A Detailed Description of a Hunting Excursion.

by **Sairque** on May 17th, 2011, 10:18 pm

89 Spring, 511 AV

As though the Gods got sluggish by the time they made their way up north, summer flared as slowly as spring had. The chill of winter lingered not in crystallized water drops, but a general lack of roasting heat. Or, at least, that’s how Sai felt things to be as she and Catabasis leapt from their aerie into the biting breeze. Scowling, she glanced in the general direction of Syna, the brilliant orb partially obscured by the mountain ranges to the east.

I would be quite grateful if you could kick it up a notch or two and keep things around here warm enough for a pleasant flight with no coat, she informed the globe, ignoring her mount’s derisive snort.

Demanding things of Gods in such a manner is not a wise idea, he told her when he felt her building to continue her conversation with Syna. She rolled her eyes, their focus falling to the dark expanse far beneath them that hadn’t even the weak rays that the pair had. It would be mid-morning before the sun broke completely free of the mountain ranges to bathe the entire valley in her glory. But until you learn your lesson, perhaps you could pray that it does not rain while we are out?

Sai would have laughed if she hadn’t been bored out of her mind the last nine days, waiting for the sheets of torrential rain to take a break. She’d tried to stay focused, but eventually the archery got redundant, the paperwork got tedious, sorting out disputes between Endal got painful, and Catabasis got whiny. His wings were cramping, he was forgetting how to fly, his beak was dulling, the food was rotten, like Sai had any say in the weather. She’d told him he could go fly if he wanted. He didn’t take her up on it.

There are some mountain goats, Catabasis informed her an indefinite amount of time later. Sai rubbed at her eye, the one that she’d poked the collar of her katinu into in her rush to pull off the increasingly hot garment. Grumbling, she leaned forward as the Eagle dove to give her a good view. The garment settled in her lap, rolled and folded up in to a ball, she held onto the edge of the saddle and eyed the area where she couldn’t see the goats but he could.

Let’s land and set up camp, feel free to pick whatever area you like, Sai offered with a shrug, having never been to this particular mountain. They were relatively close to the city, so it might have seemed odd that she had never been on the ground here, but they ate distance up at a dramatic rate while flying and quickly escaped the area frequently unfrequented by game. It was only the odd overabundance that brought the goats so close, she figured. Catabasis gave a few strong pumps of his wings, jostling Sai in her seat a little bit, reminding her to hold on, and circled around the area to avoid casting his shadows over the game.

Gradually, they spiraled lower and lower until Catabasis hopped to a stop on the slanted mountain clearing, jarring his rider’s teeth and encouraging a quick exodus from the saddle. Stretching lengthily, Sai left all gear save her bow and quiver on the Eagle and climbed higher on the mountain in search of a better view of the ocean to the west of Mt. Skyinarta.

The goats are southeast of here, I’m going to get some lunch, Catabasis informed her retreating form. Taking a deep breath of the rain-fresh air, Sai surveyed the area. Just down to their right a small point jutted out over a cliff. Intrigued by the dense foliage, the flightleader made her way down toward it, footing unsure on the waterlogged earth and slickened grasses. Warily keeping an eye out for hostile beasties, she pushed through a bush and entered a surprisingly spacious glade. Evergreens jutted magnificently up around the loosely oval shaped point, and the fine dirt on the shaded ground had been spared the flooding. At the tip of the point, some hunter long before had cleared growth away to open up the view of the ocean. It made a nice ambush spot, and it would make a nice camping spot.

Gear lay in a messy pile where Catabasis had divested himself of tack when she’d shown no signs of returning to gather her belongings. His comings and goings were a luxury in safety, most beasts made themselves scarce at one glimpse of his massive shadow, but Sai still looked for various tracks in the mud as she trekked back and forth to her camping area. Eventually, she had his tack safely tucked away in the foliage, careful to place it in a patch of earth that had remained dry over the past week and a half. Her bedroll she put inside the unfolded tent, along with the poles and other survival gear she shouldn’t need to carry on her person while hunting. This she stashed right next to the saddle. Finally, backing out of the glade, she took a branch with new needle growth and wiped away her foot prints. The ground looked like it had been swept crudely, but at least the tell-tale outline of her boot was gone.

