There once was a child born to a hunter and his wife at the edge of a great forest. They were a poor family ruled over by a noble who decreed that all deer and boar with in the forest were his and should be only his to hunt. The family suffered, but they lived a good life as such things are measured. She learned bow and spear from her father and how to treat and prepare them from her mother life was perhaps not as rich as other, but they were a family. This changed when her mother became ill, a kind of wasting sickness her father knew how to cure a simple thing as these things went, velvet from the horn of a young buck a few herbs and brewed into a tea. They treated the dying woman as long as they could wait before her father took his bow and left for the forest.

He returned three nights later dragged behind a horse by the noble ruler. The cruelty visited upon the once happy home is the stuff that dark tales are made such things are easy for the most twisted minds to think upon, but difficult for those of a righteous heart to fathom. The girl was dragged from her home and given many cuts before being told to run as the lord's hounds were sent after her. This night they thought they would hunt the last of this family a warning to all those who would try and take what the lord decreed was his. They laughed as they watched her flee a sinister laugh as she bled her heart's blood onto the forest floor as dogs chased her down with men of horseback behind them.

Many stories would end in this young girl being chased down by dogs, used for sick and horrid amusements before being discarded to be devoured by the forest another lamb to slaughter. This would be a discredit to the family and the heartiness of the spirit of vengeance and the needs of those who hunt in those places where evil lurks. For this forest was not of the elven kind many wander through where love and a sense of agelessness weighs the bows of the trees. This forest lived and was sanctuary and prison for many things that those who lived around it carefully pushed from their minds. Those who hunt in such woods and live on the edge are made of things which those who hide in castles and live in villages speak of in whispered tones.

Those who watched her would say, "She fled in terror." Those who know when a fox has a plan and is making the best of what it has for options would say she ran with purpose. She fled over bramble patches across sink holes and chasms, not all the dogs were as quick as her and none of them knew the ground as she did. The hounds were taken out one by one through her cunning she turned on the last one a rock in hand. The animal's death was not clean if death could ever be called such, but she left it where the hunters could find it. She moved into the trees with her rock and prepared as the hunters followed a rock and a heavy branch she could use as a club he only real weapons.

Those who gave chase with their lord were two of his knights, old friends who enjoyed what their station gave to them and what they could take using it. They tracked their hounds through the woods as the mists of the night mixed with the light of the moon casting things into an evil light of shadows as dark as a man's soul and bright as the bright as the glint of a candle flame off a knife's edge. They put their dogs out of their misery as they found them using long spears, broken limbed or worse they were amused a skinny bleeding woman could give such wonderful sport. This amusement ended as they came on the last dog it was a savage killing one that was more savage than anything they had committed.

She came on them like a savage animal worse than that she acted with the keen eye and fore thought of a human who had let slip their pretext for nobility and need for morality. She killed the first by virtue of dropping on top of him from above the rock breaking his skull. She stole the dead man's spear before it could clatter to the ground, his friends reacted of course as she stabbed out with her spear stabbing the knight's mount deep in it's shoulder. He fell to earth with the noblemen's mount bucking him off as it ran into the night, he threw his spear at the women as she was kicked from the mount. When she rose she was covered in the blood of animal and human alike her eyes burned with an inner fire as she pulled a spear from her belly slowly staring at the noble lord as she stalked forward. He ran from this scene of hell made flesh as she took the spear and jammed it into the screaming horse's chest before repeating the scene with the man who had ridden it.

What ever strength when given to a rabbit in terror who fights against the fox that has cornered it never last for longer than the rabbit's heart can manage. So too was it for this maiden as she finished the last of the attackers she could she fell to her knees and stared after the one who had fled. The night grew cold as the moon pierced the scene of blood, gore and horror this one wounded woman had caused. As her heart's blood spilled onto the dry earth things came before her... beautiful and terrible beings, beings who looked on those who crafted their lives in "civil" society and laughed at it.

Spirits of dead hunters mingled with gods of the hunt, Sidhe walking among the trees with mortal hunters, beasts of a thousand stories and of darkest  night all come together as The Wild Hunt. She looked on all this as her eyes grew dim and her heart's blood made a pool around her time seemed to slow as a being walked forward slowly staring down at her. He had one good eye and one ruined as if by a sword's slash or else an animal's rake, he loomed over her as as her eyes failed she could see almost beyond him... as if the guise he wore was more for her benefit than anything else and when he spoke she heard him clear as a bell even ass everything grew quiet around her. "You fought well child..." he said surveying the carnage around him nodding his head as if in approval. "Would that you had but a butter knife when this began I think the last of them and your true target would have joined these." He eyed her then as she covered her most grievous wound saying nothing as her breathing began to slow and the world began to change to black and white. "Would that thee had one last breath, I think you would catch and slay he who did this to you... I would make a pact with you mortal. I shall grant you five minutes of life... but after you would not be as you once were."

The youth looked to him and showed her bloodied teeth choking out between gurgles of blood. "I only need three."

She struck the pact, she gained new life, she killed a bastard with his own knife. She joined the hunt and now she roams, her spears not blunt but sharp and honed. The wild hunt's mark adorns her soul her mortal coil she has disowned, fear not those who stalk tall grass or walk upon more civilized paths. She hunts the monsters that roam the night, who feast on misery pain and strife, fear not her savage sword or lance unless you terry in darkness' path.