Path of the Stonebreaker

Chapter 112

Embrace the World in Grey

Rowan drifted in and out of the void for three long days, the edges of his awareness a hazy blur of pain and fleeting dreams. Grest or Cru—he often couldn’t tell which—would rouse him when the gruel was served, their hands rough but merciful as they swapped out his dirtied bandages. His body was mending, inch by agonising inch, but the recovery came with the weight of time and pain.

The pain in Rowan’s chest was relentless, the kind that never quite lets you forget it’s there. When he glanced down, the sight was grim: his skin was mottled with dark bruises and swollen around the wounds. Even the smoke from the campfires couldn’t mask the smell of infection he got off himself. Without a healer, Rowan knew that the path of recovery ahead was going to be very long and very painful. By contrast, an accomplished bloodstone healer could have him set right in a few days though.

On the third day, there was a stir in the camp. It seemed something in the woods had gotten the rakmen riled up. Spears with cruel, serrated tips were snatched up, while others reached for bows. Amidst the growing voices, one of the three chiefs bellowed commands in their guttural tongue, his voice cutting through the din.

“What do you reckon’s going on?” Cru asked Grest, both men were close enough to Rowan for him to hear their hushed tones.

“Maybe some Duke's men arrived?”

“Seems too soon,” Cru shook his head.

Cru had been another surviving soldier from the Twin Garde assault. Apparently he and Grest had both also been thrown from the tower when it had exploded. Somehow they both managed to get lucky with little injury. The same could not be said of the rest of the prisoners. Grest and Cru were likely the only ones among them that had the strength to fight if it came to it.

“They’re gearing up for a hunt,” Rowan interjected, his voice ragged but certain.

Grest arched an eyebrow. “How can you tell?”

“The bows and pikes,” Rowan gestured weakly, wincing as the movement tugged at his wounded chest. “Not one of ‘em brought a sword with them. They’re arming themselves for a hunt.”

“Maybe they found another dogman,” Cru guessed. Rowan hadn’t seen the dogman that had been chained in Twin Garde—or if he had, he couldn’t remember it, the days after the assault on Twin Garde were a hazy jumbled mess.

“Maybe,” Rowan tried to shrug but his chest felt tight with pain with the movement and he grimaced instead.

“Take it easy, lad,” Grest lay a shackled hand on Rowan’s shoulder.

“If they get another dogman, it’ll make our escape a lot harder,” Cru looked concerned, “their last one hunted down Norris the Cook pretty quick back at Twin Garde.”

“A bloody sloth could probably keep up with Norris,” Grest grunted.

About half the camp had set off on the hunt. Grest and Cru had kept a meticulous count, noting that twenty rakmen remained. Most were youths scattered across the camp, absorbed in their chores, with only a handful of sentries keeping watch.

“Maybe we should try now,” Grest suggested.

Cru shook his head, “any of this lot look like they can fight at all?”

“It’s the best chance we’ve gotten, I reckon, I’m still the captain, aren’t I?” Cru backed down but Rowan didn’t miss the flash of anger in the man's face. Cru was right, of course. The other soldiers were in no position to fight, although some of them were looking more alive than they had in days with Grest’s suggestion.

“Look,” Grest pointed at the guard nearest to them, “it’s just ‘im watching us. And them three on the camp perimeters. I reckon I can take ‘em all down if I’m quick enough.”

“It’s too risky,” Cru snarled, “you’ll be getting us all killed.”

“I’m not sitting here another fuckin’ day, eating this slop, waiting to be sold off to some rak scum.”

The other prisoners were rising to their feet. Rowan found himself getting a wind of life in him. Maybe we could do this? The alternative was just sit around and wait for whatever the rak were planning for them.

“Alright,” Grest was pumping himself up, “we’re doing this now.” He was looking around at the others in his group. Colour was rising in their faces, men that only moments ago looked utterly defeated now roused to action. There’s still fight in us.

“Let’s show these rak-fucking-bastards what men of Rubane can do, eh?” Grest's grin was wild, manic, as he rallied the others. His voice was rising and Rowan noticed the sentry closest to them was watching him. An unreadable expression on his alien face.

