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The smoke in the air scratched at her throat. It was the first thing Naru noticed when she came back to wakefulness.
The coolness of night had sunk into her skin which made the ache of laying on the uneven floor of the cage worse. But it was nothing compared to the throb of pain around her leg from the trap. With stiff limbs she pushed herself up, trying to keep her pained winces quiet as she hesitantly looked at the torn and bruised skin. The bleeding had at least stopped while she was asleep.
The foreign men, the trappers, ones who had no respect for life seemed just as unpleasant as she had thought them to be. There were many of them, lit by the light of fires and lanterns around the camp. They didn’t realise she was awake yet and she feared what might happen when they did.
Naru scanned the area around her. She needed a way out.
She had hated the trappers with all her chest but it hadn’t felt so personal until she saw them dragging Sarii like that. Yelling aggressively at the dog who was just following his nature to protect her in the confusion of his strange surroundings.
Her attention was shifted when with a shudder she realised that she wasn’t alone. It started as a tingle at the back of her neck, the feeling of something coming up behind her.
She jolted in shock, hands covering her mouth as the air moved, too warm and deliberate to just be the wind. The fire-like cracking that she recognised grew uncomfortably close. Naru froze as the hazy warp of the creature moved along the side of the cage. Like a lion settling after a good meal.
Naru trailed it with her eyes but stayed unmoving before it. She wouldn’t be able to fight it like this, but neither would she have been able to when she had been caught in the trap. It had pulled the chain in its large hands, inspecting it, over taking the opportunity to go for the easy kill. It might not have meant anything but she didn’t have any options as it was.
The being, whatever feral creature it was, lurked at the side of the cage in the shadows, she only knew it was still there because of its breathing. Once again, inspecting but not taking the kill. It seemed to be learning about them. Cautiously she turned towards it. If she focused, she could see the slow shimmer, like heat rising on the hotter summers. “Why are you here?” She asked it, not expecting an answer, just needing to ask. Warm like embers from a fire shifted over its body, slowly unveiling the bulky, outlander form. “What are you?”
The skull-like mask tilted at hurt, not understanding but he took a device from his belt. Naru scrambled to the other side of the frighteningly small cage, mouth opening poised to yell for the trappers. But it reached in and slowly placed a blade right at the edge of her cage.
It wasn’t a style of weapon that she had seen before. She watched him as she slowly moved back towards that side. Eyes never leaving him she curled her hand around the blade and pulled it in. It just purred lowly. She felt safe enough to look down, inspecting the blade and how it was segmented and would stay ridged straight but could be easily bent into a circle. She moved it in her hands, figuring out how to use it, her mind treating it like a riddle to solve. She was fascinated by all this feral creature could do as much as she feared it.
She looked up again, another question dying on her lips as she saw the monster was gone once again.
But what hadn’t left her were the goosebumps on her arms. It was still watching somewhere unseen in the shadows. What it was waiting for, she didn’t know. Nor did know why it was helping her but she tested the blade on one of the wood sticks that made up her cage. With barely any pressure, the blade sunk into the wood as if it was animal fat.
In slow deliberate movements, she started sawing through the bars, two would be enough for her to slip out. She cut through the bottoms but only halfway through the top bars. She would need to wait for the right moment.
As quickly as the blade worked, her movement was still noticed and words, that she couldn’t understand aside from their aggression, were shouted from the men in the camp. Turning towards her was a bulky man with a cruel expression. The creature hadn’t been the one to slaughter all those buffalo. It had been them. She clutched the blade tighter and hid it behind her back.
The men unsteadily stalked to her cage, not knowing she had a way out. They made taunting noises like the diseased dogs they were. Naru stayed unmoving and unblinking under their gaze.
They tried to scare her. To jab at her through the bars but she wasn’t going to allow them to get away with all the wrong they had done. She snatched his stick and used it to cut open his hand. She was the one trapped but she would let them know she was a threat to them.
For a moment, as the man threw down the stick and went to soothe his injured hand, she was sure she heard that familiar crackle from the throat of the monster, somewhere to her left. He seemed to be enjoying the show.
She was surprised for a moment when another man, one able to speak in the language of the Comanche crouched at her cage. “You should be helping us. I think this creature is a hunter, looking for the strongest beasts. What do you know?” He was looking for the strongest. She thought about that and on the warmth of the blade in her hand. An idea was forming in her mind and it almost made the corners of her lips tilt up. “He killed your whole party!” he stressed to her.
“No.” She glared at him, the poor scared man. They had no idea what was coming for them. “He didn’t kill everyone.”
