Caracara's Hunt

His whole soul shuddered. He could not put a finger on it, but something was horribly wrong.

"You finally awake?" a familiar voice asked, and Arawn forced his eyes open.

Mutallu was sitting in a blanket near an extinguished fireplace. Upon noticing that Arawn did look up at his words, he stood up and ventured over. "You human again?"

"Human?"

Arawn tried recalling what he had been doing before falling asleep, but his memories refused to cooperate. He remembered the mansion, Mutallu sneaking into it, and then… then… there was nothing.

Where were they even? A quick look around gave him no answer. They had settled for the night near a road that led to he didn"t know where, and that was all he could gather.

The strange thing, however, was that Mutallu was sleeping on the ground while Arawn was still on the cart. It was wrong somehow, and he looked down at himself.

"Ah!"

A startled scream escaped his lips when he realized he lay nude under a blanket next to freezing cold iron cuffs, each of which was large enough to be used as a stool. A shiver ran down his body, and he brought the blanket tighter around himself. It was now clear why he felt like freezing earlier.

"Where are we?" he asked through chattering teeth.

"Human then," Mutallu said to himself with a nod and went to rummage through one of his packs. From it, he pulled out a set of clothes and threw them at Arawn. "Get dressed. I"ll start a fire."

Arawn had no problems with such orders. He grabbed the clothes like a starving man bread and swiftly dressed. While doing it, he noticed something that almost made him blank out. Both his wrists and ankles had been chafed against something until they were a b.l.o.o.d.y mess.

Every single movement sent a wave of pain through him that threatened to stagger him. Through gritted teeth, he managed to pull on his pants, but the shirt proved to be more of a problem. The moment the cloth brushed past his skin, he almost fainted.

"You still with me?" Mutallu asked from the fire he had just started, and Arawn grunted in reply.

He couldn"t be defeated by a shirt. The early morning was quite cold, and he didn"t wish to catch any sickness. It would only be the cherry on top of all his injuries.

Ignoring the debilitating pain, he finished putting on his shirt and breathed as hard as if he had just run a marathon. Who knew something so simple could be so hard?

Once his heart returned to its usual rhythm, he pulled to the edge of the cart and lowered his legs to walk to the fire. And fell down that same instant.

Lying on the gra.s.s face down, Arawn wondered just how much beating his body had suffered. It was giving up on him in all the ways possible, and he couldn"t argue with it. He had a sense that he had pushed it way farther than it could ever go.

There was deep bruising around his ankles and wrists, burn marks all over his body, and one of his legs refused to hold his weight. How could one person even accrue so many injuries in a couple days" time?

Mutallu came over and crouched down by his side. "Are you planning to stay here?"

With a sigh, Arawn rolled over on his back. "I can"t walk. There"s something wrong with my leg."

"I remember you were limping before," the boy said with a nod as if that explained everything. He then put an arm beneath Arawn"s shoulder to helped him up. "I"ll call your doctor to take a look at you later."

"Thanks," Arawn murmured while leaning against Mutallu to stand up and then half jumped, half staggered to the fire.

Its warmth was heavenly, and he almost forgot that there wasn"t a part of his body not abused to the point it no longer wished to be part of him. Mutallu warmed up some gruel, and Arawn wolfed it down like it was the best thing he had ever eaten.

"So what happened? Where are we?" he asked when he finished.

"On the way to Mairya. As to what happened, I was hoping you would explain it to me," Mutallu said with a strange look his way.

"I did something, didn"t I?"

Mutallu inclined his head. "You could say that. Soon after I left, you started ma.s.sacring the soldiers. It was a good way to make them retreat, I just don"t think that was what you were thinking. You even attacked me and your doctor."

Arawn was too exhausted to even feel ashamed. He just lowered his head and stared at the flames dancing among the logs. They were bright and cheery, the exact opposite of his mood at that moment.

"How did you stop me?" he asked in a soft whisper.

"The doctor drugged you and once the uprising in the mansion was finished, he managed to force a few people into helping to load you into a cart. No one wanted to travel with a beast though, so I"ve been keeping a distance behind them."

His indifferent tone grew serious then. "Around midday yesterday, you started screaming and thrashing about like someone was killing you. I stopped to look at what happened, and you were actually transforming. But I"ve never heard about it lasting for so long. Your bones broke and reformed for a whole half an hour before settling down, and when I tried to wake you up after that, you showed no signs of being alive. You were barely breathing."

Arawn lowered his head even more. He had no recollection of any of that. His last memory was of sending Mutallu off into the mansion and that was it. There was not a single moment more.

The fact that the monster within him took over was not a new thing for him, but this time, it had happened without his knowledge. Before, he would feel the change coming. For a moment, he would even feel like a bodiless soul just watching his body do things that he would never do himself.

But there was nothing like that this time. And there hadn"t even been any danger to bring out the change. Wasn"t the monster only concerned about keeping him alive? Why would it take over when he was fine?

"Don"t start crying now. You"re not a child," Mutallu said with disgust in his voice.

Startled, Arawn rubbed his eyes, but they were dry. "I"m not crying!"

"You were about to," the kid said without any remorse.

"No, I wasn"t,"

"Yes, you were,"

"No—"

"Yes—"

They glared at each other, and Arawn huffed in indignation. So what if he had lost control of his own body for a time? It wasn"t anything new. He could deal with it. Sooner or later, he would find out what brought it about and not let it happen again.

"That"s a better expression," Mutallu said with a nod and pulled out a dagger to sharpen.

Arawn sat still for a moment, just staring at him. Had the kid just played him? Was he that gullible?

Probably… Yet instead of being angry, he felt relieved. "Thanks."

