Stepping Wild, CH 22 (Patreon)

Tibs’s stalker didn’t even hesitate as he followed him into the forest.

Tibs had expected Joman to turn around once he realized where Tibs was going, but his determination to prove what he believed to be true was stronger than the fear what he’d experienced had instilled in him.

Four days was enough for Firmen and Merka to calm down, Tibs had decided. So he’d let Mother Natril know the previous evening that he wouldn’t be there to help her. Hunting, is what he told her he wanted to do. He missed having meat with his stew. That had been more an exaggeration than a lie. He could eat what was offered as long as needed, but he did prefer something heartier.

And it would be simple enough for him to kill a deer or one of the other prey animals when he returned from the dungeon. However long he remained there, he could explain with it being how long it took him to hunt one down.

The one flaw he recognized with his plan was that he when in with only a sword at his hip. He’d sensed it among the items scattered in the house’s attic. Retrieving it without Mother Natril noticing had been easy. He’d used his elements to clean the rust off it, then alter the shape to something more suitable for him.

Making items from the elements that remained fell within the ability to make weaves; which he had yet to work out, no matter how many books he read. As with a lot of things relating to the elements. Scholars were almost as possessive with their knowledge of advanced methods as sorcerers were.

He’d borrowed some books with advanced knowledge over the years, but he had yet to find one that had the basics from which he could build toward those advanced tomes.

The story he had ready to explain it was that the caravan had left it behind for him. Hidden where he’d know to look. If someone question why he hunted with a sword instead of a bow? Well, the world was vast and how were they to know if, where he claimed to be from, this wasn’t the way hunting happened.

His stalker only complicated matters in that he had to wander and act like he was tracking prey until he grew bored or fearful and went back to the village.

    *

The sun was well past its zenith and still Joman followed Tibs.

The man was bad at hiding what he was doing. Even without using his sense, Tibs could follow the man’s clumsy progress. He could confront him without claims he had used magic; but what would that do? Tibs’s denial would only serve to reinforce the man’s beliefs.

He could scare him off. He had wood now. If he channeled it, he could take control of the trees, make this part of the forest a nightmare for Joman. And strengthen the man’s beliefs in the process.

If Tibs didn’t turn around and admit everything under the element’s influence. There had been a sense of nurturing to Wood and how they challenged him in a way that taught him, encouraged him through the harshness he endured. From his previous experience, it would be the aspect that affected him. How would it cause him to nurture Joman? Without care for the consequences of his actions, he might very well tell him everything. Use that to help him grow as a person able to stand up with what others told him. Know himself well enough to tell what was real from not.

Joman would benefit from knowing that Tibs knew it. But it would come at his expense. His secrets would be bared to everyone here, because Joman wouldn’t keep them. He’d need to show he was right. To show the others had been wrong to dismiss what he’d said.

Tibs couldn’t risk himself to appease the man’s fears.

He also couldn’t use them to cause him to leave. So he resorted to doing what he’d claimed he was here to do. He set to hunt something. With Joman watching, he’d have to use his sword, but Tibs was skilled at enhancing his abilities just enough to get what he wanted done, while not having it seem unnatural.

This time, it started with sensing where the animals were and picking something large. Not being detected as he stalked close simply involved keeping his sent and noise from reaching the animal.

The first one turned out to be a sleeping bear at the mouth of a cavern. All Tibs had sensed was the large bundle of essence, and he’d only played at looking for tracks. He could take it on, but no matter how careful he was. It would be a fight Joman wouldn’t believe was normal. He backtracked, forcing the man away from the bear, instead of simply turning and risking him waking the animal.

The next one was a deer accompanied by a fawn. It looked larger enough it might be able to survive on its own, but Tibs didn’t want to separate it from its mother early. The third was a buck with two does. The buck had more meat, and while it would be difficult to explain as a normal fight, it wouldn’t be impossible. But were there other bucks around? If he killed it, would he end the future of the herd?

One of the doe was safer. He didn’t think either was with cub because they were well into the hot season. And because they didn’t have a bundle of essence within them. That one wasn’t as reliable. It took time for the life growing into women and animals to be strong enough to register as separate from the mother.

He silently repositioned himself closer to the rearmost doe, then reach to the other side with earth essence and caused stones to clatter. As soon as their attention shifted, Tibs ran.

He kept the noise away from them until he was halfway. He could hide himself from them until his sword was in their chest, but that would look suspicious. He ran as soon as they noticed him, adding disks of air to increase his speed enough he could catch up to his quarry. It might be too fast, but anything else would cause him to lose it.

Hopefully, Joman was too far to properly see what was happening.

