Dancing with Death

Chapter Two

ALWIN

          Her eyes fixed on her target; she silently selected an arrow and attached it to the fine cotton string of her wooden bow. It was a small thing, covered in scratches and needed urgent repairs. She had wrapped it in ivy to prevent it from falling apart.

          Perched on the branch of a tree, Samilia watched a deer as it ate the blades of grass which were being to shoot up, oblivious to the danger which surrounded it. She dared not breathe as she lifted her bow and aimed at the creature whose head was bowed.

          A few strands of her hair blew in a gust of wind and then clung to her forehead, blinding her for a moment. Hastily, the grip on her bow loosened as she struggled to push the strands far back over her ear. When she returned her attention to her target, it had moved on and she could only hear the running footsteps of the animal.

          ‘No,’ she breathed as she almost fell down the tree instead of climbing down in desperation. The deer was her last chance of getting food for tonight, and she was feeling ravenous. Samilia attached her bow to her back as she sprinted after the deer. Her feet seemed to run by themselves and headed in the direction of the running footsteps.

          Her pace slowed when she could no longer hear running feet, but her eyes were fixed on the deer a few metres away from her. Cautiously and quietly, she grabbed her bow and arrow and aimed at it. But it had sensed danger in the air and skulked into the darkness of a cave.

          Samilia let out a sigh of frustration as she slowly took a few steps towards the cave. She was beginning to get desperate; usually if something like this happened she would move on and not chase it anymore. Although the sun was setting and the wolves would emerge from the darkness, and she had no food to return home with. This deer would be her last chance, her last shot of eating tonight.

          As she approached the cave, she heard the shriek of an animal which sent a shiver down her spine and sent her stumbling away from the cave. The figure of a man could be seen inside it, his hand grasping the neck of the deer he had just slit. Samilia felt a hint of anger inside her but it was best not to cross paths with a hunter, so her father had told her once.

          She turned from the opportunity of eating meat and headed down the path of eating berries and mushrooms and the risk of being poisoned.

          ‘Where are you going?’ A too familiar voice asked from behind her, she spun around to see Kylos with the deer over his back.

  ‘You took my kill,’ Samilia hissed, her eyes burning with fury.

  ‘I didn’t take it.’

          He approached her and dropped it at her feet. She loomed over the corpse and she felt her stomach churn. He had already ripped its eyes from its sockets and cut out its tongue. A sight she was not used to seeing, her job was to hunt.

          ‘What’s this?’ She finally asked after she looked up, their eyes met when she spoke.

  ‘It is your kill, is it not?’ He asked with a slight smile.

  ‘I do not take food which is not mine; do you think me a beggar?’

  ‘I saw you chasing this animal, it is yours by right.’

  ‘You slit its neck, not I.’

  ‘Samilia, please take this animal off my hands before I take it back. I have killed two deer and three rabbits since the sun rose.’

          Samilia narrowed her brow as she considered taking the deer and bringing it home. It would feed them for tonight and she could go out hunting the next day. Without looking at him, she picked up the animal and hung it over her shoulder.