Chapter 4: A Touch of Magic

George tended to the cooking pot, stirring the mixture around as the flames crackled, the rays of the rising sun filtering through the canopy above. He shifted his weight uncomfortably as he sat on the ground beside the ring of stones, rolling his shoulder. After a night sleeping on the forest floor, he was a little sore, but at least the cold fog had receded once the beast was dead.

He had lain awake for a couple of hours despite his exhaustion, his mind racing before eventually succumbing to a troubled sleep fraught with vivid nightmares. The amalgam of carcasses that he had slain had disturbed him, for sure, but equally disturbing was the idea that everything he knew might be false. A day ago, he was convinced that magic wasn’t real, that it was based on ignorance and superstition. Before man had understood the nature of lightning and earthquakes, he had attributed such things to angry gods, he had explained away his fortunes as the whims of whatever deities he worshiped. Man had developed, advanced. He had begun to explore the natural world that surrounded him. He had discovered meteorology, volcanism, medicine – abandoning his preconceived notions about men beyond the clouds tossing thunderbolts. At least, for the most part. Yet, just like the ignorant savage who fashions idols from rocks, George was now faced with the realization that his understanding of the world was flawed. He could not explain what he had seen last night, from the horrifying creature whose body defied everything that he had learned about anatomy during his years of study, to the strange phenomenon that Legs had produced between her hands before passing out.

There was little to do other than think right now, his addled mind spinning in circles like a dog chasing its tail.

He lifted a spoonful of soup to his mouth, smacking his lips as he gave it a taste. As he reached into his pack in search of his spices, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, looking over at the tent to see that Legs was waking up.

She rose to a sitting position, looking around as though she had forgotten where she was, starting to struggle out of the cocoon of blankets. George got up as he watched her climb to her feet unsteadily, expecting her to topple over again.

“Wait!” he insisted, rushing to her side. “Don’t put any weight on your leg yet. You’ll exacerbate your...” He trailed off as he saw that the swelling on her ankle was gone, Legs standing on her own, flexing her limb as she tested it. “What happened to your injury?”

Legs took a few steps, then skipped a few more, as agile as ever.

“I healed it,” she explained, her cloak flaring out like a gown as she spun around to face him.

“How?” George asked in disbelief.

“This is the magic that you doubted. Now, do you believe me?”

“I ... I don’t know,” he sighed, throwing up his arms in exasperation. “That thing we fought last night had me questioning myself, but your miraculous recovery is...” He took a moment to compose himself, Legs watching him curiously from beneath her hood. “I thought that my understanding of nature and its laws was all but complete,” he continued, starting to pace in front of the fire. “I trusted dusty old books and aging professors who hadn’t left the college grounds in a lifetime to tell me that they knew everything there was to know, that there were no big surprises left. And now,” he added, gesturing to her. “You come along and turn all of that upside down.”

“Are you ... angry?” she wondered. She wasn’t afraid of him, more amused by his outburst than anything.

“I guess?” he said, not sure what had compelled him to phrase his reply as a question. “I came out here to explore, to challenge myself. Now that I am truly being challenged, now that I have truly encountered the unknown, I ... I find myself overwhelmed.”

“Your soup will burn,” Legs said, waving him over. “Come, sit by the fire.”

“I’m sure this is all very amusing to you,” he grumbled as he took a seat beside her, giving his bubbling pot another stir. “I treated you like you were stupid, and now I’m the one who has been proven a fool.”

“A little,” she chuckled. “I have never seen someone stir a pot angrily.”

“How does it work?” he demanded, his academic curiosity rising to the surface again. “How can such a wound be healed in a night? What was that silver light in your hands? How do you manipulate it?”

“Magic takes intuition,” she replied, crossing her long legs. “To call upon it, you have to listen to its whisper, gaze upon that which has no form.”

“Gaze upon something that has no form,” he repeated incredulously. “How exactly does one do that?”

“Hush,” she replied, taking his hand in hers. George blinked at her, surprised by her touch, feeling her grip him gently through her leather glove. She glanced up at the branches above as they waved in the breeze, the chirping of birdsong carrying through the forest, George following her gaze. “Do you hear it?”

