White Ghost and the Poison Arrow (13 page)

Arella
stretches out her arms, then her legs, being careful not to over
stretch and pull a muscle. She then slowly twists to her side and
then touches the ground. Once she feels like all of her muscles are
stretched out, she sets off at a gentle jogging pace into the
forest. Maska is hot on her heels and runs along beside her.

Running is very
relaxing for Arella, but it’s been a long time since she has been
able to do it properly. She used to use it as an escape from
everything, and an excuse to get away and think about things, but
recently she has had far too much to think about and do to need
that time away. Fitness is key however, and Arella quickly realises
she has let her fitness slip. After only a few minutes of running
she is beginning to feel out of breath. “Let’s stop just up here
Maska.” She pants at him. He meows back at her in agreement. Arella
realises that they are not far from where she planted the snares to
catch the rabbits and veers off in that direction. “We can check
the snares while we rest for a minute.” Arella says hopefully.
Masks stalks over to the closest snare, sniffing the air as he
goes. Arella is close behind him and sees a rabbit caught in the
snare. It has its back leg caught in it, and is struggling to get
free. Arella walks over to the frightened rabbit. She takes her
dagger out of her boot and quickly plunges it into the rabbits
skull from above. “I’m sorry little rabbit, but you will feed us
well tonight.” She says to the furry creature. She uses the snare
to tie around all four of the rabbits legs and ties it high in a
tree where no other animal can get at it. Her and Maska check the
other snares and find another rabbit. Arella does the same thing
with this one, and also hangs it in the tree. “We will collect
these on our way back to the house later tonight.” Arella tells
Maska. Although Maska is not pleased by the idea of having to wait
to eat the meat, he does not argue with Arella's decision.

Arella and
Maska then continue their run, and they stop when they reach the
black beach by the lake. Arella stops on the sand, and Maska stops
with her. He looks tired, and so does she, but Arella feels
good.  Maska stretches out and yawns a little. “I guess you’re
tired after that run. How about you go to sleep on that warm sand
Maska, and I will carry on working out. Then when I am done, we can
go back to the tree house and rest?” Maska seems to like the idea
of that and finds himself a comfortable place to rest on the black
sand. If it weren't for Maska's bright green and orangey-yellow
eyes looking at her, Arella would not know Maska was laid on the
sand. He blends in beautifully.

As she
stretches out her arms, reaching up to the sky as high as they can
go, Arella feels more of the tension she has been feeling release
from her body. She them reaches down to her toes, stretching her
back as well as her arms, grabbing her ankles to hold her in place.
Next Arella stretches out her legs, pulling the muscles tight as
she does so. She then does the splits to stretch them out further.
Arella has always been flexible, but she can feel in her muscles
that they are not used to the stretching recently. She touches her
toes on the right hand side, bending her chest to her knee. This is
difficult, but she can just about reach. She then does that same on
her left hand side, this time not quite being able to touch her
chest to her knee.

Once fully
stretched out, Arella begins her fight training. Watching the young
men fight has given her the knowledge she needs, but the theory
behind it is not so easy to learn. She starts with a punch. Should
be simple enough. She knows that when clenching her fist, she
should not tuck her thumb into her hand, and not fully extend her
arm or it could cause her more pain than the person she was
punching, however when she tries to punch, she seems to flail her
arm around more than anything else. There is no power behind her
punch. Arella’s thin arms wobble as she punches the air, aiming at
an imaginary target. She continues to punch with vigour, but
imagines she looks ridiculous. She briefly looks down at Maska who
looks like he is almost laughing at her. “Oh you have no room to
talk.” She says to the kitten. “It’s not like you could do any
better.” She then laughs. “It’s not like I’m doing any good at it
either.”

Arella then
moves on to practising her kicks. She aims for stomach height, and
although she hits her mark, there is again no power and Arella is
wobbly on her feet. She tries kicking again, this time losing her
balance and falling on her feet. “Gods damn it!” She says in anger.
“It can’t be that hard to kick. My balance is normally quite good.”
She says to Maska. Arella is too wrapped up in her practice that
she does not hear the voices in the bushes until they are right at
the clearing. The first thing she hears in the booming laughter of
Mato. “Crap!” She spits under her breath, grabbing Maska up and
running for the bushes, praying to the gods that they did not see
her and that they were just laughing at come insanely funny
joke.

