Hunter's Woman (2 page)

She’d become that thing of nightmares—
mogi
.  With that one bite so long ago, the seeds had invaded her, taken possession, changed her from human to … something that shouldn’t even exist.

Shuddering, she rolled over, sat up abruptly, and looked around.  She was naked, lying in the snow.  Small wonder she felt as if she would freeze to death. 

There was no escaping the nightmare world she had descended into in her fifteenth year, although, in the beginning, she had lied to herself that she would find a way.

Fearful that she would harm someone she cared for, or that those who loved her would discover her affliction and be forced to destroy her, she’d fled her home after the death of her betrothed.  But she had told herself that she would discover a cure.  She would find a way to lift the curse, or affliction—she wasn’t even certain of which it was.  Over the past three years since her quest had begun, she had acquired a good deal of knowledge in the healing arts of the Petrac people, and even discovered others on her own, but she had never come close to curing her own malady. 

Each time either of Petrac’s twin moons waxed full, the madness seized her—she’d found to her dismay that she couldn’t even trust the myths she’d been fed her entire life—that she was safe from the change except thrice yearly when both moons were full at the same time!  She wasn’t certain whether it was a blessing or a curse that she could never remember what she’d done.  She remembered feeling a darkness churning to life within her as she gazed up at the full moon, a throbbing to life of something primal—and then she remembered nothing more, awaking each time naked and bloody and certain only that she had savagely killed again.

In truth, she supposed it was both blessing and curse.  It was hard enough to deal with the knowledge that she had killed without having to bear the weight of the memory of the kill.  And yet, how was she to find a cure when she didn’t know with any degree of certainty what was happening?  Somewhere in the knowledge that eluded her lay a piece of the puzzle.  She was as certain of that as she was certain that the nightmares that had plagued her these many years were not nightmares at all, but memories. 

Whatever had happened to the child she had been was at the root of her curse.

Forced from her contemplation finally by physical distress, Aslyn focused on scrubbing the blood from herself with snow.  There was no water, and, in any case, she was half frozen already.  Using snow would not make her any colder.  She had to rid herself of the blood before the stench made her ill. 

It was far from ideal, however, in the sense that it was impossible to cleanse herself thoroughly with the icy crystals.  Finally, satisfied that she’d removed as much of the drying blood as she would be able to until she found running water, she stumbled to her feet and looked around. 

Scraggly, winter bare trees dotted the area around her.  Here and there a craggy knob of rock poked through the white blanket, however.  She frowned.  She recalled she’d sought shelter in a cave when the snow had begun to fall.  Turning in a slow circle, she finally spied a dark crevice some little distance from where she now stood.  Relief flooded her.  She’d returned to her burrow.  

She had learned that she could, generally, count upon that, at the very least.  Whatever madness seized her in the night and sent her scouting for a kill, she usually returned to whatever shelter she’d sought for herself when morning chased the night shadows away.

With an effort, she stumbled toward the narrow opening, tripping in the shifting, almost knee deep snow drifts.  Her clothing littered the entrance of the tiny cave.  Shivering, she lifted the coarse gown that lay closest to examine it. 

There had been a time when the lowest scullery maid in her father’s castle had worn more comely gowns that the one she now held, when nothing had touched her own skin save the finest of fabrics Petrac had to offer.  She had learned in the time since to be grateful only to cover herself. 

However thankful the poor were for her services in healing their sick, they had little to give.  Beyond that, she could not bring herself to accept more than what it took to survive.  The work she did in healing others was a form of penitence for the evil she did when seized by the madness.  She knew that it was her only hope of salvation for her soul. 

Not surprisingly, she saw that the gown was ripped into tatters.  It had been repaired many times, until it was a crisscross of stitches, but only a part of the repairs were from the normal wear and tear one could expect in so old an article of clothing.  Her first act upon assuming her other form was to rend the clothes from her back.  She had learned only to wear loose clothing, the more restrictive the gown, the less usable afterward.  As if being trapped in clothing was sufficient to send her into a mad frenzy in and of itself, anything that could not be discarded with relative ease was shredded to ribbons by either razor sharp teeth, or claws, or perhaps both.

Sighing, she moved to the bundle that lay near the back of the cave, untied it, and unrolled her ‘second best’ shift and gown.  She could repair the other later.  The moon had begun to wane.  She was reasonably certain she was safe from her curse for a few weeks.  Right now, she needed to dress herself and move on.  She had made it a practice to move as far away from an area as possible after she’d killed.

Bundling her belongings, she wrapped her worn cloak tightly about her shoulders, pulled her hood close around her face and left the cave.  To her relief, she discovered her boots within a few yards of the cave.  One had somehow landed upright when she’d ‘lost’ it.  It was filled with snow.  She upended it, struck the sole to loosen the ice crystals.  When she’d emptied it, she brushed the snow from one stocking, stood on one leg and tugged the boot on, then repeated the process with her other foot. 

Her feet felt like blocks of ice. 

If she were still human, frozen feet would mean more than discomfort. 

But she had ceased to be human years ago.  

* * * *

Aslyn had not traveled more than a mile when the distant wails of a distraught mother reached her.  She froze, lifting her head to listen, turning slowly until she could distinguish the direction. 

Her heart seemed to drop to her frozen feet and freeze itself into a hard, suffocating knot.

She hesitated.  It would be wiser, she knew, to run the other way.  Some instinct told her that she had more to do with the woman’s grief than she ever wanted to know, that her evil deeds would catch up to her, at last, if she didn’t flee while she had the chance.

She found that she couldn’t. 

She could not
know
that she was responsible.  If she fled, without offering her services as a healer, then she
would
most assuredly be guilty.

