--- Trees don't die. Not in the ways men and beasts do. Through the horrors and pains of life and
beyond, she could always come back to the trees. There was a peace here, beneath the canopy; a
quiet in the grasses and a comfort in the gentle rains.
Silently, with barely a breath borrowed, Ash knelt and prayed. Her prayers were for no gods, but for
dew drops on blades of grass. A concept most couldn't understand, a concept she couldn't begin to explain in words, but all the same, she prayed to the rains and grasses.
In her prayers, she returned a single breath and imagined the path it might take along the forest.
She imagined it wrapping around trees and flowers; catching pollen and rustling leaves as it went.
Her hand wrapped delicately around the shaft of her old spear. Something was near her,
something big. It trod too heavily to be a deer, but too randomly to be a wolf. A lesser huntress
would strike quickly before it could near. Ashtik was no lesser huntress.
She didn't need to open her eyes for she could hear it talking, in its strange animal way. If it could
speak in words, it would have complained about its neck and the great weight of its vast antlers.
Most would never understand in the way Ashtik would. Where Evara had been granted her healing
light, Ashtik had been granted the simple ability to listen and know.
The rain had dampened its fur and gave it a loud scent. It couldn't be prey, whatever it was. She felt
it draw close to her; felt it nip at her neck and curiously poke at her back.
So, she ripped her spear back and found its jugular, rounding with a dirk to smash through its eye
and into its brain. It was gone in an instant.
Large, meaty and twitching in its death throws. What she had killed was an urai, part ways between a warthog and an elk, only not nearly so large.
She was right about his antlers. The bone wings popped off as soon as the critter fell to the dirt. He
must have been waiting to shed them for days.
--- Ash had intended to hunt deep into the dawn, but this prize was enough on his own. She
rigged a rope around it and dragged the carcass behind her. Her father might have carried it over a
single shoulder, but she was barely half his size, and this thing was near thrice hers.
Silken shadows stretched across the silverwood trees. The gentle stars twinkled through the
black canopy while the firebugs danced along the bush beaten path.
"Tebea?" A man's voice called in the distance. "Vero ad mahi." She couldn't parse the meaning, but
it sounded conversational.
"Tebea!" A second voice said, seemingly in protest.
Ash dropped her prey on the path and snuck closer to the distant men. She prowled as though
hunting some other predator. Her eyes scanned each step before it was made as to avoid twigs and
crunchy leaves. She came upon a thick brush and saw the torchlight on the other side. She parted
some of the leaves and the men came into view.
--- The first was a brute, all meat and mean. He bore more scars than hairs and his massive belly – well muscled as he was – barely fit beneath the cobbled plate cuirass. He carried a war spike; a
two-handed sharpened steel hammer of kinds, designed to pierce even the thickest of armour.
Besides, and a metre beneath, him stood the second man. Scrawny and scruffy. He dyed his thick
and tangled beard a vibrant green; though he too had no hair on his scalp. He strapped an
assortment of dirks and daggers to his strange bodice. A chipped and rusty shortsword dangled
from his hip without a scabbard to shield it from the elements.
Half a dozen others backed them, all equally dishevelled and all bearing what must have been
scavenged gear. The men bore the same colours, green and blue stripes crossing over their clothes
and shields. Clearly some faction or troop.
Though they seemed jovial enough, they were blatantly men of ill repute. She doubted they would
take too kindly to her, so she returned to her felled prey and snuck back along the trail, covering
her tracks as best she could despite her tow.
---The sun crested at last as she came upon the clearing. She wasted little time in stowing the
urai away in the skinning hut behind Tilak's hillock binding it to the table before leaving for the
village.
"Caro!" She called as she reached the gate. He jolted from his post and looked out to her as she ran
towards. He spun the chain that raised the village gate to allow her in, but she stopped short,
pointing out to the forest. "Caro! There were men in the forest," she panted.
"Armed?" He asked as his gaze rose to the obscured horizon. He seemed to lap over the treeline as
to weed out any ambushing archers.
"Aye. Their gear looked scavenged," she said, still trying to gather her breath.
"Bandits, then. Probably picked from corpses," Carolet suggested. He peeled his eyes from the
trees and looked behind him into the village. "Boy!"
A scruffy young lad, around Evara's age, popped his dirty face around the gate. His roughly shaven
head retained small patches of matte black hair and his first attempts at a moustache garnered him
no favour with the local girls.
