[The Horn's Last Call]
Barik closed his eyes for a heartbeat, drawing strength from the horn's deep resonance. His jaw set, he lifted his weapon and faced the ridge below, his resolve renewed. The fight was far from over.
He sensed the slab's stability, and for now, it held; a fragile anchor for their dwindling hope. Yet, in that moment, hope flickered to life, a spark as fleeting and potent as lightning.
As if to fortify their resolve, the distant roll of a horn echoed through the air once more.
The horn's blast grew stronger as it drew nearer. The answering call that tore across the storm nearly broke him.
HIs team exchanged nervous glances. Dara gripped her bow tighter, Cugat adjusted his spear, and Joeren's eyes widened with fear.
They strained to see through the darkness, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound.
The wolves below seemed to pause, they too were listening.
The wolves regrouped, pacing just outside the light. Rain beaded and slid from their matted fur, their breath steaming. One, larger than the rest, stepped forward, its lips peeled back to show long, yellowed fangs.
He blew again, forcing the call past the pounding in his chest. The horn's deep note rolled into the storm.
His last breath shuddered into his horn. Weak, thin, but desperate.
Father, your son's still standing.
***
[Barik's Father]
Hours earlier, the clan elders had gathered in council, their brows furrowed with concern as they debated what course of action to take. Barik's team was overdue, and they had expected them to return by now, fresh from tracking the wounded glass-back beast.
Fear prowled the chamber like a wolf among sheep. The elders sat in their circle of stones, their silence more terrible than words. For the first time in memory, the tribe felt leaderless, adrift, with their warriors scattered and Elder Ruvio nowhere to be found. Children wept softly. Grown men clenched their teeth as if the sound alone might break them.
At last, one elder said sighing, "We cannot send more. The hunters we have left must guard Haven itself. To strip them away would be to invite ruin."
Elder Mishal's voice burst forth, laced with desperation. "But we have to find them! I'm afraid they've stumbled into a desperate situation that requires our aid. It's our duty to rescue them!"
The other elders bristled at this, their faces set in stubborn determination.
One of them rasped, "You'd have us bare Haven's walls of its last defenders? Chase phantoms in the storm? Leave us vulnerable to slaughter when the glass-back returns?"
"My son, Renzo, and his cousin Joeren were with them," Elder Mishal choked out, tears welling up in his eyes. "They're still too young to die."
Another elder's voice turned accusatory. "This is on you. You begged the council to let them join, despite knowing they were inexperienced."
Murmurs rippled through the hall; agreement from some, bitter curses from others. Children whimpered at their mothers' sides. The elders circled each other with words like knives, and the air thickened with politics, accusation, and shame.
The argument broke and reformed again and again, but the truth was immovable. No skilled hunters remained to follow Barik's trail. Their only hope was the second party that had departed days ago. The men sent to find the group of scouts who failed to return to the tribe.
Hours crawled past. The storm deepened, until day itself felt like night.
Just as night fell, the team sent to look for the missing scouts returned. Barik's father, Thalen, led the group back through the gates, his body weary from the long day, his mind still on the mission. Their relief at being home was short-lived. The elders wasted no time, their faces etched with urgency.
He was broad-shouldered, hair shot with gray, his jaw scarred by old battles. His eyes, though ringed with weariness, burned with an iron fire. He led his five loyal men on a quest.
The elders wasted no time. One spoke sharply: "Your son has not returned. He pursued the glass-back. No word, no sign. We fear the worst."
Elder Mishal did not speak. There's no need to; he knew his son and nephew would be saved.
The man stilled, the words striking deep. For the briefest instant, pain carved across his features; an ache no father should ever know. But he did not falter.
He couldn't fault the elders for sending only few people to track the wounded beast. And it's not the right time to point fingers.
He bowed his head, then lifted it with resolve forged in fire. He looked at his men; he would understand if they didn't wish to go. But they all agreed, their loyalty unwavering.
The council gathered, hurried and grim. His party of five was weary, but the need outweighed fatigue. Five more were pressed into service: not skilled, but men who were willing to go; a mix of hunters and scavengers. The elders wouldn't allow hunters to join them. Ten in all, bound to follow him into the storm.
The rescue team was forced to pause for a brief respite, fueling their bodies with food and rest. Once rejuvenated, they stocked up on essentials: medicine, food, and water; preparing for the challenges ahead.
Before the group departed, he reminded the elders, "I understand that we're saving the bonfire for emergency. Now is the time to use it. Light it, and keep it burning when the sky becomes too dark, so we wouldn't lose our way back." The urgency had slipped everyone's mind, but his words sparked swift action. The elders quickly ordered the men to ignite the bonfire.
Before they left, his gaze drifted to the shadows of the hall, and something in him ached. Once, there had been a woman waiting there; dark hair braided down her back, a half-smile that softened the edges of this harsh world. She had been the first to place the horn in their son's hands, insisting he learned its call. "So he will always have a way to come home," she'd said. But she was long gone. The river fever had taken her in a single cruel season, years past, and all that remained of her was a stone marker on the ridge.
