The winter of wolves Part Part 4 – The black beast.
.oOo.
Finran represses his enigmatic dreams and follows his huntsman instinct, sometimes his dogs exciting to hurry, sometimes stopping them to consider strides1 on the track. Now his team is winding through thick, squat and gnarled trees, huddling like naked old men shivering in the cold of winter. Here some vigorous conifers head up through dry snow drifts, there dozens of slender hazel arms, bent over mossy stumps, sadly whistle in the wind.
The muffled silence of the vegetal sleep falls, while Finran doubtfully examines the traces2 left by his game on the trees. The team keeps on the track, ever onward towards the heart of the old forest. The snow now seems scarcer, and sometimes the sled must turn around long strips of bare earth and wet leaves. The speed3 of the beast seems not to slow, neither in open spaces, nor in the deepest thickets.
.oOo.
Yet after a few hours, at the bottom of a short ravine, half full of blue ice, the traces of the beast seemed to hesitate, then change direction, and go back on its track repeatedly. Seasoned and attentive, the huntsman is not fooled by such distressed game tricks. The hunter knows that these tricks must have greatly delayed his game. But Finran wonders why the beast tries them now, whereas she taunted him repeatedly.
The hunter pushes the dogs until nightfall, since he is certain, by the look of the beast's strides, it is slowing down and tacking more. Finran thinks the monster, driven to its lair as he has never been, is reluctant to reveal it as his ultimate lodging.
Then the chiaroscuro of a gap in the bushes, reveals to him a herd of deers, accompanied by their last spring's fawns, a furlong away on his left. The huntsman orders silence to his dogs and approaches, notching his silver arrow. Finran aims at the strongest female, when the gigantic beast suddenly burst before him, giving warning to the deers, that flee into the woods.
Now the beast intervenes to protect his herd... Finran has finally discovered the weak point of his opponent.
.oOo.
In a few strides, Finran joins a hollow stump full of wet leaves. He takes a strong support on it and carefully aims at the beast, breathing deeply and smoothly.
To his surprise, the animal does not run away.
Its hoarse breathing exhales long hot steam sprays, that vanish on the glittering snow before him. The animal carefully scrutinizes the shooter, stopped as if to leap forward, while the deer's cavalcade is fading behind him. Then, with its head lifted up, its nostrils quivering, the great dark stag keeps the attention of the hunter. Some sixty cubits4 away, the eighteen antlers seems slender as a steed of old, powerful as a Rhûn's aurochs and flexible as a mouflon from the Grey Mountains. Its horns, branched in deadly daggers, strangely confines to a cubit on either side of the fierce head. The sparkling drips5 and golden eyes of the beast throw challenging lightning, to which however Finran does not still respond, fascinated by the noble and courageous bearing of his opponent.
Finran arme sa flèche plus avant.
The beast lowers its antlers, his hoof scraping the snow.
Finran draws his arrow further.
For a brief moment, in the flash of an eye, are superimposed on the present, these blessed moments of learning, under the niggling rule of the grandfather. Then the teacher, satisfied with his student perseverance and address, gives him the silver arrow, precious among all, forged by the dwarves, taken by his ancestors in the treasure of Scatha the dragonness. It never broke, he always found it. In hunting, it goes straight to the aim, provided he performs a perfect approach. The silver arrow kills then quickly, without unnecessary suffering, the game that the hunter respects.
However a mishap troubles his mind, a detail his captivated intellect slowly points at: at the end of the powerful legs, the beast's hooves appear thin and flexible, unlike the gigantic traces the pack has followed so far.
The beast slowly turns still staring Finran with its fiery gaze. The hunter hesitates. What kind of victory would that be, on a willing opponent, that showed the courage of the father of its herd? He relaxes and disarms his silver arrow.
But then come back to his mind, his decimated men, his friends down, and the terror of his kin.
Too late.
The big black deer has lunged at small stride in the brambles, when the hunter has come to his senses, under the astonished gaze of his dogs.
.oOo.
Finran insults himself and pushes his bitch back to work.
After an hour, it sniffs so well in the gray night, that she finds the beast's trail, that a few strides confirm by the light of the full moon.
But are these the strides of his game?
