Demon of the Paliquish Deepwood

The wet loam felt soft between the claw-tipped toes of the Huntress as she stalked through the shadows of the Paliquish Deepwood. Silent were her steps on long inhuman legs, jointed like an elk's. Her movement supple, as she prowled on the tips of her toes. The distance between the knuckles and ankle as long as a man's arm.

She was nude, clothed only in what the Night Mother had given her. A thin coat of rust red fur cloaked her limbs, tail, back, and neck thinning to nothing but onix black skin on her stomach, chest, and face. Her head was crowned in a sixteen-point rack of antlers. The year's growth still rust red under the velvet that had yet to slough off the razor sharp spikes.

Slit-lined golden eyes, like that of a mountain tiger, scanned the ground for the tracks of her prey. They were double lidded, one set transparent. She only closed the second pair when she slept, creating an unnerving illusion that the Huntress never blinked.

Even still, her visage as well as the taught musculature on her stomach and sex were remarkably human in appearance. The few woodsmen who had witnessessed her had been frozen in fear, as well as arousal. The Huntress, Umbral queen of the Paliquish Deepwood.

Her nose flared as she took in the scent of her prey. Thick musk and the moldy wetness of caverns intermingled with the salty iron of blood. The cave bear had made a kill, and the bear was taking it back to its lair.

She followed the scent. The trail drew her down into a shallow gorge where a spring melt creek trickled through the woods. Its muddy banks had been churned up, thrashed and gouged from a struggle. A wide track ran uphill, opposite to the side she had come from. Long black feathers were scattered about, accenting the trail. The cave bear had taken a cassowary as it watered at the creek.

The Huntress's lips drew back in a feral smile. Few animals were bold enough to risk death in the hunt of the man-sized birds. They were vicious, with dagger length claws and a kick that could break bone. Either this bear was starving and desperate, or so utterly confident in its hunting prowess the slayer birds posed no threat to it. The Huntress knew it was the latter.

She was led to a clearing at the foot of a cliff face, a jagged crack in the stone opened up into black depths. The heavy scent of urine was in the air, astringent, marking the cavern. The Huntress stretched her long inhuman limbs, limbering for the impending clash. Her thick cords of muscle rippled as they flexed and relaxed. She rose to her full twelve feet of height, air ballooning her lungs, then roared.

Birds in the surrounding trees let out shrill warning cries then went silent. The Paliquish Deepwood fell completely still, save for the rustle of leaves in the wind. A furious rumble echoed from the cave in response. Her challenge met. The clash of two apex predators imminent.

The cave bear out lunged from the cavern, fangs bared, intent on finishing the Huntress with one decisive surprise strike. She met the charge, crouching low then lashing upward with her lanky arms, throwing the massive bear into the cliff face.

There was a snapping crunch as the cave bear's back hit stone. It roared in pain, thick gray furred fore paws lashing and thrashing at the Huntress. Impotent fury and desperation, back broken, the bear could no longer move its hind.

The Huntress stepped forward, faster than a blink, turning in a vicious kick that struck the soft flesh under the jaw. Claw-tipped toes crunched bone and pierced brain, killing instantly.

Breathing deeply, the Huntress let the bloodlust within mellow away. She looked at the slumped over corpse. Thick fur gray, scars stretched across its body, it had been an ancient king. A survivor, victor in hundreds upon hundreds of life and death battles. It had lived for decades. This time though, the cave bear had died.

The Huntress frowned. The kill had been easy, far too easy. She had even announced her arrival rather than ambush the bear to increase the risk. Yet still, the beast had never even posed the slightest threat to her. Two blows, and it was over. The emptiness returned.

No need for the meat as the Huntress was herbivore. Killing was only for the bloodlust curse that raged within her. She left the corpse to the scavengers, skulking back into the shadows of the trees.

The Paliquish Deepwoods had once been a vast expanse of possibility. A true challenge when she had first come two hundred thirty seven moon cycles ago. Now it felt small, stagnant. Perhaps it was time to seek a new hunting ground.

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It was just before dawn when the Huntress reached the edge of the Paliquish Woods. The trees gave way to an expansive swath of unnatural clearing. Hundreds upon hundreds of stumps peppered the hillock. It was a graveyard that had once been a copse of pine.

