–Gasp- I wrote TWO for this week’s TT?! Yes, I did!
It wasn’t the odds that frightened her. They were against her, but not insurmountable.
It was the cold. Her fingers were becoming stiff, despite her efforts to keep them warm and limber. If she stayed in place any longer the odds would be much tougher… but she would not fail her kin.
The raider’s attack had been swift, leaving her the last living soul as she’d fled. She remembered it all, every gasp of ash and smoke choking out her village’s soundless screams. The image of the smoldering heap that had once been her whole world was burned in her mind’s eye.
Keir peered through the dense forest again, counting them as they passed. Three. Five. Eight. All warmly dressed, stolen furs insulating them from the blizzard that flurried.
Her hackles climbed as she watched her quarry disappear past the ridge.
They would be avenged.
If only she could keep her fingers deft and her bowstring dry. She tested the hide wrapping around the sinew string again. It was safe at least. Her heartwood bow was stiff, not at all in her favor. It would have to do.
Still the snow fell. Soft flakes blanketed her tracks almost as soon as she’d laid them, layering her in a coat dusted white. It was a boon. And a warning. It has to be now.
She knelt and prayed, her voice barely a whisper. “Cernunnos, hear my prayers. Protect me. Bring me your justice.” The snapping of a branch broke off her appeals.
He towered before her, the great stag she knelt for. Cernunnos.
Puffs of his breath warmed her cheeks and she breathed deeply, filling her lungs with his sighs. His great head swayed from side to side as the velveteen muzzle brushed over each shoulder.
“Bless me, oh Hunter,” she murmured.
In another wisp of mist he was gone, as if he’d never been, but Kier knew he had. She had the blessing to prove it. She opened her palm, letting snow fall onto the imprint deepening with every moment. His sign, the sign of the fierce tines of the stag pressed into her flesh. It was the blessing she’d waited for.
The raiders had disappeared in the blizzard, but she felt her every sense heightened. Tingling ran from the nape of her neck down her spine, fire pumping through her veins with the breath of the god. Even in the snow she could smell them, the char clinging to their thieved treasures with their stinking pride. Despite the storm gripping the woods, the depressions of their tracks would lead her, with his blessing, the sharp vision of a hawk and the snout of a mighty bear. She could almost taste the sweet warm liquid when she’d open their throats with her arrows and bathe in their lifeblood. This would be her revenge.
The trail rose to greet Kier as she raised her bow and began her hunt.