Soon the bitch sniffs a scent, quite close. Within moments she finds many steps, but of wild boar! Finran has only time to stop the team and recall his bloodhound, and suddenly a herd of black beasts burst in his direction from the bushes.
The evil beast has diverted the hunter on some dangerous game!
The group of boars sweeps on the team. Finran grabs a pike and defends his dogs, screaming imprecations to scare the intruder. Within seconds, the herd is gone, the sled upside-down with the bandaged mastiff. A big male has disjointed the dominant dog, which bowels has spread on the snow.
The poor beast lies on his side, moaning piteously. Guilt embraces the heart of the hunter as he gazes helplessly the agony of his pack leader. To tears, Finran remembers the moments of complicity, serenity and success with this good companion, he has weaned himself.
Then, simply, with rage at heart but unabated, he assist her to leave this world without more pain.
After several minutes of stupor, Finran digs the snow and ground as he may, and buries the beloved remains. After a brief thought to Bema, he stands up, a death flash in his eyes, and goes back a-hunting, cursing the beast to the lethal silver of his precious arrow.
.oOo.
Finran unhitches all dogs and even disbands the mastiff, which can at least defend itselves and escape if necessary. But the determination of their vengeful master inspire his dogs, that foresee the kill.
The bitch is put to work again, followed by the other dogs a few yards away. The strides of the beast can be read like the pages of a book, through thickets and frozen streams under the cold light of the moon, that sometimes pierces the dark cover.
Finally the group reaches the top of a dark ravine, overlooking a valley of brambles and low trees. The star of the night makes a brief appearance, grimacing icy threats as a faint hunting with hounds rumor is running through the air.
Has Finran dreamed these strange noises, these pack howls, this ride and the horn echoes through the valley?
Sweating under the spectral halo of the moon, the huntsman probes his dogs: the pack roars and shudders, its hair bristling. His instinct is not mistaken: the heart of winter, the source of Thalion's fears is wallowing in the lair at the bottom of this ravine.
Leaving the sledge at the summit, the group descends cautiously near the frozen bed of a stream, and penetrates under the brambles. It's warmer under the canopy of snow that covers the low vegetation like a shroud. An oppressive darkness reigns over this under-world, barely lighted by some unreal halos from holes in the snow canopy.
Finran lights a torch, and the group advances slowly. A smell of peat rises from the leaves carpet, corrupt by uncertain hints. The semi-circle range, the hunters had spontaneously adopted, gradually reduces to a tight group of shaggy dogs around the man, who must often hack the intertwined branches with his rapier.
Suddenly the dogs growl dully. Finran sees a pair of evil eyes glowing for a second, at the edge of of his torch's reach. Immediately, the huntsman plants his torch on a mound and calls his dogs around him.
His maneuver saves their lives. Wild screams rise around them, whereas a huge black wolf advance his disgusting maw oozing with thick slime.
The monster does not have time to launch its call for the kill: an arrow throws a deadly shine through his throat. The leading wolf collapses. His rival, a large male with silver coat, throws himself on the remains, still animated by upheavals, and devours its entrails, thus taking possession of both the vital energy of the fallen leader, and the command of the undecided pack.
But the new king doesn't benefit from his throne. The moment his bloody mouth is lifting from the carnage, the victorious flame burning at the bottom of its orbit goes off abruptly, cut short by a new projectile.
Finran calmly takes advantage at the stupor of the pack, shooting coolly a reckless wolf that had exposed himself too much.
Then the pack disbands. The archer, after his double feat, spends yet some arrows. His victory would be total if his dogs, feeling fear in the enemy ranks, were not launching in pursuit of the wild beasts. Finran has great difficulty recall them, and is forced to rescue them with his hunting spear, when one of them faces with a vicious dark wolf.
Silence finally settles. The decimated pack has fled without leader. Three males and a female lie on the ground, and no more than four individuals, probably female, have fled. Finran heals the wounds of his exhausted dogs and affords some time to recover. But curious abrasions inflicted at the foot of the shrubs arouse his curiosity6.
