Lore of the Underlings: Episode 6 ~ Meeting Minyon Read Online Free

long hand high, as if
about to testify.
    Everyone pricked up an ear to hear him.
    “Our path brings us back from a sacred trek,
an annual mission, this day of remembrance.” He turned to his west
and the broad-chested huntsman. “I think you know Axon, my
righteous son.” Then he looked to the huntress at his east. “And
bravehearted Eela, my daughter and sundial…” He smiled a beaming
smile at her. “Of us all, the youngest yet one most cunning…”
    It must have been the sight of her, now lit
just so in the pure, sweet light, that brought the elderman to
tears, a sudden well that fell from his face.
    “A moment, dear peers, to compose
myself…”
    But all were spellbound by his sorrow. They
studied the Mynes from head to toe.
    The three of them — Minyon and his kin — had
hair of red like the best of men, but longer and sleeker, straight
down to the shoulder, or spilling over to cover the back, with a
slick wet look as if soaked in blood. A liquid thick, maroon, and
sticky. They shared a remarkable skin tone too, this middle-aged
man and two just grown children, made of a substance more sculpted
than born — something mined then fashioned into shape — hand
finished, rubbed hard till near perfection, reflecting a glassy
kind of complexion a few shades paler than typical folk. And their
eyes surprised as well. Deep pools of dark, all but black as a
vell’s.
    Black too was the garb this Minyon wore, a
simple suit of woven worm’s wool, clothes unadorned and strangely
clean for someone coming from the road. Although they did fit his
beardlessness.
    Son and daughter were dressed in worn
leathers, boar and boven, both softened by time. He in a vest
baring arms and chest with wading pants just past his knees. She
wearing less, but a low-cut bodice and short kilt showing her
endless legs.
    Each one was shod in old, crude sandals.
    Finally, minister Myne continued, wiping the
wetness from his cheek. “Thank you, fair Keep’s-people, for your
indulgence. You must forgive this… my mortal weakness…”
    “No need to apologize, pastor Myne.”
    “Yes, please take you time.”
    Minyon placed his palms together in a
grateful, prayer-like pose.
    “You are too kind, my brothers and sisters...
O, what more witness does one need to show what a woeful soul I am.
A sinner no better than any of you. A flesh and blood man of
Syland.”
    All eyes upon him were damp now too.
    “Still, I owe you the simple truth.”
    Axon tucked the talon blade into his wide
belt of boven hide. Eela twirled her spear in the air then stuck it
in the ground.
    The elderman’s gaze turned distant and hazy,
as if into a misty past.
    “As on every Mid Summer’s Eve for thirteen
full yet hollow years, I led my family in retreat, commemorating
the one not here. Our bittersweet anniversary… of love and the hell
of our lives before… For it was this day all those seasons long
gone that the Wild took my wife and their dear mother, Faunon.”
    Minyon tipped his head to the heavens then
back earthbound looking folklorn again. He seemed to meet each
treasured eye, reaching a heartstring deep inside. And there was a
soothing to this voice, a music difficult to describe.
    “My son and daughter grew to know the weight
of this solemn time on me. And so it was yesterday they surprised
their unworthy father with a present. Something to lighten my heavy
heart.”
    He spread his arms wide to touch them
both.
    “It was a daredevil hunt they devised and the
ritual sacrifice of a beast born of hate, heat, darkness, and death
— a creature I’d met but in lore and myth. Bull-bear or bear-bull
as you wish, a monster both mammoth and malicious with bitter
irony, nothing delicious, dripping from every crack, each tip of
its thorny-toed hooves and black bared teeth. We found it guarding
the pass southwest, at the place that the plainsmen call Hell’s
Breath.”
    The faithful gasped in disbelief.
    “Oh, my friends, what happened then… it was
something to