He had raised his son alone since then. Every scrape of the boy's knees, every reckless dash into the wild, every stubborn defiance. He had carried it all for both father and mother. And now, if hi son was lost, then her memory would be lost with him.
I swore to her I would keep our son safe, he thought, a vow bitter on his tongue. I cannot fail her twice.
With resolute determination, they marched forth into the tempest, the heavy rain pounding down on them like a relentless drumbeat. The wind whipped at their faces, its biting gusts threatening to strip them bare, but they pressed on, undeterred. The storm raged around them, a cacophony of thunder and lightning that seemed to shake the very foundations of the earth.
***
[The Answering Horn]
The storm unleashed its full fury upon them, the rain lashing down in sheets and the wind howling like a chorus of banshees. Mud swallowed their boots, and the sky split again and again with the white fury of lightning. Still, they pressed forward, the father's resolve dragging the others in his wake. His men followed without complaint.
Thalen's team initially consisted of his original five men, but the desperation of the tribe's people proved contagious. Moved by their pleas, the elders reluctantly assigned five additional men to bolster his team. Although, they were a mixed of inexperienced hunters and scavengers, they were all brave and willing to follow him wherever he led them to.
He nodded, his gaze already moving toward the storm-swept gorge where his son now was.
The rain cut sideways, needling their skin, soaking them to the bone. The land outside Haven was a mire, tracks lost beneath rivers of mud.
Lightning lit the wastes in violent flashes, painting broken trees like skeletal claws against the sky. Their boots sank deep, their breath turned ragged, but still they pressed on, eyes scouring the horizon for any trace.
He blew his horn at intervals, the mournful notes piercing the stormy darkness, holding onto the fragile hope that his son might hear it.
Doubt crept among them, whispered in every gust. "We will never find them," one man muttered under his breath. Another's silence said the same. But Barik's father did not slow. His jaw was set, his eyes never wavered. The men who murmured were the new members. His men would never doubt their leader.
In the blur of storm and night, memory returned unbidden. Barik, a boy of twelve, fumbling with the horn his mother had insisted he carry. Her hands, so delicate compared to his own, guiding the boy's fingers over the carved bone. "Blow it true," she had said, her voice like a river's murmur. "So you can always find your way home."
She is gone, he thought, teeth grit against the storm. But if I lose his son too, then her memory dies with him. I will not fail her twice.
The young boy, standing tall with the ancient horn in his hands, trying to sound it for the first time. The note had cracked and sputtered, and he had scowled in frustration. His father had knelt beside him then, resting a calloused hand on his shoulder.
"Strength is not in the loudness of the call, boy. It is in its truth. When you blow the horn, it is not only your voice—it is your blood, your spirit, your vow. One day, you'll need it, and it will answer."
The memory stung him now, sharp as a blade. And that day has come, hasn't it, son?
The rain was still relentless, and within minutes, even their own trace were gone, washed clean by the flowing water.
The storm raged on, the wind lashing at their cloaks like a thousand knives. Lightning flashed across the sky, casting eerie silhouettes on the landscape. In the distance, a faint light flickered on the horizon, resembling a lone candle flame, fighting the storm to stay alive.
"Is it a sign from the heavens?" He wondered aloud, his voice barely audible over the tempest. "A beacon to lead us to my son?"
His musings were interrupted by a low, ominous rumble; a sound that didn't come from the sky, but from the earth itself. It vibrated through the ground, a deep, primal growl that sent a shiver down his spine.
Suddenly, the night went silent. The howls, the wind, the rustle of the leaves; it all stopped. And in that brief, eerie calm, a faint call sliced through the tempest.
The low rumble grew louder, and his heart quickened as he realized it was the horn's call. It's the signal they'd been waiting for. The sound vibrated through the ground, a deep, resonant hum that seemed to stir the very earth itself. A horn's call, desperate and pleading, yet unmistakable.
Barik's father froze. His heart hammered. That sound, he knew it as surely as his own breath. There were only two horns like it, both carved from the bone of an ancient beast, both passed down from their ancestors. He carried one. His son carried the other.
"It's him," he whispered hoarsely, rain mingling with the salt of his tears. "My boy."
Then, in a blinding flash of lightning, one of them gasped and pointed.
"There! Look!"
Across the rain-lashed expanse of the drowned land, the flickering glow grew brighter, piercing through the sheets of rain like a beacon of defiance. It cast an eerie light on the hunters, who stood frozen in a desperate standoff with the wolves, their eyes locked in a primal struggle for survival.
Hands shaking, he pulled his own horn free. For a heartbeat, fear clawed at him. What if his breath failed, what if the storm devoured his voice? But then he raised it high, and with all the strength of his body, he blew.
BOOOMM! BOOOMMM!
The sound rang deep, cutting through the tempest like steel through flesh. It was not just an answer, it was a vow: Hold fast. Endure. I am coming.
The storm swallowed it, but he felt it echo back in his chest, a bond no rain could wash away.
And as silence closed in again, he prayed into the night, Hold on, my son. Hold on, just a little longer.
* * *