A sliver of moonlight shone in the sky, but it was enough for enchanted eyes to see me safely up the narrow ledge to the escarpment. Enchanted muscles helped me carry a full load of sharpened stakes on my back. At the top of the escarpment, I let the enchantments lapse, and the weight of the stakes pressed down on me. Oof.

The enchantments were insurance for the hike up. From now on, I needed to be mindful of how I spent my resources. Adjusting the backpack’s straps, I lit the Candle Stone and hiked south towards the bulge in the escarpment. Once we were safely away from the children, the uekisheile sprouted along the exposed parts of my skin. I imagined it was what fur felt like.

What a sight we must’ve been--a fuschia-furred werewolf hiking in the night with a spear in hand and a backpack full of sharpened wooden stakes. I grinned. If there any vampires about, they’d best look out.

Question-question-fuscia.

Color-hot-lively, I explained. Mysterious-deep-flower.

Question-question-vampire.

I laughed, not loud, but enough for something small, furry, and nocturnal to skitter away. Complicated-complicated. Man-hunger. Blood-satiation.

Blood-satiation? Not/tasty-food. Qi-tasty.

“Huh.” It occurred to me that--between the uekisheile and me--we ate creatures’ qi and silverlight. Maybe I was the vampire in my imagined scenario and not the werewolf? Or a werewolf-vampire hybrid? The lone orphaned offspring of an ill-fated Romeo and Juliet romance set against the backdrop of a hidden war between the supernatural factions.

“I’d pay ten dollars to see that.”

Question-question-dollars.

###

I moved carefully through the kahlichi bear’s territory. Bears could be active during either day or night, depending on the species and what the local conditions were like. The ones I knew tended to forage at night, as they had a better chance at getting at people’s camping supplies and garbage.

Not that the kahlichi bear needed to scrounge. With his Talents, he was the undisputed ruler of this section of the forest. Unless and until the dragon came back, of course. I almost wished for it to happen, as I was curious about the dragon’s Talents. They were probably things like Big Turds, Nasty Parasites, or even Ferocious Breath.

My belly roiled with butterflies, and the inner monologue kept me from tensing up too much. My thoughts were stray sparkles on the otherwise deep dark of the woods. With a mix of flippancy and solemnity weaving through me, I continued towards Ikfael Glen.

“It’s just another day hunting,” I said to myself.

###

An eerie quiet pervaded the deer thicket. Well, that described the whole forest at night, but because the thicket was nestled between hills, there wasn’t a breath of wind. Everything was still. The cricks and cracks of my steps sounded overly loud.

The bishkawi had chased me through this thicket. They knew it as a place I’d run to and run through. After some searching, I found familiar landmarks. Trees that I passed. Dips that I’d jumped. Rocks that I’d clambered over.

I recreated the path of my previous flight and memorized it. I looked at it from different angles. I made sure I could trace its outlines from any and every direction. Then I started planting stakes where the bishkawi were most likely to step.

Three here. Four there. I didn’t have an unlimited supply and made my best educated guess on their placement and number. But each stake was basted with poison. Of that, I made sure.

When I was done, I still had twelve stakes left over. I’d been too conservative using them. But instead of reinforcing the locations I’d already trapped, I went off route to look for the places a bishkawi might shortcut. I used three stakes in four likely locations.

I checked my Status clock: 2:13 AM. And all my magical resources were topped up thanks to the uekisheile.

Hit Points 10/10 Mana 18/18 Qi 26/26

I hid my backpack and headed for the area above Ikfael Glen. Were the bishkawi still there or did they give up and go back to their camp? The answer to that question determined the next phase of my plan.

Covering the Candle Stone, I burned qi to see my way up the hill towards the stream. I stopped halfway to stare into the shadows of the tree line. To listen intently. To sniff at the air. The uekisheile’s tufts waved, as they too sensed ahead for danger.

The dark covered us, as did the sounds of the stream and the falls further away. We continued on and made it to the bank’s edge uninterrupted. Not a single bishkawi was in sight.

I subsumed myself into the land and felt the night breathing, the wind whispering in the treetops. The water was dark and mysterious. The little animals hid and slept, or they slipped between roots to search for food. Open as the sky, timid as a field mouse, canny as a crow--we moved downstream.

The uekiesheile tugged on my attention to direct it toward the branches of an oak tree. Hidden among the leaves was a source of qi larger than the small animals and insects otherwise around us.

