Taking a Huntress Ch. 01

Maya knelt down and studied the tracks left in the damp soil. The rain from the night before had left a haunting mist hovering over the forest, but it made the buck easy to stalk. Judging by his tracks, he was at least two hundred pounds, and walked with a slight limp due to an injury on his left hind quarter. She had been stalking the boy for two days now, and she was getting close. She expected to have her shot on him by mid-morning, and she didn't plan on missing. Her family needed the meat and the bounty of supplies that came with killing a deer.

Her father had fallen suddenly ill two weeks ago, and his condition had since deteriorated, leaving Maya to provide as much hunted meat as she could get for her parents and her younger siblings, who were too young to hunt much more than the squirrels and hares that lived around the village. Often her mother sent them out into the woods to forage what they could, and it was fall, so berries and mushrooms were plentiful. But it was not enough to sustain them, nor did they produce enough wool from their two sheep or enough milk from their goat to trade for much. Large game required much time and effort to hunt, so meat and other animal products came at a high price in the village.

Maya knew where the buck was heading. Yesterday, when she caught the first sign of him, he took her east from the village, but last night his path began to curve northward. Now he was following a stream upwards through a valley, where she knew ended at a subalpine lake, which sat in a pristine basin of white-capped monstrosities, which erupted from the earth like a dragon's spines. On the east side of this basin was a low col. The path to the col was short, but steep and treacherously rocky. On the other side lay luxuriously rolling fields and subalpine forest where the deer often congregated for the rut this time of year.

The basin would be perfect for the ambush. If she could keep her distance until the buck tried the ascent of the col, she would have easy, close range shots while he struggled to gain altitude on the sliding rock. She felt smug. Even the trek home would be fairly easy, as it was mostly downhill.

*

The morning wore on. The trail through the thinning trees was obvious, as it was used by bucks on the same quest every fall. Maya had no trouble picking out her buck's tracks among the foliage as she slowly closed the distance between them. When the path began to get rockier, she knew that they were approaching the outwash flats that preceded the basin. She took her bow in her hand and readied an arrow, tightened the laces on her moosehide boots and quickly tied her masses of golden hair back with a spare leather strand she kept on her wrist. She was ready.

She had to pick her steps carefully now; any noise would alert the buck to her presence, and she didn't want him too skittish to try for the col. Luckily, there was a slight breeze blowing downstream, so he wouldn't smell her coming. The leather of her soles made barely a scuff as she picked her way through the rocky terrain. The outwash flats began to narrow into the basin. She could see her buck across the rock ahead of her, splashing through the stream to get to the east side. He stopped at the lake for a drink. While he was preoccupied and the sound of rushing water was near his ears, Maya rock-hopped across a narrow part of the stream and followed the rock wall the mountains formed inward, so that she was near the bottom of the col, and crouched behind a boulder that was higher than her waist and broader than her father's outstretched arms. From where she was, she couldn't see the buck at the lake, but as he made his way towards the path that started up to the col he came into view.

He was large, and fat. He must have weighed two hundred and eighty pounds. Maya thought regretfully that she would have to leave some of him behind for the other animals to eat, or she would be overburdened by his immense size. He stopped and sniffed the air. Maya cursed inwardly. She was sure he had caught her scent, and would escape down the valley. But, sure enough, he began the ascent, and Maya's heart quickened. Her bow was at her side, arrow nocked. She wanted to wait until he was halfway up the slope to shoot, so that he could not easily escape up or down the rock. She steadied her heart, steadied her hand. He was one-quarter up. Breathed. Waited. One-third. Then slowly, almost inconceivably, she raised her left arm, right hand delicately cradling the bowstring. The buck labored on. One-half. Left arm taught, right hand draws back, readying the shot.

Suddenly, Maya's buck dropped. His front knees hit the rock, then his haunches came down. He mewled, then keeled over to the left. Blood dripped its life from his nose, and his eyes turned listless. An arrow protruded from his right side.

