Post by Niamh mac Igrainne on Dec 29, 2009 1:08:16 GMT -5
It was the winter of my sixteenth year and my brothers and I were going hunting. I had been hunting before, but not with my brothers, who were enough older than I that they still considered me a child. I relished this chance to show them otherwise, and had spent the entire week pestering Colin mac Logran, one of the most well-respected hunters at Innisclan, about everything he knew about hunting boar.
Armed with this knowledge, not to mention a sturdy bow and a sharpened spear, I rose before dawn and was ready before my brothers had even gotten out of bed.
"Looks like someone is eager to be going," Seamus said, ruffling my reddish blonde curls in a most irritating fashion. I ducked away from his hand with a scowl and he laughed loudly. "I'm sorry, freckles." He said, grinning and deftly dodging the kick I aimed at his shins. I hated being called "freckles"!
Brotherly teasing aside, we were finally ready to go. Not only my brothers, but several other men of the tribe, and a few women as well. I would have been the youngest, but one of my many cousins, Bran mac Cyric, was accompanying us and he was still a child at thirteen. At any rate, I was fair bouncing with excitement as we set out before the sun had even risen. I quickly noticed that Colyn and Erryn had taken up places on either side of me and no matter how I tried to move through the trees, they were there. Irritated, I looked pointedly at Colyn, before speaking to the both of them.
"If you need to babysit someone, go walk with Bran." They looked a bit abashed, but they did give me some space, although my speaking aloud had garnered a few nasty looks from the other hunters. I bit my tongue on more words, embarrassed that I was already proving myself childish. I was determined to ignore my brothers, but by some miracle, they look abashed and soon gave me some space.
We stalked silently through the trees for some time, the gray light of false dawn on the horizon, when I heard the loud snap of a twig breaking. Almost as one, we halted, then melted back into the trees, forming something of a circle around the place we had heard the twig. I forgot about my brothers as the excitement of the hunt became foremost in my thoughts. Arrows first, then spears, that was what old Colin had told me, and so I drew my bow silently, pulling an arrow out of the quiver at my back and nocking it swiftly. I could see some others through the trees doing the same, even Bran and I gave him a tight smile from across the clearing.
Sure enough, a boar appeared, snorting and digging up the dirt with its tusks. This was the tricky part, because a few arrows would not take down a boar, only slow it and give us an easier time tracking it so that we might kill it with our spears. However, there was a danger inherent in sharing the ground with such a creature and more than one person had lost their lives by being gored with those massive tusks. At a silent signal from Seamus, who was in charge of this party, we all let fly with our arrows. The sound of them thrumming through the air filled the clearing, then the sound of the boar screeching with pain and anger. It began to barrel through the trees to my left, and the hunters there scrambled out of the way with alacrity.
And so the chase began! We raced through the forest, following the easy trail that the bloody, pain-maddened boar left for us, until it finally tired and made a stand in a copse of trees a mile or two from where we had first seen it. I was in fairly good shape, but still panting when the boar finally stopped. Everyone had their spears out, but it was up to Seamus to decide who would have the honor of making the first throw. I wanted him to choose me, but tradition dictated that as it was Bran's first hunt he be given the honor. Sure enough, Seamus nodded to him, and Bran's spear flew threw the air to hit the boar in the side. Well, it wasn't ideal, as generally we tried to kill it faster by aiming for the eyes or the throat, but at least he had hit it; sometimes new hunters did not even manage that.
With a cry, the boar suddenly raced forward, toward Bran as if it knew right where that spear had come from. Bran cried out and scrambled sideways, but it was a near miss, even as the rest of us fell on the boar with our own spears. It was over in moments, and the boar's blood was steaming in the cold dawn air as it soaked into the snow at our feet. There was a lot of whooping and hollering and then we got down to the business of getting the boar's body ready for the trek back to Innisclan.
"Why don't we stay here for the night?" Someone suggested, though I didn't hear who it was. "It's a long way back and we're all tired. We can set out at first light." There was a general discussion of this idea before it was eventually agreed upon. Prepared for this eventuality as it was not unusual, tents were pitched and a fire started, and soon we were all huddled around the fire, talking and laughing and retelling the story of bringing down the boar. Our revelry was broken up by the sound of a wolf howling - nearby.
"Don't worry," Erryn said, clapping Bran on the back. "Wolves don't attack humans, especially not a group of us. And with a fire, no less." Bran didn't seem convinced, but he said nothing and soon we were laughing and talking and passing the whiskey once again. I was looking into the fire when something made me raise my head and stare at a point between Erryn and Bran, sitting across from me. I was staring into a pair of yellow eyes for a long moment before I said softly, "Sometimes they do, if they're hungry enough."
