TravelingDog

Chapter  4 - Rayakar the Feral

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Shakkal and Noro left the small town just above Memorial and continued north, now with the wild hunt wolf willingly trotting beside Noro; at that point, she couldn’t tell it not to follow them if she tried. Unable to claim a bounty on the wolf, they were forced to walk to what Shakkal claimed was their first destination.

    “What did you mean when you said that things got complicated?” Noro asked confused as they walked.

    “Those orc brothers are bound to head back to some people who are eager for my head. When they find out they have a lead on my location, strong people are bound to come after us.”

    “I see…” Noro said simply.

    “You don’t seem too concerned.” Shakkal noted her calm expression.

    “Not really. I mean, you should have seen Wild in action! He’s strong maybe even stronger than you! Wild will watch out for us.”

    Shakkal couldn’t help but laugh lightly at this and her ignorance “Wild?”

    “Yeah. You said he was  called a wild hunt wolf, right? So then Wild for short!”

    “I see. Well, like I said before, he’s still young so Wild will only grow stronger.”

    As their first day of travel came to an end, Shakkal announced that they would be making camp a little ways off the trail.

The two sat in the little camp, sparks from the fire floating up into the sky. Suddenly. Noro asked from where she sat with Wild “So, where exactly is it that we're heading?”

“Before we can track down Balax, we must head North. I have allies who we will need in order to take down the creature. I'm afraid that I alone will not be enough.” Shakkal explained.

“Allies? Won't they too be wanted criminals?”

“Does that make you scared?” Shakkal taunted.

“No.” Noro said in a surprisingly confident tone. “If you trust them, they can't be that bad.” Shakkal couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at this. Noro asked defensively “What?!”

“You really trust me still. Don’t you?” Shakkal asked simply.

“Of course. You’re still Shakka.”

The next morning, the group continued on, eventually veering off the trail and heading into the woods. Shakkal, Noro, and Wild walked through the dark, dense forest with Wild close to Noro and Noro close to Shakkal. The forest was unnaturally silent so with every little rustle of a bush or leaves, Noro felt her feathers stand on end.

  Shakkal suddenly stopped walking and looked around, seeming to be trying to pinpoint something.

    “I believe this is the place…” Shakkal at last said, sounding rather unsure.

    “Your friend is somewhere out here?!” Noro asked shocked, still looking back and forth anxiously.

    “The nature of this forest tells me he is.” Shakkal said rather cryptically.

    “So, we’re just supposed to wait around for him to show up?”

    “It shouldn’t take long. I believe that we’re at the heart of this forest. He should sense us rather quickly.” Shakkal assured her.

    “If you say so.” Noro sighed, still uncomfortable in the dark place.

    They waited around for several minutes before Noro grew tired of standing around. Spotting a large, flat boulder nearby, Noro walked over to it and sat down. Then, only a couple of minutes later, the bushes behind her rattled violently. Although Shakkal and Wild quickly turned their attention to it, they were unable to react before a large beast pounced from it’s cover and pinned Noro to the rock.

    The creature was a large, black, and over all feline looking creature with red stripes. It was clearly  a creature of another plane as it had six legs and two long, spiked tentacles coming off it’s back, just below the shoulder blades. The beast pinned Noro down easily with one of it’s four front paws and swiped it’s tentacles at Wild as he tried to take on Noro’s attacker.

    “It’s been a long time, Rayakar.” Shakkal suddenly said with a calm tone. The beast froze in its assault as it turned it’s attention to Shakkal with it’s large, pointed ears perked. “These two are with me, so I’d prefer it if you didn’t harm them.” As the creature stared at Shakkal in shock, it suddenly stepped off of Noro and walked over to Shakkal.

    Noro quickly rubbed her sore chest and backed away from the beast as it prowled around Shakkal in a suspicious way until at last the creature suddenly said in a surprised tone “Shakkal…”

    “It speaks?!” Noro was flabbergasted now as she stood back up and held her sore chest while Wild pressed himself close to her, standing between her and the beast.

    “He speaks.” Shakkal corrected as the beast’s form suddenly began contorting and it actually transformed into the form of a man. He appeared to be elfen of some sort with red hair and shocking purplish-blue skin. He also had large mandibular fangs sticking out above his lip and paint on his face and body in the design of stripes. The man had sparse clothing on with just baggy pants and some form of cloth that draped around his torso from one shoulder along with a leather belt wrapped around the other. Otherwise, he had a headband at the base of his pushed back hair and his hands were wrapped, both of these in the same green material as that around his torso. He carried no weapons, but the long scar that ran down his left eye and cheek, along with the form they had just seen, showed just how battle fit he was.

