Wolf River - Chapter 2
#2 of Wolf River
Hidden behind the fallen trunk of an ancient spruce tree, a figure crouched low, trusting the tangled deadfall in front of her to hide her from the object of her interest. Pointed ears twitched slightly and a black nose wrinkled as Kendri scented the wind and listened intently. A metallic clank rang out from the camp in front of her, causing a momentary stillness of the pointed ears as she focused on the odd sound. Her amber eyes shifted back and forth as she watched a very peculiar scene unfold some forty spans away. After a long moment of intense observation, she carefully shifted positions and stifled a yawn as she stretched muscles cramped from sitting motionless for long hours. As silence returned to the camp in front of her she was distracted for a moment as a lone squirrel began dropping pine cones into the snow from the top of a nearby tree. She watched it with mild interest for a moment before turning her attention back to the scene in front of her. The source of her curiosity had only recently emerged from his hut and after stretching and yawning was now poking about in the remnants of last night's fire with a stick, apparently trying to get it going again.
Such an unusual creature. Kendri had never seen anything like it in all of her years. A tailless, nearly furless giant, standing fully a head and a half taller than she and clad in strangely coloured clothing from head to toe. Five days now she had followed this stranger, always keeping her distance, watching and learning from the shadows.
He was lost, that much was certain. Kendri had come to realize that from his actions over the past few days. He seemed nervous, ill at ease, and had spent most of his time around his camp, moving only to gather more wood to feed the almost constantly burning fire in front of the strange hut that he slept in. She could sense the creature's anxiety and unease as he paced back and forth beside the fire and there were even a few times where a trace of fear tinged his scent as it wafted down towards her. As the days passed, his anxiety and fear grew into a sense of desperate uncertainty as his supplies of food dwindled into nothingness. The creature had made a few excursions into the forest by then, short hunting trips that he always returned from anxious and empty handed. Hunger could be a powerful motivator, Kendri knew that all too well. Her own supplies of food were dwindling fast and her recent hunting had only netted her the occasional rabbit or grouse. No, she said to herself as her thoughts wandered back over the rough times of the last two years, she was definitely no stranger to hunger.
Day after day the creature had left his camp and went on long hunts. Each one had been unsuccessful but surprising in its own way. There were a few animals around, Kendri's sharp nose could pinpoint their locations but for some reason the creature appeared to not even scent them and had walked by without out even showing a sign of interest. That both surprised and confused her. After following the stranger on a couple more hunts she had begun to wonder if he had no sense of smell at all. If that was truly the case, he would surely starve to death unless he got lucky and blundered onto some sort of prey.
Kendri craned her neck to see over the fallen log in front of her. She watched curiously as the creature prepared for his morning hunt. He put a small pot over the fire that as it heated up gave off a spicy aroma that made her nose tingle. After a few short minutes, he poured the steaming contents of the pot into a smaller vessel that he began to slowly sip. That's all he did for a time, but shortly he stood up and threw the dregs of whatever he had been drinking into the fire. The fire hissed and sputtered and steam curled up into the cool air.
A pair of curious amber eyes watched interestedly as the he threw a huge armload of wood on the fire and then slung an unusual item that glinted of polished wood and metal over his shoulder. He gathered up a few other smaller items that he put into the pockets of his clothes or hooked on his belt and then he set out to follow one of the small creeks that wound down from the nearby hills to join the river down in the valley.
Kendri was quite sure that the creature never suspected that she had been watching him and following him for several days. She had taken great care over the last few days to keep herself downwind and hidden from view and her tracks inconspicuous. The creature never once seemed to notice that she hovered nearby, watching with curious eyes, and this day was no different. With hardly a glance in her direction the stranger walked barely ten spans away from her hiding place on his way out hunting, or whatever it was that he was going to do. Kendri waited patiently for him to pass before following stealthily in the shadows, keeping track of her quarry with perked ears and a sensitive nose.
He was easy to follow, this strange creature, He walked steadily, putting some distance between himself and his camp before settling into a walk that was so slow that it was almost a stalk. She could sense the change in him when he slowed. He became more alert and his eyes scanned the trees for any sign of movement. There were periods where he stopped and listened for some time before he began his painfully slow walk again. He walked straight upwind but never seemed to read the scents borne upon the gentle breeze that blew from the northwest. He carried cradled in his arms what she was beginning to think was some kind of weapon, a short spear perhaps. It flashed polished wood and metal whenever caught by a stray beam of sunlight that managed to pierce through the clouds and the canopy of branches overhead.
