Chapter Two

Long Shadow was patient, even as sleet beat down on his skin in the hours before dawn. His chartreuse gaze was fixed on the abode of the human he had encountered in the forest days before. He only watched, careful to heed Black Tusk’s warning that they were not here to hunt. In the days since he had come across the human, he had been fascinated by its menial daily tasks and the nearly constant sound it made. The creature made a humming noise as it worked, not an unpleasant sound, but one that made it only too easy to find.

The human was not without its finer senses, he learned. Many times as he watched, it would pause its work and stop humming, turning a slow and cautious gaze toward the trees. It felt him. It knew he was there and watching. It must have sensed that he meant it no harm, though it was small and he imagined that he could have killed it quickly and with little resistance if he wished. Always, it would fix its eyes on the place where he crouched, staring at him for a few moments as if it could pierce the veil of his cloak. In a short time, it would return to work, seemingly content that he would remain just where he was and was no threat.

Before he had come in the vanguard twelve days ago, humans were little more than bits of story he had heard when he was a pup. Elders had warned that while most were fragile, the species did manage to yield up individuals with startling capacity for intelligence and determination that far outweighed their small size. Humans were to be faced with caution. He had been taught that early on. And as he familiarized himself with this particular human over the passing of days, he found himself seeing that what the elders said was true.

This human lived in relative seclusion, far from the congested though small city in the lower lands. Its dwelling was sturdy and built from the timber taken from the land cleared for the abode. It lived simply, growing much of its own food, unlike other humans down below who seemed to shuffle into low-sprawling buildings and emerge again with cuts of meat and baskets of other items. But what had really struck him about this human, and instantly fascinated him, was the fact that in this world of soft and weak humans, this one was a lean and skilled hunter.

Black Tusk had sent them all out in different directions to learn the surroundings and keep an eye out for any humans that might complicate their task. They had chosen their site well and in its remoteness avoided the chance of contact with humans. But on the very first day, mere hours after striking out from the ship, Long Shadow had caught the scent of blood. He tracked it and followed it to the place where a human crouched over fallen prey.

The instinct to engage it was strong, for it sensed him and lifted its gaze to the trees. It rose slowly to its feet, taking a bow into its hand with graceful ease. He had to will himself to stay where he was, clenching a fist and flicking one mandible while he watched. Down below, the human waited a long while, still and quiet and searching. But Long Shadow’s cloak kept him from sight, and when the human suspected that danger was not there, it returned to its work.

Long Shadow had shifted through the various filters of his war mask, seeking out one that would provide him the best view of this world, despite its atmosphere. Filter after filter only frustrated him, until finally, he found one that showed him this world almost as clearly as he had always seen his own. Muted real-world colors with vaguely translucent overlays of heat signatures brought his search to a halt.

Surrounded by a world of green, the human had long black hair pulled back into a loose braid between its shoulder blades. Its skin had a warm red undertone. It clothed itself in woodland colors, no doubt a simple camouflage that proved successful enough for the prey it hunted. It had dark, alert eyes and adorned itself with piercings at its ears, rings on its fingers, and a necklace of leather and metal. Its feet were sheathed in animal hide, soft and quiet.

He had watched it pay a respect to its kill, something that struck him as honorable and worthy, a ritual he had never thought humans capable of. In another life, he would have thought better of the act, but now, in this clan of outcasts he was a part of it, was little more than a lingering memory of another time. The human dressed its prey and hauled the carcass onto its shoulders, carrying it away. He followed through the trees, finding himself at the creature’s dwelling after a long while. He continued to watch as the ooman hung its prize in a three-walled shelter and skinned and butchered it. Every part of the kill was kept, either for meat or for use elsewhere.

For hours he watched, until the human had completed its work and cleaned up the aftermath, storing the meat in a deep cooling unit and stretching the hide. When it was finished, it stripped away its garments to step under a cleansing stream of heated water, washing away the blood. Long Shadow rocked back on his heels and tilted his head, staring in relative shock until the creature shut off the water flow and crossed the short distance to its dwelling. There was no mistaking what he saw. The human hunter was female.

The discovery had been entirely too fascinating for him. He had always been told that humans were backward, that their females were too small and weak, that they were helpless and easily and frequently mistreated by males of their own species. They did not hunt or fight or hold honored positions within their clans. But he saw with his own eyes that this female did hunt. She was well made, lean and fit. She was skilled enough to feed herself with her kill. She had senses enough to know that he was there. While he had no love for the elders, he did respect their wisdom. The millenniums of hunting this world and gathering data could not be wrong. Perhaps this female was just different.

If he was not permitted to hunt, a matter which he would soon take up with Black Tusk, then he would find other ways to busy himself. This world would belong to his clan soon enough. Learning about the humans could only benefit him. In this human he had an isolated subject to observe and study. It was an opportunity that few before him ever had.

He had absolutely no intentions of giving Black Tusk the privilege of knowing about it. The leader would slaughter her, simply for being a distraction. While her death would have phased him little, he took exception to the idea of Black Tusk interfering. Again. So he kept his discovery to himself and never spoke of what he had found or what information he was collecting.