I’d prepared a couple of poison care packages for situations like this. I tossed one out, and it hit the oak tree’s trunk with a thap.

If this were a video game, I’d stealth-kill the bishkawi with my bow, but that’s not how things worked. Bow kills on bigger game came from blood loss. And while the chishiaxpe’s poison was fast-acting, I knew from personal experience that it took fifteen to thirty seconds for the jaw to lock.

Ingesting the poison probably triggered the effect sooner, or it disguised the effect, with the target thinking they were getting sick. Or both. All I knew was that neither of the two bishkawi killed this way earlier had had time to alert the troop.

The bishkawi didn’t react. The leaves didn’t rustle. The branch didn’t sway. There was no movement at all. Moving closer, I faintly heard the sound of a soft snoring. Hmm… the trunk wouldn’t be hard to climb, but I couldn’t guarantee the branch not swaying if I stepped out onto it.

No, I ruled out a melee sneak attack as too dangerous. Instead, I found a small rock and tossed it against the tree’s trunk. Thunk.

With a snort, the bishkawi woke up. The leaves rustled, the branch swayed, and their head poked out to scan the area. When they didn’t see anything approaching, they climbed down to investigate and found the package. After a sniff, they tore it open to eat the poisoned jerky inside.

A minute later, I pulled the core from their dead body.

9 silverlight gathered. 8 absorbed

After a short blessing, I continued on to the cliff overlooking Ikfael Glen. Depending on what I found below, my plan would branch in one of two directions: I’d either sneak into the glen to poison their food or attack from a distance and fade away, harassing the troop over time.

I counted six sleeping forms around the pool. There were probably another three scouts hidden in the trees. But I didn’t see the alpha. Was he in the cave? Or away wandering?

There wasn’t much meat left on the remains of the dead bishkawi and turkeys. I kicked myself for not taking advantage of their absence from the glen the day before yesterday. I should’ve at least checked to see if it was possible to poison their food supply then.

What was done was done. For the future, I just needed to remember that being too cautious could be its own kind of danger.

There were ten arrows in a quiver I’d made from tree bark and Boscun’s torn shirt. I set them beside me and applied poison onto their tips.

I took a slow breath and loosened my shoulders. I’d have a minute to send the arrows downrange once they were enchanted, so I planned my shots and rehearsed the movements. I went over the route in my head for when the bishkawi were awake and angry. My heart beat hard under the calm of at one with the land.

Joy-hunt-satiation.

I nodded. I’d always loved hunting--the companionship with mi abuelo, the challenge of it, the being outside and opportunity to help feed my family. Yes-joy-hunt.

A thrill went through us and echoed between us. It mixed with my fear and clung to the land; the emotions rustling like leaves, while the roots and trunk held steady.

I’d used qi on my eyes earlier, but there was plenty left. I fully enchanted Princess Lily and the arrows. “Let’s do this.”

Hit Points 10/10 Mana 6/18 Qi 6/26

My first target was closest to the cave--the surest shot. I tightened my belly muscles and dropped my shoulders; the bow held lightly in my left hand. Drawing the bow required work without effort; engagement of the muscles while still being at ease. The process was one of the most Taoist practices I knew.

I drew, the arrow anchoring at the back of my jaw. It held there for only a heartbeat before it was loosed at the sleeping bishkawi. The bowstring twanged, but the sound of the falling water covered over it.

I held my position to keep from disturbing Lily. Only once the arrow was fully launched did I reach down for the second arrow. In my peripheral vision, the bishkawi jumped after being hit.

I nocked the arrow. Found my second target--they were just starting to move. I drew and released.

Moving outward, I cast two more arrows before the bishkawi were fully awake. They stumbled upright to search for the enemy that injured their troopmates. The waterfall was at their back. The alpha burst through the water to land among them. He howled and threw his arms into the air in a massive threat display. The three bishkawi scouts rushed in from the woods. Along with the two still alive, they echoed his lead. All of troop howled and chattered together; raising the hairs along the back of my neck. I took two precious seconds to steady my hands before I resumed.

They stopped only after two more bishkawi were hit by my arrows. The troop was enraged and dashed into the trees, all except for the alpha who remained behind to wait for them to find his prey. He paced, snorting and huffing, back and forth along the pool’s edge.

Four arrows were left. The first one hit him in the back, between the left shoulder and the spine. He spun around to face his invisible attacker, and the second arrow caught him in the meat of his right arm. The alpha looked up to where I was hidden.

