I stretched, working out the kinks. My skin and hair were sticky with sweat and my mouth felt fuzzy, like I’d spent the night drinking.
A bath. I definitely need a bath. But I forgot to buy soap while I was in the village. I’ll have to remedy that or make it myself.
The process wasn’t hard—I’d just need to make lye first…
Who was I kidding? Making my own soap would’ve been fine weeks ago when my only concern was surviving, but there was too much to do now. I had three new spells to practice—Camouflage, Scentless Hunter, and Grace. Not to mention, I still needed to build proficiency with my other spells and skills.
I like hunting and magic best, Yuki said.
We’re of one mind, then, I said.
Literally.
Literally.
The uekisheile and I had spoken at the same time and laughed at the shared joke.
So what do you want to work on today? I asked, smiling.
Grace, Yuki said without hesitation. The other spells are straightforward—all they’ll take to improve are practice and observation—while Grace has more unanswered questions.
We can do that, I said, with the goal of—
—taming a blynx.
“It’ll be tricky,” I said, thinking aloud. “According to Tegen, the Blink ability relies on line of sight, so even the smallest gap in an enclosure could lead to the animal’s escape.”
We could blind it, Yuki said, and then they hesitated. No, that would be cruel, wouldn’t it? Blinding should be a last resort. Unless we’re hunting or defending ourselves, right? That would be different.
“Yes, I agree, but it’s still an interesting idea,” I said, feeling proud of how far the uekisheile had come. “What about blocking the optic nerve instead of cutting it? Could you do that, and then unblock it after the blynx was tamed?”
We would need to experiment to find out, but we’d rather not do it on you. Let’s go hunting later.
“Sure, we need to restock the refrigerator anyway.”
But first, Grace. And we’d like to join consciousnesses later to experience more memories.
“Sounds good,” I said. “Let me just clean up first.”
The next few days passed in a blur. In the mornings we practiced our integrated martial arts, and in the afternoons we explored the biology of the small mammals around the Glen. Cutting the optic nerve turned out to be easy. Interrupting sight without causing permanent damage was harder.
What most stood out about this period, though, were the times we spent reliving my memories. It was embarrassing and weird, but at the same time it was also strangely okay.
For instance, there was this time when Helen and I were visiting Los Angeles, and we’d made a special visit to Little Tokyo for ramen—which was delicious by the way, the soup so rich and full of umami and the noodles had the perfect bite. Anyway, we walked through the area in a food-induced haze afterward and stumbled across a shop that sold kimonos.
Helen, the minx, saw me checking them out, bought one, and well, we had a lovely evening at the hotel afterward. Several, in fact. And I cringed at Yuki watching us go at it, yet they were just so delighted by the love flowing between Helen and me that it was… wholesome.
And then there was the memory of the time I caught a nasty stomach flu and spent the night with my face pressed against the toilet. At one point, I heaved so hard I lost control of my bowels and ended up soiling my pants. It really was coming out both ends.
This was before Helen and the kids, so I’d had to drag myself into the shower and clean up on my own, nearly out of my mind dizzy. Yet, all Yuki wondered about was the human body’s remarkable ability to projectile vomit.
It wasn’t all sex and scat. There were softer, gentler moments and boring ones too—everything else a life fully lived encapsulated. Mine, Helen’s, and the kids’. Yuki watched Alex and Daniel grow up. Watched me struggle with the challenges of figuring out how to be a dad. Changing diapers, the terrible twos, the camping trips, the tween years. Oh my gods, the drama of the tween years! Both kids had thankfully settled down in high school. They took after their mom that way. Then there was Alex’s coming out, and Daniel’s fixation with masks, which turned into him dual majoring in fine arts and anthropology. I was so proud of my kids. They’d weathered growing up so much better than I had.
Then, of course, there was Helen’s passing. I had talked to Yuki about it before, but this time they were right there with me by her side, holding her hand, talking about not much at all, while Alex and Daniel sat on the other side of the hospital bed, holding her hand too.
