The second part of the story of my character in an ongoing Pathfinder game. You should read Part 1 first if you haven't already.
This time the rock fall was intentional. The boy had looked up to the old wildsman, loved him as a father really, but the rockfall that crushed his mentor had been the only choice, and he knew Talon would have approved.
After the boy had fled from his home, Talon the Wildsman had taken him in and taught him the ways of living in the unforgiving wilds. How to find food and shelter, how to treat wounds, and everything else a man needed to know to be self-reliant in a harsh land. The boy took to the lessons from Talon far easier than the lessons of his old tutor. He still seldom spoke, and never would give his name. Talon mostly just called him “boy,” and that seemed to suit them both just fine. The boy soon showed a natural talent for tracking and killing animals that impressed his teacher. He still refused to enter any town, and when Talon went in to trade for supplies, he waited in the wilds.
Often times, when they crossed paths with other travelers in the wilds, they would share camp or even travel together for a few days. Talon knew many of those who made a living out away from the cities and towns, and he proudly introduced the boy as “a fine young hunter.” The name Hunter soon stuck. Hunter still always stayed outside of the city whenever Talon entered one, but he at last became comfortable with their occasional traveling companions. Life, while often harsh, fell into a simple rhythm for the pair, as they survived several winters together in the snows.
That rhythm was first broken when Talon returned from a visit to a city in the middle of the night with someone new. A young man dressed in pauper’s cloths, whose graceful movements and smooth skin would have implied noble stature, were it not for the slumped shoulders and nervous eyes of a hunted man. They broke camp immediately and left with all speed, traveling through the snows in the dark. They traveled as fast as the young man could handle. As they went he was always peering back as if expecting pursuit. Talon was skilled though, and so was young Hunter, so pursuit never found them. They dropped him off in a town a few days hurried travel away, having never discussed who he was or what he fled from. The only clue Hunter had was when on the second night of their journey he began to make strange words and gestures. Talon slapped the man’s hands down and told him not to do such things around them. The man, cowed, never tried to again.
The easy pattern resumed again after that, till one evening the next fall, just after the first heavy snow. Hunter had set up camp in the shelter of a steep boulder-strewn slope, while Talon went into the city of Ghrisifal for supplies. Once again Talon returned in the middle of the night, this time with a young girl. She was poor, and clearly had been so her whole life, but, like the young man, she bore the look of one who was hunted. They packed as quickly as they could, but this time pursuit found them too quickly. Calls went up back and forth across the hills that hid their camp, as men in armor coordinated closing the net around them. The only escape was up the rocks. Talon cursed, and ordered Hunter to climb to the top of the rocks without being seen and stay quiet till it was over. The girl could not climb such a steep slope, so Talon hid her in a crack in the rocks before facing the incoming men alone. A tall man in a flowing black cloak led soldiers into the campsite. The soldiers seized Talon and bound him securely while the cloaked man questioned him about the girl. When he refused to speak, the man lit their supplies on fire, and ordered the men to search for her. He tortured Talon then. Hunter could only watch helplessly as the man who had raised him was cut apart slowly. He never gave in, but the girl’s whimpers gave away her hiding spot anyway, and the cloaked man pulled her out. Talon was left to lie dying where he fell, in a spreading pool of his own blood. The man bound the girl tightly and began to question her about others like her. The sobbing girl answered his questions readily, but it quickly became clear that she didn't know anything, and in anger he threw her onto the fire and calmly watched her burn. Even in the the dim light, Hunter could see that the soldiers were sickened by the girl’s dying shrieks, but they said nothing.
On rocky slopes such as these the freeze and thaw worked at cracks in the rock, slowly breaking them loose. Without the added weight of a blanket of ice such slopes were stable enough to camp safely beneath, but the right boulder being knocked loose could change that. Hunter stood and looked down at the carnage in the campsite. One of the soldiers saw him then. Hunter just looked him in the eyes and with all his strength pushed a boulder loose, sending it bounding down the slope. The soldier cried out a warning, and they all tried to run, but the cascading rocks engulfed the campsite too quickly and none escaped. When the last rocks settled, Hunter climbed back down the slope. The man in the cloak had been crushed. The burning girl was buried and no longer cried out. The tools and supplies were all buried or destroyed. Talon was buried. A few trapped soldiers still lived, but Hunter slit their throats. They struggled of course, but they soon died as easily as the animals he’d trained to kill.
He spent a cold night shivering in a crack in the rocks beside the dead, with no sleeping furs and unable to gather materials to start a fire in the dark. At first light, he crawled out and stiffly managed to gather some money off a few soldiers who weren't too deeply buried. Then he headed into the city of his birth to buy some supplies to start over.
No comments:
Post a Comment