Everyone turned around slowly in the direction I was staring, and the sound of a low growl rent the air. It was then I saw not one pair of yellow eyes, but two and then three... it appeared that the wolves in this part of the forest were hungry indeed. I reached for my bow and noted others doing the same - but before Bran could do more than stare, one of the wolves leapt at him knocking him backward and almost into the fire. Erryn cursed and swung his sword, but I didn't see the rest because I was sighting an arrow and aiming for another of the wolves that looked as if it was going to jump for my brother's throat. I shot it once, twice, three times in a quick succession. The arrows didn't kill it, but it was enough to cause it to yelp and lope away.
"Not such easy pray now, are we?" My other brother called out, and a spray of blood arced into the snow as he cut the throat of the third wolf, which had leapt at him and sunk it's teeth into his arm. The scuffle only lasted a few minutes but it was enough to get our adrenaline pumping and for a few injuries to be incurred. After it was over, the bodies of the three wolves were gutted and the pelts shorn; after all, we never wasted any part of the animals we killed.
Eventually we all lay down to sleep, but I found that I could not. One of the wolves looked to have recently whelped and all I could think about was starving pups, freezing to death in the cold. The wolves must really have been starving to have attacked a group of hunters, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for them.
When morning came, and everyone else was getting prepared for the journey home, I packed my share of the load and turned to the others, an idea forming in my mind. "I'm going to head back," I said abruptly, and everyone looked at me with surprise. My fair skin colored slightly, but I did not offer an explanation. Seamus looked at me a moment longer, then shrugged.
"Suit yourself." I sensed that he wanted to tell me to be careful, but did not wish to embarrass me and for that I was grateful. I set out back the way we had come, but when I judged that I was far enough away from the others, I looped back and began trying to track the wolf and find her den.
It took some time, but I managed to find what I hoped were her tracks after only a half-hour or so of tracking. I followed them rapidly, hoping that I did not run into a pack, but all of the signs pointed to her being alone. When I found the den, a small cave in the side of a hill, I approached with caution, but there was no sign of any other animals about.
In fact, the woods were so eerily quiet that I could tell why she had been desperate for our boar; she had obviously cleaned out the game in the immediate area. Once I was inside the cave, it was easy to find the pups, who looked to be only days old. They lay together in the back of the cave, piled up one atop the other, and I could tell right away that I was too late. They were cold, as this cave was not offering much warmth, I could still see my breath on the air. I sighed, tears stinging my eyes, though I refused to let them fall. I knew I was being ridiculous, this was nature and I understood it very well, but for some reason I had wanted to find these pups alive.
I turned to go, but something made me turn back. Had I heard something? A whine? A whimper? I squatted next to the pups and prodded at the pile with my spear. There it was again! Excited, I moved the pups one by one to the side. There, beneath the others, lay one tiny silver gray pup, whining and sniffing at the air pitifully.
"Come here, little one," I said softly, pulling off my cloak and wrapping him in it tightly. Of course, this left me exposed to the elements, and I knew I would have to hurry home, or suffer the fate of the other pups.
I ran almost the entire way back to Innisclan, and when I arrived it was to quite an uproar. I hadn't thought about the fact that everyone else would make it back before I did, and of course everyone was convinced that ill had befallen me. When I appeared, I could see the relief in my brothers' eyes, and then anger.
"Where have you been?" Seamus exploded, his brow creased with worry.
"Nowhere," I said, trying to sidestep to get away with my bundle before he could notice it. No such luck, however.
"What do you have there?" he asked suspiciously, plucking my wrapped up cloak from my arms adroitly. A small crowd had begun to gather and as I caught my breath, Seamus unraveled my cloak to reveal the pup. He looked at me and shook his head. "What are you going to do with this?" he demanded.
I snatched the cloak and pup back from him defiantly. "Raise it to be the best hunting dog we have!" There were some snickers, and Seamus rolled his eyes, but Colyn came to my defense.
"Well, why not? We could use some new blood in the lines, and it's been done before. Let her have it if she wants the responsibility."
Seamus shrugged then, shaking his head. "Well, it's not up to me, but you can tell father that you have my blessing."
I didn't wait to hear more, just ran home, bursting through the door like a whirlwind. Mother wasn't there, but father was, sharpening his sword near the fire.
"Goodness, look what the storm blew in," he said mildly, as he always did when I was awhirl with some new excitement. I showed him the pup and gave him my best pleading speech about how I would care for it and love it and he would not have to lift a finger, and besides, I had Seamus' blessing. "Do you now?" He said with a laugh. "Fine, fine. Take it over to kennelmaster and see if any of the bitches have recently whelped. Perhaps you can find it a wet nurse."