Maybe I could’ve gotten another shot off, maybe not. There was only a split second to decide, and I chose to run. I grabbed the remaining two arrows and sprinted for the thicket.

My heart pumping from the adrenaline, I flew down the hillside. It still wasn’t enough, so I dumped my remaining qi into my legs and eyes.

Hit Points 10/10 Mana 6/18 Qi 0/26

Branches scraped my skin and caught on my clothes. Roots and rocks tried to trip my feet. I was at one with the land, but the land was not so easily won.

My breath came fast and hard. Behind me, the alpha howled to gather his troop. I was screened by the hill and the forest, so all they knew was my general direction.

At the thicket’s edge, I stopped to get my bearings. Hunting around, I found the path I needed and hid myself away. Waiting, I focused on controlling my breathing. On shrinking my presence; just another small heartbeat among many others.

The uekisheile was in full bloom. Princess Lily was nocked and ready. I created a ball of mana and moved it into the thicket where the poisoned stakes were. In my mind’s eye, I readied the spirit rune.

The hillside trembled with the alpha’s landing. I drew and released, but he wasn’t steady and stutter-stepped. The arrow grazed his torso and flew past. The alpha caught his balance and shook his head to clear it. Before he could search for the source of the arrow, I triggered the spirit rune.

The alpha froze. His head swung left and right, this time to sense for the spirit that suddenly appeared. He leaped into the thicket to chase after it. Moments later, the remaining three bishkawi arrived and followed him in.

I ran in parallel; sprinting to keep up and just managing to keep the spirit ball ahead of the alpha. My control slipped, and I was forced to slow down to focus my attention on it. I sped up once I regained control, but then ran straight into a tree. The ball nearly blinked out of existence. I wiped the blood from my nose and kept running.

The bishkawi howls quieted, one voice after another, until all that was left was the intent crack of branches as the alpha crashed his way through the thicket. Eventually, that too disappeared.

I slowly approached where I heard the alpha last. He was upright and breathing harshly. His shoulders trembled with the effort to take another step toward where the spirit ball hovered in the distance. I slowly put down my spear and nocked an arrow onto my bow. I shot him in the lower back. The alpha spun, but lost his balance and fell.

The alpha growled. Shot full of poison, he was still fierce. The rage in his eyes never dimmed. He forced himself up and towards me, one unsteady step at a time. Spear in hand, I backed away.

He’d never catch up--that was clear--but that didn’t stop him. Nothing seemed to stop him. I thought about stepping in with my spear, just in case the poison didn’t actually kill him off. So, I ran off to give myself some breathing room and apply poison to the spearhead.

The bottle nearly dropped from my hand when I felt a sudden flare of qi from where I’d left the alpha. There were trees in the way, so I couldn’t see what was happening, but it felt like there was a giant heart beating, the pulses rippling out and across my senses.

Strong-violent-qi. Threat-threat-qi.

I didn’t need the uekisheile’s warning. All the alarm bells in my head were ringing. I ran back toward the alpha and found him locked into position, the muscles under his fur wriggling like worms. His bloodshot eyes glared at me, but otherwise he didn’t--he couldn’t--move.

Bishkawi Alpha (Animal, Dusk) Talents: Tempered Ferocity, Cunning, Spirit Sensitive, Unbridled Rage

Nascent: ???

Uh oh. He had a new Talent, Unbridled Rage, which really didn’t sound good for me. I gripped my spear, circled around to his blindside, and charged. It was like hitting a heavy bag full of sand.

The spearhead was six inches long, but only two penetrated into the alpha’s back. It was enough to get the poison under his skin though. I backed off and charged at him twice more, the running start necessary to punch through the wriggling muscles.

After my third charge, the alpha’s arm swung in a clumsy swipe. His hand passed over my head like a fully loaded cargo train. I ducked and fell back; scrambling away to get outside his reach.

As soon as I recovered enough to hold the spear, I charged again. The alpha swung with another slow, heavy blow. I stabbed his chest and withdrew before he followed up with another swing.

The alpha was like an old creaky windmill, the panes inexorably turning--swing, swing, swing. In between each, I stabbed at him; sometimes hitting the chest, sometimes nicking his arms, sometimes puncturing his belly. Blood leaked across his torso. Sporadic shivers ran through him, but he didn’t stop swinging.

