7 – On the Hunt
Lucy knelt, gingerly probing the dirt around the spatter of blood, so dark and dry that it was almost black. It had taken her nearly two days to find this latest scene—the work of her quarry. It seed the thing she hunted was also a hunter, and it wasn’t delicate about how it killed its prey. She adjusted the bandana around her mouth and nose, shifting her gaze back to the overturned semi trailer.
It wasn’t such an odd sight in their new post-apocalyptic era; trucks and cars were all over the place, abandoned when their engines stopped firing during the initial influx of mana. This one, however, seed out of place—a dirt road nearly twenty miles from the outskirts of Tucson, and the only vehicle in sight. It was half in the ditch beside the road, the trailer on its side, the back door hanging open, and the contents spilled out in a long trail—hundreds of boxes of toilet paper.
So creatures had taken up residence in the trailer. Judging by their remains, she figured they’d been so sort of mutation of desert rodents or maybe rabbits; the exposed rib cages were large—the size of a person’s almost—but the dismbered hands and feet and the uncrushed skulls made it clear they’d been sothing else.
“Seven,” she whispered, counting the rib cages—she hadn’t been able to locate as many skulls. The thought made her shudder. Did her quarry bite the heads off? She didn’t know exactly what she hunted, but she knew it was so kind of bird. Obviously, she couldn’t track it through the air, but what she’d learned was that if she followed its tracks away from the scenes of slaughter, the thing generally flew in a roughly straight line—always toward the ever-closer Santa Rita Mountains. Her Tracking skill helped her with the first part, but she had to rely on her other senses and intuition to find the kills.
She walked over to one of the more intact rib cages and leaned closer. It certainly looked like there were teeth marks on the bones, but could a beak do the sa thing? She wasn’t sure. Maybe those grooves had been made by talons as the creature, whatever it was, tore the at from the bones. Maybe they had nothing to do with her quarry; maybe they were left behind by scavengers.
A whiff of decay made it through her bandana, and she coughed, exhaling as she stood and moved away from the trailer. The air was thick with buzzing flies, and they sward as she stepped too close to a pile of hardening entrails. She held her breath, hurrying up the dirt road, putting so distance between herself and the grisly scene before she inhaled again.
She stood there, looking at the way the various sets of remains were scattered. It was clear so of them had tried to flee, but whatever it was that Lucy hunted had chased them all down. Considering the number of scavengers and predators she’d seen during her travels, she was surprised so much was left of the corpses. Trying to stay upwind, she walked off the road and skirted the corpses, moving from one to the next until she reached the last one.
She wondered if they’d been fleeing with a destination in mind. The trail led pretty much due east, but all she saw that way was the strangely verdant desert. Was it even a desert anymore? “Stop stalling, Lucy,” she whispered, walking past the scattered remains to where her quarry’s long, taloned feet had torn up the desert. She didn’t need it, but she cast Tracking anyway.
Warm mana rushed from the center of her belly up into her eyes, and when she blinked, the tracks of her prey were glowing faintly yellow-green. “That’s new!” When she’d cast the spell at the last scene of slaughter, the tracks had been solidly yellow. She traced the tracks with her eyes, watching how they grew farther and farther apart until they simply stopped—her quarry had taken flight. Sighing, she shifted her backpack to relieve the sore spots on her shoulders and started hiking.
The Santa Ritas were growing closer; no longer blue on the horizon, she could see the trees and scrub-brush growing up on their nearby slopes. She’d been to those mountains a few tis, and the mories ca unbidden: Steve laughing as he walked behind her, pushing on her pack when she’d begun to flag; Steve whooping when they’d reached Josephine’s Saddle and stopped for a lunchti picnic; and, of course, Steve falling as they’d tried to hurry down, nearly breaking his wrist and skinning both his knees.
At first, the mories made her smile, but then she thought about how he’d spent a week limping around, wincing as she washed his scrapes with hydrogen peroxide—all for nothing. Those knees, all healed and better, were on a corpse now, rotting in the ground on top of the sa.
When they’d first erged from the underground, she’d panicked at how strange everything looked. While Andy and the others walked around, surveying the changes, she’d hunted for her brother’s grave. The only clues had been the major landmarks: the gate, the dog park, and the entrance to the underground. With those as guides, though, she’d found the rough area where her trailer had been, and, on hands and knees, she’d dug away the silt and mud covering the slab until she found the identifying lot marker: F09.
She’d been so relieved that she’d wept tears of mixed emotions: grief, relief, loneliness…guilt. Sniffing, she tried not to think about that while she walked. She still felt guilty, though, and the specter of it refused to retreat. Why hadn’t she died instead? He’d been tougher, more outgoing, more successful, more…alive. It wasn’t fair, and she knew it. She’d sat up on top of that trailer, safe from harm, while that damned spider killed her brother. Now she had the nerve to be…happy?
“Stop it.”
She sniffed again, wiping her nose on her sleeve. That was when a cold tingle ran down her spine, and she instinctively looked to her right. Sothing was coming toward her; Hunter’s Senses told her as much. In a blink, her bow was off her shoulder and in her hand. With her other hand, she reached over her shoulder and pulled the hood of her cloak—the one Andy had given her—onto her head. As noiselessly as possible, she crept toward the shadows thrown by the overhanging branches of a nearby palo verde tree.
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Crouching, she watched the brush toward the south—where she felt the thing approaching. Her bow was warm in her hand; it was a beautiful weapon made of polished, pale, nearly white wood. It had an elegant curve, and though it was nearly a foot shorter than her recurve, it had a heck of a draw. She didn’t pull back the string yet, though; as soon as she did, a flickering fire arrow would appear, nocked and ready to shoot. The arrows were deadly, and they never ran out, so long as she had mana, but they would surely catch the eye of a wandering monster.
