Path of Dragons 17 - Chapter 45 - Ritual Hunt (Patreon)

“Danger?”

“Yeah.  That’s danger,” Elijah answered, kneeling beside Callux.  The child was only three years old, but he was already taller than most men.  Of course, that meant he was still a bit runty for an orc, but at his growth rate, that would soon change.  Elijah suspected that the young orc would be physically mature in another two years.  Three at the most. 

Not that that coincided with mental maturity.  For all that he’d grown larger than any three-year-old should ever be, he still had the mind of a child.  At times, he showed evidence of his potential and displayed ridiculously advanced reasoning capabilities, but his emotional development hadn’t kept pace.  He also lacked hard-won experience so he could predict the outcome of certain situations.

At least his verbal skills had improved, though.

Now, instead of using a handful of garbled and hesitating words, he had a vocabulary that would’ve put most middle schoolers to shame.  He could also read passably well, though he’d shown a marked disdain for the practice. 

Elijah could sympathize.  When he was a child, he hated reading and much preferred running off into the woods to play with his sister.  That lasted right up until Alyssa introduced him to the Lord of the Rings, which started a love affair with reading that lasted until the world’s transformation.

He still wished he had time to read all the books he’d neglected over the years.  Certainly, someone on Earth was still writing modern masterpieces.  However, with the way his life had gone, there were always more important things to do. 

Perhaps Callux’s presence was the catalyst he needed to resume the habit.  To date, the young orc had only read educational material meant to help him develop.  So, a nicely heroic story might be just the ticket to ignite his interest in the practice. 

Besides, it had been a long time since Elijah had read some of his favorites.

It could be a bonding moment.

Of late, that had become increasingly more important to him.  Initially, he had approached spending time with Callux from a perspective of development.  Now?  He genuinely cared about the little orc.  Elijah knew Callux wasn’t his son by blood, but at times, he forgot that fact. 

Or maybe he just considered that less important than their other connections.  Like the core pulsing in the orc’s chest.  Or the time they’d spent together.  Elijah had raised Callux, and though he certainly wasn’t finished, that act had forced him to reconsider the nature of his relationship with the child.

Callux was his son, blood be damned.

He just so happened to also be Ok’tarik’s son.  And Makit’s, though she still hadn’t regained enough strength to stake that particular claim.

Sadly, it looked as if she would never fully recover.  What was left of her life would be spent in weakness, though Ok’tarik didn’t seem to care much about that.  He doted on her to the point where if he was any other orc, his actions would have started a rebellion. 

They were not a sentimental race, after all.

Regardless, the last few years – give or take six months – had been a period of transition for Elijah.  Sure, he still did most of the same things he always did, but now he had a little person following him around.  More, he was forced to add quite a few tasks to his list of typical activities, most of which were centered on teaching Callux how to be a person.

His orcish side remained in control, but Elijah recognized quite a bit of dragon in there too.  When those two sides overlapped, the boy was immovable.  However, Elijah had also come to realize that Callux possessed a powerful nature attunement.  Not as strong as Elijah’s, but it was growing by the day.

Only time would tell where it would end up, but Elijah expected that he’d rival Miguel once everything was said and done.

Which had surprised Elijah.

Callux literally had a splinter of the World Tree lodged in his core.  An infinitesimally small piece, but a piece of an all-powerful tree all the same.  And he still wasn’t as powerfully attuned to nature as Elijah was.

That put things into perspective, and it paid off Kirlissa’s claim that he was extraordinarily abnormal.  The real question was why.

Nobody really knew how attunements were formed.  Most people accepted that they could be influenced.  Everyone knew they could be trained, at least to some degree.  But a person’s ceiling?  Their natural proclivities?  That was based on some innate trait that no one had quite identified.

Or if they had, they weren’t sharing.

To some, it was a frustrating mystery.  For Elijah, it was comforting.  He wanted to figure everything out, but he also liked the idea that he couldn’t.  It meant that there was always something to reach for.

Elijah pushed those thoughts to another leaf and focused on the setting. 

