and choking could be fatal.
Ishmael remained steady after he had finished. All Velik could do at that point was wait. He slumped back into his chair and let out a sigh of relief. While he wasn’t entirely sure how much of the poison Ishmael had ingested, he was satisfied that he did all he could.
Velik thought about washing him. The less time the blood was on his body the better. Not to mention all the dirt and muck that was over the rest of his coat. He certainly was a sight when he got there.
He laughed. He had never seen him so disheveled. He didn’t seem to be in his right mind when he arrived either, with that bone in his mouth. Maybe add delirium to the list of lurker’s poison symptoms? Where the hell, did he find a clean bone anyway?
Wait. That wasn’t a bone, it was black, and curved. Velik turned and spotted the object by the door. It was jagged almost to the point of an antler. When he reached down to pick it up, he stopped short. He saw the same green liquid nestled into some of the cracks on the surface. Figured this thing would have some of the ichor on it too. He found an old rag on one of the counters and used that to pick it up. He brought it closer into the light. While one tip of it ended in a sharp point, the other rounded out as a base and still had some flesh left on it.
Now in his hands, Velik recognized it for what it was; a horn. One that brought to light mammals not normally found in Tarafel. It reminded him of a bull’s initially, but the odd shape didn’t fit. The base started with a crescent like curve, then evened out into a point going straight back. It had coarse, sharp ridges running along the curve, also not common among bulls. It looks like some twisted imagination of a goat’s horn. But, where the hell did Ishmael find a goat in Tarafel? In all of Velik’s long years in those woods he had never crossed paths with a goat.
Velik looked up at Ishmael lying on the table. He was suffering from lurker poison, and lurkers never left their caves. The dark subterranean tunnels weren’t simply their hunting grounds, they were vulnerable to the sunlight. Besides, Ishmael knew the dangers of the caves, and he still went in. He went into the tunnels for a reason and even killed one of the bugs for it. Was that the reason? Did Ishmael put himself in such danger to retrieve that horn?
He pondered the horn, and shifted it in his hand. It was a goat’s horn, but something about it made him uneasy. It felt… different. It almost seemed like…
No! That’s ridiculous. He had heard the stories, of course. The last time he was in Moorestead he had overheard a couple restrained conversations about the raids. A poor fishing village next to Farrow’s Pond was attacked at night. Evabruck? Was that the name? Wasn’t there another? The storehouses were ransacked, the livestock stolen, and not a soul left alive to tell the truth of the tale.
Demons! They cried. Velik never even heard how the rumor started. Some minstrel wanting to tell the tragedies of those people to earn himself some smiles and a couple pennies probably. Demons were easy targets. Misunderstood, exotic, and nearly forgotten. A perfect cocktail for horror stories. Yet, here Velik was, deep in the heart of Tarafel forest in southern Gavaea, holding something that made every rational part of his brain become ominously quiet. He knew better, didn’t he? The horn in his hand was jet black and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t satisfy his speculation by judging it a goat’s horn.
It almost seemed like something else. Not a demon’s, but something else just as mysterious…
~
Before Velik left he laid Ishmael upon his bed. Not the wolf’s one, but his own. He owed him so much more, but this would have to do for now. Ishmael already looked better now that he was rinsed and clean. The ghost tar even worked to get all the ichor off his coat. Velik had his doubts about that, but was glad he was proven wrong.
Ishmael hadn’t awoken yet, but that didn’t worry him. Despite the poison working its way out of his body, the wolf was undoubtedly exhausted. He’ll sleep a long time yet, and more comfortably now too.
“Guard the house, boy,” Velik said quietly. “I’ll be back soon.”
He needed to tell everyone at Moorestead what he feared. The elders. The citizens. All of them. Most of all, he needed to tell her. To tell them what Ishmael fought, and nearly died for. Velik placed his hand atop a satchel at his waist and felt the horn underneath. He truly hoped what he was feeling wasn’t true.
Then he was gone.