Chapter Four:
The Hound and the Hare
Trug caught up with Rhonny a short way down the road leading out of the hamlet. He tried to slow down and make it look casual, but the amused look she gave him as he approached made it clear that he'd failed miserably. They turned off the road a short while later, onto a small dirt track that led into a dense copse of woods. Conversation started awkwardly at first, with Rhonny inquiring about Trug's father, the new settlement, his apprenticeship and other such things. Trug slowly recovered from his initial embarrassment and warmed to the topics at hand.
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“So, Rhonny, be honest. What sort of beasts have you run into in these woods?”
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“Oh, all sorts. Slavering owls, rabid squirrels...”
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Trug rolled his eyes. “Sounds horrifying. So why are you looking around as though you expect a horde of angry werewolves to leap out at us?”
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Rhonny shrugged as her eyes continued to rove among the dappled shadows and tree trunks. “Habit, I suppose. My father taught me a quick motto when I used to go out gathering with him – 'Confident, cocky, lazy, dead'. Made sense to me.” She pointed ahead, where the lighter grey of ash trunks began to give way to the darker, gnarled trunks of oak. “There's our spot.”
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As they approached the nearest oak, Rhonny reached up to the leaves and snapped off one which had a large, swollen lump on the bottom. “Easy as that. Wasps lay their eggs in the leaves, and the tree swells up around it.” She pulled a smaller pouch from her satchel and tossed it to Trug. “Let's spread out. Get that filled up and we should be set for oak gall for a while.”
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It was quick work, and Trug and Rhonny had filled their pouches with the green pods in no time at all. “Not too bad,” said Rhonny with a grudging nod, “for a scribe.” Trug puffed up indignantly. “Hey now, I'm not just a -"
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A loud, coughing growl cut through the silence of the forest like a knife, and a black and grey blur sped across the grove toward Trug. He barely had time to register a pair of enormous ears and a mouthful of needle-sharp fangs before the beast slammed into his chest and bore him toward the ground.
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Trug heard Rhonny scream and was distantly aware of her unslinging her bow and drawing an arrow from her quiver. Time had slowed to a bare crawl, and he was having far too much time to examine the creature that was about to tear his throat out.
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The beast was a canis rabbit, often called a cane. They were comparable in size to a wolf, but with the long, strong hind legs of a hare. A coarse mane rose up from its shoulders to the top of its narrow head, where it was bracketed by a pair of long, hare-like ears. It was a predator, and its long fangs were well adapted to tearing into the larger herbivores it preferred as prey.
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Trug had time to get an arm across his throat just before the cane's muzzle could press in under his chin. There was a quick, wrenching sensation and he could no longer feel his hand. That could not possibly be a good sign, he thought, as the cane shook its head from side to side. Above the cane's snarls, he faintly heard Rhonny shouting at him.
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“Trug! You need to get it to back off or I can't take a good shot! Twist its ear!”
With a surge of adrenaline fueled strength, Trug shoved his arm up into the jaws of the cane, forcing its head up just far enough for him to be able to reach across with his free hand and grab one of its long, sensitive ears. He gave it a sharp wrench, and the cane's snarls changed to a yelp of pain. Its hind legs kicked it forward and away from Trug, adding a new dimension of pain to Trug's world as its claws dug into his legs.
Snap, thunk! A feathered shaft sprang from Rhonny's bow and took the cane in the throat, the barbed head erupting from the back of its neck in a spray of bright, arterial blood. She lithely stepped to one side as the cane crashed to the ground where she had been standing, growling and snapping weakly at the arrow buried in its flesh. Rhonny nocked another arrow and fired it after taking a bare second to aim – burying it up to the fletchings in the cane's chest. The cane's struggles ceased almost instantly, and Rhonny ran over to where Trug lay on the ground with a growing pool of crimson seeping out from under his arm.
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'Shit, shit, shit,” Rhonny muttered, as she dropped her bow and started to tear strips of cloth from the hem of her dress. Trug tried to sit up, but Rhonny shoved him in the chest, hard. “Stay down, you idiot. Your arm is leaking like a sieve, don't make it worse by moving around before I can get the bleeding stopped.” She finished making a pad of cloth from several larger strips and pressed it against the puncture wounds on Trug's forearm. She then began wrapping the arm tightly with longer strips of cloth. “I don't think it got any arteries or you would have passed out by now. Can you move your fingers?”
Trug tried to move his fingers and was rewarded with a faint twitch... along with a pulse of agony that felt like someone was stabbing red-hot needles into his forearm. He gasped and his vision narrowed down to a small tunnel.
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“Dammit, stay with me, Trug. The movement is a good sign, but I can't carry you back to town myself. You need to stay awake. And we need to move fast.” Her eyes continued to rove the treeline as her hands finished binding the crude bandage to Trug's arm. “I've never seen a cane this close in to town before, but where there is one, there is probably at least one more. Take a minute to get your wits back, and then we have to go. How does your arm feel?”
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“Hnnh... Hurts... but not as bad. I... I think I'm okay to walk.”
Rhonny rose to her feet, retrieving her bow and nocking another arrow. She held a hand out to Trug, and helped him to his feet. Trug hissed in a breath through his teeth as his wounded arm shifted, but he nodded when Rhonny raised her eyebrows questioningly. “Let's go. Try to keep your arm cradled in close to your chest, I don't have time or materials to make a good sling. I'd rather not go back to town with no dress at all.” Trug quickly looked away from her much higher hemline, but not quickly enough. Rhonny snorted quietly. “Now come on, if you're healthy enough to blush like that, you're healthy enough to walk.”
The two left the oak grove, Rhonny watching their surroundings as Trug grimly clutched his torn arm to his chest and plodded along after. Neither of them noticed the two sets of eyes that watched them go from deeper within the grove – two sets of very human eyes. Nor did they see the quick glint of sunlight from the point of an arrow, or hear the creak of a bow as it was slowly drawn back.