Maya was furious. She leapt up from her hiding place behind the boulder. Whose arrow was in her buck? It was her buck, her family's. It would have fed them for the hardest months of the winter, made new mittens for Joss and Deva and new leggings for her mother. The rack would have made cooking utensils and perhaps a few knives could have been fashioned its the bones. And now someone else's arrow was stuck in his side, claiming him as their quick victory, a surprise ambush. She had spent two days in the rain stalking the animal, and was planning on spending three more dragging it home. If she went home empty-handed, it would be four days wasted, four days her family could have used her. There was no way that some cheap-shot amateur hunter was taking her hard earned quarry from her.

She scrambled up the slope, leaping on the biggest rocks that she knew wouldn't slide. She reached the deer before the unknown hunter and ripped the arrow from the buck's side. Her arm made a move to throw the arrow down into the lake, but a hand gripped her wrist midair so hard she was afraid the assailant might break it. Her fury rose. She wheeled around to face her competitor, and stopped dead, eyes widening.

The man was an Akari. They were fierce hunters in the region, known for their silence, their brutality, and their knack for the art of killing. The leaders of the clans hired them for assassinations because they never attracted attention and never left a trace of their presence. The people they killed became nothing more than a memory, a mystery that everyone knew the answer to, but no one could prove. Maya faintly wondered what the man was doing out here. There were no villages nearby, and the Akari Den was a five day's trek away.

They were not a group to cross lightly. They expected high payment for their services but would never offer a price to the employer. If the employer's donation was insufficient, the Akari were known to take a young woman of the employer's household in the night. Some said the girls were killed, or abandoned, but others maintained the Akari kept a group of well-trained housewomen and concubines.

"If you throw this arrow into the lake, I will toss you in after it, and you will not come up for air until you return it to me," he said. His voice was deep and silken, just loud enough for her to hear. The Akari were known to carry only one arrow with them at a time; it was believed among them that any kill should take only one shot, and an arrow cannot be lost by a dead target. If an Akari lost his arrow to anything other than wear, he was regarded by his kin as a failure. Maya knew this man's threat rang true.

He was clad in a tan linen tunic and pants, loose around the joints but bound tight everywhere else with thin strips of leather. The soles of his feet were covered by a single piece of hide, bound to the top of his foot in three places. He was not large; he stood perhaps two hands higher than Maya, but she could tell that his body was covered in lean, sinewy muscle capable of much more than a quick glance would suggest. A large piece of fabric hung across his face and swooped over his head into a large hood, leaving only his almond eyes and a few strands of misplaced ebony hair across his forehead showing. For a moment, Maya was lost in the seemingly endless depths of his black eyes before his brow lowered over them and his grip tightened on her wrist.

She snarled and dropped the arrow. He caught it easily with his free hand before it had fallen past her hip and sheathed it in his belt. "I'll now ask you to excuse me," he said politely. "My buck needs to be quartered."

Maya roared. "Your buck? This buck is mine! I've been tracking it for days and my family–" she stopped herself before giving too much away. She needed to be guarded around this man. She still stood in his way. The blood heaving from the animal's side pooled around her feet. She set her jaw and looked the Akari in the eyes. They were cool, emotionless, and that frightened her. But she needed this.

The man slowly pulled his hunting knife from his belt and held it loose in his right hand. She saw him subtly shift his weight to the balls of his toes. Maya was no longer standing in defiance. She was so racked with fear that she couldn't have moved if she wanted to. The stranger lunged. Maya had only enough time to turn her body partly away from him before the full weight of him was upon her, the pair of them crashing to the ground. She struggled underneath him, but to no avail. She felt the cold edge of the knife at her throat and she stiffened, eyes wide, chest heaving.

During the fall the man's hood had slipped off, revealing a face of sharp, angular features, a full mouth and honey skin. Maya might have considered his beauty if he wasn't threatening her life at the moment. He leaned in and put his mouth at her ear, knife still pressed into the soft flesh at her throat.