“So that is
your ‘White Ghost’ Nashoba. What a disappointment.” Nootau laughs.
“Just a strange looking white girl who can’t seem to keep her
balance and talks to herself.” Nashoba looks hurt, and Arella feels
it.

“She did save
our lives with that wolf yesterday.” Nashoba says.

“I call flook.
There is no way that skinny little white child meant to do that.
She probably did it by accident.” Nootau mocks.

“At least you
know who your stalker is Nashoba.” Mato laughs at him. This will be
a story to tell the others back at the village.”

Arella cannot
listen to anymore. She has been found out, and she is scared. She
quickly scoops Maska up off the ground and heads into the forest in
the same way she came. Once she is sure she is out of earshot of
the men she starts talking again to Maska. “Oh Gods they saw me
Maska!” Arella panics, Maska now on the ground following her fast
paced footsteps. “What if they come looking for me? What if they
think the same as my old village and decided that I am a bad omen?
What if they take it too far and decide I should be dead?” Arella’s
breathing becomes heavy, her heart beats too fast and she feels
sick. Maska moves in front of her to stop her. “What are you doing
Maska, we have to keep moving!” But Maska does not move from in
front of Arella. He lifts up and puts his paws on Arella’s thighs,
applies pressure stays there, as if urging her to sit down. Arella
gets the hint and sits on the ground. Once on the ground Arella’s
breathing begins to slow again, and her heart rate drops. “Thank
you Maska.” She says to the auron kitten. “How did you know to do
that?” But he just purrs in answer, mysterious as ever. “Do you
think they will follow us?” Maska flicks his ear and shakes his
head. “Yeah you’re right. They’ve got better things to do with
their day, and they’re going away soon anyway.” She pauses. “So we
won’t have to worry about them. My fighting skills however we do
have to worry about.” Arella laughs as she gets to her feet. “I
think I will practice in the comfort of our little clearing though,
rather than going to places where I know they might be.” With that
Arella and Maska continue back to the tree house, collecting the
rabbits they caught in the snares earlier that day on their way
back.

Chapter
10

Arella once
again skins the rabbits, and puts the skins to the side while she
prepares and cooks them. It turns our Maska really likes the heads,
which if fine with Arella because she wouldn’t really like to eat
them. While they both sit and munch on roasted rabbit, Arella
starts thinking about the tree house. “I’ve been thinking Maska.”
She says through mouthfuls of food. “The sides of the house aren’t
waterproof. I could use the skins from the rabbits we catch to make
it so.” She takes another bite from the rabbit leg, and Maska chews
on a bone from another. “It needs doing before winter when the
rains come and it gets cold, but we should have caught enough food
by then to make it work.” She pauses a little. “And when you get
bigger, which won’t be long I’m guessing, we will have to catch
larger food like hogs then deer too.” Maska licks his lips then
continues eating.

It is early
afternoon by the time Maska and Arella have finished eating, and
they both feel satisfied and full. While Maska sits and cleans his
fur, Arella sits back and relaxes. She knows her muscles will be
sore later, but at the moment she feels quite good, despite being
seen by the very people she did not want to see her. She knows she
overreacted earlier when they saw her. All those young men saw
Arella as was a silly little girl pretending to be something she is
not, not someone who is a threat to them, therefore they will not
come get her, and they will not want her gone. Arella laughs at
herself for being so silly.

