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She runs through the dense forest, twigs scratching at her legs but she doesn’t stop. She runs for miles and hours; it seems as though she’ll never stop running.

She wears only an animal hide wrapped around her torso, barely covering her body. She wears no shoes; her feet have hardened from running through the trees, stepping in mud and dirt and over sharp rocks every minute of every day. A spear of wood and sharpened rock tied together rests in her palm.

Suddenly, she stops. Perfectly still, she crouches to the ground to examine the prints left behind by the animals she hunts. Her eyes flutter closed and she listens.

A snap. Then a crunch. Another snap, this time louder.

Her eyes snap open and she jumps to the nearest tree, climbing swiftly. Hidden among the branches, she readies her weapon for battle. Her hands are steady, practiced, the wooden staff fitting perfectly against the calluses on her fingers.

She waits, silent and still, completely focused, waiting for her prey to appear.

Another snap, more crunching.

A figure appears in front of her eyes, just a foot from her tree.

He is taller than any of her tribe, with yellow hair that she has never seen before. She cannot see his face. His skin is pale. He carries an instrument never seen by her before - long and it makes the light bounce.

She draws her breath in, uncomfortable around this man. She has only seen man once before – the elders forbid outsiders from the tribe. Quickfeet found one in the trees once and brought him before the elders. He was dragged into the medicine tent and visited by many tribe members. She was never one of those who visited the man.

Days later, Quickfeet dragged his body away.

This man is different. He wears strange skins, coloured and she doesn’t recognize what animal they came from.

She shifts her foot; a branch shakes. The man spins towards the noise.

His eyes are blue like the ocean, wide open and searching.

He steps away from her tree, walking in the direction of the tribe. He makes many noises – cracking and crunching and squishing. He does not know the forest.

She slowly makes her way down the tree as his back is turned, silent as ever. As she lowers herself to the ground she trains her weapon on the strange man. She watches as he explores.

She follows, her feet falling into the footprints he has left. His feet are larger, and they push deep into the earth.

He stops, suddenly, turns right to face her, his weapon pointing its long nose at her chest. His eyes widen.

She pulls herself up to her full height. She is not tall of stature, but her weapon is poised to strike him through the heart, and she is more than able.

His mouth falls open as he watches her. She notes the differences between them.

She is wild where he is tame. She is dark and he is light. He speaks but she does not understand his words. She is nearly bare and he is covered. She has patches of dirt, scratches and the marks of the forest all over her, but he is clean and without signs of battle. Her weapon is rough and made of nature, but his is clearly from elsewhere.

His eyes focus on her chest, examining the broken, scarred and torn flesh where her right breast once was, though it has not fully healed. His gaze makes her angry; she bears her tribe’s mark of womanhood with great pride. Her transition to woman is not complete but he has no knowledge of the spiritual journeys she must make.

She is home and he is an intruder.

She lunges at him, spear stabbing towards his body. He yelps and tries to pull away and defend himself. She barely scratches him with the tip of her spear.

She continues her attack, fast and brutal. He pushes her away from him and she falls against a tree.

He tugs on his shiny stick and a loud noise erupts from its nose. She dives for the ground, and looks up to see a hole in the tree she had been against, a small stone buried deep in the wood. Smoke rises from the instrument and her eyes are wide with fear.

He holds out a hand and starts to speak again, but she still does not know what he is trying to tell her.

She jumps to her feet and starts to run away from this man, this hideous intruder who has come to kill her. She has become prey.

She can hear his loud feet as he tries to follow her. She is faster than he is, but if he continues to follow her, he will find her tribe.

She jumps into the nearest tree, darting up to its higher limbs where he will not see her. He stops where she had been standing, crouching to the ground to examine the marks her feet left in the soil.

She drops down on top of him. He falls to the ground under her weight. She cracks the back end of her spear against his head and he slumps into the mud. She checks to make sure he is asleep.

She drags his body to the tribe, slow and careful not to bash him against trees. When she reaches the camp, the members of her tribe all stand and stare as she drags him to the center of the camp, towards the elder’s tents.

The elders stare down at him and nod.

“Good work, Redfox,” one elder, Wiseheart, says, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Redfox bows her head in respect. The women nod to her.