And then he took a step. The motion caught me mid-stab--the spearhead inside his body. He aimed for the spear’s haft, and his strike splintered it. I was left with a three-foot length of wood. The rest of the spear was still stuck in his chest. The alpha bared his teeth.

I ran. It didn’t make sense to keep attacking. There were no more arrows, and the only weapons left needed me to be inside his reach. Plus, the raid was already a success--the whole troop was dead except for the alpha. And he may still keel over yet; depending on what was happening with his qi.

Hopefully, the crisis wasn’t triggering some kind of evolution into a more powerful form, but even then, I’d find a way to adapt. Harassing one was a lot easier than harassing many. I’d just keep on with the guerilla tactics until I either killed him or drove him off. So, I left him there, his breath heaving, his rage palpable.

I ran back to finish off the bishkawi that still might be alive. There were three in the thicket that’d stepped on or grabbed a poisoned stake. One was still alive. I put him out of his misery and pocketed his core. The other two lay next to each other and were dead. Something had dug their way into the bodies to steal their cores.

I used nature mana on my eyes, but didn’t see anything moving. The fight with the alpha had only taken a few minutes, so who or whatever the core thief was, they were close by.

Watch-watch-threat, I said.

When the uekisheile acknowledged my request, I sprinted for the glen. There, I found half of the bishkawi still alive. The other half had bled to death. They all still had their cores though. I harvested them and went to the cave to retrieve my valuables.

The refrigerator had been smashed apart, the stones strewn across the floor. I quickly searched through them and found Antler-Sensei mostly unharmed. There were bite marks along one side, but they didn’t damage the antler.

The folded frond I’d used as a wallet was still intact, but everything else was smashed or ripped to pieces--the tools, the deer skin, everything. Even the pot helm was caved in. All that work, all that effort, was wasted.

My hands were slick. I looked down to see my palms were bleeding. My fingernails dug into them.

Qi-place-delicious, the uekisheile said. Place-good-delicious.

My frustration turned into resolve. Yes-good-place. We-fix-place.

The uekisheile tufts patted me on the cheek. Calm-qi more-delicious spicy-qi.

I snorted. “I’ll take your word for it.” Question-eat-food poison-poison-food?

The uekisheile managed the qi equivalent of a shrug. Qi-body no-poison no-sick.

In the many, many day-night cycles they’d experienced, the uekisheile never once became sick or poisoned while in their qi form. Their physical form, however, was susceptible.

I walked them over to the nearest dead bishkawi. “Then I guess it’s dinner time.”

I-pay-10/dollars.

###

I was back in the thicket; sneaking toward where I’d left the alpha. I needed to confirm his condition before I went back to the kids. Was he evolving or was he dying? I also worried about the core thief. There was a lot of silverlight at stake.

Faint waves of qi brushed past me, weaker than before. I eased into the bushes behind the alpha and saw that he was wheezing. His rage was fading. I made myself comfortable and waited. When nothing happened after ten minutes, the uekisheile and I practiced open-eyed meditation.

Over the next hour, the alpha’s qi thinned. The beats came minutes apart, the fire inside him guttering. Finally, there was a stutter, one last flare of rage against the dying of the light, and then he was gone. With just me, the ueikisheile, and the dark forest to witness it.

After twenty minutes, he didn’t move and nothing else came out of the woods. I stood up, dusted myself off, and approached the giant. Even dead, he towered over me, and I had to shove him onto his side to get at his chest.

Careful-careful-poison, I said.

The uekisheile hummed in response and sent several tufts into the body. Meanwhile, I dug around for his core. It was the size of a kumquat, the biggest I’d found yet.

There was a brief blip of qi, and the uekisheile reappeared, dissatisfied. Small-spicy-qi. Small-small-small.

Huh. The alpha must’ve burned their qi resisting the poison. I stared dumbly at his corpse. That was it then. I’d managed to do it; to defend the glen from the bishkawi. I almost couldn’t believe it. There was only one thing left to do.

“Rest now,” I said. “Lay down your spite and your rage. They will not serve you. Lay down your spite and your rage. They will only weigh you down. A third time, I say unto you, lay down your spite and your rage. Let them go and find your way to peace instead.”

I didn’t want his angry spirit to follow me back to the kids. Nor the rest of the troop. I walked back to the glen and blessed each body. When I ran out of qi for my eyes, the uekisheile fed me some from the bishkawi. In my pocket were eight of their cores.