Ashiwut trained Nahanni to fight over the following weeks. At first they used her clearing overlooking the river as a place where they could meet and have their training sessions in private. They never left the village together. Ashiwut usually left first. Nahanni gave him plenty of a head start before she would head off too, so that he would have time to recover a little from the journey before she arrived.
The leaves fell from the trees, and the first snows of the season came and went. It was a warm autumn. The little bit of snow that fell didn't linger long on the ground, but it made Ashiwut and Nahanni more careful about hiding their meetings. It was impossible to hide their tracks in the snow, so Nahanni started taking a longer route to their training ground, first following the little river south for a mile or so before circling around and coming back to the clifftop clearing.
It was a small village though, and soon the rumours were flying. People were noticing that Nahanni and Ashiwut were often both missing at the same time, and when they were in the village, they were often together. The village boys had all noticed how Nahanni was no longer wrestling with them. Grandmother had a simple solution for that problem, and Nahanni packed up her possessions and moved into Ashiwut's lodge.
In addition to her daily sessions with Ashiwut, Nahanni took up a nightly patrol through the woods around the village. She had always been able to move quickly and silently through the trees, but now she could do it at night, at a full run, as silently as a shadow through the darkness. The night wasn't dark to her anymore. She could see almost as well under a full moon as she could see in the daylight, and even on moonless and cloudy nights she could see better than she had with a full moon before her calling.
Each morning after her patrols she reported what she had seen to Grandmother. She mostly reported seeing nothing, except for one night when she had come upon the remains of a dead rabbit. Finding a dead animal wasn't unusual, but this one hadn't been killed by any normal predator, or fallen from some disease. Whatever had killed it hadn't been interested in eating its flesh. All the blood was drained from it.
"They're coming," said Grandmother. "They've sent a scout ahead."
Nahanni spent the next nights searching for any sign of the scout, to kill it before it could report back to its master, but she found none.
One of the final canoes of the season came up the river carrying a package for Grandmother. The old shaman called Nahanni back into her lodge. She placed the long, narrow, leather wrapped package into Nahanni's hands. "This is for you, child."
"Thank you, Grandmother," said Nahanni. She opened the package, which she now recognised as a sheath for a bow, and removed the bow that was inside. At first glance, there didn't seem to be anything special about it. It was a slender bow, one that wouldn't look out of place in the hands of a strong girl, but Nahanni felt that there was something different about it. Close examination showed that the workmanship of the bowmaker who had crafted it was exquisite. Faint symbols were etched into the wood, and Nahanni could feel the magic in them. She stood and stung the bow. She was surprised by how much strength it took for her do that. She never would have been able to in the days before she had been called to be the Protector. She held the bow up, and pulled back on the string, feeling the force required to draw it. She knew that none of the village warriors would be able to fully draw that bow. She eased off on the string, and unstrung the bow. She sat back down and pulled the other item from the sheath. A quiver full of arrows, each one as exquisitely crafted as the bow itself.
"Oh, thank you Grandmother!" said Nahanni again. "This is a truly wonderful gift!"
"It was crafted for a Protector, many years ago and kept safe against the day when a new Protector might be sent to us," said the old shaman. "You are its new guardian. Keep it safe, and use it well."