Well, Helen knew she was loved. Fiercely and passionately loved. The cancer had taken away so much, but never that.
And then the despair afterward and the long road to—I never could find a name for what came after. Not normalcy, surely. Life, I suppose. It was all just life. Life and everything in between.
Yuki hungered for it all and didn’t discriminate between the moments. Each and every one was precious. And I had to agree.
Eventually, life normalized. The focus of my days shifted from the communion with Yuki to the everyday needs of living in the woods. The routine of training, gathering, hunting, and woodworking grounded me, and when the time came to return to Voorhei to fulfill my regularly scheduled obligations to the Hunter’s Lodge, I felt… good. Confident, even. I had two strong allies in Yuki and Ikfael, and also the support of some good people in the village. Things were looking up.
There was a lodge hunt coming up, so I left the Glen a day early to be able to spend time with the kids and Bihei beforehand. I was also due to hand over the runes for the Healing Water spell at a gathering of villagers capable of using mana-based magic.
Fortunately, I didn’t run into any delays hiking back to the village. Some of that was due to being more comfortable with the route and getting better at Stealth, but my spirit eyes helped too; whenever the spirits in an area looked troubled, we detoured around. The small delays that resulted were well worth it, though, since they allowed me to avoid tangling with any dangerous predators.
I had left well before dawn, and arrived at Voorhei just as the gate was lifting for the day. Billisha and Aluali were, of course, waiting for me. They ran down the hill and threw themselves into my arms. Yuki hummed with excitement, just as thrilled as the kids to be reunited. Their tendrils were woven through my hair, but were one with the land and Camouflaged, so none of the people around us noticed.
The kids grabbed my arms and practically dragged me back to Bihei’s longhouse, talking a mile a minute. Apparently, as denizens of Ikfael’s Glen, their status had gone way up after the ceremony on the solstice, and they now had a band of followers, mostly consisting of kids from other hunter families. It was a good sign that they were fitting in.
At the longhouse, Bihei greeted me with a warm hug, and then the family settled in around the cookfire. Breakfast was a hearty corn and potato porridge with big chunks of salmon and a layer of melted butter on top. The meal was just as warm as the time spent with my family.
All the sconces around the ritual room under Hunter’s Lodge were lit. The floor and walls looked like they’d been washed, and there was the scent of something herby and floral in the air. An eclectic group sat in a circle around Inleio and me: Mumu, Haol, Ben, Sheedi, and a couple of villagers I didn’t know.
They all watched as Inleio handed me a silver sphere in which to put the Healing Water rune. Ikfael had given her permission, so I had no qualms about sharing the spell. All I had to do was imagine the runes in my mind, and once I felt them lock into place, ready for my mana, the sphere intruded into my thoughts and sucked them away instead.
Once the runes were in the sphere, though, Inleio gave it to Mumu instead of putting it somewhere safe for transport to Albei. Then, Mumu closed her eyes and focused on the runes inside. After about ten minutes, she passed it to Haol on her left. When Haol was done roughly twenty minutes later, he offered it to Ben.
Once I realized that they’d intended to pass the spell around to everyone in the circle, I raised my eyebrows at Inleio. The lodge’s spells weren’t supposed to be shared with outsiders.
He coughed and looked away. “The spell doesn’t belong to the Hunter’s Lodge yet, so there is nothing wrong with sharing the spell with the people of Voorhei.”
“Uh huh. And once the Hunter’s Lodge approves the spell?” I asked.
“Then our rules will apply,” Inleio said, “and you will be handsomely rewarded for your contribution. I will make sure of it, on my honor.”
I didn’t mind spreading the spell as long as it was a fair trade. It’d only do good as far as I was concerned, and I trusted Inleio to keep his word. As for the lodge’s rules… well, I could already see how I could bend them to teach Billisha and Aluali if either of them turned out to have a talent for magic.
