Belthanos, First Thorn of Kurnoth, is leading the Evergreen Hunt on an epic adventure. In this episode of Dawnbringers fiction, they’re going toe to toe with a warband of Ossiarch Bonereapers, and the action is intense!
The soil was soft after the rain. Aure’s hooves sank through it as she galloped at the front, tramping a path that smelled of storms just past. Yells of joy and thundering footfalls echoed in her wake. As the dawn sent its first rays piercing through Ghyran’s canopy, she howled to the tune of the First Thorn’s hunting horn with countless other voices, all joining as one.
The hunt raced eternal in a blur of pulsing life and nourishing blood. Aure could no longer remember the times before she surged forth on centaurian legs, crossing mountains and marshes while praising Kurnoth with her longbow. All around her screamed the vengeful children of the forest: pale-skinned spirits, whooping Spiteriders and knotted Kurnoth Hunters sprinting upon legs of spun roots.
She could see Belthanos up ahead now. The First Thorn had lashed a piece of yesterday’s kill to his chest: a stark white arm with a ball-jointed hand, all carved intricately from bone. Her senses, honed to a point after years of the chase, could pick up the stagnant air of Shyish around it from several paces back.
The edge of his spear flashed as Belthanos pointed it to the left. The crimson beetle-spite that served as his steed pulsed in reply like a miniature sun, golden light falling upon Ghyran’s tangle of trunks and vines.
‘Children of Ghyran!’ Belthanos called. In an instant, all was silent, down to the last buzzing glimmerfly. Aure could see her fellow hunters crouched behind felled trunk and bush, barkskin faces shining from hollows and antlers peeking out from behind branches. Though the forest cradled them, she knew that countless dozens lurked within; like leashed hounds, they waited upon a knife-edge. ‘We chase a great bounty of bones this eve. The so-called Great Necromancer sends us pickings fit for hounds!’
Cackles of mockery rang like bells from the branches.
‘We shall crack each of them open and nourish the Swathe with their animus!’ With this declaration, Belthanos placed the horn once more to his lips. Jade runes swelled to life along its length.
The sound that blared was no physical melody, but a piercing keen that reverberated through Aure’s eager mind. In an instant, each crouched hunter shot forth, propelled by hooves, feet and wood-coated claws.
Now the chase had begun in earnest.
The constructs were fast. Aure could not remember the last time she had chased an enemy that could outpace her. Sweat coated the velvety fur across her back, only to be licked off by the leaves she now crashed through. The trees began to thin as they raced towards Breaker’s Lake, allowing Aure glances at her fleeing prey.
Nagash’s servants truly made a mockery of life. Each bony mount bore the traces of a dozen different animals, each shaped from optimal parts. The one she pursued most closely bore the spiked skull of a rhino, which it used to split apart the foliage ahead, as well as the sturdy hooves and powerful thigh bones of a destrier. It was hard to tell where the steed ended and its rider began, save for the fell light of soul-matter flickering in the Ossiarch’s eye sockets.
The creature turned its head. That ghost-light fixed upon her.
She ducked as the rider swept his spear wide, its bladed edge barely nicking her hair, before swiftly drawing and firing her bow in one fluid movement. There was a crack as the ebon arrow shaft punched through the cracks in the mount’s skull. It let out a guttural shriek, more banshee than animal, before veering sharply off course.
Aure put her fingers to her lips and let out a piercing whistle. Immediately, the branches of the surrounding trees appeared to spring to life; Kurnothi hunters burst from the misty forest depths, blades in hand, to sprint forwards on claw-like tendrils. She galloped to the left as they surged right, opening a great pincer around the separated target. She tilted her head back to taste the air. Moisture, mud and mildew. The lake drew ever closer.
Good.
There was a hissed whinny from the spectral mount ahead as it was forced to stop, cornered against the lake’s bank. Aure pelted along the treeline, drawing her bow as she went.
Before she could loose her arrow, the assailant was launching a counter-attack. The skeletal rider sent his mount careening towards her, horn pointed forward alongside its master’s spear. Aure’s arrow whistled past its head just as the point of a nadirite spear plunged deep into her shoulder.
She let out a yowl of pain as her bow clattered to the ground, but she pushed through the agony to draw her cyclestone knife. She wedged it into the mount’s flank before it could draw back, causing roots to erupt from the viridian blade edge and root it to the spot.
A searing agony shot through her injured arm as the Ossiarch rider twisted his spear. She could feel a pulling sensation emanating from the weapon, as if he was trying to drag her very soul through the gap he had created. Dark spots swam at the edges of her vision.
There was a flash of brilliant crimson from the trees behind her. Belthanos’s horn blared to life, causing her assailant to let go of his spear, scrabbling at his head in pain at the arcane thrum. The next moment, more vines erupted from the ground, called forth by the huntmaster’s beckoning. They skewered the skeletal warrior from bottom to top, cracking clean through the soultrap gem in the centre of his chest.
There was a hollow hiss from the construct, before the cold light behind his eyes flickered out.
With a swipe of his glaive, Belthanos shattered the animating jewel of the Ossiarch’s mount as well. It broke apart with a bestial whine and a clatter of bones to the mud.
‘A formidable foe for you indeed, father,’ he murmured to the air, oaken fangs split in a jaggedy grin.
Aure knelt instinctively before the Greatspite from which her master looked down. With a clasp of Belthanos’s fist, roots and vines sprouted from the limp arm hanging by her side. They burst painfully from her veins, growing and thickening until they encased the shredded limb in a replacement of knotted roots. She gritted her teeth, allowing the tears to fall but refusing to make a sound.
Belthanos nodded his approval. The melody of the hunt that had beat to a crescendo during the chase was beginning to pick up again as his gaze shifted to the Ossiarch’s body. Aure acknowledged his interest with an answering harmony as she knelt to search it for prizes. She admired how easily her new claw-tipped hand ripped through the pile of bones.
Her grasp closed around a bound parchment.
‘I have something, lord,’ she said, unfurling it deftly. ‘The Ossiarchs are calling for reinforcements in the north… for a so-called “Carrion King” chafes at his prison walls.’
Belthanos’s bark-hewn face twisted in glee.
‘It seems there is more sport to be had, child,’ Belthanos hummed. His voice was melodic in Aure’s ears, resonating in consonance with the wind in the trees.
He raised his horn to his lips. All around the lake, the eternal hunt responded in kind with the buzzing of spites and the whooping of a hundred Sylvaneth voices.
‘It is time we struck out north,’ he declared. ‘The dead one’s servants attract some truly fascinating prey.’