"BENEATH YOU, FOOL!" a bellowing voice sounded from behind. Welt looked a half-second too late, seeing the ground burst open underneath his feet. The claws of the Burrowjackal pierced his ankle and pulled him underground.
His vision almost completely blurred from the dirt that began to pelt his face. Along with the drastic change in light level, going from morning sun to a pitch-black underground, he was almost totally blinded. Drun's voice, too, was muffled by a mix of rustling dirt and cackling laughter coming from the beast that caught Welt.
Long, dirt-caked nails pierced Welt's left leg - it felt as though his foot could be ripped off at any second. He had, luckily, managed to tuck his arms into his chest before being swallowed by the ground. This prevented his shoulders from dislocating as he was pulled in, and let him protect his face from the harsher rocks that protruded out of the long crawl-space he was being shot through.
Being dragged and pummelled along the rocky edges of a tunnel wasn't the worst of Welt's problems, though. Drun had called him a fool, which meant more training in the evening.
Getting caught was a bit of bad luck on Welt's part, he'd heard a whisper coming from somewhere else right as the monster approached him. But Welt was sure this wouldn't serve as a good excuse. Another half-day of struggle was not something Welt was looking forward to, so he tried to think of a way out.
Let's play it off. Like I meant to get pulled under.
Drun had drilled knowledge of Burrowjackal habitats, tactics, and even social hierarchies into his head before going on this hunt - tested in the form of a written exam before they even began tracking the thing.
Monsters of the Ground God, Strahta, the large canines had sharp, light brown fur and a long muzzle as hard as iron. Their biology was similar but larger to natural canines, but differed in a number of important ways. The biggest difference was their expertise in digging with the long and sturdy claws of their front paws. Welt was currently gripped by a hind leg, which had durable claws and a more versatile way of gripping things, they were closer to hands than paws.
Welt thought back to the Burrowjackal Den Construction exam he'd taken the day before: "Under what structures do Burrowjackals tend to move from shallow to deep tunnel structures?"
Trees.
Pushing the rough boot of his free foot against the wall of the tunnel, Welt tried to act as a brake, slowing his speed as much as could. He rubbed his eyes furiously against his arm, clearing his vision enough to see a little bit in the darkness. He was looking for any small inkling of light from above, enough to spot roots growing in the tunnel walls. But, mostly, he was trying to sense something else - the smell of harvest leaves on the ground above.
He caught the faintest senses of both up ahead, and waited for the scent to reach its height, paired with that of the open sky. The bend was coming: sharp and downwards, like a horseshoe, assuming the diagrams he'd studied were right.
He flipped his body as far as he could onto his stomach, and began to curl his legs just as the area opened up. Any earlier, and his knees would've hit the shallower walls of the main tunnels and broken his pelvis under the forceful bend.
He hit a hard wall while being dragged, going at least the speed of a galloping horse. Had he been in his previous position, laid straight and on his back, he'd have broken his neck against it as he was pulled down. The jackal pulled Welt deeper into its den - howling laughter echoing more and more in the sturdier tunnels.
The snarls, pants, and uneven snickers of the Burrowjackal continued to resound as Welt was pulled along in the tunnels for another few seconds, eventually falling into what sounded like a wider chamber. Welt could smell a lot of horror in this chamber: bones and rotting flesh, piles of waste on the edges.
However, he also pick up another scent: the smell of incense. The same incense that burned in the home of the Tradesman who'd hired them. He could hear laboured, fast breathing in the cave's corner.
With his newfound freedom, Welt planted his boot on the jackal's forearm, loosening its grasp on his ankle for enough time to allow him to kick with his torn leg. He couldn't see where he hit the thing, but could tell he sent it a good few feet, hearing it scatter bone piles as it flew and smacked against a wall.
A girl's scream sounded amongst the clatter, shrill and terrified.
"Don't worry, Lyla, we're here to help you!" Welt shouted, trying to overpower her fearful wailing in the darkness - he needed every sense he could get.
Burrowjackals had incredible vision in the dark, judging from the sketches he'd seen of the creature's large eyes and pupils. Unfortunately, Welt was at a great disadvantage here, having to calm the girl made hearing the creature much harder, and the stench of carrion made picking out its mangy scent almost impossible.
