Mark Sehestedt - Hand of the Hunter

Hweilan had grown up in a land nestled between mountains and steppe, where most of the moisture fell as snow and clung as ice for six months out of the year. What few woods there were clung to the foothills and mountain valleys-mostly pine and spruce, trees that could survive the harsh cold. The forest she'd seen in the realms of Kunin Gatar had been dense. But nothing like what surrounded her.

Nothing but trees and brush in every direction. Trunks and branches turned and twisted, almost as if they'd been dancing and had frozen in place at the sight of the strange girl blinking at them. Never had she seen such monsters as these trees. Some of the leaves were big as shields. The sky lay hid beneath the ceiling of the leaves, and Hweilan could only guess at the trees' height. A hundred feet? More? No way to know. They might climb all the way to tickle the moon for all she could tell.

But the faces…

As a child enjoying Narfell's brief summers, she had often lain in the tall grass of the steppe and seen shapes in the clouds or the profile of a face on some crag. But the knots and holes in the trees around her…

The trunks had knots that looked much too much like eyes, and they seemed to watch her. A broken branch looked very much like a nose. And the cracked and split bark in the trunks stretched like mouths. Some seemed almost sad, or frozen in a scream. But far too many held a malicious glee.

Hweilan stood. She had no idea where she was, had no idea what time of day it was-the wood seemed caught in a perpetual twilight; enough light to see, but plenty of shadows in which anything could be hiding. She knew she wanted to be anywhere but there.

Leaves rustled far overhead as the upper boughs caught a slight breeze, but down below the air was still. She could hear the chirps of birds, but they stayed hidden in the upper branches. There was no sound of the waterfall. She was obviously far away from Gleed's tower but had no memory of how she'd come here. What had that little beast put in her drink?

Hweilan started walking. She had no idea where she was or where she was going, so she simply went down the slope. Other than her bath and bed, Hweilan had never gone shoeless in her life. To do so in Narfell would be folly. But here, the floor of wet leaves was soft and easy on her feet. Still, it was cool, and even after walking briskly for what seemed a mile or more, she couldn't stop shivering.

Once, she thought she heard singing in the distance-childlike voices, though raucous. But when she stopped and held her breath to listen, there was only the sound of the breeze in the highest boughs. Down here, the air was deathly still. Black moths and dark blue butterflies flitted around her now and then, and once a dragonfly shot past her so fast that her first thought was that someone had loosed an arrow at her.

Which brought Gleed's words from the night before fresh to her mind.

There are far crueler things in these woods than me.

Almost as if summoned by the thought, she heard something approaching from her right, crashing through the brush.

Hweilan stopped and held her breath. A few of the black moths fluttered around. But nothing more. She looked for a weapon. Nothing. Not even a sizeable rock or broken branch.

Then she saw it-a flash of red. A fox bounded out of the brush, its back almost arrow straight as it ran. It saw her, stopped, then bounded off again, disappearing as quickly as it had come.

Hweilan let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Her heart beat so fiercely that she could feel her face pulsing like the skin of a drum.

"Only a fox." It came out a whisper, but still seemed very loud in the silence of the forest.

Hweilan kept going, following the lee of the hill. It was getting steeper the farther she went, and the light dimmer.

The trees grew even larger, and some of their roots broke out of the ground, forming arches under which she walked. Spiderwebs draped the low branches, and although the few spiders she saw were no bigger than her smallest fingernail, still she walked around the webs rather than through them.

The hill was getting steep enough that Hweilan was beginning to slip and had to lean against one hand as she walked. But she could hear the rush of water again and thought she might be getting close to the lake and Gleed's tower.

Ahead of her a particularly massive root broke out of the side of the hill and arched over her path before seeking ground again. Sitting atop it, watching her, was the fox. Its golden eyes seemed very bright in the gloom.

Hweilan's feet slipped out from under her. She went down and caught hold of a sapling before she slid down the hill. Lying there in the cold, wet leaves, she looked up and saw that the fox was gone.

In its place atop the gnarled root, a woman crouched. Like Hweilan, the woman's feet were bare, but she was dressed in an array of stitched skins and leathers. She had the look of an elf-lean, angular build, a face of sharp angles, canted eyes, and ears that topped in sharp tips. Crouched as she was, her hair, thick as a pelt, hung past her shins, and in the gloom of the wood it seemed just a shade above black. Her skin was even darker than Scith's, and black designs-whorls, waves, and vinelike twists sprouting thorns-decorated her hands, bare arms, and face. Seeing someone, if not human, then at least more familiar than Gleed, almost put Hweilan at ease. But then she saw that the woman's eyes were a golden yellow, very bright in the gloom, and split by vertical pupils. And her toes and fingers ended in claws. A dark, wet something ran out of the corner of the woman's mouth-that can't be blood, Hweilan thought-and then the woman licked it away.

Gleed's words sprang to her mind-Tomorrow you will meet Kesh Naan. Kesh Naan will give you the Lore.

Hweilan swallowed, took a deep breath, and said, "A-are you K-Kesh Naan?"

The woman canted her head to one side, expressing something between curiosity and amusement. " 'A-are you K-Kesh Naan?' " she said, in perfect imitation of Hweilan's own voice. She licked her lips again, as if tasting the words, then shook her head, left shoulder to right shoulder, very slowly, and said, "No."

"Who are you?" said Hweilan.

The woman's lips peeled back, revealing sharp, yellow-white teeth.

Hweilan almost screamed, but her breath caught in her throat. She pushed herself carefully to her feet.

The woman jumped down, landed a few feet in front of Hweilan, then slowly stood and said, "I am…" She paused, as if searching for the word, then finished, "… hungry."

Hweilan turned and ran.

She made it perhaps five or six strides, then a weight hit her square in the back and two arms wrapped around her-one around her neck, the other under her arm. Claws bit through the cloak and into her skin.

Hweilan fell, the full weight of the woman coming down atop her, knocking all the breath from her body. But they kept moving. The slope was steep and they slid, gaining speed, crashing through bushes, over roots, breaking through young saplings and bouncing off bigger ones.

A snarl, and then Hweilan felt sharp teeth sink into her shoulder. She screamed, and an instant later they slammed into the trunk of a tree. The rough bark scraped a swath of skin off Hweilan's arm, then they were moving again.

Hitting the tree had weakened the woman's grip around Hweilan. The next broke it altogether. But it also knocked all the air out of Hweilan, and she thought she felt a rib crack.

She kept going down the hill, the world tumbling around her, branches and rocks scraping and gouging her skin. Hweilan could hear the other woman crashing just behind her, but all she could see was a blur of green and brown as the world shot past.

And then there was nothing. No grasping arms. No roots scraping her back or trees slamming into her ribs. Just open air washing past her. She had time to take in an agonized breath as she went over the cliff.