Under A Wild Star

by SwordTune

Ch 3: Ash in the Wind

A few hours after they had followed the trail, the sun started to set. As good a hunter as she thought she was, Nisus didn’t want to encounter a predator in the night. She still remembered stories from Foreteller Gheluc about the time he chased a deer-hawk after dark and ended up fighting his way out of a blaze-snake pit. Did she believe it? Well, she saw the burn scars.

August and Beran chatted over the fire, sharing some soup Beran had packed in a waterskin. It was weird, seeing two chimaeras from different clans being so close, especially when other hunters were around.

Nisus stirred, joining the two other Kern hunters, Cerran and Thossa. Cerran had charcoal scales and a white mark on his back, shaped like a pair of hawk wings. Thossa, a little shorter than Cerran, was brown like Beran, though her mark took the form of a web-like net, splayed across her chest.

“I say we get eaten in the middle of the night,” Thossa said grimly, either not noticing or not caring that Nisus had joined them.

“Beran hasn’t let us down,” reassured Cerran, who was poking at the campfire with a long stick, maybe three times his reach. “I say we find the beast. Then we’ll die.”

Nisus snarled but kept it to herself. These were supposed to be hunters. Why were they acting as they had already failed? An unknown predator in a lowland was a threat to any of the clans, theirs especially considering the previous attack.

Instead of telling them to get the job done, Nisus calmed herself and tried to rationalize as her cousin would if he wasn’t so distracted by Beran. “You two saw the beast, right? August and I haven’t gotten a detailed description of it, so I’m curious.”

Thossa leaned in until her horn almost touched Nisus’s forehead. “I also saw the tail smashing through the roof of my tent. That “beast” destroyed generations of my decedent's hides. It would’ve crushed my sisters if it wasn’t in such a rush to escape.”

Nisus drew back, surprised Thossa was still standing here with them and not mourning back home. A family’s tent was one of the most sacred practices among chimaeras. As one generation passed away, their hides were dried and waxed to be added to the tent. Every tent was a symbol of one’s immediate family.

“All the more reason why we have to stop it,” Nisus said.

“Not saying we shouldn’t,” Cerran mumbled.

Nisus turned her head to the soft-spoken jack. “Didn’t sound like that a minute ago.”

“Yeah, well, you weren’t here a minute ago,” he grunted, looked down at her. “It’s just, we like to be more realistic about what might happen. It helps adults prepare for the worst.”

Nisus clenched her claws. She may have been the youngest, but at nearly fifteen cycles old, she had no less experience hunting than anyone else in their group. To prove her point, the young jill unslung her bow from her back and held it out in front of her.

“Bow belonged to my Ma and Pa,” she said, gently running one digit against the deer horn backing. “I’ve been using it since I was three cycles old. Wolf-hare, that was my first.”

Nisus pulled the bow halfway, testing the weight. She relaxed and set it on her lap. “No one is going to die on this hunt. Not while I have this bow.”

Thossa and Cerran looked at each other, surprised by her focus. But, they respected it and said little more on the subject, staying so quiet that the only thing the forest heard that night were the laughs between Beran and August.

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The next day, they had a wide tract of land to search. The trail of stirred flower buds grew into a massive span of land. Nisus guessed the beast had been here for a while, circling the area and knocking off even more leaves and flowers.

Searching the place would take hours, perhaps even a full day, if they were tracking any normal prey. But for a beast of this size, there weren’t many places it could hide.

“We’ll corner it,” Beran rejoiced, pointing his claw to a large cave in the mountainside. Though they were still in the Kern clan’s lower territory, where the zoak trees shaped a sea of leaves, a rocky cliff jutted up from the dirt, steeply ascending to the highlands of the mountain.

“Are you sure we should hunt it there?” asked August. “This cliff marks the border between you and the Wefan clan.”

“Ha!” Beran laughed mockingly, slapping his keus-bhrater on the back. “As if those weavers could stop us! Maybe they can make me a coat from the beast’s hide.”

