Soul Caller 1 - Chapter #23 (Patreon)

When he limped out of the forest Merrick looked at the slope he had fallen down and shook his head. In his current state, trying to climb up the steep, rocky slope to the top of the canyon wall would be suicide, and so he began the long trek toward the other exit from the canyon, his mind working as he tried to figure out what he was going to do. Vale had left him for dead, which was fine with Merrick as he desperately needed to heal if he wanted to make the long trek back to his village to bring them news of Barak's demise. But healing meant shelter and a stable food source. With a grim chuckle, he realized that for the second time in about a month, he was wounded and on his own. At least this time, he had some decent equipment.

As he moved through the woods, Merrick tried to be on his guard. His body was weak from blood loss, and with every step, he could feel his legs trembling. Praying that there were no jaguars in the forest, he walked for almost an hour before he stopped to rest. As far as he could tell, he was about halfway to the canyon's exit. But the thought of climbing up even the gradual slope without any sort of cover gave him pause. All he needed was for Vale to be camping on the mountains above the canyon and he would be a dead man for sure.

He rested against a tree and began to think through his situation seriously. Vale had, in no uncertain terms, tried to kill him, so following Vale in a trek through the mountains was not a good idea. Especially since the dark haired prospector would be keeping sharp watch, waiting to see if he appeared. Furthermore, Merrick could sense the deep chill in the air. When they had set out on this trip, they knew that winter would come soon, but he had not thought it would come this fast. To Merric, it was beginning to smell like a storm was brewing, and that meant snow. In his current condition, if he were to get caught in the mountains in a snowstorm, he'd be as good as dead.

The best option seemed to be to hunker down in the canyon and wait it out. But that presented problems of its own. If he didn't have shelter, the snow would kill him whether he was in the mountains or not. After thinking it over, he decided not to risk trying to climb out of the canyon until his leg was better and to take his chances that he’d be better before the winter storms buried the canyon in snow. He could try and build a shelter in the forest, but with his wounded leg, he could barely move so building a shelter didn’t seem reasonable. Instead, Merrick decided he would make his way back to the cave where the manastones had been discovered. There was a small chance that Vale had gone that direction, returning to the manastone mine, but after hearing the exchange with the wolves, Merrick doubted it.

Heaving himself up, he leaned heavily on his staff and began limping through the woods again, his short spear clutched in his other hand. It was almost three hours before he came to the edge of the woods and saw the small gorge in the distance that led to the manastone mine. Crouching, he focused his attention on the boulder where Evan's body lay. He could still see the body there, along with a large buzzard standing on the ground next to it, pecking at the corpse. This assured him that Vale had not returned. The buzzards were sensitive to the presence of the living and would not have come down if Vale was still close by.

Encouraged by this, Merrick limped out of the forest, carefully making his way down into the gorge and heading for the cave entrance. The light from the moon cast a silvery glow over everything, and when he saw Barak's body, his breath caught in his throat. Swallowing as a lump formed, he could feel a stuffiness in his nose but Merrick gritted his teeth, refusing to cry. When he arrived next to the spirit warrior's body, he carefully got down to his knees, bowing his head three times to the ground. Barak had taken great care of him, taking his role as the elder warrior very seriously. It was only thanks to Barak's sacrifice that he was still alive. As he lifted his head from the third bow, Merrick dipped his fingers in the cooled blood of his fallen tribesmen. With utmost care, he drew a band of crimson across his cheeks and nose, and then from them, two bloody fangs extending down towards his chin. Bowing again, he lifted his head to the moon and swore a solemn oath.

"By the spirit who watches over me, I will avenge you, Barak of the Sky Mountain Tribe. My eyes will not rest, my feet will not cease, until my fangs have bitten deep into your killer's neck."

The fierce anger that boiled in him seemed to come alive like a beast in his chest, and Merrick felt a stinging pain on his face where the blood had been drawn. The pain was a sign that his vow had been heard and accepted, and the marks on his face would not fade until he had carried out his vow of vengeance against Vale. Carefully lifting Barak's body, he held it to his chest as he picked up his staff and struggled to his feet. Weighed down with the pack and the body of the spirit warrior, he carefully limped into the cave, leaving Evan's body for the vultures.

Each step caused stinging pain to radiate through his leg, but Merrick ignored it as he carried Barak’s body into the large cavern and put it down in an open area. Letting the pack drop from his back, he leaned against a stalagmite and slid down into a crouch, all his energy gone. The last ten hours had been beyond draining and he was so tired he felt like he could sleep for a week. Instead, he mustered what little scraps of self-control he had left and took a breath in through his nose, counting to seven. Holding his breath for five seconds, he breathed out for seven seconds, completely expelling all of the air in his lungs by contracting his diaphragm to its maximum.

He had been practicing the meditation technique Barak had taught him every day, and it was almost instinct that caused him to practice it now. As he did, he could feel the tangled knot of emotions, fears, and pain starting to subside slightly, leaving behind an empty void. Into this void the song of the world drifted, its comforting rhythm and flow bringing a measure of rest. Merrick didn’t know how long he sat there, but when he finally opened his eyes, he was filled with a deep calm. The fury and fear were still there, but they had been tempered by a clear understanding of what he needed to do. Survival was the most important thing, and if he wanted to survive, he needed to get to work.