With a suppressed grunt, Welt blindly shoved the monster back into the wall. He didn't hit it square-on, too far to the right, so couldn't pin it like he'd hoped.
Unlucky. Don't dwell on it.
He pulled his lucky longsword from his belt's sheath and brandished it wildly to his left, where he'd felt the jackal falling. He called it a longsword, but in truth, it had a blade no larger than his forearm. It was a miracle it had managed to stay on his back through the tunnels - the perfect weapon for such a tight space.
The blade struck against rough, itchy pelt and cut shallowly into, from Welt's estimate, a thigh muscle of some kind - he couldn't tell based on touch alone. The beast shrieked in response and lashed back, cutting Welt across the face deeply. He could feel blood dripping into his eye and down his neck. No matter, he couldn't see anyways.
Welt couldn't afford to lose the advantage of the wall. He swivelled the stubby longsword around and jabbed it deep into the thigh wound from before - having kept his hand near it, he could estimate its position in the dark.
He twisted the blade, hearing a pained yelp come as muscles twisted and shredded in the thigh of the monster. It jerked its leg, kicking Welt back and down onto the ground, and began its counterattack with a leap.
The jackal managed to unsteadily leap above Welt and bare its fangs at him. The stench of its breath assaulted Welt's sensitive nose like a flash of light in the dark. Welt had blocked the lunge of the creature with his forearms but was being pushed against more and more. The snarls inched closer and closer to his neck. He tried to get a foothold but his boot slipped on a bone of some kind, causing the creature to bare even closer, a hair's width away from sinking its teeth into him.
LEFT.
Welt heard a whisper. Beside him was a voice, but it also felt behind him, and above him. Close, but far, it echoed in a way that didn't make sense for the small cave they were fighting in. Was Lyla moving around? It was good that she had calmed down, at least. Though, a bit unnerving.
ROCK.
A rock? Maybe she can see a little bit.
Welt moved his left arm and felt around, clutching a particularly sharp rock just beside him, it rested within the clutches of something dead. Without any hesitation he slammed the rock into the face of the jackal above him. The rock had a sharp point, not a blunt edge, and it pierced the skull in one attempt, causing the jackal to fall limp almost immediately upon contact.
It was over.
Welt collected himself for a half-minute, giving himself time to breath before attempting to shove the corpse of the creature off him. His leg hurt tremendously, pierced, torn, and scraped from the ankle upward. His face's gashes, while not too deep, were bleeding a lot. He would live, but likely couldn't walk properly for a long while.
Close enough to the plan. Welt thought. The thing IS dead, so it shouldn't be a big problem with the old man.
"Thank you, Lyla." He managed to say. The rock she'd whispered about had managed to save his life.
Standing up, with laboured breaths, he spoke in a calmer tone, percussed by the fumbling of his belt as he searched it's many pockets for his kindling.
"How'd you know about that rock? That was super quick thinking! Good job!" Welt said in a panting, exhausted, but outwardly cheerful tone.
The girl didn't say anything. Her breathing was a little calmer, though.
"Do you have your brother? He's safe with you?"
He heard a whimpering noise, like a hum of a yes. She must be too exhausted to use words right now.
"Hold him tight and grab onto my hand. We'll get you out of here, okay?" He fumbled to start a spark with the dirt-clogged equipment he had, trying to make a small fire to see the situation.
Welt had missed something, however. So tired and exhausted from the battle, he hadn't notice a key detail before asking Lyla about her brother.
He'd only heard one person's breathing.
The spark caught alight and, in the corner, between two piles of bones, was a tattered girl covered in bruises and cuts. She was shaking, breathing shallow and fast, and tightly clung to a larger, more masculine hand that extended as far as the wrist before ending in a rotting, red mess. Her eyes were unfocused, in shock, as if not looking at anything.
On his left, Welt saw the body of a teenage boy: torn up and mangled almost beyond recognition, one arm missing, with drying blood pooled beneath it. He had been clutching a rock.
***
On the walk back to Beginshold, finished with guiding Lyla back to the safety of her family, Welt was being bombarded with a deluge of "criticisms" from Drun.