Half an hour into the hunt, the stranger stopped suddenly and stared intently down at the snow. It was then that Kendri realized that the creature had found the tracks she had left in the snow the day before when she had taken a break from watching the creature and had gone out to find her afternoon meal. She quietly cursed herself for leaving such a conspicuous trail and settled down nervously to watch the creature's reaction. He seemed fascinated by her tracks. Kendri watched as he knelt down to get a closer look. He pulled a thin covering off of one paw and traced a bare finger around the edges of one of her footprints. He stayed in that position for some time, one paw scratching absently at his chin while he stared at the prints in the snow. When he stood up, he placed his foot beside her tracks and compared the print that was left in the powdery snow. He stared at the tracks for a long time before his head came up and he then took a long look in the direction the prints led. With renewed energy in his steps, he began to follow the trail. For a couple of hours, he followed Kendri's old tracks while she followed him. It was only when snow began to spiral down from the leaden sky did he come to a halt. He looked down the trail ahead of him, then back along the way he came. His whole body slumped a bit and he shook his head and muttered something. He looked up at the grey sky and the heavy flakes of snow floating down and turned back the way he came. Kendri breathed a sigh of relief, grateful for the distraction that the snow provided. She wasn't sure what the creature would do when he found that the tracks eventually led right back to his camp.
A change seemed to have come over the stranger as he turned back towards his home. He seemed hopeful and even more alert than he had been before. Now he knew there was something else out there that also walked on two legs, he would be on the lookout for whoever had left those tracks behind in the snow, but whether or not the he realized that he was being watched was another matter. Kendri didn't think so but she decided to be extra cautious when it came to choosing her hiding places and she would try and stick to trails where there were already many tracks.
Kendri hung back for a moment and when the stranger had disappeared from view, she approached the trail he had been following with the utmost caution. The snow was coming down steadily by now, already filling in the old prints that she and the creature had left in the snow. Snow swirled around her as she regarded the tracks. Her tracks were small compared to the creature's, like comparing an adult's prints to a pup's. The thought came to her as she stood silently in the falling snow that she and the creature were likely the only ones within a moon's worth of travelling that could make such prints. She felt a pang of sadness at that thought and she turned away, fading into the snow and disappeared into the trees, taking up the stranger's trail once again.
The next hour or so passed rather uneventfully and Kendri stifled a yawn as she hid behind the clump of roots left by a fallen tree. She considered curling up and taking a short nap under the shelter of the gnarled deadfall. Not much snow had managed to accumulate under the overhanging roots and the exposed moss was soft and inviting. She yawned again and turned lazily in a circle a few times, the creature would undoubtedly find his way back to his camp on his own. She could catch up with him later. She peered around the edge of her sanctuary one last time before lying down and was startled to see that the creature had disappeared. All thoughts of a nap were forgotten and she sniffed the air carefully. The creature's scent was still strong on the wind, but she also scented fain traces of something else carried on the breeze. There was a deer nearby. Her nose told her the story. The deer was a doe and it wasn't too far away, somewhere around three hundred spans upwind. The scent made her stomach rumble as her instincts registered it as food. She had eaten the last remnants of the rabbit she caught two days ago for her evening meal yesterday, and her hunger now awoke with renewed fury. A grin split her muzzle and she crept stealthily out of her hiding place, all of her senses on edge.
The creature had not disappeared, as Kendri had first thought. He had simply just passed over the crest of a small rise and vanished from her sight. She was somewhat surprised that he had slipped from her sight so easily but she soon caught up with him as he stalked his slow stalk back to camp. The enticing scent of the deer filled her nostrils and she thought about what to do. The creature seemed to be heading right towards the it. Perhaps he would get lucky and manage to kill it. If not and he passed it by like all the other animals he had come close to over the past days, she would try her luck again and pray for a kill.