They hiked up the mountain, the cave slowly came into full view. Nisus didn’t need a spell to know it was big enough for the beast. The mouth of the cave was twice as tall as it was wide. When they finally climbed up to the inside, Nisus guessed they could’ve marched twenty chimaeras shoulder to shoulder through the cave.

If this was where the beast was hiding, then it was more clever than most animals. It doubled back down the cliff in the forest, trying to shake its followers by going into the lowlands before coming back up to its hiding spot. A wolf-hare would have simply run in a straight line as fast as it could.

“What do you see?” she asked her cousin, turning back to focus on the hunt.

“Not much to see,” he said. “Even weg finden yege can’t see without light.”

Nisus produced a roll of twine from her hunting kit, rolling a piece of the cord into a ball. Focusing on the dry material, she whispered a spell into it. “Hathiertan.”

Flames grew from the core of the ball, turning into a bright orange flame. Though hot, every chimaera had thick scales that proofed their body against weaker fires. The twine burned slowly, the fire fueled by magic for as long as the spell lasted, which was about a minute.

“See anything now?”

“Yeah, scratches on the stone,” August pointed. He knelt to take a closer look. Beran and the others did the same, though there was little that they could see that August couldn’t.

“Something big and powerful has passed through here. Has to be the beast.”

Nisus carried her flame deeper into the cave. “Might not be at home,” she said. The cave huge, far bigger than what they were tracking. Still, it shouldn’t have been able to hide in a place like this. She climbed over a pile of rocks, tracing her claw over the wall of the cave.

The scratch marks were deeper here. It had to climb over the rocks too, Nisus thought to herself. But, as soon as she reached the top of the pile, she realized her guess was off. The cave didn’t continue. It ended in a rough patch of granite rock.

Nisus raised her fire to the stone. Light reflected off the stone, even shining in a few places. Crystals like quartz were found in granite, but this was different. The back wall almost looked like a pattern. And then she froze.

“Need help, little one?” Beran called.

The other four were still searching the cave. They couldn’t see the crack in the stone that slid open and revealed a massive black pit, circled by a sharp green iris. Nisus stared at it, and it stared back. The two of them, beast and hunter, understood what the other was thinking. Who would go first? Who would react? Will I be the faster one?

Nisus’s claw shot over her shoulder, grasping at a spear. But the beast simple shifted itself and the pile of rocks crumbled down, taking Nisus with it.

“It’s here!” Thossa warned, being the first to see the creature coming out of the shadow of the cave. She reached for one of her bolas, the standard hunting tool among the kerns. But it was too late. A tail swept across the cave, sending Thossa out and tumbling down the cliff.

The beast would have continued, were it not for Beran. The hulking chimaera proved he was no different from his namesake, a bear, and gripped the scaly tail with his claws. It was like a hatchling chimaera grabbing at a father’s claw, but for a moment the beast was stopped.

Cerran charged, unsheathing the knife that hung from his hunting kit. He strode up to stab the beast’s tail when a second shadow flew out of the cave. Nisus stood up when she felt it leap over her. By the time she dug through the rocks, however, Beran had grabbed the second beast and dragged it down the side of the cliff.

Her first instinct was to find August. Her brother was a Foreteller, a leader and symbol for her clan. Between killing the beast and getting keeping him safe, he took priority.

“We need to get out!” she shouted, hoping he could hear her. Slowly, more and more of the beast crawled out of the cave. She ducked to the side of a cave as she felt its wings start to spread. They were vast and leathery, and too big to stretch fully in the cave.

Nisus pulled out her spear, but the beast had ignored her. It seemed focused only on leaving.. Every inch of its body was covered in granite-coloured scales. Standing behind it, Nisus could see the powerful legs, large enough to crush a tent. It stood its front up with equally powerful arms, and raised its head so high, she didn’t think ten Berans could match its height.

Like a drawn bow, the beast’s legs exploded, ripping chunks of stone from the cliffside as it launched itself into the air. Nisus covered her face, shielding herself from the dust and rocks.

“How can such a thing exist?” August asked her, running from some hidden corner of the cave. Cerran caught up as well, his dark scales perfectly blending with the stone.

