"Elijah!"
"Oh, please, that thing's tiny," Elijah scoffed. He was leaning against a rock, his arms crossed; beside him were the two Brindled Men, watching Benjen retreat slowly from the basilisk. "I was expecting a saltwater crocodile, but it's more of a komodo dragon. Honestly, it's a bit of a disappointment. I can't tell if that thing's magical at all."
Benjen's arm wavered, the tip of his spear shaking badly. As Elijah had explained to him, among Borug and Durgat's tribe, one only became a man grown when they slew a basilisk on their own. Borug, the elder and more decorated Brindled Man, was the tribe's best hunter and his tooth came from not a basilisk, but a wyvern.
"Just pretend you're hunting with ol' Rickard," said Elijah. "Even stags and boars can be dangerous if they're goaded into a fight. Just pretend it's like that."
"Stags and boars can't poison me from a scratch!"
"Then don't get poisoned," said Elijah. "Easy."
Benjen made a noise of frustration. "Where should I hit it?" he decided to ask instead.
"I think Borug said the neck. You want to kill it quick, because that thing's really strong and if you hit it anywhere else it'll start thrashing about. Wrench your spear away, or possibly break it. You wouldn't want to get close enough to hit it with your sword, I assume."
Benjen hopped from one foot to the other; the basilisk's head followed him like a pendulum. He didn't really know how he was supposed to hit it in the neck, given the creature's armored head was facing in his direction.
"Can't I use magic?" Benjen whined, and Elijah shook his head like a disappointed parent.
"I'll permit it if you get poisoned," Elijah said, and Benjen sighed.
He slowly reached down, running his fingers through the dirt; he had to be careful, because even so close to the ground and fat and with legs that stuck out from the sides rather than underneath its body, it could be deceptively fast. Apparently. Benjen hoped to never find out.
Instead, he grabbed some of the soil and threw it at the creature's eyes; the basilisk took a half-step back, moving its head from side to side, its tail slamming into the ground with displeasure. Benjen picked up a rock and tossed it underhand over the basilisk's head; the rock bounced off its leathery arse, and the basilisk twitched, turning behind them. Benjen thrust forward, slamming the simple wooden spear hard enough that it snapped at the shaft. The basilisk hissed shaking its head violently, and if the spear had any hope of salvage then, it didn't anymore. Borug said something.
"He says you shouldn't have thrust so hard," Elijah translated. "Now it's got something obstructing its blood flow instead of letting it bleed out to die."
"You want me to go over there and pull that splinter out?" Benjen said, his voice cracking. The basilisk hissed at him.
"That's one way to do it, I guess."
Benjen stared at his spear; it was about two-thirds the length it was before, and the tip was made up of nasty-looking splinters but nonetheless lacked the sharp point that he might need for stabbing something. He drew his sword with one hand, and tossed the spear over the basilisk's head; it didn't work this time, though. Perhaps with pain came clarity. The basilisk hissed, its forked tongue flickering from between its teeth and its hate-filled eyes narrowed on him, slowly advancing on Benjen.
He flicked his sword at the basilisk's face; the creature retreated briefly to avoid getting stung by this new threat, but did not appear particularly frightened, merely annoyed. Benjen thrust at the creature's head, but it merely skittered off its armored skull. The basilisk blinked lazily before continuing its seemingly unstoppable advance.
"It can be fast, but not particularly agile," Elijah called.
Benjen muttered curses under his breath and dashed at the basilisk; he feinted left, to which the basilisk predictably turned, then leaped to his right. The basilisk attempted to writhe its body in the opposite direction like a snake, but Benjen, with some acrobatics that he wouldn't have been able to pull off if not for Elijah's training, spun into a neat landing. Not wasting his opportunity, he struck at the exposed neck; the basilisk quickly recoiled as castle-forged steel left a large gash on its neck. Not deep enough.
Benjen charged forward again with a cry; the basilisk snapped at him, so he thrust the sword into its open maw. It did not like that at all. Benjen just shoved it in deeper, letting the blade sink through the bottom of its jaw and into the dirt. The basilisk hissed in agony, pinned to the ground; it attempted to squirm away, which only caused it greater pain. Benjen stepped back, his breathing hard, watching the creature slowly waste away.
"Well done," said Elijah. "You're a proper Brindled Man now."
"Thanks," Benjen said, not feeling particularly grateful.
Borug and Durgat gave grunts of approval, and hopped out of the tree they were sitting in, approaching the beast. It was a decently large individual for its species, but…
"Not very magical," Elijah said. "Just dangerous."
Benjen sighed. "So was it for nothing?"
