White Ghost and the Poison Arrow (16 page)

Over the last
three months, more animal have been turning up in the forest with
arrows embedded in their bodies, arrows with the same poison on
that Arella found in Maska’s mother. She knows she must do
something about this, it cannot continue. The animals are suffering
with this, and no one is tracking them down and finishing the job,
leaving Arella to do that. She has lost count of the bodies she has
had to bury over the last few months. It is a waste to kill animals
in this way. The poison rots away the flesh and fur; making them
useless once they are dead, and causing nothing but pain until
then. Arella remembers vowing that she would find the person who
was doing this and put an end to it, and she intends to stick to
this. The time for Arella and Maska to leave the safety of their
camp has come. Arella feels that she and Maska have grown strong
enough for the task at hand. They leave the next morning, at first
light, in search of the poison killers.

Knowing that
she will be away for a few days at the least on this mission,
Arella must make sure the chickens she has recently caught will be
okay to live without her feeding them. This is half of the reason
she made their pen so big. They have plenty of room to forage for
food, and plenty of places where the food might come from, although
they will need an extra hand. The bushes in their pen will help a
little, producing berries and seeds that they can eat, and
attracting bugs too, but they may need a little more than that.
Arella picks several of the grue bulbs and cuts them up into small
pieces. These bulbs do not rot, so they will take well over a week
before they go off. The chickens will be able to eat these, and
they have plenty of starch and protein in them, so they will be
very filling for the little chickens. The rain should keep their
little pool topped up over the next week or so. It has been raining
a little every few days, and will continue to do so for a while.
When it rains, the worms come up to the surface. This will again
feed the chickens. Arella has no doubt in her mind that they will
be safe from starvation, but predators are another matter. At the
moment, no predators will come near the clearing because Maska’s
scent is so strong in the area, but after a few days this will
start to go away, meaning that paloa fox’s might decide that the
chickens in the pen are an easy meal.

Setting up
traps around the area might work, although that would make her as
bad as the people with the poison arrows, leaving the animal to
suffer in a trap where she will not get to it to end its life for
days. Or she could put a roof on the pen, but this would stop rain
and sunlight getting in. No that wouldn’t work. Arella turns to
Maska. “What do we do about them?” She points at the coop. Maska
just looks at her with those odd coloured eye. Maska stands up and
walks over to the edge of the clearing. He then does something that
shocks Arella a little. He pees on a tree. Just a short burst of
pee, then proceeds to follow around the edge of the perimeter doing
this. “Maska what are you…”Arella pauses to think. “Oh I get it.
You’re scent marking. Clever idea. I guess that will stop anything
wanting to come in here.” She stops again. “Why didn’t I think of
that? Will it last for a long time though?” She wonders. Arella
then remembers. Any foxes that live in the area will know that
Maska lives here, and the ones that don’t won’t chance it in case
he comes back. Maska has thought of a fool proof plan to keep the
chickens safe.

“How about one
last good meal while we’re here Maska, then in the morning we set
out to find the thoughtless idiots who have been killing animals
needlessly.” She moves over to the tree house and climbs up,
collecting some of the hanging meat from inside. There are still
two legs left from a deer they caught the other day. “We will need
to cook all of this tonight Maska, then take whatever we don’t eat
with us. It will go off otherwise.” Arella lights a fire in the
downstairs of her hut, and begins cooking the meat on a spit,
turning it every now and then so it cooks evenly. She starts with
the smallest leg, thinking she would be able to eat that tonight,
then she can take the other with her. Maska however is not so
fussed about eating the cooked meat. He instead jumps up to the
tree house himself, fishing around up there for something. “What
are you looking for Maska. I thought this was the only meat we had
left.” When he emerges from the house, he is carrying half a boar.
Arella laughs. “Now where were you stashing that away?” Maska jumps
down, brings the boar into the little hut and begins munching away
on it.

