Merciless Hunter

1: The Fruit of Hate

The branches stand out like fissures, stark black bands against the pale noon sky. Their lingering tufts of withering, yellow leaves rustle in a faint, chilly breeze. Evaluating their strength and angle with the eyes of a seasoned climber, she tries to decide which one would best swing a noose.

Not for her - she has no such desire, not yet. There are others more deserving. Men. Or wolves, for that's what they are, though they walk on two legs. Deserve it? Oh, she does that too, to be sure. She is fallen. Lost to the world. Fair game for the Merciless Hunter, with His bow of thorns and pack of wolves. She deserves His just punishment for eloping, as the hallowmen preach in the temple of the Herder.

But she has been on the run since spring and no Merciless Hunter has yet shown up. Only more man-wolves. Perhaps the Hunter is lost too. Perhaps even the Herder.

Perhaps the whole world is lost.

At least she has nothing more to lose now except the will to live. Maybe that will run out, too, in the end. Until then, at least she can afford to buy some food now. The hard, smooth little pieces in her hand, warm now to her clasp, will be her substitute for pride. Pride doesn't fill your belly and give you the strength to go on another day.

What she has sold had already been robbed from her anyway, sullied, made worthless. Why these men think it worth paying for is more than she can fathom. Still, the money will help this worthless body of hers go on serving for a little longer. For whatever reason.

Again, she looks up into the trees where she climbed just a month before, picking pears, barely earning her keep with some pride still left. The orchard, belonging to all the villagers is deserted now, a good place for dishonourable business, the little road past it only leading to the likewise deserted pastures in the uphill country. No more fruit to pick here now. The season may be over, but perhaps these barren branches can be of some use again if she can only find a good noose and a way to lay it about the right neck.

A reason to go on. Anger rises in her like hot, acrid bile and she conjures up images of all those men, the kind that rob and the kind that pay, all alike, swinging from those branches, a macabre harvest of the fruit of hate. Yes. That might be a reason to go on. Not likely to happen, though. If no Hunter has come to punish her, who would come for them?

A wild rush seizes her heart as an intoxicating thought strikes her. She sees herself with shining eyes, a thorny bow in hand and wolves at her command. Huge wolves that do not hesitate to rend apart the men who have preyed on her. She - the Merciless Hunter, they - the wicked ones whose time has come to pay...

Through clenching jaws, a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl forces its way out. She shakes her head slowly, rubbing her hair against a crush of leaves, as fallen and discarded as herself. Too many tales in her head - perhaps that was what fooled her into believing she could elope and find a better life elsewhere. The world is not a tale where a rainbow can be caught. No, although she finds both the men and herself loathsome, most of her loathing is reserved for this bitter world. This indifferent world where tales are just glimmering fancies, the empty comfort of the powerless, never to come true, while reality is pain, simple and plain and as inevitable as death for those of her lot.

Growling and muttering, she finally bothers to wipe herself off with a handful of fallen leaves and cover up. Then she sits, props her elbows on her knees, buries her hands in her thick, luxuriously blonde hair - her curse and her blessing - and lets her head hang between them. The pain in her scalp helps to spin a flimsy cobweb over the hole in her heart. Perhaps it can help her think clearly about what to do with the money.

Soft footsteps alert her that someone is approaching. Another man with more money than honour, perhaps? She raises a weary head and frowns, then blanches and scrambles to her feet. By the clothes, the newcomer looks like a man of the woods, which could mean a forester or a robber. The former might either pay for her services or jail her, probably confiscating her ill-gotten money. What the latter might do, there is no telling, but most of it won't be to her liking. Such men are the wolves undisguised, the kind that the Hunter is most often said to prey on. She's never heard of any highwayman ever falling prey to the Hunter though, the king relies more upon his vassals and their knights to keep them in check.