"I wouldn't say for nothing," said Elijah. "You have additional food for further monster-hunting adventures, I suppose. And bringing that basilisk back to Westeros will undoubtedly make you a popular man."
"I don't care for popularity contests," Benjen muttered.
"Riches, then? I'm sure you'd be able to find a buyer. Or as a gift to the Maesters. They'd be fascinated by such a thing."
Benjen rubbed his chin. "I suppose the Maesters would like it. And it would help my reputation if I decided to become an adventurer…"
Elijah's lips twitched briefly at that. "So you're considering becoming an adventurer after all? Ah, just like I did. I saw some truly beautiful sights. Especially the look on Lockhart's face when I told him to advertise my books or I'd spill his secret…"
Elijah didn't get much further, though, because his words were drowned out by an ear-splitting screech; Benjen groaned as he clapped his hands over his ears. It lasted a decently long while, and Benjen looked up at the sky; there was a faint blot there, but it was too close to the sun for him to see clearly. He turned instead to Borug and Durgat, but their eyes had both gone wide and they clutched at their weapons desperately. Durgat muttered something.
"Well," said Elijah, as the speck descended until it was the size of a mammoth and crushing a tree underneath its bulk as it landed, "I suppose it's time for round two."
Benjen stared at the beast. It was twice as tall as Benjen was at the shoulders, its relatively small but nonetheless dangerous head placed atop a long and slender neck; its eyes were a deep red, and its skull armored with spikes swept back towards its spine, and rather than a maw, it had a wicked, curved beak. On its back were a pair of leathery wings, mottled black-and-white, and a tail with a spiked club towards the end of it. It glared at the two Brindled Men; Borug called for Benjen to run, and they retreated into the woods as fast as they could without attracting its attention further. The wyvern then turned to Benjen, and the dying basilisk next to him.
"I'll let you use magic for this one," Elijah said idly.
Benjen immediately thrust his hand forward, conjuring fire and sending it in its direction. The basilisk hissed, but didn't seem particularly afraid. A Banishing Charm worked better, sending the beast stumbling back several steps, but that definitely did not make it happy. It snapped at Benjen, clicking its beaks together, and Benjen had no doubt that its maw could snap his bones like twigs.
"Come on, be more creative," said Elijah. "I've taken out bigger things without a wand. You've mastered Banishing and Summoning, and you're in the middle of a jungle surrounded by very thick and heavy things to hit it with."
Benjen cast a Summoning Charm, then, on the tree that had been felled by the wyvern upon arrival; the creature screeched as the tree shuddered and leaped up from under it. Then he quickly reversed it in mid-flight, making the tree spin and smack the wyvern on its skull. It slowly shook its head, dazed, and Benjen cast a Levitation Charm on the tree; as the wyvern regained its senses and advanced on Benjen with averydemoralizing screech, he Summoned the tree back from height with all his will.
Benjen barely jumped back as the tree, about thirty feet tall, crashed into the wyvern at speed. The creature didn't twitch anymore. Its skull was a bit of a mess. Benjen cringed.
"Well done!" said Elijah. "I wasn't expecting you to take it out before you got injured."
"…Wouldn't you have protected me before I got injured?" Benjen asked weakly, and Elijah shrugged.
Benjen approached the wyvern, and experimentally poked it with the tip of his sword. Nothing happened, thankfully, and Benjen sighed in relief. Elijah reappeared next to him, examining the wyvern with interest.
"I suppose the one good thing about all this, is that we might have caught ourselves a magical creature," said Elijah. "According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a wyvern should be able to fly. The wings are far too small it get its fat body off of the ground. Which means magic must be involved somehow."
Benjen looked back at the wyvern with renewed curiosity. "You think so? So this trip wasn't a waste?"
"I don't think so," said Elijah, and gave him a smile. "You did good. One step closer to ending this madness."
Benjen smiled back. A few minutes later, Borug and Durgat returned; despite their inhuman features, the expression of shock was clear on their faces. They sat numbly off to the side, content in watching as Benjen barely managed to carve out the heart from within the wyvern with both his sword and knife. Once he had his wand, he'd make sure to repair the blades. He skinned the wyvern after retrieving the heartstrings, with Elijah encouraging to turn it into a coat ("I did something similar with that basilisk I killed when I was about your age. Not that pathetic thing lying off to the side, but a real monster, that was…")
The wyvern was big enough and complex enough that it took the whole rest of the day to finish it off. Borug had silently prepared the basilisk in a similar manner, although with his experience, his finished product was much neater. He'd started grilling a fat slice of basilisk steak on a flat rock above a campfire; even ungarnished, Benjen could feel his mouth water as he took in the smell. He sat opposite them again, across the campfire; the openness of the Brindled Men from the past few days had been replaced with an awed wariness, however.
