[Mkguild] Second Story Claws of the Tiger

[Mark Ewing]

Here is the Second Story with Oberon in it and as always any comments are
welcome. This time the big guy is going out and getting himself into more
trouble that he really should. Warriors sometimes overestimate their own
abilities, Adòn certainly does in this case.

Oberon Snowcat


The Claws of a Tiger

Oberon


 The sun woke me this morning as I turned in my sheets to get more
comfortable. I opened my eyes and looked up at the
ceiling. Today I resolved that I would try and find myself something to do
here that would contribute to the defence of the
Keep and the surrounding countryside. I had many skills that would be
valuable if they decided utilize them. I had some
skills in less dangerous jobs but they were jobs that I couldn't do for
moral reasons because they were beneath the dignity
of Warrior of status. Once I was dressed in my normal outfit I headed for
the nearest mess hall were I could get some food
to fill this massive frame of mine. On my way there I banged my head on a
low sign in one of the halls near the mess hall
and growled a brief curse to Baatal before I continued on my way. With
breakfast taken care of I headed back to my room
where I donned my armour, collected a few more weapons, and threw on one of
my grey cloaks before heading out of the Keep to
take a stroll around the country to the north of the castle. I may have been
big but I did have some things going for me when
it came to my abilities to move around without being noticed. I had trained
as a warrior and one of those things that I had
trained for was how to be a scout for a main force, a job that I had
actually performed many times during my first six years
as a warrior in my home clan. I kept my eyes, ears, and nose open for signs
of someone else in the area but so far as I could
tell all I could pick up on was the wildlife and the normal smells and
sounds of a wild forest. This was the kind of place a
Kelmar Woodsman would feel comfortable in. I wasn't a woodsman though but I
had enough training from one to be able to pass
as one. I moved through the trees with as much silence as a big cat like I
was capable of. The only problem with my trying
to sneak through the trees with as much silence as I was capable of was the
fact that my fur wasn't conducive to not being
seen. In the middle of winter when there was going to be snow I suspected
that it wouldn't be a problem but right now I was
having all sorts of trouble trying to hide. In a quiver that I had added to
my weaponry there were fifteen short spear-darts
and an atlatl to replace my longbow and arrows which I could no longer use
because my claws cut the bowstring. Even if I
didn't see any enemies of the Keep while I was out here I would at least
have helped the Keep by being a scout for enemies.
Some hours later I reached the summit of a small hill north of the keep and
pulled out my collapsible field telescope that I
had found in one of the cities in the Midlands. I carefully regarded the
terrain ahead of me looking for any sort of force
to be reckoned with. Since I was out here without the permission of the Keep
I had to be careful to ensure that I wasn't
spotted by them either.
 That evening I made a small fire and cooked several rabbits that hadn't
been paying attention and had fallen prey to my
spear-darts. After I had eaten I turned over on my back and looked up into
the stars and prayed to my gods that they would
continue to look out over me as they had done in the past.

 Back at Metamor Keep Misha Brightleaf was looking around for the warrior
that he had met the other day. This warrior,
Adòn Naharél, had been turned into a massive white tiger by the curse of the
Keep but he hadn't lost any of his skills.
Indeed his size now made him that much more dangerous. However, right now
Misha couldn't find Oberon and that was a little
disturbing considering the likelihood that you could easily miss the big cat
in the Keep. He even stopped in at the Deaf
Mule and asked if any of the patrons had seen Oberon in the past day. Drift,
the white samoyed morph spoke up from where he
was sitting
 "Hey Misha I think I saw him this morning going out the main gate down to
the town. He was armed to teeth as far as
I could tell."
 "He was heavily armed?"
 "Very heavily armed, he was also wearing black armour and a large grey
cloak." Misha shook his head finally before
he managed to chuckle
 "He must be insane going out there with no way of knowing his way around
the countryside."
 "You think that he could get killed out there by the Lutins?"
 "I pity any lutin who is mad enough to attack that cat because he is
dangerous."
 "So he should be all right."
 "That depends on whether or not he has a small amount of common sense."
 "Well we hope that he isn't under any threat of getting killed out there."
 "I would love to stay and chat Drift but I have to go find our new maniac."
As Misha walked back to the Long House
he marveled at Oberon's arrogance and foolhardiness at going out there all
by himself. What was guy thinking? Going out
there into the wild lands north of the keep. Was he trying to prove
something? After thinking it over for a few minutes the
fox morph headed to his room to get some sleep. It would be better if he
could track the cat in the daylight after a good
night's rest. He would have to take a few people with him, after all that
was only common sense, something that Oberon
seemed to have a distinct lack of. Though he probably would be able to fight
his way out of most trouble that he could get
into.
 "Why can't we have a normal person come to the keep for once, it either is
crazy overconfident mercenaries or
curious elves who have nothing better to do.

