by Hugo Damas
She had roughly five minutes to come up with how she was going to climb up the stairs that had turned into a ramp. There was no way she could pull off the splits and jumps in her state, and that wouldn’t even work if she was at her best since the beast would catch up.
Zaniyah wasn’t one for smiles, but she produced one when she saw the state of the ramp.
She gazed up at a ramp full of dents created by the beast when it had made its way down. They were small craters its weight had produced as it fell down the ramp. Even in her state, the Hunter could climb them.
Zaniyah put the glowing stone away and vaulted over the pit that was still there, even if its edges were half-broken. She guessed that the beast had fallen into it but hadn’t fit.
The Hunter grabbed onto the ledge and climbed onto the ramp just as the beast arrived in the room. It would be considerably slowed down by the ramp, hopefully more so than she was.
Frantically, Zaniyah flailed up the ramp, too stressed to control her breathing, or to notice her bleeding. Her focus was everything, but her instinct, as ever, could pierce through any process of her mind. It did so when the ramp and walls around her shuddered and trembled. The Hunter glanced back to see the beast, and its black spherical eyes that were so fixated on her. The thing couldn’t leap, not in that small space, and not up the ramp, and yet it tried.
A mechanical echo boomed its characteristic threatening bellow as the beast crushed its way up, thrashing at the structure in the violent, desperate effort to catch up and reach her. The claws tore at the ground, and every time it pulled, it would lurch forward and hit the ceiling, bouncing back into the floor of the ramp.
Bit by destructive bit, the beast continued to approach.
The Hunter looked ahead and kept climbing. Jumping, diving, grasping and pulling her body onward. Her wounds hurt and opened and tried to motivate her to calm down, but she didn’t. She let them bleed, she let them hurt, she didn’t care.
The Hunter was running for her life, for Mother Superior and the Wild Felids. For the entire continent, most likely. It occurred to her that the amulet could be a weapon she could use right then, but no, she didn’t want to think about that, she didn’t want to risk it.
Zaniyah was terrified of making a mistake. Of dying there and allowing that potential weapon to fall into the beast’s hands.
So to speak.
The Hunter dove out the entrance of the staircase and into a bath of moonlight, and kicked up into a run.. The entrance ruptured behind her as she ran towards one of the tree’s roots that had penetrated the temple.
Breathing much too erratically, the Hunter drew a dagger and passed it to her left army. She knew she would be exhausted in minutes, but if she hadn’t escaped by then, it wouldn’t matter if she was tired or not.
She needed to stop and tend to the wound. Fast.
Zaniyah leaped and stabbed at the root with her dagger, and then pulled with all her strength. The stab of pain on her side immediately brought her to a cry, and tears began to run.
The Beast crashed into the wall the root had entangled, also crushing the root. She felt the presence of mass inches below her feet.
“No!“ Yelling, the Hunter kicked the beast to help herself jump, and then stabbed at the root again. “You won’t -- guh!”
The beast gnawed at the wall, trying to climb, but its claws just skidded, dragged down by its weight.
Or at least, that’s what her guess was from what she could hear, she wasn’t looking. Keeping her pouch secure with her right hand, Zaniyah put every inch of strength into lashing out at the root in the effort to climb.
Stab, pull, instantly retrieve and stab again. Her muscles hated her, especially the ones that were spurting blood onto the beast and the root itself.
The Hunter made it to the window noticing her heart was beating too fast. Tiredness was starting to make itself felt even over the unthinkable pain she was enduring. She glanced back down with a quick swing of her face, to shake away the tears even for a second, and saw that the beast was hunched down, about to leap.
She faced away. Damn. Letting out another cathartic scream, the Hunter leaped out without a proper look at whether she could survive it. She certainly wouldn’t survive not making the attempt.
The window was around two stories high, which wouldn’t usually be a bad fall, but she was in a jungle, so there was no telling how high she’d really fall, and on what.
The window and part of the wall ruptured in the beast’s wake, breaking apart as if they were made of flimsy wood. Parts of the debris still hit her hard enough to hurt, but the beast thankfully went over her. It had overshot.
Half-blind from pain and tears, the Hunter managed to grab onto a vine. It didn’t hold her weight, but it carried her the inches she needed to reach the trunk of a tree with her dagger. It gashed with sap as it brought her descent to a stop at about the same time she heard the beast land.
It howled again, but it was too late.
Zaniyah looked around and found herself amidst a deep and heavy jungle, and the very one that had birthed her. Her breathing immediately relaxed, even amidst the physical exertion being caused by her wounds.
The Hunter was in her domain now. And it was open and chaotic and dense.
Her escape was assured.
Her survival was another matter.
* * *
Once she was certain the violent thrashing was heading away from her, the Hunter was finally able to stop to tend to her wounds.
They worried her somewhat as it had taken a beast a mere nudge on the Sorcerer to kill her. She hissed as she pulled on the scarf, which was now stuck to her bloody torso. Biting her lip, Zaniyah peeled it off to uncover the deep wound she had suffered on her side.
