<div dir="ltr"><div>Part 5 of Blossom.</div><div> </div><div>----</div><div> </div><div> The forest flashed beneath her feet. The scent of blood tickled her nose. The hunt was on. Her packmates were not far, running alongside her, hidden in the sylvan brush. They ran silently, paws barely touching the ground, as if held aloft by the winds themselves. Her hair whistled past the leaves, the sparkling dew barely touched with the whiplike strands. Her whole body wove through them all like a spider's thread through a hollow. She made no cry yet; that time would come when their prey lay before them. And they were getting closer. Their prey was fleeing, hot and sweating, tearing itself through the trees without abandon, kicking back branches and leaves as if the extra effort would build a barrier between them. The foolish beast only tired itself faster, and shortened the distance between them. It leapt over a shallow river bank, hidden by the hill's sudden drop and their own heavy panting. She tumbled into the valley and splashed into the river. She quickly rose to her feet, hearing her packmates clear the river and rush into the woods ahead. With a self-loathing snarl, she leapt up and pursued her packmates. How dare they rush on without her! Yet the call of the hunt never stopped, and it was her duty not to fall behind. The taste of the meat drew her onward, and she bade her feet to run faster to gain on them. She found herself down a game trail winding through the woods. The air was thick with the smell of sweating prey. The birds were howling above and all around, echoing through the woods. There was another noise in the woods, something behind her, carelessly cracking the branches. Another instant, and it seemed like something was running beside her, but there was nothing there; it had vanished like a ghost. Like all predators of the woods, she and her packmates were silent, but as she broke from the path and followed the scent onwards, she sensed that not even her packmates had traveled this far. Had she lost them? Something crashed into her, something with claws or teeth, something that she had completely missed in her scan of the forest. She threw her hands back, scrambling to gain traction, and regain her senses. Slowly did it dawn on her where she was, who she was, and that she was still naked. Nancy grabbed her head, telling her ears to stop trying to move in her skull. They were still human. Had it all been a dream? It felt so real… A stab of pain ran through her arm. She must've scraped it. The ivy rustled in the distance. Whatever had crashed into her was still in the woods. It was pacing around her, somewhere in the dark. "Lori?! Nancy?!" The voice was distant, but she recognized it. It was the watchman of Twone. He was close. She had been discovered. "Run." Lori's voice was clear and loud, and Nancy didn't hesitate. She took off running towards the flickering lights at the edge of the woods, the only sign of escape from the woods. She winced as her bare feet trod over thorns, sticks, rocks, roots, and nettles. She kept her weight on the sides of her feet, angling them every which way as she tore through the woods, desperate to escape. She didn't hear the creature, but that didn't mean it wasn't behind her. The predators of the woods are always silent before they pounce. "Lori!" Lori's father stepped through the darkness, holding a torch aloft. He looked blankly at the girl before him. "Where's Lori?! What in the hells happened to you?" Nancy slowed as he made eye contact, and finally covered herself. "I… She was…" "Lori!" he called out into the woods. "Lori, where are you?" "You see anything, Volden?" Benjamin's father stepped out, also holding a torch. He saw her and started. "Are you naked? Why are you covered in blood?" Nancy blushed and trembled, the night air cold against her sweat. "Samekkh's beard, girl, go back to your family, they're worried sick for you!" He threw his coat over her and continued onward, following after Volden. Nancy watched them go, knees shaking. Her feet had never felt so heavy as she gingerly stepped to the woods' edge. "Nancy!" her mother shouted. "Oh, my baby!" She rushed forward, but she was stopped by a massively-built man, who stood in front of her and slapped Nancy to the ground. "You crazy twit! What were you thinking?! Didn't you know there are wolves in these woods? You could have killed yourself in there!" Nancy's father roared. "Ash! Please!" her mother cried above her. "I don't mind if you're out snogging with Tom, but why'd you have to drag Lori and Benjamin into this? Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in, miss?!" "Ash, she's terrified! She doesn't even know what happened! You're scaring her! Please!" She grabbed her husband's wrists, while Nancy cowered below them both. "Don't touch me! NEVER touch me!" He threw off his wife, but it worked in cooling his temper a bit. He groaned irritably. "You take her home. I'll fix this." Nancy kept her head down, shivering under the coat. She heard her mother tsk as she pulled the coat off, and replaced it with a long blanket. "We'll give this back to Varin later, with an apology for the inconvenience. Don't worry, your father's good at fixing things. As long as nothing else happened..." She clicked her tongue. "You're lucky Hal heard about the 'puppies', from one of Lori's farmhands. He ran over to Varin's to see them. That's when he came to me, and we went to Lori's, and we all pieced together where you'd all gone. We might've left you in there until sun-up, if not for him." She took Nancy's forearm, rather forcefully, to look closer at it. "Tooth marks. Something tried to bite you. And your knuckles, they're all bruised and cut. Abba, how close it must have been. Promise me you'll never do this again. Never go back into the woods again." Nancy was silent. "Nancy, dear? Tell me you'll stay out of the woods." Nancy shivered. "NANCY!" "I promise." Her mother relaxed. "Not at night, anymore. Not even with Tom. There's other ways to flirt with a man, without flirting with danger." Nancy winced as her foot hit another rock. Behind her, the voices of the grown-ups melted into the woods, while the voices of the village began to surround her on all sides with questions she didn't want answered. ---- March 3, 717 CR Amos was the only one riding a horse. Tom's father Clovis tried to dissuade him, saying the mountain trails were too steep for horses, but Amos insisted that it wasn't a proper hunt without a horseback rider. The one advantage was how visible it made him. It was a thick foggy morning when they set out; with him in the center of the line, no one would be getting lost. There were fifteen people in the hunting party: six animal morphs, six gendermorphs, two child morphs, and one unchanged. They walked mostly in single file, spaced out a few feet from each other. As the hunter's son, Tom kept up the rear of the party; where he and a child morph could just make out Amos and his horse up ahead, trotting alongside the animal morphs in front. Amos wasn't the only newly minted gendermorph to join; in fact, all but one of the former blossoms were eager to join and prove their new manhood. Marcus had stayed behind for his grieving friends, his sister especially. One guy had jokingly questioned his courage, but Amos witheringly silenced him: "A man's watch over his family always comes before revenge." Family was the only reason why Tom had even joined. He'd have much rather stayed home to piece together what happened that night. He had been on the edge of the forest last night, looking out to Twone, when he saw a lantern light quickly move behind a building. An unexpected change in the guard movements; Tom knew then that their plot had been discovered. Tom knew there were no wild animals in the woods that night. So he snuck back home... So where did the wolf come from? He couldn't have been mistaken. He never did get a good look at the track in the woods; it had been so dark at the time... Suddenly Amos pulled to a stop. In a few more steps, Tom saw why. The trail dropped off into a wide gorge, with several large loose rocks stacked along either side. There was another deer trail running parallel to the gorge, but it was far too narrow for Amos's horse. An argument had started by the time Tom reached the ledge. "... break the leg of a perfectly good horse for your arrogance!" said Hebbs, the tegu baker. "She's a strong horse, sir, and very nimble," Amos said. "I wouldn't have picked her for this trip if she couldn't handle a few loose rocks." "All it takes is one loose rock," Hebbs insisted. "Is it worth throwing away a mare's life for that? And we've still got a long way to go before we reach the den..." Halfway through, Amos interrupted and spoke over him. "I always know the risks. I happen to know how to ride a horse..." "Lads! Settle it!" Errol barked, tail whipping as he stepped between the two. "Yer'll wake the dead if ya carry like that." Hebbs flicked his tongue. Amos patted his horse's withers to calm her down. Errol looked towards Clovis, who was considering the matter for himself. He wasn't a carnivore like Errol or Hebbs. In fact, he was some kind of small fanged deer morph, the smallest morph on the team. But he was the town hunter, and he had everyone's respect. Even if, at times, he went overboard hunting down local predators. "The wolf cave is a full day's walk from town," he said in his soft wry voice. "We've already been walking for four hours. If we tie up the horse, we can send someone back here once we've dealt with the wolves. Twone will know of our success by midnight." "And leave her here until then?" Amos said, in a mix of sarcasm, doubt, and uneasiness. "The alternative would be to ride back down and take the west path towards the dried-up ford. It's about ten extra miles, but you can catch up with us on a horse, if you know how to get there." Amos stared down at the mouse-deer for a bit, before turning to the rocky gorge. "Well, she is a fine beast..." The two child morphs, Volden and Lucas, took this opportunity to sit and rest their feet. Two of the other gendermorphs were staring up at the mountain, peering through the fog. One of them pointed. "Is there an animal up there, trapped in the rocks?" Errol and Malcolm joined their gaze. A grayish dappled figure was just visible through the rolling fog, its silhouette jittering against the cracks in the rock. Clovis's eyesight couldn't have been any better than Tom's, yet he immediately answered. "The shape is wrong. Either it's more than one animal, or that's its skin lying on the rocks. The edges are frayed too. That's not right... Malcolm, Brennan, Wesley, we'll go check it out. The rest of you can stay and