Calith, the Young Scout

Calith and his father, Maritus, were wandering merchants on their way to Keldaerin. They dealt mainly in pelts, hides, and furs of the animals that they hunted on their travels. His mother had died from the Red Death many years ago, leaving him in the sole custody of his father. He was a good man, though did not have the slightest idea of how to raise a child on his own. He did the best he could though, and trained his son in the ways of nature and the hunt. Calith showed great interest and great talent when it came to the art of survival, which made his father have hope in himself and his broken family.

A week before they were to arrive at the gates of the city, they were hunting with their loyal companion Nuru one morning just before dawn. They came across a small clearing with some elk grazing amongst the ferns. Calith’s father notched an arrow and drew his bow back as far as he could reach. However, just as he was about to let it go a creature, whose hideous features were only matched by the beasts in the child's nightmares, came from the bushes behind them and towards his father. The great beast pierced the top of Maritus’ skull with a spear, driving it’s tip completely through and pinning him to the earth. Calith ran in terror and managed to hide in a small tunnel, too small for the creature to fit even one paw into. There he waited for hours until it seemed that things were clear. When he poked his head out to search the area Nuru came bounding over, tackling him to the ground. They were lost in the woods with no sense of where to go, Caith made his way through the forests with his companion, in hopes of finding some help.

A few days into their wanderings, Calith spotted smoke off in the distance. He was hungry and tired and not thinking clearly, so despite the warnings from his companion, he quietly made his way closer to the smoke. This lead him to an abandoned camp, though only recently, where a few tents were encircling a small fire which still had a few bits wild boar meat stuck to the spit. The boy bound into the camp and towards the food, though he only made it a few yards before being surrounded by a net and knocked unconscious. He woke up hours later in a small cavern room, his friend beside him leashed to the wall, with no idea where he was or if he was going to live through the night.

Weeks passed and eventually he was escorted out of his cell and back to the surface. He thought that breathing fresh air and being back in the sunlight would be the happiest moment in his life, though the circumstances dampened his feelings of joy and hope. He was to join a group of warriors and killers in the slaughtering of helpless creatures, all for the sake of territory. He reluctantly agreed, for what other choice does he have? At least in the woods he is at home, and he still has his friend with him. And perhaps eventually he can seek revenge on those who took him away from his father.

As a young boy, Delis grew up in a colony comprised primarily of teenagers and children with very little adults present. What little of the older generation was still around handed out orders to the others. This created a hierarchy not of a parent-child relation, but that of a leader-worker. The children and teenagers comprised the majority of the work force; cooking, cleaning, and farming for the village. This gave the older and stronger of the young generations the majority of the work, since they were more able-bodied and could complete more labor-intensive tasks, leaving the youngest and weakest of the bunch to scrape and fend for them selves. This is how Delis lived: In the darkness of the woods surrounding the town and the obscurity of dusk throughout.

In this society your intake was connected to your output, or in other words you ate if you worked. The more you worked, the more you ate allowing you to work more, causing some people to have a fairly good excess of provisions. This is how the smaller of the colony were able to survive. In the shadows they made their ways into the storerooms of the others, taking what they needed and then some for the others who weren’t as able to make their way through the dark. The bravest of the group even sometimes ventured into the homes of some. Most of the people in town were aware of this nightly thievery, however they did not particularly care one way or the other about it. So long as they only took what they needed and nothing of true value was stolen, there were no problems. Delis had a leg up in this aspect, since ever since he was younger than he could remember a small, black, shaggy dog with strange clawed paws had followed him around. Nuru had watched his master’s back and, in turn, had been able to get fed on a regular basis and not become food itself for the creatures and people inhabiting the woods. Any time trouble found itself near the duo, Nuru made sure that the child knew it. That is until they unknowingly made their way into Braham’s stocks.

He was not particularly fond of the thieving types and often set up traps in and around his house and storages. One night, despite hearing the stories and tales of this supposedly break-proof lair, Delis decided to brave the warnings and see what was inside that could possibly be of such protection. He made his way through the woods, closely followed by Nuru, and over the fence. He casually stepped around a poorly disguised hole in the ground, over poorly tied ropes, and after only a few moments found himself through the back door of the house. However, perhaps he let his guard down too soon for, stepping one foot over the threshold; Delis found that he was stuck in a net and being glared at by a large, thick, dark-skinned bald man by the name of Braham.