“Yeah, yeah, you,” Grest turned to face the sentry, snarling, “I’m going to—”

—A knife caught Grest in the throat, his words cutting off in a wet garbled grunt.

Rowan’s head whipped about looking for who threw it.

Grest staggered back, his body collapsing in a crumpled heap.. Not far off was a rak chief glaring at the group of standing prisoners, a chief’s ghostwood mask dangling at his waist. The rak approached with deliberate, measured steps. He yanked the knife from Grest’s neck, blood flowed heavy and thick as he did so. The chief’s eyes roved over the prisoners, all of whom had hastily sat back down onto the ground, the earlier bravado evaporating into a tense, fearful silence.

“No!” The chief’s bark cut through the air like a lash. He wiped the blood off the knife on Grest’s uniform, then pointed it at Cru and some of the other healthier-looking prisoners. Cru cast his eyes downward and Rowan did the same, hoping to not draw the rak chief’s attention.

“No,” the chief spat again angrily. “No kudak. No fight!”

Just that easily, their escape plan was crushed. In hindsight, it was doomed from the outset. They had no weapons, had barely any food or water for nearly two weeks, and they were still all bound together in a chain link. Despite that sudden and short-lived burst of optimism, the harsh truth was undeniable—they were prisoners. Death would be the only freedom they could find now.

***

The rakmen hunters returned later that evening with their prize.

The light was fading and, despite Rowan’s circumstances, he could still appreciate the subtle beauty of the winter light filtering through the canopy of crystalline branches. Rowan loved the woods, he always had. His childhood memories of exploring the forests with his father and brother always prominent in his memory.

Rowan often felt peace in the woods. Like something inside of him resonated with the tranquillity. The feeling was not wholly unlike channelling the power of a runestone, only it was quieter… more natural. He’d once voiced this feeling to his father who’d smiled warmly and told him that he often felt it too. It was their heritage, his father claimed. They had a connection to the forests, it was in their blood.

Rowan felt a shift in that feeling. He’d felt it before, and the nostalgia rushed to him. An image of a silver and green furred creature conjured in his mind. A ferrax. His father had called them the Guardians of the Wood. They were more connected to the forests than any other creature. The aura of the woods itself shifted when they were near, greens became more vibrant, the fresh scent of pine overpowering everything else, even the smoke of the cookfires.

Rowan heard the rakmen before he saw them. They revelled in their cruel victory. They emerged from the trees with ironlink chains, similar to those that bound Rowan, the ferrax dragged behind them. The ferrax—a symbol for Rowan of the unyielding fury of nature, now chained and bound. Its sinuous form rippled and tensed, still struggling against the combined might of the rakmen.

A deep part of Rowan stirred, disgusted by what he was witnessing. There was something inherently wrong with seeing a ferrax bound like that. He’d always known that rakmen hunted ferrax, their pelts were one of the few commodities that some ruthlessly corrupt human merchants would risk trading with them for.

This ferrax differed to the one that Rowan had seen as a boy but it was no less magnificent. Its fur was reminiscent of a sunset. Red and orange blending into gold, its antlers appearing more like amber crystal than bone. They’d managed somehow to get a muzzle on the creature and constrained its six limbs with chains. It was dragged along the forest path, writhing and rippling like a bagged serpent. Rowan couldn’t understand how the rakmen even managed to contain the creature, let alone capture it in the first place.

What is their purpose? If they meant to sell its pelt, surely it was better to kill the poor beast where you found it. Why subject it to the torment of captivity?

Stakes were driven into the ground on the border of the camp. Chains were affixed to them, then tightened, constraining the ferrax. Rowan felt a rage building inside of him. But what could he do? He too was bound, he too was a captive here.

The creature's head was drawn to the ground, its golden eyes full of anger and confusion. The three chiefs were now standing near the head, inspecting it. The one that had killed Grest seemed to be subservient to a larger one that was armed with two great battle axes on his back. It drew one of the axes now and pushed the blade against the creature’s snout.

The blade cut into the flesh beneath the golden fur and Rowan grimaced. The ferrax itself growled, its body writhing in frustration within its bonds. It seemed smaller than the one Rowan had seen as a boy, this one was maybe forty feet in length but it was hard to tell with it constrained as it was.