Ever so slowly the creature crept forward. The deer was now only about one hundred fifty spans way now, and still he seemed not to notice that there was food literally right in front of his muzzle. Kendri waited on edge for when he would finally begin his stalk in earnest. It was a few more minutes and another twenty-five spans closer before he reacted. He stopped suddenly and stayed very, very still for a moment, eyes focused dead ahead. A sudden thrill went through Kendri. He finally sees it! The creature slowly pulled its weapon off of its shoulder and began to stalk more purposefully. Kendri could sense his excitement; it radiated from him like heat from a fire. He crouched down, almost on his knees and darted beside a large tree. Now only a hundred spans away, she could just barely see the deer through the trees and the falling snow. It was walking along the edge of the trees across the creek and was moving slowly towards them. Kendri began to formulate a plan. From what she could see, the trail that the deer was following continued down towards her and passed by her hiding spot about ten spans to her right. With luck and patience all they would have to do was wait. They were both on the downwind side of the trail and the creature was about thirty spans farther up the trail than she was. If he missed his chance, he might scare the deer towards her and she might be able to spear it as it ran past, even if it meant revealing her presence to the creature. She looked up towards the creature to see what he was preparing to do. A frown came to her muzzle as she watched him steady his weapon against the tree beside him and point it towards the deer. What is he doing? She though. If he doesn't wait he'll scare off the deer and...
An unexpected and unbelievably loud clap of thunder roared from the weapon that the creature held in his paws and he twitched as if struck by a giant invisible hand. It felt as if a hole had been torn through the very air and Kendri nearly jumped right out of her fur. She felt a physical blow from the blast and saw snow shake loose from the branches of trees in front of the creature.
Stunned, Kendri cringed in fear behind the fallen log that gave her cover, ears plastered back against her skull and her tail between her legs. The creature got up and took off running even before the echoes of the blast had totally died away. She was still trying to comprehend what had just happened when she heard a whoop of joy from the creature. Impossible! He couldn't have killed it from that distance! But her nose didn't lie. The scent of fresh blood drifted down to her, making her mouth water despite her fear. This unusual creature was obviously more powerful than she had thought. It had a weapon that could kill a deer at one hundred spans distance. She could hardly see a deer at one hundred spans, never mind kill it at that distance. Before, she wasn't sure what the creature would do if it ever spotted her. Now she was terrified that if he did, he might use his weapon with it's Power of Thunder against her.
She cowered behind the fallen tree for a long time, unsure of what to do or what was going to happen. The creature had long since finished cleaning out the carcass of the deer and only short minutes ago had passed so close by her hiding place that she could have reached out and poked him with the end of her spear. He continued on without noticing her and headed down towards his camp with the deer slung over his shoulders, leaving a trail of bright red blood droplets on the snow. It was only several minutes after he had passed out of hearing range that she dared to stick her head out of her hiding place. Much to her chagrin her ears were still plastered to her head and it took conscious effort for her to hold them up. After waiting a few more minutes, just to be sure the creature was gone, she cautiously picked her way towards the creek and read the story of the hunt by the tracks in the snow.
Sure enough, the deer had been nearly a hundred spans away when it was killed. The deer's tracks showed where it had been hit by something. The tracks showed a normal walking speed, and then abruptly they turned into running tracks. Shortly after the transition between walking and running, bright red spots of blood, lung blood, began to litter the snow. Only twenty or so spans from where the deer had been hit did it finally fall. The snow was packed down here and the creature had left the guts in a pile on the snow. After a moment's indecision, she picked through the entrails with the end of her spear to see if the creature had left anything edible there. Much to her dismay, there was only the stomach, intestines, lungs and a couple other inedible organs. She grimaced distastefully. Hungry she was, but not that hungry. Instead, she used the point of her spear to chip a chunk of frozen blood and snow loose and threw it into her mouth, heedless of the deer hairs sticking to it, She chewed slowly, letting the metallic taste trickle down her throat while she stood deep in thought. A part of her wondered if the creature would perhaps share some of his kill, but she quickly pushed that idea away. She would return to the shelter tonight and let the creature have his feast. She needed to meditate and clear her mind to help her to understand what she had just witnessed. There was something very strange about this creature. Perhaps during her meditation, if she could sink deep enough into the life-force that joins all things together, she might be able to find his specific thread. If she was very lucky, she might find something there that would answer some of her questions.