Umoris was nothing much to see. He was not a tall man or a handsome man. He was not a learned man or a rich man.
He'd spent his entire life in his little village. His grandfather had been a hunter before his father. His father had been a hunter before him. Surprisingly, his uncle had gone to the city-state of Ariolus and become an accountant, but Umoris hadn't heard from him in decades. He presumed him dead by old age. Umoris himself had been a hunter for some time, at least six decades at this point.
These hilled forests were his home. The many beasts that roamed the area were like his many hated cousins. The snake beasts with a beautiful copper skin that could kill with a bite. The bears thrice the height of any one man that could cleave him in two with a bite.
There were not only hated cousins. The many small and diverse bird beasts were of lovely note. The swallows were his favorite. Tiny balls of feathers that could fit in the palm. Even as beasts they were often only as big as a crow, but they also became twice as fluffy and round.
Umoris respected these beasts as a part of Aeternitus that would never change. He spent his life in hunt of them but often admired their strange beauty. He was not a great sorcerer, but after sixty years of relying on his wood mana to get through the day, he looked no older than a spry fifty years.
On this day, after years of trust, his body had broken its side of the deal. He had just dealt with a smaller bear beast. Perhaps some young male hoping for a final chance to prove himself. But winter was near already, and there was little chance of that.
Either way, the bear beast had been sighted and attacked a villager. They had survived, but with scars for life.
So they sent Umoris. With his arrows of the finest wood imbued with his mana, the beast stood no chance.
After cleaning the body, Umoris strapped the meat onto his back. As he had done hundreds, no, thousands of times. Countless times before, since he was a boy helping carry his father's kills, it had been fine.
But on this day, the weight slowed him down enough for him to trip. One good trip with weight, on a tree root of all things, and he went tumbling down the slope.
He was not lucky.
After the fall, he found himself in a ditch with a snapped leg. He had kept one leg too straight to slow his fall. He should have known better.
As a sorcerer that used wood mana to strengthen the body, he would heal quickly. The problem was that it healed too quickly. It healed wrong. The bone was bent and sticking out even as the flesh closed around it.
Umoris turned his face away from such an unpleasant sight.
He saw all the meat he had carried scattered before him. Worse, he could smell it.
In a forest of beasts, with a broken leg, he could smell it.
He tried to be quiet as he could at first, despite the pain. For any noise would only make them come sooner. So, he tried to straighten his own leg.
"YaAHHHH!"
Despite Umoris' best intentions, he let out a cry.
The sickening sound of his leg snapping was accompanied by burning pain. His eyes stung. Umoris tried to right his leg, but the flesh was pulling itself together against him.
He might have succeeded despite all that if he hadn't felt a gaze.
He turned.
It was a giant snake, with the sunlight shining on its copper skin.
He quickly grabbed his bow.
The snake opened its giant mouth as it leapt.
THUNK! THUNK!
Umoris survived. The snake quivered over his body, two arrows sticking out of its large eyes. He pushed it off.
"HELP!" He cried. "ANYONE!"
He didn't care for secrecy at this point. And he knew how many people weren't there. Yet, he grasped this.
The more blood, the more likely more beasts would come.
There was no response.
"HELP ME!"
The forest, which had been his friend for many years, hinted at no response.
As he had killed, perhaps now it was his day to die. Not that he would go down quietly.
"HELP ME!"
"HELLO!"
This was not the reply Umoris was expecting.
It was a young woman's cry. It sounded from a ways off.
Umoris cast away the sudden thoughts of stories he'd heard of female voices in the forest at night.
"I'M HERE!" He yelled.
For a moment, silence.
"I'M COMING!" Came the reply.
It was the quiet sound of Umoris' heartbeats and the throb of pain from his leg that accompanied him in those few moments.
He did look down at his leg, but it was already mending around the broken bone. He would have to break it once more. With the potential of beasts arriving, he didn't want to try.
It was not a quick wait. It felt like two hours for Umoris, but it was probably closer to thirty minutes.
He tried not to make a sound. Not a word.