 I woke up before the sun rose and consumed some of the leftover rabbits
that I had killed yesterday before I concealed where
I had slept for the night. Part of being good in the woods was knowing how
to eliminate all signs that you had been there.
Once I was satisfied that all of the signs that I had stayed here were gone
I silently moved through the trees heading
northwest. I intended for the next couple of days to skirt the region in a
giant circle that would eventually take me back
to the keep. As I walked through the forest I paid close attention to what
my senses were telling me. Any man who didn't
listen to what his senses were telling him would end up dead in very short
order. At one point when I saw some disturbed
ground in a ravine I sniffed the air and the mark to see if I could get any
more information out of the mess of tracks.
I couldn't just look at it because the prints were so messed up I couldn't
make heads or tails of. The smell that came off
of the ground was distinctly unpleasant and distinctly not human or animal.
This must have been a lutin that made these
tracks because I didn't conceive that anything else could smell so foul. I
stood up then and tried to find some other clue
that would give me a hint of what direction the lutin had gone. But I had no
such luck this time so I decided that the best
bet was to follow the ravine up the side of the hill. Maybe if I reached the
top of a nearby hill I could find enemy camp.
>From that point onwards I would try and see if I could do some damage to
lutins while making sure that they couldn't damage
me back. Night would be the best time to make raids on their came simply
because as a cat I had found that I had excellent
night vision, in fact it was a lot better than it had been when I was human.
 Several hours later found me on the top of the hill hidden under a bush
looking out at the valley below me. There
wasn't much to see but I could see one tell tall streamer of blue smoke off
in the distance. They might just as well have
put a sign saying that they were there. These guys were pathetic in trying
to conceal where they were from me. Now that I
knew where they were I could easily move in closer to where they were hiding
and hopefully get some information on them and
what they were doing out here. I looked down at my body and more importantly
my striped white and black fur before
considering the small problem of getting close to the camp when my white
stripes would stand out like a beacon. The I had a
brainwave, though it wouldn't be pleasant for me, especially now since I was
a cat. Well there was nothing for it I had to
get into that camp. It was begining to get dark when I got close enough to
the camp to smell it. I went over to a nearby
tree, it was one of the largest ones in the area and began to climb it.
Claws proved how usefull they were in ascent of the
tree because all I had to do was grab the tree, hook my foot claws into the
bark and push up, while using my hands to guide
my ascent. Once I had gotten to a good perch I began to strip off most of my
equipment I left on my double baldric but slung
one sword on it and and two knives and my dagger to it before I went down
the tree to the nearby creek where I began the
distastful operation of getting myself covered in dirt. I As soon dirt hit
my fur I had to supress the natural urge to clean
the dirt out of the thick fur and continue the opperation. Finally when I
was completely covered I looked at myself in the
creek and shuddered at the sight of myself. I didn't like the image that
looked back at me but in order for me to get into
that camp I had to do something about my colouration. If I had the
colouration of the orange Snow Tiger I wouldn't have to
worry so much, but that wasn't what I was so I had to live with the dirt. I
then closed my eyes and concentrated and found
myself in a form that reminded me of my Soul Guide. I cleared the creek with
one bound and then began to slink through the
trees to get closer to the lutin encampment. As I got closer to encamptment
I had to be more careful because there were
