The Silencing of Esteria

Chapter 15

The days progressed quietly for a while. As Rin didn't have much work for Toland to do, he allowed him to take the time off to spend with Jaran.

Learning magic didn't seem as thrilling to Toland as the legends had made it seem. The sorcerer Malipher had been taught in three nights by the dragon Ritzkala using sacred moonstones, but alas, Toland's learning entailed hours of carefully copying out runes onto pieces of wood using charcoal. It was even slower going at first as Jaran's writing hand was missing, so some of the ones with finer detail needed to be done from his description.

Even still, Toland now had a good grasp of the phonetic runes and five or six of the other runes. He took great joy from lighting the fires each evening with magic.

With a little help from Jaran as to the exact connections, he scratched a few rune onto a large, granite stone and activated them. The stone began to give off a gentle heat and when he went to fetch water from the well that morning, he gave it to Shudlow.

The old man's tiny shelter had been filled with furs so when he approached, he couldn't see the hermit for being buried in them.

"Good morning Toland," the pile of furs said cheerfully.

Toland smiled and sat down next to him, "Good morning Shudlow. I've bought you something."

"Oh really? Pray tell."

Toland pushed the stone into the pile of furs and Shudlow sighed happily.

"Now that does feel nice. A fire warmed stone in your bed is a treasure for all, from the King to the... well, me," he laughed.

"Here, I've got some bread here as well."

"Ow, how lovely," Shudlow said excitedly and a hand slithered its way out of the furs.

Toland placed the bread on the hand, and it retreated inwards.

"The stone is magically heated, I picked a big and strong one so it should last a while."

"You know, I never thought much of wizards but I'm beginning to warm up to them."

He sniggered and Toland just shook his head.

"What's wrong with wizards?" Toland asked.

"Too unreliable, mostly. In a battle swift and decisive action is key and if you are fumbling around in your spellbook for 10 minutes each time there isn't a lot of point keeping you around. And if you just have one or two spells then you can be replaced with a canon or a mobile palisade, both of which are less susceptible to taking an arrow to the neck the moment the fight starts."

Toland shrugged and conceded the point.

"No, a spell will never be able to top the practicality and speed of simply smashing a skull in with a hammer."

"It would have been nice to be able to do something when Herdrew Ir and Ir Shan were facing the direwolf though..."

"You take an old man's advice, you stick to what's good for you, adventuring sounds exciting and wonderful until you start getting old, heroic stories do very little to warm your bones in the cold, a house over your head and a wife in your bed does that. That and magic rocks. No, get yourself a worthwhile job and live a long and happy life, far from adventure."

They sat in silnence for a moment, eating their bread contently until Toland asked, "Where do direwolves come from?"

Shudlow sniffed, "Same place all the demon beasts come from, crawl out of the ground, born from the fires of the underworld."

"It didn't look like it came from a fire though, it just looked like a big wolf."

"Thankfully, what you saw there was a loner, an omega cast out from the pack due to being too small probably. It's the eyes that show its true nature."

Toland scratched his chin ponderously, "It's eyes weren't that different though, just redder."

There was a rustle from inside the furs and Shudlow's head emerged, "What did you say?"

"Its eyes were red..." Toland replied, confused and a little frightened by the intensity of Shudlow's expression.

Shudlow grabbed his arm tightly, "How red? How red were its eyes?"

"Like, blood splattered on mud. They didn't have pupils, they just were this dark, deep red."

"Toland, direwolf eyes change colour as they get older, they get brighter red until they burn with an almost flame-like brightness. That wasn't a runt or an exile, that was a juvenile."

"What does that matter though?"

"If an omega goes missing, the pack doesn't care. If a juvenile goes missing, the pack go looking for it."

Toland froze in horror.

"Go quickly, go to Ir Shan, tell him to get rid of the body, get it as far away from the village as possible. Whatever its touched, clean it, get rid of as much of the smell as you can."

Toland scrambled to his feet, his bucket of water forgotten, and sprinted into the village.