14.
The Second Hunt
“Up, Tir! Get up!”
Tir awoke with an electrifying jolt as a loud voice shouted into his ear. Two large, luminous yellow circles were hanging before his hazy vision. He yelped in fright and scrambled to his paws, cracking his head on the rough stone ceiling of his den.
“Don’t do that!” he shouted, his eyes streaming as he fought down the pain. He scuffed his head with his paw. He was bleeding.
Nerasa laughed her hoarse laugh. “You’re awake now. ‘Bout time, too. I was beginning to think you had died in your sleep. Guidelights, would that’ve made Palva mad.”
Tir glared at her. “You didn’t have to hang over me like that. You did that on purpose.”
“What unfounded accusations,” Nerasa said, leaping backwards out of the den and into the thin light of morning outside “I don’t do anything on purpose.”
Tir snorted, and began picking leaves and clods of dirt out of his thick, mud-brown fur. The hairs along his back were still standing on end, but his pulse was slowing back down from the fright. Nerasa could have only poked him or something; she could have spared him the pain.
“What are you doing in the Hunters’ dens, anyway?” he asked grumpily, licking the blood off his paw. “You’re not a Hunter.”
“Clever observation. I came to get you, Raatri, and Yielsa for the hunt today.”
“What hunt?”
“Deer hunt.”
“I’m going on a deer hunt?” Tir leaped back up to his paws, and hit his head again. Undeterred, he shook his head to drive away the fresh wash of pain. “You mean those big mi—things, with the sticks on their heads?”
“Keep it down!” Nerasa hissed, peering up at the rocky ledges above them, where the other sleeping Hunters were visible as mounds of fur. “You don’t want to wake Kesol, or he’ll want to come, too—and we don’t want Kesol to come. Simetra’s only bringing you, Raatri, and Yielsa.”
“That’s it? But—those things were big. Really big.”
“Don’t be stupid. Me and some other Sentinel are coming too, plus Captain. Alpha’s orders. Apparently, those things put up a great fight.”
Of course they did, Tir thought in awe, though somewhat nervous at the thought of the bizarre creatures. They’re three times our size.
“When did last night’s hunt return?” he asked, combing out a few dead leaves from his pelt.
“Dawn. And moon on the water, had they taken a beating!”
Tir waited while Nerasa proceeded to wake Yielsa and Raatri. When Raatri heard about the hunt, he squealed with excitement and cracked his head on the stone ledge above him, just as Tir had. Yielsa, however, groaned and swatted at her ear as though brushing off a fly. Yielsa had gone on the hunt last night, and Tir guessed that she was still tired. She slipped gracefully off of her own shelf without complaint, but dragged her paws as they ushered her out from the shade of the Hunters’ dens.
“Hunt? Again?” she moaned, squinting in the bright sunlight that was making her golden fur glow. “I went yesterday.”
“That’s right,” Nerasa said, skipping ahead of the group. “Simetra wants you to come because she says you already have experience!”
Yielsa shook her head in an irritated sort of way, but quickened her slow pace. Tir was surprised at her lack of enthusiasm, and so was Raatri.
“Why don’t you want to go?” Raatri asked, running to keep up with them. “Wasn’t it exciting? Those creatures are huge!”
Yielsa peered down at him through her sleepy, half-closed eyes.
“Exciting enough, I suppose, if that’s what I’m expected to tell you,” she grumbled. “But truthfully, I prefer hunting rabbits.”
From then on, no one said anything until they had found Simetra.
The chief Hunter was standing in front of the Sentinels’ dens, having a conversation with Captain Leron. Xelind was sitting on the dusty ground a few feet away, his vacant blue eyes fixed on the sky above. Watching him, Tir wondered idly how Xelind could have become a Sentinel. Like Nerasa, most Sentinels tended to have a larger, stronger build—and Xelind was skinny and long-legged. While Sirle made Tir think of a large and dusty grey weasel, Xelind put him in mind of a skeletal white bird of prey.
Like the hawk that almost killed Seilo.
Tir shuddered and looked away.