guards in the area. Finally I got close enough to one of the guards I could
reach out and break his neck like a twig. I had
change back to my morphic form in order to kill the guard. Once the guards
in the area were killed I snuck around until I
got behind the largest tent in the encampment. I switched forms again,
before I pulled my heavy dagger out and slit the back
wall of the tent open. I slowly pushed the slit open and looked inside to
see three lutins wearing a barbaric assortment of
clothing standing around a table and arguing about something in their own
language. I pulled my head out of the slit that I
had made and then sat back and considered what to do next. I couldn't just
stay here and wait till the sun rose, that would
be a recipe for certain death, and I certainly didn't want to start a battle
with these lutins right now. Then I came upon
an idea, and I slid both of the throwing knives that I was carrying as well
as the dagger into my left hand. With my right
hand I opened the slit again and brought my other hand up until I was ready
to cast my first throw, my heavy dagger rested
hilt first in my right hand. The largest of the three lutins turned as
suddenly his eyes got wider as he must have seen me.
It was the last thing that he ever saw, as my heavy dagger hit him right in
the middle of the forhead. The other two died
fractions of a second later without a single sound other than a slight
gurgling as the throwing knives took them in the
throut. With the three of them dead I pulled myself completely into the tent
and went over to the table to see what they
had been arguing about. On the table there was a map with several notations
in lutin script, that I couldn't read. I quickly
folded the map into a small package and shoved it into a pouch at my side
before I retreived my weapons and left the tent in
the same manner that I had entered it. Making my way out of the encampent
was actually easier than getting in because I used
the same route to get out as I had used to get in, hence anyone that
might've noticed me was staring at the stars with a
vaccant stare that spoke eloquently of death. I sighed in relief when I
reached the forest beyond the perimeter of the camp
and the safety of the trees. Now I was home free, until the lutins
discovered the corpses in the morning, but by then I
planned to be long gone. It took me a further hour to reach the tree where I
had conealed my gear and get redressed.
Cleaning my fur would have to wait for later when I didn't have so many
things on my mind. Once I was dressed and armed
properly I headed for the moutains in the east where I would follow them
south until I reached the Keep again. If I could
get some more intel on these lutins and what they planned on doing maybe I
would prove myself to be of some use to those in
the Keep and hence they could give my some form of payment for my skills.
With that thought in my head I headed off into the
dark night like a black ghost looking for vengence. Later on in the morning
I looked up when I heard the sound of a horn in
the distance. I guess that the lutins had found the corpses of the people
that I had killed in their camp. I couldn't take
back what I had done and nor would I want to. I just hoped that these lutins
didn't want to chase me half way across the
countryside like the armies of the Duke of Colneth had done fifteen years
ago when I was serving his rival as an assassin.
I had managed to evade those armies but in the evasion more than a handful
of those soldiers had ended up in a shallow
grave beside the road. This time though if these lutins caught up with me
they would find that I wouldn't even give them
that much. I knew that fatique was begining to be a factor because I was
getting tired and being tired was something that
sapped my strength and energy. When I found a safe place I would probably
climb up a tree and rest there, well out of the
reach of any lutin that would try and pursue me. After much contemplating on
finally settled on a tree that had a high
group of branches where I could get the rest that I needed to go on.

