The Last Huntress (Preview)

THE LAST HUNTRESS

Scarlett hid amongst the shadows in the tree’s upper branches as her eyes followed the young woman on the rough dirt road beneath her. Most young women kept well clear of lonely roads in the dead of night. Bandits were one danger, but these dark woods hid something worse: werewolves. Every village for miles around had heard the stories of merchant caravans wiped out, bands of hunters slain and the mangled corpses of bears and wolves left to rot along the road. So this girl was either very foolish, or she wanted to draw the werewolves out. Scarlett suspected it was the latter.

For almost an hour, Scarlett followed in the trees as the girl maintained a sure, steady pace. She carried a large cloth bundle on her back, but amongst all the clutter inside it, Scarlett could see the familiar outline of a bow. It was a good choice. Scarlett was tall for a woman, but the girl would only have come up to her shoulders, and her frame was slim and delicate – not at all well suited for close combat with a werewolf. Some would have dismissed her for that, but Scarlett’s keen senses tingled with the hum of magic kept under tight control. She couldn’t be sure of what kind of magic it was, but it lacked the raw, primal fury of something like fire or lightning. It was subtler, but there was a certain sharpness to it that hinted at something deadly. Her lips curled. How interesting. She could recognise most magic after only a second or two.

It wouldn’t be long now before the werewolves came. The beasts could be cunning, but it was the base animal cunning favoured by their lupine cousins. Only the oldest and most powerful of them showed the same sort of intelligence and planning as people. The girl was too good a meal to pass up, but she could turn the tables on them with the right preparations.

And despite the danger the girl was in, it was worth it. Werewolves were a constant menace in the heavily wooded north, and village and towns paid handsomely to have their roads and forests made safe. The prospect of such rewards drew many men and women, but few ever lasted long. Mere swordsmanship or magic was seldom a match for the strength and speed of a werewolf. Only a select few had the skill and guile to last for more than two or three hunts. Scarlett was one of them – the last, lingering relic of a line of huntresses both feared and revered for their prowess in the hunt. The girl would draw the werewolves out, and when she got into trouble, Scarlett would reveal herself. It was a trap within a trap, the sort of scheme her grandmother would have loved.

The woods thickened. Trees rose up on both sides of the road, their branches woven together to form a ragged, patchwork canopy. What little moonlight filtered through the gaps was enough to light the way but not nearly enough to push back the darkness that clung to the woods. The girl’s breathing quickened, and the scent of fear filled the air. The girl couldn’t see past the trees, but Scarlett had no such trouble. Her eyes could already see quite well in the dark, and it took only the barest sliver of her magic to sharpen her vision until the night was as bright as day.

Finally, the werewolves stirred. She couldn’t see them – they were still too far for that. But she felt a prickling at the very edges of her awareness, a sibilant hiss in that part of her ruled as much by instinct as by magic or intellect. Something inhuman was coming, and here, that could only mean one thing. There was deer and rabbit to be had, but the werewolves were hungry, and they always preferred the taste of human flesh.

As the werewolves closed in – she could hear their paws churning the undergrowth now and see shapes amidst the far trees – Scarlett suppressed any trace of her magic and slunk deeper into the shadows. She was little more than a ghost now, and even a werewolf wouldn’t notice her unless it knew where to look. True, she could best a werewolf in open combat, but it was much better to have the element of surprise. With any luck, one of the beasts would be the werewolf she sought. If not, she would simply kill all of them and be on her way.

The werewolves came from the west, and Scarlett’s burgundy eyes gleamed with anticipation. One of them would block the road in front of the girl and another would block the road behind her. Two more would wait on either side of her. The last two, likely the leaders of the pack, would remain hidden in the woods. It was difficult not to admire the simple effectiveness of the plan. Even if the girl managed to hit one of the werewolves, she would leave herself open to the others. One of the pack might be wounded, even killed, but the others would eat well. They could even turn her if they wished.