At my smile, Inleio lifted a hand to make sure I was paying attention. “Our rules exist to strengthen the lodge. The stronger the lodge, the more protection it provides the people. But when the rules no longer protect the people—when they protect the lodge at the expense of people—then we do what we must. A hunter is flexible. They know what they hunt and why. Without those two understandings, they become lost along the Path to Perfection. The lodge is a place of rest and support along the way. It is not the Path itself. Does our Eight understand?”
“Oh yes,” I said. “More than you know.”
Inleio nodded, relieved. “I believe you. I believe in you.”
That made me grin.
“But that does not mean that you can chew rocks. When we are finished here, you will show me your progress with your Spear and Knife Arts.”
“Yes, master,” I replied, my grin spreading.
And so it went, the sphere going from hand to hand, person to person, three times around the circle. The whole afternoon was spent in the lodge, as the people around me memorized the spell.
One of Bihei’s chickens had stopped laying, so we had chicken and grits for dinner later that night. Bindeise’s ghost visited while we were eating, but he didn’t do anything except stand in the corner. He looked lost and lonely, so I just let him be. Afterward, he poked around the part of the longhouse reserved for livestock.
Bihei worked at her loom, and the kids had baskets they were weaving. I was the only one without anything to do, so I sat in meditation with Yuki rifling through my memories in the background.
It was a quiet night, but the next day, the lodge would go hunting.
The print in the muddy slope looked like it had been left by a blynx—or it could’ve been a regular lynx. While Tegen and Haol debated which it was, Mumu climbed a tree for a better view of the surroundings, and I had my spirit eyes open searching for anything Camouflaged. I was finally able to cast Dog’s Agility and handle all the extra sensory information provided by the land on my own.
The debate inconclusive, we followed the trail south along the hillside and then cut west, up toward a higher elevation. Near a large granite outcropping, the trail disappeared, which lent weight to the argument that it was a blynx. There was a limit to the range of a blynx’s Blink, though, and no matter how exhaustively we searched and how wide we made our circles, we found no further signs of the animal. The whole time, the hunters took particular care to keep Teila and me protected.
We spent a good three hours circling around the outcropping. We even looked for gaps in the stone to make sure it hadn’t gone underground, but there was nothing.
I asked Yuki to make sure it wasn’t Otwei playing tricks on us, but they reported that she was intent on tracking a herd of musk oxen to our southwest, maybe a mile out. She wasn’t thinking of us at all. Instead, a thread of worry ran through her belly.
Before I could ask the reason for her concern, I heard an eagle’s cry, and a shadow the size of a small plane shot underneath me.
I dove to the side as hunters scattered for the trees. The world blurred as Yuki sped my qi through the patterns for Dog’s Agility. As I fell toward the ground, I heard a series of rifle shots: Haol casting arrows clad in Spiral Pierce. Mumu’s shots lagged only a moment behind.
The air went out of me when I hit the ground. My roll was sloppy, but I was able to get my legs back under me and run for cover under a pine tree’s branches. It was all I could do to wave them out of the way so that I didn’t poke my eyes out.
I’d just gotten behind the trunk, when the tree began to sway dangerously. A crack sounded above me, and the top of the tree fell to the ground. I looked up at the suddenly clear view of an eagle powerfully flapping its wings to rise up into the air.
Giant Eagle (Animal, Dusk) Talents: Big Boy, Talons Like Knives, Death from Above, Air Superiority |
“Teila?” Tegen yelled.
“Safe!”
“Eight?”
“Also safe,” I said.
“To me,” Tegen yelled. “At the oak. Quickly, while it rises.”
I ducked beneath the pine’s branches and ran toward the oak tree Tegen had taken shelter under. He already had his spells flowing, the smell of qi strongly upon him. It took only a moment to recognize Bear’s Strength, Collaut’s Hide, and Iron Heart. Then my eyes were on the sky again. I reached back to unsling my bow.
