Bloodbranded (Trial Chapter)
So I figured that the best way to actually develop my story is to actually write it. This is a trial chapter, so characters and concepts may change in the future, but I appreciate anyone who reads this. <3
Words: 3, 565 TW: Hunting / animal death, body horror
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The twang of a drawstring sliced through the frozen air, a swift death to an otherwise perpetual silence. By the time its warning echoed to the oak branches, an arrow had already embedded through its target and sent it into the snow with a cushioned thud. Only then did he exhale.
Wayde lowered his longbow yet kept it in hand as he traversed the snow. He leapt across the small, icy stream that bordered him from his catch and stepped up its steady incline with ease. His footsteps crunched as his boots broke through the fresh, fluffy surface to the hardened layer beneath and left a prominent mark in his wake.
His catch, a three-pointed elk, would trade moderately well in Silvis’ community with his infamous shots. They were uncommon in this season of their eternal winter, so they could be exchanged for a little more when his mother traded off the excess venison. He could usually haggle the fletcher for a few more arrows just with the sight of the shot itself.
Straight through one eye and out the other. Quick, precise, and certain. Not only did it impress most, it meant he didn’t have to watch it desperately run, crawl, then struggle away from him.
A small halo of blood stained the snow pillowed beneath its head, glistening in the sunlight, which trickled through the branches. Its hooves still twitched like it remained trapped in the final instinct to flee, carving lines in the snow before it finally fell still. Wayde pulled down his mask, and the frigid cold stung his nose, his breath escaping in dragon smoke before his eyes.
He placed the wooden whistle dangling from his neck between his lips and blew three sequential notes to signal his catch. As he waited idly for the short response, whistle still between his teeth, he unstrung his bowstring and loosely folded it to store in his belt pouch.
Wayde blew the three notes again yet was interrupted by the third as a sharper note echoed curtly to his right. He merely rolled his eyes, strapped his longbow on his back, and retrieved his knife from its holster.
He stepped one foot over the carcass and lifted its heavy head by the antler, opting for the smallest tine to carve away.
Snow crunched heavily behind him, and the shrubbery rustled as they were disturbed.
“What are you doing that for?” Lyall’s long legs stepped deftly over the shrubbery, balancing a pole of fresh river fish over his shoulder. “That will ruin its value.”
“Felicity’s been nagging for a tine for two moons,” Wayde replied with a shrug, carving until the bone fell into his palm. She adamantly specified that it was to be cut and not snapped. “You should be impressed that I provided this catch for us in the first place.”
“Why would I be impressed by something you brag about every day?” He countered dryly, draping his arm over the rod.
“It tastes better than fish,”
Lyall responded with a deadpan chuckle and an eyeroll, a trait their mother would scold Wayde for mimicking while disregarding the source. As the eldest, and the strongest shoulders after their father, he was often pardoned as such.
Lyall’s presence could command any room with just a mere glance, let alone a smile or a conversation. He towered over most with ease yet held his balance with the same certainty as the colossal trees and the tales of mountains. His limbs, though long, lacked any doubt in where they were placed, and the labour of a fisherman was evident in his strong arms.
“Well good luck loading that onto the sled,” he noted jovially, freeing one arm to swat Wayde’s hood off his head and snicker at his scowl.
“Where is Thelas, anyway?” Wayde scanned the stark white landscape for any sign of his second brother, yet the vast forest remained devoid of life save for them. No matter the volume, their voices were whispers under the trees, merely the bubble of a stream or a fox’s footprints.
Only their whistles could cut through the static air as they called for their brother.
One long note rippled outward, rustling a flock of birds from above
Finally, another echoed back.
“Half a mile northeast.” Lyall deduced, to which Wayde groaned.
“I can’t drag this for half a mile!”
He sent out his initial three sequential notes, yet two sharper ones argued back moments later.
“He has the dogs; why does he need us to go to him?” Wayde complained, and his head rolled alongside his eyes to express his reluctance. Lyall rarely entertained his complaints and instead retrieved a coil of rope from his pack.
“If I had that mentality when we were children, you would be dead.” He tossed the rope at his chest and gestured impatiently. “Secure it, and I’ll help you carry it.”
Wayde’s scar always became hyperaware of the cold whenever Lyall brought it up. He typically ignored how much sharper the damaged flesh felt against the air, yet it would sting spitefully at the slightest acknowledgement. Needles dragged endlessly across his right eye in those moments, trapped in the memory like he still lay in the snow, five years old and wondering what Goddess Aiyana looked like.
“I don’t need your help.” Wayde grumbled, pulling his mask over his nose, wincing slightly as the cold pricked what was left exposed.
