I first heard people while I was still picking my way through the mess of brambles and tree stumps. A cluster of loud voices signaled that I was getting close to town. Their boisterous attitude indicated they thought themselves safer than was wise.

Tasting the air, scrunching up my nose, I searched for potential threats. There were four men in this loud group. There were another two males and two females a bit further out, and three females further still. I spent a moment trying to match the vague blurs of my surroundings and the scents in the air with my memories from last night in an attempt to place these people at locations.

The four men were coated in the pungent odor of heavy exertion on a hot summer day, and the deep, slightly charred aroma of wood shavings. That placed the three women somewhere near the center of Birnstead, and the other four somewhere in the stretch of forest at the other side of town.

Aaaah… do I really have to do this?

One of the four near the sawmill was Not-quite-yeast, Shae’s dad. I did not look forward to facing him again. Unfortunately, with where everything was, approaching the other two groups would be near impossible without attracting the attention of the rest of town. As I did not want this turning into a public spectacle, that left me with either skipping this step altogether, or facing Onar anyway.

I seriously considered it, not warning them. In the end, my sense of responsibility won out. The ahuizotl nest was too close to the village. If anyone heard me engage those things and came looking… the monster extermination would be hard enough without needing to protect overly curious bystanders. Also, I needed a shovel.

Really should be informing whoever’s in charge of this town as well.

Yeh, not going to do that. Hairy enough as is.

Alert for danger I led Fern out of the trees and towards the sawmill group. The first to spot me was the one whose blood hummed with the delightfully smoldering fragrance of hot embers. His alertness told me he was probably the one that was tasked with keeping a lookout. That he’d noticed me so soon meant he was at least semi-competent.

When the Hot-ember-blood guard turned towards me I held in Fern’s reins and granted the other three the time to notice me as well. The wind slapped a strand of my hair in front of my eyes. Last night's storm had turned my braid into a mess, and I hadn’t gotten around to fixing it yet. Approaching a semblance of dryness had taken priority, not that I’d been particularly successful at that either.

When I pulled my hair away from my eyes, more to keep up the illusion that I wasn’t blind than anything else, the shifting mist of cedarwood man spotted me as well. “Hey, look at this!” he exclaimed.

“Huh, it’s just a kid?” Hot-ember-blood scoffed in response.

‘m not a kid!

I ignored the insult and continued observing. The Hot-ember-blood scented man, perhaps convinced I did not pose a threat, relaxed his posture and hefted something onto his shoulder. It was probably a bow or something, though I really couldn’t tell. Compensating for my eyesight with my other senses had its limits.

The sun also made me terrible at describing people. Don’t ever ask me to give accurate and easy-to-digest descriptions. I’m not good at it. I couldn’t even tell if someone sported a beard half the time; the tall one only worked up to three people and the third one from the left required people to not move around. So instead I cataloged by smell, and hoped I never accidentally named anyone by their scent in public.

Hunger made it worse. And I was hungry. That one fox from last night wasn’t anywhere near enough to compensate for what the rune crafting had done to my body. I had at least some basic visual markers to go on, yet I was still failing to use them.

Not-quite-y— …Shae’s dad was the next to notice me. “You!” he hissed, not quite pointing at me, but close to it, and stretching out the word as long as he could. My trepidation towards him looked to be well-founded. The man was way less cautious now that he didn’t have a daughter to worry about.

“Yeah, ain’t that the kid that helped us during the flood?” The one with a whiff of near-translucent moldy leather stood up straight, ignored Not-quite-yeast Onar’s outburst, and addressed the broad-shouldered, Cedarwood-scented one. “Miss what's her name again?”

Really!

Not a kid!

I wanted to glare at Hot-ember-blood and Moldy-leather. I was not a child. I was merely... less developed than most people my age. Onar already had my focus though and I couldn’t glare at three people at once. Besides, these two calling me a kid actually seemed to be the friendliest of the bunch.

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“Ah, yup, you’re right, it is her.” Cedarwood gestured towards the much shorter Moldy-leather, perhaps hoping that the man could jog his memory. “Vae-something right?”

I think he tilted his head at me… maybe?

Stupid sun.

Stupid eyes.

“Vale.” I accepted Cedarwood’s question with a nod, gave them the same name I’d given half a year ago. “Vale Bryce.”

Meanwhile, the fuming Onar took a step forward, forcing the other three to acknowledge his fury.

“So, this is the girl you think is a vampire then?” Moldy-leather asked him. “She don’t look so dangerous to me.”

Not a vampire!

