Tree Singer

the meals that the woodsman cooked, but she had never witnessed a kill. Her family traded what they grew for already dressed meat.
Anatolian ran over, sniffing noisily while Hunter worked. Bile burned Mayten’s throat as she watched the woodsman gutting the deer and throwing the innards to the dog. Much as she loved Anatolian, sometimes his eating habits were downright disgusting.
She imagined Adven would have no trouble slitting her throat if she got badly hurt. He would likely enjoy that task.
Adven’s gravelly voice broke into her thoughts.
“Tray, take the girls on ahead. I’ll stay and help Hunter. We’ll catch up with you. We need to keep moving as long as we have daylight.”
Cather walked up, looking as green as Mayten felt. They walked in silence as Tray led them away from the grizzly scene. Humidity from the previous night’s storm made her damp clothes feel clammy against her skin. She whistled for her dog to join them.
They’d been walking about ten minutes when a scream echoed off the trees, sending fear down Mayten’s spine. Anatolian took off at a run, heading back along the trail.
“Anatolian, come back!” Mayten shouted.
The girls turned to Tray, whose face had gone white as fresh-washed linen.
“Maybe they’re just pranking you again,” Mayten said.
Tray shook his head. “That wasn’t a human scream. That was a mountain lion.”
He pulled the hunting knife strapped to his leg, checked the blade, and slid the knife back in its sheath, then dashed after Anatolian.
Mayten’s heart leaped to her throat. She grabbed Cather’s hand and followed Tray, breaking into a run after a few steps. Shouting and barking filled the air, pierced now and again by that awful, blood-freezing scream.
“Do you think this is real?” Mayten gasped as they approached the last bend. “I wouldn’t put it past Adven to pull another joke.”
Cather shrugged. “We won’t know unless we look.”
The first thing Mayten saw when they rounded the bend was Hunter crumpled unmoving on the ground. Anatolian’s teeth were fastened on the throat of the biggest cat she had ever seen. The enormous cat thrashed about, flinging Anatolian left and right like a child’s doll as it tried to get free.
Tray and Adven stabbed at the cat with knives—knives!—and iron tang of blood filled the air. They missed more than they hit, dodging out of the way as the cat flung Anatolian one way, then the other. Blood was everywhere. Mayten couldn’t tell whether the blood came from the cat, her dog, or Hunter, who still hadn’t moved.
Anatolian—somehow—managed to pin the flailing cat on its back. Adven darted in, sinking his long hunting knife into the cat’s stomach and yanking it downward, spilling entrails across the ground. The cat screamed as Adven lifted his knife and drove it home once again.
The cat went still.
The stench of death filled Mayten’s nose and throat. She stumbled to the bushes and fell to her knees, ridding her stomach of breakfast. The cat’s final moments played over and over again in her mind, prompting another round of heaving. She shook from head to toe, wanting nothing more than to roll into a ball and hide.
When she could finally stand, Mayten turned, intending to ask what she could do to help. But her knees went weak and wobbly at the sight before her. The deer carcass lay in pieces and a few feet away lay the mutilated mountain lion, its paws the size of a man’s spread hand.
A few feet from the cat, Tray kneeled next to Adven, who sat—alive but pale and exhausted—propped against a tree.
Hunter hadn’t moved. Anatolian lay against the woodsman’s side, blood-splattered and weary, watching as Cather leaned over the woodsman. Her pack lay open beside her. With swift efficiency, Cather looked in Hunter’s eyes and felt his pulse. Then she closed her eyes and rested her hands on Hunter’s chest.
She hadn’t raced for the bushes and puked up her guts. She’d gotten to work.
This is her calling, Mayten reminded herself.
But that didn’t take away Mayten’s feeling of helplessness. The ability to communicate with trees was no help at all in a situation like this.
Was that why Adven resented her?
She took a step toward Anatolian and Hunter, grateful her legs didn’t wobble. She’d check Anatolian out. Make sure he wasn’t hurt—
“But he’s a woodsman,” Tray said, his voice tight with pain. “He would have felt the cat’s presence.”
“He was distracted,” Adven said.
Mayten glanced their way, startled by the venom in Adven’s voice. His good eye glared at her as he shoved Tray aside and struggled to his feet. He seemed to be in one piece, though she didn’t know if the blood on his clothing was his, Hunter’s, or the mountain lion’s.
“The cat took us by surprise,” he said to no one in particular. He moved around the clearing, picking up the contents of a scattered pack. “Jumped right on Hunter, grabbed hold of his neck. He wanted our kill—likely been stalking the deer himself—and we interrupted him. Might have gotten us all if it weren’t for that dog. Never seen such a fierce fight, I’ll give you that. Gave me time to get my knife into the beast—”
He glanced at Hunter and went silent, his jaw tight.
Mayten bent over Anatolian, turning her gaze from Adven’s pain. She ran her hands over the dog’s head, searching for any wounds, relieved when she found nothing but a few minor scratches among his matted fur.
“You’re such a brave dog,” she murmured. “Taking down that big cat.”
Anatolian whined and licked her hand.
Cather finally stood and went to Adven. She reached for his shirt and he batted her hand away.
“Don’t worry about me. Take care of my brother!”
“I’ve done what I can,” Cather said in a voice so low Mayten could barely hear, “but I’m afraid Hunter’s wounds are beyond my reach. He’s lost too much blood and his neck is broken. He’s not in pain; he cannot feel anything below his neck.”
Silence filled the clearing, an unnatural quiet that made the hair on Mayten’s arms