My arrow nocks now had notches so that I could load them by feel. I no longer had to look down to check if the fletching would hit the stave or not.
The eagle circled around to scan the ground. Haol and Mumu shot again, the air cracking with the sound of their arrows. My own shots felt anemic in comparison.
“Gods-be-damned pop gun,” I muttered. “My next spell’s going to be Spiral Pierce.”
Teila shot her arrows with just as much frustration. “Mine too!”
The eagle was an acrobatic nightmare—dodging left and right, up and down. A barrel roll avoided a coordinated attack from the hunters, the arrows passing underneath his agile body. Haol dove to avoid the eagle’s talons, the tree behind him buffeted by wings.
For a moment, the eagle was close to the ground.
In the blink of an eye, Mumu dropped her bow and grabbed her spear to launch herself at the eagle’s back. Spiral Pierce broke through the feathers shielding his body. The spear stuck, but was yanked around when the eagle twisted, his beak slicing through the air to reach Mumu.
She let go and dropped to the ground. An arrow from Haol kept the eagle at bay long enough for her to roll away. With steps thumping, Tegen charged like a locomotive.
Alarm flashed through the eagle’s eyes, and he took off, his wings flapping furiously to catch at the air. Blood streamed from where Mumu’s spear was still lodged.
The eagle kept low to the treetops to limit his exposure to our arrows, then winged away toward the escarpment to the west. He’d missed his meal and come away hurt instead. It was time to retreat.
Haol panted hard, but didn’t let go of his bow. “Running low,” he said between breaths, “on qi.”
Mumu scrambled to pick up her own bow. Her breathing came fast too. “Same.”
Tegen let go of his spells, the qi dissipating from his body like mist. “I have enough for one more spell in me.”
The three of them gathered around the apprentices and scanned the sky. When the eagle didn’t show any signs of returning, we all breathed a sigh of relief.
“We withdraw,” Mumu said. She checked the sun. “We’ll find a safe place to recover, and then head back.”
It wasn’t quite five in the afternoon, so we easily had another four hours of light left. Her decision meant that we’d finish the day’s hunt early, but I couldn’t blame her—we’d had a close call. None of us were happy, but we were grateful to have come out of the encounter unscathed.
Our team’s hope had been to go after the wounded eagle the next day, but Inleio had something else in mind. The Albei team had found signs of a band of adolescent musk oxen bulls who’d been expelled from a larger herd. The evidence pointed to them intruding into the territory of a wolf pack—the same one who’d tried to move into the musk oxen’s territory due to pressure from the kalihchi bear.
It wasn’t unusual for adolescent bulls to be exiled from a herd, the dominant bull pushing out any up-and-coming competition, but from the way the situation was explained to me, it almost sounded like the adolescents had been intentionally sent at the wolves to cause trouble for them in retaliation. Given how animals could evolve in this world, maybe that wasn’t such a far-fetched idea.
In any case, there were several animal groups contesting for territory to the south and west. Well, one of those groups was the King of the Forest, and he didn’t have to vie for anything. What the kalihchi bear claimed as territory was his. The adolescent musk oxen bulls, though, were being squeezed between the lot of them, and the fear was that they’d head to Voorhei as a result.
Musk oxen were notoriously grumpy, and often weighed six hundred pounds or more. They normally preferred arctic habitats, where their thick fur coats kept them warm, but the animals in this world did what they pleased. They had abilities and powers that invalidated the common sense I’d brought with me from my previous life.
Apparently, musk oxen mutated easily under the influence of darklight, and their mutations tended to vary widely, which was why this band of bulls was so worrisome. We had no knowledge of their capabilities. All we knew was that there were five or six of them, and that the wolves had so far managed to keep them at bay. The bulls would likely be powerful, but not too powerful—a threat now, with the potential to be a much larger threat later.
So, Inleio negotiated with Ghitha for the Albei team’s services in order to devote the second day to hunting down the oxen. There was a good chance the whole lodge would be involved.