Hm, Zaniyah considered. It was a normal puncture wound. Beyond that, now that she had time to carefully judge it, the pain on her back was very familiar. Surely, it was a slash wound. More scars on her body but other than that, nothing otherworldly deadly.
Morgana had been nudged, but she had been fully in the range of a leap, while the Hunter had kept herself just barely out of it. That had made the difference, even if it was just by a hair’s breath.
Cursed things, Zaniyah thought, bitterly. Then she smelled the air and looked around, which was something she had to do often in the jungle if she wanted to survive. In that place, one should reassess everything that surrounded them every few seconds.
A large snake was slithering past three trees away. A couple of birds had perched on a neighboring branch, unable to tell whether Zaniyah was actually dying or not. Insects surrounded her, it wouldn’t be long until her wounds were in danger of infection because of them.
Lastly, of more import, she smelled a river.
The Hunter turned the scarf over and tied it again around the wound.
It was a silly precaution to take since it was soaked through with blood, but Zaniyah would rather err on the side of caution. Even if she had escaped the beast, it would still be a long journey back to anywhere where she could pass along the amulet, so she had to survive that long. Or that far, both would apply.
There were still days of the jungle to handle, and that wasn’t something she could underestimate. Definitely not something she could face with a deadly wound.
The Hunter found some berries that were safe to eat, and some roots that, after washing, would help close the wound. She also collected long leaves to use them as acceptable bandages.
She did her best to hurry, starkly aware that her wounds could be smelled for miles. Zaniyah was lucky enough no wild cat had come calling, though maybe one or two were already stalking her. She didn’t think so, though.
Once the Hunter reached the river, she had to proceed even more carefully. She didn’t see any predators waiting in the waters, but that only meant that what it contained scared them.
“Tch.”
The birds that had been watching her flew away, likely convinced there would be nothing left of her after s
he died. The water, crystal clear in the normal day, showed nothing but the dark sky that it reflected. The Hunter knew the jungle, she could guess what awaited inside.
Alright.
Zaniyah had to keep moving. She unwrapped her scarf and threw it long into the other end of the river. The fast-moving water quickly carried it along and, within five seconds, an army of little meat-eating fish were on it, gnashing in desperation to find whatever meat was producing the blood.
Zaniyah quickly reached down into the water with her hands and splashed, trying to clean her wound, all while maintaining a close eye on the carnivorous fish. It was easier now that she had stopped crying like a novice. Soon as she caught a glimpse of the attack on her scarf subsiding, she grabbed one of the leaves and the roots, submerged them, and then pulled away from the margin.
The Hunter scraped her side and back with different sides of the leaf, to soak it in blood, and then curled it up for added throw control and flung it back at the water. The fish attacked again, but a bigger part of them stayed near the edge, where the blood she had washed out had lingered. No more water.
Zaniyah took a very tired breath and then did her best to grunt as silently as possible while she ground the roots into a paste and spread them over her side. Fortunately, she was nimble enough to also reach the wound on her back.
Then she tied the leaves.
After all of that, the Hunter finally walked away, smelling herself to gauge how much she would still be regarded as prey. Zaniyah was content as far as the wounds were concerned, but her weakness was no trifling matter, and would likely be a stronger scent than her blood could ever be. After all, fighting anytime soon would almost be a death sentence, but at the very least, it would reopen the wounds and make her bleed further, which would leave her even weaker.
No, she would rest. She just couldn’t do it there because the river was where a lot of the wildlife converged on. Even that dangerous portion of it.
The Hunter heard a faint, far-away bellow.
The beast was still trying to find her. Its noises were so foreign and strange, though, that she couldn’t guess whether it would attract attention or divert it towards her.
Nothing to be done about it, other than to hope for a beneficial outcome, and be ready for the worst.
The Hunter stalked carefully through thick bushes and large plants, doing her best to not upset creatures by stepping into their domains. Her dagger cut ahead whenever it needed to.
Once she was happy with the distance she had put between her and the river, Zaniyah picked a tree and climbed it, with the help of her dagger. She made sure she didn’t smell anything particularly off about it as well, looking to make sure that she wasn’t intruding on the home of a pack of monkeys or apes, or some nest belonging to a family of birds of prey.
Zaniyah wanted to be left alone.
Climbing the tree alone was a risk since her wounds were not yet fully closed, but then again, neither were they bleeding that much anymore.
Zaniah crawled away from the main trunk -- many dangerous things liked to live in tree trunks -- and settled on the very large branch she had picked. Hidden by the flora that dressed it, and by the neighboring trees, she lied down in a way that didn’t make the wounds worse.
Carefully, at long last, she let out a breath of relief.
The Hunter wouldn’t get any decent sleep. There was a time, long past, in which she could have done that, but in the years she had spent with the Wild Felids, she had gotten used to actually being safe and having moderate silence around her.
There was none of that in a jungle, not even a little bit.
It never quieted down. The noise of beasts fighting for their lives, or copulating to create more, was omnipresent. The disrespect for the food chain was remarkable as well. Ants would climb up the tree, burrow through her head and just eat her from the inside out if she allowed it. Also, the territorial belligerence was incomparable. A spider would kill her just because of proximity, even while having no interest in her whatsoever, not even to use as a nest.
