Chapter 2: 2: The Dying Man's Tale

The end of winter approached, as did the hunt.

You see, the people of these parts speak of the Greyfeather Stag: a white deer with antlers seven feet long and the wisdom of a spirit who has seen and survived a hundred winters. Every year, some foolish soul goes in search of him with hopes of finding glory - and riches, mind you, for it’s said that his hide’s impenetrable, his meat grants long life, and the powder of his horns turns anything it’s sprinkled on to gold.

I’ve never known much in the way of glory or riches, or even moderate success. I’ve even written letters to my own mother full of lies about the things I’ve done since I left home in search of my own way: the jobs I’ve worked, the family I’ve had. None of it true, but I couldn’t bear to think of her disappointed in me, see. I told her I moved far away, over near our great capital. Even described the sights there: the castle of the Twin Crown, the wintertide lanterns by the wide river, the grand sprawling markets each twice as big as the village where I grew up. In fact, I’ve been living only a day’s walk from home ever since I left, but never went back. Never will now, I suppose.

Anyway, the heart of the matter is that my time came. Or I went after it, more’s perhaps the truth. Still, the time of year came around when tradition was for a man or two to go after the old white deer, and I suppose I thought perhaps it was time for me to finally achieve something. If nothing else, I’d come back and tell the customary tales of the hunt, of the flashes of white I’d seen from afar through the leaves, or the crunch of great hooves, only for the beast to vanish as I drew near. That way, I’d be part of something. The hero of the story, if only for a day or two.

So I volunteered, as did my old companion Alister Manchfort. He wasn’t too keen, but I promised him a grand wheel of cheese when we got back. Way to a Manchfort’s heart is through his stomach, and the way to a Manchfort’s stomach is with cheese. That’s as true a thing as any proof the scholars have ever dreamt up in their universities, I’ll tell you.

Got him to leave our home the same way, many years back: we were barely teens, I said I needed to go and make something of myself out in the world, he said he’d rather stay at home, I promised him cheese, and three-plus decades later, here he still was with me in Galoshton.

~~~

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” said Wren, who very much did mean to interrupt, “or to be insensitive or anything, but… it feels like there are a lot of tangents and asides to this story. Which is great, and I’m very much enjoying it and all, but we might be a bit pressured for time to get it told.” She nodded meaningfully at the extremely conspicuous wound in the older man’s abdomen.

Dachran huffed. “The story is the asides,” he said, “as much as it’s the beginning and the middle and the end and all the rest of it. Who’s to tell me which parts of my story are the important ones, hm?”

Wren conceded the point.

“But, since you insist,” said Dachran, adopting a little of his earlier haughty air, and he continued:

~~~

So it was that Alister and I began the hunt for the Greyfeather Stag, the two of us setting out for these hills from the town of Galoshton, not far north from where we are now. We had our packs packed, our boots laced, and neither of us had ever hunted a day in our lives before.

It wasn’t really about finding the stag, see. Even if we knew how to hunt, folks with far more skill than us - and far fewer years, as we were each nearing our fifth decade - had been trying for years. Who were we to be the ones to catch him?

All we knew of the beast were two simple legends:

First, that you must stand firm and look him in the eye if he sees you. Give him the respect he’s due, and he’ll return it. Otherwise, he’ll not be best pleased at all, and nobody wants a not-best-pleased stag with seven-foot antlers on their case.

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Second, that you’ll know he’s near by a twinkling sound like glass breaking or snow crunching, though there’ll be no glass to break nor snow to crunch.

And all that business about what his parts could be used and sold for, of course, but we had no illusions we’d ever have cause to call on that knowledge.

