Beat Eight

Amity froze, instinctively, as she began visualizing the thing caught in the trap. Before, it had been a vague, sympathizable concept. Something to feel accomplished and responsible while pursuing, and far enough away to safely treat as harmless. Now she had to think of it as it was: an injured, cornered animal. 

There were a few possibilities. The first, and easiest to resolve, was that the thing could be dead from blood loss. In that case, she could remove it from the trap and come back triumphant.

The second possibility was that the thing was so injured as to be dying. It'd be desperate, with the efficacy of its self-defense depending on its remaining level of energy. That'd mean a judgement call between trying to put the thing down, or else trying to free it and lend some kind of aid. But the more strength it had remaining, the harder it'd be to subdue for treatment, to the extent she could do such a thing in the field. Amity briefly considered the difficulty of carrying a live coyote back to the barbery. She shook her head to clear away the idea – it had strayed too far from her purpose, and Alvin would complain if he saw.

The last possibility was that the wounds were superficial, and the thing's impairment came entirely from the hobble of the trap. That'd mean a tough animal. Maybe even a canny one. Amity glanced back at the ridge. It'd be hard to scale quickly with one arm, but the compacted soil from her quarry's fall provided natural footing. Just a little. She flexed her arm in her cast, gently, and winced. Something like that would be fine without her help. She'd be the one needing help, more likely.

She advanced slowly towards the stony ridge, drawing the knife from her belt. Her eyes traced the trail of blood all the way up to the chain perhaps a dozen times while nearing. Ants crawled in a fine line across the twig-smattered rock, and Amity put her footfalls down around them. Gently, she stepped forward, taking care to put down her toes with occasional peaks in the rustle of the canopy nearby. What little wind there was blew from out past the chain and towards her, carrying away her scent. For a moment, she considered making some kind of noise, deliberately, so as to not startle the thing. Only for a moment.

The sun was hot, out from under the leaves. Amity felt the urge to breathe harder, to cool down, and realized she'd been holding her breath. The chain was only a few feet away, now. After another pair of silent footfalls, she was nearly atop it. As she stole up on the corner of the ridge, Amity pressed herself up near to the side. A few pebbles fell away. She stopped short, listening with intent. She thought she could hear breathing, maybe. Barely, just for a moment. And, perhaps, the sound of something settling against the stone. The strategy became clear. A quick peek, to assess, and then she'd run, whatever thing was inside. Then she'd run back over, perhaps, if nothing came snapping after her. She set down her sack of animals: it was dead weight, now, in more ways than one.

Amity clutched the dagger, braced her cast on the stone to offset some of her weight, and stepped forward, craning her neck around the entrance to the hollow. Another few pebbles fell. The chain ended in a disassembled trap, strewn about a wide puddle of blood. Amity blinked, and some flicker of instinct took over. Reflexively, she swung her cast upward to cover her head. 

Smart.

Low mobility.

No hiding places. 

Except verticality. 

She caught a glimpse of it falling, as movement tilted her neck. In the corner of her eye, but directly overhead. A dark, fluttering shape, silhouetted by the sky. Amity hit, center of mass, with her cast. Gravity slammed the plummeting thing through the shoulder of Amity's knife-arm, forcing her back. Her upturned blade caught on something as it did.

Amity stumbled away from the stony ridge, and the thing that had plunged from atop it. It was black and shaggy, it rose to Amity's height when it stood, and it limped towards her entirely headless. 

As she raised her cast to guard, pain shot down from Amity's shoulder. The thing rose into her field of view, and Amity's eyes locked onto the thin, dark blade skewered through her forearm. The black mass surged forward: too far, too fast, and in a single hop. It was upon her. 

Practiced footwork took over as a last-ditch effort to evade: with her guard arm keeping her foe at bay, Amity's rear leg pivoted around the fore. Her torso swung out of the thing's path, and the broken end of her knife entered it. The blade plunged through, and the whole of the black mass fluttered around it, wrapping her hand.

The person behind the fabric was only a step away, now. A masked youth her size, clad in rags, and lunging open-handed for her legs. Amity tried to shoot over the dive, but all her weight was on her forward foot. Her ankle was caught as she toppled, sideways, cast-first to the ground. 

She landed atop a pale pair of legs, one of which was covered in blood. The hilt of the knife in her arm levered against the ground as she hit, and new worlds of pain erupted, quickly joined by something bad happening in stripes between her ankle and knee, scraping her boot and searing deep into her calf. She flailed in pain, and strained blindly against a lock on her leg.

One hand in a cast, and the other trapped by the fabric wrapped around it, Amity gave in to the urge to bite. Her chin dragged across blood-slick flesh to peel her bandana from her teeth, and her mouth closed, hard, around meat already torn by the jaws of the trap.

Something snapped against her tongue, eliciting a terrible scream. With a burst of energy, Amity kicked free, taking a piece of leg with her. 

Lines of burning pain seared her calf as she popped to her feet, up and away. Her tendon had been spared thanks to metal ribs in her boot, but she could feel blood pooling in its heel around her own. It hurt, but she could put weight on it, which was more than could be said for her attacker. 

