Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

The black horse was beautiful: large, powerfully-built, clearly well-cared for, spirited and alert. It welcomed Oram with a merry whicker as he rode up. Or perhaps that was for Mule. In any case, it was a fine horse, fit out with equally fine saddle and tack. And its rider was nowhere to be seen.

The horse had been hitched hastily to a tree branch just off the road, the way one would expect from a rider who had just stepped off to take a squat. Oram halted and dismounted, hitching Mule in a similar way to another tree just opposite the horse. The thought crossed the traveler’s mind that this might be some sort of bandit’s trick, so he retrieved his spear from Mule’s side and peered about among the surrounding woods. He waited and watched for what felt like a full bit, but neither heard nor saw anything, except the horse. Eventually, he called out: ”Is anyone there?” Straining his ears for a response, he heard nothing. After an awkward pause, the horse whickered uncertainly.

Oram looked at it, then cautiously crossed the road. ”Let’s see if we can find your rider,” he said to the horse quietly, patting its neck reassuringly once he got close enough. The rider had obviously dismounted right here, so that was where the hunter tried to pick up his trail. While he did not make out any specific traces, Oram did see a clear void in the underbrush. It was by far the most likely route a man would have taken deeper into the treeline. The void turned out to be the entrance to an impromptu path. Perhaps the rider had been scouting out a possible campsite off the the road. Oram followed farther.

Oram was about sixty paces down the track when he heard something, definite voices. He stopped dead and listened. There seemed to be two voices, indistinct, raised and excited, maybe even angry. One was noticeably higher-pitched than the other. The hunter moved more cautiously now, spear at the ready. As he proceeded, the voices gradually grew louder and more distinct. One was definitely a man. Upset. The first words Oram could make out sounded like: “Get away!” The second voice, the higher-pitched one took a bit longer to figure out; at last Oram realized that it wasn’t human. It actually sounded more like a boar. An angry, provoked boar.

If the man was alone, and was shouting at the boar to get away, then he probably wasn’t hunting it, Oram realized. And he might need help. He kept on, still cautious, until he reached a clearing where he saw a man, the man, dangling upside down from a tree snare, his head about chest-high. Scattered about on the ground just beneath him were several items of gear, including a hatchet, a bow and quiver. The dangling man was brandishing a stout stick at a warthog, which stood just beyond its reach. The hog squealed and screeched loudly at the man, sometimes making threatening lunges at him, only to back off before the swinging stick. Keeping just beyond the weapon’s reach, the hog was slowly circling around, lunging at the man from different directions each time. The man seemed to have the presence of mind to twist his body around in whichever direction he needed to keep facing the hog, Oram noticed.

Presence of mind or not, however, the man clearly needed help, so Oram stepped into the clearing, shouting at the hog to get its attention as he did so. Perhaps it would start and flee at the sight of a second man, not trapped in a snare. Failing that, he would have to fight.

Stomping and making as much noise as he could, Oram shouted: ”Oi! Piggy! Get away from him!” The warthog stopped its harrying of the snared man and turned its head to regard the newcomer with an annoyed glare. It was an oddly human-like reaction, made all the more disconcerting by the creature’s very non-human features. Its head was narrow, long, and sloping. Apart from two beady eyes, the beast’s face was all wattled forehead until you got to the two pairs of tusks. None of the tusks were very long, the hunter noticed. A younger male, he guessed, maybe not fully mature. But it was big enough.

Wondering what he’d gotten himself into, Oram sidled inward and readied his spear. He had only hunted boar once before, with his father, and had never actually speared one; he just hoped that he remembered what Oleg had taught him well enough. One had to hold the weapon very differently than when facing a human opponent, he recalled. Boars liked to come in low, and you had to get the point under the chin so that it sank into the boar’s throat or chest, where the lugs could catch it before the tusks reached you. To do this, you had to crouch and hold the spear at about knee level, with the butt braced on the ground with one foot.

The boar charged and Oram braced, noticing too late that his spear was aimed too high. Fortunately, the boar’s charge was just a feint. It stopped just short of the spear’s point. Or it tried to. The warthog’s hooves slipped on some leaves as it tried to plant its feet, and its momentum slid it forward right into the weapon. The point caught the snout between the upper tusks and glanced up the hard skull, scratching a gash up the middle of the creature’s already-ugly forehead. The creature jerked its head to one side, briefly exposing its flank, and Oram thrust at its shoulder. He felt his spearhead strike softer flesh, as it went in about three finger-widths into the animal’s hide.

