The Savage

[Incomplete]

The arrow whizzed by her neck, missing by what seemed to be centimeters. With the crackle of some leaves, it fell to rest next to her, useless. She perked her head up, turning to the noise, startled, before a second arrow tore through her neck, and she fell to the ground, tossing up dirt with her landing. Aerda landed lightly next to her, first retrieving the wayward arrow, then the arrow that had struck true. The deer lay still on the ground, devoid of life. The bluejays in the trees watched Aerda kneel down, her hunting knife drawn. And the sun smiled on Aerda.

            The smell of cooking meat filled the air, a sensation that had drawn many nearer to the fire lighting up the darkened sky, yet not close enough to disturb Aerda. She sat alone, the fire casting dancing shadows as she slow cooked her prize. She scratched her nose, impatiently watching the fire as it crackled, licking her lips in anticipation. Her temporary home was already constructed, the lean-to a pathetic structure underneath the massive trees, which towered over the forest and stretched seemingly into the heavens. Unable to wait any longer, Aerda snatched the meat from the spit, and without waiting, bit into the meat. She immediately dropped the spit, yelping as the heat bit into her. As soon as the spit hit the ground, two squirrels darted in, having watched with jealousy at Aerda’s fortune. They tore off as much as they could bear to carry, and scampered off into the darkness.

            “Glyták!” Aerda cried, and screamed into the darkness, in a vain attempt to convince the squirrels to return her bounty.

            They didn’t return.

            Grudgingly, Aerda retrieved the remains of her dinner; the scraps left on the bones. She gnawed away at the bone, scraping every bit of food she could, before resigning herself to rest in her lean-to. As the embers of the fire burnt out, she heard thunder, yet there was no rain. Or lightning.

            Aerda found herself listening to the trees often; she found they gave the best advice. Papa had taught her that, the trees often know more than one could ever imagine. If they are that tall, have lived for this long, they must be legions wiser than any of us.

            Her papa had always had the best advice.

*

            Aerda enjoyed her solitary walks through nature, they let her think as she moved from stream to stream, searching for food. Her thighs ached from climbing the gnarled roots of the forest, yet she ignored their burning protests, she was too busy wondering what was happening with Impê back home. Or rather, where home used to be. He was probably playing Slayer with his friends; he usually ended up as the goliath, but he was good at being the goliath anyway. A breeze rustled through the wood, and Aerda shivered, the hairs on her arms standing on edge.

            “I’ll need to start collecting pelt,” she muttered to herself, “it will be a cold winter.”

            Her words were carried by the breeze, back to places she had passed, and places that were yet to come.

            Aerda was following the droppings of a boresai, and a large one at that. She knew it was a bit of a gamble, but an animal of that size would feed her for a month, save for the meat being spoiled. Aerda wasn’t concerned with that though, she simply wanted to find a challenge, something to do. The dung was dried, about a day old. The smell wafted to her nose, and she choked, her breath starting to form in front of her nose.

            “It’ll be dark soon,” she said.

            Aerda spoke to herself not only to remind her that she was human, but so she could still speak, just in case she ever happened upon another human. Not that the last time she had seen a human had gone well.

            As she lightly stepped along the trail, a natural road made by the multitude of creatures passing through, she heard her father’s words: “Trails mean water.”

            She was a young girl, of only eight rotations. Her father was old for a hunter, or a father for that matter, at forty rotations. And he felt it his responsibility to pass down his knowledge to Aerda, a rather unremarkable girl, she would admit. But she had the fortune of being his child, making her remarkable. His first lesson to her had been the tracking of the prey, to always know your prey before attacking. When does it sleep, he would ask, it, like us, is most vulnerable at rest. There’s another tip for you, he’d laugh, always have someone to watch your back in the wilds. Never go it alone.

            Aerda laughed to herself as she climbed the tree, her hands cracked and calloused from months of drawing, fletching, and climbing. A celebra flew from the tree, the awkward, potbellied bird tilting its disproportioned body in flight, bright green feathers falling from its mangy down and fluttering towards the ground, what seemed to be thousands of meters below the steadily climbing girl. The setting sun beckoned to Aerda, the orange and yellow colors moving like dancers before her eyes, calling her to climb higher and higher, to come closer to join them. She felt an animal, scampering up the tree to safety, because she had decided perhaps her papa’s words of caution were better heeded than set by the wayside like a broken tool.