He explores the surroundings, finishes off the dying wolves and discovers the den of the pack. He ruthlessly exterminates the cubs. Then he cuts up without delay the remains of the two most impressive beasts. Returning to his dogs, Finran, staring into space, cleans his bloody dagger in the snow and casts the purifying ritual.
He has exacted the terrible revenge of the northern men in the name of his whole kin, who were overwhelmed by the terror of the wolf. The henchmen of the beast are routed. Tomorrow he will force its lair and bring its remains!
.oOo.
On a broad space, Finran clears the snow from the brambles in order to breathe fresh air. Taking a risk, he goes and get his sleigh alone. Then he lights a fire as best he can with the available dead wood. After a frugal meal, he sinks into the soldiers' sleep - immediate, deep and refreshing.
Slowly into the night, as the moon passes through the silent sky, a drizzle fills the valley, which in Buckland is called sleep vapor, and had indeed got the dogs sound asleep.
Yet a rustling awakens Finran before dawn. No doubt his hatred for the beast is the strongest. Under the canopy of snow, muffled sounds reach him, grunts and mumbles fuse in the icy mist.
He calls his dogs, unsuccessfully. He fuels the fire and lights a reluctant torch. His bow can be of no help in this foggy night, the hunter takes his spears, and heads at a guess in the mist. His light torch at arm's length, Finran advances under the thicket, like a blind man trusting only his ear.
Long, the man strides, with some hurried footsteps in the snow and frozen mud, then trying to calm his panting and listening to the grunts moving away. It seems to him that his game, whatever it is, follows a complicated path, turning frequently when the hunter is coming by. After a time difficult to assess, Finran finally realizes that he is getting lost and thinks to turn back.
But suddenly he comes across a stride, fresh and huge. The hunter examines it carefully. A large pinch7 is accompanied by a mark of guard, distant and perpendicular. Puzzled, the huntsman remembers the many paths crossed in recent days, whereh strangely coexisted footprints of several species. This one is rounded, large and firm. Could he have confused ths stride of a deer and a boar? Or would this be the trace of the forest's perverted offspring from another age?
Finran wants to find out for sure; he follows the steps with caution.
Walking through the sleep vapor as a ghost in pursuit of a rumor, the hunter perseveres, orienting with the grunts on which he gains slowly, while the gray dawn is rising and the mist is warming up.
Finally Finran reaches the bank of a small river, frozen in an ice with water iris reflections. The milky color of the bank gradually gives way to dull blue and green transparencies down to the middle of the riverbed, where can be seen the undulations of long black and silver algae, under thin clear ice. Several willows, on the opposite bank, let their melancholy branches lurking in the mist. The thought comes to the hunter, that this river, probably the Withywindle, must be a pleasant place in spring.
But there it is, where awaits a nice sized boar, hidden under the roots of an upturned stump on the edge of the wood. When the hunter has walked near the shore, in the open space, the black beast comes out of hiding and rushes behind him.
The boar charges the intruder with all its might. But its proud impatience betrays him - a small grunt of evil resentment comes out of it, and warns the hunter, whose only resource is a dangerous landing fall, to avoid the lethal charge.
Incidentally, the beast breaks the shaft of one of the spears, narrowly missing him with his groin. On the ground, Finran would be in a very bad position, if the momentum of the animal would not allow him to stand up and brandish a stake.
The boar is powerful and frightening, stubborn and fierce. With its huge size, it nevertheless seems young, based on its peculiar way to charge and lash the air towards the man's legs, trying to throw him to the ground. The fight is long and demanding, the hunter multiplying his feints and holding his moves to reduce his risks. Finally Finran's experience prevails: taking advantage of the boar's reckless charging, he manages to thrust his pike, precisely at the heart. The beast collapses heavily, shattering the weapon under itself.
The huntsman approaches, his dagger in his hand, whereas his victim, hardly shaken with spasms, is spreading some black blood with pungent smoke. Finran finishes off his game, watching the gray-black fur, which keeps in places some red highlights of a young boar's pelt. The hunter frowns: despite the large size of the animal, it is but a pig8! Weary and exhausted, the hunter checks his anterior legs - much thinner than the mysterious strides...
The man, out of breath and full of doubt, is raising when his gaze meets a pair of eyes, cut off in the shadows of the forest, about twenty yards from the river shore.