Wiseheart motions to the medicine tent and she pulls the man inside, propping him up against the pole in the center. She runs her hands up his legs and sides, pulling a knife from his pocket but finding no other weapons. Redfox strips him quickly. She ropes his arms behind his back and then ties his feet together. Taking the pieces she has removed from his body, she puts them on a pile of skins to be made into blankets. She will keep the knife as proof of her capture.

Redfox looks once more at the stranger, curious about his fate. She leaves the tent and returns to the elders.

Wiseheart smiles. “You have done well, young one. The gods will soon bless us with children.”

Redfox smiles. “I am honored.”

At night, she watches many women of the tribe go into the medicine cabinet. Redfox sits by the fire, shaving arrows with her new knife. When Quickfeet returns to the fire, she does not tell the old legends like she usually does. Redfox stands, prepared to visit the stranger.

“No, sister,” the woman sitting next to Quickfeet calls to her. “Only the ones who have finished their spiritual journey to womanhood. You are physically ready, sister, but not yet is your spirit prepared.”

She can feel her face squish up; she is confused. She is the one who found and captured the man, but she is too young to visit with him.

Three days later, she slits his throat and drags the body to the ocean. She begun this and so she must finish it. This is law – there will be no man among the Amazons.

Put a Stake in It

Put a Stake in It
By Andrea L Rau
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Author's Note

Put a Stake in It is admittedly my strangest tale to date. I came up with the idea for it approximately two years ago, while I was pregnant (so you can blame it on the hormones, perhaps). My husband was on the phone catching up with a friend from college, and I had more or less tuned their conversation out, because I was busy knitting, until I heard one phrase that burned itself into my memory forever: vampire cows.

To this day, I have no idea what led them to that topic, or even what gave my husband's friend the idea for a vampire cow, but as soon as I heard those two words, I knew that there was a story begging to be told about them. And as I tossed the idea around for a while, I realized I already had a character in existence who was perfectly suited to dealing with such an unusual plague: Wintra Felanos.

Wintra popped into existence as the main character for a novel-length book a few years prior to the idea for Put a Stake in It, so I already had a pretty good idea of her personality, general appearance, and mannerisms for the short story, thanks to a stack of notes and some sample chapters. Put a Stake in It takes place prior to the events in the book featuring her (which is sitting in my queue of books to write, once I finish my current novel-length project), so it was a nice opportunity to re-visit my character and get to know her better.

Like this story, Wintra is unique among my other characters. While she isn't particularly pleasant or likeable in many ways, she is as oddly fun to write as this story proved to be.

I can only hope the readers of this bizarre story found it entertaining as well.

Sincerely,

Andrea L. Rau

Table of Contents
Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3
Scene 4
Scene 5

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Put a Stake in It, Scene 1

A cool breeze blew through the window, rippling the ratty, black lace curtains like cobwebs shaken from a dust rag. A second gust blew back a curl of brown bangs and glided across a perspiring forehead. Wintra Felanos ignored the refreshing change. She scrawled her signature across a contract and sighed. She ought to be grateful for the work. Business slowed in the summer. Hot weather dwindled her prospects to earn a living. She folded the contract and reached for a half melted stick of black sealing wax. She held it over a candle's flame and watched the wax spatter onto the parchment. She stamped the congealing pool with her seal--a crow ruffling its feathers. She picked up a quill to address the contract, and her office door banged open. A gangly youth in rumpled, food-spotted robes tumbled through.

“Cows!” he gasped.

Wintra rose to throw him out of her office. He stood up. His rust-colored hair stood at odd angles from his scalp. It amplified the crazed look in his green eyes. “I am not drunk,” he declared, guessing her thoughts. “The cows are everywhere!”

“Well, they must change pasture to find food--” She drew back with a wince. His breath smelled foul with the aroma of onions and aged cheese, but she detected no alcohol.

“No, they're evil!”

“Evil cows.” This might take all afternoon. Wintra sorely regretted sending her assistant home early. “How can cows be evil?” she asked with a morbid curiosity.

“They're vampires!” He wrung his hands. “Vampire cows!”

Wintra closed her eyes. She knew it wasn't the heat that suddenly exhausted her. “I see.” He was mad. Perhaps she should summon her assistant to consult with before taking definitive action.

“I'm serious. I miscast the spell, and the cows are on a bloodthirsty rampage!”

Finally, something interesting amid his incoherent babble. “What spell?” She surveyed him again. He impressed her even less than he had before—which was to say, not at all.

“Well,” he hesitated, eyeing her less kindly than he would a snake.

