A Huntress Rising

Chapter 1

His soft leather boot sprung lightly on the mossy forest ground, expertly silent as he stalked forward, just glimpsing the flash of gold bounding up ahead.

A mist, thick with salt, hung heavy and foreign in the air, clinging to trees young and overgrown and ever reaching heavenward. As his gaze rose up toward their tips, he saw the ghostly shadow of an owl and smiled. The hunt would be good; Odin promised.

A small, birdlike chirp brought his attention left as a lanky warrior, tall and lithe as a whip, dropped from a tree. The man's dark eyes, familiar and cold always, pointed to the right and he slunk forward. The scout must have seen their prey from up high. He followed, moving easily through the strange trees and high scrub, feeling the excitement of the hunt build.

This land was queer; ultra-greens flashed lushly, paling the sun's yellow warmth to cool green rays that illuminated pollen motes and small, pesky bugs swirling through the fog. He did not find it beautiful. He thought, briefly, of cold mountain streams and tall, sturdy pines, and mostly, of high, glacial peaks that eternally knew winter's icy grasp. But that was still a long voyage away. A voyage that would require meat.

The opening in the trees revealed a stony ledge boldly jutting through the cloying, vine-like undergrowth overhanging a bubbling spring that bespoke of the earth's disquieted nature in this unholy land.  And there she stood, like a beast from lore, so unlike the hearty elk that clung to the fjords and stole through the forests back home. The moment seemed almost frozen; he drew an arrow, silent and swift, she took a graceful step forward, he knocked it into place along the curved wood, she bent her impossibly slim neck down to the water, he drew back the taught sinew. All at once, she picked up her head, ears alert, eyes wide. Her slender legs looked almost too thin to bear her weight as she sensed the threat and strained, prepared to spring. Before he could, he heard the warrior's bowstring release and the arrow found it's mark in the thigh of the agile creature, her golden pelt rippled and she bucked, but made no noise as she bounded, with speed unthinkable, across the spring and into the dense woods.

"Damn you, Björn." He muttered. The warrior didn't bother to look back at him, but moved to the spring to find the blood trail. "Fan out, she can't have run far."

Björn let out a growl.

"Yes, my prince." The Anglo term was meant to cause offense, and it succeeded in making his hackles rise slightly. Björn was his father's second, but he had never trusted the cold man. Wanting to avoid another confrontation, he turned and began stalking the wounded doe. It was an easy task, one he had completed thousands of times before. He found the trail, reading the lie of the brush to see where she would have found the easiest path. He growled as he had to move deeper; he would have killed her the first time.

The blood grew thicker, but the path seemed to disappear, and he paused, confused. As she gave up, her lifeblood draining, her movements ought to have crushed vegetation, marring her path as the doomed road it was. Frowning, he followed nothing but the blood splotches to a stream and let a frustrated growl release from his throat, feeling his prey slip away. He paced downstream and then back up on the opposite bank, desperate for scarlet droplets on emerald leaves. He paced back downstream again, going further this time and stopped at the very edge of the water, smiling triumphantly, before frowning again. Next to the blood his keen eye had spotted was a print, but not a cloven-hoofed one. He studied the five defined toes and the owner's preference of their forefoot. The human was probably female, based on size, and bootless. He shook his head as his thoughts turned to The Trickster and he warily looked around for any sign of the Crow.

When he looked back down and towards the direction of his quarry, he stopped moving, breathing, even. A woman stood just out of his reach. She was beautiful, that was certain, with the copper skin and straight, black hair of the natives, her almond shaped eyes held his. The amber depths were proud first, the upward tilt of her chin and downward cast of her eye, despite having to look up at him, spoke of this domineering trait. But second they were afraid, hunted, and he felt odd, a pull in his gut. She held out a knife, point extended as she slipped into a stance he knew well. She was a shieldmaiden. But, before he could even respond to her unspoken threat, she collapsed.

He rushed forward only to stop warily short of her limited striking range, crumpled on the forest floor as she was. He looked again for the Crow, but the forest was still. Unnaturally still. He looked down again at the woman. A girl really, he saw in her unconsciousness. He bent over. She wore a soft, white leather dress and many decorative beads and stones in bands on her arms. Her hair, splayed out as it was, held several small braids adorned with bright beads. She was exotic, so removed from his world she could be from another time. He looked around again and froze. There was a familiar sight on the ground next to her unmoving fingers, a shaft fletched with an owl feather. How many times had he fetched this same type of arrow, along with the ones bearing the thin stripe of red paint that signified Hralgar had let it fly instead of Björn?

Without thinking, he pulled up the already short skirt of the woman's deer-pelt dress to reveal a strip of leather gartering her thigh, not quite stoping a small trickle of blood. Suddenly he looked up to see her amber eyes, fierce, angry, staring into his. She said two words in her unrecognizable language, and again lost consciousness. He stood, looking around for Björn. He had no idea why, but he found himself sweeping up the strange girl and rushing through the woods, back to the beach and away from.... what? Discovery?

"Odin's wrath spare me." He cursed on his northern breath.