Free Hand of the Hunter: Chosen of Nendawen, Book II by Mark Sehestedt

she’d been allowed to be a little girl. Pampered by the elders. Fed the choicest meats from every hunt. Given the softest, warmest clothes. She’d even had a little doll, made from baby-soft sealskin. In the darkest winter nights when the wind howled over the ice and the elders made sacrifices to keep demons at bay, Jatara had huddled in her blankets near the fire, the doll cradled against her chest, and with her free hand she would stroke the soft sealskin over and over, imagining that she was her mother, and the doll little Jatara. No matter how the wind howled or the priests shrieked their blood rites, that little doll had helped Jatara feel safe. As an adult, when she thought
home
, it was not her clan’s faces she saw, not her mother or father, but the scent of a fire, and the feel of that little doll against her palm.
    “Home …” she said. It came out a croak. Her throat felt raw. The pain jolted her out of her reverie. She held the doll close and stroked it.
    But something was wrong.
Felt
wrong. Not the softness of sealskin. She could feel the doll’s skin, yes, but it was not seal soft. No. It was rough, torn, and—
    Wet.
    Warm, yes, but that was quickly fading.
    And the smell … no. Smell was the wrong word. The
stench
was tangy, coppery, and foul.
    Jatara stroked the doll again, grasping for that reassurance of
home
, but the ragged wetness under her palm only drove it farther away.
    With a very great effort, Jatara opened her eyes.
    And remembered.
    Home
was far away. Not separated from her by hundreds of miles, but years upon years. She was not a little girl anymore. The doll long gone. Under her hand—
    A man’s head lay in her lap. It was still loosely attached to the body by a mangled web of skin, flesh, and tendon. His jaw was gone, as were both eyes and an ear.
    “What—?” she said.
    Then her eyes saw the wet blackness under her nails, and she could feel more of the same in her teeth and gums.
    A small part of Jatara—a very small part—screamed at the memory of what she had done. But the scream was very faint, like the final cry of a drowning man. Something else filled her. Immersed her. Like rich dye permeating old cloth.
    Jatara laughed at that image. How fitting. The new presence within her was not her, but it filled every pore. She had no word for it.
    “How do you feel?”
    The voice came from behind her. She recognized it at once. Argalath … and something else. Something like her. Like flame is both heat and light, two separate things combined into one vibrant … 
power
.
    Jatara stood, and the corpse fell off her lap onto the blood-soaked grass. The sun was up, but hidden behind a curtain of thick cloud. The wind cut over the steppe, makinga sound like a saw through dry wood. It still held the bite of winter, but she didn’t flinch. The cold of Narfell was a kiss compared to the land where she’d been born. Swaths of snow still clung in the shadowed places of the hills or in the gullies, but dun-colored grass had broken through on the high ground where they had performed the rites. Where Jatara had been reborn.
    She looked down at her hand and bare arm, black up to her elbow in blood and gore. It was like seeing it for the first time.
    “I feel … 
alive,
” she said. “More than alive, I feel … there are no words.”
    “I know,” said Argalath.
    He stood nearby, his robes around him, his deep cowl pulled down so that she could see only his chin. But she heard the pleasure in his voice. And more, she could sense his mood, and his thoughts seemed just beyond her reach, almost as if there was some invisible string between them, vibrating with life, and together they formed a beautiful chord. Jatara was awestruck at the power she felt there, just below the surface. She was amazed that the man’s skin didn’t vibrate at containing such power.
    Over Argalath’s shoulder, she could see Vazhad standing atop the next rise, holding the reins of their horses. He was