Shoot First
50th of Winter, 512 A.V.
50th of Winter, 512 A.V.
“But Yimay-“
“Will you stop!” The huntress hissed through her teeth, forcing herself to calm and the second time she uttered the phrase it was much more silent. “Will you stop complaining about it, my order is final.”
“She has tainted blood, Mistress, and barely knows the first thing of hunting, we’d be better off without that thing.”
The woman sighed, rubbing her forehead. “She is green, I’ll give you that, but she learns fast and she’s clever. She will only take form the hunt what she earns and I have a feeling that her traveling with us will net more game than without…”
“The boss and her feelings….”
“Shut it Nuran.”
“She’s late.”
“No she isn’t just listening. Isn’t that right, wench?” Yimay called across the trees. Slowly from behind a thick trunk the abomination slunk. Yimay was struck with the strange sensation. She was all Myrian female, tall and lean, but her stance and the way she held herself was all snake, much less of the proud female with high shoulders, more skulking and plotting. Now she seemed to be hiding the face of a kid caught taking sweets from the longhouse table.
Yimay straightened up and stretched her arms, glancing lazily at the half breed. “Better, but still sloppy, you’re going to have to try a lot harder than that to catch me off guard, wench. Now, enough games, enough whining, let’s get to the hunt.”
And so the five muscled forms set off through the woods, half breed taking her appointed spot in the back, eyes open and surveying the tracks they followed, trying to keep tabs on how her comrades tracked and stalked their prey.
Tinnok simply couldn’t figure Yimay out. She was harsh, rude, and violent, yet had the grace of a cat, and the wit of a serpent. She was always demeaning the males she hunted with, but despite the fact that she was colder than ice if Tinnok saw her outside their hunts, she was nearly cordial during the fact…Tinnok knew it wasn’t out of respect, she was far too much of an imbecile at hunting for that, nor was it out of fear. No the half breed simply couldn’t put her finger on this strange alliance, but as long as Yimay treated her with a strangely sardonic, but warmer than tepid attitude, it kept he males off of her as well.
So she slunk.
Slowly she began figuring out the use of the men that traveled with them, for it hadn’t taken long for Tinnok to discover that Yimay didn’t rely on anyone that wasn’t worth her time. Nuran for instance was a crack shot with his longbow, could pin a bird to a tree from a 100 yards using three arrows, one to pierce the heart and the other two the hold the wings against a tree. Mint, named because he wasn’t particularly good smelling, knew about poisonous anything: Snakes, plants, berries, he could steer you away from it before you had even seen it, and despite the fact that his skills didn’t come into play very often, the fact that he had saved their lives more than a couple times kept him as a member in good standing of the hunting party. Then there was Haetsi. Haetsi was small and agile, and almost never spoke. He was a hunter of considerable prowess, and carried a nasty looking blade that best as Tinnok could tell, was a broken bastard sword that had been fashioned into a massive hunting dagger. His eyes dripped with hate when they looked Tinnok’s way, and he was the one member of their party that gave her any pause.
Then of course there was Yimay. She made sure she was indispensable to her fellows. While her skills in hunting might have been dead even with Haetsi, her knowledge of the land and the way she assessed their prey had an analytical side to it that bordered on sheer artistry. She constructed beautiful stories of how and when a creature passed, and more than her tracking skill could predict and trap her prey as if she was the natural predator.
And that was how they functioned, each relying on one of the others for one skill or another…leaving Tinnok to be the strange fifth wheel on a perfectly functioning wagon, unsure of how precisely she fit into the picture.
Their silence was absolute, feet moving in a strange and careful rhythm across the forest floor. It looked as if Yimay had already caught something’s trail, but Tinnok was not precisely given the info on their quarry since Yimay always orchestrated it so that the recruit had to track down the four of them before they began their hunt. Today the four of them had passed through several streams, forcing the green hunter to pick up their tracks on the other side of the water, some of which were far down or upstream from where they entered.
So she paid close attention to the tracks. Today it seemed to be peccaries, whose coarse hides were useful for just about everything, and they had a tender meat to them that Myrian’s savored cooking into thin strips or drying for jerky. Just the thought of the meat made Tinnok’s stomach give a rumble, due to her lack of funds this season she had been on a thin diet of plants and fruits with the occasional bird or lizard. The forest provided, but Tinnok knew too little about plants to be able to reap the true benefit of the natural goodness that grew around her, and she felt this directly affecting her weight.
At the very least she had found it easier to keep up pace with the hunters while remaining quiet. Instead of copying Yimay’s elegant form, she tried to keep pace with Mint, who was by far the least adept at hiding his sounds in the forest. She worked to match or outdo his lack of noise, sometimes even pulling up directly beside him, gauging how well she was doing based on his reactions. He never jumped, but occasionally she saw the white of his eyes exposed slightly more, showing that her fancy footwork had been paid in full. It truly was not so hard as it seemed remaining quiet, it just took an acute observation of your surroundings and care where you place your feet. Once you became used to spotting certain signs and things upon the ground, knowing what noise would result from even a part of your weight upon them, you could learn and adapt.
The five of them stuck to the shadows as well, avoiding direct shafts of sunlight. It was a tiny measure, but every little bit helped. Tinnok drew closer to Mint, and paid close attention to the small pointed tracks as they went, attempting to calculate their numbers. They were mixed and muddled and some prints were extremely light, indicating young running with them. Tinnok at first guessed around 8 or 10 creatures until she realized that at some point the mass of tracks nearly doubled in size. She didn’t know if two herds of the creatures had come together or she simply hadn’t noticed the amount before because of drier soil that didn’t take the prints, but whatever it was, there was a lot of food to be had, something which drove her onward as she pictures sides of pork sizzling above a warm cook fire.