“It doesn’t matter, my kin are down there,” he said. “We have to help them.”

Nisus tightened her grip on her spear. “It’s like I said. I’m not going to let anyone die this time. Go help them, buy time. The spell we need to skill that thing is going to take some time.”

Cerran nodded and sprinted to help his clan folk. August quickly pulled a thin square of obsidian from his hunting kit, using the stone’s reflective quality to check the marks around his eyes.

“Can you cast it?” Nisus asked, trusting that her cousin knew what she had in mind.

August looked up at the clouded sky and nodded. “But I won’t be much use after. It’s too hard to do with just one spell. I probably won’t be able to cast anything else.”

Nisus slid her spear back into its strap and put her bow in her right claw. “Are you kidding?” she laughed in spite of the danger as she picked up the arrows that had fallen from her quiver, “I’m doing the hard part.”

She left the rest to him, following Cerran’s hoof steps down the cliff. The young Foreteller stepped out of the cave, looking up at the sky. The Melt had passed, but spring’s skies were still full of clouds as tall as mountains and as wide the plains.

He raised his arms, whispering a quick prayer to the Elements, and began chanting. “Meiscua. Meiscua. Meiscua.” The snake marks that wrapped around his eyes began to glow and soon crackled with short jolts of light. The white clouds around the mountain darkened, pooling into one point on top of them. Mimicking their summoner, they shook the trees with booming cries of thunder.

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Nisus followed the sound of Beran’s roars. The larger beast was surprisingly fast, and hard to track once it started to fly. But from the sounds of it, the smaller creature was still grounded. A child of beast, perhaps? She didn’t know what animal it was, but all living things cared for their young. It was a simple law of survival.

“Reipbhendh!” Nisus heard Thossa cry out. She followed the sound to find the huntress hurling her bola at the creature Beran had captured.

It was no child of the beast. It looked like some kind of bird-horse, not unlike a deer-hawk. It snapped at Beran with its pointed beak and raked at his scales, but the chimaera’s bulky arms continued to constrict the bird-horse.

Thossa’s bola tightened, commanding the rope to bind to itself so the creature could not cut loose. But its front legs were razor-sharp talons, and with no effort, it managed to tear the twine apart.

Beran howled and twisted his body, throwing the creature onto the ground. “Thurnin,” he grunted, his mark around his horn glowing and turning his scales into hardened thorns. “Elements, grant me honour to take this beast down!”

The creature screeched like a falcon, slashing Beran across the face and forcing him to let go. His spell wore off seconds later.

“Where is the other one?” he shouted to Nisus as she closed in. Above them, the sky darkened and thundered. She couldn’t quite hear him over the rolling storm but could guess what he meant from his lips.

Nisus shot an arrow into the bird-horse’s back and circled around so that the three of them surrounded it. “Can it fly?” she asked Thossa.

The response was an optimistic head shake. She pointed to the wings on the creature’s back. One looked healthy, full of feathers and fighting to flappling at the chimaeras, the other wrapped up in some kind of cloth.

That, and the way it broke from the bola, was even stranger to Nisus than the creature’s strange body. Weightless drops of rain began to flutter down from the swirling mass of grey above them. Soon, it’d be a downpour. A roar as loud as the storm’s thunder soared over them, shooting through the air like an arrow.

Nisus launched two more arrows at the bird-horse, though this time it managed to dodge both. Thossa threw a net from her kit. The orange net marking on her chest flared with light as she shouted “Gewiht!”

The creature collapsed on the ground as if the net was as heavy as a boulder. Beran whooped, punching his claw into the rain.

“Find that big one!” he cheered to Nisus, but his voice was soon overtaken by the combined roars of the storm and the scaly monster landing on top of them.

They all dashed, leaping out of the way. The forest dirt, still soft from winter’s melted snow, had turned muddy in the storm. Two sharp snaps rang in Nisus’s ears.

When she looked up, Cerran was facing the scaled beast with a sling, snapping out stones at the beast. As soon as it shifted its attention to him, his mark began to glow brightly.

