Chenga

The Hunter

Gamesh knelt by the roadside.  A heavy cloak and gloves covered his body and protected him from the pale wintery light of the sun.  At his back were his three wives:  Kirani, Latira and Loana; his daughter Kiri, and his three clansmen, Geemak, Garkh and Grildek.  Gamesh scented the air.

'The trail ends here.  I smell the two humans and the dead K'Vathin... and the passing karg wolves.  There is blood.  Yet the trail ends here.  The scent stops.  Or has it just been covered?'

Gamesh scented the air again.  Each subtle scent was a shade of meaning.  The brown earth, the white snow, black crows, grey trees and buried, fallen leaves.  He ran through all that his experience of life told him was there.  A vixen, fat with young, lay holed up in her den... musky and warm.  He closed his eyes.  What could he smell that he didn't know?  He bent his head to his arm and sniffed.  The strange scent that was upon him covered many other scents.  He sniffed at the air again.  That alluring scent was upon him... and yet, a similar scent lay ahead.  It was so faint as to be almost non-existent.  There was something else there, too: a herb.  Gamesh laughed.

'Gamesh, why do you laugh?'  Kirani, Gamesh's first wife scowled at him.

'What do you smell, Kira?'  Gamesh looked down upon his wife.

'The woods, the animals, the K'Vathin...and that stench on you.'  Kirani looked up at her husband.

'What do you smell in the woods, which herbs?'

'The snow covers most of them and the leaves are old or frozen, yet there is vetch, tannis, thyme, mint...and hellbore?'

'Does hellbore grow here?'

'No, it's too far south.'  Kirani looked puzzled.

'Then why can you smell it?'

Kirani smiled.  'It smells like a skunk's arse, that's why!  Someone was carrying hellbore...and some other herbs no doubt and their scent masks a lot of the other scents!  We aren't looking for two runners, we are looking for three!'

Gamesh reached out his gloved hand to his wife and brushed her cheek.  'We have our trail, but it's not the humans we follow, follow the hellbore.'

Gamesh's mind was racing.  The prey had been cunning, but not cunning enough.  As he looked down he saw fine powdered herbs lying in the snow.  Soon they would have the scent of the humans again.  He knew, too, that a trap would have to be laid... a trap where the humans were the bait, but the Kula-Mar would be the prey.