previously: we learned about Renkle, one of the villagers who had joined Martin to track down a mysterious animal.
and now: we are back in the Wilds!
Tracking the Bear
Brann followed close behind Zilla, hovering over her every time she bent down to examine the creature's tracks. Martin kept a few paces back and watched the pair as Brann's repeated queries slowly annoyed the tracker.
"How big do you think it is?" Brann would ask.
"Bigger than any bear I've come across in the Wilds," Zilla would reply.
After he asked variations of that question a few times, she'd shrug and mutter, "Huge."
Then he started asking, "How fresh are those tracks?"
"Maybe a day old," Zilla would reply.
When Brann continued to repeat that question every time she paused, her responses eventually turned into undecipherable grunts.
They were, step by step through the thick forest, catching up to the beast. But Martin and the small group of villagers were driven by a purpose. They had been tasked with hunting down the creature. Their prey, on the other hand, did not have a discernible goal. At least none that Martin could fathom. While always moving in a southerly direction, its path was winding and unhurried, as if it was unaware of the danger stalking it.
Or perhaps the beast didn't think we were a threat, Martin wondered.
He realized he had come to calling the animal a beast, a creature instead of what it was rumored to be, a large bear. There was just something unnatural about its meanderings. It had stopped near a fallen log, scraped at the rotting wood to expose fat, juicy grubs, and then moved on without snacking on any. Its path took it through thickets of bushes burdened with ripe berries, but they remained untouched. Until their party came upon the tasty treats. Renkle and Fitcher gobbled up handfuls.
"Come on, you two!" Brann scolded after the pair had lingered too long. "This isn't a picnic."
Martin heard their grumbles. Something like, "It's only a bear," and "He's gonna scare it off with all that shoutin'," followed by chuckles.
If Brann heard any of it, he ignored them. Impatience was driving him, causing him to ask his incessant questions, to urge the others onward. He was a few years older than the rest of the hunting party and a sergeant in the local Watch. He didn't have disapproving parents to please or a crush to impress. From what Martin had overhead, Brann had a wife and daughter back in the village, and more than anything, he wanted to be back home with them.
Martin paid the most attention to Zilla, how she tensed every time she heard rustling in the forest ahead. How she grew pensive whenever she bent down to examine the creature's tracks. She was being overly cautious, and Martin guessed why. She must also be aware that their prey was unlike any animal they've seen before.
Was that why I was sent? Martin wondered.
The Arm usually didn't bother with events as minor as an animal attack in a remote village on the edge of the Wilds. Maybe if some supernatural beast like a lycanthrope had perpetrated the attack. But not a bear.
Unless that bear was not ordinary. Martin's musings always returned to that one notion.
He wanted to ask Zilla about the creature they followed. Maybe she could answer some of the many questions populating his thoughts. To him, this hunt was quickly becoming more of a mystery.
With a few hours left of daylight, the group paused at a stream to refill their canteens. Renkle and Fitcher went to wash their berry-stained hands. Tack joined them while Brann kept watch. Zilla sat down on a log slightly away from the rest of the group. It was a perfect opportunity for Martin to ask her about the beast without being overheard.
A sudden sense of self-consciousness held him back, though. He reminded himself of the other members of the group and how there were always a couple pairs of eyes watching him. He knew it was more out of curiosity than anything else. But what would they think if he approached Zilla while she sat alone? Renkle and Fitcher would surely make some snarky and lewd comment about the boy from the monastery approaching the girl from the village. Then Brann would have one more reason to resent his presence on this hunt. Martin did not want to cause those sorts of distractions on his first mission for The Arm. Until he knew more of the mystery that faced them.
Instead, he stood off by himself. There were other ways he could search for answers. Martin raised his half arm in a way that looked like he was simply stretching out an aching phantom limb. A motion that shouldn't attract unwanted attention. Then he cast his awareness out into the forest.
Suddenly, Martin's perception of the world expanded. He heard the buzz of insects a dozen yards away. He felt the smoothness of bark on a birch tree beyond that. And even farther away, he saw a patch of bloodwort in a hidden clearing.
These impressions weren’t vivid but came to him muted, like he was looking through a dirty window or listening to a conversation on the other side of a closed door. They grew more distorted the farther he cast his awareness. But within a hundred yards or so, he could easily perceive whatever lie ahead. A truly skilled member of The Arm could increase that distance to miles.
His sense of smell was the keenest as his awareness noticed odors that his physical nose often missed. While the foliage around them looked normal, like the trees and plants he'd expect to see. There was a faint odor he did not recognize. It wasn't pungent like a dead animal or musty like the rotting leaves on the forest floor. Those odors were natural, nothing he found revolting. But in this part of the Wilds, a sickening stench hung in the air that Martin could only describe as being wrong.
You, my subscribers, are also my beta readers, so please feel free to comment, whether you notice a grammatical error or have a question about the story. Feedback is greatly appreciate and one of those things that keep us writing plugging away at our stories.
Thanks!—this piece is kind of an experiment in that.
Interesting multiple tensions.