Chapter 20 – Lillia the Huntsmaster

The creatures kept looking up.

That was the first thing Lillia noticed. Not the antlers. Not the matted black fur. Not the fact that they looked almost like deer if deer had been assembled from a frightened description.

The looking up.

Lillia had moved through the grass one careful inch at a time, knees bent, breath trapped in her chest. From the horizon, the shape beneath the twisting tree had looked like a single patch of shadow.

Up close, it was a herd.

Lillia didn’t know if they were hiding or just looking for shade.

The beasts were eating, mostly ignoring the surrounding grass—thankfully, as that’s where Lillia was. They cast occasional glances up to the canopy as they chewed the wispy grass. One would lift its head and stare into the branches, still chewing, while the others grazed. Then another would take over. Not nervous, exactly. Practiced.

At least they were looking in the wrong direction. That was comforting.

Probably.

They looked gentle. Or at least passive. Something tugged at the back of Lillia’s throat as she pulled out the spellmaul.

She could do this. Lillia ate meat at feasts all the time. This was no different from that. She just happened to be the one swinging the cleaver.

Lillia’s mouth went dry. Her grip on the spellmaul turned damp and clammy.

On the far side of the tree, one of the beasts was isolated. It was frailer than the others but Lillia didn’t know if that meant it was young or old. That should have made it easier.

In her effort to stay quiet, Lillia made the approach last forever. She watched the creature the entire time. She watched it shake the black, stringy mane along its neck. She watched it paw at the soil with its thin, awkward-looking hooves. She watched it glance up to the sky as if that were the only place danger could come from. Lillia had watched it long enough that striking it felt personal.

The princess held the spellmaul out to her side, leaving a black stain on the plains where the ichor corroded the grass. Her arm started to get sore from holding it so far away from her body, but Lillia wasn’t about to let any of this get on her dress.

Buzzing insects and grazing bodies covered the sound of her approach.

One deep breath. Two.

Something chirped in the tree above. The creature flinched, head snapping up toward the canopy.

Lillia took the third breath anyway.

Then she leapt, swinging the spellmaul wildly toward the creature’s side. It connected. Lillia felt the terrible resistance of flesh against spikes. The creature bleated and threw its head backward. The iron smell of blood stuck to the inside of Lillia’s nose. She almost stopped.

She tore the spellmaul free, pulled it back, then heaved it above her head.

The creature bucked, slipping out of the way with shocking grace as Lillia swung. The spellmaul embedded in the dirt below, sending earth flying in every direction. Lillia’s heart raced as she pulled her weapon back and tried to reset her stance. By the time she dragged the maul free and swung again, she already knew it was too late.

The spellmaul swung through the air, splashing the ichor across the greener grass under the tree’s shade. The beast was already well out of Lillia’s reach. Its bleat cut through the shade. Another answered. Then another. The whole herd broke apart and fled into the savanna at a pace Lillia couldn’t hope to match.

The princess stared at the black blood flowing down the side of the beast as its run turned into a limp. It was too far away for her to hear it but she imagined it whimpering in pain. Lillia’s stomach churned and she tucked herself under the tree.

The iron smell was still in her nose. Lillia wiped the spellmaul on the grass and watched the blades wither under the ichor. She’d hit the creature once, and it was limping. She needed to hit it again. Havoc had called the Spellmaul a weapon of attrition. She just hadn’t understood what attrition meant when the target was looking at her while it bled.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

This didn’t feel like hunting. It felt like murder in installments.

Lillia watched the herd scatter across the plains. They bleated. A thin, scraping cry that Lillia mistook for a bird answered. The beasts had fled, but not far enough.

The beasts had fled, but not far enough to free Lillia from what she had done. The large herd had scattered across the plains and then reassembled, congregating under another one of the massive trees.

The tree they had found this time was at the edge of one of the ravines that had been carved into the landscape. The longest branches extended out over the ravine and cast shade on the muddy stream at its bottom.

Lillia could almost hear her father’s voice as he boasted about his latest prize. She could remember him explaining the beauty of the stag he’d found before he described cornering it and killing it. Her father had always been gentle. The way he described his killing shot had never changed how she thought of him. Back then she would laugh and clap for her father as the servants brought venison out to the table.

She missed venison.

Carrying her father’s words, Lillia circled until the herd stood between her and the ravine. If they bolted, they would have fewer directions to run.

It was almost clever.

The second approach was worse. The herd had trampled much of the grass flat, leaving Lillia to crawl from one thin patch of cover to the next.

Once she was close enough, Lillia tried to find the beast that she had hit before. In the shade, with the black mat of their fur and the black blood they bled, Lillia couldn’t place it. All of the beasts looked the same to her. All of them were potential targets. That was somehow worse.

Was she really supposed to just hurt more and more of them until one died?

Everything else had tried to kill her. Everything else had been a matter of life and death. Everything else…

Lillia tightened her grip on the spellmaul. This was life and death too. If she didn’t bring back skins, she didn’t impress the Huntsmaster. If she didn’t impress the Huntsmaster, she didn’t leave.