help Amos, once he comes to a decision." Amos chuffed at the barb, and began to dismount. "Perhaps tying her up would be best. No sense in us getting lost in this fog. Let's get her to a tree with plenty of green grass around." "And flat ground," Volden said. But there lay the rub, for the land was steep all around them. The only flat land around was only wide enough for a few paces, not enough for a horse to walk around in. Tom spoke up. "There was a nice spot just a few hundred yards downhill. One tree on a wide hill, and no gopher hills or snake pits to step in." "Alright," Amos sat up in his saddle, turning to the others. "I want a couple volunteers to come along. The rest of you all rest, but not too long. I want everyone ready to go when we get back." "When *we* get back," Clovis indicated his own group of four. "On the off chance there IS an animal stuck there, we will call you over. I expect us to continue walking in single file, until then." Lucas led the way, with Amos following behind with his mare. Tom, Bryce, and Hebbs took the rear. They walked in silence for a couple minutes, until they were far enough from the other scouts for not even Errol's keen ears to hear. "Typical," Hebbs muttered. Bryce swiveled his ears, and spoke without turning. "If I'd called my brother from Ticehurst, he could've ridden him. And we'd have another party member, to boot." "Would you want him riding your brother, though?" Bryce gave a civet-like snarl. Keeping his voice down like the others, Tom spoke. "I hate the idea of leaving a horse behind. Frankly, I'd rather stay with the horse, if it comes to that." Hebbs gave a side-eye to Tom. "Is that your hunter's intuition at work? Are the wolves still on the prowl?" Most of the meat-eating animal morphs knew and respected Tom, and already believed he would join their ranks in time. "It's more that I don't trust Amos to tie a hitch." Bryce clicked his teeth. "Of course. You wanna bet he won't let anyone check his work?" "I bet he would," Hebbs said. "If only for the chance to be proven right." Personally, Tom had never especially cared for the blossom festival, or for large gatherings of people in general, and was not too bothered that he missed all but the last few minutes of dancing. But some people, like Hebbs, disliked the festival even more than him. Not because they hated feasting or revelry, nor because they disliked gendermorphs, but because they disliked the attention showered upon the gendermorphs, feeling that it puffed up their egos, and made them overconfident and overbearing. Not that anyone would call them out directly, of course. There was a stigma against male gendermorphs that they were corruptible and less fit to rule than animal morphs. The name of Loriod was still whispered on people's tongues. And there were some who believed, no matter how much the curse altered someone's mind and body, they would always have the spineless heart of a woman underneath. Not that it would make the reverse true. A man who became a woman would not retain their manly heart, but have their manliness slowly drained away from them. Tom fervently hoped that it would never happen to him, for it would feel much like dying. He only wanted to be like the animal morphs he'd idolized since childhood, especially those mighty Long Scouts. Hebbs and Bryce, by this point, were talking less inconspicuously about how well either of them could ride a horse, an actual non-cursed horse. "Otherwise," Hebbs said, "it's a question of whether the horse checks the rider, or the rider checks the horse." Bryce clicked his teeth again. "Feh, but why does that matter? My brother doesn't have the fingers to hold a club. But he's a fierce biter and a smart dodger; as far as riders go, he thinks I'm good enough." Tom let them talk. Up ahead, Amos had managed to find the tree for himself, and soon dismounted to tie up the horse. Tom could see that Amos's skills were quick and confident, the work of many days practicing. And he had gotten the knot mostly correct. Except for the one part where he'd gone under rather than over, and as a result would make the knot slide off if jerked laterally. But it held firm when Amos yanked it, so he left it. Tom was already debating if he should embarrass the new gendermorph or pretend to have not noticed, when a scream came from the hills they had just come from. Not a scream of terror or pain, but one just as heart-wrenching. It was a child's scream of sorrow. Bryce had already taken off, nearly stumbling out of his boots as he fought against shifting into full form. Amos seemed to debate whether to stay with the horse or follow, before running after Bryce. Hebbs turned and strolled after them, a bit more winded than the rest of them, but determined to keep after them. Tom hesitated, but he decided to trust the mare not to wander, and he followed after them. Tom could pick out whose screams they were, and it made his stomach turn with each step. Had he been spectacularly mistaken about that night? No, there must be another explanation. Wolves didn't drag their kills for miles before eating. Unless it wasn't a wolf, after all. Had there been another victim? The sight that greeted him was not unexpected. The scouts were all clustered around Volden, who had bent over under the larch tree, sobbing loudly, inconsolable in his child-like grief. In his hands was