Nova Peak revolution deathsquad

He stalked the same sounder as before, amused when he realized they followed the exact same routine today. When they came to rest at the foot of the nearby peak, Cambria suddenly remembered the remains he’d discovered. He retraced his own steps, scaling the mountainside until he found the ledge, then winding along the path to the dugout.

Everything looked more or less the same. This time, nobody else came along, so Cambria could take some time to assess the scene. There were dark brown stains on the stone underfoot. He dropped his nose to one and picked up traces of old blood, though most of the scent was gone by now. Only the carcass itself had any real smell, though even the stench of decay had begun to fade.

He spent perhaps an hour looking for clues and pondering what had happened here. Cambria had yet to mention his discovery to the Redtails. Whether or not they knew about this wolf and his fate, the yearling decided he shouldn’t just leave what was left of him exposed. He deserved a proper burial.

He spent another few hours filling in the dugout someone had likely painstakingly carved out of the mountainside at some point. By the time Cambria finished, there was no really no sign of it beyond the freshly packed earth. He nosed a loose stone in front of the makeshift cairn, urinating on it to deter anyone who might disturb the grave.

Not that there was much left of you, the Dragonling murmured to himself. Rest in peace, I suppose.

Feeling rather worn out from the endeavor, Cambria sighed and dropped back down into the grotto. His mouth watered as the scent of the nearby pigs drifted into his nose, nudging aside the thought of a well-deserved nap. The yearling hesitated, then turned, creeping back toward where the lot of them rested in the shade below the mount.

a dark anguine figure bobbed along the banded scree.

being away from water made him wary. he cast a glance about himself and shivered at the sight of endless rock, and the ragged edge of the mountainside against an anemic autumn sky. he had long forgotten what drove him further inland. or so that was what he told himself.

northerly winds shrilled across the rockfall. birds of cruciform wingspan circled overhead but cast no shadow—and neither did he.

as Abraham crested a steep path, his breathing measured, he caught sight of a stranger. a young man, preoccupied, peering at something just outside Abraham's eyeshot.

despite himself, curiosity drove him to approach the boy. he made no attempt to be covert, but his movements were careful as usual. what had captured his attention?

He followed his nose at first, then spotted them still tucked at the bottom of the northern slope. They were scattered on the rocky ground, many prostrate but a few milling about and keeping watch. Cambria crouched behind a rocky outcropping and settled his belly close to the ground to observe them. He knew it was too chancy to hunt solo, though he kept his senses attuned in case an opportunity presented itself…

An ear twitched backward at the faintest noise behind him. The yearling whipped his head around, eyes widening at the sight of a wolf stalking closer. Cambria’s fur prickled as he swung his body around to properly face the stranger. His mismatched eyes went even wider as he did a visual assessment, noticing the other canine’s peculiar features, particularly his narrow snout.

After a tense pause, Cambria pointed a foreleg behind the other man and mouthed two words: “That way.” Although he wasn’t actively hunting the pigs, he didn’t want to take any risks by disturbing them. He took a single pointed step closer to the stranger, hoping to shuffle him away from the sounder’s rest stop.

the stranger tensed at his approach. briefly cowed, abraham fell back, his ears cinched close to the sides of his long face.

but there they were, wild pigs in the distance. coarse chestnut hair. soft, wet grunts. the skin around their noses and mouths shining as if rubbed in grease.

the backs of their hind legs smeared in excrement. cloven feet. their thick smell. pairs of baleful, black eyes in blunt skulls, as if pierced by awls.

he wavered between contemplation and disgust. his eyes found an old pig, its pelt turning rime-grey, but its body heavy-set and girded with industry, with a stubbornness inculcated deep in its bones. the broken ends of its tusks jutted from either side of its mouth, forcing it into a smile; but the rest of its face was utterly affectless.

he watched as a thin string of drool extended over its bottom lip, swaying with every one of its languid movements.

The stranger moved back a ways, then stopped. Cambria paused too, then brushed past him, hoping the other canine would follow him. After striding a few yards further, he glanced over his shoulder to see the other male peering at the milling sounder. The yearling couldn’t quite tell if it was longing or loathing on his unusually narrow face.

This way, he muttered under his breath, skulking back in the direction of the grotto.

