Not that the blade, sturdy and well-made as it was, would do him much good against the figure before him. Nearly seven feet tall, the being leaned on a great spear, draped in a greatcloak of chestnut-brown feathers. Its head was crowned with the grotesque avian skull of a great carrion bird, its beak long, hooked, and jutting over what looked like a Cold War-era respirator. Dreadlocks spilled from beneath the mask like coiled serpents, adorned with claws, teeth, beads, and other trinkets. Strapped to its back was a contraption that resembled an oversized crossbow, loaded with barbed bolts.
More surprisingly still, Biggs and Wedge were perched comfortably on the figure’s shoulders, preening themselves as it stroked Fyodor’s head with a dusky-skinned hand. The direwolf sat on his haunches, perfectly at ease, leaning into the pats like he and the newcomer were old friends. When Hunter walked into the cabin, he trotted over to him and nuzzled his side, tail wagging.
“Uh…” Hunter asked, dirk still in hand. “Who are you?”
The figure turned to regard him, then pulled the respirator from its face. “Ah, Transient!” it said, its voice deep and masculine, with an outlandish accent that was both guttural and lilting. “You are a welcome sight! My little friends here were just telling me all about you!”
Hunter eyed the ravens with a mix of astonishment and suspicion.
“You know Biggs and Wedge?”
“Well, of course I do!” the man laughed, and his mirth sounded sincere. “We haven’t seen each other in a dog’s age, though, have we? Too long, too long.” He offered his hand, and Hunter clasped it, still unsure of what to make of him. “They call me Aumir of the Krommkhatani.”
“Aumir!” Biggs confirmed cheerfully.
“Aumir, friend!” Wedge piped in too.
A small animal poked its orangey-brown head from the folds of Aumir’s cloak, chirping and whickering; a stoat.
“Oh, now you decide to show yourself!” the man laughed again. “This is Klothi, the finest hunting companion Aumir could ever hope for!”
“Hello,” said Hunter. “I’m Hunter.”
“Great to meet you, Hunter!” Aumir gave his hard another overenthusiastic squeeze. “We’ll be fast friends, I’m sure of it!”
“That’s nice, but… who are you again?”
“I told you,” the man said, this time giving a small, theatrical bow. “I’m Aumir of the Krommkhatani!”
“No, I mean… do you live here? Are we trespassing?”
“Oh, no, no! We’re just passing through, me and Klothi, and thought we’d stop by and gaze at the famous Hunter with our own eyes. Besides, this is Ronnom’s house. Everyone is welcome to his hospitality, long as they behave themselves, yes?”
The famous Hunter?
“You know me?” Hunter asked, puzzled.
“We know of you,“ Aumir offered. “We have a common friend. There has been quite a lot of talk about you around his table lately. See, Aumir is one of Herne’s seven Huntsfolk. Only we’re just six now, aren’t we?”
Hunter frowned. That explained it, but cracked open even more questions.
Looking at his expression, the man laughed again.
“Don’t you worry your little Transient head about any of it. Aumir will explain all, and more besides. But first, we must break fast, mustn’t we? Thinking and talking on an empty stomach is simply no good for you!”
Not waiting for a response, the strange man turned and began building a small fire in the cabin’s hearth, humming a jolly tune to himself. Biggs and Wedge lifted off from his shoulders, perched on a beam near the roof, and resumed preening as if nothing at all were out of the ordinary.
“Guys?” Hunter projected through their shared telepathic link. “Mind telling me what the hell is going on?”
The ravens cocked their heads, perplexed.
“Aumir,” they projected back. “Friend.”
As if to drive the point in, they showed Hunter a stream of fleeting images of mist-covered woodlands, as well as notions of hunts, feasts, and exultation.
Herne’s domain; Hunter was sure of it.
Not sure what else to do, Hunter offered to help prepare the food, only to be waved off with a cheerful flick of the hand.
“No need, no need,” he said. “Aumir loves his cooking. You will love Aumir’s cooking too, Transient. That’s a promise!”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“I don’t need food—” Hunter started to say, but Aumir waved him off again.
“Nonsense! You don’t need sustainance. Aumir’s cooking is food for the spirit!”
Once he got the fire going, he produced a cast-iron skillet and a bag of ingredients out of an improbably small satchel; everyone and their mother had bags of holding on Aernor, it seemed. Then, Aumir got to cooking what looked like a small mountain of eggs and sweet potatoes fried in beef tallow. Hunter had to admit it; it did smell nice.
“So,” he tried to strike up conversation. “You said you were of the Krommkhatani?”
“The Krommkhatani,“ the man corrected his pronunciation as he threw a pinch of herbs and spices in the skillet. “Yes, yes.”
“And, uh… who are the Krommkhatani?”
Aumir laughed.
“Wouldn’t you like to know! Food first, questions later!”
They sat down to eat on the cabin’s floor. Hunter offered to share some of his provisions with Aumir; it was only the polite thing to do. The man showed little interest in the hardtack and salted fish Fawkes had bought from the Brennai merchant, but he gladly accepted Onatah’s flatbread. He ate with gusto straight from the skillet, using his fingers, occasionally handing morsels to his stoat, Klothi, and to Fyodor, Biggs, and Wedge.
Hunter tried the eggs and sweet potatoes; and they turned out to be among the tastiest things he’d ever eaten. More than that, the moment the food touched his tongue, he felt a familiar tingle radiate through his body.
He cocked an eyebrow and turned to Aumir.
“Is there… Essence in this?”
“I told you,” said the man between bites. “Food for the spirit!”
