Eye on Target

The king requested a horse from the Highlands, some big, beautiful thing with midnight mane and spider-long legs. Its most recognizable feature: a blue third eye adorning its forehead, said to grant whoever possessed it with the ability to deceive. A muscled man was first hired for the horse’s retrieval, but though his body was strong, his mind had been possessed by fear. Second, a young boy was tried, but he was so cocky he came back with nothing but a long yarn, exaggerated with wild boars and woodland witches.

Finally, Isis was hired, a last resort though she was the best shot in her land. She shrugged off the king’s bias, used to waiting her turn. After all, her stomach was looking forward to this hunt. The king requested the horse dead or alive and since he wanted its jewel, she didn’t think he’d mind it missing a leg or two.

The forest was a beast all its own. Thorns nagged her. Cold bit her. Still, she journeyed on. She watched for hoof prints in the snow. She saw none and still knew she was closing in. Animal’s heartbeats made the most noise, she’d always say to other hunters whether they’d heed her sweet voice or not. You want to be a good tracker, don’t see and don’t hear, feel the pulse.

Still, it was hard for Isis to feel the pulse over the screaming pain of her bones gone stiff. Some didn’t know bones could freeze, but Isis knew better. You get numb, stiff. Then you shatter. Isis’s mom told that bedtime story all too often, her attempt at deterring Isis’s hunting ambition while trying to pump it into her brother’s veins. Of course, it hadn’t worked. Isis was born a predator. Her brother still had the tendency to cower at a puppy’s growl.

Any second now, any second . . . Her eyes scanned the shadows. Hiding was what common beasts did, not the majestic, but why take chances? So absorbed in her tracking, Isis narrowly missed sinking her foot in a ditch. A sprained ankle would be a deterrent she couldn’t afford. She cursed herself in silence. Mistakes like this were below her. It was the monster called Hunger in her stomach, pushing her to extremes, begging her to get going and going quick.

Soon, Isis halted.

There it was, nibbling the bony fingers of a tree: her target. Isis readied her rifle. Another creature unseen broke a twig with a thunderclap. The horse snapped its head up, alert. Isis had only a second before it fled. She shot and struck true through its third eye.

She returned her rifle to its halter and got busy preparing the horse for its delivery. Too heavy to carry, she tied a long sheet over and under the animal’s bulk and fastened the ends of the sheet to herself. With it secure, she began her trek.

Right away she realized that dragging the horse felt too easy. An equine of such mass should weigh like a cannonball on her lower back. She looked back and knew she had been deceived by illusion for she now saw a regular, piteous animal, bleeding a rotten stench that crinkled her nose and murdered her appetite, a stink that couldn’t possibly be exuded from something she’d toppled not an hour ago. She knew she’d fallen victim to deception, blinded by illusion cast on a moving deer corpse. The cocky young boy who’d attempted the mystic deer’s capture before her had mentioned such things in his fable, but she’d assumed it was all myth. It puzzled and shook her, but got her heart throbbing with desire too. Imagine a foe as wise as her, a prey with a predator’s drive. She would have continued the hunt if she could see a point in it, but she couldn’t. Night was falling harder and one gunshot was all any creature would permit before taking cover. With her rations dwindling and days of journey ahead of her, it was wiser to go home and plan a return. Reequipped, rested, and renewed with ambition, she would get another chance.

Isis considered untying the sheet and leaving her fly-bothered catch then thought better of it. She hadn’t fetched the target, but the rotten deer had proven two things: she’d come close and she was still the best shot in her land.

Through the trees the horse with its third eye showed all its teeth in a gleeful whinny, watching Isis leave.