The Dragon Keeper

Page 172

She equipped herself with her bow and a quiver of arrows, a knife, and some rope and headed off into the gloom under the immense trees. She did not move randomly, nor did she stay long on the ground. She paralleled the river for a short way, looking for game trails. When she struck one, she studied it briefly. The paw marks of some of the smaller denizens of the forest had been trodden over by the deeper imprints of cloven hooves. Most of the tracks were small; she knew they belonged to what the Rain Wilders called dancer deer. Small and light-footed, they were creatures that moved quickly and silently through the forest, taking advantage of low browse and whatever dry land they could find under the trees. Some had been seen to scramble up low branches and actually run along them. One of them would not make much of a dent in a dragon’s appetite, and they were so wary that even if she found a group of them drowsing, she would not be able to kill more than one before the others had fled.

But a few of the tracks were larger and deeper, the cloven hooves splayed wider. Marsh elk would be traveling alone this time of year. If she had the great good fortune to kill one, she’d be able to carry maybe a quarter of it back to camp. But perhaps Tats would help her fetch the rest back in return for a share. Today, he had shared a boat with Warken instead of Jerd. Perhaps that meant that tonight he’d have time to do something besides sit and listen to Jerd talk. Thymara shook her head to banish thoughts of him. He’d made his choice for companionship. There was no reason it should bother her.

She set her hopes for an elk even as she was resigned to the fact that she’d be fortunate even to get a dancer. It was more likely that she’d encounter one of the pawed omnivores that lived along the riverbank. Their meat was edible, though not something she relished, but she doubted that Skymaw would turn her nose up at it.

As soon as she found an opportunity, Thymara left the ground and moved up into the lower branches of the trees. Here, her clawed feet helped her move efficiently and quietly. She did not travel directly above the game trail, but to the side of it where she could watch it while, she hoped, not alerting any creatures to her presence.

Light dimmed as she moved away from the open spaces along the river’s edge. The sounds of the forest changed too, as the rushing of the river was hushed by the intervening of the layers of foliage. Birds called to one another, and up above her, she heard the rustling passage of squirrels, monkeys, and other small creatures. Something very much like peace settled over her. Her father had always been right; this was what she was made for. She smiled at the familiar sounds of the tree creatures and moved deeper into the forest. She would travel only so far into the woods as she deemed she could carry a kill back; if at that point she’d still had no luck, she’d turn her deadly skills on the little animals she could see and hear and hope to take back a game sack full of them. Meat was meat whether it came in a large or small packet.

She had almost reached that turning point when she first smelled and then heard the elk. He was an old fellow, energetically and noisily enjoying scratching his hump against an overhanging branch. Like most of his kind, he was not accustomed to looking up for danger; he was a large animal, and most creatures that could threaten him would be landbound as he was. Thymara felt almost sorry for him as she silently maneuvered her way from tree to tree until she was directly above him. She shifted, moving silently, until she had a vantage with a clear shot at him. She drew the arrow back, took a breath and held it, and then let it fly. She shot her arrow directly down, aiming for a place just behind his humped shoulders, hoping it would penetrate his rib cage and hit his lungs if not his heart. Her missile struck solidly with a sound like someone hitting a thick drum skin.

Her prey gave a sudden jerk and shuddered, as if the blow were no more than a fly landing on his coat. Then as the pain blasted through him, he fled in a staggering run down the game trail toward the river. She grinned harshly; at least he was moving in the right direction! And she followed him, keeping to the trees. She wouldn’t drop down to his level until she was sure he was dead or nearly so.

He ran more and more clumsily and fell once, his front legs folding under him. She thought he was done then, but he staggered up and moved on, blowing blood from his nose and mouth as he huffed out his pain. The second time he went down, he stayed down. Knife drawn, she moved closer and then went down to him. His large brown eyes regarded her malevolently. “I’ll end it,” she told him. It took all her strength to drive her knife into the hollow behind the angle of his jaw. The blade punched through thick hide and muscle, but when she jerked it out, she was rewarded with leaping gouts of blood. The elk closed his eyes; each burst of blood was less than the one before, and when it slowed to a trickle, she knew he was gone. She had a moment of regret that she pushed aside. Death fed life. He was meat now, and all hers.