Friday, October 11, 2013

The Huntress - 1861 - Tennessee

This is a second side arc to the story of Vendetta.  This has no relevance to the plot-line in Vendetta, but helps to create a larger picture of the world in which the story takes place.  This character may, at some point, have an interaction with a character from the Vendetta Trilogy.  

Abigail Crenshaw remembered what her father told her, as she laid on her back, staring up at the stars.  The wounds she sustained from the bear she was forced to confront with only a dagger were sharp pains.  She was bleeding out; she felt the slick wetness under her body as she rested on top of the crisp autumn leaves.  Her soft leathers had been nearly shredded, and her auburn hair was splayed out around her, and matted with blood.  

"Just breathe," he had told her, during her first hunt, when she was but twelve years of age.  It had been during the later portion of the summer of 1853.  Bernard Crenshaw, her father, had raised Abigail in the small log cabin he built with his own two hands.  He hunted and foraged for food in the wild woods of the Tennessee hills, and had decided to teach her how to do the same for herself.  She had foraged enough to know what was good for her, but that day, her father decided it was time for her to learn how to hunt.

"Breathe in," her father sucked in a deep breath.  "Hold it in, then release it with the arrow."  He exhaled just after the arrow was sent flying towards his prey.  The stag took the wound - just below the shoulder and right behind the front leg.  The two of them tracked the trail of blood to find the stag lying on the ground, bleeding on the forest floor.    

Abigail Crenshaw 
He had been trained in the hunt by the natives, he told her, before they were run out of their land and to the west.  He was taught how to make clothes from the skin of the animals he killed, and how to make use of every part of their body.  It was a waste to leave anything behind, aside from the offering to the crows. He taught her everything he knew that day, and the next week, she showed him how well she learned.  She performed remarkably.

Abigail buried her father three years later.  He had been hunting a stag when a black bear surprised him and attacked him.  She found him alone in the woods, mouth agape and eyes smiling.  She didn't know what he had seen, but she knew the signs of a bear attack, and the marks a bear claw made in the supple side of human flesh.  She'd been on her own since.

Now, five years after she buried her father, while hunting a buck with five points to each antler, she met with the same fate.  Only this time, the bear lay right next to her.  She had wounded it as much as it had wounded her. It was a male black bear, she knew, which meant it must have been roaming the area for food.  She had seen the tracks earlier that day, but thought she would be safe for a quick hunt.  When she scored the buck, the bear made its move on her.

The bear fight lasted only moments, as it reared and bore its weight down on her.  It tackled her to the ground, bit her right shoulder and tore into her side with its right claw.  She stabbed it over and over in neck, armpit and side, varying the stabs until she knew the beast could no longer withstand the effects.  The bear moved off her, confused as to how such a small creature could have such a painful attack, and collapsed a few trees to her left.

When she assessed the damage, she found cracked ribs, a torn shoulder and her side splayed open.  She knew better than to panic.  She tried to rise, but the pain was too intense.  So, I will die as my father did, she mused to herself.  Her bow was broken and cracked to her right, her dagger was inside the bear's armpit.  At least I took it with me.

The sun set and the the cool night came upon her faster than she expected.  She was losing consciousness as she stared into the sky.  The crescent moon above her was decorated with a field of stars that shone from the heavens.  The entire universe was displayed before her above the interwoven bare branches of the forest canopy.

One, solitary star shone bright on the left side of the crescent moon, like a the tip of an arrow on the moon's bow.  Its ambient light spread forth arms, and reached down from the heights to cradle her face in its twinkling splendor.  She knew she had to be seeing things; she couldn't help but smile in the mystery.  Maybe this is what father saw when he passed on... 

From the light grew a being created by the stardust, robed in the glittering essence and outlined in a star matrix.  A bow was in her hand, and antlers of wispy stardust extended from each shoulder.  She walked down the cascading light and to Abigail, smiling in the bliss of divine beauty.  She extended her hand to touch Abigial's chin.  There was pride in the star-woman's eyes, like the pride in her father's eyes when Abigail succeeded in her first hunt.

"Abigail," said the woman's voice inside her head.  "I have come to give you new life.  You have made me proud, my daughter, in your humanity.  Now, you will prove you are worthy of my divinity."

"Who are you?" she asked, not believing the woman in the stars could be her mother.  "What do you ask of me?"

"I am Artemis, Huntress of the Dodekatheon that rules from Olympus - you are my Child; my Chosen."  The
words held weight.  They resonated through Abigail's chest and penetrated the very core of her soul.  She felt something awaken within her.  Her wounds began to close; her bones began to mend.  In seconds, she felt renewed strength surge within her, yet she was too awed by the starry light to rise from the ground.  "You will be my instrument upon this Earth.  Purify this land of those who corrupt the wild - those who bring danger to the Great Hunt."

She did not know how, but she knew in her heart that she would do the task her mother set forth.  The starlight receded and she fell to exhausted sleep.  The next morning she rose, a new strength within her body, and went to the task set before her.  From the bear, she made a new waterskin, a winter cloak, breakfast, a new bow, several arrowheads and small daggers, and a large offering to the crows and scavengers of the forest.  She thanked the bear for giving her the experience, and thanked her mother for the gift of her new life.  Then, Abigail Crenshaw, daughter of Artemis, began her task of purification.
   

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