The stump tops were strikingly smooth, revealing faces with hundreds of concentric rings. There was minimal splintering or tearing, save for at the edges on the bark. The Huntress had never seen anything like it before. She felt her pulse quicken.

The Huntress wandered through the slain wood, stopping occasionally to trace her long claw-tipped fingers across the grain. There was some sort of intent in their felling, but she could not yet grasp why.

What sort of animal would have a need to clear bare a hillock like this? Did they fell them to construct their dens like beavers? Did they perhaps eat entire trees in ravenous hunger? The scale of destruction caused was simply massive.

Perhaps the creature would provide a worthwhile hunt.

The Huntress didn't smell the presence of any nearby beasts, nor did she hear them. She didn't sense much of anything in the clearing. No deer, no foxes, even those as small as mice and birds seemed to shun the clearing. It was as if the activities of her mysterious quarry had frightened off all other life in the region. It was a promising sign.

The sun had begun to rise, casting a ruddy glow over the empty clearing. Without the shadows of the Paliquish Deepwood, it burned the Huntress's eyes. She draped a long arm over her brow to block out some of the light. Even still, she squinted as she scanned the distance.

Downhill she spotted trunks of hundreds upon hundreds of trees. They were stripped of branches and stacked high in neat piles on the flat ground of the nearby valley. Length against length, rising high, the logs were organized with a care that suggested the quarry had some use for them.

The Huntress bolted back into the standing treeline, and sunk deep into the shadows.

A blaring cry ripped through in the air, like the mating call of a bull elk, but much deeper with a resonance that shook the Huntress's core. She had never heard such a creature before. The power in its voice sent a thrill of excitement coursing through her blood.

Her presence had been noticed. Spotted before the Huntress herself had sighted her prey. Sloppy, she had grown complacent in the recent moon cycles. Nothing of the Paliquish Deepwood had posed any real threat to her in far too long. She knew nothing of the dangers of this animal.

Faint smudges approached the clearing from the distance. With the sun's rise brightening the day, the Huntress's vision was obscured to what they were.

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The Huntress rinsed the blood off her arms in a shallow pool of water. It was ice melt runoff that had collected in a marshland south of the Paliquish woods. A noisy place where countless frogs sang in a dissonant chorus, calling out for mates.

Even in the calm, her heart was still thrumming. She'd been far too risky in her hunts, the thrill taking her more strongly than it had in a vast ammount of time.

Men weren't particularly strong, they weren't particularly quick or reflexive, but they were clever, very very clever.

They hunted in great packs like wolves. They shaped their environment to suit their needs. They used tools as extensions of their bodies. Most of all, they adapted in the struggle.

When The Huntress first layed upon them, they fought back using the clubs they felled the trees with. In the second clash, they came to her, clad in a strange reflective stone, carrying long straightened sticks pointed with spikes. They tried ambushes. They tried baiting her in. They were dangerous close and at a considerable distance.

Each time a larger group came, and each time a larger group was slain.

The Huntress's leg had a dull ache from last night. They had blinded her fire and used her disorientation to brand her with the flame.

The luminous nature of the wound had slowed the shadow's healing embrace, but with two more nights' darkness it would right itself.

Waiting furthered the hunt anyway. They'd lit a massive pyre near their den to drive her away, but the Huntress had seen the stockpile of logs and branches they had built up. It could only last so long before their blinding fires burned out.

Clean, the Huntress limped away from the pool. Her stomach twisted in hunger. She had been so focused on her hunt that she had forgotten to eat for some time.

She flared her nostrils, smelling if there was anything in the marsh worth harvesting. Some bog berries were nearby, not yet blue. She passed them by. Skulking northward she noticed some fiddleheads sprouting out of a well-rotted log. Small and tender, new spring growth, the Huntress snapped the stems at their bases and crunched the soft fronds in her teeth.

The ferns were juicy, sweet to taste, filled with sugar to spur growth. The Huntress purred her satisfaction, continuing to graze as she made her way through the marsh.

She watched king fishers flit about the water, dipping, spearing minnows. Snapping turtles lurked, waiting to ambush anything that came close. A family of deer, doe and two fawns, grazed on a particularly plump thicket of water cabbage at the water's edge. They scattered when the Huntress huffed at them.