While the meat
is cooking, Arella uses the time to sharpen her weapons. The
grathon and dagger made from bloodglass are still sharp. They
always will be, but the arrow heads have started to blunt. They
wouldn’t be much good for shooting as they are. She uses a flint
stone to sharpen the heads, making them as sharp as she possibly
can. Arella had attempted to make more arrows of her own, but none
of them seemed to fly straight. She gave  up after a few days
of endless trying, and conceded that she would only be able to use
the arrows she currently has. Arella knows that one day these
arrows will be useless, but she is intending on gaining a few more
by then, even if this means stealing them from the nearby village.
Needs must, and they do not need them all. Plus, she remembers one
of the men saying that they could just make more when they got back
to the village. Arella often thinks of the young men she saw in the
woods all those months ago. She wonders where they are now, if they
ran into any danger yet, and if any of them have died. She shudders
at the thought, then turns her attention back to the cooking
venison.

While Arella eats, she thinks about how they will track the
poachers. She knows that a deer was taken down the other day, and
which direction it came from. It came from the other side of the
lake, and it seems as though all of the other animals came from
that direction too, so that is the way they will go tomorrow. They
will head for the other side of the lake, and hope to pick up on a
trail. Arella is quite good at picking up trails, and humans are
easy to track. They are cumbersome and clumsy, so if she picks up
that trail it will be easy. Injured animals are also easy to track.
They do not pay attention nor do they care about where they are
going, so their tracks are all over the place. If Arella finds an
injured animal she can follow that trail back to the poachers too.
The only think Arella is worried about, and the more she thinks the
more worried she gets, is what she will do when she finds them.
Arella is not strong enough to fight full grown men, nor does she
think she would have the guts to kill anyone, but this needs to
stop. “
I guess I will cross that bridge
when it comes to it”
Arella thinks,
although the thought terrifies her.

Maska has once
again finished eating before Arella has even started. He licks his
pawn happily, purring as he does so. His purr is now a lot louder
than it used to be, and if you’re close enough to him, the sound of
it rattles your ribcage. Arella has cooked the venison to
perfection, but is struggling to finish it off. “Do you want to
finish Maska?” She asks the auron cat, knowing what his answer will
be. He sits up excited and blinks at her. Arella tosses the bone
and remaining meat over to Maska who crunches away at it happily.
“I’m going to go take a bath.” Arella says as she gets up from her
seat by the fire. The moon is now high and full in the sky, and the
stars are shining bright. No sign of rain tonight. Arella breaths
in a deep lung full of the cool summer air, strips off her clothes
and boots and climbs into the water. A few of the trees have
started displaying orange leaves, signalling that autumn will soon
be on its way. Arella has always liked autumn, so many bright and
beautiful colours.

The cool water
laps at Arella’s chest as she bobs in the lake. It is relaxing,
swimming under the moon. The moonlight dances off the backs of the
fish in the water, reflecting it and making the water brighter. On
the odd occasion, small fish nibble at Arella’s toes. It tickles,
but nothing more than that. Arella kind of likes the feeling, but
it is strange to be nibbled by the very thing you eat for breakfast
most days. Arella tips her head back, wetting her hair. She washes
out all of the bits of leaves, mud, dirt and twigs that have got
caught in it over the last day or so. When she leaves the water,
Arella puts on a clean set of clothes and ties her hair in two
braids, one at each side of her head. She starts with a smaller
braid at the top, then joins it to a bigger one underneath, then
secures it half way down her hair, leaving the other half hanging
loose, then repeats on the other side. Using the still water as a
mirror, Arella makes sure she gets her silvery hair symmetrical. As
she stares into the lake, her purple eyes staring back at her,
Arella spots the reflection of an owl flying high above her. She
turns to look for it but it has already gone.

Pulling her
trousers up to just above her knees, Arella descends back into the
water again, taking her clothes with her to wash. Maska follows her
in and goes for a little swim himself. It turns out that he really
really likes water, and will happily swim and splash in it whenever
he can.

