Siv stretched, groaning at the ache in his shoulder. The cut was gone now--healed into a thin scar--but the soreness lingered. It seemed that his healing factor was working more rapidly than ever.
He blinked away the bleariness in his eyes, looking around the little makeshift camp. Taln was up already, brewing coffee. As it heated up in the coals, Taln was gazing at the forest with an unreadable expression on his face.
"We'll walk along the perimeter and hope the elves find us." Taln said definitively.
"I thought the elves couldn't know."
Taln gave him a dry look. "You plan on telling them?"
...
After eating a light breakfast, the two gathered up their belongings and set out along the perimeter. The silence was almost deafening. Siv jumped every time he or Taln broke a twig. They walked for a few hours, Taln constantly searching the silent sentinels of the forest for any sign of life.
Eventually, they came upon a game trail that led out of the forest. Taln had explained to Siv earlier that the trails leading out of the forest were rather sparse, as most who entered never felt the need to leave.
Taln stood there, considering. His logic won out over his laziness in the end, however. He decided they would press on to the actual path through the great forest.
Siv gazed around. The forest was truly breathtaking, a sprawling mass of verdant foliage and trees. The place they walked had trees as well, albeit more sparse. It was as if there was an unmarked barrier separating the forest from the rest of the world.
They were skirted the unmarked boundary of the forest, now traveling southeast along the treeline. The mass of trees seemed to have expanded their borders outward, setting them on a path more eastern than Taln had predicted. It seemed to Siv that it had been quite a while since Taln was here last.
As the sun crept below the treeline, the two stopped to make camp again. The routine was similar as it had been the previous day.
Sitting in front of the fire from Taln, Siv worked up the courage for more lessons on using his weapon. Taln, this time, took the hook and chain and performed a simple kata. Well, it looked simple. He performed it three times, each taking about five minutes.
The katas he performed were beautifully functional, with no wasted movement or unnecessarily flowing moves.
Finishing the last, Taln said to Siv, "This is a basic kata. If you put in the effort to learn it, it will do a great deal to help you internalize how the hooks can be an extension of your body." He held the chains out to Siv, sweat glistening on his brow.
Siv took them, brow furrowed in concentration to remember the complex sequence. He tightly wound the chain around his forearm, and began the sequence.
By the end of it, he had taken about 40 minutes to perform one sequence. Taln periodically stood up and demonstrated the moves next to him when he could not remember what to do next. He was soaked in sweat, and his chest was heaving. His wrists were raw where the chain dug too tight, and muscles all over his body trembled from holding tension in the wrong places. However, the blades had hummed their rhythm of death for him. He felt he was beginning to know them.
Taln was sitting at the fire again, making another stew. There seemed to be little game to hunt around here, so they were once again making it with smoked beef from their provisions. He deftly chopped the carrots and potatoes into chunks, then scraped them off the cutting board into the simmering pot. He then took out his spice satchel, selecting a few of the small waxed leather pouches. They looked well-made and carefully maintained.
Even through the waxed bag, the rich scent of crushed coriander and rosemary wafted into Siv's nose, prompting him to swallow several times. From a different pocket sewn into the satchel, he removed two hollowed out wooden tube with stoppers. Removing the stopper of the first, Taln shook in what looked like black pepper. Finally, he took sprinkled in salt from the other wooden tube.
Siv watched hungrily for a few minutes, then at a terse word from Taln began the kata again.
This time went by a bit faster, about thirty minutes. He was truly exhausted now, and the stew looked ready. He collapsed on the ground next to the fire, pulling his bowl from his pack.
Taln used the ladel to heap a generous serving of the thick soup into Siv's bowl. He had used some sort of starch to thicken it a bit. He pulled a loaf of bread from his pack, tearing it in half and giving one to Siv.
Siv greedily set into his meal, tender meat and golden, starchy potatoes succumbing to the unrelenting onslaught of Aspect-enhanced teeth. When he had eaten all the meat and vegetables left in the bowl, Siv brought it to his lips and drank the broth. He let out a satisfied sigh, then moved to get seconds.
After they had cleaned up dinner, Siv sat back against a rock with his bedroll under him. He looked at Taln, who was staring into the flames. The light danced across the exposed ebony skin of his forearms, save for the spots covered in chain tattoos. They seemed to drink in the light, appearing entirely too dark.
"Why are your tattoos so strange?" Siv asked, looking at the chains. "Are they a weapon, or one of your blessings from Suffering?"
Taln looked at the boy. "Both." He said simply.
Siv glowered. The older man didn't seem talkative today. "Obviously, they are bestowed from the Bound God. That's what Quentin called him." He added on.
Taln wasn't even looking at him anymore. His gaze was locked on the flames.
"Do you think he would give me something like that?" Siv asked. He flinched as Taln turned his suddenly furious gaze on him.
"You don't know what you're asking, boy. Never accept a blessing from the Chained God." His gaze was hotter than the flames. "In fact, accept blessings from no god unless I give you permission. Half of them are conniving little shits, and the other half are little more than forces of nature. Both will take more from you than they'll give."
"But I'm already Marked." He said, confused.
"Markings are different. You only ever get one, and it's the only one that will come without drawbacks. These chains are not from my Mark. They were bestowed upon me by the Bound God when I formed a Covenant with him." He was looking at the flames again. "Boy, I'll tell you this once. Die before you let yourself become indebted to a god."
He spat in the flames. "The only power that is truly yours is the power you take."
Siv said nothing more, thinking. What Taln said sent his mind spinning. Aspects, in a sense, were gods. But not 'The' God. They were little parts of him, and some of them were intelligent, others were forces of nature. And the existence of the great Stag in the forest meant that there was almost a spectrum of intelligence among gods. Some were no more intelligent than a rock, others a beast, and more still had a cunning that even Taln feared.
So if Siv had been blessed by the Aspect of Suffering, specifically Death, was it bestowed upon him by an intelligent being? Was he looking down on him now? At this thought, Siv cast his gaze at the night sky. The stars shone as normal. A chill went down his spine.
Or was his blessing purely happenstance? Was he in the right place, at the right time, with the right circumstances? Quentin had told him there were countless factors that might effect one's proclivity towards a certain Aspect. He had even used that exact word, proclivity. Genetics, life experience, environment, even the people one was surrounded by. These all factored into the seemingly random way people were bestowed Aspects.
So, someone who had suffered far more than Siv, on the same night as him, as near to death as he had been, was not guaranteed to receive such an endowment. So what was special about him?
Siv laid back on his bedroll, pondering.