NightEye

Oakful

Pux's POV

I run as fast as the wolf chasing me. No, faster. My feet barely touch the brown spring soil as I sprint to the village. My arrows pound against my back in their deerskin quiver. I know the wolf can smell the deerskin, by it's more enticed by the small trail of blood it left on my arm when it surprised me by the river.

I see the tall trees that mark the border of my village up ahead. The sentries are gone, like normal, so I won't have any help. My feet don't touch the earth, my arms are wind, my wild hair flies behind me like a banner of blood. I reach the trees, and sprint upward, not slowing. I didn't jump, exactly, but just lifted my legs higher to catch the lowest branch.

I climb the tree using my feet. The rough bark has yet to smooth with last-winter rains, but my feet are used to the scraping grains. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty feet up, I leap. Without pausing to look down, to gauge where I land, I push from the tree, using my momentum to spring my body far. As I fly through the air like the wind whistling past my ears, I unsling my bow from my back, and pull out an arrow. I shoot blind, still flying.

My instincts take over, twisting my body around until my feet are below me. I hit the hard trunk of another tree, and bounce off just as fast. Gravity pulls me down, and I hit another tree. Bouncing off that one as well, I make my way to the earthen floor.

The villagers are crowded around the center of the village, kneeling beside some creature. I hustle forward, pushing past people that all looked the same. Everyone makes way for me, averting their eyes as if I were a disease.

The creature lying on the ground in front of me looks strange. It has the face of a wolf, light brown fur and summer blue eyes. The body of a tiger, without the stripes, shimmering with sunlight and oak fur. A long tail, curled like a monkey's, striped with the colors of spring leaves.

The only thing that identifies the creature as one of a kind are the dark brown dots across its forehead, with curls at either end like horns. Before my eyes, the creature melts away, and there stands a girl.

Like every woman of our kind, she has long brown hair the color of oak wood. Her eyes, the color of a clear summer sky, are as hard as diamonds. Pale skin, almost the color of snow. The only identifier of her being one out of many are the dark freckles across her forehead, with the curls at the ends like horns.

"Ashia," I greet, and the woman just snorts. She, like the rest, never meet my gaze; I'm a disease to them, a killer walking around on two legs instead of four. I look at her side, where red is staining the deerskin cloth of her dress. "Looks like the Usea has nicked you, Great Hunter." Ashia takes the veiled barb straight to the chest, and her eyes flick up to mine. Still not directly, of course.

"The Usea is a cheater. You fired blind, and leaped. That is not part of the Hunt." Blue eyes hard, my enemy stares, challenging me, and forces me to say something. "So are you, Ashia. Ambushing while one is getting a drink? That's simply forbidden in the rules. Isn't it, Great Eye?" At the use of the tribe leader's name, everyone turns to stare at someone behind me.

I turn, and see a face weathered with age. Like all the men, the Great Eye has onyx hair, which hides the vivid forest green of his irises. Muscles ripple under his tan skin, burnt to the color of pine wood from the years under the forest's sun. His sash, as dark gray as a storm cloud, crosses his bare chest like a scar, one of the many our leader bares.

The Great Eye is the only one who dares even look close to my eyes. Looking me directly in the irises was forbidden from the moment I first revealed my peculiarness. A rumbling voice comes from the leader's throat, spoken in the tongue of the Tilvani, our people. Little do they realize that I can understand, that I always could.