She checked herself over once more before heading toward where she hoped the goats would be. A dark splotched scarf hid the bright shine of her braided hair, she could feel dirt particles on her face, her splotched long sleeve had a few bits of vegetation protruding, to keep her silhouette broken, bryda were splotched, all the shiny objects were hidden, and her boots waited in one of the trees flanking the entrance to the point.

Pulling out her compass and map, she knelt and scoured the parchment for where she figured her location to be. It was one of three points on this side of Skyinarta. She recognized the home peak, and, scanning the coastline, recognized a small island, both of which were on the map. Flipping the case of the compass over, she rotated around until she faced north. Aligning the map, as well, she set the device atop it and shot a bearing to the island. Pulling out a thin char stick, a faint line was traced along the bearing. The line ran from the island to just inside the coast. Flipping the compass, she did the same for Mt. Skyinarta. Where the two lines intersected, her point existed. It was the last one south of Wind Reach. Looking down at the map, she supposed that it wouldn’t have been a stretch to assume that the point the first line ran through was hers, and she could have saved an unnecessary marking of the map. Lesson learned. Tracing her finger to the south east, she identified the possible ridge that Catabasis had seen the goats on. She also noticed that the nearest fresh water source was actually on the next mountain over, just a ten minute jog.

by **Sairque** on May 18th, 2011, 12:47 am

Berating herself for forgetting to check it out before even thinking of hunting, the Endal debated just putting it off until after the hunt. Navigation devices stowed, bow in hand, and arrows muffled, the lone Inarta jogged toward the next mountain over, eyes skimming over the tracks in the mud. Some cats, some small mammals, birds, nothing worrisome. As the whipcord thin Endal moved across the heavily slanted and treacherous landscape, the long, thin crevices that the rain had carved out of the mountain soil gradually got deeper and wider. Eventually she was dropping down into the trough and hoisting herself out again instead of searching for a way around them. Just as she peered out over the ocean and the hill side, preparing to remove her compass and try to pin point the spring, she noticed the crater. The spring had blown out under the heavy influx of ground water. Rock had cracked and sundered, leaving the thin stream of water to muddle out through churned mud.

Just one look at the destruction and she knew that there was no way to get clean water here. Out came the map and another noted source, this one a stream…at the bottom of a valley. It would be muddy as well. Might as well drink this muddy water as that. At least a few skins of fresh water waited back at camp. Focused on the intricate map, brows furrowed and lip caught between her teeth, she didn’t notice the deep rumbling.

“Now, I can follow this fin and drop off it once it bypasses the ridge that the goats are on,” she mused, eyes shifting from map to landscape. “Or, maybe it would just be easier to ascend this mountain and then cross over to the mountain face across from the goat ridge.” A speculative glance up to the earth formation towering high above. Around the small dark dot that was the lone human in this area, the world quieted and life paused, waiting in fear of the conclusion to the earth-vibrating rumbling. The birds no longer darted through the trees. She couldn’t hear a single song, and no insect buzzing, either. Alerted, all five senses perked up as her hands folded and stowed the map of their own volition. Shrugging the bow off her shoulder, the Endal slipped as she tried to widen her stance. Going to a knee, the woman caught herself with a palm, only those portions of her hand not roughed and numbed by heavy work sensitive enough to catch the vibrations of the earth. Aware of the movement, the sound of shifting masses became clear.

Stumbling down the hill side a few paces, having pushed to her feet too quickly and with little thought to her surroundings, the Endal burst into motion. Mud sucked at bare feet, the appendages a blur in her sprint toward camp. Clearly, with the way her back stiffened, she’d forgotten about the deep trenches. Snarling, instead of trying to stop the impressive momentum she’d built up, the athletic little woman picked up the pace and threw herself across the void. If she hadn’t pulled her knees up to her chest, the woman would have bounced off the edge and into the ditch; as it were, she made it and easily came out of the graceless roll on her feet. The next one went just as smoothly, the third did not.

