Sorgurnar

The Cougar

            The rising sun kissed the earth through the yellow leaves. The slender birch, beech and maple trees rose above the clearing, almost recoiling from the small hill in the center. The north and west sides of the clearing had a far thicker and taller wood than the south, and on the east side of the clearing many trees had been felled with pure force as splintery stumps thrust up towards the sky. A few bodies lay strewn about the chips and trunks of birch and beech and maple. A few of the jagged stumps had been sprayed with a thick black ichor of some horrible beast. No footprints were visible below the littering of the forest floor. Smoke rose up from a fire in the distance. From the hill on the clearing it was difficult to discern what was burning. Atop the hill lay a pile of large stones over a patch of jagged gravel. The hill was comprised of layers of stone in differing shades of gray and brown. Small scraggly black trees with boughs of thing green needles grew from cracks in the stone. The hill rose about seventy feet up and still only saw over the shorter birch trees. The grass at the base of the hill grew in dark green clumps and only between cracks in the stone. The hill itself curved gently up the south west side and dropped more harshly down the eastern face. The southern slope of the hill was festooned with many patches of lichen and mosses. A deep stream bent out of the southern woods and curved along the side of the hill and curved back into the western forest. A few ferns and hardy bushes grew along the banks of the stream. A few small hares hopped about the hill feeding on lichens and mosses. A fox nimbly tread about the hares hoping to snatch one up in his maw. A tall doe drank from the stream, silently stalked by a cougar nearby. Four wolves oversaw the cougar's hunt, hoping to steal its kill. One was black with a white band across the sides of his shoulders and his back and a four-pointed star upon his forehead. Two were grey and brown and black with yellow snouts and paws. The last wolf was larger than the others and bore a dark timber colored coat with white streaks along his sides and back.

           The cougar prowled forward taking cover in the thick brush of the western wood. As it adjusted its hindquarters to pounce upon the deer, the thick shaft of a spear thrust deep into its throat and a heavy, plated boot came down upon its jaw. The deer startled and bounded away at the sound of the spear cutting into the cougar's thick neck muscles. The four wolves howled loudly and pursued the deer. A tall, broad-shouldered figure lifted the cougar upon his shoulder and carried it forward into the clearing and laying it down by the hill on the south slope. A tall and thick-bodied man knelt beside the cougar's corpse and lay his spear on the ground. He drew a large seax from his belt and thrust it into the neck of the cougar below the chin and pulled the knife down the beast's gut before sliding the knife out of the animal. He drew a new slice with the blade from one paw fore paw across the front legs and all the way to the other. And slide the knife in a similar manner from one hind paw to another. The broad-shouldered man carefully skinned the cougar and stretched its hide across a circle of branches that he propped up on the hillside to dry out. He built a small and smoky fire below it to loosen the fat and skin. He drew a long slice along the flank of the skinned carcass. He set his seax down by the cougar as he prepared a larger fire for cooking and set up a small cooking stand over it. He laid the cougar's flank over the fire and leaned back to relax and clean his blade while the meat cooked.

            The man was colossal. He had huge muscular shoulders and long arms. He stood over six feet tall. The man's skin was fair, but marred with scars and tattoos telling stories of his many battles with beasts and men alike. He wore the pelts of many wild animals on his shoulders and back like a cloak over a chainmail hauberk and plate half-gauntlets. He wore a gambeson vest beneath the hauberk and thick cloth trousers with lamellar greaves. He carried a large pack on his back with a round leather case on the left side for his round shield and a tube of leather on the right side for carrying the boar spear he had used on the cougar. He also bore a large visored barbuta helm with a single eye-slit and small, diamond-shaped holes on the bottom-right of the visor allowing air to flow in and out of the helm. On the right side of his belt he wore both a long seax about the same length as a shortsword in a leather sheath and a small axe looped on his belt. He wore rider's boots with steel foot guards. The man's seax had a long black rectangular blade with the top-back corner clipped off and sharpened along the top-back edge and front edge to a point for more efficient thrusts.

            The man's name was Villimadur. He was here to hunt a villisvin that had caused such horrible destruction on its rampage through the woods. Villimadur was a Mordingi which meant he couldn't hunt with a partner. He'd made it this far alone, and he must continue so.