Simetra glanced up when the group approached. Her yellow eyes swept across the wolves assembled, as though counting them.
“All seven are here, Captain,” she said nodding at Leron. “Best leave as soon as possible if we hope to be back by nightfall.”
“Simetra,” Yielsa said quietly. “Why do I have to go on another hunt?”
“Alpha’s orders and my apologies.”
“Everything is on the alpha’s orders,” Yielsa mumbled.
“Oh, now, see here,” Leron interjected, shaking his head in an expression of disappointment. “You should be glad to go again; it is an honor. There’s no call for complaining.”
“I’m not complaining,” Yielsa said. “I asked a question.”
“You asked a question which was to question the alpha’s orders.” Leron’s normally-smooth voice had begun to gain in pace, and Tir was surprised to see that he was bristling. Was he getting angry? “There’s been a lot of questioning and challenging the alpha’s orders, and you should consider yourself lucky that this hunt hasn’t been dissolved due to the unearned power of some.”
“What are you—?”
“Leave it, Captain,” Simetra barked. “What’s the matter? Has the Gatherer slipped a thorn in your paw? Yielsa has every right to ask me a question, and a perfectly reasonable question it was, too.”
Leron growled in his throat, and Yielsa smiled at him, cocking her head.
“I think we should hurry and leave,” she said. “We are wasting time here.”
Simetra gave her a short nod, and Tir began to quiver with excitement again. A deer hunt! He had never before hunted deer, and it was something he was eager to try—though very nervous, nevertheless. He followed the patrol as they padded out of the redoubt and onto the fields, too lost in his own cheerful thoughts to hear Simetra and Leron’s bickering.
“Was that a rebuke back there, Hunter?” Leron said in a low voice as he padded beside her. He took long, slow strides, as though he were stalking something.
“You will take it as one, Captain,” Simetra replied. “Is there something wrong?”
“Wrong? I only notice that you are interfering with the business of your Captain.”
“What business? Bullying?”
“Clearly, you have no idea what—”
Simetra gave him a scornful look.
“You and your bad mood may go and walk behind everyone,” she said. “And take it out on yourself. This is a dangerous hunt, Captain, and I can’t afford your kind of distraction. Leave the others alone, they’ve done nothing.”
Leron stared at her. “You would order a wolf of a higher rank?”
“It would seem so.”
“You show no respect.” Leron gave a low laugh and shook his head again, slowly. “I’ve known wolves like you before, Hunter, and you ought to be more careful. Someday, you will go too far.”
“And tell me again how that will happen,” Simetra muttered, sounding weary. “I’ve forgotten.”
“You will challenge me. You hope to be captain, don’t—”
Simetra laughed. “Go walk in the back, Captain.”
“You have no right to say that.”
Simetra whirled around to face him, yellow eyes flashing. Leron appeared rather taken-aback at her suddenness.
“I believe,” she growled. “That Alpha Liyra put me in charge of this hunt, as I am the chief Hunter. You chose to tag along, and you will follow my orders, if you want to eat today. Is that clear, Captain?”
Leron’s eyes narrowed, but he did not reply.
“That one. We’ll take that one.”
Tir squinted ac
ross the grass, his eyes watering in the wind. A good distance away was the herd of deer, an enormous brown mass grazing along the banks of the lake. Simetra was looking at an old stag, who was surrounded by the rest of the herd.
“Why that one?” Leron demanded.
“He’s the weakest.”
“But he has sticks on his head.”
“He’s old, and his antlers are probably brittle. He’ll be the slowest, and the clumsiest. We should have no problem taking him down.”
Leron nodded, grudgingly satisfied with her reasoning. Tir and the others were watching the chosen stag with some anxiety. The deer brought in this morning did not have any sticks on her head, and a wolf could come by his death under those sharp horns. But as Simetra said, the stag was old. The hunt should be quick.
Simetra had flattened herself down in the grass so that she was almost invisible. The others followed suit, not taking their eyes off of the grazing stag for an instant. The group crept forward under cover of the wind-blown grass, and Tir tried to move as silently as possible, determined to do well on this hunt.
“Branch off,” Simetra hissed.
