Ostni's Weave: Isaac

[Precise Calibre]

This is a prologue of sorts for a series of stories I've been thinking about writing. As with the one other excerpt I've written (Full-Tang), this piece takes place on the world of Ostni, a world of uncertain existence and tenuous dimensional stability. It centers around the activities of a game-warden in service to a certain noble.

What I'm primarily looking for is critiques on the tone and mood of the writing, as well as thoughts on descriptions. First half will be posted now, second half is available upon request.

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A crisp breeze was blowing through the trees of Nachtwood, its cool tendrils kissing the waters of the Pallas river as it made its journey from the Fileas Mountains in the north down to the scrublands in the south. Crickets were singing their constant melodies in the depths of the night, their keening adding a peaceful backdrop to the darkness that enveloped the land. Fireflies, seemingly in concert with the crickets, danced to and fro, their pulsing glows making the forest seem as though it were but a single living creature with thousands of specks of light running along its skin like glistening dew.


Isaac knelt down in the center of the game-track, prodding the imprints left in the mud with his expert fingers. By feeling the angle of the deformation and taking into account the moistness of the air, he could tell that while the tracks had been made that night, the person who had made them had come this way significantly earlier in the evening. An all-too-familiar image of a poacher flitted into Isaac's mind. It was not unusual for travelers to pass this way during any given night, moving between the hamlets of Pallasbrook and Nachtholme, but the spacing between the footprints and the angle at which they were pressed into the soil suggested that the “traveler” in this case had been running at a respectable pace. No one would expend that much energy on such a long trip unless they were a messenger of sorts or they didn't want to be noticed lingering. The single set of tracks ensured Isaac that he only had to worry about one poacher in this case, unless he was dealing with experts.


The path ahead sank into the darkness, although fireflies could still be spied flickering at intervals, showing themselves occasionally with their glowing abdomens. Though he couldn't see further than thirty or forty paces in front of him, Isaac knew the forest better than anyone within a hundred leagues. Not far ahead was the Old Forest Road. It was an ancient thoroughfare that cut the forest in half at an angle from the north-east to the south-west. Some of the choicest grazing lands for forest creatures branched off of the road. It was here that deer, Baron Johanne Gelstav's deer to be exact, often grazed and settled down for the night. It was also a popular place for poachers to lie in wait, ready to ambush the royal deer for their own greedy wants and desires. Often times it was simply starving paupers attempting to fill their decrepit bellies with pilfered venison. Other times it was bandits attempting to find goods to sell in the form of meats and skins with robbing helpless travelers being a beneficial byproduct of course. The fact that the tracks he had found were on a less-known game-trail told Isaac that he was dealing with a professional poacher or bandit here. They knew where they were going, at least to a degree. Isaac padded up to the side of the road silently and crouched down, checking either direction for interlopers, before finally heading south down the road in a stooped run. At this time of year the deer favored the southern grasslands that dotted the landscape at random intervals, since the northern grasses sometimes suffered from unseasonal frost and cold winds from the mountains.


It wasn't long before he came to his first signs that his summation had been correct. Lying by the side of road, glinting in a shaft of moonlight coming down through the canopy, was a small dagger, a simple affair with a wooden handle and a stubby, double-edged blade. Isaac knelt down beside the dagger, checking his surroundings for hostiles and checking the knife for possible traps. Upon finding nothing wrong with the weapon, he was forced to take pause... Why was a knife in such decent condition lying abandoned in the middle of the Old Forest Road? It would take a very careless individual to do such a thing, since any resource you had out here in the wilderness was a precious thing to be guarded with your life. A snapping twig behind him made Isaac spring to his feet and whirl around with weapons drawn. A wolf was standing no more than ten paces from where he had been kneeling, its eyes glinting in the dark as it fixed him with its stare.


Slowly, the tracker sheathed both of his swords, making no sudden moves. He raised his right hand in front of his face and drew the symbol of nature in the air with an extended finger before bowing to the wolf, making sure to maintain eye-contact. The wolf regarded him for a moment or two longer before turning away and plodding back into the darkened woodlands beyond the road. Isaac breathed in the night air deeply, smiling inwardly to himself. Being at harmony with nature was the single most important reward he had gained from becoming the warden of Nachtwood. It was true that he was responsible for the capture and killing of any deer the Baron selected for his feasts, but Isaac knew that all creatures must eat and that he was simply participating in the cycle of life. Baron Gelstav, contrary to the common conceptions about nobles, was a kind man who fully trusted Isaac's judgment. If his most trusted warden ever advised against the hunting of deer for any reason, the Baron often took great pains to make sure that he followed this advice. Isaac would do anything to ensure that the Royal Deer and even the whole of Nachtwood remained unmolested as long as he drew breath.