 That morning when Misha awoke he found his metal friend Madog sitting in
the corner of the room regarding him.
 "Papa going out today?" Misha nodded before he replied slowly
 "I have to go find a crazy cat who had gone out north of the keep with no
one else knowing that he was going."
Now he, Misha Brightleaf, had organize a team to track down the wayward cat
and bring him back to the Keep, in chains if
necessary. Once he had eaten he gathered his equipment and headed to the
Long Hall where he met several other of the Longs
as they prepared to go out.
 "Finbar, Padraic are you here?" Misha shouted into the group of Longs who
were in the hall. The ferret morph and
the rabbit morph stood up and asked him what he needed "Well we have an
interesting case. A man who has recently joined the
Keep has gone out by himself to scout the area and we need to find him
before he gets himself into too much trouble."
 "What is this guy mad?" Finbar asked shaking head at the thought of someone
who wasn't a long going out into the
northlands.
 "No as far as I can tell he isn't mad he's just looking for a place to fit
in." Replied Misha
 "Well he has a damn strange way of going about it" Remarked Padriac.
 "That he does, that he does."
 "Well at least he should be easy to track."
 "I highly doubt that Padraic, he appears to be somewhat skilled. He is a
warrior, though I've yet to identify where
his people are from. So in some ways we are lucky becasue I doubt that he
will be found dead out in the middle of nowhere.
If we do find him dead I think that there will be a pile of lutin corpses
around him that we will have a hard time reaching
the body."
 "How can you say that Misha, he is just a normal man right?"
 "Not really, besides being a warrior he has had the luck of turning into a
white tiger morph so therefore even
without his weapons he is very formidable. With his weapons he is even more
dangerous and know that much because the day
before we sparred together for a little while and I can tell you this. He is
very good at what he does and I respect that."
 "Sounds like we should be worried about the lutins out there and not him"
mused Finbar.
 "I know that is what you think but we still have to find him, after all he
doesn't know the terrain around here."
The two others nodded before the went to grab their weapons. They all agreed
that they should travel light because their
quarry had at least a day on them.
 Several hours later Padraic held up his hand and plucked something from a
bush that was on the edge of the path that
they were following. He held it up for the two others to see before he
silently asked Misha using his hands in a short
flutter of hand gestures  "Does this belong to the person that we're looking
for Misha?" Misha looked at what the rabit had
in his hand. It was a tuft of soft white fur although there were a few hairs
of black fur. He sniffed the hair gently trying
to pick up a scent from the fur, but there wasn't much of a smell at all to
the fur. That was the problem with cats, they
had little discernable scent, it assisted real cats when they were out
hunting.
 "Thank you for finding that Padraic. This is indeed from the guy that we
are looking for" Misha gestured in return
 "Well his trail won't be an easy one to follow but I think that I can
follow it." The rabbit gestured once again and
Misha nodded in an silent command to continue as Paudric took the lead with
his eyes focussed on the ground ahead of him
reading the signs that were barely there. Over the next few hours they
continued to follow the often indisticnt path that
their quarry had left behind him. When they stopped for a breif snack
Padraic looked over at Misha and gave a swift flutter
of nearly imperceptable hand gestures that Misha was quite easily able to
translate.
 "This guy is pretty good at making his trail hard to find though there are
few sign that he has passed this way."
Misha nodded slowly before he stood up and shoved the light snack into his
pack. the others took that as a sign that it was
time for them to get back on the trail. The one advantage they had over
their quarry was the fact that they knew the terrain,
and therefore they didn't have to stop to check their bearings and look at
the surounding countryside. They came upon the
camp where Oberon had stayed just after midday. There were a few signs that
the big tiger hadn't managed erase and those
were a clear indication that he had been here. As they continued to follow
the trail of the tiger the light began to fade.
By the time it was dusk they reached the peak were Oberon had sighted the
lutin encampent in the distance. Misha spotted the
rising smoke and shook his head before he silently said
 "I think that our impulsive friend is going to make a visit to that
encampent off in the distance."
 "Does that mean that we should start trying to look for a place to bury
this guy?" Remarked Finbar in a similar
fashion
 "No if anything I think that it will be time to look for a place to bury
all of the lutins this guy will kill." The
two others nodded and then began to lead the way down the hill towards the
distant encampment. It was early the next morning
after traveling all nigh long through the pitch black forest that they
reached the creek were Oberon had decorated his fur
with dirt from the creek bank. When Misha saw that he couldn't help bu laugh
a little because he knew that cats were
normally very fastidious about their appearance and yet here one had been
forced to get dirty in order to get close to his
targets. Before they could go too much further towards the lutin camp Finbar
found a set of huge prints on the creek bank
that lead away from the camp and deeper into the woods back to the tree that
was marked with the claws of their quarry.
They had just taken up the trail again when a horn in the lutin camp sounded
in alarm. Misha tilted his ears forward and
then chuckled silently before he silently said
 "I guess that he killed a few of the lutins but they didn't find out until
now."
 "That is some stealth Misha are you sure that you want to kick this guy
into next week?" Finbar asked
 "I don't think that I want to try that because he's probably dangerous when
I get up close, but I do want to talk
to him and send him back to the Keep for a little while." Later on in the
morning the three of them stopped for a rest
because they all knew that if they pushed themselves too hard they could end
up getting careless. They all awoke later on
in the afternoon when they heard a huge roar sound out not too far from
where they were sleeping
 "I guess that those lutins are about to learn what it is like to corner a
wildcat now." Finbar quiped. Misha only
nodded and grabbed his axe and headed off into the trees with the two others
following close on his heels.