“The ... birds?” he asked.

“The whisper of the forest.”

“I don’t know what means,” he said, keeping his voice low as though the trees might overhear him and be offended.

“Quieten your mind,” Legs explained, exhaling slowly. “It deafens you. Feel the life that dwells within you, and share it. Let the wind carry it like a fallen leaf, let it flow with the stream, let it prance with the hottah.”

“What, like my blood?” George wondered. “You’re talking in riddles.”

“You think of things only in the material, George,” Legs explained. He did another double-take when he realized that she had just called him by his name for the first time. He had been starting to doubt that she even remembered it. “You believe only what your eyes see, what you can touch.”

“I saw that silver light yesterday,” he replied. “I touched that beast, I saw inside it, and it didn’t make sense.”

“You draw your bow, but you miss the target once again,” she grumbled. “What you see is only a small part of a whole, like smoke from a fire.”

The analogy got through to him, and he nodded his head, turning to gaze into the wavering flames of the campfire.

“Then, what I saw was merely the effect, and the cause is far more complex than I realize.”

“Only by admitting that we are wrong can we begin to learn,” Legs replied, releasing his hand. “Your soup is ready.”

“Oh, right,” he stammered as he hastily removed the pot from the tripod. Legs watched as he poured a cup for himself, then passed her a bowl. “Do you have any more of that bread?”

She nodded, reaching beneath her cloak, producing another parcel wrapped up in a leaf. After tearing the soft bread in half, she shared it with him, the two starting to eat. Legs was ravenous, wolfing down her meal. Whatever she had done to heal herself must have really taken a lot out of her.

“Thank you,” she said, George giving her a sideways glance.

“Don’t mention it,” he replied, pausing to swallow a mouthful of bread. “I sort of became the cook for my little party before we were separated. I’m used to catering for six.”

“I mean for saving my life,” she added, George stopping his chewing. It was hard to tell what she was feeling, her face still obscured beneath her hood.

“Oh. You’re welcome. I mean ... I owed you anyway, since you saved me from the Blighters. I’d say that we’re even now.”

“Not even an entire war party could have brought down that creature, yet you slew it single-handed,” she marveled as she spared him a glance from beneath her cowl. “You insist that you are no warrior, and if that is true, I fear what a warrior from your homeland could be capable of.”

“They certainly have more discipline than I do,” he chuckled, taking another bite of the bread. “Still, I will admit to some small measure of pride for having broken my own record. What was that, three shots in two minutes?”

“If I teach you magic, will you teach me to use that?” Legs asked as she gestured to his gun.

“I suppose I could,” he replied with a nod, taking a sip of his soup. “I have a finite number of charges, however. That means no firing drills, as I fear that we may yet need every bullet, but I can still show you the workings of the gun.”

“Deal,” she said with a nod, bringing her bowl to her lips.

When they were done with breakfast, they packed up their gear, then continued on their way. Even though Legs thought it unlikely that the Blighters would have sent a second abomination after them, there was no reason to dawdle, as every hour counted. Legs wanted to bring George back to her village elders, and the sooner that was done with, the sooner he could begin his journey back to the company’s base camp.

At least, that was his hope. After the revelations about the existence of magic, or at least some supernatural force that Legs and the Blighters could somehow tap into, he now believed her when she told him that the blighted forest sapped her strength. What if she really couldn’t lead him back once their business at the village had concluded? Was he destined to be stranded here in these woods, fighting off unnatural horrors until they eventually claimed him? More and more, he was starting to feel as though his fate was tied to that of Legs and her people.

The sun was nearing its peak when Legs raised a hand to stop him, turning her head as though she had heard something in the forest. She reached for her bow, drawing an arrow from her quiver, running her fingers through the feathery vanes. George strained his ears, but he couldn’t make anything out. Her hearing was so much more sensitive than his own.

“What is it?” he hissed, preparing to unsling his rifle. “More trouble?”