Tumbled into the bottom of the quickly carved ravine, and down the hill several feet, the girl scrambled for the bow and her feet. Turned out the bow had made it across, spotting it as she hoisted herself up, mud clinging to her skin, and threw a leg over the edge. Rolling up onto the sturdy ground, something was missing. Frozen on her back, yellow eyes darting, the silence wrapped around tight enough to strangle.

Catabasis?

Almost there, he told her, and she could tell that her panic hadn’t gone unnoticed. Of course, it hadn’t ruffled him. A little danger was good for the soul. What was it?

I don’t know, she answered, throwing her elbow across her eyes as her head dropped to the ground. The ground was vibrating and making a really deep sound.

Nothing looks disturbed from up here. Perhaps a distant earth quake? he suggested, rounding the mountain side and almost taking Sai out. She dropped back to the ground from her crouch, frowning as he chuckled and pulled up short. Want to go back in? He meant Wind Reach.

No, no. I’ll head back to camp, make sure everything is still there. She paused for a second. I don’t know, we might head back instead of staying the night. He looked up from preening. You should go finish your breakfast. Or at least clean it off your face, she deadpanned, smirking and walking past him. He got the last laugh when one little twitch of his foot sent her sprawling into a face full of mud.

by **Sairque** on May 18th, 2011, 8:36 pm

Standing in the shadow speckled glade on the point, hands on her hips, bow slung over a shoulder, Sai surveyed the area. Nothing had touched the camp site, not even an animal had ventured within the line of trees standing sentinel. Around the long figure gazing out into the blue horizon, the vivid green of new growth bathed in thin bars of sunlight contrasted the deep shadows cast by the dense foliage. Only her little feet prints disturbed the brushed pattern in the dirt. The girl raised her right hand, revealing the straight tip of some poor deer’s antler. Something had snapped it from the rack, leaving it sitting uselessly near the edge of the cliff until the camper had discovered it. Rubbing her thumb over the flush break, she reached out to a bundle suspended from a low branch to pull out an arrow damaged by the fall earlier.

Opening her quiver to see the broken weaponry had finally slammed home a lesson that elders had been trying to teach her for years. The ability to rely on herself, while out in the wilderness, for all necessary tools would be called into play no matter how prepared she started out. She had never tried to make an arrow, and certainly fashioning one from scratch was beyond her, but perhaps just attaching a new tip would be within her capabilities. Wood tinking softly, an intact shaft, fletching still good but with the arrow head snapped off, finally passed muster and she descended into a cross legged position in the soft dirt. Arrow situated nearby, antler beside it, she thumbed the edge of her dagger.

Any Endal should be ashamed of a dagger with such a dull edge. Stretching toward her pack, after a few long minutes of blind groping, out came a sharpening stone and a small skin of oil. Returning to rest, a dollop of oil oozed over the rough side of the stone before the skin was deposited at her knee. Twelve strokes along one side of the dagger at an angle that would ease the dagger’s travel through wood, always bringing the knife into the stone to prevent build up. The other side got the exact same treatment before she finished with the rough grit by sharpening both sides in alternating strokes. Wetting the fire grit side, she polished off the wire edge that the rough side had just pushed around and tested the edge on a nearby branch. Perfect.

Bracing the arrow against her knee, she brought the dagger against it just below where the arrowhead had snapped off. Scoring a thin guideline, she dragged the edge along it in long, relatively light strokes until the blade bit in far enough that the cut would remain straight. Patience born of a strict expectation to do the best job possible permeated the hunched form, little by little the jagged end separated from the shaft. Finally, it broke through, and the little chunk that had broken off unevenly earned a frown, but Sai noted that another method should be used when nearing the end of cutting and moved on. Tossing the broken end off toward her pack, she set the arrow aside again and picked up the antler piece.

Attaching it to the shaft would require a tie of some kind. The smooth surface allowed her fingers to slide over it almost frictionless, and it would let a tie slide off just as easily. It was too thick to be strapped against the shaft, hitting the tough hide of an animal would most likely just shove the bone back on the arrow. Long moments passed, the bit of bone turned over in her hand. Scoring it would create a surface to catch against the tie. Scoring bone wasn’t easy. Scoring the arrow would secure the tie there, but wouldn’t help the tip at all.