He was still chuckling as I ran out the door, my little charge whimpering in my arms.
Armed with this knowledge, not to mention a sturdy bow and a sharpened spear, I rose before dawn and was ready before my brothers had even gotten out of bed.
"Looks like someone is eager to be going," Seamus said, ruffling my reddish blonde curls in a most irritating fashion. I ducked away from his hand with a scowl and he laughed loudly. "I'm sorry, freckles." He said, grinning and deftly dodging the kick I aimed at his shins. I hated being called "freckles"!
Brotherly teasing aside, we were finally ready to go. Not only my brothers, but several other men of the tribe, and a few women as well. I would have been the youngest, but one of my many cousins, Bran mac Cyric, was accompanying us and he was still a child at thirteen. At any rate, I was fair bouncing with excitement as we set out before the sun had even risen. I quickly noticed that Colyn and Erryn had taken up places on either side of me and no matter how I tried to move through the trees, they were there. Irritated, I looked pointedly at Colyn, before speaking to the both of them.
"If you need to babysit someone, go walk with Bran." They looked a bit abashed, but they did give me some space, although my speaking aloud had garnered a few nasty looks from the other hunters. I bit my tongue on more words, embarrassed that I was already proving myself childish. I was determined to ignore my brothers, but by some miracle, they look abashed and soon gave me some space.
We stalked silently through the trees for some time, the gray light of false dawn on the horizon, when I heard the loud snap of a twig breaking. Almost as one, we halted, then melted back into the trees, forming something of a circle around the place we had heard the twig. I forgot about my brothers as the excitement of the hunt became foremost in my thoughts. Arrows first, then spears, that was what old Colin had told me, and so I drew my bow silently, pulling an arrow out of the quiver at my back and nocking it swiftly. I could see some others through the trees doing the same, even Bran and I gave him a tight smile from across the clearing.
Sure enough, a boar appeared, snorting and digging up the dirt with its tusks. This was the tricky part, because a few arrows would not take down a boar, only slow it and give us an easier time tracking it so that we might kill it with our spears. However, there was a danger inherent in sharing the ground with such a creature and more than one person had lost their lives by being gored with those massive tusks. At a silent signal from Seamus, who was in charge of this party, we all let fly with our arrows. The sound of them thrumming through the air filled the clearing, then the sound of the boar screeching with pain and anger. It began to barrel through the trees to my left, and the hunters there scrambled out of the way with alacrity.
And so the chase began! We raced through the forest, following the easy trail that the bloody, pain-maddened boar left for us, until it finally tired and made a stand in a copse of trees a mile or two from where we had first seen it. I was in fairly good shape, but still panting when the boar finally stopped. Everyone had their spears out, but it was up to Seamus to decide who would have the honor of making the first throw. I wanted him to choose me, but tradition dictated that as it was Bran's first hunt he be given the honor. Sure enough, Seamus nodded to him, and Bran's spear flew threw the air to hit the boar in the side. Well, it wasn't ideal, as generally we tried to kill it faster by aiming for the eyes or the throat, but at least he had hit it; sometimes new hunters did not even manage that.
With a cry, the boar suddenly raced forward, toward Bran as if it knew right where that spear had come from. Bran cried out and scrambled sideways, but it was a near miss, even as the rest of us fell on the boar with our own spears. It was over in moments, and the boar's blood was steaming in the cold dawn air as it soaked into the snow at our feet. There was a lot of whooping and hollering and then we got down to the business of getting the boar's body ready for the trek back to Innisclan.
"Why don't we stay here for the night?" Someone suggested, though I didn't hear who it was. "It's a long way back and we're all tired. We can set out at first light." There was a general discussion of this idea before it was eventually agreed upon. Prepared for this eventuality as it was not unusual, tents were pitched and a fire started, and soon we were all huddled around the fire, talking and laughing and retelling the story of bringing down the boar. Our revelry was broken up by the sound of a wolf howling - nearby.
"Don't worry," Erryn said, clapping Bran on the back. "Wolves don't attack humans, especially not a group of us. And with a fire, no less." Bran didn't seem convinced, but he said nothing and soon we were laughing and talking and passing the whiskey once again. I was looking into the fire when something made me raise my head and stare at a point between Erryn and Bran, sitting across from me. I was staring into a pair of yellow eyes for a long moment before I said softly, "Sometimes they do, if they're hungry enough."