The others obeyed, splitting up like tributaries in a river and creeping forward alone. Tir quickened his pace, but kept low to the ground. Within moments, the stag was surrounded. Tir was so close to the creature that he could hear him breathing.
Simetra’s barked signal broke through the tense air. Seven wolves sprang out of the tall grass and lunged for the stag with bared teeth. The herd of deer scattered, filling the air with the scent of their fear and pounding the ground with their fleeing hooves. The stag, too, tried to bolt, but found that it was surrounded on all sides.
“Close in!” Simetra roared, and the wolves all dove for the stag’s neck.
But the stag danced back on its hind legs. Hooves large enough to split a wolf’s skull slashed the air in repetitive, lethal motions. Tir ducked and recoiled as one of them whistled over his head, and many of the others did the same. When the stag dropped back down, the ground beneath Tir’s paws rumbled with the impact.
The creature tossed its shaggy head and lowered its antlers. It shot forward with surprising speed. Tir darted away just in time, but one of its sharp hooves clipped him and sent him flying.
Searing pain shot through Tir’s body; he gasped. Looking down, he could see a bright gash in his flank. Tir licked it, wincing as pain tore up his leg again. The blood was bitter and metallic on his tongue, and he spat it into the grass.
“Follow it!” Simetra called from somewhere behind him. “Don’t let it get back to the herd!”
Tir lurched forward over the grass, and his leg screamed with fresh agony. He stumbled and fell with his face in the dirt. Spitting with fury, he struggled back up to his feet, determined to swallow the pain until the hunt was over.
But suddenly, a blood-curdling howl cut through the air like a dart. Every hair on Tir’s pelt stood on end. It was not a signaling screech to close in on the prey, but the terrified scream of an animal in mortal peril. And it wasn’t a deer.
Heart beating like a drum, Tir dashed towards the source of the sound as fast as he could, forgetting the pain in his leg. Leron had said that the hunt would be dangerous, but surely no one would get seriously hurt?
Tir could see the rest of the patrol ahead of him. They still had the stag surrounded, but they were not moving. Instead, they stared, transfixed with horror. The stag was rearing and crashing onto the ground with its sharp hooves again and again. It looked almost as though it was trying to trample a hole in the ground. Bewildered, Tir ran faster, tasting his own blood in his mouth. What was the stag doing?
But when he drew close enough to see, he stopped, and his stomach clenched.
Under the slashing hooves of the stag was Simetra. It was sickening to watch. Simetra’s glossy red-brown fur was soaked dark with her own blood, and she writhed wildly under the stag. As Tir watched, a sharp crack rang out, which could very well have been a rib breaking under the battering hooves. White froth was flying from the creature’s jaws and its eyes were rolling back in his head; it was driven insane with the terror of the hunt.
Simetra released an eerie, thin cry that made Tir shiver; she twisted in the dirt and blood beneath her to try to bite the deer’s legs, but it was no use. The stag continued to trample her, mindless of its own chance of escape—the wind blew the scent of blood and terror into their faces. Tir was feeling as if he was going to faint.
Xelind, who had been standing frozen with the others, was the first to break out of the reverie. He dashed forward, a streak of white on the grass, and barreled into the stag with a snarl. The stag twisted in the air, trying to gore him with its antlers, but Xelind leaped out of the way. He fell to the ground, but jumped back up, surging for the creature’s throat.
Tir now could see why Xelind had been chosen as a Sentinel. He was thin and small, it was true. But the way he fought—with a lethal swiftness and deadly accuracy in his blows—reminded Tir of the renegade. The stag abandoned the bleeding Simetra and thundered away with Xelind snapping at its flying heels.
“YOU SHOVED ME, YOU MURDERING FILTH!” Simetra was struggling to her paws, streaming with blood and pink saliva. Her stained fur hung off her body in clumps and her mouth was wet with foam. Yellow eyes rolled back in her head; she looked positively insane. The others recoiled, frightened.
Simetra stood with difficulty, swaying, and Nerasa dashed forward to support her. But Simetra shoved her away and made a furious, staggering lunge towards Captain Leron.