Bloodshot and bulging eyes, dart on the man a swiny look of hatred and a pledge of death. The filthy jowl with venomous thrills advances, studded with ivory swords. Its hysterical and deafening roar vomits the visceral loathing towards the biped, whereas vile defiled stench of stale are spreading. The monstrous incarnation of the original forest depths, of the fanatic digging in the muddy wallow, of the great primordial and wild rutting, has risen to challenge the supremacy of mankind.
The dead pig, yet of exceptional build, was therefore only the complacent and reckless page9 of the brambles' sovereign. The true black beast, accomplice of the carnage on Thalion's pikemen, is finally taken out of its den...
The tremendous muscle mass undulates under the dark pelt as the beast advances, sometimes shivering with murderous rage spasms.
The beast has come out of the wood, but the hunter, lucid, knows he cannot deal with it. Thus the great stag knowingly brought him here, for him to undergo the ancient law of the forest...
.oOo.
Yet Finran grasps his last spade and faces the monster.
The old mâle takes advantage of his page's error; it immediately comes in contact with its tired prey and overwhelms it with tusk strokes. The monster has two pairs. The first takes the form of one foot long swords, wielded over the brawn. The second, are wounded on the sides of the jowl.
The boar shakes his black and gray coat, its huge size enabling it to fend towards the chest of his opponent, constantly forced to retreat. Finran's extension, with his spear, hardly allows him to hold off the foul jowl, hitting the brawn without hacking it.
Huge but surprisingly agile, the beast quickly takes the ascendancy over the man and drives him to the icy bank. Finran tires quickly, the tusks have already slashed him on the shoulder and forearm. Then the huntsman must risk all for all. Anticipating a frenzied reel, he hits aside, wielding his pike with one hand.
The hunter immediately pays his imprudence: in a loud bellow, the monster lacerates his arm with the back of its brawn and throws him to the ground!
But he dealt his blow! The stake has remained stuck in the eye of the monster that jumps up in pain and rage.
Instinctively Finran crawls a little further and gets up, painfully holding his broken and bloodied right arm.
Panting and nearly fainting, the hunter anxiously contemplates the beast's efforts to get rid of the weapon. Finran still cherishes the hope that the monster, overcome by grief, would abandon the field. He holds his last weapon in his left hand, his faithful but short dagger.
Finally, amid venomous pain belchings, the spear is snatched in a spray of dark blood. For a few more moments, the animal staggers, seeking his prey with a clumsy frenzy.
Finran backs gently, noiseless. But the beast sees with its one eye.
Trembling with rage, the beast walks towards his virtually defenseless prey and pushes a defiant roar, which sounds echoing long on the banks in the old forest. Within a few bloody strides, it is galloping.
The hunter, in a heartbeat, embraces the whole breadth of his years, his intoxicating youth withered by grief, his maturity sprinkled with vain victories and sustainable cowardice, and redemption in a new life. Some female faces dance one last medley, sending him in turns the tender grin of regret and the serene compassionate smile, just before impact.
Finran expires at the sound of ground flesh.
When his gaze returns to this world, he sees, with a clear acuity, a large stag oust the blind side of the beast, in a slow but irresistible pressure ripping the filthy dark pelt. The crushed ribs are those of the huge boar, torn by the antlers of the deer!
The monster, disjointed and unbalanced, swerves onto the ice of the river. In a crash, the thin layer at the center of the stream breaks, precipitating the huge mass in icy-cold running water.
La puanteur du grand sanglier s'évanouit dans un bouillonnement de cristal. Comme se lève cette chape de relents, Finran croit que la berge s'éclaire d'une douce lueur. Le grand cerf, à présent fauve et doré sous la clarté salvatrice, et l'homme, au bras ensanglanté, se contemplent dans un noble regard de paix. Le chasseur sait désormais que le coureur sacré de Bema, le dieu veneur de son peuple, n'a pas quitté les Terres du Milieu.
The stench of the great boar vanishes in a crystal bubbling. As this screed of reek vanishes, Finran believes the bank is lighting up with a soft glow. The great deer, now fawn and golden under the saving clarity, and the man, with his bloodied arm, stare at each other in a noble peaceful look.