He stared after where the wolf had gone for a little bit longer before returning to his task at hand. Taking the knife from the ground where he had left it and secreting it in a satchel at his side, the Warden turned back to the south and resumed his stealthy patrol down the road. Reaching a sharp bend in the road, Isaac decided to break off of the road and headed into the shadowy depths of the forest once again. Ahead, he knew, was one of the largest grazing fields in this section of the forest. It was where he was most likely to find the largest groups of deer, and subsequently where he was most likely to find any prospective poachers in the area.


It didn't hit him at first that something was wrong as he approached the clearing. The night atmosphere had burned itself so thoroughly into his subconscious that he didn't notice when all the crickets and other night insects stopped their songs at once. Then it it hit him like a wall, the sudden silence causing his heart to jump. Instinctively he reached for his swords, silently sliding them from their sheathes. Dropping smoothly into a more stealthy posture, Isaac advanced into the clearing and glanced around, searching for anything that might be amiss. Nothing seemed to be overtly wrong, but the silence was starting to unnerve him. Never before had he sensed such a complete lack of living beings within the forest. Even the fireflies had abandoned the area and it was eerily dark in the clearing, though he could still see evidence of them far in the distance through the trees.


Isaac snapped his head to his right when he heard a great racket approaching him from the far end of the glade. It sounded like someone was sobbing and mumbling to themselves incoherently. A disheveled man in tattered rough-leather clothing was shambling clumsily towards Isaac, his arms flailing wildly as if something was on him that he wanted to get off right away. In the dim moonlight, the Warden couldn't see the other man's eyes, but he was sure that he hadn't been spotted as the man obviously wasn't paying attention to where he was going; he stumbled into an aspen sapling that was in his way, tumbling to the ground while snapping the young tree off at its base. He was up again with surprising speed for someone acting so uncoordinated as he was. Desperation had to be all he was running on, that and fear. No decipherable words escaped his mouth as he continued with his flight from whatever he was running from, various bestial noises rumbling from his throat. Finally he seemed to notice Isaac and turned to lope towards him, his cries sounding strangely like a cross between a dying cat and a crying woman. Tripping once again, the man landed at Isaac's feet and stretched his hands out to paw feebly at the Warden's trousers before finally curling up in a ball and sobbing uncontrollably.


Isaac stared at the man, whom he had identified as a poacher by his outfit and appearance immediately. He couldn't even bring himself to remove the look of shock and alarm from his face as he backed up from the pathetic wretch. He still had his weapons ready and was prepared should the vagabond be playing him false. But the man seemed to have forgotten that Isaac existed and got to his feet once again, often looking behind him as he mumbled to himself. He began running, if his unstable gait could be labeled as such, in the direction Isaac had come from. His sobbing and yowling started up once again. The Warden lost sight of him as he left the clearing almost immediately.


Isaac thought about pursuing the poacher and arresting him. Distraught or not, someone who would attack the deer within this forest was deserving of the fullest extent of prosecution by the law. One thing kept him from doing so, however. The man, if his actions and attitude were to be believed, had been running from something horrifying enough to drive him insane and disquiet the local wildlife. They knew something was here, something foreign, something unwelcome. With his swords still unsheathed and held at the ready, Isaac swallowed hard and advanced slowly towards the other end of the clearing, his eyes darting back and forth at anything that so much as looked like it was moving. His night-vision, even when honed by years of use and experience, was swimming with half-seen blots and fuzzy bits of imagined shadows. Every darkened nook in the ground looked as though it might be a predator ready to spring at him, every shadow was a potential threat. His mind was playing tricks on him now. In the oppressive silence, he thought he could hear something brushing against a tree, or perhaps a rock just ahead of him. Then it was behind him, and then in front of him again, and then somewhere far off to the left. After what seemed like an eternity, Isaac came to the other end of the clearing. Just ahead of him was the edge of the tree-line.


On any normal occasion, he would have welcomed the sight of the trees of Nachtwood, but this time they seemed to do nothing but further conceal things that might do him harm. In the clearing he had the benefit of the moonlight, however dim it might be. But even during the full moon, the canopy of the forest made sure that very little of the moon's light reached the forest floor. Still, Isaac was a veteran tracker and the Baron's servant to the core. He would definitely see an end to this affair, no matter how horrifying. He stepped into the inky blackness of the forest and prepared for the worst...

[chrispenycate]

he could tell that while the tracks had been made that night, the person who had made them had come this way significantly earlier in the evening.

I'd put a comma after "that"

The single set of tracks ensured Isaac that he only had to worry about one poacher

"assured", I think

showing themselves occasionally with their glowing abdomens.

Nothing technically wrong, but I found the lesson in entomology a little distracting

Other times it was bandits attempting to find goods to sell in the form of meats and skins with robbing helpless travelers being a beneficial byproduct of course.

Needs some punctuation after "skins"; I suspect I'd use a semicolon, although a comma would suffice, and a comma after "byproduct"

He stared after where the wolf had gone for a little bit longer

he just stared after the wolf.