Finally, the bugs. The berries would help with that, they were a secret she had learned from the tribe, the one now long dead. They gave Zaniyah a breath that was foul to most flies.
No, she wouldn’t catch any decent sleep, but sleep wasn’t what she needed, it was healing.
I will wait until dusk returns, the Hunter decided. She knew, from her interactions with other people, that many would be bored by the prospect of sitting still for almost an entire day.
However, the Hunter was used to waiting. If she was anything, it was patient, and patience would see to her survival. She had no problem lying in wait.
The bad thoughts would come. The lousy memories, the bothering creeping past that was always in the back of her mind, waiting for the front to become idle.
Sometimes, circumstances are such that one just cannot avoid bad experiences. In fact, that had been one of the very first things she had learned, on the very first day she had become a woman. By her Tribe’s standards.
Why Zaniyah felt sadness about what had happened to the tribe was still one of the biggest mysteries to her. About her heart.
Maybe one day she would understand it. Maybe that was the day she would.
With a heavy sigh, she allowed the back of her mind to unfold like an ever-expanding scroll.
Zaniyah let her thoughts run wild.
Painful.
* * *
The Hunter had predicted it, and so it happened. A wild cat came searching for her.
It had most likely smelled her blood down by the river and then tracked, following her trail for as long as it was still discernible. There were tiny breaches in the screen of leaves that hid her, dancing with the wind, and it was through them that Zaniyah saw the wild car run past five times. Looking for her.
Zaniyah was not breathing loudly at all, but she completely held her breath every time she sensed the predator approaching.
Eventually, one of those abrupt and rampant jungle rains kicked in, falling heavily and washing away what little scent she had left behind. The wild cat gave up soon after.
The trees protected Zaniyah from the rain somewhat, but not enough that the drops didn’t cause her pain. She switched to a sitting position nearer to the main branch to ease a bit of the discomfort.
Waiting in the heavy rain like that always reminded her of the death of her sister.
I can hardly recall her face, Zaniyah admitted to herself, allowing for melancholy to seep and soak her mind. But for some reason, I can still smell her in the rain.
“This really hurts,” her sister had confessed, “my head hurts.”
“It hurts me, too,” she had told her.
They had been tied to a tree that only had its trunk. All the branches had been cut off so that the rain could fully and freely hit the prisoners.
“But we live,” Zaniyah had assured.
“I don’t know if I want to…” They were tied in an angle, Zaniyah had only been able to see her a little out of the corner of the eye. The only way to sense her presence was through hearing and smell.
“I understand, believe me,” Zaniyah had said, breathing hard.
“I know you do,” she had said, weakly.
Silence had hit, almost as hard as the rain. They had been tied to that tree for five days by that point. Her sister broke the silence to ask Zaniyah to tell her about the elephant. It was a story they had heard from an elder of the tribe: the story of the elephant who’d lost his memory.
To this day, Zaniyah wasn’t certain how much of the story her sister had fully heard because she was dead by the time Zaniyah finished telling it.
Janihn, Zaniyah thought, breathing out with pure sadness. I miss you, sister.
And she would miss her forever. The upside of it all was that, at least, Janihn had not been around to be captured alongside her by the rival tribe. Things only got worse after that, and didn’t really stop getting worse until the Wild Felids rescued
her.
Having no interest in further recollections, the Hunter decided to get moving. She sat up and warmed up her muscles. The wild cat could no longer be heard, and the rain was still going, hard. The day had not lived long enough to bring about dusk, but it was a mere one hour away.
The Hunter used the dagger to climb down the tree trunk. Then she ran off at a quick march. Her sides still hurt, but not so much that she had to jump around like she had been forced to inside Jakariah’s temple.
Even so, there was no real way to speed through a jungle, not if one wanted to be sure they didn’t alert a million different things to the fact their territory was being encroached upon, or about to be. That said, she could move faster than most.
That ought to be expected of the Hunter.
Zaniyah kept clear of spider webs and large concentrations of bushes, they were ideal for venomous creatures to wait out on prey. She was also delayed by having to stay out of particular portions of the jungle that she identified as territories, usually by smell, and a couple of times by sighting the animal equivalent of sentries.
Despite the danger of the wild cats, her primary concern was the monkeys and apes. Were she to upset a single one, she would most likely be killed. One could fight a wild cat, but there was no fighting off primates. Fortunately, they didn’t get that upset when people just crossed their territory, only when one kept going deeper after they showed up to intimidate them.
And they did. Twice did the Hunter have to stare them down and nod, leaning away to indicate she would leave.
The path through the jungle was dirty and fraught with danger, and although it was all very familiar to her, she was still mildly nervous all-throughout. After all, the Hunter had never been alone in the jungle carrying something so important to other. Let alone as injured as she was. At any moment, a bite, a wrong step, and the beast that invaded the temple might as well have succeeded in its purpose.
The true irony of it all was that, with everything that had happened, and even while moving within the most dangerous territory nature could provide, the appearance of men was by far what caused her the greatest of concerns.