The warthog let out an ear-shattering howl and bolted before Oram could pull the weapon back out. To his momentary dismay, the still-lodged spear point twisted with the creature’s convulsive motion, and the weapon fell out of his hands. Tamping down a surge of panic, the hunter scrambled to recover it and ready it for the boar’s next charge. But the warthog was in no rush to charge him again; it withdrew to the edge of the clearing to rally, and turn to face the traveler once more with a baleful stare. Without taking his eyes or his spear off the creature, Oram sidled cautiously towards the snared man. As soon as he had reached him, the boar lunged again. It was another feint, and this time it stopped well short of the end of the spear. Once more it withdrew, again almost all the way to the edge of the clearing. It was giving him a much wider berth than it had been the snared man, at least. From that distance it resumed circling again, and Oram noticed with a bit of satisfaction that it was limping from the wound above its leg.

The trapped man’s voice whispered behind him: ”Please,” he said hoarsely, ”hand me my bow, and a couple arrows from my quiver.” He tapped on the weapon where it lay on the ground. Oram doubted the man could shoot accurately while hanging upside-down, but he did as he asked. Keeping his eye and his spear-point trained on the prowling warthog, he scooted awkwardly back to the bow, then fumbled for it with his free hand and handed it to the man, who took a couple efforts to grasp it. Then Oram fumbled with the quiver, from which the man retrieved about three arrows before gesturing with the bow for Oram to drop it. The trapped man put a couple of the arrows between his teeth and then nocked the third one.

The warthog stopped circling and froze, its eyes resting on the bow as if it recognized the weapon. It retreated straight back a couple paces. Grunting with effort and concentration, the snared man pulled back the bowstring. Oram heard a slow, agonizing creak and then a twang. He didn’t see where the arrow went, but a whiffing sound told him it had sailed somewhere well high and to one side. The warthog let out a loud, derisive-sounding squeal. With a muffled oath, the snared man loaded another arrow. This time he shot low -or was it high?- and the arrow thudded into the dirt several feet short of the beast. Again it squealed mockingly.

The snared man loaded his third arrow, aimed and shot. He got the windage just about right, but the arrow again landed short. This time, however, instead of thudding into the dirt, it struck something hard, a root or a rock, perhaps. The missile kicked up, pitching end over end as it flew towards the warthog and struck it in the eye with a spinning arrow-point. The beast’s mocking squeal changed to a scream of pain, and it broke and limped off into the trees.

”Praise Karem, that was lucky!” the snared man exclaimed, as the boar’s squeals faded into the forest. ”And lucky you came, too, sir. Can you get me down now? Before I pass out?”

Oram looked up at the rope suspending the man from the tree. It was too high for him to reach. And he didn’t think he had the skill to climb up the tree and out the branch to cut the rope from above. He looked around the clearing for hints, other options. He found none, and considered going to get his mule. He could try cutting the rope while mounted. Then, kicking himself mentally, he recalled his spear. Trying it, he he found that the head reached the rope fine, but sawing it a few times only got the rope swinging, and didn’t seem to be cutting much.

”I don’t think the head’s sharp enough,” he observed. ”Got a whetstone?”

”Aye,” answered the man, patting the knife-sheath on his hip. ”And something better: a boar spear of my own with a nice, sharp head. It should be on my horse,” he pointed in a random direction, though of course Oram knew where the man’s horse actually was. ”Go quickly, and be careful! Who knows where that beast is.”

Oram looked down at the man’s flushed face. ”You think he’ll come back?” he asked. The man shook his head.

”Prolly not. Thwarthogs are ill-tempered and mischievous, but not murderous. And I suspect our young boar has had enough of us. But you can’t be too careful.”

Oram handed the man a couple more arrows and took his spear back to where Mule and the snared man’s horse were. After a moment, what the man had just said registered. Thwarthog? He had thought those were a joke his father had made up to tease him, like hoop snakes and drop bunnies. Perhaps he had misheard. The man’s voice was a bit thick from hanging upside down, after all. Still, the intelligence Oram had seen in the thing’s eyes and manner had struck him as uncanny.

Before he had time to ponder this much further, he had reached the spot where Mule and the black horse were hitched. He had not noticed the boar spear lashed to the creature’s side the first time he saw it, but he definitely noticed it now. It was a fine thing, with a stout shaft of beautifully-stained and well-turned ash, and a nasty, sharp looking head like a shiny bluish-silver fang. The horse eyed him suspiciously and shuffled its feet uneasily while he unlashed the weapon from its side, but did not otherwise raise a fuss, and soon Oram was on the way back to the trapped man.

He found the man in an odd position: he had hooked the bow behind his thighs and was using it as an impromptu bar to pull himself up, to get his head above his heart. When the man noticed Oram he said: ”You got it? Good.” The strain of his effort tightened his voice. "How about you plant your own spear hear right next to me. I can use it as an anchor while you cut me down.”

Oram nodded. ”Good idea,” he said, and drove the point of his own spear down into the ground right next to the man. Then he took the sharper steel spear and began to cut the snare wire. The edge of the spear was sharp enough that it bit easily into the wire, and Oram was able to cut through it pretty quickly. The man maintained his awkward position, bent upwards with his arms hooked around the bow and his shins until Oram had cut most of the way through the rope, then switched to gripping the spear. He almost did so too late, and soon, with a snap and a crash, the rope gave way and his body pitched forward to land face down into the ground below. It was not a smooth landing, and the man lay there groaning and barely moving for several trills while Oram knelt down next to him to see if he was alright.

