...Camp? Why so many?
The human girl peered out from behind the trunk of the tree, watching with peculiar gold-green eyes the party that had settled for the night.
Not seen so many in a long time...
She tilted her head to the side, her hair, which was cut rather sloppily to hang just below her jaw in uneven locks of gold, swished across her shoulder. It was matted with blood, impossible to tell if it was her own, and stringy with perspiration. She couldn't have been older than sixteen or seventeen, but the air about her was more mature, she seemed somewhat wise beyond her years...
I wanted to fight...I should join them...
But she knew she could not approach them, not after impersonating a man and fighting in a tournament. No, she had been cast out, having abandoned the ways of her people to be a warrior.
...Ah...why am I here?
She had come hunting a wolf who had killed her horse, a black mare who had been her only companion. But the animal seemed to have dissapeared. She turned, preparing to vanish into the shadows as always she did when strangers camped nearby, but something was thrown onto her back and before she knew it she had tumbled out of the woods, the jaws of a beast clamped on her arm.
SHE-WOLF!!!
She swing a desperate blow to the side of the wolf's head. It released her, and she felt the warm spill of blood down her arm. She rose, yanking a small, blood-encrusted sword out of her worn leather boot and growling at the animal.
Kill...
They leapt at each other at the same time, they went tumbling again, she thrust upward over and over again with her weapon, into the fur of the animal. Blood spilled from each, coating both bodies. Finally, the beast sagged atop her in a limp heap, and she had won.
Ayee...Pain...
She reached back with her good arm and felt her wounded arm. She lay still for a moment, then shoved the body off, reaching into it and pulling out her weapon, stuffing it back in her boot. She got onto her hands and knees, her body and clothes sticky with blood, and she rose slowly, the animal had put up a good fight. She couldn't move her wrist and was beginning to feel light headed, her chest was stinging something awful. The white and gray fur of the wolf had been stained red, and already flies were coming to feast on the carcass. She looked at it, and then the camp.
They saw me fight the wolf...
She rose to her full height, tall for a girl, and was still, staring back until consciousness left the wild girl and she knew nothing more.
[ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: Gilthalion ]
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