Below Scarlett, the girl stopped as the first werewolf pushed out of the trees and onto the road. It was a large male, a touch over seven feet tall. In the way of most werewolves, its form was a curious mix of human and wolf, as comfortable on two legs as on four. It bared its teeth and all over its lean body, thick cords of muscle rippled beneath black fur. Such an extravagant display: no true hunter would ever be so obvious. But it was only a ploy, one to draw the girl’s eye. And it was working. She didn’t even notice the other werewolves fall into position.

“It looks like all the rumours were true.” The girl tipped the hood of her cloak back to reveal blonde hair and blue eyes. Scarlett’s brow furrowed. Almost everyone in the north had dark hair and eyes. The girl must be from the west then. With a careless shrug, the girl let the bundle on her back fall to the ground as she plucked a bow and quiver from it. “Come on then, what are you waiting for?”

Despite the barely concealed tremor in her voice, it was clear the girl had done this before. Most people would have been mindless with terror by now, but the small hands on the bow were steady, and the girl’s aim seemed sure. Even if the werewolf couldn’t understand the girl’s words, it understood the challenge in her tone easily enough. For a moment, its eyes darted to the others. The message in them was clear: the girl was his.

With a low growl, the werewolf dropped onto all fours and charged. A moment later, it leapt, and Scarlett palmed one of her throwing knives. A solid hit to the eye with a silver-edged knife would kill younger werewolves outright and badly wound older ones. But there was no need. The girl jerked her bow up and fired an arrow that Scarlett knew would hit. The girl dropped to the ground, blonde hair askew – how foolish not to tie it – and the werewolf hurtled over her. The arrow was lodged in the beast’s shoulder and Scarlett readied her knife again. A shoulder wound with a normal arrow would only anger a werewolf. Then she felt the low hum of the girl’s magic rise into a shout.

Moonlight struck the arrow. There was thin metal wire wrapped around its shaft, and there was a flash of light before it unwound itself and tangled around the werewolf. The beast gave a keening wail as its flesh cindered and began to blacken beneath the wire. Scarlett’s eyes widened. That was silver wire, and it was very, very sharp. The wire tightened around the werewolf, and its cries and struggles rose to a fever pitch as the wire cut through first muscle and then bone.

Scarlett frowned. What kind of magic was this? It had to be some kind of external magic – magic that affected the world around the caster – but what kind? Many village wise women could weave magic with threads and ropes, but she’d never seen anyone control metal wire. And then there was the sharpness of the wire. There wasn’t a single mark on the wooden arrow shaft, so the girl had probably made it sharper with her magic. It was a combination of control and transformation magic then: control magic to guide the movements of the wire and transformation magic to alter its sharpness. Whatever it was, the other werewolves had realised the danger and were moving in together.

The werewolves on either side of the road burst out into the open at the same time, and the girl’s eyes widened in shock and horror. Obviously, she had realised the same thing as Scarlett: there was no time for her to make two shots. At best, she might hit one of them. As the werewolf behind the girl began its charge along with the other two, Scarlett palmed a pair of knives and leapt out of the trees.

The werewolves were fast but Scarlett was even faster. She twisted through the air and let her magic flood through her body. Her senses sharpened and took on the fineness of a razor’s edge. Time slowed to a crawl, and everything in the world came into perfect focus. Different kinds of external magic could create fire and call down lightning. She could do none of that. Her magic was internal. It affected only herself but that did not make it any less dangerous. She saw the werewolves frozen in mid-leap, calculated the trajectories they would take and knew exactly where and how she needed to throw her knives. Then time moved again, and with a flick of her wrists, her knives whistled through the air.

The werewolf behind the girl went down, a knife buried in its right eye. A split-second later, the werewolf on her left went down as well, Scarlett’s second knife hilt deep in its left eye. As the two beasts crashed to the ground, the girl struck the werewolf on her right with another one of her strange arrows. It landed nearby and struggled to get to its feet, but the wire went to work before another knife from Scarlett put it outs of its misery. The werewolves were beasts, but they did not deserve to suffer. After all, few of them could help how they acted.