The halo became a lake as he dragged the elk through the snow, and the trails of blood forged the streams which led up to it. Fervent crimson burned against pure white like ink, staining its signature upon parchment.
Colossal trees held up their sky like mighty guardians. Each trunk spanned eighty feet in width and towered endlessly upward; their mighty branches stretched unashamedly with untethered freedom. Light spilt through the vast borders between each crown, echoing the rivers below like ancient cartographers.
Ginormous, centuries-old oaks grew from the surface roots like mere branches, nurtured from saplings with roots intertwined like a child and parent’s hands.
Some surface roots formed snow-coated hills with soil and shrubbery shaped to their will, while others arched high enough to walk under. One colossal root bridged the Broken Gorge, buried deep within the stone on the other side, its surface worn smooth by aeons of animals and travellers alike.
They crossed to the other side with certainty and paid a nod of respect to the tree that gifted them their path.
Thelas’ responses grew much louder as they drew closer, and Wayde huffed from the effort and frustration of dragging his catch up yet another incline.
“I swear, he better have found an abundance”—he groaned as he tugged the elk up to his feet—“of sweet fruit, or I’m gonna clobber him!”
Lyall cracked a laugh at that, then sighed with his own sense of exasperation. “We’ve reached the red charms, we will be right next to the border at this rate.”
Each colossal tree trunk was decorated with a string of charms praying for their good health and simultaneously painted to act as waypoints. This way, one could navigate to and from Silvis with ease.
“Why is he even out this far?”
“I don’t know,” Lyall put the whistle to his lips and blew again, receiving another response moments later alongside the distant barking of their sledge dogs. “Come on, he’s nearby.”
Wayde groaned, took a deep breath, and heaved the elk ever onwards.
The white sky shifted slowly into grey as the evening crept closer, and the red charms began to glow with the slightest hue. Thankfully the walk was only fifteen minutes or so; otherwise, Wayde was sure Lyall would have made good on his threat for him.
The dogs spotted them first and barked wildly upon their arrival, and Thelas hastily jogged over to them.
He was similar in appearance to Lyall, albeit two inches shorter with a stockier build. They shared the same blond hair as their mother, while Wayde had their father’s brunette. His beard had finally started growing past its awkward, patchy state, and he relished in it, going by how well combed it was.
“Apologies that it took us a while,” Lyall remarked as Thelas closed the distance between them and gave him a light shove which was promptly returned. “Wayde managed to bring down an elk and insisted on dragging it.”
“An elk?” Thelas raised his eyebrows, somewhat amused until he laid eyes on Wayde as he finally stopped to catch his breath, then the elk behind him. “Oh, so you have!” He walked over to inspect it, immediately examining the broken tine on its antlers. “I just assumed it was rabbits again, but that’s a good catch – shame about this tine, though.”
“He cut it off,” Lyall added, then folded his arms.
“What– why would you do that?”
“Apparently Felicity needs one,”
“I see you’re not being mauled by a bear.” Wayde snapped breathlessly, his hands propped on his knees so he could look up at him, kicking at his calf when he walked past again. “Why did you make us come all the way to you?”
Thelas’ expression furrowed at his question, the concern he briefly distracted himself from now written on his brow. He stepped backwards, then turned on his heel to return to where he’d emerged.
“I–” he cleared his throat “–I found something.”
Lyall mirrored his expression – the pair looked identical when they frowned, save for Thelas’ beard. Wayde tried to exchange a look with him, but he’d already stepped over the shrubbery to where the dogs barked and paced relentlessly.
Wayde hurried after him and leapt nimbly over the bushes. He glanced tentatively back to his catch, yet it remained motionless, and his brothers didn’t wait for him. So, clutching the hilt of his knife, he followed them around the edge of a colossal tree.
The first thing he noticed was the disturbed snow, torn down to the frozen dirt beneath. What were once paw prints had moulded into a trodden mass, scratches and claw marks scarring the ground and tree bark in a frantic, almost aimless fashion.
Amongst the mess were three shapes. Bodies.
“Gods above.” Lyall cursed, his grip tightening on the pole over his shoulder.
Wayde could easily recognise two of the bodies as black wolves. One appeared to have its neck torn open with its jugular discarded beside it, while the other was disembowelled. Their dark eyes were wide and glassy, trapped in a final state of fear and pain.
Yet what lay dead a few feet away from them truly evaded him. A creature like a silhouette snatched from the night. He tilted his head to discern its gaunt features from one another.