Our first day on the hills, I shot an arrow at some game bird, some grouse or pheasant or other. Probably belonged to a local farmer, now I think of it, but nevertheless I shot at it and would’ve eaten it had my aim been true. It wasn’t, of course, since I’d never shot at anything that didn’t have a big target ring painted on it before, but that shot that went awry landed in a great big hare who’d been sitting in the gorse next to the bird. I hadn’t even seen that he was there, to tell the truth, but I got him; so I nabbed him, and Alister and I had him for our dinner with half a flask of wine each and some berries and mushrooms we foraged like true outdoorsmen, as well as a great big hunk of cheese and some nice sliced ham we’d brought from home - and a loaf of bread, come to think of it, and there were those little pickled fish as well that the old vendor of sundries gave us before we left. As I was saying, true hunters living off the land.

We awoke on the second day to the sound of cracking, alike to shards of glass crunching under a boot.

“Alister,” said I, “didst thine ears -”

No, that’s not how I said it at all, much as I’d want this tale to be one of great chivalry and poetry.

“Oi,” I hissed at him, “you hear that?”

“I did,” Alister whispered, and the two of us sat up as slowly as we dared, hardly breathing for fear of being heard.

Then came that sound again, and our heads nearly twisted clean off our necks with how fast we turned to look.

Then it was sighs of relief all around. All that had happened was that in the lateness of winter, a frost had formed in the night. As the morning arrived, the little nubs of ice thawed and broke and fell.

But it put the fear of the unseen into us, see. We were well and truly awake then, even us middle-aged and comfortable men who liked to sleep in. Every plink of dew dropping off a branch made our hearts race; every rustle of heather as a bird or weasel shuffled around made us jump out of our skin, thinking a terrible beast was come to tear our arms off and feast on the joints of our shoulders.

Still, much as we didn’t dare think what might happen if we were to truly come face to face with a predator, we didn’t dare go home just yet neither. You had to spend at least a couple of nights in pursuit of the Greyfeather Stag, see, else you hadn’t really tried at all.

“Should we just find another village somewhere and stay in a pub or something?” Alister suggested, but I told him no. I’d brought us both out here so I could at least say I’d done something, and I wasn’t about to turn my back on that, as tempting as the offer might’ve been.

But I didn’t quite embrace the experience as it was intended, either. Staying outside didn’t make me a man of nature, you see. I don’t know what I thought would happen: that I’d somehow just know what to do out there, maybe. But it doesn’t work like that, of course. I set a couple of fires to keep myself warm and didn’t look where I’d put them. Burned down a tree or two, probably a few nests. Shouldn’t have done that, really. Left waste; threw some things straight in the river that I ought to’ve taken home and disposed of properly.

The second day passed without much incident, as did the third. We ate a bit more of that hare and a few more mushrooms, and felt like famed explorers conquering the wilderness.

Then, on the morning of the third day, I awoke to the most frightening sight a man could imagine. Not six inches from my face, the visage of a white stag. Its cold eyes bored into me, froze the very soul within me, made me feel as if I were already dead. Its antlers were nine feet high and forked like lightning. Its breath was hot like the pit of any hell you care to name.

“You have not respected these lands,” said the Greyfeather Stag, and in terror I leapt up, forgetting that you should always keep your eyes on that beast of legend, and I ran for my life. I didn’t see Alister, and I thought perhaps the stag had snatched him up already.

I might have made it, too, such haste was I making - but it was not to be, for my foot slipped on something loose and the next moment, my face was in the dirt. I lifted my head just enough to see the treacherous item that had brought me down: a discarded jar, the contents of which Alister and I had eaten before throwing the container straight on the ground with no care for keeping the hills unsullied. My own littering had done me in.

I managed to roll onto my back, and I heard that fateful twinkling sound as the Greyfeather Stag approached.

“This is what comes of man who fails to take care of the world that has been entrusted to him,” pronounced the Greyfeather Stag, and the next thing I knew, that mythical creature had impaled me upon his antler. He raised his head and part of the horn broke off in me, only to grow back straight away. “You shall live only long enough to tell others not to repeat your errors,” said the stag, and then it was gone.

I crawled to the base of the tree where you see me now. I braced myself against the agony, though I admit I screamed.

Now, these few hours later, the pain has almost faded. My time has come.

That Greyfeather Stag has ended me, taken Alister, and all because of our own foolishness.