Chapter 1

When Life Gives you Mushrooms

Mercy padded lightly through the woods, as quiet as a whisper, as graceful as a swan.

Only the chirping of birds in the trees above and crickets in the brush broke the silence of her surroundings.

She’d been hunting her prey for a while now, following its tracks through the browny, green foliage to a clearing she could see just up ahead at the top of a hill.

Mercy took in her surroundings as she moved. Trees, and lots of them. Not as many as there had been up north. They’d thinned out some as the convoy that she and her father travelled with, moved south.

She scanned the ground. There were the tracks that she was following and others mixed in there. Some small; some worryingly big. She didn’t know what had made the big sets and decided to not pay them much heed anyway. Probably old tracks, she thought. She focused only on the set she was tracking.

She crouched low, pulling her forest green hood up over her thick, red hair and pointed ears. It was hot — too hot for a cloak and hood, but she wanted the added camouflage.

Carefully, she made her way up the hill.

She slowed her breath and half nocked an arrow to her bow.

Still keeping low she crested the hill and felt a pang of joy run through her entire body at the sight of what was before her.

Finally! she rejoiced within.

A deer stood not fifteen strides away drinking from a pond with mushrooms growing around it. Mercy recognised them as being edible, an added bonus. She would cook them up with the venison.

The pond itself may as well have been an oasis in this climate, it was scorching hot. She grimaced, it was only going to get hotter the further south they travelled as well.

But as her father had said once —that’s life, and when life gives you mushrooms you eat them. Not a great saying, but it had stuck with her through the years. It was blunt and to the point but didn’t allow for the fact that not all mushrooms are edible.

She watched the deer drinking at the pond for a moment, memorising the serene image before her. Light was shining down through the leaves of the canopies above, dappling the deer, pond and surrounding area with golden circles of light.

She grinned happily. It was also a tasty looking deer. Healthy with plenty of meat on it. Her father would be impressed.

Mercy imagined him returning to their meeting spot to see her with this deer.

“No big deal old man.” She’d say smugly, slapping the side of her kill to outline her amazing success.

He’d be unhappy about it. Or so it would seem. His grey, scarred face would crinkle up into a scowl. A scowl of pride and that would be a fine thing.

Mercy grinned at that thought, maybe he’d give her the other ear clasp to match the one she wore on her left ear. She doubted that he would, but it was also a fine thing to dream.

Expertly, Mercy raised her bow and fully drew her arrow, taking careful aim. She ran her tongue along the tips of her top teeth as she always did when focusing.

The deer stopped drinking from the pond and raised its elegant head high, scenting the air. Enjoy that fresh air my friend. She thought.

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Mercy was not worried, she was downwind of it after all.

The deer looked around sharply, its ears straightening to panicked attention. There was a loud cracking noise of dry branches snapping from somewhere on the other side of the clearing. Startled, the deer began to flee.

“Shit!” she cursed at the sudden disturbance. Moving targets were not her forte. She’d have to shoot it now before the damned thing was out of sight.

Hastily she trained her sights on the spooked bastard and loosed the arrow. The bow string twanged and the arrow flew by the deer just shy of its neck and thudded into a tree behind it.

The deer carried on running, escaping the clearing and vanished behind a thicket of trees, taking her dream of seeing her fathers prideful scowl with it.

“Shit!!” She cursed again loudly. She’d have to start all over again. She was furious with herself. But her anger was short-lived.

Another loud snapping noise sounded, she’d forgotten about the first in her excitement to shoot the deer.

Mercy felt her fury wilt as she saw what had made the noises. To the left of her a newcomer had entered the clearing. A big newcomer. Suddenly to Mercy’s mind it seemed foolish now that she had ignored the bigger set of tracks from earlier.

A huge Lo-bear slowly lumbered its way into the clearing stepping heedlessly on branches with its great clawed feet as it did so. Mercy stood frozen with fear and astonishment staring at the great beast. Its dark, shaggy black fur dappled with black spots, its thick black mane that surrounded its great head and long bushy black tail to match. It looked around and she saw its yawning mouth full of sharp teeth and short protruding tusks either side of its face that was framed with two pointed black ears.

It turned and stared straight at her with a look of hungry curiosity. Its beady, contemptuous eyes seemed to say — ‘that’s a tasty looking Aeth, not a lot of meat on it but Bear father will be impressed’—.

It stood on its hind legs, stretching to its full height and roared its fury in her direction.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit” she muttered as she hurriedly nocked another arrow and fired.

Unlike the deer the lo-bear was accommodating enough to stand still and was a considerably larger target. Her arrow pierced the low-bear’s shoulder cutting off its roar into a grunt of pain.

It dropped down to all fours and charged her.

Mercy managed to shoot one more arrow, but again it hit the monster's beefy shoulder.

This seemed to only enrage lo-bear which carried on with its deadly charge.

Mercy threw down her bow and removed her two daggers from their sheaths on her hips.

When life gives you mushrooms you eat them after all.

She gave a fighting roar of her own and ran straight at the enraged creature.

It lunged at her with one monstrous claw, she ducked and rolled past it. It skidded to a halt and began to turn to lunge again but Mercy was too quick, she jumped up and peppered its side with quick successive jabs of her daggers, blood spurted out with each withdrawal and splashed her pale hands and wrists with little red dots —chicken pocks. Her adrenaline fueled mind thought.

The lo-bear howled in pain and flailed at her with its right claw, she ducked the blow again but the huge claw got caught in her cloak and sent her reeling as it tore from her shoulders.

It threw itself at her with the intention to bite her throat out, still staggering Mercy clumsily slashed at its face cutting its eye open. The beast let out a guttural cry swinging its head around in agony and butted her in the chest.

Mercy yelped and was thrown backwards by the blow. Her foot caught in some brambles and she went sprawling to the ground.

She made to get up but a heavy claw slapped her back down and pinned her there on the muddy bank of the pond. She wheezed as the air was forced out of her lungs by the pressure of the beast's weight.

Mercy looked up into the snarling, furious one eyed face of the bear. Fuck. she thought dimly, feeling herself go cold all over. This was quite the predicament she’d gotten herself into.

The lo-bear roared triumphantly in her face, its spittle splattering all over her. then its black tongue shot out towards her and it vomited blood onto her spit drenched face. What the shit?

The pressure on her chest relaxed as the beast toppled sideways crashing down lifelessly by the pond. Mercy lay in shock for a long moment, then gingerly she rose to a sitting position and wiped her bloody, spit soaked face with her muddy arm which didn’t make a great improvement. she frowned. There, stood by the pond cleaning his ebony blade was her father.

He stared straight at her, his eyes always looked like glowing coals, they were amber and surrounded with dark grey instead of white. Those charcoal eyes glowered at her disapprovingly. Then he said in his deep growling voice “this is not a deer.“

It certainly wasn’t.