Whatever it was looked humanoid, but only in the sense that it appeared bipedal. It lacked fur or pelt, the surface of what he only imagined was skin a shiny, hardened mass as blackened as tar. Elongated limbs twisted in every direction, bone-like appendages branching from one joint only to converge again on the next.
Its skull lay limp in the snow, devoid and hollow. The skin clung to it like a shell, almost reminiscent of a beak to encase its agape maw. A hand left to reach upward was made almost entirely of long fingers that curled inward with four joints. Blood had formed icicles on the tips of horrific claws.
There was no meat on its bones nor any indication of features. Hollow eyes like geodes stared beyond their boots at nothing and everything.
“What in the name of Mother Esme is that?” Lyall questioned, his face drained of colour.
“It’s dead, I checked,” Thelas replied, then gave it another kick for good measure. “I think one of the wolf packs must have ganged up on it.”
“That is not what I asked,”
“Because I don’t have an answer for that.”
“It could be a deformed animal,” Wayde piped in, prodding at its skull with the tip of his longbow. Lyall pushed him backwards and stepped in front of him to inspect it in his place.
“What sort of animal has limbs like these?” Lyall dared to touch it, albeit with gloves on, and grabbed at one of the arched joints like a handlebar. He tried to flex it, but the creature only jostled, its entire body rigid. “It’s frozen solid.”
“The wolves’ teeth are all broken,” Thelas added, opening the jaw of one of the wolves to reveal bloody gums and shattered fangs protruding like glass shards. “There’s tons of them in the snow, see?”
Wayde merely rolled his eyes, fastening the drawstring back onto his longbow to prepare for a threat he couldn’t decipher. He let the pair fuss and theorise, opting instead to gralloch the elk while he waited to keep himself busy.
He made seamless work of it all, honing his mind to eavesdropping on his brothers’ bickering to avoid the grim squelches and scrapes. His work was efficient as they came – opting for quick, clean results to get the job out of the way as soon as possible.
“It would be a waste to leave black wolf pelts out here,” Thelas said somewhat hopefully.
“I hope that’s a joke,”
“I’m just saying I could salvage some of this,” he continued, gesturing to what the creature left intact and warranting a tut. “It would probably be the perfect size for Essie.”
Wayde kept his lips sealed shut to avoid breathing in the stench of warm viscera and keep his comments to himself.
He could not bury the remains of the elk as was tradition with the ground so frozen, so he left it between the roots of a colossal tree for the scavengers. It made no difference to the horrific scene; nothing could make it any better or worse in his mind.
His once-brown gloves had turned burgundy as the blood soaked through the leather, likely enough to stain them permanently. Wayde didn’t care so long as the job was done. He could trade the antlers for a new pair if he were charismatic enough.
“We need to bring this back to Silvis,” Lyall finally proposed, lifting his fish to the sledge to secure them. “Wayde, let’s fix your elk and head home.”
“On it.”
Thelas had collected half a basket’s worth of berries, roots, and herbs, his yield significantly affected by the distraction. It provided enough for their family for the week, yet Wayde was confident he would have to barter his elk far more efficiently to make up for it. At least until Lyall inevitably relinquished the responsibility on his behalf.
The wolves were eventually, and reluctantly, deemed as a lost cause – though, in truth, he was relieved. He didn’t think he could stomach the image of their little sister bundled up in such furs.
Quick, precise, certain. That was what every hunter needed to be.
The manner in which those wolves died was anything but.
Wayde cleared the thought from his head and pulled the rope taut.
Their spoils were stacked across the sledge with meticulous organisation and secured like gold. The creature dragged behind them so as not to risk spoiling the meat.
It was surprisingly deceiving for its size, and the dogs seemed to have more trouble hauling the gutted elk. The carcass carved lines through the snow behind them where the excess limbs jutted out yet never broke from its frozen state.
Thelas steered the dogs across the vast white landscape, and the sledge jostled gently at the speed. Lyall and Wayde stood with the elk and clutched the handles as trees, cliffs, and frozen rivers whizzed by. Red charms turned to purple, then yellow.
Wayde leaned his weight into the sledge. He craved the warmth of the hearth and a hot meal, something to trade the depriving silence of the forest for the ambience of home. His eyes closed for a moment, nestling into his furs as his scar stung from the cold.
Then he heard a crack.
At first, he dismissed it as a branch or ice. The dogs’ bounding paws and barks made it faint, barely discernible from the natural sounds of the sledge. Then there was another.
Wayde instinctively turned his attention back to the corpse behind them. The hand that once pointed aimlessly toward the sky had unfurled. His mind scrambled instantly, desperate for something to explain it away.