a felt slipper, streaked with blood. Tom recognized it right away as Lori's. Clovis looked up. His eyes said everything. They couldn't ask Volden to do this. "I'll take him back to Twone," Tom said gently. "Aye," Clovis nodded. There was a sly twinkle in his eye. "It's very lucky for us that you brought that horse, Amos. You will let him ride back to Twone, of course, wouldn't you?" "Mmmm?" Amos looked up, lost in thought. "Ya would not ask the lad to walk his way back in grief, would ya?" Errol asked. "Ah, of course not. Yes. Take her. Glad to provide any assistance." Amos stifled his sullen expression with a proud grin. "You weren't all thinking I was going to ride her the whole time, did you? My feet are just as ready to carry the rest of you along!" He, like the other Keepers, kept his eyes firmly away from Volden; the bawling made them all uncomfortable, and wary of exposure. Lucas looked the most uncomfortable, embarrassed for his fellow child morph, looking as much at the other scouts as he did on the road. Tom took Volden by the hand. "Come on, let's go home," he said, gently guiding him to his feet. Volden made only a slight resistance as he was pulled up and back down the path, back through the mists and to the anchored steed. Volden's broken sobs fluctuated as he walked, between silence and sudden cascades of grief. Once the other scouts had faded into the mist, Tom could hear them stand and mutter to themselves about their next move. How easily those animal morphs forgot that he was a hunter, and that his human ears weren't as bad as they believed! Tom kept looking back to make sure the regress didn't trip. Were it not for the hood, Tom wouldn't have thought that Volden was a man twice his age. Still, they spoke no words to each other as they walked, hand in hand. There was nothing Tom could do for him. So Tom let his thoughts wander. Growing up in Twone, one couldn't help but get to know everybody, and be known by everybody. And as a hunter, he especially got to know the carnivore morphs like Bryce and Hebbs and Errol. As one of the few peasants to own land, Volden was often talked about, but he was rarely seen or met with, as he was often away with his sheep in distant pastures. He was a private man, content to meet with his family, or with the other regresses. Tom wondered if Volden, too, enjoyed time isolated among nature, where the sunrise brings with it the symphony of winds and subtle footfalls of nature; or if he welcomed the evening's dim glow, where the crickets heralded the starlight. His own father Clovis seldom spoke in the woods, but his demeanor among animal morphs at the tavern was quite different. Clovis was fond of drinking and fond of storytelling, not his own adventures, but stories of heroes, old and new. Perhaps it wasn't the isolation that made one a good hunter, but the obsession for detail, and the passion for narrative. And in no time at all, they reached the horse where she had been left, rein still hanging from the tree as Tom had expected. Tom petted her gently as he lifted the boy into the saddle. Volden was doing his best to stay calm, but his dangling feet could barely reach the stirrups. Knowing another sob was not far away, Tom took a rope from the saddle bag and tied it around the horse's midsection and Tom's legs, keeping him in place. Thus secured, Tom took the reins and began the long trek back to Twone. The mare was clearly not happy at being made to walk again after so short a break, and frequently she would stop and refuse to give in to Tom's nudges, forcing Tom to coax her with clicks and pats. When those finally failed, and the horse bent down to eat some grass instead, Tom took an apple from the saddlebag and managed to lure the horse forward. After several hundred feet, the horse grew wise to her futile attempt to reach the apple, and Tom had to peel off small pieces of apple to satisfy the horse. It was a frustrating effort, but it managed to focus Volden's attention on something besides his sobs, and even amused him a bit. Finally, as the last of the apple was consumed, and the horse felt some vindication by her mischief, the three made good time as they passed from the foothills into the dense forest that straddled the steep mountainous cliffs. The forest here was far more treacherous than the one near Twone, where overturned logs, tall grass, creeping ivy, and slick rocks hid dangerous slopes and downturns, and the thick foliage made it impossible to see all but forward down the path, even from horseback. Tom wondered if even the Longs could make it through this terrain, or at the very least an animal morph's keen senses. "You must think I'm a coward," Volden said quietly, his voice barely a squeak above the horse's hoofbeats, muffled by the forest around them. The thought hadn't occurred to him. Tom was no soldier; in the forest, survival was a question of speed, strength, and cunning, but not courage. "I've never had children. So I can't imagine how it feels to lose one." "I still don't believe it," Volden said. He was staring into the horse's mane as it whisked to and fro. "Nobody can," Tom said. "I just... I keep seeing that night over in my head. I knew something was wrong with my girl. I could feel it, but I..." He paused for a long time, and waited for them to carefully descend a switchback where the tree roots made a natural