    Rayakar glanced back at Noro and Wild and scoffed “It’s not like you to travel with such weak companions.” Noro was clearly offended by this as she puffed out her cheeks in aggravation.

    “Yes, well, like it or not, I am.” Shakkal said simply without even trying to defend her.

    “A harpy too. What’s with you, you got a thing for birds?” By now Rayakar had turned back to face Shakkal completely once again as they spoke.

    “So what if I’m a harpy?!” Noro now yelled angrily at him before Shakkal could say anything, causing the blue skinned elf to turn his head back to her “You’re one to talk, Monster!”

    “Excuse me?” Now Rayakar was insulted and he turned to face her completely now as they argued “I happen to be a wood elf druid, Fledgeling. Anyone would call you a monster.” Noro was shocked by this as she would have sworn that he was a being from another plane.

    “I am not a fledgeling! So if you're a druid, then what the heck is that beast form you were in? I’ve never even heard of a creature with that appearance on this continent!” Noro argued.

    “It’s called a displacer beast kid and I doubt a brat like you would have heard of it. Just look at how small your wings are, you can’t be over a decade!”

    “I’m just shy of two decades I’ll have you know! What would an elf like you know of harpies anyhow?!”

    “Alright, alright. Enough quarreling you two.” Shakkal at last interrupted, walking between the two to get both of their attention. “Rayakar, this is Noro. Noro, Rayakar. You must put these ill feelings for eachother out of your minds if we will be traveling together.”

    “Hold up, who says I want to go with you? I happen to like it here…” Rayakar now reasoned though his words seemed rather empty.

    “To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised should you choose not to come.” Shakkal admitted “However we are headed north to Kyrasha’s guild to get Shady and Snozz next. I have an errand I need to run that I would like your help with.” Both Rayakar and Noro were surprised by this.

    “What kind of an errand?” Rayakar now asked, expression and voice darkening.

    “There is someone, or perhaps I should say something, that I need to kill.” Shakkal explained, shocking Rayakar.

“Alright. I’ll come.” Rayakar suddenly agreed.

“I’m glad to hear it.” Shakkal said simply as he turned towards the way that they had come.

“Wow. Bloodthirsty, aren’t ya?” Noro said judgingly.

“Excuse me?” Rayakar now turned down to her annoyed as they walked after Shakkal.

“The minute you hear that he’s going to kill something you're all gung ho about it.” Noro pointed out.

Rather than be upset however, Rayakar sighed “I don’’t know why Shakkal is letting you tag along, but if you're going to be traveling with us, you’ll understand someday.”

The small party eventually arrived in a lakeside city early the next morning. A light fog drifted in off the lake, setting an eerie atmosphere throughout the town. Beyond the town was a vast evergreen forest and past that, the snowy Thagrin Mountains. The town remained ominously silent with few townsfolk traversing the early morning streets aside from one or two hooded figures who passed by.

“Can we rest here in town for a while, Shakka? We’ve been traveling nearly nonstop these past couple of days.” Noro suddenly asked.

“Shakka?’” Rayakar repeated amused,

Ignoring Rayakar, Shakkal was going to deny that idea outright at first, but then recalled Noro’s  inexperience when it came to traveling far. Shakkal sighed and reasoned “Perhaps if we can find some work, we can get a chance to rest and get a room in the local tavern.”

Noro whined “We couldn't find anything in the last town though. What if we can't find anything here either?”

“That’s just how it is Noro.” Shakkal said and then added half heartedly “You’re welcome to turn back to Memorial if you’d rather.”

“No!” Noro refused immediately. “I can handle it…”

“Well, at least she’s easy to quiet.” Rayakar mused, looking down at Noro. Noro huffed once again, prepared to make a retort, when a small rock went flying past Shakkal’s face causing the party to stop. Turning their attention to the direction it had come from, three young boys were standing there and began throwing the rest of the rocks they had in their hands.

“Hey!” Noro was the first to yell at them angrily. While the majority of the rocks seemed to be aimed at Shakkal, one of them strayed towards Noro, but Shakkal was quick to pull her behind him and out of the way.

“Monster, Riskel!” One of the boys yelled when they ran out of rocks and turned as they ran away down the street.

Before the party could react, a new voice shouted out “Hey! Tom, Billy, Chaya!” Now, an older half elf came running towards them, yelling angrily at the the boys who were long gone by now. Seeing that a chase would be futile, the man then turned to the party and apologized “I’m sorry about them, Priest, they mistook you for… someone else.” The party was surprised by this. “Please, allow me to make it up to you for their behavior.”