She bent to pluck the cabbage that she claimed. When she did, she felt a shiver run up the back of her spine. Her ears flicked back. She listened.

The frogs were still croaking, no bird had let out a warning cry. The wild had sensed no presence of a threat. Still, the Huntress knew something was off.

She flared her nostrils, taking in the scent of the marsh. Stagnant water, rot of degrading wood, floral wisps of blooming onions, territorial markings of a bob-tailed cat.

Under it all there was something else. Something deep, rich, almost overpoweringly musky now that she had pinned down and caught the smell.

The Huntress opened her mouth, letting the air run across her tongue. She could taste it. Hot, like the bark of a spicewood. She shocked herself as she let out an involuntary pur, silencing the nearby birds and frogs.

She felt her heart begin to thrum, as if she had taken up the hunt. But the feeling was slightly off. Blood pulsed through her body, flooding into her core. Her onix black nipples hardened to points and her sex throbbed in a way unknown to the Huntress.

She was... aroused? It was a feeling she had never felt before. Even in the half dozen times she'd met male Umbrals hunting a mate, their musk had not been able to induce the Huntress's heat.

She'd killed them all for daring to approach her. None had been close to worthy of challenging her, let alone mounting her.

What the Huntress was smelling now was not an Umbral, but it did not matter. It was strong and so very masculine.

She marked the trunk of an ancient willow. If this male came across her fluids he should know that her heat had been induced and she would soon be fertile. The Huntress had her doubts, none in her long life had come close to matching her, but perhaps this male would be worthy of the challenge.

The Huntress couldn't help but pur, mouth hanging open as she continued to taste the fascinating foreign flavor. It pulled her.

Simply too curious to wait for the challenge to come to her, she followed the trail. It led in the direction she had already intended to go. Interesting.

***************************************************

Two men stood atop the cleared hillock as the day gave way to dusk. They were waiting as if they knew the Huntress would be drawn by the smell and investigate.

Confident men, bringing their challenge at the start of the night when they knew the Huntress would be the most dangerous.

The bloodlust and arousal coursing within her demanded she charge them. To not let another second delay the fight.

The last wisps of rationality held her back in the edge of the shadows, telling her to take her time and investigate. Something about these two was clearly different than every other man she had hunted so far.

One was very tall for their kind, perhaps a head and shoulders above what the Huntress had known. Even at a distance, she could tell he was thickly muscled with a mane of loosely curling dark hair.

His eyes were piercing like a hawk's, and almost seemed to be tracking the Huntress. An impossibility, nothing could see an Umbral as deep in the shadow as she was. Still, an unbidden worry tickled the back of the Huntress's mind that it was not she who was on the hunt, but rather she who was being hunted.

It was an utterly absurd fear. This man clearly had not come dressed for combat. He had no weapon in hand, nor was he wearing that strange reflective stone to protect himself.

Instead, he was clad in dark red, a few shades darker than the Huntress's fur. Straight lines that were sharp, his suit fit his form. They drew her eye across his entire body, until she focused in on the large bulge at his crotch.

The Huntress felt a pur rumble in her chest unbidden. Her sex throbbed as the delicious spicewood smell set a haze over her mind. She darted to another shadow as the eyes of the second were drawn to her location by the involuntary noise she made.

So taken by the appearance of the first man, the Huntress realized she hadn't even noticed the second on the hillock was not a man at all. It was a woman.

She was smaller than the man, and clearly swollen with child. Her chest was large and fatty. The Huntress could see it. Much of her skin was visible as her loose but meager black and white clothing did not provide any significant coverage of her form.

Under the heavy spicy smell of the man, the Huntress noticed a faint milky note. The smell of the woman, the smell of a mother.

Something was not right. That woman should be back in their den, hiding from the Huntress. But here she was, standing on the cleared hillock with an unnerving calm.

Emotions swirled and fought within the Huntress; bloodlust, arousal... fear. That was something that she hadn't felt since she was little more than a babe. She wanted to quash it. She wanted to flee. She wanted to kill them.