She heard the creature’s approach before she saw it, and her blood went cold. Lucy didn’t like snakes, and she wasn’t exactly an expert on them, but she knew that was what she was hearing—the susurration of hundreds of scales sliding over rocky, sandy dirt. She froze, holding her breath, hoping that she was mistaken, but then an angular head about the size of a turkey platter appeared beneath the branches of a bright green creosote bush. A long tongue flickered out, tasting the air, then the massive snake slithered forth, revealing the distinctive diamond pattern of its scales.
Lucy’s heart hamred in her chest. Snakes were her nesis. She’d faced that fear already, though, hadn’t she? She licked her lips, a tiny voice in her mind reminding her that Andy had been there with his spear, a bulwark between her and the giant snake. Still, this one was only about half the size of the one she and Andy had killed.
Did he still need the skin? She wasn’t sure if soone else had turned in a snake-skin to Jas. They probably did, the voice in her head whispered. Leave it.
“Chicken-shit,” Steve’s specter whispered in her ear.
Lucy’s spine stiffened, and she exhaled slowly, then inhaled through her nose, watching the twenty-foot snake writhe over the ground, passing a re dozen yards before her shadowy vigil. She knew Steve wasn’t really there, but that didn’t make the words sting any less. He’d always pushed her—as most big brothers probably would—but sotis he pushed too hard. Not this ti, though.
As the snake passed in front of her, slithering over the rocky soil, she stood and drew her bowstring back in one fluid motion. A crackling arrow of fire appeared on the string, and though it passed between two of her fingers, it rely felt warm. Concentrating briefly, she cast Double Arrow, and the fiery projectile seed to shimr slightly. Then, Lucy took aim at the bulbous rear-section of the snake’s head and, with a soft exhalation, released the string.
The Fire Bow twanged, and the arrow erupted into the air, crackling and hissing as it streaked toward its target. Just before striking, it seed to shimr and split. Suddenly there were two arrows, and they both slamd ho into the base of the snake’s skull, right where it t its thick, muscle-bound neck.
Black veins of corruption stretched away from where the fiery arrows protruded, and Lucy grinned. The creature was large enough to be considered “gigantic fauna,” and that ant her favored enemy debuff had been triggered. If her shot hadn’t killed it, the veins of poison would have slowed and disoriented it.
Even seeing the damage she’d done, Lucy was already pulling the string back, ready for another shot, but the snake convulsed once, its body rippling as its head ca off the ground and then slamd back down. It was dead, but much of the body didn’t realize it yet.
While the head was still, the final third of the tail, rattling brokenly, swished back and forth for several long seconds as she watched, scanning the area for any other danger. After a while, the snake stopped twitching, and she stood, cautiously approaching. Her armpits were soaked through, and she felt like she’d just wrestled a bear, but she was glad she’d faced her fear again.
***Congratulations, Lucy! You’ve killed a hostile wandering denizen of the desert, earning experience for your Monster Hunter class. Because you’re currently bound by a quest gate, your experience will be added to a pool that will be awarded once you’ve bypassed the gate.
This serpent was hungry and dangerous. What’s more, its mind was warped by the mutation that made it gigantic. You faced an internal struggle of truly daunting proportions to do what you knew was right. Who knows what peaceful creatures or individuals you might have saved? The System has taken note of your actions!***
Lucy smiled at the ssage. The System was always so encouraging with her; sotis she wondered if it felt sorry for her or was maybe worried. She had spoken with others, especially Jace and Bella, and they didn’t report such positivity, which only added fuel to her suspicions.
She slung her bow over her shoulder and drew her knife. “Steve’s,” she whispered, correcting herself, and got to work on the enormous reptile corpse. She’d picked up the Butcher’s Insight skill and, though she only had one point in it, it guided her efforts in properly removing the skin. When she finished, she took so ti to scrape it, carefully removing as much tissue as she could, then she carried it over to the palo verde and hung it over a smooth spot on one of the wide lower branches.
Smiling with satisfaction, she wiped her knife off and tucked it back into the scabbard. Then she gathered her mana. Lucy might not be as good at butchering as Andy, but when she’d gotten her Monster Hunter class, she’d learned a very useful spell: Proof of the Hunt. It only worked on a single “trophy” from a monster’s corpse, but she was pretty sure the snakeskin was appropriate. Following the strange knowledge the System had implanted in her mind, she traced her finger over the skin in a series of invisible symbols.
Her mana flowed through her and transferred to the skin, glittering with thousands of tiny green sparkles as they propagated through her trophy. As she watched, the magic did its work; the scales took on a polished sheen; the skin dried and beca supple, and the remaining fat and gristle fell away as dust, leaving behind a supple, perfectly cured hide. “There we go,” Lucy whispered, working the skin with her fingers, feeling luxurious weight and resilient smoothness. “Hope you like it, Andy.”
With that, she rolled the hide up and tucked it down into her backpack. She thought about following her quarry, but a glance at the long, pink snake corpse changed her mind. There was just enough ti to carve off a nice steak and put a bit of distance between herself and the corpse before nightfall. Her mouth salivated at the idea of grilled snake sprinkled with garlic-salt and pepper—of course she’d packed so seasonings.
Nodding to herself, she drew her brother’s knife and approached the carcass. She’d make an early camp, but she’d also get an early start in the morning. Maybe tomorrow would be the day she caught sight of her quarry and figured out just what the heck she was hunting.
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