This felt… wrong somehow.

Gripping my bow, I readied it just in case as we came to a stop.

Standing in front of Witch, to put myself between her and my great-uncle, I did my best to ignore the way my heart was breaking and writhing around.

It was almost as noisy as the waterfall behind us.

We were in a cavern. A recessed area behind a large waterfall. It had been hidden away… and likely a spot that uncle had hidden away in more than once.

I knew we weren’t far from my original home. I wasn’t sure how far, really, but I could just tell we were close. The forest around here, the rivers and streams… that waterfall… This place smelled like home. Somehow. Even though it smelled like any other forest. The smell, the stink of moss, and the cold dampness… it all just made it clear I was home.

A fitting place to die.

At least he had that.

Uncle was not too far in front of us… but I wasn’t too worried over him hurting me or Witch anymore.

He was lying in a pool of water. Water that looked to him to be just a puddle, but I knew if I stepped into it would come up to my waist. He looked… rather at peace in that pool of water. As if comfortable.

I wasn’t sure how he could be comfortable when covered in arrows, but he seemed to accomplish it.

His tail wasn’t even moving. It rested only half submerged in the pool, and the end of it rested against some of the wet rocks behind him. Not even the tip of the tail twitched, even as he stared at us.

“You’ve grown into a mighty hunter, Rennalee,” he whispered.

His voice echoed a little, but it didn’t last long. The splashing roars of the waterfall drowned them out after the first couple.

“I don’t feel like one,” I told him, admittedly.

My uncle huffed, causing some of the water in his pool to shift and splash. He had breathed out roughly, enough so as to make the pool of water splash.

“Renn…” Witch whispered behind me, and I gulped as I gripped my bow harder.

Yes. I know.

Although defeated… and dying… he was still dangerous. Even if I didn’t feel like he was anymore, it was the truth.

He was still a great one. An elder. A real one.

A beast beyond normalcy. A giant cat, with great intelligence and power.

My ancestor.

My uncle.

Taking a deep breath, I felt the mist of the waterfall and the damp cave fill me. I felt the chill air, on the precipice of winter, mixed in with the scent of my uncle… and his blood.

We had chased him for so long that Witch had given birth.

She of course had not brought her baby here with us. She had left it with Fredlo, who was at a nearby human village. Before we had even truly begun hunting my uncle, chasing him back home, she had foreseen that it would take this long. So she had us make a stop and pick him up.

A whole year it had taken. Winter was almost upon us again. We had hunted two other great ones in-between, along the way, as well.

I had learned and experienced so much… all the while tormenting and hunting my own blood.

“You want me to do it?” Witch asked softly.

Firming myself I shook my head. No.

Definitely not. And not just because he was of my blood.

I turned a little, to look at my teacher. My friend.

I barely recognized her anymore. Even when ignoring the newly fashioned coat made of beaver skin, she looked… almost like a different person.

She was smaller. Skinnier than ever. Her hair had begun to severely thin, and her eyes had become sunken just like her cheeks.

Even her eyes, which in this dark cave should be growing brightly… looked dull and without luster.

My friend who had once been so vibrant and full of life looked like a husk of her old self. A shell. A faded shadow, half a moment from turning to dust.

And it was all my fault.

Squeezing my bow, I looked away from my teacher and to the one who had made her into the shell she now was.

He had been too strong to hunt normally. Too strong to fight. She could not just grab onto him as she had done others. We could not trap him, or poison him, as we had done to others throughout the years.

So my friend, my teacher, in all her wisdom… came up with the very method that brought him to his doom.

She had infused her magic into arrows. Large, heavy, iron arrows. Arrows that only I could use, since no human had the strength to use the bow that could fire them.

I of course didn’t fully understand how her magic worked. All I knew was she would hold the arrows… infuse them with her power, and then I’d shoot them at my uncle.

The arrows that landed successfully, that met their mark, had not only dug deep into my uncle… they had poisoned him.

Weakened him.

Slowly killed him.

I tried not to count the dozens of arrows sticking out of him, or think of the dozens of others I’d shot at him and missed.

Each one of those arrows had taken a toll on Witch. Had sapped her of her life.

She had almost not survived childbirth. That was how weak she had become. In a way, our hunt taking so long was the only reason she was still alive. It had given her time to empower those arrows slowly. One at a time. If she had been forced to bless them with her magic all at once, she’d likely not have survived the endeavor.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Stepping forward, I stepped up near the pool of water. The stones here were slick, the type of slick that told me they were always wet. Constantly. And had been for as long as that waterfall had existed.

“I’m sorry uncle,” I whispered.

“You seem to be, yes,” he said.

Jeez he had gotten good at talking. Had he been practicing this whole time? As we hunted him?

This last year we’d actually not talked much. Usually what happened was I’d sneak up on him, as he slept or hunted, and would shoot him with an arrow. He’d then run off with all his might, and then we’d track him again only to repeat the process.

I did not like how we had done it. I knew that was how we had been taught to hunt, if we weren’t strong enough to kill something outright. To chase it. To wear it down. To make it exhausted, before going in for the kill.

But this felt so horribly wrong…

“Why’d you never fight back?” I asked softly.

“Rather live a few days more,” he answered without hesitation.

I gulped and wondered if that was the truth.

He did seem that terrified of Witch. He feared her, and her magic, so greatly he didn’t even dare to fight back. Even as we slowly whittled down his strength and life.

It was the only reason we had succeeded. He had mistakenly feared her. He hadn’t been willing to attack her directly, because he knew she’d be able to kill him. With her power.