Even knowing the vampire accusation would come, I fought to suppress a wince. It stung. More than when Shae had asked. Way more than I had expected. I was nothing like those things that had fucked up an entire continent. They were the reason I had to spend my life hidden behind lies, fearing death by Inquisition. I wasn’t anything like those things. I wasn’t that monstrous.

Wasn’t!

Wasn’t?

“She is a vampire, Krav!” Onar seethed at Moldy-leather. “You saw the cat just as well as I did. She was also leaving. Clearly, that was another lie.” then he turned to me and spat out his next words. “What’s your game, demon? Come to woo someone else now that you couldn’t get my daughter?”

Yeh, waaay angrier now.

I let the man’s fury wash over me. As long as he kept up his irrational screeching my calmness would make him look like the unhinged monster. Especially since the other three weren’t outwardly hostile towards me. It even appeared as if Onar was only now telling the others about my visit yesterday afternoon. That was something I could use, maybe break the usual social dynamic of this group a little, isolate Onar from the circle of peers he thought he had.

“I am leaving!” I snapped back, directing my response only towards the furious man. While doing this I nudged Fern ever so slightly closer towards the group, subtly edging myself in between Onar and the other three. Seated on her I had the height advantage, and I was going to use it.

Turning in the saddle I addressed the three men to my right in a much more controlled tone. “But I did not save some of you half a year ago to see you slaughtered now just because you do not trust me.” I took a couple of moments to pretend-steady my breathing, then continued at barely more than a whisper. “You have got a nest. Eight to twelve hungry ahuizotl kits somewhere in the next one to two weeks. If I leave and have to send for another hunter …”

I let my sentence trail off, sighed loudly, and glanced slightly down and to the side of the group. They could fill in the conclusion themselves. And they would. Other hunters wouldn’t get here in time. Right here in front of them was one that could help them; she was extending her hand, offering to help of her own volition, despite the unwarranted hostility from Onar.

I looked up through my eyelashes, glancing from face to face. It was another one of my fake gestures. I couldn’t read their faces in this sun. I didn’t need to. Their posture, smell, and pulse told me enough. Cedarwood sucked in a breath and snapped around to look at the river at my mention of ahuizotl, so that was at least one person that had an inkling of what they were dealing with. My fervor appeared to be enough to silence Onar as well.

Haaa… offer other, more immediate threats, present self as solution.

Sooo easy.

After a couple more seconds to let everything sink in I pointed vaguely upriver. “The nest is beyond that bend.” I paused for effect, granted them the time they needed to realize how close by that was. “I will need a shovel to dig it out, and I need you all to stay away while I am taking care of things.”

Cedarwood was the first to react, running off for a shovel. I hoped he hurried. The other two groups had noticed the commotion and were coming this way. People were coming out of houses as well. This was turning into a crowd, and with Onar’s antagonizing it might quickly turn into a mob. I could work three people, but not a dozen.

To my surprise, Cedarwood did not have to walk more than ten paces. There was a shovel right there apparently. I pretended as if I’d seen it all along and that this was obviously the shovel I intended to requisition. The man surprised me once more when he held out the shovel for me. He came close enough that I did not have to reach for it, and this despite the urgent cautioning from Moldy-leather for him to keep his distance.

That Moldy-leather was regaining enough caution to speak up about it meant I needed to hurry this along. The arrival of more people was causing them to reevaluate, think things through. Onar’s quiet seething wasn’t helping either. Angry ranting was easy to dismiss, calculated coldness not so much.

Soon these people would realize that there could be both an ahuizotl and a vampire threat at the same time. From there it was a only small leap towards me making up the ahuizotl, or me working with those things against the town.

I nodded to Cedarwood in appreciation, then tilted my head towards Onar. “Out of consideration for your desire to not see me again, I will leave the shovel there when I am done. Simply come fetch it in the morning and none of us need to see each other again.”

I thanked the group with another quick nod, then I steered Fern in a wide arc around them all, towards the water. My swift exit might have been overly cautious, but Moldy-leather’s insistence that Cedarwood keeps his distance proved to me that the vampire accusation had taken root, despite me walking around in the sun.

Stupid Ostea.

I was definitely getting out of here as soon as this job was done.

“Stay away when I am busy. I mean it,” I cautioned them one final time before crossing the water. “I should be able to keep them away from the village, but not much more than that.”

“Hey, you sure you’ll be okay on your own?” Hot-ember-blood shouted after me. It surprised me. I hadn’t actually expected any one of them to show that kind of concern, especially not that one. Now both he and Cedarwood had shown willingness to set aside their fear. That was way more than I could have hoped for.

Still two too many that fear me.

“I will be fine,” I shouted back, smiling and waving despite my continued worries. “I jumped into a raging river before. How much harder can this be.”