Dawn's Edge I: The Queen's Seeker

WYNONA - SOLILOQUY

The beauty of autumn was spread through the west of Hammerhold. The day was hot and dry and, although Wynona had never felt the bitter winds of winter across her cheeks, her ancestor's memories of the cold made her long for it. The warm and sticky climate of Hammerhold was no place for a forestborn, especially during one's hunt. The forest floor was thick with dry auburn leaves that crunched under her feet. Any sudden movement would echo throughout the forest, and the urge to wipe the sweat from her brow at the risk of drawing attention to her presence became greater as the seconds passed.

As still as stone, she told herself. As silent as shadows.

Across the glade, past a fallen tree with the bones of a man resting against its roots, a stag drank from the Onion River. Wynona admired the creature's beauty, with its white antlers and its golden pelt that was almost the same shade as the burnt orange leaves that the beast stood on, but she had not eaten in days and this stag's belly looked as big as a barrel of summer wine. She knew that she could not shoot the stag from her vantage point behind a seven-foot boulder; the fallen tree that stood between her and her prey was blocking its heart, lungs and stomach - all the points on its body Wynona could shoot for a quick and clean kill.

As sharp as a spear. As swift as a sabrewolf.

Occasionally the stag's head would rise from behind the collapsed tree after drinking from the cool stream, but a shot that was wrongly timed would whistle past the creature's head and hit the searwood behind him. The splintering of the bark as the tip of the arrow sunk into the tree would surely startle him, so she counted the seconds the stag would rise and bow from the river.

Rise and bow, rise and bow, rise and...

Twenty-three seconds.

She would take the shot on the twentieth.

Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.

Swoosh.

The arrow shot through the air, declining as it flew. It struck the creature's leg and the stag screeched before limping off north of the fallen tree. Wynona cursed in a language she did not know the name of and turned to Laraleith. Her mother was praying. The autumn mists muffled the sound of her voice, making it seem tiny and quiet. She was wearing her usual lilac gown decorated with azure vines and a silver crown through her silky, white hair.

'You stay here,' Wynona told her mother. 'You'll only scare it.' She pushed forward through the amber leaves, mail clinking softly beneath her cloak weaved from eagle feathers. She leapt over a log and rolled onto the floor almost silently. She could not afford to spook the stag a second time.

The day had arrived like fire and blood. Low in the steppes beneath the Bronze Mountains she had seen black bars of cloud crowning the great spires of stone. The lit the fog from below with infernos of shadowy red; but soon the mountains burst through the ebony clouds into an open coastal sky. The Forest of Bones was blazed with gold in the light of the orange stars. Her stomach had growled at the sight of the forest and she had longed for the salty taste of meat. Dust danced lazily above the running water, and flies buzzed merrily in the humid air. High up above the searwoods, ashwoods and dawnwoods, many birds were circling about the forest; their search for fresh meat was as desperate and fruitless as her own.

'This place is ill,' Lara muttered.

'I told you to wait by the boulder!' snapped Wynona. Though, in truth, she shared the same anxiety as her mother somewhat. The skeleton at the roots of the fallen tree had startled her when she first beheld it. But, after another look, the fleshless body felt rather silent and comforting. The dry crusty earth felt like bones beneath her feet and the bleeding stars glared at her through the amber leaves like an angry demon. There was little life in this part of the world, and the trees with white bark made Wynona feel as though she were walking through a forest of the dead.