She pursed her lips. “Well, out with it, if you need my help.” She arched an eyebrow. “That is why you tumbled through my door?” He bit his lower lip until it bled. “When you're ready to talk, let me know. Otherwise, I have work to do.”

It was a lie, but she sat at her desk and started a letter to her bank, complaining about the lack of evening or early morning service hours. With her lack of business, the inconvenient hours mattered little at present. She was surprised, however, that they hadn't increased their hours already, given how people around her behaved like frightened little rats scurrying for cover. But perhaps they refused to change them because they would rather keep her away if they could.

Naturally, the bank had not turned down its nose at her business. Her money was as good as anyone else's, apparently. Greed. It was nice to know something could be relied upon in the world. Really, it made her feel almost connected to others. Almost.

She spied movement. “Yes?” Why was this buffoon still in her office if he didn't know whether he really wanted her help?

“Please,” he spluttered, “I need your...assistance.”

“With what? I don't have all day, you know.”

“With the vampire cows?” It sounded like a question rather than a statement.

“I gathered that." She may regret this assignment, but money was money, and she had precious little right now. “What spell?”

“Spell?” he asked blankly.

“The one that went wrong!” she thundered, abandoning all pretense of patience. “Explain yourself now, or I'll summon a crow and have him peck at your eyes until his beak wears down to the nub!”

He paled, and Wintra watched with interest as blood pulsed through indigo veins in his now translucent skin. Sweat dribbled into his wide eyes, forcing him to blink. He spoke softly, his voice obscured by chattering teeth. “I do n-need your help. Please, I am not kidding.”

Of course not, Wintra thought smugly. You wouldn't dare be so stupid. You're damned desperate just to come here in the first place. Whatever this nonsense is about, it has you much more scared of it than you are of me. “No, but you're taking an abominably long time to tell me about it. You said a spell went awry? What spell?”

“My own,” he said, with a mixture of pride and shame. “The extreme heat has caused a famine, leaving the cows emaciated.. A farmer asked me to help, and I invented a spell to increase the growth of a cow's muscle tissue, so he'd have more meat to sell at market. Beef is in high demand right now.”

“Yes, I see.” She made a face. “Actually, I don't. How can cows be vampiric? Do they suck the life out of the grass?” She laughed at the thought.

“It isn't funny!” he admonished. “Certainly not to the people the cows are attacking--”

She laughed harder at the mental image of a herd of cows chasing a startled farmer around his pasture.

“--and eating!”

She considered him soberly. “Why not? It's not like--” She stopped. If he knew she had nothing else to do for the time being, no other means of income, he had the advantage. “I can squeeze you into my schedule.” She smiled without warmth. “For a price, of course.”

“How much?” Beads of sweat glistened on his face.

“That depends on the situation's immediacy--”

“Right away!” he gasped. “They'll eat whole villages in the space of days!”

“--and the task's difficulty, plus any additional supplies, necessary travel expenses and the like...”

He groaned and flopped into a chair. She eyed a stack of papers on her desk. “Of course, if you wish to leave villagers at the mercy of ravenous, bloodthirsty cows...” She waited for him to arrive at the only logical solution with all due haste, desperation, and large monetary promises. Her fingers twitched and she slowly reached across her desk.

“I don't have much money,” he whined, earning a disgusted glare from her. “Sorry,” he apologized.

“Can't you calculate the preliminary total?” he inquired after a period of silence. “My guild should help cover the costs.”

An absolute gibbering moron, she thought with glee as she plucked a contract off her desk. My favorite type of client. “I would be...” she searched for the correct word and tried not to sneer, “...happy to.”

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Put a Stake in It, Scene 2

Wintra watched the setting sun paint pink, periwinkle, and purple streaks across the horizon. While any other person would have found the sight beautiful, she hated it. Its resemblance to the projectile vomit that had drenched her during her last foray with one of the undead, scarring her left shoulder, only reminded her of her recurrent financial problems. She hadn't been paid enough to compensate for the headaches that excursion had entailed, and Wintra had a nasty feeling that she wouldn't fare any better with this job. If her client even intended to pay her at all--which she doubted. Something about his manner when he'd signed the contract had alerted her instincts to probable deception.

Wintra had no intention of letting him weasel out of their agreement. She needed the money too badly, curse it. Even a small payment toward her debts was better than nothing.