“No,” she replied, her voice barely a whisper. “I heard the call of a hottah.”

“A ... normal hottah?” George asked warily.

“Healthy game,” she said, setting off into the trees. “The spirits have presented us with an opportunity, and we should not pass it up.”

“Wait, what should I do?” George complained as she sprang over a moss-covered log.

“Your footsteps might alert it,” she said, pausing to look back for a moment. “Stay here, and I shall come fetch you.”

“Stay here,” George grumbled under his breath once she was out of earshot. “It’s not like I’ve never hunted a hottah before. Should have seen the set of antlers on the one I bagged.”

After maybe half an hour, George was starting to get worried. Just as he was considering going to search for her, Legs reappeared, giving him a whistle.

“Did you get it?” he asked as she waved for him to follow. She bounded through the forest on her agile hooves, George struggling to keep pace, until they came across the carcass of a fallen hottah. It was refreshing to see a healthy one that hadn’t been corrupted by the blight, its hide the rusty color of autumn leaves, an impressive set of antlers branching out from its head. It had an equally impressive pair of tusks protruding from its mouth, which it used to score the bark of trees. It was maybe twelve hundred pounds – not the largest he had ever seen, but certainly no slouch. The animal had an arrow squarely embedded in its neck, dark blood staining the fur around the wooden shaft – a clean kill.

“Nice job!” he exclaimed, appraising her catch. “That’s a quality pelt. If only I could bring that back with me, it would fetch a handsome price at a fur trader.”

“Fur trader?” Legs asked.

“That’s one of the main reasons we came out here,” he explained, watching as she placed a hoof on the animal’s neck. She gripped her arrow and gave it a tug, pulling it out, then shaking some of the blood off it. “The fur trade is huge back East. That’s how most of the men in my company made their living – hunting animals to sell the pelts and meat.”

“Don’t they need to use it?” Legs asked. “What do they eat?”

“Well, they sell the meat to people who then distribute it to other people who want to eat it.”

“Sell?” she said, cocking her head at him.

“Oh. I suppose you don’t have currency, do you? Just imagine bartering with extra steps. You exchange a pelt or meat for money, and then you can use that money to trade for other things that you need, like a rifle or a jacket.”

Legs crouched beside the hottah, closing the creature’s vacant eyes, then placing a hand on its shoulder respectfully.

“We thank you for feeding us,” she whispered, a few moments of silence following. George knelt down beside her, resting his hand on its flank, feeling the texture of its smooth coat beneath his fingers.

“Thank you,” he said, knowing that Legs would appreciate it even if the animal couldn’t.

She drew the obsidian knife that she had held against his throat when they had first met, beginning to butcher the animal, starting at the rear end and moving her way up as she made incisions in the hide. George set down his pack and unsheathed his own knife, joining her as he began to cut open the sternum.

It took a good hour of work, but by the end of it, they had assembled a pile of meat and a few choice organs on a nearby rock. Leaving so much meat and so many valuable parts behind felt unnatural to George, but all they were after was the meat, and only as much as they could comfortably carry. They wrapped up the meat in the cloth bags that George carried for that very purpose, leaving the cleaned carcass behind as they resumed their trek. They walked until the sun was starting to get low again, only pausing to eat a quick lunch of bread and salted meat. It wasn’t until last light that they started searching for a suitable place to make camp.

Legs led them towards a river, George soon hearing the sound of its flow as they drew closer. Crystal-clear water wound its way through the forest, the rocks in its bed smoothed over eons, George pausing to refill his canteen and to splash a little of it on his face. It wasn’t so wide or so deep that a man couldn’t wade through it, but it would probably have reached up to his waist. The pair followed the bank until they found a suitable location to stop, Legs spying a clearing a short walk from the river’s edge, just far enough away that the trees obscured it from view.

This time, Legs helped George set up the lean-to, having observed how he went about it a couple of times now. She took care of making the fire while he prepared the meat, and before long, they were waiting for their meal to cook. George had tied up a nice five-pound cut of hottah rump to roast over the open flames, using a piece of cordage to suspend it from a tripod. He made a mixture of salt and water, using a ladle to baste the meat occasionally, preventing it from drying out in the heat.