For someone who had spent so much of his time in the woods honing his survival and hunting skills, Oram knew next to nothing about treating injuries or the injured. He knelt helplessly over the prone man without an idea of what to do or say. ”Hey!” he called, nudging at the man. ”Hey, are you all right? Can you hear me?” After a couple uncertain trills the man stirred and groaned. He turned his head to the side to spit out dirt, then with a grunt rolled himself slowly onto his back, revealing a face smeared with grime and blood. It was hard to tell his age with his features covered thus, but from the gray in his hair Oram would have guessed him to be about fifty trills.

”Can you hear me?” Oram repeated. ”Are you all right?”

Somewhere in the grime, dark eyes opened to regard him. ”I can hear you son,” the prone man coughed out after a moment. ”And I’ve been better. But I’m alive. Thanks to you.”

Oram nodded. ”My name’s Oram, Oram Mednix. What’s yours?”

”Melior Dienham,” the man answered. ”From Egilrun. Call me ‘Mel’. How about some water, Oram?”

Oram fumbled out his waterskin. ”Can you sit up?”

Groaning, creakily, Melior could and did sit up. Oram handed him the water, which he gulped down greedily. ”Thanks,” he breathed, as he handed the half-drunk skin back to his rescuer. ”I dropped a waterskin around here, see if you can find that. No sense me drinkin’ up all your water when I got my own.”

Oram founded it and offered it to the man, who reached automatically with his right arm and then winced, switched arms to take the skin in his left hand. ”Somethin’s wrong with my shoulder,” he gritted. ”I yanked my arm when you cut me loose. Wasn’t as braced as I thought I was for the fall.” Melior tried a few movements with it. ”Don’t think the shoulder’s dislocated. And I can use it just fine if I don’t have to lift it.” He looked down at his foot. ”Can’t feel it yet, so I don’t know how badly hurt it is.”

Oram’s eyes widened in realization. ”Oh!” he exclaimed, and snatched out his knife to cut the noose from around Melior’s ankle. He sat back, and the two didn’t say anything for a few moments. Oram broke the silence first:

”You said something about ‘thwarthogs’ a while back. I always thought those were some sort of tall tale.”

Melior grinned mirthlessly and shook his head. ”They’re real enough, young Oram. You just saw one. And they’re as cunning as you’ve heard. They like finding traps and then tricking hunters into them. Frodi -he’s one of the hunters at my camp- he got herded by a bunch of ‘em into a pit trap.”

”Was he hurt?” the younger hunter asked.

”No. The stakes had been pulled out of the bottom, and the ground was soft, so Frodi was fine. He was even able to find a way to climb out, but the thwarthogs wouldn’t let him.”

”How’d he get out?”

”Sat there and waited ‘em out. Thwarthogs are smart. And they have the same weakness a lot of smart critters do: they get bored. After a while they realized he wasn’t going to entertain them, so they just moved on, and then he could climb out unmolested.”

”So they just wanted the sport? They didn’t care if he ultimately got away?”

”Exactly. Mine would’ve probably moved on eventually, too. But then I would still have been hanging from that snare, so it’s good you came along when you did. I probably owe you my li-ouch!” Melior winced and reached for his ankle. ”Feeling’s comin’ back.” He bent to probe at his ankle with his left hand. After a few moments he leaned back upright. ”Nothing seems broken, but I’ll bet it’s sprained. If you could give me back my spear, and help me up, I’d appreciate it.”

”Can you make it to your horse, you think?” Oram asked as he helped the man up.

Melior nodded. ”If you help, sure. Then we can ride to my camp. Frodi and the others can get me back to Egilrun from there.” He grinned. ”Maybe Frodi can tell you his thwarthog story himself when we get there.”

Oram returned the grin. ”Sure, I’d like that. Can you stand while I get the rest of your things?”

”I can stand easily enough, I think.”

Oram gathered the things that Melior had dropped, including two of the arrows he had shot at the boar earlier. The third was out there in the woods somewhere, and he didn’t bother looking for it. If Melior noticed or minded, he gave no sign. Then he pulled his own spear up from the ground, taking a moment to regard the blood stain on it before wiping it off. The other hunter looked at it, too.

”That looks like it went in pretty deep,” he observed.

”I got it in the upper leg, so I think I only hit muscle.”

”Still, at least it’ll be limping for a while, like me.”

Oram took his spear in his right hand and used it like a walking stick while Mel held his in his right. Oram put his other arm around the man’s waist for support as they head back to their mounts, where he would help the older hunter mount his horse before getting on Mule. Then they could ride together back to Melior's camp where, hopefully, Frodi and his other fellows awaited.