I WAS THE FIRST the fair-haired invaders killed here, but of course I did not die. I think the blue-eyed people did not understand what I was; where I was; when I was. I have heard that there was no Forest where they came from; only trees, here and there, lonely and longing for the Wood.
So perhaps they did not understand about me; us; all of us who are the Forest. They were surprised when I did not fall as they hacked at me; they became afraid and ran. Their running became part of me, as the running of the aurochs is part, and the running of the deer. All the hunted are part of me, because how else can I be a hunter?
Only the hunter who knows the fear of the chase can feel the true, pure victory; only the hunter who pays for his prey with terror is washed clean of guilt. To feel what they feel; to run as they run; to die as they die is the only way. If you hunt without it, you too will die in turn, as the humans do.
It is not hard to kill. The hard part is to do so while feeling all that the prey feels, and yet keep the clarity of purpose that allows the killing stroke, the slash of the knife to the perfect spot which will cause the least pain.
I remember my first kill. Who does not? It was so long ago that the Forest itself was different. I remember the cycads and the ferns. I remember the big lizards, which were never hunted, because they did not fear as we did. Their feelings were so far from us that it was never clear if we were clean after, so the flock leader ordered us to leave them alone. To prey only on the warm-blooded ones, who were enough like us, social and grouping together and fearing sharply the rustle in the bushes which said the killer was hiding, waiting, watching . . .
Blood is good when it is warm. Just one sip is all we need. Blood is life and more than life — the knowledge of life, which is what the animals lack and we provide for the Forest. Only those who kill understand life completely; only those who witness the eyes as they dull know the value of what leaves the body with the last breath.
Predators are the cull: we keep the bloodlines clean, the herds healthy, the memories alive. All the memories. None we have killed is forgotten. None we have killed truly dies. Each of our hunts lives forever in the Forest, in the special places of remembrance. We live there, also, alive at once in a dozen times, alive only at the times of the hunt, feeling again each kill: the aurochs, the deer, the boar, the humans. The humans feel fear the most vividly and are hardest to encompass in the moment of death, but we can do it. We must. The Forest requires us to kill all those who see us, so we have learnt how to kill men.
I know how to kill humans, but not the Kill Reborn. She had no fear. In all the untold years I had never met prey that had no fear of me. It changed me, that moment. To look into a human’s eyes and see only calm, acceptance, interest — that is not what a hunter sees. But I had seen it. So what was I now? If I were not a hunter, did that mean I was a mortal, like her, subject to death as she was? I feared so. I knew I had to follow this Kill Reborn until I could taste her fear, until the Forest allowed her death. For all humans die. Then I would be a hunter again, and cleansed, and the memory of her death would join the other memories of my hunts.
Memories of death are eternal, kept in the Forest until the sun becomes ripe and is eaten by the gods. The Forest itself is smaller than it was; the places of remembrance fewer and busier than they were, with memories circling through them faster than in the past. This is due to the fair-haired men. But the Forest has withstood much in the past: fire and flood and ice. What is a thousand years? Nothing. Always it has recovered, and it will recover from this. Because we know, we hunters, that if necessary, we could take back the Forest land from the newcomers. I alone culled those first fair-haired men, and we could kill the others. We have had practice.
Although holding their fear and their pain would stretch us, we could do it, if we had to. If we were asked to. If the Forest woke.