"Fetch the Elder," Carolet ordered, and the boy dashed away dutifully. "Sai-Weleg, can you patrol
the wall for now?"
-- "You want me to man the wall?"
"Just until the Elder can send for the Baron," he assured. Ashtik hesitantly nodded and climbed the
ladder behind him. She took up the bow resting on the gatehouse and set her sight to the treeline.
"Sir Carolet?" The Elder groaned as he limped his way towards the gate.
"Temujin, you need to send for the Baron," Caro shouted from beneath the wall.
"Is there a problem?" The old man questioned in his ever-raspy way.
"Is there a problem?" The old man questioned in his ever-raspy way.
-- "The Sai-Weleg spotted bandits in the woods."
-- "How many?"
"At least eight, sir," Ash called from atop of the alure. "Though there could be a dozen more within
the woods."
"Ashtik?" The Elder nearly gasped. "I hadn't seen you. My apologies."
His eyes lingered on her hand. On the mark it bore so proudly now. He hadn't seen it yet, nor had he seen the gauntlet that covered it. His blatant unease reminded her of it, of how unusual it was. Once Ash had subdued it, she no longer feared it. She barely even acknowledged it. It held as much space in her mind as the single freckle above her lip.
She matched his gaze and looked at her hand. The gauntlet was barely worthy of the name. It
reached no further than her knuckles and left a gap in her palm to expose the mark. It was pure
black steel, though light as air. She had tried to remove it once but gave in quickly. It was a second
skin now. As much a part of her as her hair and nails.
"Elder?" Caro urged. He broke the old man's attention and grounded him in the situation.
"Of course," the Elder nodded. "I will send a white raven to the keep."
Carolet patted his old friend on the shoulder before turning to Ash. "In the meantime, we will need
to conscript some fighters!" Carolet shouted up to her.
"What can I do, Caro?" Ash offered.
"Hold the wall until I return. I'll gather the smith's sons and the tell the bowyer to get to work." Caro left without further regard. It seemed the danger lit a fire within him. He walked with an energy and
purpose he had lacked since his long-forgotten youth.
--- Hours passed alone. The village seemed to take an edge. Nobody left the walls, nor did
anybody approach. The miller's daughter, who would have usually returned to the mill by now,
lingered in the market with a clear lack of purpose. She wasn't alone in her lingering. The children
that would have been off into the woods on any other day must have been banned from doing so.
--- A man crested the horizon only as the sun lazed at his back. He trod a lonley path, a stuffed
hand cart in tow. He wore no obvious weapons, but for a few shards of plate and cutlery bursting
from the cloth tarp. His thick flowing cloak left a trail behind him in the mud, but didn't seem the
garb of a bandit to Ash's eye.
Then again, it seemed strange to her that the bandits would have allowed such ripe victimhood to
pass them unharried. He strolled, just a little too unencumbered, down the winding paths towards
the village.
"Who goes there?" She called in as deep a voice as she could muster. He raised a hand at her, as if
in salute, as he neared the sealed gate.
"Avante, white hair," the man greeted. "They call me Torris – I have wares to trade." He spoke with an thick accented rasp, like a man who'd spent his life shouting over crowds and
partying in Vamish smoke dens.
"A trader?" Ash suspiciously mumbled. She jumped over the wall and landed next to his cart, spear
in hand. The gate was shut before them, but she could climb over and open it should she choose to. "You didn't come upon any bandits?"
"Bandits? In Maester Veil?" The trader questioned.
"Aye, or at least we believe so," Ash said as she poked through his cart.
--- "Should I be worried, guardswoman?"
--- "Not at all. The village Elder has sent for the Baron already. His forces should dispatch any
foes within the half-week."
"I see..." His cloth gloved hand tugged at his rough spun hood as he seemed to ponder what she
said. "Be you the only guard against these bandits? So young are you and - not to doubt you – but
you seem somewhat undersized for a stalwart," the man called Torris timidly said.
"I assure you, tradesman, these walls will prove stalwart enough for the both of us. I hope they are
sufficiently sized for you, at least," she replied, ice in her tone.
His cart proved somewhat impressive. An assortment of Oaranic goods, Ishran jewels and Vamish
silks. A box held within it a series of scrolls, written in some southern tongue that Evara may be
interested in.
