The two continued staring at each other for a good while before Yun Lei loosened his arms and returned the nocked arrow back in his quiver. He took several breaths before his heart finally relaxed.
"That doesn't look good." He walked forwards toward the doe with caution.
"Why do you not kill me?" She repeated herself.
"I don't want to."
"You stink of blood, why not one more?"
"Why do you seem so eager to die?"
"If you want to kill me, there is no way for me to live anyways." The doe laid down her head on the ground and let out what seemed to be a sigh.
"Would it be wrong to assume that you are familiar with this area?"
"It wouldn't."
"Predators we need to be wary of?"
"Only the ones who walk on two legs." The anger in her voice wasn't hidden. "I thought we would be safe this deep in the forest but after having encountered two hunters, that no longer seems to be the case."
Yun Lei realised that the doe mistook him for a hunter but he didn't bother clearing up her misunderstanding. 'Hunter' sounded a lot better than 'completely lost and clueless'. Besides, if she thought of him as more dangerous than he actually was, it would be easier to avoid conflict.
He walked towards the doe, trying his hardest to hide the fact that his right leg was almost useless.
"Are you walking towards me to kill me with a knife? You don't want to damage my precious white hide, right?" Although her voice was full of confidence, Yun Lei's eyes could see right through her. He could smell her fear.
The stench of blood on the hunter in front of her was unbelievable. Even though he wasn't releasing any aura, her heart was quivering. She tried to appear strong but she could barely stop her voice from trembling.
How many lives has this man ended? That was the only thought she had. She had no doubts in her mind that she would die that day. It was merely a matter of how.
The hunter was completely naked aside from the roll of cloth that was wrapped around his waist. If she couldn't smell that he was a human, she would have thought he was a beast-kin of some kind.
The hunter was looking at the arrow in her leg.
"Are you admiring the handiwork of your comrade?"
Yun Lei didn't respond to her words and just kept staring, to the point she was getting even more scared.
The hunter looked at her in the eyes before finally opening his mouth.
"Sloppy."
She remembered how elegant and practice his movements seemed to be, even the way he drew back the arrow was full of grace. Compared to the man before her, the other hunter could only be considered sloppy. She would have never even noticed his approach had she not smelled blood.
"Indeed. He should have shot me in the head so my hide wouldn't be ruined."
She heard the man let out a sigh before he took out a knife from the pouch around his torso. Her eyes began shaking.
Yun Lei, on the other hand, was just relieved that he had sterilised the knife in the fire the night before.
"This will hurt."
"At least give me the dignity of a painless death." The doe said in a small voice before closing her eyes. Although she couldn't see it, she could almost feel the knife getting closer and closer to her. And although the pain she was expecting did come, it wasn't from where she was expecting it.
She opened her eyes and looked at the hunter who seemed to be widening the wound caused by the arrow. The pain made her flinch but he held down her body with his hands and prevented her from moving.
His knife went deeper and deeper, causing a big gash to appear on her body. The pain made her want to scream but she held it back with all her might. She would not scream because of a hunter's blade, no matter what.
But, contrary to her expectations, the hunter put down his knife rather quickly. He then put even more strength into the hand holding her down before he pulled out the arrow in one swift motion.
An unconscious hiss escaped the hunter's lips when he saw the arrowhead. The barbed hooks that pointed outward were designed to prevent the arrow from being pulled out. Even if it was, it would cause a lot of pain and blood loss.
Vicious was the only word he could use to describe it. It wasn't the type of arrow a hunter who was only trying to catch food would use. It was the arrow people who wanted to cause pain and suffering would use.
He was fine with people hunting and animals dying. The strong ate the weak, it was the law of nature. Beasts may hunt for sport but people were better than that. They should have been better than that.
People were sentient and knew of the pains they were capable of inflicting. That was the reason hunters had to be respectful of nature and try to kill their prey swiftly and painlessly. Yet the arrow in his hand did not seem to belong to a hunter. It seemed to belong to a cruel being who wished to cause pain upon those who couldn't fight back.
He couldn't help but let out a scoff of anger at the thought. He wiped the blood off the arrow before putting it in his quiver.
"Your tendon seems to have been severed." He spoke before putting one of the Blood Clotting Pills in front of her mouth. Seeing her just stare at the pill and do nothing, he spoke again, "Eat it."
The doe opened her mouth after much hesitation and ate the pill. She could feel the medicinal effect almost immediately. Her wound stopped bleeding and seemed to close up a little.