"Your family what?" he whispered. "They need this meat? You should have been quicker, Huntress. You've been following the buck for two days, and I've been following you for three." Maya's breath escaped her lips. Her heart was pounding erratically and she was sure he would be able to feel it through her tunic. "I'll tell you what. I'll sell it to you for... seven golds." A tear escaped the corner of her eyes, from fear, frustration, and the sense of loss at knowing she had failed her family. "No? You don't have seven golds? Maybe I'll just take you instead...." He slid a hand under her tunic, fingertips caressing up to the curve of her ribcage. Maya felt that she could break under just his touch, gentle as it was, she knew the power that lay behind such hands. The power of killing. "You would make a lovely token of hunt. But..." he simultaneously slipped his hand higher to thumb the curve where her breast met her ribs and his knife lower to press into her collarbone, "today the deer is more important to me. So I'll just leave you something to remember me by." The knife tip popped into her skin, just nicking her and causing a bead of blood to form. She was still paralyzed with fear and barely felt it. She was more aware of his crushing weight on her chest and his lips near her ear and his hand on her skin. He gingerly kissed the soft skin between her jaw and her neck, and stood up, dusting himself off. He returned to the buck and began to section it in preparation for the journey home. He didn't turn around to look as Maya stood on shaky legs and walked out of the valley. She would have run, but she didn't feel stable enough, and besides, she was grossly aware that he could easily have caught her if he wanted to.

*

It was dusk when Maya returned to the village two days later. A figure sat on a bench by the village gate. It was a face Maya knew and was happy to see after the events that had taken place in the valley. She wondered for a moment if she should tell her old friend about the strange Akari man, and then decided against it. Best not to scare the people of the village, as times were already uncertain.

"Karina!" The petit woman with long trestles of golden hair bound up in a knot turned and hurried over, taking Maya by the arm and leading her through the square.

"Maya. The hunt was unsuccessful?" she asked, eyes showing concern for Maya's empty hands. She pursed her lips at Maya's terse nod. "Mm. I... something happened while you were away. Maya, your father...."

Maya's eyes snapped to Karina's face. "What?"

"He passed away two nights ago. I'm so sorry. They buried him in the woods, but...."

"I have to go to my family." Maya tore away from her friend, and her moccasined feet were silent as she dashed through the town's deserted streets to her house. She burst in to her mother sitting at the kitchen table, oil lamp casting shadows in high relief across her tired face.

"Mom."

"Maya." Lilly rushed to embrace her daughter, who began to weep in the comfort of her mother's arms.

"What happened, Mom?"

""I'm so sorry, sweetie. We wanted to wait for you, but we didn't know when you would be home, and it had to be done sooner, rather than later, what with that cat around. We buried him in the East clearing, you know, where he liked to sketch? But when Deva came back from there today, he was so distraught... I went to have a look for myself and...."

Maya looked up at her mother, confused. "What? What are you talking about?"

Lilly's brow furled for a moment, and then relaxed in understanding.

"Oh honey, I thought Karina told you everything. I asked her to meet you so I could stay here with Joss and Deva. I... Your father...."

"What? What's happened to Dad?!" Maya was near yelling now, refraining only because she knew her brother and sister were asleep, and probably needed the rest.

"Well, we buried him right away, after.... Because that mountain lion has been prowling around, but the foul creature took him from us," Lilly said, weeping. "It dug his body up from his grave and dragged him off."

Maya stiffened in Lilly's arms, her fury rising. She had gone hunting, missed her father's passing, come back empty-handed to find out that the damn mountain lion she had wanted to kill had eaten her father's corpse. The only thing that had driven her away from hunting the cat was that fat buck her family needed. Now she had nothing, and hadn't even been able to protect the body of her deceased father. She broke away from her mother, whose eyes were wide, surprised by the coldness she saw written in the eyes of her daughter.

The last time Lilly had seen that look, it had been on the face of her husband, when he heard an Akari had been sighted just outside of the village limits. He had almost gone after the assassin, but had refrained only for her reminding him of his three children. That was only the week before he had fallen ill.

Now the subtleties of her late husband's features were written across the face of their eldest child. Maya was growing to resemble him more and more every day, both physically and through her volitions. As a mother, it made her equal parts proud and fearful.