“If you were smart, you would help us.” He said firmly.
They would refuse it but, she was smart, and she now knew that they needed her much more than she needed them.
The large man in the camp started yelling again. His face flushed red in anger as he stormed through the camp. There was another cage, different from her own, it took her a moment to process what they dragged out from it.
A loud gasp left her chest as she saw her brother next to the unstable man, who now held a large knife in his hand. She growled as the large man draw the knife down her brother’s chest, the man crying out in pain as blood ran down his body.
There was a time to plan, and a time to act. The others were looking at her brother, they were distracted. She thrust her hands through the bars and slashed the translator’s throat as her other hand clamped over his mouth to keep him quiet. She pulled him so he was leaning against the bars of the cage as the life left him as if he was still just talking to her. she kicked the bars out and scrambled away.
There was more yelling, toward the cage and the body of the translator. She snuck around camp, trying to be both quick and quiet as she drew closer to her brother. Just as they started noticing the translator wasn’t moving she got behind the one holding her brother’s arms and slit his throat, freeing him.
Grabbing him, Naru pulled him away as the men were all yelling and pulling their guns out on her. She was ready to bolt, regardless of how risky it was with her brother injured. But those three red dots she now recognised trailed over one of the trapper’s chests.
They were all so focused on screaming and raging, that they didn’t even notice. She smiled up at them.
They falter for a short moment as they saw her face, in a swift strike, one of the men was thrown back, landing in a slump with the metal from the weapon sticking out of his chest.
The loud roar filled the camp. She stood, pulling away from the hands of her frightened brother.
He was looking for the best of the hunters.
Crying out she ran back into the camp, blade in her hand as the red lights found more targets.
She didn’t know how long they fought, weaving in and out of each other attacks, taking down each of the trappers one by one. Her head and her leg ached with a terrible sharpness but the pressure of dissatisfaction she had felt with her place now dissipated. She felt a type of righteousness. These were bad men. Now they will be part of a cautionary tale.
There was only one left. The large man who wore the fur of the buffalo. The one who had bled her brother.
He was injured, screaming and cursing. But he had nothing. no chance, no help, and no hope.
Naru stood above the struggling soldier. She took deliberate steps towards him. stalking him down.
The purring crackle of the feral creature was right at the back of her neck now. She could see the glow in the terrified man’s eyes as that ember flame engulfed its body to make it seen again.
Suddenly the dark gnarled fingers stretched out from the corner of her vision. The hands rested heavily on her shoulders. It dwarfed her but she didn’t feel small with it. Quite the opposite. She felt dangerous.
It whispered the sound of thunder at her ear and then let her go.
“Okay.” She nodded and eyes back on the large man. Naru pounced on him with her blade raised. She plunged it into his chest. She thrashed and struck at her but she just took the assault and pressed the blade in deeper as streams of blood flowed warmly over his hands.
It was done.
Pulling the blade back, she looked at the creature. He gave a tilt to his head before bringing his hands up to his head.
Its face wasn’t the white shell she saw. It was a mask that the hunter removed. Its face was long and bulky, like no animal she had ever seen. Four tusks twitched around its mouth before it flared, the roar made her shudder but she stood her ground.
It crackled in its throat and she got the impression that it was pleased. Taking the blade from her laxed hand, it slid its fingers along the blade, collecting blood on its fingertips. It moved slowly, she watched as it grew close taking a step back but it pressed its cool fingers to the forehead and slowly traced a mark on her.
It took her a moment to understand it was giving her the same make it wore on its one head.
“Naru!” her brother yelled for her while he was leaning against the base of a tree. Nodding to the feral predator, she stepped away to join back with Taabe, crouching next to him. He tried to hold her arms but she knocked his hands away to inspect the cut. She needed to know he would be alright without her before she left. He loved her brother, but by the gods or some other force, she had been chosen.
He was frightened, telling her desperately that they needed to run but she took his hands and squeezed.
“Goodbye brother, protect the clan. Lead them well, like I know you can.”
He desperately shook his head at her. “What… What did you and that thing do?”
She placed her hand on his shoulder, thinking back to when they were young children. But they have grown now. “I’ve always wanted to be a hunter, he will make me a predator.”
A door seemed to tear into the world, lit up by that ember glow that danced around the opening before revealing a bright light that flooded over them. It was something else being hidden from sight the feral predator could. Her mind went back to the shape of the thunderbird which had trailed behind the clouds. The Feral creature, now wearing its mask again, waited for her ahead. A dark shadow against the light. Uncurling its large, clawed hand it reached out towards her.
She placed her smaller hand into his.