The cave he was in would provide shelter from the elements, but it was quite cold, and would only get colder as the weather outside worsened. That meant that Merrick needed to find a source of heat, which in turn meant getting the supplies he needed for a fire. Thankfully, he had his fire starting kit and Barak’s as well. After heat, he needed food and the good news was that he had the majority of the wild boar that they had hunted before the betrayal. Though they had eaten a bit of it, most of the meat was wrapped up and laying in the gorge where he and Barak had fallen. Gritting his teeth as he stretched out his stiff leg, Merrick pulled himself to his feet and began to limp for the cave’s entrance. When he reached the mouth of the tunnel, he peeked outside but didn’t see any danger, so he headed for the fallen packs, finding them surrounded by three squabbling vultures.

To his relief, they had not managed to get through the goatskin to the meat inside, and after shooing them away, he laboriously dragged them back to the cave. It was exhausting work, but he knew that stopping wasn’t an option. The sun was nearly up and the stars had started to hide themselves as the sky turned gray, but Merrick had no time to enjoy the sunrise. Once the boar meat was secure, it was time to find something he could use to start a fire, so he left the cave once more, trying to find some fallen branches in the gorge. He didn’t have the strength or energy to climb up the steep sides, so he just picked up small branches as he made his way down the length of the gorge to where it joined up with the canyon floor.

Once he had a pile, he ran a bit of the metal wire around them and wrapped the wire around his walking stick. With laborious steps he pulled the whole bundle into the cave and managed to get them into the cavern. By this time he was shaking badly, though he didn’t know if it was from exhaustion, hunger, or the bitter cold. Breaking up a few sticks and adding some dried grass he had gathered, he took out his fire starter with trembling hands and tried to light them. It took a dozen strikes before he managed to land any sparks, but he cupped his hands around the bit of heat and carefully blew on them. When a tongue of flame sprang up, he nearly cheered and began to feed the flame.

His patient nurturing soon paid off and after twenty minutes he had a cheery blaze going, bringing some warmth to his cold body. Once he was confident that the blaze wouldn’t go out, he unpacked one of the bundles of boar meat and, using the steel knife, cut some thin strips. Skewering them, he set them to cooking  while he tried to organize everything he had. He had his blanket, which he wrapped around him, and all of Evan’s extra clothing, which he arranged on the ground to form a bed of sorts. The smell of the boar meat made his stomach growl so loudly that the sound echoed in the cave and it was with some relish that he bit into the meat. Devouring the three skewers of meat, he resisted the urge to cook up the rest of it and instead added a few more sticks to his fire before laying down and closing his eyes.

Huddled under his blanket, Merrick felt the warmth of the fire seeping into his cold body, fighting against the deep chill in the cavern. He fell asleep almost instantly, sinking into a deep, dreamless state, and woke only when the fire started to die out. Stretching one of his hands out from under the blanket, he hissed as tendrils of cold crept into his warm cocoon. Adding more sticks to the fire, he wrapped the blanket securely around him and sat up, blinking as he looked around. He had no idea how long he had slept. It had been morning when he had laid down, but time in the cave seemed almost immaterial as the light remained constant thanks to the glowing manastones.

While he waited for the fire to spring back to life, he closed his eyes and concentrated, seeking out the Song of the World. Faintly at first, but with ever greater clarity, the Song swelled around him, and he realized that it was night once more. He had slept for over twelve hours, a fact that his rumbling belly confirmed. The meat that he had brought into the cavern was kept chilled by the cold air, and he had to work to slice off some more thin pieces. As he cut away at the meat, he marveled at the sharpness of the steel blade and the incredible control it afforded him. This time, he didn't hold back and prepared a dozen skewers, stringing them out over the fire that had sprung up, and turning them when they started to brown.

As he waited for the meat to finish roasting, he began to check over his whole body, examining the spots where he had been injured. He couldn't see his back very well, where Vale's shot had burned away his skin, but he could feel it throbbing. The skin in that location was incredibly tender, despite the fact that it had already started to scab up. Thanks to his connection with the Song of the World, Merrick's body healed faster than normal. So fast, in fact, that even the large gash on his leg was already scabbed over. He estimated that if he continued to rest, it would only take a few days before he was back in shape and could get on his way. Healing completely would take longer, but the bruises were already starting to fade away, and the cuts and scrapes he had suffered wouldn't be long after. The wound on his back, however, seemed like it would take the longest, and he could feel a strange heat in the wound that didn't seem to want to go away.

When the skewers were done, he took them, waving them in the air to cool them slightly, before biting down with his sharp canines, tearing the meat apart, and swallowing it, almost without chewing. The more he ate, the hungrier he became, and after polishing off all twelve of the skewers, he couldn't resist making a few more. It had been some time since he had eaten this much, but thanks to the few skewers he had had earlier, his stomach had no trouble digesting the glut of meat.

As he cooked and ate, Merrick's thoughts turned to the future. His goal was to rest until he was well enough to travel, a period he estimated would take about three days, after which he would head back to the village, passing through the mountains, taking a different route than the one they had used to get here, hopefully avoiding Vale. It wasn't that he didn't want to meet Vale again, in fact, he was eager to meet him, eager to put a blade through the treacherous prospector's throat, but rather, Merrick knew that in his current state, without the proper tools, he would simply be an easy target. He was bitterly disappointed that he was not able to use the Manatech rifle that Dugan had dropped, and had he been able to activate it, he would have already been out hunting Vale. But since he couldn't, he knew he needed to plan his revenge carefully.