After a while
of sitting, Arella grows bored. She moves over to her deerskin bag
and takes out the broken arrows. She then gathers some sticks from
below her tree. Arella keeps the sticks there as firewood, but some
of the straighter ones will do nicely as shafts for the arrows. She
moves over to the reeds by the side of the lake and collects a few
of them to gather strings from. While she is there Arella notices
that the sprouting she planted in the bank have started to grow.
Arella takes all of these items, and the dagger from her boot and
begins remaking the arrows. The sun is once again setting by the
time she has finished this, and Maska is now wide awake. He chases
glowing bugs that have started to appear in the dying daylight.
Arella sits and laughs at Maska playing with the bugs. “You like
chasing things don’t you Maska?” She says to him. He ignores her
and continues to play. “Tomorrow when the sun comes up I will
practice firing these arrows with my bow Maska. I need to learn so
we can hunt and defend ourselves.” Arella knows the auron kitten
doesn’t really understand her, but his company is nice all the
same.

Arella’s thoughts turn to the men that saw her. She wonders
again if they will care that she watched them, or if they will
follow her. But with everything else they have going on, and with
that wolf that attacked them the other day, Arella highly doubts
it. She then starts thinking about the wolf. What was it doing on
its own, this far from the mountains across the lake where the
other wolves live? Something must have driven it over here. Her
mind then wanders to the auron cat who’s life she had to end. Could
it be the same people who shot her? It’s possible. Arella couldn’t
think of any other explanation for a lone wolf to be that for from
its home. “
I’ll have to look into this. We
can’t have any more animals getting hurt or running scared because
of people.”
Arella thinks to herself. She
looks down at Maska. “
Especially now I have
him in my life. I need to protect Maska with my life. I was
entrusted with him, so I have to do right by him.”
A new wave of determination washes over Arella and
she knows what she has to do. First thing will be to get herself
fitter and learn to fight, and she will have to learn to use her
bow, and how to fight with the grathon properly, then she will
investigate the strange happenings that have been going on and find
out who has been killing and scaring the animals in her
home.

The next
morning when Arella awakes, she is full of energy and excitement.
“Today is the day I fire a bow for the first time Maska.” She says
gleefully at the sleeping kitten. He rolls over lazily. “Okay you
sleep up here a while longer. I’m going to get some breakfast
before the long day ahead.” Arella says as she picks up her boots
and climbs down the tree. She gathers the grathon from the hollow
of the tree where it stays and moves towards the water’s edge. A
rustle in the bushes startles Arella, but she is relieved when it
is nothing more than a malo duck. She laughs at her own fear. The
duck runs along the ground quacking, and heads for the lake where
she then swims away into its centre to join the other malo ducks
disturbing the water as she goes, making patterns that glisten in
the morning sun.

Arella spends a
good hour in the water catching fish for breakfast, the malo duck
must have scared them off. When Arella finally steps out of the
water, two fish in her hand, Maska is already waiting for her by
the bank. He licks his lips and jumps up a little at Arella. “Now
if you carry on like that Maska you won’t get anything,” He stops
instantly and sits patiently by her feet, following every footstep
she takes just far enough away to not trip her over. Arella makes
them a breakfast of fish and grue bulbs, although Maska simply eats
his fish raw. Arella guts and cooks hers, as well as cooking the
bulb, but enjoys it just the same.

After
breakfast, Arella moves over to the hollow in the tree and recovers
the bow and arrows. She then sets up a target using one of the
rabbit skins fixed to a tree and practices her shooting. After a
short time it becomes clear that Arella is rather good with a bow.
She hits the target most of the time, although not in the centre,
and her arrows bury themselves fairly deep in the bark of the tree
behind the target. She practices this for a long time, and is tired
and sweaty after a while. Her shoulders become sore from repeatedly
pulling the string taught and letting it loose, but it is
satisfying to fire the arrows and hit the targets with very little
practice.

The whole time
Arella is firing the bow, Maska is either sleeping or chasing
butterflies around. He is content in this. Arella sits back and
watches his play with the butterflies, chasing them around but
never catching them. She realises as she watches that Maska is
practising too. He is practising his hunting skills. “Let’s go for
a walk Maska.” Arella shouts to the kitten. “We need to re-set the
snares in the woods, and I’d like to collect some nuts for tea.”
Maska stops chasing butterflies and pads over to Arella. He purrs
loudly in her ear and licks her cheek. “Stop it Maska.” Arella
laughs. “That tickles.” She gently pushes him away and they start
walking the short distance to the snares they placed.