"You're earlier than I expected." The man with the black mane spoke to the Huntress. His voice was deep, with a force that made her sex throb and drip. This man was dangerous, "Usually your kind keep to the dead of night."

The Huntress hissed at the man then willed herself to silence, taking a conscious effort to mute her involuntary purring. His eyes tracked her as she changed the shadow she hid in. Anxiety built in her core.

The man chuckled, "Orphaned I assume. No tender would have let the blood fugue take their little one so strongly."

He had no fear. The thought that he might die from their encounter had not even crossed his mind. Was that confidence warranted, or was he a fool?

The Huntress fought down the fear and arousal stirring within her. She would kill him.

Charging the man, the Huntress fell on all fours to compensate for the limp in her leg. She flew across the clearing in breaths, head angled low to gore the man's chest with her antlers.

He swayed like a fallen leaf in the wind. The Huntress didn't even graze his deep red clothing as she rushed past.

Using a stump as leverage, she spun back around legs kicked up to scour the back of his head. Rather than black tipped claws connecting to flesh and bone the man grabbed the Huntress's ankle and used her momentum to fling her to the ground.

By the Night Mother's favor, the Huntress did not crash into any stumps as she landed. Instead she skidded across the thick litter of pine needles a good ten feet. Her vision swam and she stumbled to get back afoot. She saw double as the man approached.

"The Night Mother's blood flows thick in this one," The man was smiling as he sauntered closer, casual with no concern. The Huntress could see the glint of a predator in his eyes.

Hot fear and arousal writhed within her. They molded together into one sick feeling that she had to crush.

The Huntress whipped her long limbs at the man, claws flashing from the left and right. She swung high and low. None of the blows connected.

Some he ducked, others he redirected. Panic rose in the Huntress. She lunged forward, crashing her body into the man. It was like ramming into a boulder. Even in a contest of pure strength, he didn't budge a hair's length.

The man overpowered the Huntress, pushing her into the litter. She thrashed in desperation, snapping at him, trying to do anything that would draw blood.

"Feral." The man's large hand wrapped around the Huntress's neck and gripped tightly, "but with a firm hand, I will show you your place."

The Huntress's mind was racing. She writhed and squirmed trying to break free. Nothing worked. Her legs and arms were pinned under the man as he loomed over her.

She was going to die. She felt the beat of her heart pounding hard in her sex. Why was this feeding her heat's lust so much?

She couldn't breathe. Her head was going woozy. The blood flow through her carotid arteries was restricted. By the Night Mother's blessing it felt so good. A thrill richer than she'd ever felt before.

The Huntress almost didn't care that she was going to die. Her struggle weakened. She was nothing against this man.

"Just get on with it already, Ponce. Claim her so we can go back to Brent. I hate how many mosquitoes are out now." The woman spoke. The Huntress had been so focused on the man that she had forgotten the other had even been on the hillock.

The man shook his head, thick black curls bouncing, "this isn't for me, Lillian. It's for her." The Huntress felt the large man's hand tighten around her neck, "She needs to know that as strong as she is, as clever as she is, as capable as she is. She is powerless against me."

The Huntress whimpered as the grip on her throat loosened just enough. She took in a deep gasping breath. Her mouth was filled with the man's rich spicewood scent.

Convulsions racked the Huntress's body. An explosion of pleasure radiated from her womb as her hips bucked in an uncontrollable rhythm. She felt her sex opening and closing as the contents of her bladder squirted out. Lost in time, the exquisite feeling was painful and overwhelming.

When it finally ebbed down to an almost bearable throb the Huntress realized the moon hung high in the sky above her; however, the man was not there. His hand was no longer tight on her neck. It was deep into the night now... and she was not dead.

"Fortune's favor!" It was the woman moaning out. The Huntress turned to see that the man and woman had taken to a nearby stump and were coupling.

She was bouncing on him. Her black and white clothing was pulled up to her chest, revealing her gravid belly that shook with each drawn out thrust.

The man's penis was enormous, with large heavy testicles hanging below. The Huntress was shocked that even half of it could fit within the small sex of the woman. Somehow she managed to press it all in.

The Huntress was entranced, unable to move as she watched them. The air was heavy with the man's scent now and her sex throbbed and dripped.