“You know, maybe this is an opportunity,” he said as he rotated the meat on its string.

“What was that?” Legs asked, glancing over at him. She was leaning back against a nearby tree, her arms crossed. He had half-expected her to have fallen asleep, as he couldn’t see what she was doing beneath that hood of hers.

“The magic thing,” he explained. “It’s an entirely new field of study that will turn the scientific community on its head, and the discovery is mine alone. They might resist it, the old guard won’t want the theories they think of as proven beyond a shadow of a doubt challenged by some upstart, but even dogma cannot withstand the force of overwhelming evidence.”

“You are quick to lay claim to it,” Legs said with a chuckle that George felt was at his expense. “Magic is as much a part of the world as a tree or a mountain. Could you claim those as your own?”

“You might know more about magic than I do, but you’ll have to trust that I’m more familiar with the peer-review process,” he replied as he prodded the meat with a fork. The juice that leaked out looked clear, which indicated that it was ready.

George untied the meat, then cut it into slices, plating it up before handing one of the bowls to Legs. It was juicy, still somewhat rare in the center, the saltwater basting helping to bring out its natural flavors. They were too occupied with eating to talk much, save for Legs complimenting him on his cooking. He doubted that roasting meat over an open flame was a foreign technique to her, but her people might not have the salt and seasonings that he had brought along with him.

“It’s nice to feel truly full again,” George sighed, setting down his fork once he was done. He gave his stomach a pat, lying back on the forest floor. He interlocked his fingers behind his head, gazing up at the twinkling stars that he could see between the breaks in the forest canopy. “I’ve been eating nothing but soup and dried pork for days.”

“It was good meat,” Legs replied. “Flavorful, and well-seasoned.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you and your bow,” he added.

“Now that we have a moment of quiet,” she began, rising to her hoofed feet. “Come. I will teach you.”

“Teach me?” he asked, sitting up. “Oh, you’re talking about magic?”

She sat down opposite to him, George shuffling around to face her, the flickering glow of the fire lighting them from the right. She crossed her legs, and George did the same, imitating her.

“If I am to instruct you, then you must listen to me without question,” she continued as she took up a meditative sitting position. Her hands came to rest on her knees, her spine straight as she sucked in a breath, then slowly exhaled it. “No more doubt.”

“I won’t doubt you,” he replied. After what he had seen the night before, he would believe just about anything she told him.

“All things have a spirit,” she began, George giving her the same attention that he would a college lecturer. “Every living thing that walks and swims and flies, the trees, even the worms beneath our feet have a power that can be given if you merely ask for it. It lives in the rocks, too, in the flames and the waters. It dances with the wind.”

“How do you ask a worm or a rock to grant you power?” George asked skeptically.

“You must hear their whisper, listen to their voice if you wish for them to hear yours,” she continued cryptically.

“That aside, how do you use this power to ward off the cold or heal an injury? How did you make those silver strands that I saw?”

“I asked the fire if I might borrow his warmth,” she explained, wrapping her green cloak around herself more tightly. “He gave this garment his blessing. I called upon the trees and the mushrooms when I was injured, the moss and the ferns, and I reminded them of a time my leg was not hurt. They helped make it so again.”

“What you’re saying doesn’t make sense,” George sighed. “I don’t understand.”

“Patience, George,” she replied in a calming tone. She began to remove her leather gloves, still stained in places from the hottah’s blood, the stitching that held them together somewhat cruder than what he was used to. George watched as she set them on the ground beside her, revealing her hands for the first time. They looked remarkably like his own, save for a thin coat of chestnut-colored fur that covered the back of them, running up her arms into the shadow of her cloak. It was so fine that it looked more like simple pigmentation until she took his hands in hers, his thumbs brushing the velvety hair.

“W-what’s this?” he asked.

“Close your eyes,” she said, George obeying her as he had promised.

“What am I supposed to be doing?” he grumbled.