Maybe the snake whose body sprawled before Umoris had smelled the meat before and was lurking for a moment of weakness. Maybe other beasts would take more time.
Maybe there were others already lying in wait.
Help is coming. I just need patience.
Though he couldn't exactly expect a doctor to come and see him in the woods, he hoped the woman was traveling with others.
He jumped at the bushes rustling.
The figures that appeared from out of the bushes didn't reassure him. It was a little family… of vagrants?
There was the woman, which was expected, a man with a hideous face, and a little boy tied to the woman's back. The woman wore what must have once been a fine cloak.
That all their other clothes were no better than rags made it odd.
They look like they're just as likely to rob me as help me.
Umoris tried to stifle his misgivings.
"Here he is!" She said.
"Are you alright?" The freak-faced man said.
"I… I broke my leg," he said. "If you two could just help me set it, I can get by on my own."
The two paused as they looked at him.
"I don't think that's going to work," the woman said.
Umoris swallowed.
"We need somebody to watch out for beasts and somebody else to help you with the leg," she continued.
She looked to the man, as if waiting for an answer to a question.
"You can take the beasts," he said.
"Hmmm," she said.
"Unless you want the leg?"
She took one glance at his battered leg, and her face scrunched.
"Nah."
She still approached Umoris, though. She loosened the straps that tied the boy to her. It was nothing more than an old blanket once undone.
"Bwahho."
"This is Gemmo," she said, as she plopped him down. "I'll leave him to you and Hiems. Keep an eye on him, please?"
Umoris figured "Hiems" must be the man.
The last word Umoris had expected from her was "please."
He nodded.
"Shall I start with the break, or will you do it?"
He turned and saw the man who looked half monster.
"You can…"
Hiems took a stick and shoved it inside his mouth.
Umoris was ashamed. If he had not been in such a rushed panic, he would have thought of this himself.
"Bite down hard, and good luck," the man spoke while he had Umoris' malformed leg in his hands.
He snapped it.
Umoris looked away and clamped his jaw. The woman stood guard with a spear. He focused on her, instead of the pain.
She must have pulled it out of one of those rings…!
To Umoris, this meant only one thing.
Thieves!
But, for thieves, at least they were kind ones.
"I'm wrapping it."
Whether it was quick or slow, Umoris couldn't say. He turned and saw that the man was nearly done with his leg. He spat out the thick stick from his mouth.
"You don't have to put a split," Umoris began.
Umoris was slightly worried about pieces of bark from the makeshift splint getting in the wound.
"It's how I kept it straight as I set it," Hiems said.
Umoris looked closer and was satisfied. The man had wrapped it up with some scraps of cloth. It looked like more rags.
He could clean it when he was home.
"I'll help with the beasts," Umoris said.
As overjoyed as he was with the immediate danger solved, he wanted to be as little in debt with them as possible. He already owed them his life, and he was still not sure of their character.
The ugly man looked down at him with a pause.
"As you like," he said.
Umoris realized he hadn't thanked either of them, to his chagrin. He lifted his bow steadily, of course, despite the pain he was in.
It wouldn't do to let them get hurt or injured after helping me.
The man, who had the most mana out of all of them, Umoris knew that much, ignored the threat of beasts. Instead, he picked up the butchered meat that had scattered out across the leaves. He put it back, piece by piece, into the large pack Umoris had slung over his shoulders before he fell.
The woman glanced at him but quickly refocused her attention on keeping watch.
Umoris went to shoot the first beast that came. It was another snake.
They don't usually travel in groups. Are we nearby a den?
This was his thought as he went to shoot, but before his finger released the arrow, her spear had pierced its throat. He lowered his bow.
"Are you done with that, Hiems?" She asked.
"Yes," the man said. He turned to Umoris. "Can you walk yet?"
"I believe so."
Umoris took his time standing up. With the mundane miracle of his mana trained over nearly a century, he could already walk. As unsteady as his steps were.
"I'll carry the bag for you," the man… Hiems said.
"Tch," the woman said, as she went to restrap the baby over her shoulders.