Beside him, Callux was like a taut bowstring, begging to be released.  He was wearing leather armor made for him by some of the Vengeance’s crafters.  The population of the ship had sort of adopted him as their mascot, which meant that they tended to shower him with gifts.

Usually, those gifts revolved around fighting. 

It was a military expedition, after all.  And everyone wanted to protect the young orc.

He had chosen leather because he’d begun to idolize a few of Elijah’s friends.  Specifically, he wanted to grow up to fight just like Okar.  The only difference was that Callux preferred weapons other than the swords favored by the halfling.

Specifically, he liked using a spear in melee combat.  However, the bow was his true calling.  Elijah would have liked to have said that it was because of his time with Kalyn, but Callux had been smitten with the weapon even before he’d ever met the crossbow-wielding dragon.

She had helped to train him, though.  And to Elijah’s surprise, she was almost as proficient with a normal bow as she was with her normal weapon of choice.

The biggest influence on Callux hadn’t been Elijah or any of the dragons, though.  Instead, he’d taken after another of Elijah’s friends who’d joined the expedition only a few months after Callux had been born.

Rakhan Singh was a peerless hunter, and he’d come to Orveth Kaal at the expedition’s request.  At the time, they were dealing with a particularly devious beast who kept ambushing their patrols.  As it turned out, the animal in question was something like a winged lion, but one known for its penchant for hunting for pleasure. 

Rakhan had spent more than a month hunting it down and devising a trap. 

Callux had been there when Rakhan brought the carcass into the Vengeance, and from that moment on, he’d wanted to be a hunter.  At present, he’d probably been influenced more by Okar and Miguel, at least in most day-to-day aspects.  But Rakhan was his shining star.  The person he truly wanted to emulate, even if he believed the Sikh hunter was so far above him that the idea of becoming like him was almost laughable.

If Elijah had to characterize it, he would’ve said that he looked at Okar and Miguel as role models.  But to him, Rakhan was a god.

What role Elijah occupied was a bit of mix between both extremes. 

To some degree, Callux knew that Elijah was the strongest person in the expedition.  But familiarity did a lot of heavy lifting when it came to his perception. 

“Attack?” asked Callux, his eyes still burning into his prey.

The creature was small.  Barely bigger than a fox from Earth.  But it shimmered with potent ethera that would make it a match for most ascendents.

“Watch.”

Normally, Callux might have balked at such an order.  Maybe he would’ve even disobeyed, but that was fairly rare.  Largely because he knew the consequences.  Elijah didn’t need to punish the orc for misbehaving.  Orveth Kaal was more than capable of doing that for him. 

This time, the gravity of the situation had settled onto Callux’s shoulders, and to such an extent that he remained entirely motionless.  He stared at his intended prey.

Elijah had seen the little foxes throughout his time in Orveth Kaal, and he knew just how elusive they could be.  As far as he could tell, they possessed two powerful attunements – one to space and the other to something associated with illusions.  The abilities they granted were the only reason the creatures ever had a chance of survival.

They also made them a prized hunting target for young orcs keen to prove their adulthood.  Even Ok’tarik had hunted one during his youth, and that event had set him on a path that would eventually see him take his place as the most powerful orc in the ancestral realm.

Any hunt that claimed a wilkin fox was a sign of great things to come.

Elijah didn’t much approve of the practice, but he wasn’t going to interfere with such a cultural milestone.  So, he’d accompanied Callux on the hunt.  Though he acted as a guardian, he hadn’t actually acted to protect the child. 

It was his hunt, after all.

Elijah’s interference would only invalidate the accomplishment.

He’d vowed only to step in if it truly became a matter of life or death.  He wanted Callux to succeed on his own terms, but he wasn’t willing to sacrifice his adopted son just to prove his worth to the orcs.

Even Ok’tarik agreed with that tactic, though he’d remained back in Agmar.

“Bow? Or spear?” asked Callux.

“Which do you think appropriate?”

Callux’s brow furrowed.  It wasn’t as heavy as his father’s, but it was still more prominent than most humans’.  He didn’t otherwise move, though.  The wilkin fox was more than a quarter of a mile away, but it possessed extremely potent senses.  Elijah could have approached without alarming it, but only if he did so in the Shape of Withering. 

