The Huntress

    It is primitive in the North and they live primitive lives.

    Woodland smothers the punishing land, and prehistoric practises roam free.
    Wild creatures, wolves and bears hunt between every tree where the bitter
    cold prevails. Blood-stained leaves from the killings of innocent rabbits,
    racoons and lesser creatures rustle in the icy breeze but thankfully,
    darkness covers all. In daylight, the mist is white; untainted. Winter
    breathes a subtle silence across the earth - earth riddled deep to the
    heart with whispered secrets of a hidden past. Despite the age and the
    cold, there is still an everlasting presence of youthful virtuousness about
    the North.

    People here live basic lives. Private lives. They live in simple houses
    made of branches and cloaked in skins from the beasts captured in their
    hunts. The outsides are plastered with blood-painted sacred images praising
    nature and their freedom. They wear furs and neck-chains made from claws
    and teeth. Fires keep them warm from the harsh Northern weather. With the
    fire, the villagers are protected from the dark spirits which search the
    forests.

    Near the border of North and South, the foreign man invades. He has weapons
    that destroy the virginity and purity of this ancient land. Guns, knives.
    He fears the North. Not due to the weather, but the primal wilderness. It
    is tough, unforgiving, undiscovered. He does not know the secrets that have
    been passed through these native people. The ways to survive. He builds
    camps, using wooden branches carelessly axed down by hand. They stay warm
    and strong. He has clothes, protecting him from the weather. He fears the
    wilderness. But still he ventures out, penetrating further into the North.
    Bringing with him irreligious ways, he attacks the purity of this fragile
    land, forcing his own desires and needs on the people of the forest.

    The North is primitive. They live primitive lives.

    Women from the North settlements go out hunting. They can catch. Youth is
    fast, women are smaller. They know that bare foot is the best way. The men
    near the border wear their heavy leather boots, destroying the forest floor
    leaving footprints in the fresh, water-soaked earth.

    “Go out child, don’t come back empty handed. We need food to make it
    through the winter.”

    The youthful girl with striking beauty and jet black hair decorated with a
    red-tipped feather left her home, alone, armed with only a quiver of arrows
    and a bow. She stalked the woods and slept under cover of the trees. Her
    animal skin dress is her only source of warmth to battle the cold-hearted
    nature of the Northern woodland.

    The men from the south were edging ever closer. Their guns and
    intelligence, oh their intelligence, ever pushing the natives further into
    wilderness and cold. They too, were in search. They were in search of
    knowledge, understanding of the wider world away from the stiff society of
    their homeland. He ventured out, alone, to the North.

    The native girl was running. She ran fast; she ran silently. But there were
    no prints for her to follow, no wolves, nothing. She knew the foreign men
    were around. She had to be wary. One false move and all her suffering would
    have been in vain.

    She stopped. A bear was lolloping through the trunks of the trees. It was
    injured. Its body was fat, and from her position a short distance away, she
    could see clouds surging through the air from every one of its breaths and
    she could hear it grunting in pain. Even with the injury to its back paw,
    it was still a formidable creature. Nonetheless, it was perfect. Then, it
    caught her scent in the air and turned, its black eyes focused on her body
    and its teeth, yellow and foreboding, bared as drool dribbled from its
    bottom lip.

    It charged at her; even with the limp it was fast. The girl didn’t run. She
    let out a cry that could never be mistaken other than to be the sound of
    looming death.

    He heard. The man searching the land for knowledge and power. The morals he
    had learnt from his homeland telling every cell in his body to find the
    source of the scream and help the innocent party.

    He ran, his leather boots slowing him down.  He saw it. The bear was
    rolling around on the ferny forest floor, the girl underneath it. She had
    the presence of mind to pull an arrow out of her quiver to keep the bear
    under her control. All the man could see were the claws of the bear tearing
    through the flesh of the girl’s arm and its drooling muzzle growling in her
    face.

    He pulled the shot-gun out of his right pocket and raised it up to firing
    line of the bear. The bullets loaded and the trigger readied. Steadying his
    muscular arm, he took aim. The gun fired. He hoped it had hit the right
    target. The bear roared in pain and let out a cry before disconsolately
    hobbling off, leaving the girl bleeding on the earth.

    The southern man hurried to the girl, her brown eyes rounded half with pain
    and half with the pleasure of seeing his face. He ran his hands over her
    body scooping her up off the ground and into his arms.

    He ripped off strips from his shirt and tied them tightly around her
    wounds, preventing the bleeding. She had survived.

    “You scared the bear. You saved me. You must come back to my family. There
    will be great rewards.”

    The man was concerned. The Northern people were an unknown quantity yet
    still, his curiosity, his intelligence, leads him to
    accept.

    He carries her most of the way following her directions. He cannot
    comprehend her knowledge of the woods; to him it all appears the same.
    After the endless rows of trees, and continuous biting cold, the smell of
    smoke hit his flaring nostrils. It travels far in the fresh air. A sense of
    trepidation flowed through his body, and she could sense it.

    “There is no need to worry.”

    Upon the girl’s return to her village, the older women shrieked with
    delight. Their huntress had returned. Although her health was below the
    levels of their expectation and her wounds were deeper than they would have
    thought, she and their guest were welcomed. The villagers raised symbols of
    spiritual worship above their heads in celebration.

    He laid her on the furs inside one of the houses. It was not out of his
    kindness that he brought her back, but merely for his own demanding
    curiosity and exceptional insistence for knowledge. This, he would not live
    to regret. The girl pulled an arrow from her quiver, which still had not
    been removed from her back. As he turned to leave, the women of the
    village, who had followed him in, blocked his exit. He stepped backwards.
    The tip of the huntress’ arrow penetrated through his heart. The colour
    drained from his face. She drew the arrow back, wiping the blood off the
    arrow and onto her hand as he fell hard and slumped on the floor. She
    covered the palm of her hand in saliva and slowly dripped the diluted blood
    into her gawping mouth. She could not contain her hunger. She had not
    returned empty handed. This pleased the primitive nature of the village.

    Now, his body lies skewered on a branch, his blood dripping from the furs
    around the villager’s bodies and smeared around their lips. The fire keeps
    him warm.

    But darkness covers all.