Everyone turned around slowly in the direction I was staring, and the sound of a low growl rent the air. It was then I saw not one pair of yellow eyes, but two and then three... it appeared that the wolves in this part of the forest were hungry indeed. I reached for my bow and noted others doing the same - but before Bran could do more than stare, one of the wolves leapt at him knocking him backward and almost into the fire. Erryn cursed and swung his sword, but I didn't see the rest because I was sighting an arrow and aiming for another of the wolves that looked as if it was going to jump for my brother's throat. I shot it once, twice, three times in a quick succession. The arrows didn't kill it, but it was enough to cause it to yelp and lope away.
"Not such easy pray now, are we?" My other brother called out, and a spray of blood arced into the snow as he cut the throat of the third wolf, which had leapt at him and sunk it's teeth into his arm. The scuffle only lasted a few minutes but it was enough to get our adrenaline pumping and for a few injuries to be incurred. After it was over, the bodies of the three wolves were gutted and the pelts shorn; after all, we never wasted any part of the animals we killed.
Eventually we all lay down to sleep, but I found that I could not. One of the wolves looked to have recently whelped and all I could think about was starving pups, freezing to death in the cold. The wolves must really have been starving to have attacked a group of hunters, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for them.
When morning came, and everyone else was getting prepared for the journey home, I packed my share of the load and turned to the others, an idea forming in my mind. "I'm going to head back," I said abruptly, and everyone looked at me with surprise. My fair skin colored slightly, but I did not offer an explanation. Seamus looked at me a moment longer, then shrugged.
"Suit yourself." I sensed that he wanted to tell me to be careful, but did not wish to embarrass me and for that I was grateful. I set out back the way we had come, but when I judged that I was far enough away from the others, I looped back and began trying to track the wolf and find her den.
It took some time, but I managed to find what I hoped were her tracks after only a half-hour or so of tracking. I followed them rapidly, hoping that I did not run into a pack, but all of the signs pointed to her being alone. When I found the den, a small cave in the side of a hill, I approached with caution, but there was no sign of any other animals about.
In fact, the woods were so eerily quiet that I could tell why she had been desperate for our boar; she had obviously cleaned out the game in the immediate area. Once I was inside the cave, it was easy to find the pups, who looked to be only days old. They lay together in the back of the cave, piled up one atop the other, and I could tell right away that I was too late. They were cold, as this cave was not offering much warmth, I could still see my breath on the air. I sighed, tears stinging my eyes, though I refused to let them fall. I knew I was being ridiculous, this was nature and I understood it very well, but for some reason I had wanted to find these pups alive.
I turned to go, but something made me turn back. Had I heard something? A whine? A whimper? I squatted next to the pups and prodded at the pile with my spear. There it was again! Excited, I moved the pups one by one to the side. There, beneath the others, lay one tiny silver gray pup, whining and sniffing at the air pitifully.
"Come here, little one," I said softly, pulling off my cloak and wrapping him in it tightly. Of course, this left me exposed to the elements, and I knew I would have to hurry home, or suffer the fate of the other pups.
I ran almost the entire way back to Innisclan, and when I arrived it was to quite an uproar. I hadn't thought about the fact that everyone else would make it back before I did, and of course everyone was convinced that ill had befallen me. When I appeared, I could see the relief in my brothers' eyes, and then anger.
"Where have you been?" Seamus exploded, his brow creased with worry.
"Nowhere," I said, trying to sidestep to get away with my bundle before he could notice it. No such luck, however.
"What do you have there?" he asked suspiciously, plucking my wrapped up cloak from my arms adroitly. A small crowd had begun to gather and as I caught my breath, Seamus unraveled my cloak to reveal the pup. He looked at me and shook his head. "What are you going to do with this?" he demanded.
I snatched the cloak and pup back from him defiantly. "Raise it to be the best hunting dog we have!" There were some snickers, and Seamus rolled his eyes, but Colyn came to my defense.
"Well, why not? We could use some new blood in the lines, and it's been done before. Let her have it if she wants the responsibility."
Seamus shrugged then, shaking his head. "Well, it's not up to me, but you can tell father that you have my blessing."
I didn't wait to hear more, just ran home, bursting through the door like a whirlwind. Mother wasn't there, but father was, sharpening his sword near the fire.
"Goodness, look what the storm blew in," he said mildly, as he always did when I was awhirl with some new excitement. I showed him the pup and gave him my best pleading speech about how I would care for it and love it and he would not have to lift a finger, and besides, I had Seamus' blessing. "Do you now?" He said with a laugh. "Fine, fine. Take it over to kennelmaster and see if any of the bitches have recently whelped. Perhaps you can find it a wet nurse."
He was still chuckling as I ran out the door, my little charge whimpering in my arms.