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“Be one with the Lord of the Hunt.”
Morio fell to his knees as, from behind a tall cedar, stepped a white stag. His antler tines rose high and dangerous into the air. He was old—so old that moss dripped from the tines, hanging low like it did off the cedars and fir in the forests. His eyes were brilliant red, and he was as tall at his shoulder as I was. He approached Morio and bellowed, nostrils steaming.
A look of wonder filling his expression, Morio reached out and stroked the King Stag as the ancient elk let out a bugling cry. Morio backed up, and I could tell that nothing else existed in this moment. He shifted, turning into his fox form. As the elk bolted away, racing into the wood, Morio followed. I started forward, crying out, worried, but I tripped over a stone and went down hard.
As I sat there nursing my bruised backside, I realized that the ritual was Morio’s. I couldn’t interfere. It was his to experience, his run to make. Dazed from the evening, I wearily rose and found my ritual garb—somehow it had gotten draped over a nearby bush—and slowly dressed.
The night grew chilly as I waited, and I wondered where Aeval was. Usually she came to get me after ritual. But there was no sign of her now. Nor had Morio returned. Getting a little worried, I began pacing around the perimeter of the glade. Should I wait? Should I go looking for him? Should I go find Aeval?
I had learned to wait for instruction—you couldn’t just go your own way when it came to magic, and the training was hard and intense. I’d been subjected to so many all-night rituals and harsh tests over the past few months that I felt steeped in the energy, immersed in it to the point where, on some days, there was little else in my existence.
Derisa, the High Priestess of the Moon Mother back in Otherworld, had told me I was training to become the first High Priestess of the Moon Mother that Earthside had seen in thousands of years. Years of rigorous training loomed in front of me.
But as the night wore on, a chill mist began to rise and the temperature crept lower and lower. The Pacific Northwest was not known for warm springs, and it must have been forty-two and falling by around two in the morning. A glance at the woods where the stag had led Morio showed nothing. And a glance down the trail back to the hot springs and the palace again showed nothing. A stirring here or there told me that I wasn’t alone—but when I reached out, all I could sense were the stray animals still prowling the forests.
I looked up at the moon.
“Should I go find Morio?” I asked, quietly, but the Moon Mother wasn’t talking to me.
I paced around the perimeter of the glade. Finally, after another interminable time, I couldn’t take the waiting. I grabbed my staff and headed into the forest, following the direction in which the stag and Morio had gone.
The passion and drive of the night had fallen off. Now I felt on edge. Warily, I pushed my way through the undergrowth. The foliage was thick, but at this point, I wasn’t facing briars and thorn-covered huckleberries. The ferns were huge, and other bushes impeded my progress, but none seemed to be dangerous.
At one point I stumbled, stubbing my toe against a branch hidden by the debris littering the forest floor. It could have been much worse, though, if I hadn’t had my staff to lean on when I tripped.
Where had they gone? When I ran with the Hunt, I was gone till morning, unable to tear myself away. But it wasn’t a full moon, and the god was wild and unpredictable in ways that the goddess wasn’t. She could be merciless, but the god—he was feral and chaotic.
“Morio? Morio!” I called out, at first timid, but then, fear took hold and I shouted his name at the top of my lungs, my voice echoing through the night air, reverberating off trees.
At one point I stepped in something slimy and groaned. It was either a pile of rotting leaves or something that had once been alive. There was nothing else that I could think of. Wiping my foot on a patch of grass nearby, I bent down, trying to see what it was. Oh delightful, a nest of banana slugs.
The Pacific Northwest is famous for its banana slugs—huge creatures that looked like they ought to be in some B-grade science fiction movie, a good four to six inches long and as big around as my thumb. They were colorful, in shades of green and sometimes yellow, and on rare occasion brown, and they were delightful in a slimy, nasty sort of way.
I did my best to wipe off my foot and continued on.
A thousand acres doesn’t sound that big, but in the dark, in the wild, it’s a huge area. I worked my way farther into the forest, trying to keep myself going in a straight line, but somehow I got turned around a couple of times. After what seemed like another half hour, I knew I was lost. My voice was hoarse—I’d been calling for Morio the entire time, but there was no answer, just scuttling noises from the bushes. Even the devas, the flower spirits and such, seemed to have vanished.
My feet were already sore when my luck ran out and I stepped on a bramble. A large thorn pierced the bottom of my heel. I let out a scream—the pain was shocking, especially when I wasn’t prepared for it—and dropped my staff, hopping onto the other foot. Leaning against the nearest tree, I lifted my foot and propped it across my other knee, balancing against the fir as I reached down. In the dark, I gingerly searched for the thorn.
And there it was, sharp and jagged, barbed, firmly implanted in my foot. I tugged on it. Damn it. The barb was just inside the skin. If I pulled it out, I’d rip the bottom of my heel open—or at least a nice little section of it—and bleed like crazy, as well as open myself up to infection. But I couldn’t walk on the fucker—it would only drive it farther in.
I sucked in a deep breath, clenched my teeth, took hold of the thorn, and yanked hard. At first it didn’t want to give way, but then, with another swift tug, it tore open the skin and came out. I held the thorn up, trying to get a good look at it, but all I could tell was that it was big and sharp, and it had claimed more of my blood than I wanted to give.
My inclination was to toss it, but I was halfway afraid I might step on it again. As I pressed against the tree, my fingers felt a hollow in the trunk—just a little woodpecker’s hole—and I dropped the thorn in there. One problem solved. Only a dozen more to figure out.
Next job: figure out which way to go in order to get back to the glade. I tried to gauge the direction by looking at where the moon was now, but the clouds had swept in while I was preoccupied with the thorn, covering the sky, and it was really dark. I could barely see my hand in front of my face.
And I could feel that my foot was still bleeding.
I thought about tearing a strip off my priestess robes to bind up my foot, but that just seemed wrong. I’d worked too hard and too long to get them, and I wasn’t about to go ripping them up unless I had a damned good reason. Big honking ax cut or knife wound? Yeah, good reason. Thorn-in-the-foot wound? Not so much.
Grumbling, I balanced with my staff as I felt around the base of the tree, still trying to keep my foot off the ground. I could feel several plants, including vine maple. Vine maple had large leaves—though at this time of the year, they hadn’t fully blossomed out, but they were big enough to cover the wound, and I wasn’t allergic to them. I picked several in order to provide not only a covering but a cushion for my foot.
Now I needed something to keep the maple leaves plastered to my skin. And then I had an idea. I limped and hopped my way back to the banana slug nest and scooped up some of the disgusting remains.
I wiped the slime around the wound without actually touching it. Banana slugs left a trail of slime behind them that was like rubber glue. This would work perfectly. I managed to smear enough on my foot that when I dropped the slug remains and slapped the largest leaf across my foot, it held, keeping the smaller leaves in place beneath it.
I cautiously tested the makeshift bandage, and it worked. My foot hurt to walk on, so I’d still be limping, but at least now if I set it down flat, nothing would infect the wound. At least for now.
