Death's Shadow

Umbra stretched herself out among the branches lazily. Her tail twitched back and forth as the sun fell across her back. She half opened her eyes and froze. Her tail stopped twitching and her ears tilted forward. Something was shining in the forest below. Smelled like man. Man always smelled like death. So did that cave of theirs. She could practically smell it from here.1

She had tried to move further away so she wouldn't have to smell that place any more, but she couldn't get very far. There were no males outside the human city, not that she could mate anyways...she was well past her prime. It was a pity too; she was attractive by normal standards, and in this place where she had no competition she was gorgeous. Her black coat hid her in the shadows as she stalked through the forest, her tail waving back and forth to an invisible breeze. She grinned inside when she heard the hunter's cries of excitement at finding trees on which she's sharpened her claws. The idiots were still searching the ground.2

She did not fear the hunters here. Back home she would fear them if it was her they hunted, but in the jungles to the south the people did not hunt the panther, they worshipped them. She had not been so impressive there, but she enjoyed the offerings and had lived a comfortable life. Until she smelled the blood. She'd smelled blood before, even human blood, but not like this. It was lifeblood, and it was flowing on the ground around the human pack's home and around her shrine. HER shrine. She had to go miles away before the stench was left behind.3

She was sleeping when they came for her. She was a fool and careless. She had grown used to sleeping at the base of her shrine, watched over by the shining version of herself built by the hands of those strange but kind creatures. She ate the food at it's feet without thought and fell into a dreamless sleep. She awoke with a great feeling of wrong. She smelled people, but not HER people. She tried to look up but her head was heavy. These men were different. They were lighter of skin and shone like sun on the water. She tried to rise but her legs felt like bronze. They threw a net over her that she had often seen thrown over lesser creatures. Rage coursed through her body, but it couldn't move her limbs. Everything went dark.4

The next hours or days or weeks were in a cage on a wobbly wooden ground. Every other morning one of the shining men brought rotten fish for her to eat. As time passes her muscle turned flabby and her coat lost it's sheen. Her golden green eyes no longer glowed with the feral fire that struck fear into the heart of the jungle. The worst of it was that she could smell prey, but without the fire in her eyes she couldn't see them in the dark. It drove her mad; she raged against the bars that held her, trying to get to the prey in the dark. The men came and poked and prodded her until she no longer raged and lay barely conscious at the bottom of the cage. 5

When men came to take her away from the wooden cave, she barely opened her eyes. She has some vague thoughts of her claws raking across their flesh, but she had not the strength to enact them. She did wake however when she scented burning meat on the breeze. 6

There were people, more than she had ever seen. They crowded around her pointing and aweing while she tried to back away. She couldn't. They just kept looking and staring and she couldn't get away; there was no forest to take shelter in, no room to turn. She found for the first time since she left her home that roar that shook the jungle , but it only made more gather. 7

Then she smelt it. That blood on the breeze. Umbra cringed in her sleep. She often dreamt of that place, for she was so close that she always smelled it. The place reeked of death, of lifeblood that no longer pulsed. When she was finally released, she was in yet another cage with other creatures she recognized from her home. She scented her brother and half-brother among them and heard one of them growl she was lucky to be free. She snarled. A cage was a cage, no matter the size.8

A man came with meat, and the scent sent her into blood rage. She beat away three cats twice as healthy to get to it. It was not the prey overtaken by fear with it's heart pumping loud enough to hear, but it was food and it would make her strong. And she knew by instinct that strength was what she would need in the months to come.9

She heard clashes and growls and roars of a crowd above her. Cats went out and never came back and the ones that did bore wounds deep on their bodies and hearts. Some would never fight again. All the better for Umbra, who felt her time coming. Sooner or later they all went up to that place above their heads, and whether or not they came back was up to them.10

One day Umbra's brother went up, and they both new from the weariness in his eyes that he would never come back. Behind him stood a golden colossus that matched the statue from their home, visible only from the corner of your eye. He saw it though. He looked it straight in the eye and knew his time had come. Her half-brother came back, but was more mad every time. Umbra knew of the madness. She had seen it before in the hunting dogs of the people from home; creatures so long forced to scent blood that they sought it everywhere. One day it completely overpowered him and he attacked her. The fool.11

When the man came to usher Umbra out, she knew better than to resist. It had taken her a long time to recover, and in that time she had seen spirited newcomers who tried to take on the shining men. They did not resist for long. As she left the cage she looked at the colossus hovering by the gate. /Not today/ she thought.12

The floor above was covered with dirt and dust rose from the ground as they walked in, none of it landing on her. With the short pause in the crowd's roar, Umbra took a moment for vanity. She knew that in the sunlight with her coat gleaming and her eyes sparkling with a deadly grace, she was probably one of the most impressive creatures they had ever seen.13

Umbra smiled a little in her sleep. They hadn't a name for her then. They had a vague notion of one when the first battle ended and the shining men lay dead, their blood soaking the dirt. She'd let her claws do all the work. She didn't want to taste that disgusting bile oozing from their necks.14

She learned from the other creatures and that made her unique. Home she had learned from the hunting dogs the value of multiple strikes and from the python had lived in her tree how bleeding was not the only way to kill. The crowd was always pleased to see her bleed a victim or use her weight to crush them. They screamed for death and for Death's Shadow who plagued the arena. /That's right, scream for me you sick bastards/ she thought as she would leave the arena. And every time she left for battle she would see the Colossus and tell him /Not yet./15

She couldn't believe it when he showed her the way out. It was late. Not late enough for the guards to be asleep, but late. He led her through the gate and out to the forest behind a hill. She could go no further. No matter how she strained, she was forced to stay in sight of that horrible place. By and by she came to a place in the forest where someone had built a shrine like the one in her home. Offerings were left there periodically, and this was where she came to rest, for it comforted her; it took away the scent of death and reminded her of home.16

People of the area were baffled by the shrine given to none of their gods. It was a strange shrine of bronze that had grown up out of the forest ground, and people who passed it often swore to see a jungle cat sleeping at it's feet or an offering left there. No one would wander the jungle any more, for anyone who did would surely see the Shadow of Death, and be left to the mercy of an unknown god.