“Berstan,” he grunted, firing a heavy rock from his sling. The stone exploded against the beast’s hide, but it did little. Nevertheless, the white mark across Cerran’s back continued to dim as he fired a second charged shot.

Nisus bolted up and pulled the chimaera out of the way when the beast reared its head to bite. “Focus!” she scolded him. She turned him with his horn, flipping him around and checking his back. “You’ve got one or two spells left, don’t you?”

He said nothing but nodded.

“Sell your life dearly,” she said. “Don’t jump at the beast for nothing.”

As if to dared her to make the same foolhardy mistake, the scaly monster turned its head around the tree they hid behind. Nisus quickly glanced up at the storm her cousin had made. Lightning crackled, but it still had not reached maturity.

“Hatheirthan!” she cast again, picking up a dead branch and waving it at the beast. Fire ate the wood from top to bottom, sizzling the rain that poured against it. Nisus slapped the burning stick at the beast.

“All animals fear fire,” she smirked, putting herself between it and Cerran. “Even predators-”

The beast slapped the branch from her claw using its tail. Rearing its head over the two chimaeras, it swung open its jaw. Nisus was ready for the bite, but she tensed when she saw a white-hot glow building up in its throat.

“Run!” she screamed. Cerran didn’t need to hear it twice, and they both bolted away from the beast. They barely escaped when a firestorm erupted from the beast’s mouth, instantly reducing full-grown zoak trees to thin columns of charcoal.

Nisus’s mind shifted away from stalling the beast. She slipped around on the muddy ground but charged on to find Beran or Thossa. She found both of them only just getting up from the beast’s crash landing. The other creature was still firmly in its net, though Nisus wasn’t sure how much longer the weight spell Thossa used would last. She hurriedly shook both hunters awake while Cerran acted as a distraction.

“I know what we’re tracking!” she shouted, pulling on Beran’s head by his horn.

“Wha?” Beran huffed, waiting for his senses to come back. But there wasn’t time. Nisus splashed mud in his face and slapped him awake.

Nisus retold the story in her head. The beasts that guarded the Elements, flew for them, heated them, they were called by them as…

She ran to Thossa and pulled the jill onto her hooves. “Dragon!”

Thossa shot out of her daze, scanning around to see what had happened. Beran got up too, but the cut on his face from the bird-horse’s talons had opened up even more from his fall. He wiped his face, but his eyes continued to be covered by fresh blood.

“Keep him safe and the other creature down,” Nisus sputtered, hastily pushing them out of the way of the dragon’s second wave of flames. Lightning finally began arcing out of the clouds, striking at the highest trees. “I have a plan, but I can’t promise I can keep both of you safe if you stay.”

Cerran again tried drawing the dragon’s attention. “Berstan!” he screamed, his voice having a greater effect on the dragon than his shots. Two more explosions. Nisus took a quick mental note. He was likely out of spells.

Thossa looked at him, her face flushed with worry. However distant their relationship, they were still kin. She nodded. “Keep him safe too.”

She ran over to Beran, grabbing him by the claw. “Think you can do something for me big guy?” She produced another rope from her kit and wrapped it around the bird-horse.

“Reipbhendh!” The rope immediately tightened, causing the creature to start screeching again. Thossa shoved the other end of the rope into Beran’s grip. “I’ll guide, you pull.” Despite his injury, the jack was still an incredible mass of muscle, and he managed to keep pace with Thossa as they ran from the battleground.

The dragon’s attention immediately turned on the two chimaeras, and Nisus knew she had to start working. She looked down at her mark. After two spells of fire, she counted on having five for spells to use. Enough to work with, not enough for mistakes.

She found her balance in the watery mud and shouted to the dragon. She watched its eyes, making sure it saw her aim an arrow at its friend. “Think you can stop an arrow?” she taunted.

The dragon stopped and whipped its tail around. Nisus heard the snapping of the trees and fell to the ground, letting the dragon’s strike hit the air. She got up and watched it rear its head, charging another shot of fire.

“Thunor!”

Lightning followed the magic in the shot, and together, arrow and crackling thunder struck the dragon. The arrow reflected off the dragon’s scales, but it wailed against the lighting.

