Rise of the Degeneracy

Chapter 11 - Dark Hart

Camp of Shurak, Wilds of Goshawk. SE Britain.

Many heads hurt across our camp. The Great Hangover from the feast of the fat pig delays our departure to the gathering with cousins of Na’im. In slow time we organise our flotilla of canoes and coracles to make our way upriver. Meanwhile, Ur’salla remains with others who stay in the wintering base camp,

‘I’ll keep myself busy. Our den would benefit from fresh flooring’.

I hope this activity prevents her from sulking. In your future lifetime, you’re divorced from Nature and its spiritual plane. You may not appreciate all of our requisites. For example, sharp flintstone is commonplace close to camp, yet we know the best is found by a certain spring. Not best in material quality but in something invisible. Without this quality the tools we strike from it would have poor spirit.

Equally, Ur’salla knows the best birch parchment comes not from trees close to camp, but from a location we call, The woods where the birch sings. Ur’salla isn't sad to hear of the shortage in camp because it gives her an opportunity to enjoy a mindful pilgrimage to her favourite quiet place.

She encounters Hungalla, who tasks,

‘Ur’salla, should you go foraging for parchment, I’d be glad of any of the fungal caps I favour for my trances’. Ur’salla is pleased to help. There’s the chance of potting some small game, so she gathers her carrying nets, quiver and bow. Rain passed but a chilly breeze blew beneath a disturbed sky. Before departing, Ur’salla calls on Jamilan, to inform him of her plans to leave camp. She finds him in conference with an exhausted messenger from the east.

Ur’salla pulls her furs closer as protection against the breeze and decides it doesn’t matter if she leaves quietly, because she'll return on this day. She steps past one crone who has chosen to remain in order to process the nut harvest. Ur’salla takes a northwest trail stamped more by wild four legged kinds than by our own. The grandmother peeks up to see her disappear into the woods. The last sighting.

Mother Birch

A familiar and benevolent spirit greets Ur’salla when she reaches the woods. She steps up to the trunk of an ancient mother tree, and places her hands onto bark worn smooth by the hands of her ancestors. Ur’salla drops her eyelids, whispering words of communion, and senses permission to forage is granted.

A cluster of younger birch attracts attention, and it's there she strips her parchment. Wood pigeons pause from their forage of acorns, to observe the huntress. Perhaps they’re wary of the bow leaning against a tree. Ur’salla has her carrying nets all full of birch bark and as she peels back the last strip, she hears a noise.

The wood pigeons had ceased their cooing, and within this silence, something with heavy feet just moved within a dense thicket to her rear. Something larger than a woodcock or squirrel.

Ur’salla controls her breath and doesn’t utter a peep. Gliding to her bow and quiver she silently picks an arrow to load against the string, before turning to face the source of the sound. Ur’salla tiptoes barefoot to the side of the bush. Each of her toes tests for noisy hazards before placing down weight. There’s the danger this could be a miserable bear, and she fails to pierce its heart with her arrow. This possibility excites her. Ur’salla poises with concentration as she steps to the side.

It emerges. Then it freezes as it stares down the arrow shaft into Ur’salla’s eyes. Easily within range of a fast execution. Yet she doesn’t release her dart. The melanistic, black stag continues in its freeze glaring at his would-be assassin. For Ur’salla this standoff feels like several minutes, though in truth lasts only seconds. Still, she doesn’t release her arrow. This other being, she understands, isn't here for the game of hunting. The encounter is special in a magical place. Ur’salla observes its eyes are not cervine but are the eyes of the dark sorcerer.

Time restarts. The big black deer leaps from his disturbed browse, and bolts to frighten the pigeons who applaud with their loud wing claps. Ur’salla watches the familiar bobbing up and down of a fleeing deer, melting back into the rainforest. Her heart beats fast, and tears roll down her face.

Hands shake as she releases tension from her bow, dropping her weapon to the forest floor, This was no ordinary meeting between hunter and prey. Skin tingles, and she asks aloud, ‘What does this encounter mean?’

The huntress reaches deep into memories of folklore to gain meaning. Stray recollections of a few words from a song of the hearth, was it a poem about a Moon sorcerer of old?

Her forage here complete, Ur’salla packs her carrying nets ready for return home. She moves towards the faint trail that brought her here,

‘What is that next to the path?’

Ur’salla spots the shiny red domes of fungal caps that could be those requested by Hungalla. Deathcaps and other poisonous mushrooms are prevalent in these wilds, and Ur’salla knows how to approach any with caution. Ur’salla puts down her carrying nets, and crouches with a twig to gently prod the caps for identity. She receives no warning, it's while distracted that the attack arrives. Ur’salla feels the sudden thud across the back of her head. It knocks her flat to the ground.

The last thing Ur’salla observes before the darkness of a temporary unconsciousness descends, are the moccasins of four strangers who now surround herself. As vision dims, a memory floats. The words of a song: