Spotting the Beast

Part of the The White Hunt Arc

A piece of prose written by Orikahn that details his discovery of the auroch of Frostmaw.

Spotting the Beast

The Savage Queen admonishes that I,

Her Teeth, should leave the verdant Kelay woods,

Leave the warm and luscious southern woods,

Leave behind my indolence and torpor,

To live according to my vows of carnage

Upon the unforgiving, frozen land

Of Frostmaw. There, amid the blowing drifts

Will I retain my Savage Lady’s favor.

Hildegarde the Silver bade me hunt,

To name the hide and hair of such a beast

That cracks the earth with every thunderous step,

Vanishes like a devil in the snow,

And ne’er does show itself in plain of day.

At Hildegarde’s request, I don my skins

To track the beast, to name the monster true.

Leave the beast untouched, unharmed, she bade me,

But only track and name the monster true.

Oh Savage Queen, forgive my civil bargain!

Do not condemn me for my idle arrows.

I beg you overlook the unstained snows

And know your servant acts in honest faith.

For as the lion waits in silent ambush

Or the spider, patient in his web,

So I wait until the moment ripens,

So I wait to claim the trophy skull

For you, my Goddess—you, my Savage Queen.

Through every wood and over every stream

That dared to trickle through the icy crags,

Across the jagged cliffs, through lonesome caves

That howled their melancholy to the wind,

And down through steep ravines I searched, in vain

It seemed—a hopeless chase. The phantom beast

Eluded mine and all of Frostmaw’s eyes,

As if to mock our confidence and boasts.

How high upon the bluffs! I kept my vigil

Until the sun that blazed upon the snow

Had scorched my vision to a smoky dimness

That scarcely even could name the light of stars,

Much less the hides of phantoms ‘mid the drifts.

So sick was I with ill morale, so soon

My hunt should already be halting

In its own very tracks. I scarce could bear

The thought of that ignominious defeat,

For how could I console my wounded pride?

But woe! Without my eyes, I had naught but

The dimmest hope of triumph, great or small.

Unwilling to admit yet my defeat,

I stubbornly denied it, like a fool

Who cannot understand that he is beaten.

Still so resolved, I paused in my pursuit

And sought to make atonement for my weakness.

The spirits, I could hear their troubled moans

Lamenting, they cried, weeping over stones

In ruined craters, broken into splinters.

Through murky twilight, oh! their voices drew

Me drifting just as though into a blossom

Whose pungent, bitter fragrance beckons bees

With primal promise.

Into broken ruins

Rough I stumbled, scenting ancient stones

And oily musk. About this ancient place,

Stirring in whirling eddies, like rotting leaves

Disturbed from stagnant pools, the phosphorescent

Forms of dreary specters churned into

A frightful turmoil, a fevered choir

Recounting tales of recent desecration.

“Hear us, oh hunter! Pity us, and take

Our dreadful cries to heart. Dare not depart

In cowardice, but steel your nerves and listen.

See here this hallowed place, this sacred shrine.

Lament with us! This rubble where you stand

Is freshly strewn, and but this morning stood

Humbly, despite the passing centuries,

Broken, but yet unswept into the eons

Flowing toward oblivion’s abyss.

Tonight, this holy place is but a memory,

As fragile as the mortals who remember

Our altar as it was. How few they were,

And when the last of them have gone, who then

Will know to venerate this blessed space?

Lament with us! For we are damned to die

The second death.

Take up our loathesome cry!

Anoint yourself with vengeful indignation.

Open your eyes, take back your sight and gaze

Upon the the stamp of hooves, the signature

Of horns, inscribed in brutal disregard.

Hunter, string up your bow. Your quarry waits

For you asleep, alone atop the cliff.”

The dimness from my eyes drew back, and lo!

The stars returned to me and glittered through

An emerald northern sky. Auroras coiled;

Serpents with scales like glinting arrowheads

Slithered their manifold trajectories

Around the cloudless, moonlit mountaintops

And jabbed their fangs toward the lonely cliff.

There I beheld the beast.

The monster lay

against the burning sky, titanic, framed

By looming peaks, its musty breath adrift

In billowing clouds, its horns agleam like steel

Beneath a silver moonbeam, shining bright

As morning’s sun. Behemoth, there it slumbered,

With wool as white as virgin fleece, like snow.

And while I still looked on, it stirred and lifted

Up its bovine head to gaze away.

In perfect silhouette, I could discern

It bovine features, unmistakably

A wooly ox of most prodigious size.

Then up it got, and out from ‘neath the moon

I saw it walk with ponderous gait, away

And down the mountain side, until, at last,

The devil skirted ‘round a bluff and vanished.

When after this I dared to breathe again,

I found myself alone with broken stones,

With lichen-covered stones, and nothing more.

The ghosts had all departed, leaving me

To hoist along my ever-mounting burdens,

For Hildegarde, the spirits, and my Queen,

To satisfy their interests each in turn.

First, Hildegarde will know the monster true.

I leave the ox untouched, though spirits drive

My heart and mind to restless, vengeant strife.

Know, beast, I am avowed to claim your life.

Oh Savage Queen, forgive my civil bargain!

Do not condemn me for my idle arrows.

I beg you overlook the unstained snows

And know your servant acts in honest faith.

For as the lion waits in silent ambush

Or the spider, patient in his web,

So I wait until the moment ripens,

So I wait to claim the trophy skull

For you, my Goddess—you, my Savage Queen.