A large beast burst through the underbrush, its white striped breast heaving as its black hooves sunk into the soft, dark soil. Its passage stirred up the still air, carrying with it the scents of fear and heavy sweat that clung to its light brown hide. Its pursuers burst through the brush it just vacated. The noise spurred it on. Its eyes grew wide and wild as it ignored the pricks of burrs and the slap of branches against its antlers.
The lead pursuer, a sleek, steel gray wolf nearly the size of the prey it harried, veered off to the left, its rider tucked against the fur on its back. The wolf’s tongue lolled out, but not from fatigue. Sheer excitement pounded through every fiber of its being. It had been made for this, born for it, and it knew its prey would be beneath its teeth soon. A dusty brown packmate came up on the right and matched strides. Its own rider lying flat against it, their arms and legs holding tight to leather straps. Together the two wolves flanked the great buck even as a third ashen wolf and rider traced a straight line to the animal’s short tail.
Their prey strove harder, foam splattering across its hide as it sensed the ground it had lost and they had gained. Its great heart pounded in its chest, giving its all to the limbs that were growing heavy with strain.
The great buck stumbled. The wolf on the right lunged. Claws and teeth caught in the deer’s flank, the extra weight pulling it down while the deer’s long legs pinwheeled and stomped, unwilling to give up despite its doomed situation.
The center wolf dug into the deer’s haunches and brought them flush with the earth as the wolf on the left jumped for the throat. Blood filled the hunter’s mouth, hot and sweet as its fangs sunk through the tender flesh. A bellow shook the trees. The final, desperate cry of an animal that lost the race of life. It shuddered, then lay still, its strength now belonging to the predators who held it within their jaws.
The wolves released their grip as their prey went still, tails at attention, ears standing erect. They were eager, expectant, but calm and happy as their riders slid from their backs to examine their handiwork. The three men, ruddy as the setting sun from the tops of their rough shorn hair to the bottoms of their leather shod feet, quickly went to work.
One drew a sharp hunter’s knife, its five-inch blade opening the neck as easy as the wolf’s fangs. The other two pulled long, hand-woven rope from the leather harnesses that twined their way around the wolves’ bodies. With deft hands, they knotted a rope around each hind hock, then threw the ropes over a sturdy branch. With a heave, the deer rose from the forest floor. Its flaccid tongue hung down as the rest of its life fluid ran from the gash in its neck and collected in a small, carved bucket. The wolves waited while the men worked.
A sharp cry cut through the focus of the hunters, shrill and urgent. The wolves cocked their heads, but they would not move unless their people decided they should. After all, a human babe was none of their concern.
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The men halted their job, the partially flayed deer hide hanging off of the dangling carcass. They muttered among themselves for a moment, trying to decide the best course of action. The cry sounded from a newborn. While every one of them would normally race to help a child in need, they knew a newborn alone in the forest was likely to mean one thing — the child was weak or ill-formed. Such a child would only take from its parents, from its village, and never give. Such an existence should return to the land, so that its essence could be recycled into a different form. To interfere with that was taboo. None dared risk such a dire offense.
“But what if it wasn’t left on purpose?” one asked. To leave a healthy youngling to die would bring offense to the Fokla, the spirits of the forest. Dared they risk that either?
There was no suitable answer, and the wails grew more insistent. Finally, they decided the path of least harm was to look. If the Fokla favored the baby, let them show them a sign, otherwise, they would leave it to its fate.
The wolves padded behind the men, alert. Their riders walked with rigidity, a tightness that bled down to them and made them wary. If something attacked, they would be ready.
Before long, they found the source of the piercing cries. On a bed of leaves lay a tiny, bare baby girl, so new to the world her ghostly pale skin kept a waxy hue and the remains of the cord which bound her to her mother still stuck to her round stomach.
“It’s as I said,” one man huffed. “It’s Unmarked and weak. Just look how small and pale it is. We should leave.”
Another sighed. He hoped to rescue a survivor of some unfortunate event, but this was not the case. He nodded, ready to turn back to finish preparing their kill. They only managed one step when a gale ripped through the trees. It knocked them down; the leaves caught within its grasp, cutting small grooves into their exposed flesh as it whipped by.
They turned in the direction the gale blew to protect their eyes, finding themselves yet again facing the Unmarked. The sight forced a quick prayer from the lips of all three.
Still tiny and deathly white, yet now surrounded by leaves that had touched down in a star-like pattern far too intricate to be chance.
“Look, brother, the forest has spoken.” The man smiled. He had been right. None of them could deny the sign of the forest the very wind had drawn around her leafy cradle.
His comrades stood, perhaps stunned, perhaps still unsure. Let them doubt the very spirits. He would not. He shed his fur tunic, wrapping it around the delicate form that calmed at the proximity of another person.
Shaken, but with a job to do, they returned to the carcass. They stripped the hide. Although the blemishes in it from the wolves’ attacks marred its surface, it would make fine leather once treated.
A swift cut lay the entrails bare, anticipation rising among the wolves at the sight of such tender meats. The men wasted no time in freeing the offal from the body cavity and threw it to their drooling companions. No piece would go to waste. They would fillet away the meat for food and collect the bones for tools, toys, and utensils.
As the knives glided over the muscle and through sinew, a baby looked on from a furry tunic-turned-blanket, smokey alabaster eyes tracking something unseen through the canopy.