Ai wasn’t sure how Jack had managed to use the same limited ingredients as her yet produce something that tasted like food rather than burnt onion and stringy meat, but he had. The goblin had sung his praises too, apparently easily won over with the taste of good food.

While they were bonding, Ai took the time to start applying the brownish purple goo to her blades. When she had money and resources, she was going to get herself a proper pair of daggers. They would have small pockets in the blades that would release the poison. The thought actually made her warmer inside than anything else right now, and she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to look into that.

“I can teach you to cook if you want.” Jack interrupted her musings.

“I’m not sure that’s possible.” Ai said, and she was telling the absolute truth.

“It can’t be that hard. You made that poison and that looked more complicated than cooking.”

Ai pulled a face. She agreed, she really did, but apparently there was a divide between what happened in her mind and reality. The poison had specific ingredients, specific colours. Measured amounts. In comparison, cooking was like a mish mash of ‘a little more of this’ and ‘a little less of that’. Calling them alike was sort of like comparing a butcher and a surgeon.

They were, but not really.

“Maybe another time, when we don’t have limited ingredients.” Ai thought that sounded reasonable.

She held the short sword out in front of her, the blade looked faintly oiled, shimmering in the filtered light.

“We can have the bread and cheese that the woman we saw gave us come morning. I get the feeling we’re going to need our strength.”

Jack eyed the blade.

“Are you going to catch our bait with that tonight?”

Ai nodded. “The poison should knock it out for a solid 16 hours, we’ll keep it overnight and work out getting the drugs into it then.”

Jack nodded.

“I would offer to help, but I doubt I’d be much use.” His half grin was filled with pointed teeth.

“Hey Jack.” Ai paused. “What did Celina mean? When she called you an assassin.”

“Dunno.” Jack shrugged. “I’ve never assassinated anyone.”

He sounded and looked so unconcerned, Ai didn’t doubt that he was telling the truth.

“Well, I’ll be back soon.”

***

The Rou Horses hadn’t moved very far. Ai crept along the ground, making sure she was down wind. Her only question was how she was going to get close enough to one to get a decent amount of the poison in its system.

Charging in like an idiot wouldn’t work, and if the branches above them didn’t look so flimsy she would have done a drop attack from above. As it was, neither were viable options.

She wished for a moment that she knew more about bush craft than what Kele had deemed to be the absolute basics of survival. She knew how to make a basic twine trap but didn’t have the time to sit around and see if it caught something.

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She palmed the knife.

She could throw it at one, except she had never tried throwing a knife in her life and was 90% sure it would end up with total failure.

Ai scanned her surroundings. There had to be some better way to do this than brute force and chance. What did she know about the Rou horses?

They often travelled along the same paths through the jungle, and were one of the easiest prints to pick up in the wilderness. Ai knew they were easiest to catch around water hollows and that once caught, as long as she held their head down to keep their centre of gravity low they wouldn’t be too hard to keep caught. All it would take then was a shallow cut and it would be hers.

There was no point in spooking this herd, she wasn’t even sure she could get close to them before they scattered. Even as far away as she was now, about 40 feet, they would hear her if a single twig snapped underfoot. Their ears were constantly rotating, listening for just that.

Sighing she eased back from her crouch, circling around to get in front of them, hoping the dung masked her scent from them as well as the Queen Bean.

A water hollow wasn’t too far ahead. The clay like soil was broken up and brush sprouted up from the ground around it.

It was time to put some of her training into practice. She knew it was necessary, but she still didn’t particularly appreciate coating herself in mud and sitting back so she was cloaked by the prickly bush. If her clothes had started to smell before, now they were in dire need of a wash.

She felt like the only person in the world who had these mundane problems sometimes; Kele and Tal always seemed to be impeccably clean.

She sat there for a long time. Her feet were cold in the muddy water and the ground beneath her bum was slippery and wet. The bush behind her seemed to take great pleasure in poking her in the back. Constantly.

By the time the horses appeared, her legs were getting stiff and the water was beginning to feel warm, it gave testament to just how cold her feet must have been at that moment.

Holding still, she kept her hands loose and ready.

If she didn’t catch one, she was going to be pissed.

Amazingly, the horses seemed blind to her presence. The mud was doing its job.

The first horse lent down on the opposite side of the pool, its flank shivering slightly. She could hear the huff of them breathing. The way they turned over the mud with their hooves, occasionally stamping against the ground. Like ghosts their dappled coats seemed bright amongst the duller grays of the forest.

For a moment it was just her surrounded by wild, untamed life. Then, one of the horses moved right beside her.

It froze, nostrils flaring but that was all that Ai needed. Her arm lashed out, curling around the horses neck and trapping its head in the crook of her elbow.

It gave what could only be describes as a squeal and with a rush of movement, the other horses fled. Ai was blind to it as the horse twisted its head, yanking backwards.

Keeping a good grip without suffocating it, Ai sank to her knees in the water, pulling its head down. After a moment, right when Ai thought she might lose her grip, it stopped.

Its neck was hot against Ais cold body, and its breaths came in short huffs. It was so…alive. Ai couldn’t think of a better word for it.

Then, with her free hand, Ai pulled out her knife and quickly sliced its chest.

The horse jerked, but didn’t begin to fight again. Ever so slowly, it began to sink to its knees. Ai used its head, steering it out of the water. The horse would be heavy, and with her strength she wasn’t confident to get it out of the water before it drowned.

Pushing forwards the wild horse made another attempt at freeing itself before it rolled heavily onto the ground, no longer supported by Ai.

Forty seconds, longer than Ai had hoped. She had probably given it too little.

Unconcerned Ai used its legs to pull the horse up and onto her shoulders. Bowed over with the weight, she kept it secure with one hand on each pair of legs. She could actually feel the inhale and exhale of each of its breaths.

Stroking the horses short velvety fur, Ai took her first step. She wished she didn’t have to kill anymore. It wasn’t a pleasant business, and she couldn’t imagine it ever being something she enjoyed. For a moment, she put herself in the horses ‘shoes’.

Paralyzed and unable to move as a scaly death approached, many times bigger than her. Looming over her, sniffing the terror on her flank and hearing the rapid beat of her heart.

Ai shook the image away, concentrating on walking. She didn’t envy what this creature was going to go through. Not at all. Part of Ai hoped that it would still be asleep when she sacrificed it, but the harsher part of her brain said no.

The horse would die, and die painfully. Ai hoped it was sleeping well, because this would be its last.