Ars Hyrannor: Book of the Bloodcallers

CHAPTER 4: APPRENTICE

Indigo

For a moment, Indigo was too stunned to speak. Foolish, she knew, to stop after years of rehearsing this, going over what she would say in her head, knowing what she would need to do.

So stunned, infact, she almost forgot to listen.

The Steelhound’s voice was resonant, muffled little by the bronze chains and steel shell encasing them. It shook the ground nearly as much as their strike’s had. Or, perhaps, Indigo was simply shaking.

But. What they had said confused her. Surely, they were just mistaken. Didn’t know why Indigo was here. Thought it mere chance.

She finally regained composure, kneeling down, her sword infront of her.

“I prostrate myself here as an adult of Urutsu’s creation,” she recited, “Ricewine Indigo, to petition your tutelage in an apprenticeship in the art of slaying vampires.”

It was a rote proposal, appeal to the Creator, lay the tool of the art before her as traditional, give her family name. She’d have rather done it in a place of importance to the art too, but as far as she knew this was that place.

The Steelhound didn’t respond.

She continued, “9 years ago, in Cyrannis village, I witnessed as you killed an entire troop of vampires -vampires who killed my family- and I come today to lea-”

The Steelhound shot a hand up, the steel dome they wore as a glove flexed back and forth- a shushing gesture.

“No.”

Huh?

“Huh?”

“I can not be clearer. I assumed you came to rob me. But… You are worse a fool than I imagined, Ricewine Indigo. What I said to you now doubles.”

Indigo began to sweat. No? No???

She, admittedly, hadn’t been willing to consider what she’d do if this happened. Kill vampires herself, presumably. Teach herself, or die trying if needs be. But, she was in no shape to do that, now. Lost, hungry, confused. Her legs shook, and she was seated.

She started, reaching to pick up her blade, as the Steelhound turned around.

They cocked a head, looking at her.

“You’re welcome.”

Indigo didn’t freeze this time, “’You’re welcome’!? You-”

“In your village, you said ‘thank you’ to me as I left. I admit I am late, but you’re welcome.” Their voice was steady, unemotive, speaking in an accent Indigo couldn’t place. Southern?

“I-” Indigo paused, before picking up her sword, “I did, aye.”

“Then our business is settled.”

“No, no it can’t be.” Indigo stuttered, “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this, half of it anyway, I’ve been preparing, and training, and I-”

“What is your craft?” They interrupted.

“What?”

“What is your craft?”

“I- I’m a weaver? I keep woolhounds…” She answered, Cream snuffling in approval

“Then return home, shear your hounds, weave a great many things, regrow your family, and grow old and happy and grateful that you never once raised a sword or fist against another.”

“I will raise my sword against vampires.” Indigo corrected, or perhaps affirmed.

She stood now, blade clutched close to her, steel leeching heat from her body.

“They are still another. You will achieve nothing but a waste of a life.”

“Why do you get to kill vampires then, why don’t I have the ri-”

“I am already poisoned, I am a-”

“Stop interrupting me!” Indigo shouted now, stepping towards their would-be master, “I have stewed in this for long enough! I have to rid this world of vampires, it is my only purpose! It’s all I can do!”

The Steelhound watched as Indigo pushed into their space, indignant and still caked in the salt and slick of not-so-old tears, barely up to the Steelhound’s chest. Like a nine year old having a tantrum.

“You are 18 to ask this, yes?” Hesitantly, Indigo nodded, “You have spent 18 years not killing, and now you say that killing is all you are? You have spent 18 years dead?”

Indigo raged, “YES! Yes! I have! I am a walking corpse! The ‘Phantom child!’ Chasing the fake and becoming the dead!” She punched against the dome of the Steelhound’s armour, roared, hit it again -small hand thumping ineffectually at hard steel-, and then slumped. She uttered, “9 years ago, my whole family was killed by vampires. And I think… I think I died that night too.”

The Steelhound said nothing, standing there.

“I have to… I have to get revenge, right?” Indigo’s voice shook, but she had long since exhausted her other outlets of emotion, “If… If I have to still be here, I can’t let vampires get away with it anymore… What else… What else IS there?”

“The vampires that killed your family have been dead for 9 years, child.”

“I am not a child. Not anymore.” She pushed off the Steelhound, and clutched tighter at the Ricewine sword.

“Would you not disgrace your family, to raise that and cover it in blood?”

Another plea to get her to change her mind? She almost laughed, would have in another circumstance, maybe.

“What family?”

She took off again.

—

Indigo collapsed a few minutes out. Already exhausted, hungry, emotional, she should have known she couldn’t take much more. Maybe she had. Maybe she needed this. Maybe slamming her face into the snow-caked gravel and screaming into it before becoming too exhausted to scream was what she needed. Or maybe she did it because it hurt.

Maybe hurting was better than feeling nothing.