Benjen cleared his throat. The intricacies of their tongue was still lost on him, but he knew a few words now.
"Speak… story?" he managed to utter; those two words on their own hurt his throat. The two Brindled Men glanced at each other, before nodding.
Until today, only Durgat had told tales, the elder merely observing and occasionally interjecting. Tonight, though, it was Borug that spoke.
"Ask him about Yeen," said Elijah, recalling the name from that book of Princess Nymeria's travels.
Benjen relayed the request, and Durgat immediately recoiled. Borug was more composed, but he too did not like it. Still, he began to speak, with Elijah translating in his mind.
"The Cursed City existed long before the Brindled Men came into being. It stands majestic, with homes that stand far above the treeline, and a mysterious beauty to it, yet every man that enters an invisible threshold around the city are subjected to an intense, inexplicable terror. If they sleep within these boundaries, they are plagued by nightmares that would make the bravest warriors weep. At the very center of the city is a great pyramid, one that dwarfs all other buildings, and while some have ignored their own mind and entered in search for treasure, none have ever come out. And perhaps it is for the best that they did not."
Borug stared into the flames, seemingly conflicted on whether to continue. He took a breath.
"Even outside the boundaries, those who linger too long around the city will go mad. Tribes that settled in the region, over generations, have turned into cannibalistic, feral monsters that do not recognize the sight of other Brindled Men. They raid other tribes and kidnap children, sacrificing them in an attempt to appease the unending hunger of their unseen god. Once, before the Winter of Ash, a great number of chieftains, warriors, and shamans attempted to enter the city, to destroy or at least banish their evil god. Only the shamans, and those who carried the idols of their own guardians, lived, with the others going mad near instantly. The shaman of our tribe told that when the curse struck them, he went into a trance; what he saw was a serpent that enveloped the world, feeding on its own tail in its insatiable hunger."
Elijah's voice trailed off towards the end, and went completely silent. Benjen glanced around him, but Elijah's avatar was nowhere to be found, either. Thankfully, there was nothing left to translate, because Borug nodded sharply and spoke harshly. There would be no more speaking of Yeen tonight.
Instead, Benjen was invited to speak about how he defeated the wyvern. Lacking the words to string together, Benjen attempted to show off some of his magic. He shaped the embers rising from the campfire in his hands, which Borug and Durgat watched in quiet awe. After some prompting, Benjen had Elijah return to recite the tale.
"You are blessed by your god," Borug said approvingly.
"Not a god," Benjen said. "Merely a shaman of great power. I inherited his magic."
"But even shamans must gain their power from somewhere," said Durgat. "Is the wyvern to be a sacrifice?"
"Of sorts," Benjen said. "I will build myself a shaman's rod to help me perform my magic. For that, I need a magical wood, and the soul of a magical creature."
"A magical wood…" Borug scratched his head. "Unfortunately, I cannot help you with that. Only the Great Shamans have knowledge of such a thing, and they guard this secret like a wyvern their chicks. You, a Hairless Man and a godless heathen at that, would never succeed in receiving this secret."
"Couldn't we just take the secret from their mind?" Benjen wondered internally.
"They're supposed to be practitioners," Elijah muttered back, still sounding distracted. "And I don't like the idea of using a wood that's connected to some malicious deity or other. Same reason I won't accept weirwood."
"The Old Gods aren't evil."
"Oh, we'll see about that." Elijah appeared next to him. "Maybe I could make a deal with the Seven… but I don't want them to think we're desperate. They're one of the better ones I've met, but that doesn't mean they won't haggle. It might be best if we shop around for a bit. We have time, I assume."
"Yeah, I suppose we do," said Benjen.
"You should go to sleep," said Elijah. "We can see Borug and Durgat home safely, maybe trade for some food for the next leg of our adventure. And no offense to our new friends, but I mislike being so close to Yeen."
"Yeen is two hundred miles away, at least," said Benjen.
"Like I said. I don't like being so close to it."
With that, Elijah faded away. Benjen suggested sleep to the two hunters, and they agreed. As Benjen lay down again, he wondered what had shaken James so badly. He'd expressed an almost arrogant level of confidence until now — going so far as to insult the Seven Who Are One to their collective face — but their newfound knowledge of Yeen seemed to hit him differently.
If nothing else, Benjen thought, the knowledge would be worth its weight in gold when he published his book.