Witch assumed it was those scars on his body. That he had once encountered someone like her. Another woman blessed by gods. That he had known the taste of their power, and danger, and thus instinctively feared it.

If he knew how weak she’d become since then he’d grow furious with himself, no doubt.

“She thought you’d fall within a few arrows,” I told him.

Uncle made an odd noise. A mix of a whine and a purr.

Pride.

I nodded, agreeing with him. Yes. He was a proud creature. A powerful one.

Witch had not comprehended how he had survived this long. Impaled by so many of her empowered arrows. She still didn’t believe it.

But here he was. Still breathing. Still talking… though…

I glanced down to the pool of water. The stuff had gone a little still, since uncle hadn’t moved anymore since his earlier cough.

It was dark. Murky.

Full of his blood.

How long had he been lying in this pool of water…? Days? Weeks?

It had taken us time to find him. Even with Witch able to sense him, with her arrows in him and thus her magic too, it had taken us longer than ever. She had blamed him. She had claimed that since he was so close to death, it had been difficult for her… but I knew the truth.

I’d learned a lot in the last year. More than I wanted to know.

And one of the things I’d learned; was just as my uncle was dying…

Glancing behind me, I frowned in sorrow at the sight of my friend. She was leaning a little oddly… as if about to fall over. She didn’t seem to even realize she was unsteady on her own feet.

The reason it had taken so long to track him down this time, was not because of his condition… but hers.

She had grown weaker. And not just of the body and mind.

“Why hesitate, little one?”

I turned back around to face the being I hated and pitied at the same time.

“I wish I could have convinced her not to pursue you,” I whispered.

I heard Witch shift behind me, but she said nothing.

He chuckled a little, causing his pool of water to ripple again. “Pity. A sign of a true hunter,” he said.

Was it? “I’d think a true hunter wouldn’t know pity,” I said.

“Ah… but we do. Once you realize you’re the top of the mountain, you pity all those beneath you,” he said.

Taking a small breath, I felt my ears flutter. They had grown a tad heavy, thanks to them becoming soaked. There was a slit mist in the air, thanks to the waterfall. And the fur on my ears was always good at soaking up the water in the air.

My eyes began to water too, and I took another breath. A deeper one.

Did I really have to do this…?

He could teach me so much. He really could. Just as she had taught me of humans… he could teach me of my own kind… he could teach me what my parents and grandparents hadn’t. Wouldn’t.

But…

If I didn’t do this… then my friend’s sacrifice would be for nothing.

And…

Glancing over to the right, I studied the pile in the corner. Something I’d been trying my best to ignore since entering this wet cavern.

That pile of bones was unmistakable.

It had been obvious. As we hunted him. Throughout this last year.

My uncle had not just fed on beasts… he had fed on anything and everything. Including humans.

Half the time we had caught him was when he had been terrorizing a human village. They were so weak and frail; they couldn’t do anything to him. So sometimes he’d just walk right into a village, and start eating them. He’d just sit down; eat his fill, ignoring them as they tried to fend him off.

There was one time we had happened upon him as he had been killing a group of knights. Armored humans, with shiny weapons.

Their sharp weapons had not been able to even puncture his fur and hide.

So I knew why my teacher, why Witch, had been so relentless. I understood why she had sacrificed her own vitality, her own magic, to bring him low.

He was a menace. An evil. A terror.

Yet…

“The base of the skull. A little above the spine.”

Standing up straighter, I realized what he had just said.

Shaking a little, I did my best to look deep into his single eye. It looked tired. Exhausted. Yet it was hard to really see, thanks to how blurry my own were.

“I’m sorry, uncle,” I whispered.

He chuckled, and slowly blinked. His mighty eye closed and opened… and I noticed how slowly it had done so.

Was… was it time?

Then… did I really need to do the deed?

Could I not just…

“Be swift… little one…” he whispered. His words had come out strangely, since his lips hadn’t lifted like usual. Odds are Witch hadn’t even understood him.

Ah…

I sniffed as I nodded and stepped forward.

He wanted to die by my hands. Not her arrows.

How could I deny such a thing? Even if it hurt.

Putting the bow down, I stepped into the murky pool. It was strangely warm.

Wading up to him, I reached his head. Even while resting on the ground, it was still as tall as me. The water that reached my thighs barely touched his fangs, the two big ones that peaked out a little from his scarred lips.

His eye studied me, but he himself didn’t move. Even as I reached up and grabbed onto his fur.

Clambering up him, I did my best to not weep as I got myself up onto his neck. Right between his mighty shoulders, I placed myself near the base of his skull. I reached down and felt the spot he spoke of.

It was between two hard bones. One that felt like his spinal column, and another his base of his skull.

The soft spot between them was about the width of my hand. And it seemed at this angle, with him lying down as he was, if I stabbed into it… it would pierce upward, into his head. His brain…

I didn’t have a knife long enough, or thick enough. But I did have arrows. The long, metal arrows.

Only half of them were blessed and infused by Witch. I made sure to grab one of the ones that I knew she hadn’t touched yet. It felt cold, while the others were warm to the touch… even though metal.

Angling the arrow, I found myself oddly calm.

I could do it. I knew where to stab. I knew how harshly to stab. I knew he’d likely jolt, maybe even sending me off him as he recoiled from the shock… but I’d be fine.

“Well done, Rennalee,” he said as I placed the arrow’s point against the soft spot.

Taking a deep breath, I hardened my heart and tightened my grip.

Then I once again ended the life of a family member.