"I do not mean to offend, guardswoman. All I meant was in my travels, most villages this small only
had one or two guards. Do you have a fellow?" He asked as he bowed his head.
Ash pulled away from the cart and looked him over one more time. His lips were cracked, almost to
the point of bleeding. She saw no hair falling from his hood, though he bore his face proudly and
blatantly.
--- "In truth, I am no guard, but a huntress. The guardsman, Sir Carolet, is off gathering a larger
force in case of an attack."
"SirCarolet? A knight?" He mumbled. "Thank you, white hair. This has given me a measure of
comfort." The man grinned through his cracked lips. His smile bore his blackened teeth, and his
face wrinkled uncomfortably.
Men were harder to read than animals, especially for Ashtik, but this man made no attempt to mask his nature. His eyes, his smile, his cutup knuckles...
"Bandit!" a man's voice cried from behind the gate, but it was too late.
--- The black toothed man rounded on Ash. A blade drew from beneath the cart and plunged
towards her. All she could manage was to fall backwards, away from him. She collapsed against the
metal bars of the gate as the sword slashed an inch from her chest. He dragged the blade down and slashed again. He was savage, and much stronger than he had looked.
Ash managed to swipe the flat of his blade with the shaft of her spear. It sent him off balance and
afforded her the time to move away.
He was fast and strong, but unskilled. She managed to dive and dodge away from each of his
strikes, but never managed one of her own.
He kept her on the backfoot the entire time. She managed a single thrust, and just caught his elbow with the side of her spear tip. It was a mistake; he wrapped his arm around the shaft and dragged
her closer, holding his blade out to impale her.
She rolled again, dropping her spear to his side but the blade skirted close enough to slice her
cheek. Without her weapon to keep him at bay, his savage attacks kept getting closer and closer.
She ducked a horizontal slash. She stepped aside as he swung the blade around to split her in half.
She even managed to strike him in the jaw when he overextended his thrust. It did naught more than anger him.
He had thrown her spear too far for her to recover, though she still had one option. She had to get
close.
"Stand still!" He roared. A thrust came then. She grabbed the cross guard and pulled herself within
an inch of the man.
There was no time for thought, no time to plan. Instinct brought her hand to her own boot, and the dirk hidden within.
This creature was no man in that moment, but a raging wolf tearing at her. She knew how to handle a wolf. Her dirk flew and sought to tear out his throat. Only, this wasn't a wolf; this was a man, and he knew to avoid the strike.
She clipped his neck but failed to secure the deadly blow. He pulled her in closer and smashed his
head against hers. The world turned white for an instant, and then the ground raced up to get its own strike in on her.
He grunted and growled like a feral beast, but he didn't strike. He clung to his neck and staunched
the profuse bleeding. "You bitch!" He gurgled as he fell to one knee. She jumped at the chance,
pulling her dirk from the mud and diving at him.
She struck again and again. His cloak tore and the armour it disguised burst into a mound of blood
and viscera. She plunged the dirk down with a wild precision. It may have looked like random
slaughter, but she knew what she was doing.
First, she slipped his ribs and opened his lungs. Then, she dragged right until she felt the heart burst beneath her. Then she shattered his sternum and slit his throat. She crushed his sword bearing arm
beneath her boot.
Then the begging gave way to screaming, and the screaming gave way to gurgling, and the
gurgling; silence.
The huntress had never killed a man; she was sure she ought to have felt sad, or sorry, or at least
scared?
She wasn't. The mound that had been a man made her feel nothing, and that made her feel like a
monster.
She hated how calm she was. She hated how steady her hands were. She was disgusted that she had so accurately cut each of his vital organs. She hated that she stopped as soon as he stopped moving.
She hated that it wasn't passionate but calculated.
The rains began. Warm and gentle. She watched it roll from his corpse. She watched the blood
saturate the mud. She followed a tear of blood as it dripped from his face.
Ash didn't move when his hand started twitching. She knew he was dead, that his hand danced only as the spirits dragged him to the devoid.
Her eyes fell from his hand to her own. One was red and soaked in him. The other was black and
consumed in steel. The gauntlet seemed to have spread. It covered all but her fingertips and wrist.
Would it continue to grow, to consume her, even after she supposedly subdued it? She wondered if the death had been what strengthened it. If her patron goden or goddess was some kind of deity of demise. She hoped not, she would rather the goddess that sprouts fruit.