She yawned, irritated with herself. She hadn't slept well during the two day carriage ride to the inn. Perhaps it was the jouncing of the carriage over every rock in the road (or more likely her blabbering companion), for it certainly hadn't been the sunlight. She was used to sleeping odd, erratic hours since her profession often required nocturnal activity. Still, she thought sourly, I am usually better rested.

“Aren't you frightened?” he—Marvin? Melvin?—asked, as they sat in council with each other at the inn.

Sunlight streamed through the cheap linen curtains, warming Wintra's back as the day's heat faded. She tried to enjoy it, for she knew that soon enough, as the colder months approached, she would be too busy to wake or venture outdoors during daylight hours. “Why should I be?”

“It'll be dark soon, and we have to go...look for them.”

“That is why you hired me.”

“You're really not scared?” he asked skeptically.

She rolled her eyes. “If I were easily frightened, I have chosen the wrong profession, and we would not be having this inane conversation.”

“Point taken,” he sighed.

She ground her teeth together. “Is that all, Martin?”

“Calvin,” the would-be wizard corrected.

“Whatever.” She turned to him. “So what has been done?”

“Done?” He watched her blankly, a specialty of his.

“What other measures have been taken?” she prodded, losing the tenuous grip she had on her practically nonexistent patience. She glared at him. “What else has been tried? I must prepare for the hunt properly.”

“Well, I thought we could trap them in sunlight,” he confessed, “but they hide from it long before dawn. Then there was the cleric.”

“Cleric?” She arched an eyebrow with disdain. A village holy man was hardly equipped to handle this situation.

“I thought that if he could turn the undead--”

“Could he?”

“No,” he admitted. “Oh, he knew the theory, but he lacked experience.”

“They ate him,” she guessed. He nodded numbly. “That's hardly surprising. Most clerics are frauds, full of hot air and empty promises. Oh, some are fine, but they're more ignorant than educated, especially in these parts. Learning something from a book and being able to recite it by heart isn't the same as doing it. You can't,” she sniffed, “learn combat from a book.”

“Maybe it was nerves.”

“I doubt it. Likely he prepared improperly, or he misremembered how. The point is, it didn't work. It usually doesn't.”

“Why not?”

“It's a difficult spell,” she explained, “but it's very weak. Even if it works properly, it only banishes undead temporarily. It's a lot of energy wasted for little result. I have much better spells in my arsenal.”

“Spells no decent person would touch,” he grumbled.

“Don't get pompous on me now, Calvin. You hired me.” She shrugged. “Besides, I don't claim to be a decent Mage. No necromancer would.” She roused herself mentally. “Come. It's dark enough.” She reached for the lantern on the inn's rough-hewn table and grabbed her staff without waiting for an answer. Calvin scurried along behind her.

“Couldn't you cast an illumination spell?” he wondered as they ventured into the darkness. He hovered annoyingly close to her shoulders, too nervous to venture outside the small circle of light that the lantern provided.

“I could, but I won't. Why waste energy I might need later, if I have a perfectly good lantern right here?”

“You don't have enough energy reserves to spare for a small light?” he asked incredulously. “What did I hire you for, if you can't manage that? Even Novice Mages can juggle two spells simultaneously!”

“Minor spells," she corrected with a sneer. "Obviously you've never dealt with the undead. I'm not going to waste precious energy on stupid little warming or light spells just to curb your doubts, when that extra energy might mean the difference between life and death for us later. Now be quiet. I must use all my senses.” She sniffed experimentally as a cool breeze rippled her cloak. A mild scent of pine and damp earth filled her nostrils. She stood downwind from a forest. She was unlikely to find the cows there; they needed larger stores of blood to satiate them: people. But where were they?

“Here.” She thrust the lantern into his hands. “Make yourself moderately useful.”

She concentrated and probed with her thoughts. When she found what she sought, she recited an incantation and held out her arm. Calvin edged forward. He opened his mouth, but shrieked when an owl flew in confused circles around his head, grazing his hair. He dropped the lantern and cowered in the dirt.

“Get up!” The man was absolutely tiresome. “Don't you dare drop the lantern again! You're lucky you didn't start a fire, you fool.”

The owl landed on her arm with a hoot. It bobbed its head and scooted along its perch restlessly. Wintra locked gazes with it and cast another spell. A warm and disorienting sensation swept through her body, as if she had imbibed too much brandy. She lifted her arm. “Go.” The owl flapped away silently.

“What was that about?”