            Her nail cracked as she reached for a hole in the tree, a naturally inviting handhold. Her hand reached in, and she found the unfortunate crack on an egg smashed underneath her searching hand. She gasped, and jerked her hand back, the shell scratching her palm. Her left arm held to a small branch, with both of her feet on a single strong branch. From within the hole, she heard a high-pitched screech, and swearing, she clumsily reached across her jerkin to her belt, fumbling for her knife. Like an arrow from a bow, another celebra shot from the whole, and while the portly bird was comically in flight, Aerda knew from experience that the teeth in its beak were much less humorous. Especially where one false movement meant an even less humorous fall back to the ground. The bird swiveled in the air, tilting to the side with a weak flap, and finding Aerda as the source of its young’s untimely disappearance. Aerda found the hilt of her knife, and drew it, turning her body to point the knife at the hovering bird. The celebra jerked down, then up again, then with a squawk, darted towards Aerda’s face.

            She drew back her face and swiped with her knife, trying to score a hit on the attacking bird. Instead, the momentum carried her forward, causing her grip on the branch to loosen, and she fell. Before she could fall, she hugged the branch below her, so that her body was facing the ground below.

            The branch cracked.

            The celebra was not satisfied with Aerda’s imminent danger, and flew down to bite at her exposed thigh. She spun, leaving her hanging from the branch, and the celebra hit the branch, and careened down, landing on its oversized beak on a small limb beneath Aerda.

            With every inch of her strength, she rotated until she was again facing the ground. Then, carefully retreating until her back was against the trunk of the tree, she pushed up with her arms, feeling her way back up. As she stood, however, the strain she had put on her body caught up to her, and her calf seized up. She gasped, and the celebra hopped to its feet, shaking its head as it clawed at the limb, preparing to take off again. Aerda slid back to a sitting position, clasping at her calf. The celebra flapped its wings, and slowly began to ascend to Aerda, screeching at the unfortunate girl. She punched her calf with the hilt of the knife, trying anything she could think of to relieve herself of the burning pain. The celebra, she noticed, was hoping to cause her quite a bit more pain. Aerda drew back the knife, looking below her at the celebra, who seemed quite amused at the turn of events leaving Aerda incapacitated on the branch, a sudden movement away from being squashed on the ground like the celebra’s poor chick. There is a reason, Aerda reflected, that we never hunted celebra eggs. They get pissed off very easily, and those teeth do not feel nice. The eggs taste great, though. The celebra grinned at the huntress, flashing its rows of sharp teeth, clamping its jaws together in anticipation of biting into her leg, snaring food for it and its children. Aerda straightened her leg, and let it stay exposed above the angry bird. The celebra flapped its wings harder, unable to wait to take revenge. Aerda jerked her leg back to the branch, and the bird angrily flapped up making eye contact with Aerda right before its head was severed, its long neck an easy target for Aerda’s knife. The body hung in the air for a moment, before tumbling down, smashing leaves and startling plenty of other animals in the tree before smashing into the ground. Aerda breathed heavily, but not heavily enough to mask the sound of the boar beneath her fight over the miniscule celebra carcass.

            She stood again, and instead of forcing her hand into the hole, instead gingerly reached in, retrieving one egg, then two, ignoring the smashed remains that had so enraged the celebra. The eggs would make for a suitable substitute for meat; they were essentially a delicacy. By now, the light had faded from existence, leaving Aerda to climb by the light of the half-moon in the sky. The rays shone down upon her figure, and any onlooker would have only seen a shadow scaling a tree of seemingly impossible size.

            Aerda decided that she would be well suited to stop at the halfway point, already dizzyingly high above the ground, more than high enough to keep from any attack the dangers on the ground below could have exposed her to. But Aerda liked being high up, and while looking down terrified her, it made her feel like she wasn’t braving the wilds alone. She may have been resting without another person to watch her back, but the trees were companion enough to keep her safe.

