CHAPTER 3
Corbin Walker slithered across the rock like a panther stalking its prey. His muscular arms and legs stretched wide, stomach and bare chest pressed flat against the smooth, cool surface of the rock as he waited. His raven-black hair was pulled back behind his head and his vest hung from the branches above. Gritting his teeth, the bones of his square jaw pulled against his smooth, pale skin as he scanned the area with probing blue-grey eyes.
Corbin had come out this cycle with one goal in mind, to hunt down the elusive wild boar that had been pillaging the villager’s truffle supplies all year. The beast had so seldom been seen and had proven to be so elusive that his people thought it would be impossible to trap the swine. Some even considered it a phantom. The older hunters told him it was a waste of time to track the beast, unwilling to join in what they deemed a futile hunt, not when there was a festival waiting for them back in Riverbell.
When he caught scent of the boar, Corbin had quickly found himself alone. He had tracked it all the way up the side of Mount Monkton, which climbed high in the air toward the massive cavern’s ceiling, before deciding it was time to try and reverse roles so that the boar would come to him instead.
Knowing this region from his childhood explorations with his older brother, Logan, he had quickly left the path and set out through the thick undergrowth and trees. Corbin scaled the nearby roots of a great ract tree as if he were bred for such climbs, carefully avoiding the notoriously sharp barbed branches. The gnarled trunk stretched high up toward the cavern ceiling and angled to bask in the light of the Great Crystal, feeding off its generously radiating energy. He did not need to go even a third of the way up before he found a large enough branch jutting over his attack point.
Swinging himself up to straddle the branch, Corbin had made fast work of preparing for his next move. He would need to be quick on his feet if the rumors of the boar’s prowess were even half-true. Corbin stripped down to his breeches, which were tightly tied at the ankles around his boots. Strapped across his back was a spear longer than the length of his body by a solid foot. In his right hand, he gripped the hilt of his trusty curved dagger. Prepared, he slid down to the large rock jutting over the place where slabs of stone provided a natural barrier he hoped to trap the truffle thief in.
After hours of anticipation, Corbin tensed, hearing a rustling sound. A large wet snout poked through the dense green foliage ahead, sniffing the air for the truffles he had hidden at the base of the stone boundary. It felt the ground for enemy vibrations with the tentacles that waved back and forth between the curved tusks of its mouth. Adrenaline flooded Corbin’s body, and he had to steady himself with the steely discipline of a hunter. His prey had finally arrived and there was no sense in scaring it off. Cautiously entering the clearing, the brown furry beast looked about once more for potential enemies before making a beeline for the tree.
No sooner did it step foot in the clearing than Corbin was on the move. He lunged from his perch above the clearing, his legs snapped out into a straight line, twirling his body into a spinning arrow dive, with his blade held straight forward, aimed for the boar’s skull. The sheer force of gravity alone should have provided sufficient strength to rip the blade clean through his prey’s head.
But the beast was swifter than he could have believed. It shifted weight to its hindquarters and let a charged tentacle from its open jaws whip out, aiming for Corbin’s chest. One touch from the tingling pod at its end could paralyze him, leaving his body exposed to its goring tusks.
Barely shifting his descent in time, Corbin’s weapon crossed his chest to deflect the dangerous tentacle, although not quickly enough to avoid the tip, which sent a pulse of energy rippling through the dagger into his fingertips. The blade slipped out of his grasp as a tingling numbness coursed through his knuckles, and he found himself crashing into the side of the boar.
Hitting the ground in a tuck and roll maneuver, Corbin quickly sprang to his feet, whipping his long spear out to defend himself. The boar was already circling him, it’s long, snakelike tentacles waving ominously. He knew he needed to disable its deadliest weapon, but the boar was shifting side to side so quickly there was no way he could get a clean hit
A grunt was all the warning Corbin had to get back. Reacting on pure instinct, he ran up the side of the stone slab as the boar charged for the attack. He used his momentum to do a backflip over its body, swinging his spear down to pin it in place. Again he was nearly too late as the tentacle wrapped itself around his spear in midair. However, this time the swine was the one surprised, as Corbin changed his trajectory and planted a boot hard into its ribs. The large creature let out a painful squeal as its bones snapped inward and it rolled over onto its side.
Ready to deliver the killing blow, Corbin hit the ground running. He cursed himself a fool for charging in overly eager as radiating pain flared up through his leg and into his torso.
This boar has more wits than any animal has a right to, he thought.
The boar’s tentacle had scored a solid hit to his ankle. Panic flashed through Corbin’s mind as he fell to one knee, unable to feel the muscles in his left foot. He watched in agonizing horror as the boar got back to its feet and whipped its head sideways, knocking him backward into a nearby tree. With barely any time to react, Corbin wrenched his spear up into a nearby cluster of vines and pulled himself up into their thick net between trees.
Corbin wondered if he should have heeded Rimball’s warning and steered clear of the truffle thief. His vision cleared slightly from the pain but the boar was nowhere in sight. He wheezed as he untangled himself from the vines, dropping back to the ground. On his left was a dense expanse of brush, and in front of him, squirming on the ground, lay the pod-like tip of one of the boar’s paralyzing tentacles. Corbin grinned wryly at his dumb luck.
He dragged his numb, locked left foot in a circle while his lone arm still gracefully weaved the long spear in front of him. A shift of light to the right gave away the beast’s deadly charge. With a mastery built from years honing his skills, Corbin leapt straight up into the air as it stampeded under him, squealing in outrage as if it knew this was the end, just before Corbin’s spear shot down hard, sheering cleanly through the beast’s neck. Gurgling blood, the boar rolled over and over again, stuck in the momentum of its charge, slamming with a dim thud against the stone barrier behind them.
