Madoc sat upright from the game of toss-bones they were playing, puffing his chest like a rainbow cock.
Kuli, meanwhile, leapt up and scooted about the tipo thrice. “A hunt! A hunt!”
Madoc’s face was a plain giveaway, realising that “us” included Kuli.
“We will go after wabadeh,” Aylaniś told him, “so you’ll need your strongest bow.”
Doubt fully landed, then, and Anahli could all but see Madoc’s thoughts skittering.
“Aunt, I mean no… uhn… disrespect. But even the best hunters find wabadeh, uhn, difficult. They don’t easily give themselves in any hunt. The old storyKeepers say they’re angry, that they enjoy humbling two-leggeds who like to think themselves best.”
Anahli smirked, knowing what her dam’s response would be.
“All the better! Let the canniest win, two- or four-legged!”
A SOFT rain indeed began to fall as the quartet of hunters approached a hillock overlooking a proportional rarity in thisLand: open meadow. Creeping silent to the crest at her dam’s request, Anahli peeked over to find a damp progress of dusky copper and fawn. Five young wabadeh grazed below—bucks, most having shed their antlers already. A smallish one had a broken half antler still attached.
Aylaniś crawled up to crouch on the wet ground beside her dam. The trees were shielding them, somewhat, but their braids were fuzzed with damp.
Daughter, draw with me. Aylaniś spoke hunting-talk one-handed, with the other holding her double-curved bow and three arrows. Her eyes never left the grazing wabadeh as she told the two ahlóssa behind them, Madoc, flank my draw. Kuli, go Sunwise. Don’t rise until I do.
Kuli set off, keeping low. Anahli crouched next to Aylaniś, who tossed her a quick grin. Just behind them, Madoc hefted his own longer bow.
A snap froze them all in place. Kuli gasped. Anahli turned to see him looking down at the dried branch beneath one extended hand, both hidden by tall grass.
The wabadeh flagged their tails, whirled and fled.
“Rot you for a senseless, heavy-footed Spawn!” Madoc stomped over and whacked Kuli across the back of the head.
Kuli gave a snarl and, quick as thought, gained his feet to kick Madoc in the shin. Hard.
Anahli lunged forwards at the first signs of altercation. She yanked Kuli aside by his ahlóssa braid, growled at Madoc when he started forwards, and turned to her dam.
Aylaniś wasn’t there. Instead she ran along the ridge, sighting down a nocked arrow. The herd had nearly made the trees; she loosed, nocked another, loosed—all in the time it took for two breaths.
One of the wabadeh stumbled, went down, and Kuli let out a triumphant cry. It truncated into a yip as the wabadeh rolled, staggered up, fell, then leapt up again and floundered into the trees.
Aylaniś cursed a string of mixed horseClans and Rivertalk.
“Aunt—”
“Aška—”
“Quiet!” Anahli snapped at the two ahlóssa, starting after Aylaniś, who’d already leapt down the hillock. “We have to track the buck! Follow!”
Madoc hesitated, then sprang after. Kuli already was at Anahli’s heels.
Over the plain Madoc was nearly left behind, but in Forest’s depths he caught up. He obviously knew the terrain like the weight of his ahlóssa braid, and as he drew even with Anahli, she smiled sideways at him.
Aylaniś, a stride ahead, also saw. She echoed Anahli’s smile and nodded Madoc ahead. “Track him, then.”
The honour of that flushed his cheeks, but Madoc didn’t let it shift him; he surged forwards, eyes quick and nostrils twitching. Imperative, that they find the injured wabadeh quickly. Disrespectful, to leave one’s quarry to suffer overlong—and Rain could wash away the blood trail more swiftly.
Anahli caught wind first, signalling to Madoc as he faltered, uncertain. The hot radiance led forwards, into a stand of tall evergreens. Then, against their ears, the crash through thick undergrowth of desperate and wounded prey.
Madoc pumped his fist and shot off like a racing pony. Aylaniś exchanged a quick, pleased glance with Anahli and followed.
They found the buck: the smallish one, lagging. Aylaniś allowed Madoc to deliver the death stroke with a well-aimed arrow.
“It would have been better with a spear,” he lamented as they circumnavigated the thicket and reached the stand beside which the wabadeh had fallen.
“Ahlóssa aren’t allowed to hunt with spears, only to fish off the platforms. Under supervision, mind!” Kuli piped up, albeit without his usual brilliance. Smarting, no doubt, from alerting the small herd.
“Even did I have a spear, you’d likely step on it,” Madoc sneered.
“I didn’t mean to! It was a mistake!”
“It was a mistake, a’io.” Aylaniś was threading her strung bow over her back, convenient to hand but out of her way. She lightly cuffed first her son, then Madoc. “And it’s done. Learn from it, both of you.” When Madoc would have protested, Aylaniś’s brows drew together, stern. “You do our four-legged brother little honour by arguing over his death.”
Madoc flushed—as well he should, Anahli thought. Kuli knelt—out of reach should the wabadeh give a last kick—and stroked a small, penitent hand along the mottled nap of dusky fur. Aylaniś too knelt, one knee on the head as she leaned across and touched the animal’s staring eye. No response. She gave a short, satisfied nod and closed her eyes, traced a sign upon the wabadeh’s bony forehead and muttered a quick reverence.
Then she looked up, her lip twitching. “You owe your cousin a Sun’s worth of grace, Little Fox. His woodlore negated your error.”
Madoc gave a haughty look down his nose at Kuli.
Except Kuli didn’t seem abashed, flashing a broad smile. “That’s true. It’ll give us more time together nextSun! Perhaps two or three Suns, for such a silly blunder.”
Anahli laughed; she couldn’t help it. The look on Madoc’s face!
He scowled at her.
“One will be more than enough, son,” Aylaniś chided. “Go fetch the horses. We’ll need help to pack our four-legged brother. Anahli, you and I’ll start to gut while Madoc keeps watch.”
As Kuli obediently vanished into the green, Madoc nodded, pleased with the duty. “If a predator comes looking for an easy meal, we’ll know.”
Companionable silence