Maya turned and stormed out of the house, pulling her bow from her shoulder. Lilly called after her, but the door was closing and Maya was already out of earshot.

*

The woods were cool and dark and quiet. They reminded Maya of her father, and for a moment her eyes stung with the rising of tears, but she pushed them aside in her mind, and reminded herself that there was a cougar out here that required her attention. She bent down near the clearing where her father had been buried to notice the workings of the forest.

Her father was the one who had taught her to hunt, when she was young. He showed her how to shoot a bow, made of a thick piece of sinew strung between two ends of a slightly green branch, at bushes. When her aim was true and her arm was strong, he made for her a bow, carved lovingly and simply out of pine, and five arrows. The arrows she still used, but the bow she had outgrown. She had since made her own, under her father's guidance, and both his initials and her own were carved into it, right above where her thumb sat, to remind her never to take a shot on an animal she thought she might not make. It was the principle rule of respecting the forest, he said. He had taught her a lot about respect.

The first thing to do in a hunt is to listen. Make note of the trees, the way they sway. What is the air doing? How do the leaves sound? What is the ground covered with? Does the foliage make noise? Is the ground wet? Puddles and dry leaves will make noise, slightly damp soil will not. Pick your steps. Which birds are here? Take note of who is singing, and listen for changes. Listen. The forest will tell you what you need to know.

Maya listened. Slight breeze. Leaves rustling, but not dryly. The ground is covered with that perfect, slightly damp soil. Silent. Two... three birds sing. One on my left, two on my right. Hum, br br br, they say. Hum, br br br. Hum.... They've stopped. The forest is speaking.

A hand clamped down over Maya's mouth, and she felt herself being pulled over backwards from her crouch. Instinctively, she pulled the knife from her belt and flung it over her shoulder, hoping to stab the perpetrator. It sunk into the wet dirt and a sharp pain overtook her hand, causing her grip on it to falter. In that moment, she was rolled over so she was face down in the dirt, a massive weight on top of her. In the adrenaline of the moment, she thought that she was being attacked by the very mountain lion she was out here to kill.

"Hello, Huntress." That silken voice in her ear told her she was being held down by something much worse than a mountain lion. She thrashed, but the Akari merely grabbed her swinging fists and tucked them neatly underneath him, behind her back. She screamed in frustration.

"Now, now. We both know that nobody will hear you from here. There's no need for that."

Her knife was out of arm's reach, but her arrows were still in their quiver. If she could get an arm over her shoulder, she was sure she would be able to stab the man with the extra reach the shaft would lend her. She feigned compliance and quit moving, hoping his grip on her would relax.

"That's better. Now, what are you doing out here? Don't you know there's a ferocious mountain lion roaming these parts? I heard that it dug up a corpse from around here only last night."

It took all of Maya's will power not to fight him. The coldness in his voice told her he knew. She didn't know how, but he knew that was her father. She just swallowed and set her jaw.

"No matter, I've already killed it. You can thank me later. It was not such a vile creature; more of a pussycat, really.

"Is that why you have me here? So you can give it to me? Perhaps you felt the sting of morality when you took my buck the other day." Maya's words were laced with bitterness. The man laughed again. It sounded like icicles clanging together, but deeper. Cold and toneless. It raised goosebumps on Maya's arms, but with it, she felt his hold on her release slightly.

"No, huntress. That is not why I have you here. In truth, it was regret, but not for taking your buck. I just wish that I had lingered a little longer on you, that the taste of your skin had not so quickly left my lips..." He bent down to touch his lips to her neck, and her moment of opportunity had come. Her hand came up, finding an arrow almost immediately. She spun it around in her hand and flung it backwards. The same instant, all the weight suddenly disappeared from her back. Her wrist seemed to have hit a brick wall mid-stab. She was picked up by the back of her tunic and flung over, landing roughly on her back. Her head slammed into the ground, making her see stars for a moment. When that moment was over and her vision returned to her, the Akari man was sitting on her hips, one hand around her throat and the other raised in the air, hand curled into a tight fist.