Ike Hamill - The Hunting Tree Trilogy

He considered the river behind him—it was deep and hard to cross, and he knew the legends as well as anyone: spirits couldn’t traverse running water. He would be swept away and disintegrated by the cleansing power of the river. He had no fear of death, but saw no point in testing the old wisdom. The men in front of him moved with no great skill. They sounded clumsy and haphazard. He knew their methods. They would have two lines, separated by enough distance so that if the first line was breached the second could collapse on the struggle. The men to the south were clearly well-trained and fearless. Crooked Tree decided to take his chances with the line in front. He found an appropriate tree: a tall oak with a full canopy of branches, high up the trunk. He executed another spectacular leap and grabbed the lowest branch, pulling himself up into the heights of the forest.

Releasing a long, slow breath, Crooked Tree stopped breathing and slowed his heart. He waited.

The inexperienced men of the front line crashed through the underbrush and jumped at every shadow. The forest rang with the occasional yip of a false sighting, quickly retracted by an embarrassed man. They passed under his tree without detecting a trace of his presence.

The second line moved with efficient silence. The men paused with each step, listening, looking, and sniffing the air. The two warriors who moved under the branches of Crooked Tree’s roost stopped and studied the ground. His launch had left rustled leaves and indentations in the ground.

Crooked Tree didn’t wait for the men to complete their analysis. With his eyes shut and body nearly deactivated, he sensed their movements and whispered consultation. He pushed away from the trunk and plummeted to the ground, landing on his hands and feet just past their line. On either side of the tree the hunters whipped around. A spear flashed by Crooked Tree’s side. In one quick move, Crooked Tree spun and tore off through the woods, leaving the line of men yelling as they sprinted after him.

Their cries called everyone to action.

He moved away from the river at a pace which no man could match, but the hunters had numbers. Their well-positioned reinforcements swarmed from the south as another contingent cut off his escape to the north. His flight took him into the arms of the cliffs to the west. As Crooked Tree broke from the forest, he beheld the white cliffs, stark in the moonlight. A warm breeze cooled his skin and he sniffed its message. Not dozens, but hundreds of men swept up from the south.

They must have summoned every family from either end of the long valley and all the way to the saltwater , he thought. His systematic killings in the past few months had finally prodded the families into action.

Crooked Tree turned his head slowly and processed the information his ears reported. Aside from the cliffs, every avenue was cut off. He could try to fight his way through the line, but they might collapse on his position too quickly for him to escape. He bounded towards the cliffs and pulled himself up the vertical rock face gracefully and quickly. He had ascended halfway to the top before the first warriors burst from the tree line, into the clearing at the bottom of the rock face.

Not all families shared the same language, so when the hunters spotted him climbing the rocks, they whooped and yipped. Those armed with slings sent missiles hurtling up at Crooked Tree, but his grip was strong and the rocks lacked any velocity by the time they reached him. Just a few arm-lengths from the top, the rocks stopped coming from below. He risked a glance down, expecting to see his pursuers defeated. Crooked Tree was surprised to see that they had all backed away to the edge of the woods—the clearing below was empty.

A single man below cupped his hands around his mouth and uttered a high, lonesome “whoop” into the night. That’s when Crooked Tree heard the rustling above him. He understood at once: this had been their intention all along, to get him exposed on the rock face. He looked down and considered the consequence of attempting a jump. He had survived such a fall once, and that was before he’d been converted to a supernatural spirit, but he suspected that his powers had limits. Pulling himself up, he continued to climb and figured he would take his chances with whomever was meant to fight him at the top.

The hunters had no intention of letting him summit the cliff. The whoop had been their signal to begin the avalanche. As he climbed, dozens of small rocks bounced off his shoulders and then the large boulders began to fall. He managed to pull himself close to the cliff face and avoid the first few tumbling boulders, but then he misjudged and a huge, sharp rock the size of a bear cub thumped his forehead. His hands and feet clung to the wall, but his body slumped away from the face and became an easy target for the falling rocks.

Several seconds passed with Crooked Tree continuously pelted by rocks. He started to pull himself back up, getting renewed strength from his anger, when another heavy stone connected with his chest, ripping his right hand from the wall. He clamped his jaw shut as two of his claw-like fingernails were stripped from his fingers. He batted his hand back towards the cliff, trying to regain purchase, but before he could grip the cliff, another rock connected with his left wrist. Splitting in two, the radius bone tore through his skin and muscle. It jabbed out into the moonlight. His left hand fell from the wall and he spun as he fell.

Crooked Tree thought about his brother as he tumbled through the cool night air.

He landed flat, chest down, on the sharp rocks of the clearing. His massive body shook the ground as he hit and most of the hunters backed up a step reflexively. Several more stones, hurled from above, caught up with him. Pain ripped through his flesh—the first he’d felt since he had become a spirit. He laid still, trying to catch his breath, until the first spear drove into his thigh. His head came up and he spotted his potential salvation—one of the tumbling stones had knocked aside a rock, revealing a cave entrance. Pulling with his broken hands, he lost more fingernails and chunks of flesh to the sharp rocks. His legs dangled useless at the end of his torso, his spine shattered from the fall. Men emerged from the trees, screaming their bloodlust. Their spears reached him first.

Crooked Tree reached the small mouth of the cave just as the first warrior landed on his back, trying to work his crude flint blade between Crooked Tree’s ribs. He thrust one mammoth arm backward, crushing the man’s chest and launching him towards the next two attackers. A loose rock fell on its own and took out three other men, missing Crooked Tree’s foot by a hand-length.

The hole in the rocks was just high enough to accommodate his giant frame. Through the opening, the floor fell away, allowing Crooked Tree to fold his torso under and pull his legs through quickly. Facing out towards the entrance, he brought his bloody hand up in time to fend off the next attacker by crushing the warrior’s cheekbone back into his brain. The man fell limp, helping to seal the cave, but was pulled back by the next eager stalker. Crooked Tree found a rock that fit his fist and hurled it at the next man who appeared, silhouetted by the night sky.

Spears came through next, one driving into his shoulder, but they did little to injure Crooked Tree and offered him more weapons for his defense. He jabbed through the opening, killing several more men before the attacks subsided. Crooked Tree cocked an ear towards the hole and found a flat rock, flecked with shiny mica, to reflect the moonlight around his cave. The burrow was small for his big body, and offered no other avenue for escape. Turning his attention back to himself, he gripped his left hand and pulled, tucking the sharp bone back into his skin. His teeth were clamped so tight that one of his molars cracked, but he didn’t utter a sound.