Excerpt: In A Zinri's Eyes

The hunt was a bit hard at first. It wasn't as if Kiki didn't already know how to hunt: she'd gone out with her mother many times before. But she hadn't had a lot of time to practice. So far, all she'd ever gone after was small game. Now she was having to catch something large.

Leareth silently laughed at her as she pounced for a hare that came running across in front of her and completely missed. I wasn't ready! she protested. Don't laugh at me! The panther didn't listen, of course, as cats were wont to do.

Kiki picked herself up and growled quietly as she stalked as silently as she could towards a new hiding place, since her original one had been given away already. She was looking for a hexadir, not a hare, anyway. The larger creature would feed all of them for a longer time than would a single hare, which would feed one of them for a single day, unless they made a stew. Even then, it would be hard-pressed to feed a human, a Zinri, and a panther.

The little one stopped thinking as a hexadir came into view. Her nose wiggled as she sniffed at it. It was a male, in rut. Perfect! Now, if she could draw the bow without alerting the creature....

The thing lifted its head in alarm as the bow creaked ever-so-quietly. Kiki swore and let the arrow fly. It hit the animal in the rump, and it took off running at a high speed. Kiki hopped off after it almost as fast as it started to run.

She kept up with it through a mixture of being higher than it and hearing it crash through the brush. It was injured, and so even when it stopped, the scent of blood was intoxicatingly enough to let her know where it was. She didn't notice Leareth behind her until after she'd caught the thing and chomped down on its throat with jaws that were as powerful as any predator's. She was, after all, a predator.

It didn't seem to matter to her that she had been hoofed in the soft underbelly, or that her fur had been scraped away. What mattered was the hot taste of blood in her mouth and the feral feel of the kill beneath her hands and feet as it died. She lifted her blood-soaked mouth and howled in triumph.

I did it! her howl told the world. I killed the beast! I took it down! Me! No one else!

Leareth purred as she rubbed up against Kiki, and it took everything in the little one's power to keep from attacking her friend in the moment of blood-lust that had taken her. After another moment, her eyes cleared and she looked down at the still hexadir.

She pulled the hunting knife Shadow had sent her out with and started to field dress the animal. She took the liver for herself, but gave Leareth the heart. The lungs she left for the spirits of the forest. The entrails and kidneys she left for the other animals. Everything else, she kept for the family, and when she'd tied the creature to the travois she'd created, she dragged it back to the cabin.

Once there, she did more than a field dressing. There, the skin came off. They could use the hide for clothing for Shadow or maybe leather to sell to other humans. The meat would be sliced by Shadow and dried, what didn't go into the stew pot and onto the spit tonight. The bones would be allowed to dry after Leareth had gotten through with them, and they would become fuel for the fire in winter, or perhaps they could be carved and become some kind of toy. It was really dependent on the shape of the bones. The skull, Kiki was certain, would become some kind of holy item for a shaman once it was cleaned and bleached by the sun.

As she worked, Kiki thought about her life in the past year. Shadow had been teaching her a lot, and she had taught him at least as much. He had begun showing her herbs and plants for healing, and for harming. He showed her how to make poisons, and how to counteract them. He told her about as many problems as the body could have that she could remember, and then he told her how to deal with each problem, step by step.

It was a lot to take in, but for a six year old, she was learning quickly, and he often told her she was his star pupil. She often would respond that she was his only pupil, and at that he would laugh and tell her to prove it. This would always perplex her, since she was the only other person she had seen him teach. No one else who came really counted, she thought. THey were all patients and guests looking for advice.

Though what was a man looking for advice, except a student? The thought caught her off guard, and Kiki had to stop slicing the haunch of deer before she cut herself as she mulled it over. "I be durned," she said. "Him's gots uva students affa aww!"

"What was that, Kiki?" Shadow called from the garden where he had been tending some of the plants he cultivated for the healing of the sick.

She went to him and hugged him tightly around the middle with both sets of arms as he stood up to meet her at the edge of the garden. "I jus' figgered out what oo mean by uva studentses," she said. "Eberybuddy who comeses here issa student, right?"

Shadow beamed at her. "I think you figured it out, Kikster!" he said, and got a piece of honey candy from his pocket for her. He laughed as she gobbled it up with happy noises and bounces. She loved her sweets, and no one could say any different!