But instead of relief, that pill had only scared her more. She had never even heard of such a miraculous pill before but more than that, she knew there was only one reason a hunter would want to heal her.
"If you think you can torture me until I tell you where the rest of my people are, you can just kill me right now."
The hunter acted like he hadn't even heard her as he rummaged through his cloth pouch.
"Hungry?" He asked, pulling out a red fruit that resembled an apple. Seeing the doe's hesitation, he took a bite from it before offering it up again. This time, she didn't refuse. The entire fruit fit in her jaws quite easily so he just put the whole thing in her mouth.
Yun Lei felt a bit better after having discovered the talking doe. She had told him that there were no dangerous predators around, save people, and she seemed to know the area which meant there was a chance he could find out where he was. She was his ticket out of those woods.
"Do you know what this forest is called?"
"The Forest of Endless Trees?" The doe replied in a confused tone. What kind of hunter would enter that godforsaken place without even knowing its name?
"Oh." Replied Yun Lei. The name didn't exactly make him think that he would be getting out of those woods anytime soon. Feeling a bit bummed out, Yun Lei sat beside the doe and started snacking on the fruits he had brought. Occasionally, he would take a bite out of them and feed it to her.
Looks like I won't be eating meat any time soon, he thought as he bit into the sweet fruits. The sun was still quite high up in the sky so the night was still a bit away.
It was only then did he notice a problem. He didn't want to take the doe to his cave. He didn't know who or what the creature was, who knew if she would try to kill him in his sleep? What if she misunderstood him and brought back more of her kind in order to kill him? He needed someplace to hide. Just in case.
Even though he had removed the arrow from her body and had fed her one of his precious Blood Clotting Pills on top of that, she didn't show any indications of wanting to go on her way. Of course, he knew the reason for that.
"The hunter who shot you, where do you think he currently is?"
"Further south."
"But you were moving towards the south when I was stalking you."
"I wanted to get away from you after I found out your presence."
She was walking towards a hunter to avoid another hunter? Yun Lei thought in his mind but didn't bother bringing it up.
The doe knew she would die, either way. The hunter in front of her was a lot scarier than the one who had shot her so she was willing to do such a thing.
"Do you think he is still on your trail?"
"It rained yesterday, unless he is completely incompetent, it is safe to assume he is. I used the last bit of my strength to run away, I didn't have the time to cover my tracks."
"We're upwind, tell me when you smell him." Yun Lei said, getting up on his feet. They were way too visible in the clearing, they needed to hide in the treelines. The doe got up on her feet too.
"What are you going to do?" The doe asked curiously as she followed behind him.
"Kill him." For the first time since he had been in that forest, a bit of his aura had been released from his body. The doe's body shook slightly in response.
There were several reasons he wanted to kill that hunter. He wanted to use the doe but since neither of them could move quickly, the hunter was bound to catch up sooner or later.
As long as he was with her, he would be in danger too. Hence, it was best to quickly neutralise the threat. Plus, he knew about the other party but the other party didn't know about him. He was at a major advantage.
There was also the fact that he simply didn't like that bastard.
Will your hands tremble as they did when you aimed at the doe? He had to ask himself this. If he messed up, there was a very real chance that he would die. But before he was even done asking the question, he already knew the answer.
No, it wouldn't.
The reason his hands had trembled in the first place was because of the thought that his hands would be ending an innocent life. That hunter clearly wasn't innocent. As they said, if you want to kill, you must be prepared to be killed.
"Will you really kill him?" The doe asked in a small voice.
"Yes." His voice was full of certainty.
Yun Lei walked to the northern edge of the clearing before he stopped.
"You sit here and rest. Let a bit of yourself be visible. How long do you think we'll have before he catches up?"
"Half an hour?"
"Good then. I'll go take my position. Make a noise after you smell him."
Yun Lei wouldn't be able to relax properly unless he took out the axe that was floating above his neck. That was why his sentences were short and to the point and his tone was cold and unfriendly.
"Why should I trust you?" He stopped upon hearing the doe speak and turned around, looking straight into her eyes.
"I do not wish to harm you."
The doe only watched the young-looking hunter walk away from her before climbing up a tree. He crouched upon a branch as he readied his bow. His eyes seemed to be watching the south like a hawk.
She didn't know how long she spent watching him but she soon caught the smell of the hunter they had been waiting for. From the look of things, she wasn't the only one since the hunter on the trees had already nocked an arrow on his bow.
Seeing the arrow that was lodged into her body not long ago about to be used on the person who had fired it, she couldn't help but let out a smile. Fate had her way of being ironic, after all.