“You have to teach me the recipe.”
“Hmmm… Maybe another time, yes? Eat now—or Aumir will eat yours too!”
They ate the rest of the meal in comfortable silence, Aumir wolfing down piece after piece of flatbread along with the sweet potatoes and eggs. When they were done, he licked his fingers, wiped them on the front of his tunic, and let out a satisfied burp.
“That hit the spot, didn’t it?”
Hunter couldn’t disagree.
The strange man settled into a meditation pose and began cycling his Essence, and Hunter followed his lead, the Essence in his stomach already pulsing, ready to be drawn in. It took only a few seconds of cycling before the first notification blinked into view:
You have absorbed 1 Aether.
It wasn’t much, but being able to absorb Aether just from eating… Hunter looked as the strange man his a renewed sense of wonder.
“We can palaver now, if you wish,” Aumir said. “Your little friends tell me you’re headed to the standing stone, yes?”
Hunter nodded.
“That was the plan. We overstayed our welcome with the Brennai, I’m afraid.”
Aumir waved a hand dismissively.
“Bah! Like children, they are. Ancestors this, Ancestors that. They tire Aumir. What is your business in Lormenheere, then?”
Hunter threw a glance towards Biggs and Wedge.
“Should I trust him?”
“Yes,” they projected back. “Aumir friend.”
Hunter wasn’t sure he trusted them in this case, either. The timing, the location, it was all too convenient. He found it very suspicious, and he said so.
“Pardon my bluntness, friend, but… it’s quite the coincidence, running in you out here.”
“Coincidence?” Aumir’s face was hidden behind his carrion bird headdress, but Hunter could almost hear the frown in his voice. “No, no. No such thing as coincidence, Transient. It is the Wyrd.”
“The Wyrd?” Hunter echoed.
“Yes. The… how you say? The fate. The destiny.”
It was Hunter’s turn to frown.
“You say it was fate that brought you here?”
Aumir nodded, the headdress’s long beak bobbing.
“The Wyrd,” he repeated.
“What for?”
“We’ll see, won’t we?” the man shrugged, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Baheep.”
He said that last like it was some nugget of great wisdom, though Hunter had no idea what the word meant.
“Baheep?” he asked. “What does that mean?”
“In one word, it is a philosophy,” Aumir explained, shrugging again. “It is difficult to translate. Baheep. As if to say, so it goes. Such is life. It will be what the Wyrd wills it to be.”
“I see,” Hunter said, even if he wasn’t certain he did. “So you don’t know what you’re doing here?”
“Aumir is on his way to a hunt,” Aumir gestured. “But that does not say much, yes? Aumir is always on his way to a hunt. How about you, Transient?”
Transient.
In the past few months, Hunter had come to despise being called that. To his surprise, however, he didn’t mind hearing it from Aumir. When the Brennai had called him that—hell, even when Fawkes had called him that— the word carried an intrinsic edge of judgment, a not-so-subtle dismissal.
When Aurim spoke it, however, it was just that; a word. The realization put him a little more at ease; just enough to let his guard down, if only slightly.
“As Biggs and Wedge already told you, I’m on my way to Lormenheere,” he said. “Back when I came to this world a while back, I… well, I struck an accord with Herne.”
“Yes,” said Aumir, and Hunter caught a gleeful edge of mischief in his voice. “Hard to forget a day like that.”
“Oh, yeah? I’m glad you found my anguish entertaining.”
That drew a chuckle from the huntsman.
“If you can’t take a touch of good-natured ribbing, friend, then I’m afraid the Court of Herne may not be the place for you.”
“Anyway,” Hunter said, shaking his head. Debating the definition of ‘good-natured’ would be a waste of breath, he suspected. “I was hoping for an audience with Herne, to amend the terms of that accord and to ask him to act as Witness for my ascension to the Iron Rung.”
That gave Aumir pause. He fell silent for a long moment, as if turning Hunter’s words over in his mind. When he finally spoke, his voice had lost its usual levity.
“So that is why the Wyrd brought me to you this day,” he murmured, nodding to himself. “I suppose it’s settled, then. Baheep.”
That was a bit too cryptic for Hunter’s taste.
“Care to elaborate, maybe?” he asked, his tone carrying a bit more of a bite than he intended. Not that the huntsman seemed to take offense.
“I’m afraid fortune is not with you, Transient,” he said. “Herne’s court has been in turmoil of late. I don’t believe you’ll find him amenable to either of your requests.”
Hunter closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. Great. Another dead end. There had been too many of those lately, and it was starting to wear him down.
“Fantastic,” he said. “So what do I—”
“As Lord Herne himself would tell you,” Aumir cut in, raising a finger, “one has to make their own fortune.” His tone shifted, the gleeful edge creeping back into his voice like sunlight breaking through clouds. “And what better way to make one’s fortune than with a proper hunt, eh?”
He clapped his hands together, startling Klothi from her perch on his lapel.
“Yes, yes—that’s what we’ll do! I will take you on a hunt, Transient. Not some meager quarry, either! We must hunt something worthy of Herne’s attention. Blood, bone, and glory!”
“I guess that’s one way to go about it, yes,” Hunter said slowly, eyeing him warily. “What exactly are we hunting?”
“What exactly are we hunting?” Aumir echoed the question as he rose to his feet, and Hunter could hear the excitement rising in Aumir’s voice. Though his face remained hidden beneath the carrion bird skull, there was no mistaking the thrill radiating off the man.
“A godling,” he said at last. “What else?”
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