He scratched his leg and then his matted beard. Then with the other hand he itched his back with a sword that, because of his size, looked like it could have been his butter knife, but was nearly the length of the child. When he finished his indulgence he then pointed the sword at Delis, taunting him just before he would receive a brief punishment just before letting him go, but Nuru took this as a sign of severe harm to his master and attacked Braham. The taloned dog knocked the net sending it in a spin, then grabbing Braham by the leg digging his teeth nearly to the bone. Braham fell down in pain just as the blade sliced through the rope and a part of Delis’ back. He made his way to his feet quickly. Delis was barely able to pick up the sword in both hands, but without the slightest hesitation, managed to drive the end into Braham’s shoulder, then kicking him in the chest and the head. He ran over to Nuru and the two of them made their way to the door. As the boy and his companion crossed the thresh hold out of the house, yells of “Get him!” were streaming from within. Suddenly flames came from all angles and only a back alley just across the roadway was their chance to escape. The team dashed down between the walls and just managed to squeeze under the foundation of a house where none of the larger townsfolk could follow. In pitch black, Nuru led the way from building to building until they were finally bathed in broken moonlight, surrounded by the protection of the trees.

From that point on, Delis and his ally did what they could for food, making their way from town to town. Small and meaningless tasks supplied barely enough food for Nuru, let alone Delis as well. Eventually they learned to hunt, first starting with small rodents and mammals and birds, then leading to larger creatures like dear and the occasional bear and horse.

While searching for some work within a small village one day, he was approached by a man that was too well-dressed to have lived within this place. The not-so-common commoner asked Delis if he was a proficient hunter, which made him break a grin and reply with a chuckling “Yes.” He said that their was a special creature that he wanted Delis to hunt for him, since he was not up for the task, but that his talents would be rewarded with as much gold as he could hold in two hands. Never even having held a single piece of gold, Delis agreed immediately. The man repeated his request making sure that the young huntsman was truly up to the challenge, but his answer was unwavering. At this point the man pulled out a role of parchment from within his vest and handed it to Delis, explaining that a description of the creature and a general location was on the parchment (Luckily Delis had stolen a few language books and had taught himself to read at a young age). The man told Delis that, once his task was complete, he could meet him back at the inn just across the way. Delis and Nuru made their way out of the city in search of their prey.

Once out of the village Delis decided to take a look at what he and his companion were hunting. Unraveling the parchment, he found that the description on the scroll was that of a creature with light black, almost grey fur, would stand about five and-a-half feet high, and often travels along the path cut through the forests to the north of the village every half moon. Delis and Nuru set themselves within a tree just off of the path that merchants often used through the woods, knowing that they only had less than two nights before the rising of a half moon.

One night came and went, and the next followed just as uneventful, however this sunrise was the one that the creature was to be expected. Just as the man’s parchment had explained, just after dawn, once the sun had fully risen passed the horizon, a creature near five and-a-half feet high with graying dark fur made its way through the woods. But instead of some strange mythical beast which Delis was expecting, an aged man on horseback, a satchel on either side, trotted his way towards the town. For a moment Delis fought with the turmoil involved in this hunt, of commiting his first murder. Suddenly, Delis notched an arrow, took aim, following his target up to and passed himself, staring intently at the back of the man’s head. The ‘thwick’ of the bow gave a soft whistle through the forest, followed by a thud against the ground and the swift gallop of a horse fading away, dragging its prior owner in the dirt. Delis sat in the tree crying until nightfall before he finally made his way back into the village. Sure enough the well dressed man was sitting on a bench just outside of the inn at the edge of the road. He opened a bag and Delis reached inside, first with one hand and then the other, grabbing as many coins that he could hold.

Several weeks passed when Delis was approached by another man within the same village, sent by the too-well -dressed man who changed his life forever. From that point on this young hunter made his living on wealthy prey. Not quite good enough to become notorious, but just enough to garner the attention of a group of similarly skilled individuals.

Delis was approached by a gathering of thieves and assassins that made their living in a similar fashion to his, however on a level much higher. They offered to train him properly and arm him with the skills needed for a proper practice, only asking in return for his unyielding loyalty. Three years came and went, every day used to train in the art of stealth and death, including poisons, close and ranged combat, studies in information gathering, tracking, and the cartography of the lands. At the end of those three intense years of learning and training, it was time for the now young man to take his place within the legendary assemblage. Delis was given the cracked yellow and white mask of Knyja and became their youngest inductee at the age of seventeen. The newest initiate of the 7 was sent out of the den with his very first mark.