IC: NPC's [Tohmarr, Hadeel] - The Eyries - Jabbar Peak
The stench of hot blood is strong in the air.
Tohmarr and Hadeel, two outriders of the Okhotnik clan, pursue their prey eagerly. Their prey- an enormous cat beast with a long tail and a thick black pelt- flees from them desperately. Blood pours from the wounds made by arrows and spears bristling from its hide; where blood falls, the snow goes up in steam. Tohmarr- a spearman, strong in the arms, missing an eye- bellows in excitement. Hadeel- an archer, lithe, missing three toes on his foot- licks his lips at the intoxicating metallic smell. Their mounts- bipedal, hairy lizards with fanged maws- near the point of frenzy. All relish this Hunt, for it is a good one.
Hadeel lets fly three arrows, one of which pierces the prey's eye. It yowls in pain and turns to snap at its attacker; while it does, Tohmarr urges his mount to the prey's unprotected side, then dismounts it to roll into the snow. The mount, eager to taste the blood it has smelled, lunges forward and clamps its jaws onto the prey's neck. The two beasts claw and snap at each other, but the mount has been trained for this, and it inflicts more wounds on the prey than it receives. It eventually forces the prey onto its back, exposing its soft underbelly; arrows and spear shafts snap off and lay abandoned.
With his last spear in hand, Tohmarr reaches the prey and drives his weapon into its great heart. A fountain of blood pours forth, splashing onto this arms and chest, and a great cry is torn from the beast- a cry that is silenced by Hadeel firing more arrows into its throat. The prey twitches madly, then is still.
The Hunt is over. And it was a good one.
The outriders, now both dismounted, reach for their carving knives and make to strip the prey for meat and pelt and bone to make weapons... and trophies, of course. Such a good Hunt demands a trophy of equal value that they may show to the clan and receive veneration for. They set to their work with a howl, a salute to death, who claimed the greatest trophy from the prey before they began their work.
A sound from over the horizon cuts through their howl, a sound that sobers them up almost instantly and drives whatever pride they had in their conquest away- three loud blasts from a hunting horn.
The three blasts mean that the Ohkotnik's chingghis eh-chingghis- the chief of chiefs, the greatest of the living clan fathers- has died.
According to clan legend, Belet the Blessed, father of the Okhotnik, was the greatest Hunter to ever travel the peaks. In his hubris, he sought to Hunt the Bull of Tur, a beast with a hide so thick and a disposition so fierce that no Hunter who pursued it had successfully put their spear in it. Belet's Hunt led him across the peaks for many years, and he slew many beasts and carved trophies from them, but he did not reach the Bull until he was old and gray. In Gulgalla, which would come to be called Jabbar Peak, he found that the Bull was also old and gray, and tired of its existence as merely a prize to be Hunted. It asked Belet to put it out of its misery, and Belet accepted. Their battle shook the ice from the Highest Eyrie and carved a canyon that reached the lands below the mountain. In their battle, the Bull gored Belet through the stomach with one of its horns. With a burst of strength, Belet tore the other horn from the Bull's head and drove it into the beast's neck, finally killing it. Belet took the horn as his final trophy, and with the last of his power he hollowed it out and blew three great notes upon it, summoning his sons. By the time they arrived, death had claimed Belet as its greatest trophy.
Since then, it has been clan tradition to blow Belet's horn thrice to mark the chingghis eh-chingghis' death and to summon all back to the village to partake in the ceremony of honor and succession. Hunts, prayer ceremonies, scouting- all is suspended when the chingghis eh-chingghis dies; his final honors take the utmost priority.
Tohmarr and Hadeel bury their kill deep in the snow to preserve it, sit astride their mounts once again, and wheel themselves around to face the clan village.
It is time to go home.