Reminded of the time by an abrupt and blinding ray of sunshine in her eyes, Sai gathered her supplies and stowed them again. Fetching the handful of undamaged arrows and her bow, the latter given greater character by a new nick or two, Sai once more stuck a few twigs to break up her silhouette and headed out of the grove.

Figuring her scent was still covered by the tumble into the muddy trench earlier, Sai jogged straight up the mountain toward the location Catabasis had informed her the goats had grazed over to. The top of the peak provided an impressive view, but the hunter didn’t venture out of the cover of rocks to go look, instead, she turned toward the tree line and headed down. Cleft hooves sank deep in the wet earth; still, Sai would have missed the trail running perpendicular to her own had she not stepped in a print.

Crouching on her toes, the novice tracker watched a trickle of water fall along the edge of the track and trickle into a small pool in the bottom. Carefully stepping, still in a crouch, so as not to step on anything noisy, she moved to the next track, and the next after that. The pools in the bottom gradually got shallower and shallower. She would bet that the animal had passed this way quite recently. The tracks headed over the tip of the trough she currently traversed. Sai carefully stalked forward, still crouching, a single footstep taking almost a chime. So focused on where her feet went, a game animal could have strolled right by without garnering a lick of attention.

Finally in danger of poking her head over the lip of the trough, she lowered herself to toes and elbows, crawling lifted awkwardly off the ground. Nudging a blade of grass to the side, she peeked over and spotted another trough. With impatient distaste, the process started over again. Coming to the lip of this next one, however, didn't come to such fruitless disappointment. A decent sized group grazed peacefully, ringed by a dense group of berry bushes.

A rustle of buds and green twigs. Silence, calm. A flash of yellow come and gone.

The entire mountain glowed with life, the rains replenishing and nourishing plants that knew better than to look this gift horse in the mouth. Though the grasses flourished now, they would still bleach yellow before summer had even changed to fall. Death came swiftly and early to all denizens of the Sanikas Peninsula. Well aware of this, herbivores stuffed themselves on the supple shoots. Deer nibbled on trees, goats sheared tufts of grass, elk nibbled along rivers, and predators ate the healthy ungulates. Insects got in on the action, and birds feasted as well.

Somewhere within the circle of life, below the super predators of the wild but above the common cats and wolves, humanity fit. And this human, locked into a stiff crouch, peered from the cover of a scraggly bush and out to the group of white beasts happily grazing away on the open mountain side. She had to circle around within her strand of bushes about twenty yards before she could take a shot.

by **Sairque** on June 4th, 2011, 1:31 am

For a being as athletic as Inarta were, the burning of muscles from exertion was a sensation both foreign and familiar. Never before had this particular Endal put her muscles through this kind of workout. Encapsulated in a prison of dead twigs, the thin extensions stabbing all around her body, she strove for utter stillness. Beneath her right foot lay the treacherous halves of a stick she’d snapped, the sound that had brought the attention of the entire herd of goats onto her current hiding spot. Not such a big deal…except that she was crouched over that foot with her left one in the air mid-step. Also not a particularly difficult position, except that her torso was twisted sharply around between two bushels of dried, brittle twigs, the breadth of space between hardly larger than the depth of her chest. She daren’t move a muscle with those radar ears waiting for the first sign to send the beasts scurrying. Luckily, her arms were raised, so they aided with balance, unfortunately, there were no thick stems or limbs within finger length to brace against, just fine twigs waiting for one wrong wobble to cheerfully sound the alarm. A fine sheen of sweat burst out on her forehead, the woman trying to minimize the sound of escalating breathing by opening her nasal passages and airways. Slowly, the goats’ lower jaws started sliding against the uppers, left to right, left to right, as they returned to lunch and dropped their heads again.