stairway. "I shouldn't have let her go that night. I should've trusted myself." "You had no reason to suspect otherwise," Tom said, watching the path up ahead. His mind was already rehearsing the inevitable questions, the story of when he last saw Lori and Benjamin, what he'd been thinking, why he hadn't seen anything in the woods. "I hear Benjamin was cooking up a spell of sorts in the woods. He was the last person I ever saw my girl with." His knuckles turned white as he gripped the reins. "He hid up in a tree, and watched that one girl run for her life in the woods, and my little Lori..." "I don't know much about magic," Tom said, "but I did see what remained of that supposed 'spell', the morning after. It was just a gridwork of lines and circles, with a bunch of fancy designs in it. No more magic than a work of embroidery." "Who cares if it was magic or not?" Volden hissed. "He's worked on our farm for as long as he's been a gorilla. We trusted him to watch our girl. And just yesterday, he comes back and meekly apologizes and says he'd like to get back to work as usual. Can you believe it?" Tom didn't answer at first. "So you told him no?" "I told him I never wanted to see him on our land again. Hard worker or not, I can't look at him and not see the man who murdered my girl." "You don't believe it really was wolves?" "Oh, the wolves did the work." Volden shook with rage, though Tom couldn't tell who towards. "But I know it was Benjamin who summoned them." "My dad found a bag in the woods, near where the spell is," Tom hastily said. The bag itself wasn't incriminating, and there was no evidence to connect it to him. It would be safe to tell Volden about it. "With badger fur inside. But no trace of the badger." "Besides the blood stain in the middle of the spell?" Volden glowered. "Probably bait to entice the wolves further. Or worse, a sacrifice to Ba'al." The distraction failed, Tom switched tactics. "Nancy would know better than I what happened. She was there too." "And she refuses to say anything. Not why she was there, or how long, or what she saw them doing. I don't blame her, either. No one should have to live through that. To see your best friend get torn to pieces in a sacrifice." "I think it's a hasty conclusion to believe that wolves attacked." "Your own father thinks it was wolves. Why would you disagree with him?" Tom and his father had agreed on one thing: that there had been a wolf in the woods that night, because they found a single line of tracks that had been made, leading up to the clearing, and back to the mountains. But they disagreed from there. Clovis believed that there had been multiple wolves behind those tracks, and that they had rushed in, surrounded and ambushed Lori, with Benjamin and Nancy escaping. Tom argued that it was a lone wolf who had made multiple tracks over many days, searching aimlessly for a quick meal. Clovis rightfully pointed out that a single wolf could not devour a whole girl in just a few minutes, and there was no sign that she had been dragged away. Of course, the real reason was that Tom knew these woods like a true gamekeeper. He knew how frequently the wolves came to the woods, and what their preferred prey was. He'd reached out to the hunters of Lorland for practical hunting tips, to learn how the winters affected wolf behaviors. He'd been up to these very mountains to study the wolves when they had first moved in two years before. Even if he hadn't been in the woods that very night, he knew that the mild winter meant the early return of the elk herds to the mountains; wolves only preyed on humans after cold harsh winters, when no other food remained in their range. "My dad is scared of wolves," Tom said. "He's been looking for an excuse to get rid of them since they moved in. This is his personal vendetta against them." "So you think we're here for no reason?" Tom hesitated. He had promised Clovis to let him have his way. But as long as he had the opportunity to fix what he'd started, he had to say something. "I don't think Lori is dead." Tom turned to see Volden's reaction. He was staring right at him, eyes boring through his own. "How dare you," Volden hissed. "We never saw--" "You're still a child," the age-regress said. "So I know you don't mean anything by it. You love your wolves so much, you don't think they would eat a child whole. You saw it, as I did. It's a cruel thing to tell a parent in grief, who has seen their own child's bloody garment, that their kin is alive out there, struggling and alone." "It was just a shoe. She could easily have lost it." "Nothing would make me happier, if the scouts carried her down from that wolf cave above us, if she were cold, starved, crippled, weather-beaten, delirious and half-blind. I would weep for joy to hold her once more. Why would you do that? To give me false hope for something that will never happen?" "It's too soon to say farewell." "Benjamin killed her," Volden said. "No one else will believe me. That's fine. As long as he never practices magic again, I can live with him. Just not work with him." Tom didn't respond, and neither did Volden. The two of them walked on in silence, passing from the woods into another valley and switchback. Though their feet were bringing them closer to Twone, Tom felt as if he were getting further and further from his village than ever before. </div></div>