Here you go. Hopefully not too many mistakes in there, I just finished
writing the last bit...
*****
Laiva was woken by a strange sound; a cross between an eagles' cry and
a wolf's howl, yet completely different. She opened her eyes and found
herself staring into a bottomless pit - and the pit was staring back
at her. A hot wind blew against her face, waxing and waning like the
breath of the world. It was drawing her in, calling for her...
With an effort of will Laiva drew her gaze away. The spell
broke. In front of her was a curious looking creature, the head
flanked by huge round ears, a trunk like snout and a pair of large
black pupil less eyes, black like a bottomless pit, drawing her in,
calling...
She blinked. The animal tilted its head and eyed her
irritatedly for a moment, then suddenly dashed off to the left and out
of her sight. For a moment she wondered where the animal had come
from, but then she realized that something was amiss. She was not in
her bed. She always woke up in her bed. In her safe, warm, cozy bed,
or at least a bed and not... here, wherever that was. She had a faint
recollection of wolves... Then her brain finally caught up and
everything fell into place. Of course, the werewolves! She had been on
the road to the city and then the werewolves had attacked her!
Laiva rose to her feet and stretched. She felt somewhat
chilly, but that was hardly a surprise; even in a warm summer's night
the ground was no place for sleeping. Above, through the crowns of the
trees she could glimpse patches of graying sky; it was already dawn,
although it would still be several hours before daybreak. Laiva
inhaled deeply; she loved the taste of the slightly moist morning air.
It tasted of life.
She let her eyes wander. The fire looked as if it had gone out
hours ago; even the last glowing amber had turned into ashes. A few
metres behind it was the corpse of the werewolf she had shot first,
the arrow still sticking out from it and some more metres beyond the
corpses of the other two... three? Why were there three?
Laiva let herself sink onto her knees and groped for her bow
and arrows, keeping her gaze fixed at the wolves. She was close to
panicking when she didn't find them at once, but a moment later her
fingers touched the smooth wood and she relaxed a little, especially
when she found the remaining silver arrow next to it.
The bow loaded she ventured forth, nerves as tensed as the
string. When she reached the lead wolf she prodded it with her foot,
although it was clear that one was dead, arrow sticking out of it or
not. For a moment she considered pulling the arrow out right away, but
as tempting as having a spare arrow was, she would have to let her bow
down in order to get it and there was no way she was going to that.
She continued, slowly closing in on the other werewolves. She
could make out where the arrows had hit two of them; one was still
sticking in the wound in one piece, the other one seemed to have
broken by the creature's death struggle, but the wound was clearly
visible. These were both clearly dead, their dead eyes staring into
the void. She had always felt a twinge of guilt when she looked at the
eyes of her prey, especially the sad accusing look of a deer, but the
werewolves stirred nothing in her.
The third wolf was lying with its back turned towards her and
all she could tell was that its back seemed unhurt. She couldn't make
out any movement, not even the heaving of its chest, but with
werewolves that might as well mean it was holding its breath in order
to fool her. Laiva started to circle the animal, keeping her aim fixed
upon the animal's heart. Gradually the front of the animal came into
view. She let the arrow go.
It hit the wolf with an audible thud and got stuck deep in the
body. Laiva hadn't meant to, but keeping the string tensed was tiring
and in her surprise her hand had slipped; and she was still having a
hard time trusting her eyes. Something had torn the wolf's throat
open; not even a werewolf could possibly survive that. That, of
course, inevitably led to one question: What had done that?
Laiva knelt down and closely inspected the corpse, but she
couldn't see anything but lots and lots of encrusted blood, so she
quickly gave up and started searching the ground instead. There were
plenty of wolf tracks and none but wolf tracks; at least no fresh
ones. So much for the what, but why would a werewolf kill one it its
own kind?
Some distance away the overly enthusiastic cockerel of the smith was
giving its usual, and as usual somewhat premature, morning cry. A
moment later the other cocks joined in, not wanting to be outdone, and
thus the village of Pala was awaking. In half an hour it would be
bustling with life, but for now the peace of early morning was still
lay upon it.
The village smith had just got up and was enjoying the quiet
of the house when someone started banging against the door. Whatever
it was, it would have to wait until he was ready. Slowly he started to
dress, doing his best to ignore the noise.
'Open up!' a voice bellowed. It might have been female, but
muffled by the thick wooden door it was hard to tell. The smith
sighed. A minute later he was fully dressed and at the door.
He shouted a quick 'I'm coming.' to stop the continued
knocking and started to remove the heavy bars. The smith opened the
door and was about to vent his anger, but stopped before the first
syllable managed to leave his lips.
Standing before him with an expression of wild determination
was the innkeeper's wife; her hair an unorderly mess, still in a
nightgown, barefoot and holding a sword in her left hand.
'The blade needs sharpening.'
Saying this she trust the sword into the perplexed smith's hand and
marched off.
--
emmel <the_emmel*you-know-what-that's-for*@gmx.net>
(Don't forget to remove the ** bit)
Official AGC feedback maniac
"God is playing creatures - and we're the norns."
"A hundred dead are a tragedy - a hundred thousand are statistics."
"I guess you can call yourself lucky." -
"I could, but Linda suits me a little better...
Things called lucky tend to get hit by trucks."
Proud owner of 1 (one) DISOBEDIENCE point.
Former owner of 1 (one) eating point (eaten, sigh).
Hi, I'm a .sig virus. Just copy me to your .signature. And don't worry.
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