He had hardly noticed the little lad, playing with strands of grass as he had done through the entire thing.
"Ello," he said to what Umoris assumed was his mother.
"Hello," she said, in reply, smiling. "By the way, I'm Aureum."
Then they were off. They didn't even stop to cut open the beasts for their pearls.
Umoris led them to his small home, a little cottage off the edge of the village. Long ago, it had once been a hut, but that had burned down. In history, it had been nothing but a little skirmish between Ariolus and Nix. Somehow, the hut had been between the fleeing warriors of Nix one night and escape. No one of his family was hurt. Umoris and his mother had hid far off under the thick trees.
When Umoris' father and grandfather returned, they had rebuilt their home out of stone, even as it cost all their winter store of furs to import the stone.
As they reached the sight of it, Umoris bowed to them.
"Thank you for my life. Please, let me treat you to a meal."
"I'm not going to say no to that," the woman said.
So they ate. Or Umoris ate.
The little family devoured what he had to offer.
Well, if they're thieves, they must have their reasons, Umoris finally thought as he gave them their third portions.
Even the little boy ate his fair share.
"I'll have to apologize for this," Hiems said. "As you might have guessed, we've fallen on rough times."
Aureum halted in bringing the food to her mouth. She coughed.
Then she slowly brought the food to her mouth. Daintily, like a lady.
The fact that she was still in rags and dirty didn't contrast with her intentions. No, not at all.
Still, Umoris' greatest surprise had been when Hiems opened his mouth and said, "I apologize." His diction had been easy to overlook when Umoris was in a ditch, but now it was obvious.
May be an accent to it too, but mostly it's how he speaks.
Umoris got the inkling that these two weren't thieves.
"Well, at least let me give you food and a place to sleep," he said.
Yet, that didn't matter. They had saved his life and not asked anything in return. Now, at least, this he could give.
The man was already shaking his head.
"We'd love the food," the woman said. "But as awful as we look, we'd prefer to hurry on to Ariolusm."
They wouldn't make it by this night. Umoris knew that.
"Yes," Hiems said. "We'd love to stay, but we shouldn't."
"As you like," Umoris said, getting up.
He went to grab some smoked meat. When he came back, they were ready to go, standing anxiously.
They must be deserters of some kind.
The nice way of speaking the freak-faced Hiems had and him having his little family in front of Umoris still threw that assumption for a loop.
Umoris wasn't foolish enough to pry into any of his suspicions.
"Thank you again," Umoris said, as he handed the meat off. "You helped me in my time of need. You will always have my thanks."
Hiems accepted it with grace.
"Thank you for your hospitality," he said. "Perhaps you should take your next years a little slower."
"I would if I could," Umoris said. "I have no one to help me."
"Maybe you should find someone then," Hiems said, stepping away. "We won't be here next time… Maybe you shouldn't be either."
"Thanks again," Aureum said.
The two left while waving. He watched them go until they disappeared under the trees. Once again, Umoris' life was calm. He went back to sit in his little cottage.
As endless as these peaceful days had been, the disruption had come without warning.
No, that's not true.
There had been plenty of warnings, but he had ignored them all.
He looked out the little window towards the village. His cottage didn't have a clear view of it, but Umoris knew where it was.
I need to remember that I have responsibilities to more than just myself.
He was a single old man, living alone, but he was also the hunter for his little village. They would need someone to replace him, and he hadn't provided it.
Now is the time.
Actually, he was decades late, but this would do.
Aureum and Hiems left with no small amount of discontent on their part. As soon as the comfortable and warm little cottage was out of sight, their faces became dour.
A roof, four walls, and warm food?! Heck, even the floor could be comfortable with a few extra blankets!
Aureum shoved her misgivings aside. There was a purpose in them leaving.
"Do you think if anyone's following us they'll find that old man?" She asked, idly.
"Hopefully not."
That didn't do a lot to encourage anything. Yet, he had needed their help. Or maybe they had just made his life worse.
He had called for help. We helped.
Aureum sighed.
I wonder when I'll be able to really rest, she thought.
There was hope. Ariolus was just over the next hill.