“Stop speaking with your mouth, and stop listening with your ears,” she chuckled. “And remember, every one of us must crawl before we can walk.”

He shut up, taking in deep breaths as Legs had done, but all he could focus on was the smoothness of her skin against his own. They had spent days together now, yet he still hadn’t seen her face. He didn’t even know what manner of creature she was. Was it strange that he was beginning to think of this person whose name he did not know as a friend?

“Clear your mind,” she whispered, her breathy voice almost musical. “Think only of me, feel me as you lay your hands in mine.”

Was this effort an exclusively mental one, perhaps? A form of meditation not unlike that practiced by the religions of the Easternmost continents? He had always dismissed such things as quackery, but maybe they were on to something...

“I see ... darkness,” he mumbled.

“That is because you are still trying to look with your eyes,” she said, giving one of his hands a slap. “Concentrate. Can you see the spirits of the rocks and trees with your eyes? No. So why would you be able to see mine? Here, do you feel this?”

A sudden tingling sensation surprised him, similar to the feeling that he got when he slept on his arm wrong, but without any of the numbness. His eyes snapped open, but he was disappointed when he didn’t see strands of glowing quicksilver coursing up his forearms.

“I ... felt it,” he said, blinking in surprise. “Did you do that?”

“I shared a little of my magic,” she replied.

“How do I do that? I feel like you’re asking me to flex a muscle that I don’t have yet.”

“It requires meditation, communion,” she explained. “You are the conduit, yes, but you must borrow that power from your brothers. The rocks, the trees, the animals – you must acknowledge them as your equals. You must hear them before they will hear you.”

“Sorry, but ... how can a rock or a worm be my equal?”

“To think of yourself as being superior to others is hubris,” she explained. “I do not chastise you for it. Most people think of themselves as the center of their own universe, but letting go of your ego is the path to understanding.”

“I’ll try,” he sighed, but it was quite the request. If he were to ask an academic or a priest, both would tell him that humanity was the highest form of life on the planet, that he was as a god to an insect or a fish. It was a hard notion to abandon.

“Just breathe with me,” Legs said, George soon finding that her steady breathing had a hypnotic quality. He began to relax, listening to the sounds of the birds and the nearby river, the creaking of the branches above.

Even if he didn’t unlock any magical powers, spending time with Legs was certainly ... pleasant.

George awoke the next morning feeling refreshed, stretching his arms above his head as he sat up in his lean-to. He had spent most of the evening meditating with Legs, and even though he hadn’t really achieved much, a little calm and relaxation had done him wonders. So much stress had built up inside him over the past few days, culminating in the attack the night prior, and he finally felt like some of that tension had left his body.

He glanced over at the tree roots where Legs had slept, but saw no sign of her. She wasn’t tending to the fire, either. It looked like it hadn’t been relit yet. It was possible that she had gone to hunt down some breakfast for them, but they still had plenty of meat left over from the hottah they had killed the day before. Where had she gone?

He climbed out of his blankets, then looked around the camp for a moment, but there was no sign of her. She was a far more capable woodsman than he was, so he wasn’t unduly worried. George made for his pack, picking up his canteen, then realizing that it was empty. This was the reason that making camp near a river or a stream was such a good idea, they had a source of fresh water within walking distance.

Stifling a yawn, he set off towards the river, following the sound of running water as he made his way between the trees. As he cleared the woodland and came upon the riverbank, he stopped in his tracks, standing as still as a statue.

Legs was waist-deep in the water, and her green cloak was hanging from a branch near the bank, along with a leather loincloth and some kind of sling that she must have been wearing beneath it. Her back was turned to him right now, George watching as she cupped the flowing water in her hands, pouring it over herself. She was bathing.

George was suddenly all too aware of the sound of his own breathing, the way that the ferns rustled beneath his boots, the fear of stepping on a twig keeping him frozen in place. Should he announce himself? Should he turn around and try to creep back towards the camp without alerting her?