Thank the All-Father, Corbin sighed in relief, crossing his heart as he looked to the Great Crystal in gratitude.
It took a good two hours before he regained enough feeling in his hand to retrieve his dagger from the brush where it had fallen, and another still before he could begin to feel his foot enough to stand steadily. Corbin took time gutting his prize, respecting the boar with an honorable offering of blood to Acadia’s soil. The head he buried in a makeshift stone grave so that the Great Boar could return to the light of Baetylus above. Even a boar deserved respect for its warrior’s spirit and a proper burial.
The swine was so large that he had to tie many roots and leaves from an eltin tree together, building a makeshift sled so he could drag the meat back to Riverbell. Corbin’s hands were sore from all the work and he decided it would be wise to take a short rest before setting off, especially since nightfall was rapidly approaching.
From his seat on the edge of the cliff, Corbin could see a far distance, revealing a good section of the cavern of New Fal. He gazed out across the landscape from that high vantage point on the mountainside. Below him the land curved up and around the base of this behemoth of a stalagmite that was broken long ago before it could reach the cavern’s ceiling. The top of the cavern was so high Corbin barely believed it existed sometimes. There were a few times they had climbed the nearby Gratunmite Mountain and actually seen the litter of purple stalactites hanging from the cavern ceiling. He was amazed at how barren that expanse was, and Logan had been deeply troubled by the prospect of one of the massive coney protrusions falling, crushing the valley below under i
ts mighty weight.
The expanse of New Fal below him teemed with life in its lush woody forests, which spanned for miles, divided by long valleys and deep chasms that disappeared far into the bowels of Acadia. Faraway in the distance, he could see the glittering reflective surface of their god, the Great Crystal Baetylus, sparkling across the still waters of Lake Ul’toh.
Gazing out at all this beauty, his chest swelled with pride over today’s hunt. With his catch, the Culhada feast would be grand this year, bringing much fortune to his people. He wished Logan could be here with him, like when they were kids, but just as quickly lamented the reality that his brother would not look at it the same way. Where Corbin saw beauty and wonder, Logan saw lack of excitement and boredom. Corbin just could not understand the divide that had grown between them. Logan’s only obsession of late was with the capitol city of Fal and nearby kingdom of Malbec. To Corbin both of those places represented the same sins that their forefathers had brought upon their race, forcing the pilgrimage to the core of Acadia in the first place.
Why can’t he see how fortunate we are to live among all this grandeur, in the splendor of the All-Father’s blessing? he wondered, shaking his head absently at the notion.
Corbin let those troubled thoughts slip away and focused his attention back on the Crystal floating far to the west. The Elders compared Baetylus to Themis, the daystar that rested in the heavens above the surface world. Corbin kneeled down in prayer, offering thanks to Baetylus, the All-Father, for providing everything below it with life. Without their god’s radiant azure blue energy, which bathed the land, there would be no way to survive.
Soon the Crystal’s light would go out, signaling the beginning of the Culhada. It was already dim enough that he could stare openly at Baetylus without wincing, and Corbin could trace its long sharp edges with his finger in the air.
When they were children, he used to try to make pictures out of the things he and Elise saw when they stared at the Crystal during the Culhada. Perhaps out of nostalgia, he found himself doing this again, forming the Great Boar in the air as if it were crashing toward him. Suddenly a spark of light flared in the heart of the bright Crystal, causing Corbin to flinch to the side, covering his stinging eyes.
“What was that?” he gasped.
Another strange reflection of light in Corbin’s peripheral vision caught his attention. Deep down in the valley something was moving, and it was large!
With his heart racing, Corbin jumped to his feet and whipped out his bi-vision scope. As he held the lenses to his eyes, the valley below magnified into view. With a flick of his thumb, he moved another lens in place, expanding his view further. He frantically searched for the source of the movement.
“Skex!” Corbin shouted in fear and disbelief.
The giant insects were not a common sight in the cavern of New Fal. About the size of a man, they looked like some sort of monstrously oversized flying scorpion, with translucent wings that resembled a dragonfly and an armored black exoskeleton that was not easily penetrated. Their eyes glowed red and they had mouths lined with razor-sharp teeth and filled with grotesque tentacles. It took three or four good men to take one down on the rare occasion occurred that the beasts wandered near their village. It was the type of battle no hunter in his right mind relished and many had lost loved ones to the foul, carnivorous insects. Corbin had seen maybe two his entire life, but never together. He sucked in air, realizing he was not breathing, in shock over the spectacle below.
There had to be hundreds of the flying monsters down in the valley, all traveling in a massive swarm unlike anything his people had ever known.
What could they be doing out here? he thought. When a flare of light rose from the center of his village, followed by another, each one bursting into a colorful glowing flower that trickled back down to the ground, it was as if the Crystal itself had answered him.
“They’ve started the feast,” he said, with an icy dread gripping his heart. Corbin watched in horror as a swarm of the skex broke off in a strange triangular formation, heading directly for his small village.
They’re being attracted by the light from the fireworks!
A pit formed in Corbin’s stomach, his mind not wanting to believe what his eyes were telling him. Tiny Riverbell did not stand a chance, with its meager defenses, against a group that large.
Forgetting entirely about the boar’s meat, Corbin jumped to the lower path and raced down the stalagmite’s edge. He had to get to the village in time to warn the hunters. He had to warn Elise!