Hear me. I will tell you how he betrayed us, and how he come to leave. Gladness and sorrow come with his greeting – so it was with his leaving. And in our hearts, that’s how we remember him, with gladness and with sorrow.
He was my friend, my good friend, and always the men leave a space for him at campfire. Always he is in our hearts, with gladness, and with sorrow.
Accompanied me through all, he did. First I was to come upon him; last to see him leave. My strong Initiate-Brother, in our fellowship under God’s Eye, making of us men in Foundchild. Was me taught him our knowledge of the language, showed him how the bow can take our quarry down from far – he took to that all right enough, like one of us long-lost. I teaches him the handling of the knife to butcher. Me it was showed him Death’s true complement, great Rune of Harmony we marry with it long.
Was me that failed him then, maybe.
That great final day the tribe was holding its breath. All of Brown Boar was ready to leap with joy or weep with grief at our return – the Greatest Hunt it was to be, a day to mark Brown Boar tribe’s name high in the esteem of the Foundchild, our name to boast and ring across the plains: claiming of the Greatest Quarry!
Old Baruba says its why he come to us all those seasons ago: to claim for us the Greatest Prize of all, and one that only he could claim, the Dragonslayer.
Up in the Elder Wilds we were, land of the Old Ones, men of clay and wood and stone, sons of darkness and children of the trees. We hid a ways off, Old Baruba, me and Ongol, using the power of the eye close and far to watch him good in his craft. This time my friend takes only his spears of metal, clothed as a brother of us now in the skins of our good and holy kills. We see him stalk and track the Giant All-Tooth, Dragon’s Fury, see him try to sneak up on his back. But the Fury’s all wild beast and smells him coming, and he’s on him swift as a cut is to bleed, before he can cast his spear.
I never seen a fight so terrible. Time and again the All-Tooth tries to take him; time and again his monstrous jaws snap shut on empty air. In goes our death-brother’s spear, time and again, but the All-Tooth, Dragon’s Fury, his skin be thicker than the bald rocks of the plain about him.
So it goes on. I feel the sweat pouring off me as I watch him. Hearts in our mouths, we all forget to breathe. The Fury’s built for aught but killing swiftly, but our fella’s moving quicker than his jaws, his tail, his terrible claws. The All-Tooth throws everything at him, and still he ducks, he jumps, he feints and weaves, all the while, the stab-stab-stab, time and again. This one, our brother, he knows the Dragon’s ways, its wiles and all its powers.
Then comes a bite from All-Tooth makes me near un-man myself – only our man’s ducked back again, and then he’s in – thrusts and sticks this awful jolt that tears up through the Fury, up in his mouth and shredding through his brain.
The Beast drops – the Dragon’s Fury’s spent. Our man, so fearsome strong his cutting, can’t pull out his spear: it sticks right through the All-Tooth’s head and out its skull. We all look on in wonder.
So he just stands there.
We all stand up from cover, watching.
The Beast’s down, dead, but he’s just standing there. What’s he waiting on?
“Come on man, do it!” and we’re all of us willing him, urging him on in our hearts. Complete the duty!
But he’s just standing there. Ongol starts to tremble. I can’t take breath, and Old Baruba slowly draws his eyes off our gaunt brother – looks back at me and smiles, but the tears are flowing down his wrinkled face. I don’t take my eyes off my friend, but he’s not moving; don’t take them off him even when the spirit’s gift leaves my eyes and he’s a stick out on the plain there.
Slowly we gathers our wits, and Baruba leads us forward. It’s the longest walk; feels hard and long as that forced march when I’s a child across that desert. The sky yawns above us, the plain gapes wide, and our hearts and legs are heavy like the poison’s got us.
We get to him.
He stands over Allosaur, the All-Tooth, the Dragon’s Fury lying spiked through his skull with the brains on the tip of his iron. We stand long; sun moves before he turns and looks right through me. His killers eyes are back in his rune-blackened face, back like they was when I met him, lying on the bloodied grasses with death all about him. His eyes, blank as Death himself, keened to the slaughter, hallowed and fey and grim. Where had my friend gone?
Why did he not deliver the Peaceful Cut?
How could he not deliver the Peaceful Cut?
The great Beast’s spirit would never return to us now. It’s lost to the cycle of Time, and with it went the rule of Harmony. My friend, with us these long months and ever counted one of us, had left us. I saw him leave there on the field of the Fury’s ending.
The man to whom I bade farewell was a stranger.
With gladness, and with sorrow in my heart.