When I awoke later on in the day I felt refreshed, though I was feeling a
little on the hungry side. However I didn't have
any way of filling my stomach at the pressent time. As soon as I climbed
down I made my way east towards the mountains that
closed down into the valley where the Keep was located. As I jogged forward
I kept my eyes on the trail and on the ground
ahead of me. I had my atlatl and a spear-dart in my right hand ready for use
in case I saw something, either a lutin or
something to eat. At this point I was willing to eat just about anything
that came along. Being a preadory form did help me
since I could quite easily eat raw meat, though I did prefer if it was
cooked a little bit. More than an hour later I was
following a dry ravine up into the moutains and I noticed that the walls of
the ravine were begining to get steeper and
close in on me. Oh great I should have read a map of the area before I
decided to come up here, but now I had no choice I
had to live with the decsions that I had already made. I needed to find a
good place where my back would be protected and
where any enemies would be forced to come at me in small numbers. Finally
after much searching I found an ideal spot in the
box canyon. The rock gave me an excellent place to shoot spear-darts from as
well as a good place from where I could defend
myself. Soon after I had got myself set up the first lutin scout appeared in
the cleft that lead to my position. He gave a
rough shout, that was the last sound that he ever made because I hit him in
the throut with a spear-dart. The next four
lutins to show their ugly green little faces suffered a similar fate. After
a few more moments they rushed through the
opening out into the clearing where I stood. I expended the other ten
spear-darts and then grabbed my two straight sabres
that formed my double sabres out of their scabbards and hooked them together
to form the double bladed weapon. As soon as I
saw the main body of the lutins come out of the gap I opened my jaws and let
out a roar before I dashed forwards to hit them
like a whirlwind, throwing their short little bodies everywhere. bodies and
body parts flew away from my blade in a rough
spray as I swung at the lutins with a speed that I had never possessed as a
human. These lutins were in trouble because they
didn't know the danger of the Keeper that they were facing. They were
working hard to get at me with their massed numbers.
This was trouble because they were smaller than I was, much smaller than I
was and that was making fighting them somewhat
difficult. At that same moment I heard a loud shout at the other end of the
canyon and some of the lutins turned around and
headed back to where they had come from. Then there was a sudden shiver that
ran through the forces near the mouth of the
box canyon and three figures emerged into the canyon. The form in the lead
was easy to recognize because he swung a huge
black axe that didn't make a sound. The other two were people that I didn't
recognize but none the less they were quite
welcome. With the four of us working from either end of the box canyon we
managed to completely exterminate the remainder of
the lutins to last man. When the last lutin died I put the tip of my double
sword on the ground and stood there panting for
a minute trying to get my breath back. As a human I had never been this
winded after a fight but I guess that this was
something that I would have to get used to, or maybe I could train myself
not to get tired this quickly. Misha looked
possitively maniacal with his black axe in his hands. The other two didn't
look that much better. Misha looked at me
ignoring the mess all around his feet and then looked at me like on of my
old swordmasters back home before he shouted
 "You acted like a blasted rock brained fool. What where you trying to do
get yourself killed" I couldn't really say
anything so I pulled the map that I had snagged from the lutin encampment.
He grabbed the map out of my hand and then opened
it and glanced at the information before he turned to the ferret and snapped
out
 "Finbar you escort this lunitic back to the Keep and get together a squad
to take care of the lutin unit that is
coming in from the northeast. I'll go with Padraic and go warn the people in
Glen Avery that they have an incoming lutin
raid. With any luck we should be able stop them before they do any serious
harm." The ferret nodded and looked over at me
and shook his head before he said
 "You are one crazy cat."
 "I am a Kelmar Warrior and I don't take nicely to being called crazy." I
replied stiffly
 "Wherever you are from they must value the willingness to fight over the
willingness to use their brains."
 "I used my brains on this little expedition didn't I? After all I was the
one who had the pressence of mind to grab
that map off of the table in a lutin encampment after I killed their
leaders."
 "That is the sort of thing that should be left to the real Long Scouts and
not someone who imagines that they are a
Long Scout."
 "Until now I didn't really know that you had anything like this so I
decided to try and demonstrate my worth to
those in the Keep." Misha turned at that statement and said in a voice that
was barely above a growl
 "If you wanted to show me or the other members of the keep your worth then
you should have done so with the
permission of myself and the patrol master and not on you own." I nodded
slowly and then un-coupled my double sword and
knelt down to use a scrap of some dead lutin's clothing to clean the blood
off of the two blades before sheathing them and
standing to follow the ferret. If I was back home I would take out my heavy
dagger and impale myself on it but I figured
that here to attempt that would be a bad move that would only get me into
more trouble. So I had to follow the ferret out
of the box canyon toweards the keep. If my soul guide had still been with me
I could have avoided all of this trouble but
now I was as prone to make mistakes in judgement as any other human in the
world. I just hoped that I wouldn't make any more
mistakes when I got back to the Keep.
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