Even then, he’d have to be careful not to spook the creature.

That just meant it would be that much more difficult for Callux to hunt it.  Probably why it was such a prized prey.

After a few moments, Callux pushed himself into a crouch, then padded away.  He had learned quite a lot about stealth over the past couple of years, but much of his technique seemed to have been born of instinct.  It reminded Elijah of how he’d felt when he first used Shape of the Predator.  That was his first experience with how easily he could succumb to the instincts that came with his various forms.

Not that they were inherently bad.  They weren’t.  Most of them were incredibly useful.  But they were also dangerous because they ran counter to his human – or now, draconic – identity.

Callux didn’t seem to have such a problem.

As Elijah watched his adopted son stalk through the underbrush, he briefly wondered what orcs might have been before they’d been cursed by the system.  Were they an elder race?  Just as powerful as dragons, perhaps?  Or were they something wilder?

Elijah didn’t think he’d ever discover the truth.  Anyone who knew was long since dead.  Either they hadn’t left records, or the same person responsible for the orcs’ plight had destroyed their history as fully as he’d sundered their future.

Callux continued to stalk forward, but not in a straight line.  Instead, he took his time, moving from one clump of underbrush to another.  There were no trees on the landmass, which meant that those scraggly bushes were the only real cover. 

Which made hunting the fox all that much more difficult.

Still, Callux kept at it.  An hour passed as he slowly made his way closer.  The fox moved here and there, but it seemed content to eat the trove of berries adorning the local bushes. 

Finally, when Callux was a little more than two hundred yards away, he stopped and knelt.  A second later, he’d retrieved his shortbow from where it was strapped to his back.  It didn’t take long for him to string it, but there was a moment that nearly ruined everything.

A simple creak from the bow stave bending alerted the fox.  It stopped eating and froze, its ears twitching back and forth as it searched for a predator.  Even from so far away, Elijah could feel the ethera swirling around it.

Callux didn’t panic.

Nor did he move.

Instead, he just waited like the patient hunter he so desperately wanted to be.

Finally, after a few tense moments, the fox seemed to accept that it wasn’t in danger.  It resumed its feast.

Callux didn’t immediately loose an arrow.  Instead, he allowed his prey to relax further.  Long minutes passed, with the fox happily eating berries.  Then, at last, Callux retrieved an arrow from the quiver at his hip.

He nocked it and took aim.

Elijah watched as the bow bent.  It was a nice piece of equipment, made by the best bowyer on the Vengeance and using materials Elijah had gathered himself.  That Callux could even use it was a testament to the child’s uncommon strength.

Everyone had been stunned that he could draw it, much less shoot it accurately.  Elijah wasn’t, because by that point, he’d stopped marveling at his adopted son’s ability.  He just accepted that the boy was special.

Never was that clearer than when he finally loosed that arrow.

It sailed through the air, cutting the wind like it was augmented by a mage.

The fox heard it and tried to dart away, but Callux had rightly anticipated its attempted flight.  Long hours of observation told him precisely where it would go, and he had compensated accordingly.

The arrow hit it in the side, slicing easily through its flesh to pin it to the ground.

The creature screeched.  The local ethera surged.

But it couldn’t escape its impalement.  Not with its comparative weakness.

Callux rushed forward, already stowing his bow.  At the same time, a spear appeared in his hand.  It was another powerful piece of equipment, capable of being stored in the bracer he wore around his wrist. 

That had come from Carmen, created in the Star Forge specifically for the orc boy. 

He leaped, then rammed the spear into the neck, decapitating it in one swift blow.  He landed in a huff, twirling around as if he expected an attack. 

Nothing came.

Once he realized that he was victorious, he threw his hands in the air and let out a victorious roar. 

Then, he started a celebration dance that combined a lack of coordination with boundless enthusiasm.

He must have learned that from Okar.  Or maybe Fungee.

Elijah sighed.  Even orcish children were still just children.