“We must rely on another nocturnal hunter's eyes to find the cows; one who travels silently and remains unobtrusive.”

“What did you do?”

She eyed him knowingly. He scuffed his boot in the dirt and looked away. She snorted. The idiot wasn't even fully trained, and yet he dared lecture her about magic and complain about her spells. No wonder he was in this mess. She smirked. “I cast a bonding spell to see through the owl's eyes so we may find the cows. It makes one aware of many things about the creature, such as hunger, thirst, gender...Of course," she couldn't help but add snidely, "as a fully trained Novice Mage, you know that.”

Calvin flushed and opened his mouth to protest, but Wintra silenced him. “Don't waste my time with excuses," she snapped. "I couldn't care less--" She faltered as a change in the owl's awareness alerted her own. "It found one. If we hurry, we may catch it before it kills.” They set off in the darkness, the dry, deadened grass crunching quietly beneath their feet. The crisp tang of the night air invigorated Wintra. She tightened her grip on her staff as they hurried through the darkened pastures, eager for the confrontation that lay ahead. Weeks of inane paper work and bothersome housekeeping tasks around her office had left Wintra bored out of her skull; the knowledge that she would soon be able to exercise her magic for professional purposes excited her. She breathed deeply, and a familiar aroma urged her to slow her pace at last.

She stopped in her tracks and inhaled again. The fetid odor of rotten flesh filled Wintra's nostrils. Calvin, unused to the smell, gagged violently. A cow stood several yards away, feasting on some discovered carrion. Wintra flexed her free hand and smiled eagerly. She grasped the smooth, bone-carved handle of the small, thin-bladed knife that hung from her work belt. She drew her knife and sliced open her right forearm.

“What are you doing?” Calvin demanded as her arm oozed blood.

“My job. Shut up and defend yourself.”

He stared in horror and fumbled for the small knife tucked into his own belt. He would do better to rely on his own awkward and rudimentary magic, despite his indicated lack of full training. If he turned himself into a vampire or a bush as a result, Wintra was equipped to handle the former, and tempted to plant the latter.

She spied movement in the distance. The cow sensed the fresh blood. “Brace yourself!” The creature raised its head. Its mad eyes glowed a putrid green. Blood dripped from its muzzle, spattering on the ground like macabre inkblots. Wintra recited a spell and swung her staff in front of herself like a bar. The cow charged and rammed its skull against the staff. It stumbled backward, shaking its head. Even vampiric cattle are stupid, she observed. Strong, though. Damn near broke my staff, all spells aside. The cow lunged at her from the side, bellowing in confused rage.

“Wintra! Look out!” Calvin leaped in front of her. The cow lowered its head and hit him in the stomach like a battering ram. “Oof!” He fell, and the lantern clattered to the ground. The cow licked savagely at Calvin's bleeding arm, aggravating its new disturbing angle. His bloodcurdling scream rather impressed Wintra as she worked her spell.

“Mmmwaaahgh!” the cow bellowed. Its jaw unhinged with a loud crack and hung loose, wobbling back and forth. Wintra wove another spell and the cow fell into the muddy pasture, as if dead.

Wintra peered at Calvin and set the lantern upright. “We'll take you to a healer.” She surveyed his damaged arm. “Although a Healer Mage would be better.”

“There isn't one nearby,” he replied weakly. “Thank you for ending its misery.”

“What?”

“For killing the cow after you did that awful thing to its jaw.”

“That 'awful thing' saved you from being eaten alive,” she pointed out. “It can't suck blood if its jaw is broken. And it isn't dead, it's undead, as people in my profession say. I seized its muscles up. It should last long enough to haul it to town.”

“What? That's cr--Behind you!”

She turned. Of course. Cattle rarely traveled alone. As the herd stampeded toward her in a frenzy, she dropped her staff, grabbed the lantern, and launched it at the cattle. The lantern smashed to pieces as it hit the ground. A small flame spread, but not fast enough. Wintra shouted another spell. The fire exploded into an inferno, engulfing the cattle. She picked up her staff.

“Can you walk? That won't stop them for long.”

Calvin struggled to his feet and ran toward town, cradling his mangled arm. Wintra whispered another spell. She heaved the immobile cow over her shoulders. She hoped it would last long enough to reach shelter. But she worried what might happen if her spell failed, and the recuperated cow began to move, right by her very vulnerable and unprotected neck.

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