To Legs, this was more than just peeking. Hiding her features from him had some cultural significance to her, and he might be breaking some kind of taboo just by seeing her without her cloak. Even so, his curiosity overcame him, and he slunk over to a nearby tree for cover. He hid behind the trunk, peeking out to get a look at her, wary of her superhuman senses. His face began to burn as his eyes were drawn to her strange body, George not knowing whether the racing of his heart and the lump in his throat were a product of his fear of being discovered, or something more.

It was her horns that first gave him pause. What he had initially assumed to be a decorative headdress not unlike those worn by the Blighters, he now realized was sprouting from her head. Her shaggy hair was a chestnut-red in color, not unlike her fur, cut short for convenience. It obscured the places where they joined to her scalp, but they were indeed attached. They resembled the branching antlers of a deer, but shorter, swept back to follow the curve of her skull. She had a pair of large, furry ears that stuck out to either side of her head, one of them flicking idly as he watched.

As his gaze roamed lower, he saw a pair of narrow shoulders that could easily have been mistaken for those of a human, was it not for their thin covering of velvety fur. It was a ruddy color to match her hair, patterned with white spots, the same texture as that which he had felt on the backs of her hands the evening prior. It was thin enough that he could see the muscles in her back flexing beneath it as she moved, its wet sheen catching the morning sunlight to make her shine. It ran down the curve of her spine until it reached the water, where her narrow waist widened into feminine hips. At this angle, he couldn’t see below the surface, and he silently admonished himself for wishing that he could.

Something created a small splash, and he glanced down to see a short, stubby tail waving back and forth in the river. It was situated just above her submerged rump, at the base of her spine. The underside was fluffy and white, just like that of a doe.

Her figure was so lithe, so athletic, her lightly-muscled frame sculpted to perfection by a physically demanding lifestyle. She was like nothing George had ever seen before. Where he came from, women were prissy, averse to anything more taxing than lawn bowling. Their interests were confined to those deemed proper for ladies, such as embroidery, or socializing. Even in the harshest summer heats, they were so buried beneath layers of petticoats and bustles that one could hardly imagine what they really looked like under all that clothing. Women in the colonies were a little more rugged and capable, he had seen them chopping firewood and butchering animals, but Legs was in a league all her own.

From behind the tree, he watched her begin to run her hands across her body, still facing the opposite bank as she washed herself. He wanted so badly to see her face, to see her from the front, but she might catch him if she happened to turn around.

His heart was racing, pumping so hard that he was starting to fear that she might hear it with those sensitive ears of hers. It wasn’t as if he had never seen a nude woman before, even if most of them had been diagrams in anatomy books, but Legs was different. There was something so graceful about the way that she moved, and he found himself captivated by the way that her wet fur gleamed, reflecting the light to pick out every contour of her body.

George had already pushed his luck far enough. It was time to leave before he was discovered.

Careful not to make a sound, and choosing his footing like he was walking on thin ice, he started to make his way back to the camp. He managed to arrive without alerting her, at least as far as he knew, setting about getting the campfire going again.

By the time Legs returned, he was already cooking their breakfast, the scent of roasting hottah meat filling the air.

“Oh, you’re back,” he said as he raised a hand in greeting. “I wondered where you’d gotten to.”

“I awoke early, so I went down to the river to bathe,” she replied as she joined him beside the crackling fire. She was wearing her cloak again now, her features hidden in its shadow, but he could see that the fur on her legs was still a little damp.

“I figured you might have gone hunting again,” he lied, spinning the piece of meat with a stick. “I’m cooking up some breakfast if you’re hungry.”

“I find myself looking forward to your cooking,” she replied, George breathing a quiet sigh of relief.

“I wanted to do something a little different this time,” he said, gesturing to the cooking pot that was bubbling beside the meat as it hung from the spit. “Tell me, have you ever had mushroom soup? It goes down a treat with a side of tatanka meat, and I’m willing to bet that the same is true for our friend the hottah.”

“Mushroom soup?” she asked, cocking her head.

“There are loads of them around here,” he explained, reaching over to sprinkle a dash more salt into the pot. “They’re the brown mushrooms that grow around the roots of the trees.”