The hunter now knows that Bema's sacred runner, the huntsman god of his people, has not left Middle-earth yet.
.oOo.
But suddenly the frozen river cracks again. The horrible jowl springs back, with vile pig cries, as the wild boar is trying to climb and regain balance on the ice. Behind him, his powerful hind legs seem to struggle in a dark and silver tangle of weed, which attract it to the bottom.
Finran screams his refusal. In an instant, he grabs his bloodied spear with his able arm and ventures on the ice to meet the monster.
Ruthless, the hunter slays strikes again and again at the boar's head, which eventually let go and sinks in the dark blue and green swirls of the Withywindle.
.oOo.
Finran long inspires, deeply. The lighter air seems to dissolve the weight that was grasping his heart. Exhausted but serene, the prostrate hunter lays down near the bank, and closes his eyes for a moment.
Yet he knows that this relaxation will cost him his life...
.oOo.
When he wakes up from his dream, his head is spinning. A large deer is walking away on the opposite shore, disappearing into the mists with the sound of curious bells, that sow strange "Derry Dol, Ding a-ling Merry lol " in the sparkling air.
As the majestic beast is leaving the scene, a peculiar little rhyme comes to his mind, like the recollection of a dream or an old memory:
Stooge Beaucent10 has gone out
At Hays-end to mow some wheat
Mending assignment to meet
All damage made by his snout!
For dinner he is retained
By Withywindle the mermaid
For many years or hundred
The rose garden prunes One-eyed!
.oOo.
Finran cannot explain how his arm was washed, mended and bandaged, nor by what miracle his dogs could harness to the sled and come down to him. But at the edge of the Old Forest, one should be surprised at nothing and have better go his own way.
Pink dawn prompts to departure. However, before leaving, he still has a duty to perform.
The hunter drags the valiant fallen pig for his master and hangs it by the hind legs, at the branches of a solid ash. He bleeds it out, empties it and castrates it.
Finran solemnly distributes offals to his waggling pack. The hungry dogs, even the mastiff, pounce on them barking happily, while the hunter buries the bowels.
Finally the servant of Bema sets a ritual fire. There he roasts the liver and frivolities11, seasoned with secret herbs. After a short meditation, he eats them slowly, assimilating every bite. Finran accepts a share of the beast's power, ravished from the primitive world to appropriate his courage. Thus the hunt leader strengthens his sturdy soul to the dangerous source of wilderness, to avoid his kin to be confronted with it.
Then he looks up toward the east. Black branches glow with a thousand starred smiles in the rising light. The thaw has begun.
.oOo.
From now on, at the sign of the drunken goose, it will be risked telling the terrible stories of the winter of the wolves. Hassle and hazards of winter may not be avoided, but fear might be somehow better exorcised.
.oOo.
NOTES
0 - This story is inspired by real hunting episodes, but transposed to imaginary creatures of Middle Earth. Unlike our world, wolves are more or less evil creatures, which attack humans, and wild boars can rise to gigantic sizes, when an evil spirit leads them.
Moreover, I was inspired by the next job: Fabre-Vassas Claudine. Le partage du ferum. Un rite de chasse au sanglier. In: Études rurales, N°87-88, 1982. La chasse et la cueillette aujourd'hui. pp. 377-400.
1 Footprints of a game.
2 Damages made by a fleeing animal, to trees and branches.
3 The speed and firmness of the game's trajectory can be deduced from its prints.
4 Length unit : a foot and a half, around 45 cm.
5 The eyes of the deer possess, at their inner corner, a kind of slut, the drip, from which oozes an unctuous liquid, offensive, particularly abundant during the mating season.
6 The abrasions are left by young wolves around the place they grow up.
7 The two central fingers of the wild boar lean against the ground are called the "pinches". The atrophied fingers situated behind and above the pinches are "the guards".
8 A boar of 1 or 2 years old is name a « Pig of the sounder »
9 Company animal, usually a two or three years old male, a lonely old solitary takes with him, probably to sacrifice it if it is distressed.
10 Beaucent is the name of the wild boar in the Roman de Renart
11 In Languedoc, the game's testicles are still named « frivolities ».