All of this happened in the span of a heartbeat, and as the girl turned to try and get a better look at her, Scarlett vanished into the woods. The only thing the girl saw was the flash of Scarlett’s blood red cloak as she went after the last two werewolves. They knew what was happening now. She could feel their agitation and hear their paws trampling the cold earth. They understood that they were no longer the hunters. They were the hunted. Unfortunately for them, Scarlett had spent the last day learning the lay of the land. They weren’t going anywhere.

She took to the trees again, not content to deal with the uneven ground. A few moments later, she caught up with the first of the fleeing werewolves, and there was a rush of movement as she threw another one of her knives. This one was better than the others. Rather than try and dodge – which would have been impossible given Scarlett’s aim – it chose to take the knife in its shoulder. A low hiss left its lips as it yanked the knife free and turned to meet her.

Scarlett’s sword came free in a flash of shimmering metal, and the werewolf jerked back to avoid the blow. Dirt flew as the blade struck the ground, and the werewolf surged forward in a bid to strike her down before she could recover. Teeth and claws flashed, but Scarlett was more than equal to the task. She wove through the storm of blows, her footing sure even on the rough ground. This was what she lived for: the blur of battle, the ebb and flow of close quarter combat. There was no need to think of anything else, no reason for her mind to drift to the mistakes of the past. There was only the battle and her need to win it.

Once more, magic sang through her veins and filled her with cold fire. She twisted away from a strike that tore a gash out of tree behind her and then raised her sword to catch another blow that would have cut her in half. Her boots dug into the loose soil, and she spun away, her sword scoring a deep cut along her enemy’s flank. The werewolf stumbled back as blood poured from the wound, and its eyes went to her sword, the edge agleam in the twilight. Her sword had belonged to her mother once, and it was the work of a long dead master. More than steel had gone into it. Silver and other holy metals were woven into the blade along with magic of the highest order. It was centuries old, and it would last for centuries more.

The air behind her stirred, and she turned to see the last of the werewolves leap at her from the shadows. It was too close for her sword, but she had no need for a weapon against a werewolf that couldn’t be more than a few years old. Pain rippled through her left arm as she shoved magic into the limb and drove it forward to meet the werewolf in mid-flight, her fingers and hand angled forward into the point of a spear.

Her magic made her arm as hard as steel, and the werewolf’s own momentum did the rest. Her fingers speared through its ribcage and pulverised its heart. A low hiss left her lips, and she tugged her arm out of the werewolf’s chest to let it crash to the ground. Blood sprayed from the gaping wound, and she felt the bitter taste of it upon her lips. It was such a messy way to kill, but death was rarely pretty. More of the blood ended up on her cloak, but the garment was enchanted to handle far worse than blood. The only danger was infection, for werewolves could pass on their curse through bite or blood but that did not concern her. Those of her bloodline could not catch the curse.

The other werewolf let loose a ragged wail of grief. Scarlett stilled. They must be a mated pair. A pity, but it would not have to grieve long. Enraged but wary, the werewolf circled her. Its whole frame was taut with fury, the overwhelming need to rip and tear balanced against the danger she presented.

“Your mate is dead.” Scarlett raised her sword. “Will you run, or will you try and avenge him?”

The challenge rang clear in her voice, and the werewolf could hold back no longer. It charged, and she dodged to one side. A claw grazed her forearm, but at the same time, her sword came up and across. An instant later, the werewolf hit the ground in two pieces. The scent of blood was heavy in the air, and as the rush of battle faded, she glanced down at the tear in the sleave of her tunic. A werewolf’s claws were sharper than steel, but even so, they’d barely managed to break her skin. A few seconds later, even that small scratch had healed. Behind her, the two werewolves had begun to return to their human forms, something that happened in death to all but the oldest of werewolves.

The werewolf she’d cut in two was a woman in her mid thirties. Based on her strength and speed, she’d probably been a werewolf for at least a decade. The other was a man of the same age. Murmuring a brief prayer to the gods, she cut off both their heads. The village would require proof of the kill, and not even a werewolf could survive without its head. In death, the bodies remained vulnerable to silver, so there could be no mistaking the nature of those she’d slain. Now the only matter left to deal with was the girl.