Nisus hoped that was all she needed, and for a moment, that seemed the case. Cerran whooped from behind the dragon, waving his arms in the rain with relief. Not a second later, the dragon’s eyes opened again and its hungry teeth snapped out at Nisus. She ran, keeping a number of trees between her and the dragon.

Thunor was a simple enough spell to cast, but hard to make useful. Nisus couldn’t just call the strike down onto the dragon. She needed to be able to put her magic into something for the lightning to follow, a rock or knife or an arrow. The dragon spread a circle of fire around itself, but the storm left everything too soaked to catch.

“Element of liberty, please let us be free of this thing.” She seized the dragon’s brief moment of confusion and launched two more arrows.

“Thunor,” she heaved, aiming for any soft spot she could find. The arrows landed in the leathery membrane of the dragon’s wings, followed by deafening bursts of thunder.

Trees splintered from the force, and hearing had seemingly abandoned Nisus’s left ear. Her spell definitely damaged the dragon. Its scales glowed red, overheated by the repeated lightning bolts. But still, it limped on, determined to hunt down the chimaeras that had taken the other creature.

“Give me a break,” Nisus pleaded to the elements. That was three lightning spells. She looked up at the sky. August’s storm spell would last at least a half-hour, but even if she used all that time to land the perfect shots, Nisus wasn’t sure if that would take down the dragon.

Cerran crawled out from under a burned tree that had collapsed and ran to her. “How much can that thing take?”

Nisus shook her head in disbelief. “I need its head,” she breathed heavily. “Only thing I haven’t hit yet.”

“Can you?” The followed the dragon behind some trees. Both watched as the dragon’s head swayed, blanketing the forest with wave after wave of fire.

“Not like that,” Nisus said.

Cerran produced a rope from his bag. “Will this help?” She looked, thinking of how Thossa captured the other creature. But it wouldn’t work. The mark on his back had completely faded.

“You’re out of magic, and I don’t know any knot spells.”

“I learned to tie knots before I learned the spell from Foreteller Muniko.”

Nisus opened her mouth to say some kind of protest, but she couldn’t think of another option that would dissuade him. She was out of ideas, and even with its limp, the dragon would catch up to Beran and Thossa soon.

“Fine, but get out of there if you think you can’t do it,” Nisus gave in, though she didn’t expect he’d listen to the last part if it came to that.

The charcoal chimaera, being either crazy, brave, or both, smiled and grasped his rope in both claws. “Ho!Ha!” he shouted, leaping out of the trees.

Nisus kept the dragon in the corner of her eye but hurried to find the best spot to shot from. The only chance Cerran had of holding the dragon still was if he didn’t seem that much of a threat. She guessed if the dragon realized it was going to get shot again, it’d fight harder than the two of them could handle.

The ground was slippery with mud, but Nisus dug her hooves in and found a solid mound of dirt where she could shoot from. Cerran was already ahead of the dragon, whooping and swing his rope at its face. The dragon was so big it could have easily ignored the chimaera, but once he started throwing mud in its eyes to blind it, the dragon struck back.

Nisus was impressed. Her clan raised better hunters, but she didn’t think any in the Ghendings knew their way around a knot the way Cerran did. The dragon raked at him with its meaty claws, but he deftly ducked under it and tightened the rope around its wrist.

He yanked it taut, daring the dragon to cut the line with its teeth. It fell for the taunt, and when its head had lowered enough, he let the rope go loose and whipped it around the dragon’s snout. He leapt on it, and for that moment the dragon was still.

Nisus drew her arrow back, prepared the spell on lips, and waited for Cerran to jump off. She waited. The thumb claw holding the drawstring ached, and still, Cerran did not get off. Only with a second look did she see why.

The dragon’s size was its own kind of defence. Never having hunted a beast so big, the rope simply wasn’t long enough to go around the head. But he still hung on.

“Nisus! Take the shot!” he shouted. With those words, she knew Cerran had guessed why she hesitated. But to stop a dragon from taking more lives, he was willing to give everything. Nisus cursed her luck.

“Thunor!”