Muddy

Slight spot of warning, the last five paragraphs of this chapter have a bit of gore in them. It's not vastly graphic, but if you get squeamish at detailed descriptions of blood, then you might want to gloss over that bit.

Fretting over the town’s predicament I ran my fingers through the water. The river was every bit as wet as it had been this winter, and still had a good three feet of depth. I’d have to cross it. There hadn’t been anywhere near enough traces of the ahuizotl on this side of the river so I would need to continue my search on the other bank.

The temperature of the water didn’t really bother me all that much. I didn’t get cold, or sick. Wet gear was still an issue though. I should have brought Fern, then I could have gotten across on her back. Now I’d be running around in sogging wet… everything… for days. Well, wetter. I was already thoroughly soaked from the rain. Even my cloak had its limits.

Sticking my tongue out to catch a stray droplet dangling from my nose I resolved myself. Dallying wouldn’t magically make me less wet so there was no point in postponing. Grumbling in annoyance I waded across the river.

Not even a minute later the rain stopped, as if to spite me. Drenched all the way up to my armpits I looked up to the sky. The clouds were dispersing fast, revealing the first slivers of moonlight. Ahuizotl are crepuscular, active during twilight and on moonlit nights. With the rain gone they’d come out. That would give me an opportunity, as long as I could locate their den before they left it. My eyes followed the current. Downriver first.

Half an hour later I scowled up at the sky once more. I'd found the den a little further upstream, beyond a small bend, dangerously close to the village. Three sets of fresh tracks led out. I was too late. They were out hunting. The den itself was too large for just three animals as well, so there was definitely a nest in there.

I could wait here, destroy the nest now, and nab the three that were out when they came back from their hunt. It would be risky though. As soon as I got one the other two might run. The only guaranteed way to get all three of them was to come back tomorrow evening, shortly before sundown, catch them when they came out of their den.

Yes, apparently I was doing this now. I didn’t bother debating the merits and demerits of my chosen course of action on my way back to my makeshift camp. I was a foolish idiot and a terrible liar. Continuously reminding myself of these things wasn’t going to change anything.

Instead of lambasting my own stupidity, I worked out a plan. Fighting at least three ahuizotl, potentially before sundown, was going to require some serious preparation. There wasn’t anything overly complex involved. I had done plenty of similar exterminations before. Time would be a limiting factor, however. It was going to be a long and painful night. Rest would have to wait until sunrise.

As my plan was simple, I was back to fretting long before I got back, despite my best intentions.

Aaaah… I’m really doing this, aren’t I?
What’s gotten into me?

Where’d these self-destructive tendencies even come from?
Is it stupidity?
Have I started caring for these people?

Maybe stupidity and sentimentality were the same thing. At best my actions would buy me a little bit of gratitude. Gratitude that would all too quickly pass. No matter how much kindness I showed, the longer I lingered, the more I interacted, the more they would realize that I was different, dangerous. Their wariness would turn to fear, fear to hatred. And from there, hunters, the Inquisition, and death.

I could still change my mind, walk away, let someone else take care of their problems. Yet when I returned to my makeshift campsite I did not do the sensible thing. I did the dumb, caring, self-destructive thing. I unpacked my crossbow and set out for a hunt. I wasn’t doing this on an empty stomach. No, that beet from earlier did not count as food.

I swallowed, despite the tangy taste. The fox’s blood wasn’t bad, yet edible and filling was not the same thing as delicious. A diet of blood and meat got old fast, especially when you saw people around you enjoy fruits, vegetables, cheeses, and candied spices. I wanted those as well. One day I hoped to taste all the foods people raved about, without this body telling me that the things I was shoving into my stomach were not helpful.

My father had spent years trying to get me to give up on the notion of eating human food. Even now, hours later, the beet sitting like a brick in my stomach was proving his point. I could fix that, go through the effort required to actually digest the thing, but that wouldn’t actually do anything. Food like that simply could not sustain me.

So I ignored the beet clogging up my stomach for now, sat down against a tree trunk, unsheathed my sword, and touched a finger to the runes etched along its blade. Focusing inwards I prepared to recharge them.

My dad had been an Inquisitor before he’d become a hunter. What magic he’d learned from the Inquisition, he had taught me. Or tried to teach me at least. All of their magic was Atlus and Tonaltus based, life and day. Channeling these incompatible energies through my Metzus based vessel was not a pleasant experience. At best I’d dissolve myself from the inside out, at worst, let’s just say it got explosive fast.

I tended to avoid magic for those reasons, focusing instead on rune crafting. The runes I crafted still needed the same Atlus and Tonaltus to function, but unlike with magic, I could channel the energies slowly. A trickle was far less likely to tear me apart than a flood. The resulting runes could be imbued with the same effects most of the time. They were far more versatile actually. In return, they needed time and preparation.

I supposed I could be called lucky, I at least had a little Atlus and Tonaltus in my core. Without them, all of my father’s teachings would have been pointless.

The little I could gather in my core wasn’t a lot, enough to work with, but not much more than that. Over time I’d learned to work around these natural deficiencies. I was nothing if not efficient in my casting. In fact, I might be able to teach most Academy-trained mages a thing or two about efficiency.

With my body's eyes closed, I focused on my true self, visualized my core, reached into its soupy tangle of energies, and waded through the snaking tendrils of my Metzus until I found a Tonaltus cluster. I coaxed out a single thread from the cluster. Then, setting my jaw I yanked the thread out and directed the energies to the runes of my blade.

The horrid squelching sound that always accompanied my Tonaltus manipulation was hopefully just my imagination, but the spongy feeling that slithered in my bowels and the oozy moistness squishing over my bones was there nonetheless.

For most of the night, I spent my time in agonizing torture, recharging the runes on my blade, carving runes on 18 flat stones, and then charging those runes as well. After only a handful of minutes, the slow agony of the Tonaltus energy coursing through my body became little more than a dull ache. Yet the unnerving feeling of my skin separating from my blood-soaked bones every time I moved even a little remained with me for the remainder of the night.

That was why I needed the blood from that fox. The accelerated healing that feeding provided me could counteract the damage my rune crafting inflicted on my body. Without my regenerative abilities… Sometimes I wondered…

What if my vessel ever doesn’t heal?

Only long after the first rays of the sun had crested the horizon could I curl up between the roots of a particularly large tree and rest. Dense forests like these really were amazing. The sun didn’t penetrate. Nestled between these trees I was safe from its rays.