Erage #5 Wolves

“Where are we going?” Hyethra asks.

“We are going to find my magical artifacts.” Untoltelage says, “If they are where I last saw them, they should be far north into the mountains.” Untoltelage walks north and the rest of them follow. The journey that day is uneventful. But they all start to get hungry. Untoltelage doesn’t do anything to get them food. He just keeps walking. He doesn’t think that they are nearly hungry enough to require stopping for food.

They have walked a few miles now. They are all starting to feel fatigue and their feet are beginning to ache. They haven’t had much experience walking for miles and miles. Even Untoltelage is in pain and tired. But he also knows that this pain and fatigue isn’t nearly so bad as it seems, and that can still get a lot worse before it is indicative of any real need to stop.

It is times like this, where Untoltelage goes for long periods without rest, that he is glad that magic regenerates as time passes and not as the body rests. He still has some broken bones, but he knows that straining his damaged body won’t cause irreversible damage because body-enhancing  magic can help him to heal those broken bones.

Of course, at such a young age, he has such small pools of magic. But he also has multiple days to restore his health before he reaches anywhere dangerous. He would have suspected that magic-wielding maniacs would be camped right outside of the city, constantly raiding it for supplies. But it is almost like nobody knows that this city exists. Indeed, Untoltelage is certain that the city’s greatest protection is that so few people know about it.

However, Untoltelage cannot imagine how this city could possibly be hidden. It is a massive city surrounded by walls. Certainly, the military could fend off against attackers. But danger doesn’t really scare off the people of Erage, and desperation should convince plenty of people that raiding the city is worth the risk.

So, he is surprised that there doesn’t seem to be anybody nearby. But seeing that there is nobody nearby. He believes that there probably won’t be anymore nearby, as he hasn’t seen any so far. He should probably be safe from having to deal with other magic-wielding murderers until he gets tens of miles away from the city.

Untoltelage is a fool for not thinking this through. Nobody seems to be here. No humans. No crazy, destructive, magical humans. So what does that mean for the animals? What happens when animals are not familiar with humans? When animals have lived isolated from humans for so long. Usually that would make them scared of the humans because the humans are new.

But considering how the humans here behave, animals that have never seen humans would be comparatively less scared of humans than those that have seen the monstrous humans. What is another difference between animals that are familiar to humans and animals that are new to humans? Danger and aggressiveness. Animals that are familiar with humans are going to be less dangerous because they will be less likely to freak out and react violently. Animals that are new to humans will most definitely react violently. However, here in Erage, animals that spend time around humans are more scared, freak out more, but not in a violent or aggressive manner. Instead they flee and hide, since any attempt at violence against a human is inviting their own death.

Untoltelage and the four surviving nine-year-olds: Hyethra, Quastiffany, Kekister and Jostahim are walking through the forest. They are tired and in pain from walking so much. It is getting late. The sun is going down. It is nearly sunset. The sun is just above the horizon. But here under the shadow of the trees, it is already dark.

Untoltelage is the most hurt of the group. Actually, he is the only one with any physical wounds. The rest might be tired and sore from walking all day, but Untoltelage is the only one that is bleeding and bruised. Untoltelage, being the person who knows where to go, is in front of the group. The four others are actually kind of falling behind because they don’t push themselves as hard as Untoltelage.

Straggling behind or straggling in front, Untoltelage is still wounded, bleeding, and separated from the rest of the group. That is why the pack of seven wolves target him first.

Untoltelage is thrown to the ground. And the wolves bite him. Untoltelage, however, is not to be bothered by something as lowly as wolves. So he gets back up and continues walking. Meanwhile, the rest of the group, seeing this happen, make sure to keep their distance. They don’t know for sure if Untoltelage will make it, but they are also too scared to do anything to help him.

The wolves don’t like being ignored, or maybe they’re just hungry. They continue to bite Untoltelage and knock him to the ground. Untoltelage figures that as long as he doesn’t let them sever his spine, bite his neck, head or face, and as long as he doesn’t let them dig too deep into any important organs, that he’ll be fine.

So Untoltelage does his best to ignore the wolves. The wolves don’t make it easy. It is like trying to ignore the wind during a tornado. The wolves throw him to the ground every time he gets up. Whenever they can, they try to get on top of him so that he can’t get up. Untoltelage has trouble keeping these wolves off him. He is only a nine-year-old after all.