Once Arella’s
clothes are washed, she gets out of the lake, rolls her trousers
back down, puts on her boots and hangs her clothes up. Arella then
takes the larger piece of venison leg and starts to cook that over
the spit too. This takes quite some time, but it gives her hair and
Maska’s fur chance to dry. They both sit by the fire until the meat
is cooked, then Arella takes fresh leaves and wraps the meat. The
heat of the still warm embers will help to dry Arella’s spare
change of clothes before the morning. Arella then takes the meat
back up to the tree house for safe keeping, and climbs up there
with Maska for sleep.

Chapter
13

The sun lights
the sky, casting pink and yellow across the clouds. A light mist
sits over the lake, and there is dew on the grass and bushes
around. Arella opens her misty eyes and blinks at the brightness.
As she rolls over, she finds Maska just a little too close and
jumps. He wakes with a start and yowls at Arella. “Hey, you were
the one who made me jump.” She laughs as she pats his head. He
licks her hand then yawns. “Gods, your breath stinks Maska.” She
holds her nose. They both get up and stretch simultaneously.

There are
butterflies in Arella’s stomach as she starts to collect her things
for the long walk ahead. First she gets dressed and puts on her
boots, tying her hair in the same way as she did the day before,
with the two braids on each side over the top of each other. Then
Arella collects the food she has cooked off and takes the furs for
her bed. She turns the bedding inside out and wraps the ready
wrapped meat in it for safekeeping. She knows the leaves will stop
it from leaking into the bedding, so she will not have to sleep in
a dirty bed.  Arella then puts on her cloak and uses the ashes
from the fire to shield her eyes. After collecting her deerskin
bag, putting her bedding and food inside it, tying the bow and
arrows to the back of it and slinging it on her back, the next
thing Arella does is tuck her dagger into her boot. She then
collects the grathon and is nearly ready. The last thing Arella
needs to do is to feed the chickens the grue bulbs and make sure
they are okay.

“Okay Maska.
Ready when you are.” She says to the auron cat. He pounces down
from the tree house where he was watching Arella get ready and
bounds over to her, excited for the adventure ahead. He does not
seem the slightest bit nervous, unlike Arella who is terrified of
what they might find but then Maska has always been a lot braver
than Arella, and she thinks he always will be.

With one last
look at their home, Arella and Maska turn to leave the tree house
in search of the poachers with the arrows.

The lake is
calm and the mist has started to lift. The gravel shifts underfoot
as Arella walks on it. It is an uneven feeling, but one she has
grown used to. As she moves on the gravel, tiny bugs that call it
home begin to scurry away. Little bugs creep Arella out, but
watching these ones run is fairly entertaining. She forwards to
Maska who is leading the way. He keeps jerking his paws upwards as
if something is biting him. “Do you want to walk further in, away
from the stones Maska?” Arella asks. He nods at her and starts
walking towards the forest, only a few feet away. Arella had
intended to walk along the shoreline so she could follow the river
around, but she can do the same from inside the trees. She follows
Maska into the woodland and they continue to follow the lake
around, Maska much happier at not having sharp stones under his
feet.

Arella lets
Maska set the pace for walking, and it is a fast walk. His long
legs move quickly, with determination, and they make quick
progress. Maska was just as upset, if not more than Arella about
the death of the animals, possibly because one of them was his
mother, although Arella is not sure he was old enough to remember
that. They walk past the black sand beach and carry on walking. The
landscape starts to change and less trees grown. More rocks are
jutting up from the ground, and the grass becomes thinner
underfoot. This is the way the Arella came when she followed
Maska’s mother, although they will not be going that far along the
same path. Keeping one eye on the lake at the side of her, Arella
notices that it is getting further away from her. “Maska, we need
to be heading this way.” She says as she adjusts her position.
Maska does the same, looking like he is almost in a day dream.
Arella stops him. “Are you okay? You don’t seem to be
concentrating.” Maska was day dreaming, tired from an interrupted
sleep last night. The wolves were howling again, and Maska hates
the wolves. Arella is not so keen on them since their encounter
with that lone wolf a few months back. She does not recall seeing
it again sine then, but has no doubt it still prowls in the forest
somewhere.