He was up again with surprising speed for someone acting so uncoordinated as he was.

acting as uncoordinated

was deserving of the fullest extent of prosecution by the law.

a trifle clumsy

As there's no need for my grammatical skills I just point out one or two little details…

[chopper]

a very well written piece, chap. chris's slight tweaks aside, i can't see anything i'd change on the first reading. i do find the two swords a little odd given he's a game keeper (there's probably an expalnation i've not seen). would be be more likely to resort to a bow?

[Precise Calibre]

As a game-warden, one would expect him to be using a bow, of course. However, this scenario takes place at night and he would be at a fair disadvantage if he attempted to utilize archery in such unfavorable conditions; at least in my mind... though you may disagree.

I'll revoke my previous request. I would appreciate any feedback, grammatical, flow, plot or otherwise. I know I have the material for great writing, but I lack the polishing that comes with a full understanding of sentence structuring and grammar... probably due to my sub par American education.

[Precise Calibre]

Next bit.

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Nothing happened. Now fully in the shadows of the forest, Isaac still held his weapons ready for any attackers that may come for him, but there was nothing. No bandits, no wild beasts, no phantoms, nothing. Struggling to keep his breaths coming in controlled and calm intervals, the tracker advanced further into the darkness, his nerves fraying more with each passing step. Again an eternity scratched by in his mind before he came to the edge of another smaller clearing.


A shadow was standing almost dead center in the grassy meadow, too short and long to be a human, or at least a standing human. Isaac moved forward silently, his heart beating heavily in his chest. Now that he was closer to the darkened form, he could see finally that it was not a man, but a wolf. Standing completely still, the wolf appeared to be concentrating on the side of the clearing opposite of where Isaac had come from. Flipping his right-hand sword so that he was holding it upside-down, he extended his finger and instinctively drew the symbol of nature into the air again. He was about to bow to the wolf as a final show of respect when it turned its head very slowly to face him, freezing him in horror. The wolf's eyes were not showing their glassy luminescence like they should have been; it's entire face was a pool of darkness that nothing stared back from but shadows. A low rumbling growl worked its way up from the wolf's depths and it turned just as slowly back to where it had been gazing before walking stiffly into the darkened forest. Isaac stood motionless for several minutes before his nerve worked its way back into his veins.


Going into a low crouch, Isaac once again struggled to keep his breathing even. He wasn't sure how he should be proceeding at this point. Something was very definitely wrong in the forest. There was a poacher running around, condition unknown and he had a disturbing feeling that proceeding any further into the woodlands might prove fatal... or worse. Glancing up to look into the distance of the forest, Isaac was alarmed to see that even the fireflies who had been flitting around almost out of sight had ceased their night-time flights. A cloud moved to cover the moon and the landscape went completely dark. It was then that he decided that moving back to the road and reassessing his situation would most likely be the wisest course of action.


As nerve-wracking as it was, Isaac maintained enough self-control to make a stealthy retreat, one eye constantly watching the direction the wolf had gone. It took so long for him to reach the Old Forest Road that he was sure that he must have aged a year by the time he finally stopped on the well-traveled path to catch his breath. There were fireflies here and a few crickets had resumed their songs. The irregular chirping calmed him to a degree and he finally felt safe enough to sheath his weapons for the first time in what seemed like years.


Crouching by a large boulder along the side of the road, Isaac decided on his next course of action. Though he had not actually seen anything to identify as a real threat, he had seen enough disturbing occurrences and bad omens to warrant his concern. The wolf had especially sent a chill into the depths of his soul. He had never had a creature in Nachtwood disregard his ritual of nature. At this point, finding the poacher that he had seen earlier seemed like it was the best idea. He could apprehend the criminal and question him about what exactly had scared him into such a disheveled flight. The question was, where to look for him?


An answer came to him by a most strange accident. On the opposite side of the road he had come from in between the trees, he could see a glow, different from that of the fireflies floating around him. It was very faint and easily missed, but Isaac had just happened to spot it out of the corner of his eye. Stalking through the woods towards the luminous aura, he realized what it was that he has spied through the trees. Foxfire was glowing ever so delicately on the surface of several trees. He was tempted by some primal instinct to reach out and touch the alluring light but stayed his hand, remembering that it was bad luck to mingle with fae workings. On a whim he started moving deeper into the woods but was stopped most abruptly when he stumbled over something.