Tibs guided the point of his sword to nick the doe’s neck, where essence flooded close to the surface. Blood dripped as it darted away and Tibs stopped running, putting his hands on his knees while he waited for Joman to stop moving. He straightened, searched the ground, then followed the blood to where he sensed the doe had stopped. The others were well away.

The loss of essence slowed as he approached, silencing his steps again to keep it from noticing him. The wind was already in the wrong direction. The blood made a line down its pelt and looked to have stopped flowing.

He was unsure how to proceed. His usual method of hunting involved making a metal arrow and sending it to piece their heart, ending the hunt before it really started. How fast would it bolt this time? How fast would he have to run? He ran. Better now and hide a miscalculation behind trees.

With a cry it jumped away, and Tibs softened the ground under its next step, causing it to stumble and letting him reach it as it struggled to get to its feet. A thrust and it fell, its life essence gushing out of the wound. By the time he pulled the sword out, there was hardly any left.

Stringing it up, with Joman watching, also proved difficult. He hadn’t brought rope. Normally, it was simple enough to make a stone pillar that hooked a leg and lifted the animal so it would bleed out.

Here, he carefully pulled wood essence from around and used it to unwrap long grasses into fibers and then wrapped those into a rope. It was slow going. Manipulating such a new element made him want to channel it so he’d have more to work with. He emptied light out of his bracer and slowly pulled wood to that reserve, but that didn’t help now, and it might not later.

How long it took helped pass what he did was real rope weaving, even if he had far more than he should otherwise.

Slinging an end over a high branch happened because he guided the rope, then he pulled the doe up by a leg and sat back and waited.

In the early days of having his element, he’d thought blood was life essence. As he’d become better at sensing the details of how it moved among people, he’d thought it supported that. But there was blood well after all the life essence had drained out. He’d decided that it was more that blood and life essence moved among the same paths within people, and animals. Maybe the essence channels were the same as what the blood moved through, or one was the essence echo of the other.

He’d read a book once about it, but he hadn’t understood much of it. A lot about how essence shaped the world, and the world shaped essence. He suspected that anyone who hadn’t had to resolve the impossibility of essence being and not being at the same time wouldn’t accept the contradiction.

Ultimately, it had been one of the many things he was curious about that didn’t impact what he did. He sensed what happened, and he knew not to rely on how much blood flowed to guess how much life essence was left. That was enough.

When the blood stopped dripping, he lowered it and put it over his shoulders. Joman hurried out of his way and stayed behind as Tibs moved away until he had to stop.

Doing anything other than heading to the village would reveal he’d been aware of Joman, but the man was moving around where Tibs had made his kill. He’d kept the rope, so there was nothing there to be found.

“If you lose sight of me,” he called, “you might get lost again, Joman.” He would rescue the man, if it came to that, but letting him wander could lead to him reaching the dungeon again, and this time, he wasn’t sure if Firmen would let Joman cower in a corner.

When Joman heading in his direction, Tibs started walking again. He kept a steady pace and didn’t alter it. At this point, it was on the man to keep up with him.

    *

Tibs gave the doe to the tavern owner because he wasn’t interested in working out who did the meat work in the village, then returned to Mother Natril’s home.

He waited two days before returning to the forest. The tavern owner wouldn’t let him pay for his meals, which contained more meat, although not as much as Tibs thought there could be. He had to recount his hunt to the trappers, as well as most of the villagers since, somehow, they’re heard he’d used magic to achieve his kill. While true, Tibs knew Joman had made that up. He hadn’t been able to see what had happened.

The trappers were appalled he’d gone as deep as he had, and telling him he’d stayed well away from the bear that lived there hadn’t kept them from warning him against going again. Their fear was of something other that hide there. Something more dangerous than a bear.

Tibs left the house well before the sunrise. He’d warned her he’d go hunting again, and she’d been happy with it. The deer he’d brought back had helped the village with more than the meat it contained. Joman was asleep, away from his woman, in their home. Tibs hoped the man would be smart enough not to run after him when he woke to find Tibs already gone, but he expected to have to bring him back when he returned from the dungeon. If one of the predators in the forest hadn’t killed him first.

Author’s comments

• What I had to work from

Why does Tibs know about rogues and runs?

Have Joman try to get Tibs to confirm what he saw in the forest.

When Tibs returns to town, and he finds out his caravan wrote him off for dead. So he while he kinda was debating staying to check out this forest dungeon more, now he has an excuse.

I knew from the start this chapter would only cover Tibs trying to reach the dungeon and not actualy making it there. So I used the chapter to add details of how Tibs lives when he’s on his own. How he used his essence to help him hunt, when he wasn’t watched.

I don’t really have a question for this chapter.