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.