The kid ignored his words and continued to sharpen his blade. Arawn didn"t mind that and continued to warm himself next to the fire. Its heat slowly seeped through each of his pores, making him feel like life wasn"t all that bad.

Some time later, when the sun began to rise in the horizon, Mutallu jumped onto the horse and rode away. By the time he returned, Arawn had already dozed off, but Sylvester"s shout swiftly cleared his mind.

"Arawn!" There was both disbelief and awe in his voice. "I can"t believe that. I thought your friend was mad, but I"ll be d.a.m.ned, it"s really you."

Arawn nodded. He would have stood up to say hi, but he didn"t want to repeat the scene from earlier. It was enough to appreciate the ground from close up once a day.

Once he got off his horse, Sylvester came straight at Arawn and circled him a few times. "How did you do that? Beasts don"t turn back! Everyone knows that!" He chuckled then. "Can you not break at least some rules? The amount of ether you can call upon is preposterous, and now you can even change into a beast whenever you wish? You make me believe that G.o.ds play favorites."

"I"d trade it away to you this second if I could," Arawn said with a dark look his way.

"Oh, no thanks. I"m perfect as I am." Sylvester laughed and crouched down by his side. "Now show me what"s wrong with you. Your young friend told me you"re barely holding on."

Arawn shot a glance at Mutallu, but the boy wasn"t looking at him. He had went to the cart and was pulling the heavy iron cuffs out of the way.

Unsure how to take that, Arawn returned his attention back to Sylvester. As asked, he revealed the injuries on his wrists and ankles. The doctor took in a sharp breath and whistled.

"That looks nasty."

"It feels that too," Arawn muttered and brought his right leg a bit more forward with his hands. "I can"t walk. It doesn"t hold my weight."

Sylvester put his hand above it and grimaced. "I"d be surprised if it did. You pulled and tore everything that could be pulled and torn. Even the bone is cracked."

After saying that, he called upon the ether and sent it into Arawn"s ankle. The white smattering of dust ignored the bruising on the outside and seeped inside to take care of the problems there.

Almost instantly, Arawn felt his muscles being stretched and pulled. Some were even destroyed and grown anew. It was painful, but nothing compared to what he had felt when he changed into the beast.

His bone groaned in a very disturbing way, but the sound was soon gone. Sylvester shifted his hand and then focused on the exposed flesh around the ankle. New skin grew over it, hiding the b.l.o.o.d.y sight beneath it.

Once the other ankle was finished, Sylvester healed the wrists and even took care of the worst burns. His thoroughness was worth more than just admiration. He was no less than a miracle worker.

When he finished and stood back up a little shakily, Arawn followed him up. He stretched his hands, rolled his wrists, and took a couple steps back and forth. There was still some strain in his muscles, but he could not be bothered to pay it any attention.

He felt like a new human. Moments earlier, shifting around by the fire was troublesome since his clothes would brush over his wounds and irritate them, but now he could jump and run around like he had never been hurt.

What too much ether and turning into a beast, this was the true defiance of logic! How could such an ability even exist?

"You look excited," Sylvester murmured with a half-smile. Yet he looked tired. The energy with which he had come over before was all gone.

Arawn returned to his side and bowed. "Thank you. I"ll never forget this."

"It"ll be enough if you tell me what brought you to me and why is Corwal not with you."

It was an iffy subject, but Arawn placed his blanket on the ground for Sylvester to sit and shared what had happened to him since they had last met in broad strokes. Some parts were painful to recall, but he spoke of them as well. He owed it to Sylvester for such the miracle of all his wounds disappearing in a couple minutes.

Mutallu pretended not to listen at first, but then gave up on the pretense and came to sit by the fire as well. He didn"t interrupt to ask for details nor added anything himself, but his cold eyes never left Arawn.

By the end, Sylvester looked like he had been doused in cold water. "So you want to say that Corwal might already be dead? And he was actually acknowledged as the prince? Oh how it must have grated against him. I wish I could have seen his face when he got that honor."

"He"s not dead," Mutallu said with absolute certainty, but did not give any comments as to why he thought so.

Arawn put it to his trust in the man and realized that he felt the same way. If anyone could survive his self-destruction at such a close distance, it would be Corwal. Anyone who spent more than a few minutes with Corwal would become certain that he wouldn"t die even if he was killed.

"So what"s your plan now? Are you going to hide in Mairya until the king forgets about you?" Sylvester asked. He didn"t seem too concerned about Corwal"s possible death either. It was obvious he shared their idea of the man"s invincibility.

"He"ll never let me go," Arawn said in a wistful voice. It would be so nice to just find a quiet house and live out the rest of his life in a small village. However, his enemy was the king who had no concept of giving up. "I"ll have to convince him to change his mind in a more straightforward manner."

Sylvester gave him a look. "Are you really going to try and discuss it with him? I don"t think that"s a good—"

"No," Arawn said, cutting him off. "I"ll put my claws through his heart. That should convince him not to come after me again."

The king and the archmage were the two people who had ruined his life, and their actions would haunt him for the rest of his life. If not for them, he would have only had one monster form, but now there was the ether and the beast.

And if that wasn"t enough, the circ.u.mstances for the loss of control had changed. He had no idea what they had become, and it left him terrified. Because of those two people who thought it was fun playing with his life, all his work to ensure he never hurt more innocent people was flushed down the drain. How was he to ensure the monster didn"t show up if he no longer knew what brought it out?

The latest events only strengthened Arawn"s resolve that he and the king could not live under the same sky. If he did not ensure an early death for that man, who knew in what other ways his own life would be ruined? It seemed like there was no way to make it worse, but the king was a resourceful man, he seemed to always find a new low to push him to.