Nothing about her was right. She was too pale, and covered her modesty with torn scraps of some ruined garment. Both these things made it obvious just how injured she was - aside from her bloodied leg, she was bruised purple-yellow all over, bore dark, circular marks around multiple places along her limbs, and was covered in scratches and cuts - the largest of which was bleeding fresh across her ribs. Amity had slashed that one, herself. Smears of red and brown roughed the white of her skin, and gravel was freshly embedded into her uncovered flesh. 

Her stance was off, too - she wasn't even standing. The girl was too low to the ground to guard herself in any meaningful way, her fingertips brushed the stone. Amity figured she had some kind of weapon, in one hand or another, but it had been concealed by an in-pointed grip. Touching the ground took a little weight off her injured leg, Amity figured, but even stabilized in a crouch she was swaying ever so slightly. 

Amity raised her cast in guard, and the thing stabbed through it entered her field of view. Acknowledging that she'd been run through made it hurt all the worse, and a surge of pain ran up her arm from the metal lodged inside. It was a stiletto: blacked out with some material or another, save for a glimmer at the undamaged tip. It had been meant to kill her. Her breathing quickened to fight off the onset of nausea. It felt like something was writhing in her guts, and in the cuts on her ankle, besides. Goosebumps began to prick up her arms. With significant effort, she pulled her hand, and the knife clutched within it, free from the black cloth that had enveloped them. It felt nearly glued on, and Amity threw it to the ground with spiteful force once it came free.

The swaying girl's head rolled to the side, ever so slightly. The wood-carved mask had no features, save black smudges for eyes. It was the cleanest thing about her - perhaps recently carved. There was no opening for her mouth, and you couldn't bite through a mask. Nothing canny was so patient, besides. Worse things were, but they'd have killed her already.

Inhaling deeply, Amity took hold of the stiletto over top of her knife. She pulled it free with a grunt that became a sigh, and a trickle of blood began to fall free from her cast. Amity flung the blade forward, and it clattered across the stone until it came to a rest besides its owner. The exertion caused fresh pain everywhere but her leg, where the sensation of 'movement' faded into a throbbing burn, and her casted arm, which was mercifully almost numb.

" Go! " Amity put as much force into the word as she could, pointing her knife at an oblique angle past her attacker, who wiggled the fingers of her free hand in reply before pointing back. Amity began to back away, and slid her knife back into its sheath without letting it go. 

"Go! Your 'elt's all nasty. Get outta here!" Amity pointed again, empty-handed, then flicked her hand back to the hilt of her blade. She took another step back, and tension began to exit the girl's posture. Her back unrounded, and she relaxed her palms into the ground. And, a moment later, she collapsed.

Amity grit her teeth. "Just get! Now!" she shouted, adding her throat to her list of pains. There was no reply.

Amity backed all the way to her bag. She felt truly unwell: sweat pooled on her forehead, and the world had begun to grow uneven. Blood continued to drain from her arm, and blood had begun to slosh against her toes. She sat down, breathing ragged, and pulled free her knife to cut bandages from her shirt. 

The one-handed process was uneven, involved a lot of tearing and created more rags than anything. She stole glances at the motionless girl all the while. Amity had begun feeling truly unwell, and moved with a sense of purpose, if not urgency. There was enough to slosh over her foot: she'd felt liquid run up over her nails. As her boot pulled free, blood poured out the back, but no more from the cuts. The criss-crossed seemed too shallow for how much they'd bled. Strips of red as wide as the cut ran down her ankle, but not freshly. The blood came in beading rivulets, now, but when Amity palpated her calf, it hurt deep inside.

She stole another glance at the girl's fallen form. She hadn't moved, still, from where she lay. But her cloak had. The stabbed-through shroud covered everything but her bloodied legs. She tied off her bandage with haste, keeping focused on her attacker who, after a moment, began to shakily rise. 

Amity's voice had run out of strength, and she had nothing to say, besides. She hastily replaced her boot, ignoring the layer of blood still within, and clutched at her knife. Her attacker made it to her feet, wrapping her cloak around herself, bent down to pick up her stiletto, and fell forward over top of it. Amity rose to her feet, hoisted her sack of dead animals, and felt her head swim.

The girl lying on the stone had been hurt. Badly, and over a long period of time. Full body bruising was consistent with a real work-over: either a bad fall, deliberate harm, or both. All the cuts, too. If not acquired over too long spent in the woods, they spoke to a harrowing experience. Then she'd stepped in a trap, on top of everything else. She'd expected whatever was trapped to lash out, anyhow.

Amity clenched her jaw, trying to work through how stupid she was willing to be. If playing dead like this was an act, it was one that'd only work on a genuine fool. 

"Hold still," she said as she advanced. The girl twitched, and the mask peeked out from the corner of the cloak. She felt cold, despite all the sweat, and regretted not bringing a waterskin. Her throat felt dry, and her stomach swam.

"You try anything and I kill you. Understand?" The words were quiet, but came easily. Amity realized that she meant them. The stiletto protruded from under the shroud, and was half-brandished at her for a few seconds. She paused her advance until the knife's tip lowered, signaling some combination of exhaustion and acceptance. Amity drew her own blade, set it to her shirt, and set to making bandages once again.

Twenty minutes later, Amity was clad in rags herself, hoisting the black-shrouded, freshly bandaged girl across her shoulders as she forged through the woods.