Welt looked a mess. His white robes were closer to brown now, smothered in dirt and blood from the earlier hunt. The leather cuirass he'd worn had been removed, its straps frayed and worn near to snapping. His belt's dozen pouches were all clogged with dirt and small rocks, making it hang heavier on his waist. He had a green cloak wreathing his body - this one dirty by design. The cloak was covered in all kinds of dirt and muck that could be found in the Harvestlands, an entangled smell of the forest floor had lingered upon it for years.
His black hair was knotted together with clumps of dirt, its bangs hiding an equally dishevelled and rough, angular face. Welt's features were relatively sharp, a smaller nose and more squared jaw than was common this far West. Or so he'd heard. His white-irised eyes were especially unique. He'd often received comments about them from village workers, fellow travellers, barmaids, and more in every village they'd gone to over the years. He preferred to keep his hood up to avoid such comments.
Welt was lugging a sack of various vegetables, leathers, and pieces of unused iron and steel. Payment for the Burrowjackal kill and safe return of the tradesman's children.
…Safe return? The notion made Welt scoff at himself.
The scoff went unheard, mixing with the booming voice of Drun, who hadn't finished his post-battle lecture.
The man's low voice always seemed to bounce unhindered through the surroundings, as if made of a heavy steel. It echoed with pride, causing blades of grass to shiver at every word.
Drun stood tall. Taller than anyone Welt had met in his life. The giant man would often cast shadows that made people think a monster had emerged behind them. He had an enormous torso that sat atop a sturdy foundation of battle-hardened thighs, calves, and feet that rested in steel-plated, black boots. He wore the pelt of a great brown bear on his shoulders, resting over a bag of provisions hidden beneath. This great hump made his back look far larger than it was in reality - though it was, truly, large.
Drun's arms had clearly seen battle - embroidered with scars from all kinds of wounds: cuts, punctures, burns, you name it. He wore no armour to mask them, even his wrists were bare - with one gripping an unimaginably heavy Greatsword, tied in its marble-white sheath with a thick steel wire of some kind. Welt had never seen it drawn.
"...and ultimately, boy, you cannot get distracted when a mound is so close. No amount of... 'instinct'... as you like to call it, should be taken as a sign of confidence. I doubt you've forgotten the lesson of the Reddwarble fable. We-"
"We shouldn't head Westward with our head facing the peaks. I know, father, I've recited it countless times." Welt tiredly cut his father's explanation short. He was not interested in hearing about idyllic stories now.
Welt clung tightly to a small wooden horse. It was small, fitting snugly in his closed fist with just the head poking out. A little rough to hold, seemingly cut with weaker hands and cruder technique than a professional woodcarver, the horse was unmistakably a novice's creation.
It was given to him by Lyla. A toy her brother, Isaac, had made for her.
His father started again, a little more agitated at having been cut off.
"You clearly don't know, fool, or else you'd have considerably cleaner equipment."
"So we care more for my clothes than the life of a child?" Wren snapped back. His voice, not deep like his fathers, was drowned much quicker in the windy ambience.
"Lyla is-" Drun began, but was once again interrupted.
"But what about her brother?" Wren felt his grip on the carving tighten. "His blood wasn't fully dried. Was his life worth less than an extra day of study? An extra hour of written tests? He's dead because of you. Not me. Not my 'foolish' actions. You."
Wren had been limping a little ahead of his father, but was quickly pulled back by the collar, two large, gloved fingers stopping him. His guardian's gaze felt like a weight pressing down on him. It felt that way often these days.
"Two thousand strikes when we return." He curtly responded. "And I am rotating your Champion History studies out for studies of The Fog. Enough idyllic stories for you, if you cannot see past their childish hide."
Welt responded with a half-hearted "Sir" and continued on, signalling the end of the spat.
Drun wasn't finished, though.
"Why do you think I take these jobs, boy?" He began, stopping his own walk as he spoke.
This was something that really grated Welt, especially at his current age of seventeen. His father seemed not to know when to let things rest, reiterating his points as if repeatedly striking a training dummy.
"Do you think I take to hunting in the wilderness of these backwater lands to save a handful of village lives? No."
"I do it to save one."
Welt stopped. He hadn't heard Drun's voice become this soft before. If his voice was a sword, then this was spoken on its blunt edge. Still cold and deep, but not as terrifying as it often was.
Drun sighed, grabbed the bag of payment that Wren was dragging on the forest floor and slung it over his shoulder. He walked beyond Wren, his back looming like an insurmountable wall.