Then her ankle wobbled and the goats were gone before she’d even raised her eyes from the branch she’d cracked off with a shoulder. “Petch,” the hunter muttered, snapping straight and standing. Most of the little branches broke. One that viciously caught in the hollow under her ribs found itself viciously snapped off and tossed to tangle within the stems of another shrub. She hadn’t even managed to get three feet along the row of brush. Chilled by the wind caressing her sweat dappled skin, the woman pushed through the line of foliage. One of the little sticks she’d stuck to her shoulder caught amongst its brethren and tugged against her shirt; an abbreviated growl accompanied her vicious tug against it, then the other one too, both of them leaving little holes in her shirt. Shrugging the material back into place, Sai muttered under her breath about silly old people trying to share their wisdom. What wisdom? Creeping through bushes and clipping branches to yourself? Nothing but garbage.

Stomping to the little lunch area, Sai resisted tossing her bow to the ground and kicking it. Hunting was dumb. Huffing, the lone hunter tightened her grip on the bow and started jogging in the direction that the goats had taken. Stupid goats, goats were dumb. The mud swished between her toes as she ran, taking her print up just as easily as it did the ungulates. The beasts fell into line along a game trail, making the tracking easy. Being as active as Endal had to be, the running didn’t bother her legs too much, and the healthy cardiovascular system had little trouble regulating oxygen dispersal as she finished her first mile. She estimated that she could make it another six before needing to take a short break. Without pausing, she took measurement of the strides. Running next to one that provided clear, lone tracks to the side of the muddy trail, Sai counted out the paces it took her to gap its strides. After rounding four or five bends, getter a good distance away, she measured again. They were still loping. Stupid loping goats.

Falling into the zone, eyes on the trail in front of her, the next few miles passed in a blur. The goats showed no sign of stopping, judging from the length of their strides, and abruptly took a right turn off the trail. Sai skidded to a stop, chest heaving and legs a little wobbly as she backtracked and headed down the hill at a cautious walk. The grade of the hill fell sharply, there was no sign of the game animals, and Sai was not going to be following them down there. Huffing a sigh, the hunter shook her head and called it a day. Scaling the hill back to the trail, not twenty paces down the trail she realized that the tracks she was staring at didn’t belong to ungulates. In fact…they looked an awful lot like those that she’d seen just two seasons before. When their camp had been completely decimated, Renol mauled, and Kovac bitten by a venomous snake.

Fear rushed through her veins and made everything a little fuzzy. Between dropping of the path and gaining it again, a bear had lumbered down traveling the same way as her. Glancing around, the movements of her neck turning this way and that in short jerks, the hill extended above her and dropped off below her. She was sidehilling it, and getting back to camp was easiest and least likely to twist her up by following this path. She could just hope that the bear got off at the next stop, or she could try to find her way back to camp a different way. The hills were teeming with scruffy patches of short, new growth, rangeland and not forest land. Fingering the outline of the compass in her bryda, the hunter nodded to herself and took a sharp turn off the trail.

Higher and higher she climbed, aiming for the top of this hill to get a look around. Short sundried stalks dug into the callused bottoms of her feet, but she just wrinkled her nose at the discomfort and avoided stepping on yellowed spears jutting from the ground. The hill crested out, another 500 paces at least, in a soft slope. Glances back down made her progress clear, as the track gradually thinned and faded, and didn’t reveal a bear as more and more length of the path came into sight. Legs aching a bit, she pushed through the final fifteen paces, grateful for the end to the hike. Upon rounding the top, she found that the “top” was just a short plateau before the mountain continued up steeply. Nothing. Not a single landmark stood out to aid the woman in figuring out her location. Orienteering required a trek to greater altitude. Lazy, she felt along her bond with Catabasis. They’d strayed pretty far apart and she could just barely tell that he was napping or resting or really focused on something.

Facing the inevitable, the hunter gripped her bow tighter, adjusted the arrows, and trudged to the incline. Mounting the hill, paces became short and precise, her path carrying her around steep washouts and into occasional switchbacks to climb the mountain without burning out her legs quickly by facing it head on. The sun dipped low on the jagged horizon by the time she made it to a height great enough to peer out over the surrounding landscape and find something helpful. Well, there was the ocean. Ah, and there was Bun Mountain. Didn’t look like a bun or anything, but when it snowed, the powder accumulated in such a manner that it appeared to outline a woman with a scarf on her head laying on her stomach holding a tray of buns out in front of her with one of her legs kicking up into the air at the knee.