Right before his eyes, the creature’s hollow skull twisted back into place, the stiffened vertebrae crackling like a log splitting open. It shook out the snow that those hollow eyes had shovelled up, letting the rest pour from its void-like maw.
The reaching hand outstretched with new life and caught Lyall’s attention as it grappled at the snow.
“Gods above!”
Limbs contorted with a sense of maddening glee, flailing in and out of place as it frantically tried to free itself from its restraints. Excess joints snapped loose, only to drive into the ground as an anchor.
“Thelas!” Lyall exclaimed. “Thelas, it’s still alive!”
Wayde watched in horror as blackened spines splintered against the frozen soil, yet never relented.
That branch-like hand reached again and tore through the snow like flesh, clumps of dirt ploughed and uprooted like farmland. The sledge jolted for a moment, and berries scattered in all directions. It snatched once more, and the taut rope fell slack.
Wayde grappled his knife in an instant and shoved Lyall into the sledge as he dove at the rope. He began to saw with mindless speed, carving without any regard for precision or certainty. Each frantic breath clouded his vision. The flailing blotch of shadow swelled in the corner of his eye, rapidly approaching as the rope fell looser and looser in his hands.
Thelas turned a sharp corner, and a handful of roots flew into some bushes. The creature hurtled into a tree trunk, the force enough to yank the rope taut again. Wayde sawed through the last fraying strands, and they snapped simultaneously.
The creature barrelled into the snow, a gaunt assortment of limbs suddenly a sweltering mass when distance stretched between them.
“Faster!” Lyall bellowed, and Thelas echoed the command to the dogs. He grabbed Wayde by his hood and yanked him roughly to his feet to keep him standing.
Yet it didn’t stop.
Wayde fumbled for his longbow the very second he saw that hand reach.
It threw itself forward with reckless abandon, and the distance between them meant nothing. Arched legs surged upward, walking, then bounding, reminiscent of a wolf. A gaping maw widened, unhinging like that of a snake.
In those fleeting moments when its horrific body unfurled, it towered almost twice Lyall’s height.
Wayde nocked an arrow and drew back his arm, his stance steady but his jaw taut and eyes wide.
He let the arrow fly like his target was just another bird or rabbit — an elk whose antlers would trade him new gloves and a favour from Felicity.
The arrow soared and tore through his brothers’ yells and the dogs’ panicked barking. It met its target, sailing through a hollow eye with nothing but haste, precision, and certainty—
Then snapped.
The creature recoiled long enough to stretch a dozen metres between them and shook the halves of his arrow from its skull like one would shake the snow from their hair.
Its attention locked onto them again and bounded after them relentlessly. That beak-like jaw unhinged to release a shriek, and Wayde was five years old again.
The sound was both guttural and shrill, an awful, ripping noise. It lacked humanity as it did an animal’s amorality, rattling in some terrible space between.
Wayde heard it, and he was back in the snow. Five years old with burning blood pouring down his face. Wondering what the Goddess Aiyana looked like while Lyall, barely ten, shrieked and flailed a fishing spear. Shrieking until the beast leapt back into the shadows, left to exist in folktales.
He collapsed against the sledge with a shuddering gasp as Lyall sawed the rope securing his prize elk with the same thoughtless haste.
Wayde’s legs staggered over the carcass as Lyall gave it a final shove, his bulging eyes left to watch it roll into the snow.
Dismay blended with terror when he watched the creature finally stop.
The last thing he saw was that deformed beak as it drove into the elk’s neck before a colossal tree shielded them from view.
Another shriek echoed after them, and Wayde’s legs almost buckled beneath him. Lyall’s arms instinctively shot out to barricade him, his muscles taut and his mouth agape.
The only sound was the continuous rumble of the dogs’ paws against the snow and Thelas’ unanswered questions. Puffs of dragons’ smoke escaped their mouths with every sharp exhale.
“We’re back in the blue charms,” Thelas remarked a few minutes later.
Wayde’s eyes slowly drifted up to Lyall, tears stinging the corners of his left eye as they began to freeze on his face.
“You–” he swallowed thickly, then gave another punched-out exhale, “–you lost my elk.”
Lyall glanced down at him, a rare glint of guilt in his brown eyes before he returned his gaze to the wake they had left behind. “We’ll find you a new elk.”
It was the only way he ever apologised.
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Hey! If you made it this far, thank you so much!
Bloodbranded is one of my wistful dreams that I hope to publish one day (if I finally get brave enough to write it!), so it means a lot to me that anyone would read my original works!
I’d genuinely love to hear feedback for this trial chapter, how you interpreted characters etc - or whether you enjoyed it! Anything means the world <3 /np
Thank you for reading!
Reblogs appreciated! /np