“YOU PUSHED ME! YOU PUSHED ME TOWARDS IT!” she roared, swiping raggedly at him. Leron ducked out of her way.
“How dare you suggest such a thing? I would never intentionally—”
“I’LL GIVE YOU INTENTION! YOU SHOVED ME! YOU IDIOT! I’LL KILL YOU—”
“It’s getting away!” Raatri shrieked.
All of the wolves looked up. The stag was indeed galloping off to join the rest of the herd; Xelind dragged behind, exhausted.
Simetra gave one last snarl at Leron before starting to run after Raatri, a lopsided, stumbling gait. A few tufts of her bloodied auburn fur flew off in the wind, and she left a thick red trail of blood in the grass.
“Simetra!” Nerasa shouted, running after her and Raatri. “Simetra, no! You can’t!”
Tir and Yielsa exchanged a glance and followed, reaching Simetra in no time, where Nerasa was trying to reason with her.
“You aren’t in any state to hunt now—you gotta go back to the redoubt,” she was saying. “The rest of us’ll take care of the deer.”
“I’m not abandoning a hunt!”
“Simetra, you’re gonna die.”
Simetra glared up at them from the ground, gasping, a thin stream of blood trickling out her mouth. The fur around her face was wet and plastered to her skull; if it were not for her livid yellow eyes, she would have looked like a creature long dead.
“Fine then,” she rasped. “The rest of you fetch the bloody stag—tear out its throat and bring it to me. But you tell that captain of yours that I’ll kill him—I will kill him, if that beast gets away because of his violent idiocy. In fact, I’ll kill him anyway.” She raised her head, a thin rivulet of blood trickling down her neck. “CAN YOU HEAR ME, LERON?” she bellowed. “I WILL KILL YOU!”
“Simetra, stay down!” Nerasa gasped. “You’re gonna hurt yourself—”
“Hurt myself? Oh, you just wait, little Sentinel—”
Yielsa dashed away after the stag, leaving Nerasa and Simetra behind, and Tir followed at her heels. The wind had reached a screeching intensity, blowing in their faces like thousands of cold, prickling needles. In moments, they had reached Xelind, who was out of breath.
“Go on!” he snarled. “Cut it off!”
Leron and Raatri were already ahead of them, trying to corner the stag without prevail. Yielsa and Tir split, branching off in opposite directions. The four wolves formed a circle around the exhausted, maddened b
east. They drew the circle tighter, snarling and snapping their jaws. Leron gave a short, snarling bark, and the wolves flew at the stag, each set of fangs straining for the neck.
As Simetra had said, the stag was weakened. It skittered backwards, trying to get away, but Yielsa pounced on it from the side. With the combined weight of all four wolves, it could no longer carry itself. The massive creature collapsed onto the grass and the wolves swarmed like ants over its body.
Leron soon found its neck. The stag made a terrible sound and thrashed in the grass, but its movements were weakening and its legs, once so swift and fearsome, suddenly seemed as slender and helpless as twigs. Raatri darted in and found a grip on the stag’s neck beside Leron; he tore his head away, his jaws full. Soon, a torrent of hot blood was streaming down over the grass from the deer’s neck, and its rasping breath was faltering.
At that moment, Tir happened to be by the creature’s head. Tir stopped for a moment and looked down at the dying stag, panting and tasting the blood in his mouth. The stag’s large, brown eyes rolled up at him, and it shuddered like a leaf in the wind.
Tir stood over it, shivering. The cold wind was roaring in his ears, and his vision was swimming and hazy. It felt as though he had left the spot where he was standing and was somewhere far away, somewhere long past and buried. He was overcome by such a heavy feeling of misery that he turned away. His heart was pounding at a horrible speed, and he wanted to howl, to cry himself out to the skies—it was though he was trapped in the forest fire again, the walls of searing colors pressing in on him, strangling him, filling his head with cinders and anguish. Almost as if far away, he could hear Leron barking orders to the others, orders to dispatch the stag.
And before anyone could say anything, Tir turned and fled. He couldn’t watch the deer die.