Hurrying toward the sound now with a sense of urgency, she came upon a small rise.  When she’d struggled up it and reached the summit, she saw that she was looking down upon a narrow road.  Debris littered the rutted track behind a cart that lay drunkenly upon its side.  The
otox
, which had been pulling the cart, struggling to right itself, added its own mournful bellows in counterpoint to the woman’s wails.  The woman, Aslyn saw, was sitting on a bank of snow nearby, a child clutched to her breast, rocking back and forth.

Relief flooded Aslyn.  It was an accident then, not some horror of her making.

She stumbled as she hurried down the slope, nearly falling flat, but managed to catch herself.  “Madam,” she called a little breathlessly as she neared the woman.  “What has befallen?  Is the child ill?”

The wails ceased as abruptly as if they’d been choked from the woman by a tight fist.  Her head whipped around, stark terror in her eyes.  It faded slowly as she focused upon Aslyn.  “She’s dying.  She’s wounded unto death.  My poor babe.  My sweet angel.”

Aslyn reached the woman, grasped her shoulder.  “Let me see her.  I’m a healer.  Perhaps I can help.”

The woman sniffed, studied her suspiciously.  “You are young to be a healer.  You are scarcely more than a child yourself.”

Aslyn’s lips tightened.  “Nevertheless, I know my craft.  I have been practicing for several years now, learned the secrets of the herbs when I was but a child in truth, from the woman who reared me after my mother’s death.  What have you got to lose by allowing me to see to the child’s hurts?”

Reluctantly, the woman loosened her grip on the infant.  Aslyn whipped her cloak from her shoulders, folded it and laid it upon the snow, then took the baby and laid it carefully on her cloak.  “What happened?” she asked as she checked the child’s injuries, noting with a great deal of concern that, while the child still breathed, its heartbeat was faint.

A sob tore from the woman’s throat.  “A beast attacked us.  It was not good daylight … still too dark to see clearly.  I scarcely caught a glimpse of it, but I think it was a
tolk
.”

This was a tolk-like—or perhaps more accurately, wolf-like—beast that was a danger to man and beast in the dead of winter when food began to grow scarce.

The
mogi
were described as being much like one, although that was a matter for debate.  The human community was certain that it didn’t just look like one.  It
was
one and the natives were allowing their imagination, and their superstitions, to run away with them.

And since, supposedly, there were no survivors to the attack of a
mogi
, one had to wonder how it had come about that the local folk had decided the
mogi
resembled the
tolk.

Fear clutched Aslyn’s heart.  She felt the blood drain from her face in a dizzying rush.  “A
tolk
, you say?  The child’s not been bitten.  I can see no signs.”

The woman shook her head.  “Nay!  It attacked the otox.  The poor thing was terrorized and bolted, crashing the cart.  I tried to shield the baby, but she was ripped from my arms when we struck the boulder and flew from the cart.”

Aslyn nodded, checking the child’s head carefully with her fingers.  A knot the size of a goose egg had risen on the baby’s forehead, but she could not detect any other injuries to the head.  She carefully rolled the baby onto its side and ran her fingertips along its spine, checking each tiny vertebra.  They seemed intact.  She could not detect any notable breaks, at any rate.  Until, or unless, the baby awoke, she could not be sure the child had not injured her spine or neck. 

She sat back and glanced around.  She hated to expose the child to the elements, even to check her injuries, but she saw no hope for it.  There was no shelter.  She looked at the woman, who seemed more in possession of herself now.  “Gather close and spread your cloak so as to block the wind as much as possible.  I must undress the baby to examine her and I don’t want her to catch a chill.”

The girl child woke as Aslyn unwrapped its swaddling and removed its gown.  The child’s mother made an abortive movement to gather it into her arms once more, but Aslyn forestalled her.  “No.  It will cause her no harm to cry.  She should not be moved again, however, until I have determined if she has broken any bones.  The crying is a good sign.  Such strong, lusty wails could mean she is not so badly injured as you thought.”

It could also mean she was in terrible pain, but Aslyn didn’t voice those thoughts aloud.  She closed her mind to that anxiety and concentrated on the task at hand.  Bruising had already begun to develop.  She counted a half a dozen that looked fresh enough to be the results of the crash.  Except for the knot on the baby’s head, however, none seemed swollen, nor could she detect any other areas that had swollen, indicating deeper injury.  The child’s frantic wriggling seemed to belie the possibility of broken bones.  

Aslyn dressed the child once more and carefully wrapped her.  She smiled faintly as she handed the wailing child to its mother.  “I do not believe she has sustained lasting hurt.  You must watch her closely throughout the day, however.”  She removed her pouch and carefully spread it upon the cloak, examining the herbs in the tiny bundles inside and selecting small portions of several.  These she bundled together in a small scrap of cloth.  “If she appears dazed or confused, sleepy when she should not be—in any way not her usual self, powder these herbs, take one fourth of them and feed them to her in a cup of tea or warmed milk.  I do not believe you will need it, but it is better to be safe than sorry.”

The woman nodded and took the pouch.  “This is for…?”

“Swelling.  If her brain has been bruised, it could swell and … cause her to be very ill.  These herbs are known to reduce swelling and should help.  But do not give her anything at all unless she seems strange to you.  It is not a good idea to give medicine where it is not needed.”

A look of fear flickered through the woman’s eyes, but she nodded jerkily that she’d understood. 

Aslyn rose a little stiffly, shook her cloak out, and donned it once more, carefully pulling her hood over her head, as much to hide the red hair she despised as to ward off the wind.   

The child’s wails had quieted to a snuffling whimper as her mother put her to her breast to pacify her.  “What do I owe you?”

Aslyn glanced down at the woman.  “Nothing.”

The woman shook her head, a look of obstinacy hardening her features.  “We are poor, but we are not beggars.  My man will insist upon paying you for your services when he returns.”