*

            Aerda ran, her feet sticking and squelching in the mud beneath her feet. The dirt got in between her toes, but she didn’t care. The air was cool in the most pleasant of ways, and she felt free as she tore across the village. Huts made of wood and mud ceilings blurred past as Aerda ran like the wind. She heard a crabby old woman in a hut across from her call in anger, probably at her aggressive and offensive gait, but Aerda pretended to miss the reprimand, and instead flew around, like an eagle. The mud started to slow her, however, and she felt herself slowing to a halt as the houses shot backwards. The landscape passed as if she were running, yet she stood in place, frozen to the world around her. And she became cold all of a sudden, her skin crawled around her and she stood alone, on the summit of a mountain in the dead of winter. She spun around, and beneath her were the vast forests she roamed for so long, the life of the tribe.

            And it burned.

            Smoke curled from the forest, obscuring her vision of much of the land. Orange flames licked at the base of the mountain, melting the snow into water, water which rushed through the trees. And though she was kilometers away, it seemed she could hear the scream of every dear, the frightened gasp of each boar. In a clearing in the trees, she could see her village, seconds before it was wiped out by the fire. She looked into the eyes of Impê as he smiled at her before he vanished into the devouring, hungry flame.

            She fell to her knees, and the snow cleared to leave her on cold, solid rock beneath her. Then, ten meters ahead of her, she saw a man with his back turned to her, almost two meters tall. His chest was bare, and on his back, he had many tattoos, swirling and threatening all at once, full of sharp edges and corners. His hair was dark, and braided down to his waist, it was unkempt, yet pristine. He held his hand out, and in his hand was an ornate knife, with a handle made of carved bone, and curved blade reddened by dried blood. He reached back, and in one motion, cut the braid. It fell, and the snow sizzled where it had landed. Then, he let out a guttural roar, and the mountain split below Aerda. And the gaping maw of the earth opened to devour her whole, and she was falling and falling…

            And she was falling from the branch in the dead of night, and as she groggily shook her head, she heard her arm snap as she hit a limb of the tree. She cried out, and scratched her cheek on the tree, before landing, damaged, on a particularly strong branch, letting her catch her breath. Her bow and knife were left at the top of the tree, and she knew there was no way she could climb back up the tree. She moved to sit up, and immediately screamed out, sending birds flying, flustering the leaves and breaking the dead of night. Her right arm ached in pain, and she could barely move. She struggled for air, greedily gulping as much as she could, praying to Glyták that He would free her from this pain, one way or another. Is this what it’s led up to, she wondered, dying alone in a tree, kilometers from home? She held her right arm in her left, gingerly shielding it. And as Aerda wept silent tears, a particularly enterprising vespera spider decided that her pain was not enough. It crept along the branch, annoyed that this massive creature had deigned its home unimportant enough as to barge in.

            And it crept up Aerda’s leg, unnoticed by the injured girl.

            And it sunk its fangs into her.

            Aerda looked down, to see a peculiarly large spider attached to her leg by virtue of its positively terrifying fangs. Aerda passed out, and her limp body slipped off the branch. The venom from the spider entered her system, incapacitating her as her body fell through the tree, smashing limbs and boughs indiscriminately. The branches smashed back, of course. And she fell to the ground, not quite dead, yet certainly not quite alive. She lay alone in the center of a clearing, a single clear moonray shining down on her, surrounded by nature. The animals left her alone, as she bore the signs of vespera venom.

            Evolutionary processes had taught them to avoid vespera venom. The venom, as they knew, worked its way through one’s body, turning off bodily functions as it went, leaving one incapacitated from the point of the bite, until it reached one’s head, shutting down the functioning of the brain. The bite, fortunately for Aerda, originated on her leg, meaning for now, she wasn’t braindead, only paralyzed.

            She seemed braindead, however, as she lay motionless on the ground, the toxin having knocked her out, at least temporarily. And as the thunder in the distance grew louder and louder, seemingly approaching her unmoving body, the animals ran away. This place held nothing but danger for them.