Reaching down to see what had befouled his usually surefooted step, Isaac's heart jumped once again in his chest when he touched a hand that almost seemed like it was clawing at his leg. After jumping back from the outstretched talon and taking a closer look, by the glow of the foxfire, Isaac could see that the hand was attached to a man lying on the ground. A brief examination allowed him to determine not only that the man was the poacher he had seen earlier, but also the fact that he was very dead. His hands were outstretched in grasping gestures as if he had been trying to fight something off, though he seemed to have no visible external wounds. Moving closer, Isaac tried to get a look at the man's face but shadows kept hiding his features. Whatever had killed this man had come this way before Isaac had made his retreat, and it had killed him without leaving any marks. He would need to examine the body in better light in order to determine what he was dealing with. Looking up from his scrutiny, Isaac stopped all motion when he realized that the fireflies had abandoned him once again, as had the crickets. All the while the foxfire on the trees continued to glow, uncaring of what was happening around it.


The Weaver's Cottage as it was known, was nothing more than a burned-out stone foundation that dominated a barren clearing in the southern reaches of Nachtwood. Isaac often used the old stone rubble as a camp on extended patrols and he kept it stocked with some basic essentials such as firewood and dried food. Fortunately he hadn't been too far from it when he discovered the dead poacher. He had spent a great deal of energy dragging the dead man to the clearing, constantly looking over his shoulder the whole way. He set about building a fire to examine the poacher's corpse by firelight. Throwing a final log onto his humble fire, Isaac turned around to finally take a good look at the poacher. He felt the last strands of his resolve beginning to snap as he stared at the place where he had set the body down. It was gone...
Frantically throwing several more logs onto the fire, Issac whipped both of his swords from their sheaths and spun around wildly, seeking out an enemy, any enemy to put a face to. Something was toying with him and his resolve was on the verge of breaking. Even though he had added fuel to the pile, his fire still seemed to be pathetically feeble when compared to the looming darkness around him. The wavering, orange light danced over the ground around him, sloshing over the dimples in the soil, creating pools of shadow that melted away with each flicker.


It felt to Isaac that he was being watched. There was... something, an unknown, pursuing him. A... thing, just beyond the ring of firelight, hiding in the shadows. Something dark, something terrible. The Warden whirled around to look behind him, certain he had felt some thing's presence there; a murderous intent. There was that sound again. A scraping, that sound of something sliding across a rock or the ground. It was right behind him. He spun around again, slashing out with his swords in two consecutive slashes that would have eviscerated anything behind him. Nothing was there. The sound was behind him again. He could almost feel eyes boring into his back. He jumped backwards, thrusting his sword behind him in an attempt to stab whatever could be there. Instead he stabbed the open night air and tripped on a log that had rolled out of the fire. Landing hard on his back, Isaac wasted no time in springing to his feet, his eyes darting wildly from shadow to shadow in a vain attempt to find his attacker. His breath was coming in ragged gasps now and his head was swimming.


The sound rustled just on the edge of his hearing, to his left first, then to his right. Finally, it was right behind him again... or at least it sounded like it was. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Isaac was sure that, whatever it was, was right behind him this time. He closed his eyes, tightened his grip on his sword and rip it across his frontal arc, spinning around in the process. His fist and the sword it held powered through... nothing, empty air. The momentum from his powerful attack caused him to whirl around again before stumbling. Isaac opened his eyes to find that he had made his way over to the edge of the firelight. As he stood there swaying in the half-light he felt something brush against his arm. Finger nails... or something worse?


He sprang back towards the fire and landed hard on his rear, one of his swords clattering out of reach. Ignoring his lost weapon, he let his hand wander towards the fire where he clutched the end of a burning log. He blocked out the searing pain in his hand from the smoldering grasp he had on the improvised torch and rolled to his feet before sprinting out of the firelight and into the darkness. The guttering flame on his “torch” lit up the trunks of trees to either side of him with orange light as he sped over the ground, covering more ground per stride than he probably would have thought possible. Soon the forest was blazing past him as a pulsing orange blur. Time lost all meaning and he no longer cared if he was breathing, so long as his legs kept moving. Even in his state of panicked flight, Isaac's deft forest abilities saved him from the many mishaps that could have stopped him. He dodged low branches without seeing them and leaped over logs in the way without thinking. He became pure instinct, moving solely to survive.


Without realizing exactly where he was, Isaac broke out of the tree line for the last time and was across his own yard before his senses finally came around and he saw that he had made it out of the forest. The sword in his hand flew from his grasp and clattered to the floor as he rushed inside of his cottage and barred the door. The torch he had tossed somewhere onto the ground just outside of the door. With his hands shaking badly, he unslung his crossbow from over the fireplace and clumsily armed it with a bolt, ignoring the blistering pain in his burned hand. He backed into a corner, absentmindedly humming to himself an old tune whose origins were lost to him. He kept the crossbow aimed at the door for almost an hour before exhaustion finally set in. Collapsing in a heap on the floor, Isaac slowly sunk into unconsciousness. Forgotten on a corner table, the only oil lamp in his cottage burned its reserves into nothing and sputtered out. Starting from the window, seeping in like an oily smoke, Darkness moved in to embrace Isaac.