The nice thing about mountains was that when you sat on the side of them they kinda made a natural seat. Weapons carefully perched at her side, the hunter pulled out her map and compass, unfolding the first and letting the latter dangle from her wrist. After pouring over it for chimes, the sun bright against the parchment and making the lines hard to make out, she found Bun Mountain. Noting the nearby marks, to find it again with ease, she pulled up the compass and found north. Which happened to be further up the hillside she sat on. Lip curled, a bad mood building, Sai pushed to her feet and tried to lay the map out on the spot she’d been sitting. Both tools pointing toward north, she dropped the directional device on the parchment and stared in frustrated disbelief as a stick poked through. Lifting the edge, the stalk found itself viciously ripped up, root and all, and tossed over her shoulder down the hill. Smoothing the map again, Sairque continued.

Holding the device level in front of her, tipping it to each side a bit to see what the needle looked like when the device impeded its progress, she pointed it straight at Bun Mountain. Rotating the dial around until the orienteering arrow snuggled up around the needle, the hunter double checked her process, and deciding she’d forgotten nothing, turned back to the map with her bearing. Placing the far edge against the little ^ denoted with a BunMtn, she rotated the tool around until the needle returned to the orienteering arrow. Patting her bryda, she froze. The char stick was at camp. Another point was necessary to find out where on this line she was so she couldn’t just hold the compass here. “Petch.” Glancing around, she considered trapping a long, straight stalk in place with a rock. Giving it a second thought, the idea might have worked on a flat surface, but on this slope, with the lumps in the map, it wouldn’t work here. “All right, petchhead, what the petch am I going to do now?” Even as she admitted she was at a loss, an idea popped up. Literally. A green shoot slipped out from entrapment under the map and returned to its upright position. Breaking the top off, she studied the liquid at the break. Not the milky kind she’d hoped for, but the Endal shrugged and dotted a line along the edge of the compass. Good enough for now.

Scouring the map again, she found another smaller but distinctly shaped mountain near Bun Mountain and turned to look for it. Yep, that had to be it. It looked like a great big set of canine teeth. Pointing the compass at it, again the dial rotated until the needle was inside the arrow and she turned to repeat the process on the map. Grabbing another plant, she made a green splotch at her location. Tucking the compass away, the seat was resumed and the map studied. She’d strayed far from camp. And night loomed imminently. No straight shot existed, somehow the goats had lured the rider around and behind a canyon. It did look, however, that if she kept on the sidehill and headed the way the trail did that she’d come out on top of the ridge and be able to follow that to the spot where she’d found her destroyed spring.

Rough plan in mind, Sairque stored the map again and retrieved her weapons before jogging off in a path parallel to the goat trail. Rounding over the crest of a trough she’d just traversed, the large, shaggy, cinnamon colored brute startled her nearly to death. It stared at her, and she assumed that it had heard her coming and knew exactly when its next meal would pop up. Ignoring the grubs from the log it had turned over, the bear raised to its hind legs and lifted its head. Close enough to watch its nostrils flex, the dwarfed woman nearly started crying. She would die if she sustained wounds such as Renol’s. She would die if it decided to eat her. Those claws and teeth weren’t as large as the bear vividly remembered, but they were big enough to do the required damage. After the human had taken only one step back, seeking to drop back into the trough, the bear dropped to its four legs and huffed. It took her a second to realize that the clicking, snapping sound also came from the monster. Precisely, from its great big, sharp, powerful mouth.

She took another step, and another, and another and the bear was almost out of sight, just watching her leave, when something bumped into the back of her legs and let out a cry. Tears streaming down Sai’s face before her eyes even met the little baby bear’s, the woman was already sprinting down the mountain when her backward glance recognized it for what she’d suspected. And sure enough, the pounding of the mother bear’s stride shook the ground beneath the soles of her feet as it leapt forward in hot pursuit. It had four legs, four feet, a low center of gravity, and could run faster than any human, the odds of survival looked great. Not thirty paces along, her momentum exceeded the speed of her legs and her face hit the ground where her feet should have. Luckily, the woman didn’t skid along on her chest but tumbled end over end. Sometimes the bear loomed in her field of vision, other times the sky, and more often, the dirt.