The sun was beginning to set, causing Cambria to squint against the glare. Luckily, the forested piedmont offered the relief of shade. His eyes darted toward his route up the mountain, though he had no intentions of climbing again today. He wanted to get home soon, especially now that he realized just how truly tired he felt.

Turning his shrewd gaze toward the oddly proportioned wolf, Cambria queried, Who are you? And what brings you here?

they left the pigs behind. the old boar would live another day. abraham and the boy hunkered in the purple shade of the slope as the sky darkened above them.

i am avraam, he replied in a voice as dry as the earth underfoot. a traveling priest.

but i am not here to convert anyone. at this, his mouth twisted in a fleeting asymmetric smile; it could hardly be called one. unless... they wish it.

besides, it was often not their choice. there were those who wished to achieve gnosis, but couldn't. and there were those who became initiated as naturally as they breathed.

who are you?

he would not call this one lamb, as he had the other. this one did not look at him with desperation—this one's eyes were whetted with sharp kenning, a thin ray of light through a crystal's optic axis.

During his wandering days, Cambria had learned a great deal from crossing paths with strangers time and time again. Yet he had never heard this term before: “priest.” He met the introduction with a blank look, one brow arching slowly when Avraam insisted he wasn’t here to convert anyone.

I have no idea what any of that means, the Dragonling said baldly. You can call me Cambria, he added, then fell silent under the assumption Avraam might elucidate.

it wasn't often that abraham met a pure agnostic. now it was his eyes that lit up.

ah! that is alright. at least he was honest.

do you believe in anything beyond the visible world, cambria?

he couldn't say he was fond of the semantics, belief had always seemed to describe something lesser, flimsier than the force which charged his life and gave it structure. cheapened by aphorisms which meant less than nothing: believe in yourself, keep calm and believe, can you believe that?

belief came from a word meaning love. see: beloved. liefsome. see its german cousin, liebe.

there are those who do, and then those who opt to make it their life's work to study it. i suppose i am one of them.

When Avraam prompted him with a question, one word immediately came to mind. Cambria didn’t utter it or anything else, letting the man finish his explanation. Avraam dedicated his life to studying these alleged planes beyond the ones the five standard senses could detect. Although the yearling doubted, he could appreciate a fellow lifelong student.

Do you mean ghosts? he asked, idly thinking of the man he had just buried.

He didn’t think he believed in such things; it was difficult without any kind of substantiation. But Cambria was ever an open mind. Truth be told, anytime anyone raised the subject of life after death—whether or not they believed in it—he always got stuck on something else: Where were we born we were born?

ghosts. an imprecise, useless descriptor, diluted by countless cultures and asymptotic to the truth. but a semi-truth was still just that—a lie, perhaps made even more pernicious by its proximity to the truth. there was enough of a resemblance that one could go about accepting it for all his life.

i mean God, he sighed, leaning back in his search for the right words, as if he could divine them from the sky, or from the downy underbellies of birds in flight. i had a teacher once, who told me that evidence is nothing.

because faith built on the search for evidence is not really faith at all. but merely skepticism masquerading as piety, a sham-allegiance to a sham-higher-power he wanted to continue, but held his tongue. he was not here to lecture, after all!

though he often found himself slipping back into old habits.

Avraam’s swift correction pushed thoughts of phantasms from Cambria’s mind. He’d heard of gods in passing, though he couldn’t recall anything specific at present. Avraam spoke of a single god with such reverence that the yearling just knew it started with a capital “G”: a proper name.

He arched a brow at the remark about evidence. What a bold allegation. A stupid one, Cambria thought, though of course he didn’t interrupt. He let Avraam finish, then weighed his words for a moment before responding.

It doesn’t sound like my sort of thing, he told the truth. If you’re not here to convert anyone, why are you here? the Dragonling pressed.

Editing in a conclusion since Abraham/Avraam dropped. :)

Feeling rather tired edging toward crabby, he cautioned Avraam against hunting here, as the sounder “belonged” to the Redtails in a sense. Cambria then excused himself, taking one last assessment of the wild pigs—counting them, perhaps—before making his way back to the rise. Once there, he would find something to eat in a cache, get some rest and eventually ask around about the man he’d buried.