The bow sings in my hands as I let the tension free. The vibration travels up my arm and settles into my chest. A chill seeps in my bones as I take in a fresh breath of the cold night air. It's too late now. Down range, the deer bolts upright and tries to flee. The arrow finds it and embeds in its neck. I let the held breath out and shoulder the bow, jostling the quiver on my back as I climb down from the tree. The bones and the joints protest as they bend, carrying the weight down to the forest floor. The rest of the herd bolted as soon as the one dropped. I would run too if something human dropped dead from a bolt on high. But as it stands, the deer is left alone, a buck just past his prime.
The antlers rustle as the beast lets out some vain distressed cry to the forest that surrounds us. He only gets a soft rush of wind through the leaves for a response. Poor thing. It has my sympathy, really, but I do not want to go hungry over the winter. So, the act of killing must be carried out and I will benefit from the whole act. He looks at me and thrashes in the dead leaves, bleating and yelling to some sylvan god to come down and smite the demon woman with cold steel delivered from afar. Nothing happens as I reach to my waist and pull out my knife.
It's quick. I make it quick, so the poor thing does not suffer any more than it has to. To the neck and the body goes still. Silence, the forest is silence save for the wind and the dead leaves. I lapse into the silence as well, listening for the suggestion of something beyond. The wind stills and the world goes with it. The moment passes and I find myself back in the woods with a dead deer in front of me. Grace and civility and the grand design of the natural world falls away and I have to carry a carcass a league and a half back home.
The field dressing is a routine at this point, taken and stolen from the chest and the belly. The heart is saved along with the liver. The meat is mine with the bones and the skin. I need a new blanket anyway. So many uses and I intend to get all of them out of the creature. Knives from the antlers, hammers from the bones, a new set of scrying dice carved from the joints. Nothing has more power in it than a beast brought back to the void by yourself.
Weight, so much weight in the body and I am happy for it. A long winter, said the birds and the knuckle bones, so the deer would be a welcome addition to the larder. Smoked and dried and stewed and ground and simply roasted, so many ways I can transfer the soul from the dead into my still living body. The shoulders do not like carrying the damn thing, but the rest of me is happy to do so. I just don't want a wolf or a bear to pick up the scent and come curiously trundling along to see what smells like blood and dirt. And I don't want them to find the deer flesh that is rightfully mine. Some unbreakable law of the land. I brough this deer down and no one in the right mind would take it from me.
The trail I carved through the brush comes clear and swift. I get the antlers caught more than I care to disclose, but even through all that, I find my way to the hut I staked in the earth at the base of a great pine. Still green, always green, and bountiful, the dead needles blanketing the ground with a springing softness swept away by my hand. I drop the deer in a shed by the side, a little way away from the main house. Something hot in my stomach, I think, before I tackle the full act of butchery. The fall's bite is not nearly as devasting as winter's but still, it has its ways of settling in and refusing to leave like an unwanted guest.
I wave my hands and the souls align, the inside of the hut graciously turning warm and bright and comforting. The cauldron simmers and bubbles and brews. They sing to me in the soft suggestive ways of things half forgotten. The wooden planks and beams, the jars, the pots, the hairs in the blankets, the pine needled strewn roof, welcoming me back from the time away. All the little things in a home come alive, not greatly, not grandly, a small shifting in the way they settle on the shelf. The lively ones might move an inch. The chair in particular, covered in buckskin, likes to dance if no one is watching. I smile at the warm immersion of home and everything in it.
---
The runes are starting to fail at the edges of my clearing. The wards and the walls are falling, chipped and cracked like a frozen pond. No matter, a quick circuit to re-etch and redraw the lines and the circles to make them whole again and I will have my solitude. The deer carved up nicely, one of the finer pelts I've managed to scrape away. I am debating on selling it down in the valley, in that little stalwart fort against the wilderness. Money cannot buy the spirits, but it can buy sugar and wine. That's more than worth it, really. Been a long, long time since I've had something sweet. And it is always good to keep an eye on the growing encroachment of the things manmade. My distaste for that world aside, there are several luxuries housed within that I have no shame of indulging.
But the runes, the warding runes that keep my hovel safe, those must come first. Some rain's probably washed away the ink and paint, while the winds knocked off their alignment. Some attention for them and some fresh air from me. The wind whispered of more rain, maybe snow, more winds and cold nights that needed smoldering fires and thick blankets and warm soup. Leaves underfoot and the clouds on the horizon confirmed as much and I sighed. Too soon, too soon for winter and the locked doors against the blizzard hail. Still so much to do.
The deer cured nicely, but I would still like some more for the larder just to be safe. Another hunting expedition at some point then, hopefully with a nice skin to sell. The other one sat before my fireplace, letting the ember souls soak in between the hairs. A new place for the spirits to hide and play, and hopefully it would help keep the heat trapped and still for my use. Those ones tended to be more than a little too free spirited, never staying in place, always wandering and free. I pull the scarf tighter, shutting out the wind.
My steps are silent, worming between the dead leaves and dry branches. So many years of practice behind each movement. So many years of stalking and being stalked. So many years of silent days and quiet nights, piling into one another, each bleeding into the next until there was just an indistinct smear of time behind me and before me. Good life, a very good life.
The meandering mind masks the intruder's presence. But the forest helpfully points them out. Snapping twig, rustling leaf, a grunt, and a thud after a trip from an invasive root. And a minor declaration of pain and annoyance. I take to the trees, hiding myself in the branches, unslinging the bow and testing the string. Still taught, still strong, arrows still sharp and deadly. Something that bumbling probably wasn't a threat, but probably wasn't the same thing as definitely, and ignorance could be as dangerous as malicious intent.
I creep, steps light, branches silent, as the wind promises stillness should a shot come to pass, and the branches swear on a clear line of sight. I follow the steps and the stumbles. Too close, much too close to the warding stone for my tastes. A thief or a saboteur perhaps. A wanderer come across the wrong patch of woods for a little bit of mischief. They will be escorted out.
A man, young but still fitting that classification, shaggy blonde and dressed much too fine for something of the woods. I sigh and the wind masks it with a rustle and a breeze. Some fool from the town in the valley hunting for the green witch of the woods. So many reasons they all had for seeking me out, wanting my persuasiveness for their own ends. A blessing, a curse, some arcane knowledge that will change their lives. Some even come and threaten harm. Those are always my favorites. So easy to scare off when they think I'm something more than I am.
The man doesn't know the way to move, almost to the point of enraging me. Something that ignorant, despite any intentions, is a liability. Rage at him for a failure to learn, rage at his parents for a failure to teach, rage at some indescribable entity of society that did not care enough to value soft stalking and quiet forests. His fault, a little bit, but that anger isn't directed at him, per se.
I let the rage go. It gets in the way most of the time. The task at hand is to get the wards back up and he just happened by one of them. Not his fault, just happenstance. A good scare will send him on his way. Since I'm out here, I might as well see if I can bag another deer today. Maybe a boar or something. Worst case scenario, I head down to the river tomorrow or the day after for some fish.
Swiftly, the bow leaves my shoulder and I knock an arrow. I take aim at a tree near his head, waiting until he's just close enough and I let it fly. Good hit, a nice solid thunk against the tree bark, sending a spray of splinters right into his face. He yelps and freezes and falls flat on his ass. I can't help but chuckle a little. I could watch dumb little fawns fall down all damn day.
Unfortunately, he's a freezer. That one little bit of the mind decides that if he stays perfectly still, nothing bad will happen. The threat will pass, and he will be safe. And he's still there and free to go home and tell someone else about the horrors of the world. I have something that needs done unfortunately.