She’d ran, trees flying past her, second time just this day. White paperbark, or cracked black bark, it all blended into one. Green with year-round life or dead in the late winter, it didn’t matter. She’d passed the world by, not living in it, not stopping to see it. She just kept running, running away.

There, now, she was under a crown of dark branches, twisting in her watery eye as they cut off the dying sky.

Again?

Silent, she laid there for Who-The-Fuck-Knew minutes, maybe She-Didn’t-Care-Fuck-It-All hours before heavy footsteps and soft pattering rang in her ears.

Propping herself up, she saw Cream approach. Sniffing the ground, before leaping at her and wrapping her in a woolly embrace.

The Steelhound was close behind. Holding their sword in the crook of their arm, its immense length adding to their great height, forcing their path through the gaps between trees.

“I’m going to do it.” Indigo mumbled.

“Get up. You need to eat.”

“You can’t stop me.”

The Steelhound didn’t repeat themselves, and picked up Indigo by her cloak.

“I thought you cared. About killing vampires.”

They began walking, not responding, with Indigo clinging limply to their arm.

“There’s so many stories… They come for anyone, anywhere… We need as many people we can to get rid of them… Why not me?”

“You saw me once, as a child, and you think you know what I do? What I am?”

“I know you kill vampires.”

“That much is true.”

They didn’t continue, neither of them did. Steelhound’s steps were long and flew them across the forest swiftly. Indigo must have been more dazed than she realised, as it felt like they went fast as a flying bat, but their steps were just a walk.

Swiping a cloud of bare branches away, Steelhound revealed a clearing, bordering the cliff of a small hill. The bear corpse was there, drag marks in the snow and dirt tracing a path to the brawl. Indigo was deposited next to it.

The animal had been butchered and exsanguinated, and the Steelhound struck its glove against a flint, sparking a campfire. Cuts of bear sat on clean leaves.

“You can eat bear?” Indigo mused limply.

“It is more effort than it’s worth.”

“Unless you’re the Steelhound…”

“Hm?”

“That’s what I call you. The Steelhound.”

“You named me?”

“I didn’t give you a family name…”

They continued with the bear.

“You have a family sword…” Indigo continued.

“Persuader is a weapon.”

“So is Ricewine.”

“A family sword means something. A sword cuts. It destroys. Family means much, it means creation. A weapon creates nothing.”

“And what happens when you have no family?”

“You make one.”

“And what happens when everyone is disgusted by you?”

“You find someone who isn’t.”

“And what happens when the person who isn’t thinks I’m a lunatic child?”

The Steelhound looked up from their cooking. “I will not be a parent to you. Just as I will not be a master. The only thing I have in this world is killing, and I will not make you do it.”

“I have to.”

“You have to eat.” A leaf of bear was offered.

Indigo remembered very little after. The fattiness of the bear meat, the softness of its pelt, the smell of the fire. How the Steelhound lit it, and how it burned out.

She fluttered in and out of consciousness. And she realised this was as far from home as she’d ever been.

The training she’d put herself up to should have included more running.

—

Indigo dreamed of that damned night again.

She always did.

It was winter.

It hurt. It was cold.

It always came back. She always had to keep it in mind.

It was unforgiving. She couldn’t forgive it. She couldn’t forgive her.

That fucking first night.

Had she ever made it to spring?

—

When Indigo awoke for the final time, the sky was bleeding from yellow to blue. A chill bit at her, and the Steelhound was nowhere to be found.

Wait.

She swore, leaping to her feet.

She paced around the site, looked through the forest, but. Nothing.

Not even tracks.

“’Rutsu!” She swore again, momentarily parting her index and pinky fingers from her middle two, placing the gesture to her head. Superstition, but it was something her parent had drilled into her.

Back at the campsite, she found everything as it was, with the subtle addition of a stone slab and some winter berries. No, a clay slab. Lines had been carved into it. Some sort of cultural item for Steelhound? She tossed it, and scoffed the berries.

“Cream, up. Can you smell them?”

Cream tilted his head.

“…What’s on your nose?”

Cream’s muzzle had been smeared with a thin paste- a flower paste. Intense in smell.

“’RUTSU!” -She hailed-Urutsu again- “I- Fuck- I-”

She paced. Before kicking the bear corpse, then punching the cliff. She punched it again. And again.

She roared, and punched it harder, before swinging her sword wildly around.

Cream began roaring, barking, hopping around, wagging his tail like in play.

Indigo soon began flowing into the movements she had made-up to train. She knew they wouldn’t be good, but hopefully the Steelhound would be able to fix them. The Steelhound… Indigo swung harder, untangling the knots in her muscles and heart, pushing herself, making herself pant. Maybe she could kill vampires alone. With Cream, tracking them would be easy.

She lofted her sword high in the air, hammer-gripped in one hand… It was too heavy, and she had to dodge herself as it fell upon her.

“Cream…” she huffed, her wools too hot, “let’s kill our first vampire.”