Rowan couldn’t hear what the rak chiefs were discussing, even if he was close enough he wouldn’t be able to understand their tongue. They seemed to be arguing amongst each other, over what, Rowan couldn’t guess. All he knew was that he despised them. Reviled by what they were doing to the poor creature.

The ferrax continued to cast its gaze wildly around the camp. It all likely seemed so alien to the beast. Rowan felt the creature’s eyes lock onto his for a moment. He could see the vast intelligence in its eyes. Rowan tried to convey his own frustration, his own anger towards the treatment the noble beast was receiving. He wanted to convey kinship. Rowan held its gaze, it might have been his imagination but he thought he could see the beast relax slightly.

But then the big chief grabbed one of its antlers and began roughly inspecting it, pulling the creature’s attention. Leave it be. Rowan gritted his teeth. He clenched his fists and felt an overwhelming surge of impotence.

The memory of Rowan’s cousin Boern beating Tanlor with a training sword surfaced in his mind. Boern had been twenty and Tanlor had been barely eleven. Rowan had watched as Boern—the heir to Garronforn castle—beat Rowan’s little brother and there was nothing he could do to help. He knew that if he raised his fist against Boern then both he and Tanlor would be punished.

And then Tanlor’s hand had come, grabbing the training sword and wrenching it from Boern’s hand. The cocky bastard had laughed, and then Tanlor’s fist caught him in the jaw. How an eleven year old boy could knock out a tooth of a man nearly twice his age and size, Rowan could never understand.

Rowan had been helpless then, just as he was now, watching the treatment of the ferrax. He’d always had a connection to animals. He loved his horses, and he had respect for the creatures of the forest that he hunted for food. The ferrax, above all, garnered his utmost respect. His paternal grandparents had venerated them for a reason.

Later that night, Cru was helping Rowan eat his broth—he still didn’t have the strength to lift the spoon for himself. The other man wore a troubled expression.

“It’s not right,” Cru said. He was a short, stocky man with far more hair on his face than his head.

“No,” Rowan agreed, knowing what Cru was referring to.

“Your father, Taran. He were a northman, weren’t he?”

“Aye.”

“So he knew then,” Cru grunted.

“You’re from here?” Rowan asked, eyebrows lifting in surprise. The soldiers from Twin Garde had mostly hailed from the far-flung Duchies of Rubane, and true locals were a rare breed among them.

“My grandparents were from Jok, the land beyond the mountains,” Cru explained,. “My parents followed the Old Ways, as did I, before joining the Duke’s men in Twin Garde. Too many rakmen pressing south. The woods were no longer safe for those of us who clung to those old paths.”

Rowan had crossed paths with a few northerners in his time, brought to their makeshift camps by his father. They’d been nomads, roaming the dense forests and living off the land in a way that was both timeless and transient. Over the years, most of those people had drifted south, assimilating into the bustling towns and cities of Rubane. In just one generation, the ancient traditions of the Jok people had nearly vanished, their heritage slipping away like mist through the trees.

“My father’s parents were from Jok too,” Rowan confessed.

“Aye, I know. Didn’t never meet him myself, but I’d heard the stories. Truth be told, he was an inspiration for a lot of us still living out here. A lot of us joined the Duke’s men to be a hero like him. He was one for the Old Ways though I’d heard. Despite living in the south all those years.”

“Aye… he was.”

Cru’s gaze hardened as he looked at the ferrax, its eyes still wide with frantic terror. “It’s a damn shame to see one treated that way.”

“We need to free it,” Rowan stated, there was no other option.

“That would involve freeing ourselves.”

“Then that’s what we need to do.”

“I don’t fancy ending up the same way as Grest,” Cru’s expression darkened.

“Me neither…”

“So what do we do?”

For the first time in Rowan’s life he was utterly unsure of what he needed to do. He’d always had an internal compass guiding him on his path, could always tread the tracks that fate had laid for him. Right now, his instincts screamed at him. He needed to free that ferrax. More than anything he’d done in his life, he needed to do this. But he had absolutely no idea how.