Untoltelage eventually is forced to admit that he is just a kid, and he can’t just fend off wolves without magic. He hates feeling like he has to depend on magic. Maybe it is because the wolves don’t have magic. Maybe it is because he wants to win while disadvantaged. Untoltelage doesn’t why, but he doesn’t like resorting to magic to fend off these wolves. But he doesn’t really have any other options, so he burns the wolves.

It doesn’t take much. Untoltelage uses just enough fire magic to light the wolves on fire. The fire soon goes out as the wolves panic, run around and crash into the ground, rolling around until the flame is extinguished. But the fire singes wolves. It hurts, so they leave. They leave and they don’t come back.

The kids are rather unsettled by this first of many violent encounters that they will witness. Untoltelage thinks that maybe they should fight wolves more often to desensitize the children to violence and death. Otherwise, encounters with other people will leave the children so disgusted that they would vomit.

Untoltelage is tired. Untoltelage is hungry. What is he supposed to do? The kids are sitting and laying on the ground and against trees. They can’t continue. Untoltelage is pretty tired himself. So what could he possible do?

He is going to have to stop for the night. They have nothing. How will they stop for the night? They don’t have food or shelter. There is no good places to sleep except the grassy ground. It is getting old out now.

This won’t be a problem for Untoltelage. He knows that such discomfort and pain is minor compared to what they will endure in the next few days. He stops for the night. He would set up camp if they had anything to set up, but they don’t.

The first decade is always the hardest.

He isn’t thinking straight. So he sets fire to some nearby trees and bushes to give them light and warmth while they figure out how and where they are going to sleep.

The kids are hungry. But at such a young age, Untoltelage can only make food or shelter, not both. Smoke flies in Untoltelage’s face as he tries to decide which need he should tend to. Hunger or shelter. He is hungry, but he can always just make food in the morning. Without shelter, he will have trouble sleeping, which would not be able to solved in the morning. So he decides to make food. (Wait, what? I just pointed out that it would only be logical to make shelter, not food. Why did I have him make food?)

This isn’t so easy as he thought it would be. The forest around him is ablaze. If there were any fruit-bearing trees here, unlikely, they would be burning right now. Whatever, Untoltelage doesn’t expect to be fighting anyone for a few days, he should be fine wasting all of his plant magic in conjuration.

He has all of the kids gather around as he makes the food. Kekister, Hyethra, Quastiffany and Jostahim watch as Untoltelage conjures a seed and plants it into the ground where it rapidly grows into a small bush with berries. It’s not much food, especially for the total five nine-year-olds that he needs to feed. He is used to only feeding himself.

The Untoltelage lays down on the leaf covered grass as the trees around him are reduced to ash. Maybe if the other kids were less tired, they would have worried about the fact that they are sleeping in the middle of a forest fire.

Thye awake the next day. The forest around them is far more intact than they would have expected. That isn’t to say that there was much forest left. The kids simply had expectations of the forest being completely destroyed so that nothing remained to indicate that there had ever been a forest here.

No there were still trees. They just lacked their leaves, most of their branches, where charred black, and most of them had fallen over. The grass was missing. Instead, the ground was burnt black in its place.

Untoltelage is now regretting his decision to produce food instead of shelter and a soft place to sleep. But it’s too late to change it now.

Now, he might as well to produce more food for breakfast. It’s not going to be enough. Conjuration drains so much of magic. He is also so young and has less magic. And worst of all, there are four extra kids he needs to feed.

Wolves attacked him yesterday. If animals live here, then there must be something to eat. Untoltelage is beginning to come up with a plan.

“Hey, kids. I have an idea. Eating berries isn’t going to be enough. But I think I have an idea on how we can get more food.” Untoltelage says.

The kids don’t like how Untoltelage calls them “kids.” Untoltelage is the same age as them. They think he is acting as if he is superior to everyone else. The reason the kids abide this behavior is because they agree. Untoltelage is superior. Maybe not good. Or nice. But superior. He could kill them all with barely a thought and yet he is helping them survive, though his reluctance to do so scares them.

Untoltelage leads the group again. But this time, Untoltelage specifically searches for animal tracks. Problem is, there are no animal tracks. Untoltelage’s forest fire drove away any animals that might have been nearby. Untoltelage continues searching for animals tracks until eventually they leave the area where the fire spread. They are back in full forest. Animal per area is more dense because they left the burnt forest area to enter these areas.