Chapter Thirty-Nine: Trip

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Trip

Val took the opportunity to have Tom practice how to field dress, skin and harvest a kill.

The carcass was far too large for them to shift easily, so the dressing would be crudely done, but they also didnt intend to take any meat, which made the prospect more palatable.

Within short order they had removed several large sections of hide, and Tom set about carefully fleshing it. Some of it would not doubt be ruined before they could get it back to Corins Grove, but they had so much it didnt matter.

Val made a rough travois from two of its thigh bones, and began removing and cleaning its other bones and piling them up onto it.

She gave several of its organs: its heart, liver, eyes and venom sacs, to Tom to keep in his spatial storage. The drakes fangs, and several of the shorter bones from its legs - only a touch longer than his spear, thankfully - went in as well. Val explained they would save them for Scriber; drakebone was an excellent base material for enchantments.

As they worked, they chatted excitedly about Toms new skills. Val was of much the same opinion as Tom was, but for different reasons. She was especially excited about his pinnacle. She had hoped for him to manifest some kind of self-healing, which his pinnacle did, albeit slowly. Her next hope for him was for a movement skill, and the slowing aspect of his aura would also help with that somewhat.

Overall, she was absolutely chomping at the bit to train him. She seemed to think he had a lot of potential. Tom was slowly beginning to realise it himself. He wasnt stupid, on the contrary, he had always done incredibly well at every subject at the Academy. Years of being told he was not good enough had taken their toll, though, and he was still shaking off the shackles fully.

Soon enough, they had taken all they could reasonably carry. They hitched the travois to Sesame, and began the journey back to Corins Grove. The trek would take most of a fortnight, and then Val wanted to set out for the Hunters Gathering immediately.

The age-old meeting place of the Hunters, what they called their True Hall, was located right up near the Nails, in the north, just west of the great northern trade road leading to the vast Rust Sands. It would only take them three weeks and change to get there, and Val wanted to arrive with plenty of time to spare.

Got some old friends to catch up with, she explained. And some I wouldnt call friends, too.

Tom was apprehensive about meeting other Hunters. If Val was wary of them, then they surely were deserving of a great deal of caution. He tried not to think too much about it.

Over the next few weeks, they made slower progress than usual. They had to account for Sesame and their travois, which was niggly to work through certain parts of the forest. Luckily, Vals knowledge of the land allowed them to avoid having to backtrack too often. Winter had arrived too, finally, and although much of the deadfall had rotted away, they now had to contend with freezing drizzle.

Sesame accepted the burden of pulling it with no complaints. A vague sense of enjoyment flowed continuously down their bond: the bear enjoyed both helping them, and proving he was much stronger than them too. Tom wasnt sure that was necessarily true, when it came to Val, at least. So many body temperings must have made her into an absolute beast.

Every so often, on their journey, Val would have Tom strike off into the forest on a tangent for some predetermined length of time, and then try to find his way back to them. He found it fairly easy the first few times, and yet still incredibly useful for cementing his progress with Hunter-Gatherer and mundane tracking.

After a few days, Val switched things up.

Head south and east for a day, she told him one morning, And meet back up with us before sundown the day after tomorrow.

Tom nodded his acceptance, and began to head off.Visit no(v)eLb(i)n.com for the best novel reading experience

Oh, and bring us back something nice, she called to him with a mischievous grin.

In short order, Tom had popped free a stone, covered in orange blood. He used the same rag to pick it up, and washed it in the pond. Discarding the rag, he inspected his treasure. The essence stone was black, with a very, very, faint iridescent sheen. He was incredibly disappointed, having pictured some marvellously coloured essence to match its hide. It wasnt very nice, after all that, but hopefully it would do.

He turned back to the corpse, hopping back onto the log with it. He spent a few moments admiring the beautiful colours, before reaching out and running his hands over it. Most poisonous frogs, he knew, secreted their poison through their skin. It felt greasy and slick.

He watched his wisp, waiting for the notification of Sweet Suffering activating. Suddenly, he became aware that he had been watching it for a very long time. Or had he only been watching it a moment? And why was his wisp pink and brown and black? He was certain it was usually the other way around.

He panicked, knowing something was wrong, and made a frantic half turn of his upper body while his legs still straddled the log before freezing, looking about for the source of the danger. Danger? His gaze locked onto the tree he had initially crept from behind. Suddenly, he was sure he had crept from behind it many times. More times than hed realised.

And it wasnt just a tree, it was a shadow. A shadow that hed crept from. A shadow of many things. The Academy, a Reaping, his mother, his father, the Council. He had crept from it, and now he was in the light.

Sitting on the log, next to the spring-fed pool, he felt horrendously exposed. Like anything could swoop down and snatch him. That was what happened when you crawled from the safety of comforting shadows. You got snatched. Snatched right up.

But the corner of his eye caught on something, and was drawn.

Hazy fractals. Dancing patterns of light cast through shimmering mist in a winter dusk.

They were beautiful. They reassured him. Supported him.

You would never see them, if you never slunk from a shadow, safe and content. Even if the light was harsh, exposing, it illuminated as well. Revealed beauty. Encouraged.

And yet you couldnt know one without the other. His thoughts became circular, spiralling, gyrating things, spinning endlessly in revelations. He was lost, and he was found.

A long time later, his thoughts slowed. Slowly, they took shape again, and they seemed ugly, angular things, meant to capture the beauty of the world and lock it into ugly, understandable forms.

Then even that was gone, and Tom slowly came to.

It was light. Or morning, to be more precise. Blearily, he blinked gummy eyes at a scene he had been staring at for hours.

Mist over a pool. It seemed mundane. It felt almost lewd, when compared to the rapture it had been, like throwing open the curtains in a seedy brothel. He shook himself, trying to retain as much of the all-encompassing feelings he had been shown, while banishing the carnal sight in front of him. He turned, tired, and fell off the log in shock.

A great cat lay next to the frog corpse, its eyes half closed, purring and softly pawing at the rotting wood. The fright sent adrenaline coursing through Tom, and that chased the last of the frog poison from him.

He had almost died. While he sat in a stupor, this predator could have mauled him, destroyed him, and he doubted he wouldve even felt it, let alone minded. Only the fact that it had chosen to investigate the bleeding frog corpse instead of him first, had saved him. He shivered.

He left the big brown cat lying by the frog corpse, its short hair glistening with moisture. It would come to eventually.

He had learned his lesson about antagonising things unnecessarily. And maybe more, besides.