He made his plans and kept to himself. It was the way of his clan to be quiet and lonely. There was no camaraderie among the outcasts. It had its benefits, of course. They stayed out of one another’s affairs, and he liked it that way. But there were times that he ached for the old ways he remembered. Something was missing. Something he couldn’t quite name. He didn’t think on it for very long these days. Mostly because Black Tusk loved nothing more than to invade his solitude and pry at his thoughts. More than once it had brought them to blows and bloodshed with each other.

Long Shadow still hunted. They all did, though the methods had changed and the rules of engagement were a bit lax. The thrill of the kill was the focus now. He seldom spoke his mind about it, but he was uneasy with the hunts that Black Tusk planned for them. It made his guts feel tight and sour. More and more the source of his troubles was the clan leader. It was a matter that he was keenly aware of, and one that he intended to someday remedy. But not today. Today was different. With the new day came a new opportunity, something he had planned as he watched the human female the previous day.

Today she did not hunt. She had enough meat to last her many weeks and killing again would have been wasteful. Long Shadow could respect that, even if he did not voice it to the others. It would have given birth to another conflict. While he did not fear confrontation with is clan mates, he did not have time for it. It was not priority.

He knew the human's routine, and he knew that she would leave at first light. Each day for five consecutive days she would leave at the same time and be gone for long hours, returning after the early darkness of this cold season. She would be gone today, and he would take his chance to enter her dwelling. There he could see for himself how humans lived and if this female had trophies. If she did, he may well defy Black Tusk and hunt her.

That notion made him flex his hands and crack his knuckles, and he grumbled to himself. He had felt that reaction before, once when he was a Youngblood, and twice more in later years after he had earned the title of Blooded warrior. Those few brief moments of doubt had come when he looked into the eyes of his prey and felt a pang in his gut.

Mercy.

His old clan leader had told him that the hesitation was mercy, and that it had meaning. He said that there was wisdom in the mercy of a swift kill. But that there were times when it was appropriate to disengage and only Long Shadow could know when those times were right. But he had also cautioned that flinching from the killing strike could make him soft if he yielded to the hesitation too many times. Others in the clan had scoffed behind the elder’s back and told Long Shadow that it was weakness. But he held the word of the elder warrior in high regard, even after he had left the clan. It was a difficult lesson to assimilate, one that Long Shadow still pondered from time to time, wondering if he had yet cone to fully realize its meaning. Since joining Black Tusk’s clan, he had felt that sense of hesitation with more frequency. It brought him to anger, confronting him with thoughts of his own weakness. But it also gave him reason to question Black Tusk’s leadership.

The opening of the door snapped him out of his thoughts, and he watched the female pull the door shut behind her. She crossed the earth a short distance, glancing his direction before pausing at her transport. She set her dark eyes on the place where he crouched, and for a moment, he wondered if she really could glimpse the imperfection of the fractured light around his cloak.

The same cold drizzle peppered both of their skins for a long moment, and the same cold breeze chilled his chest as it tousled her garments. A low growl of thunder in the distance broke the intensity of her stare, and she pulled her eyes away from the place where he crouched. When she had climbed into her vehicle and left the isolated plot of land behind and he could no longer hear the engine, he dropped from his perch and crossed the clearing. Cloaked and cautious he took careful note of the cover of trees all around the shelter. He detected no other creatures nearby and made his way quickly to the entrance. It was closed but he had seen how she opened it with the twist of a metal knob. It was small in his hand and felt strangely weak when he turned it. Metal fixtures inside squeaked quietly and yielded to a slightly louder click. Pressure released the knob and the door swung slowly open.

The darkness inside was no match for his eyes, and he stooped a bit to step through the doorway that was too small for him. He swept his gaze over the inner chamber, scanning first for signs of threat. There were no other living things in the abode, no security precautions that he or his gear could detect. He pushed the door shut behind him with two fingers and picked his way across the floor, eyes flitting from object to object, wondering what their purpose might be.

It was warm inside, and he took note of the fire burning in a stone structure against the far wall.

Something within the dwelling smelled good, cooking meat, he surmised. The table and chairs were so small, as if made for a child of his race. The utensils that he could recognize or reason their function were curiously fragile, and he clicked a sound of amusement as he ran his fingertips over a few items, feeling their texture and weight. He was careful not to linger too long or leave sign of his passing. He only wandered through the lower portion of the dwelling, touching and admiring objects that caught his attention with their strangeness or their color. When he had seen all that interested him there, he looked up the length of a staircase that climbed to a higher level. He followed them upward and stooped through the doorway on the landing, emerging into another large room that contained what he could recognize as an overly plush sleeping pallet.

The scent of the room was clean and edged with the warmth of preserved animal hides and something else that was not unpleasant, but alien to him. There were a handful of small, incredibly delicate items arranged neatly across the top a wooden fixture housing drawers. He touched them lightly and found them cool and hard, watching as liquid rippled inside them. The top of one tilted under his touch, and a powerful, warm scent wafted from the bottle.

Mounted across the top of the wooden fixture was a reflective panel that showed him his own visage of smoke gray skin splashed with night-black spots and stripes, his sparse armor blackened hide and the hilts of his blades fine, watery silver. He regarded himself for a moment, clicking out a sound of amusement. But the sound died quickly as he caught sight of another reflection. He turned over his shoulder, casting his stare up to the high wall over the entry door.

The reaction was instant, an involuntary, rapid tapping of his tusks that produced the sound of pleasure unique to his race. He flexed his hands at his sides as he took in the sight of trophies adorning the wall.