Chapter 31 - Hunting That Creature.
Chapter 31 - Hunting That Creature.
[Chapter Size: 3200 Words.]
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Third Person POV
North, 100 AC.
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At that exact moment, time seemed to slow down, just as the bear lunged toward Jon, crushing the snow beneath its paws, while Jon raised his bow, aiming directly at the creature.
The sounds became muffled: the cry of his crow in the sky, Ghost tensing every muscle, preparing for a fight against the enormous creature, which would be disadvantageous — or perhaps to flee from there.
Well, it all depended on Jon's decision, but right now he focused only on landing his arrow, trying to cause a fatal wound immediately.
Then the arrow slipped from his hands, and the string did its work, launching it forward. The arrow fluttered through the air, bending slightly, but still advancing toward the bear.
Jon immediately nudged Ghost, giving an order to flee even before seeing the result of the shot. It was not guaranteed, so they needed to get out of there immediately. If Ghost were caught by that bear, his wolf would be in danger, and they would lose the only advantage they had: mobility. The two of them would practically become dead targets for that creature.
Jon turned with Ghost immediately, but he did not take his eyes off the arrow as it reached the target. It was aimed directly at the gigantic face of the bear. However, when it got close, the bear reflexively lowered its head, and the arrow passed over it, striking its back and piercing the flesh, while it roared fiercely, drowning out most other sounds.
The next moment, time began to move normally again.
Everything burst into motion rapidly. Ghost darted toward the forest they had come from, while the bear chased after him, leaving behind a trail of churned and heavy snow.
As soon as he gained speed, he left the small enclosed clearing once more and rushed deeper into the forest, with the bear growling behind him, probably enraged by the projectile lodged in its back and the pain it must have felt from being pierced like that.
Jon analyzed the situation quickly while Ghost ran through the forest, weaving between trees and dense undergrowth, the bear close behind. At the same time, the boy tried to watch the bear through the crow's vision.
"Bringing it down won't be easy... but we have to hunt it." Jon had already decided that, and he looked ahead through the forest path, hoping Ghost would widen the distance even more.
He still was not used to splitting his mind with another vision in the sky, but he did it anyway, while his crow flew above the forest, watching that black mass running through the woods, pursuing Jon and Ghost, who had already managed to gain some distance by now. Ghost had the advantage of being a much faster animal.
"Stop, Ghost," Jon ordered as he grabbed another arrow from the quiver and looked toward the direction they had come from.
Ghost positioned himself sideways. Jon set the arrow on the bow and waited.
This would have to be a battle of striking and retreating.
The black mass soon appeared amidst the white snowy landscape, crushing bushes, sending snow flying everywhere, while only swerving around the trees — even crashing into some of them, making them shake and even crack due to the rage it felt at that moment, while blood still streamed from the wound where the arrow remained lodged in its back.
Jon aimed once more and released the arrow. The idea was to hit the head, but his shot was too rushed. It passed by the bear as it turned sideways to avoid a tree, with the arrow whistling past in front of it before striking a tree instead. The creature had not been prepared for that and turned toward Jon with growls.
Jon may have missed, but he did not hesitate. He was only a ten-name-day-old boy who was good with a bow, but not the best archer in the realm. Even so, he acted without regretting the previous shot.
Quickly, he pulled another arrow, with the sound of the bear getting closer and closer, and he did not think twice before firing again, hitting the creature's left paw. The arrow pierced deep, and the bear grunted in pain once more.
Jon, once again, did not hesitate before ordering Ghost to move deeper into the forest again, widening the distance between them and the bear, which roared in irritation but did not stop chasing them.
'At this rate, I can tire it out. Ghost can run hundreds of kilometers without stopping. Running through the forest is almost natural for him,' Jon analyzed.
At the same time, the bear itself had already lost part of its mobility, with its injured leg.
Jon even saw the creature grabbing the arrow with its own teeth and ripping it out of its paw.
He soon gave orders to the crow in the sky, telling it to gain altitude while providing him with a broader view of the region.
He needed obstacles and short paths where the bear would be at a disadvantage. They just could not be too narrow, since Ghost was also very large, to the point of being bigger than a horse.
But the difference between the two animals was enormous: Ghost was a wolf. What was an environment where a wolf would have complete control, a horse would never have that kind of mobility in the middle of the forest. There were bushes, rocks, holes, and trees; a horse would not be able to move freely or escape there in the middle of dense woodland.
In any case, Jon continued hearing the sounds of the bear's roars nearby, although they were beginning to grow more distant, while he searched for a suitable place to ambush it once again.
Then he found one, steering Ghost to the side, heading west.
When they arrived, they crossed through a stream. It was an area filled with large piled-up rocks, with higher ground above it and water cascading down through those same stones. There was no dense forest there; it should have been a field of weeds if it had not been covered in snow.
"Ghost, get ready," Jon murmured while guiding the wolf beside the rocks covered with water, some icicles, snow, and a bit of frozen moss, then turning to face the dense forest.
With the crow's vision, he could already see where the bear was about to emerge. The enormous black mass advanced between the trees, anything but subtle, crushing everything in its path with fierce growls.
Jon did not even wait for it to appear completely.
He immediately released his most focused shot so far, knowing the beast would emerge from that side.
The arrow flew forward the instant the bear emerged from the trees, striking the side of the creature's neck, while the bear let out only a roar of pain and kept charging without stopping.
Jon grabbed another arrow and fired again.
This was his sixth arrow.
It would have hit the head, but once again the bear lowered its face at the last instant, causing the arrow to strike beside another one already lodged in its back.
The bear had already taken four arrows, while blood began to stream through its black fur.
Then it lunged almost in a leap, unable to see where the human and the wolf could possibly escape, believing it had finally cornered them.
Jon quickly turned Ghost.
"Quickly, with me!" Jon said.
Ghost immediately turned, advancing over the rocks while beginning to leap from one to another, each over two meters high, reaching the higher ground. At the same time, the bear, in desperation, jumped over the rocks in fury after its fleeing prey, but due to the moisture from the stream, its paws began to slip.
Unlike Ghost, who could make leaps large enough to land on the upper parts of the smooth rocks, where it was harder to slip.
Ghost leapt again, reaching the upper level, which stood more than five meters high.
Jon glanced downward from time to time, watching the bear trying to climb but unable to reach them.
He quickly pulled another arrow and fired at the bear, striking its back once more.
The bear roared again.
Jon did not even have time to breathe before releasing another arrow, hitting the side of the creature's belly.
Then he already nocked a third and fired again, while the bear realized it had fallen into a trap.
The third arrow struck its hindquarters.
The bear realized it would die there, so it turned its back and began advancing toward the forest, with its survival instincts telling it to flee.
Jon ran across the upper ground, still aiming, commanding Ghost to follow him, and released two more arrows, striking the side of the creature's belly again, while a trail of blood was left behind.
Then the bear returned to the forest once more, leaving the range of the human who had already struck it with more than eight arrows.
'It gave up... and ran away...' Jon thought.
The bear simply left behind a trail of blood in the snow and disappeared into the woods.
His crow appeared beside Jon at that moment, while he raised his arm for the bird to perch and stared toward the direction the bear had fled.
"It's better to make sure it's going to die."
Perhaps, with so many wounds, the bear had finally realized that Jon was not such an easy target as it had imagined.
"Let's go," Jon told Ghost, who quickly lifted his paws and advanced into the forest as well, while at the same time the crow flew back into the sky.
The bear ran as far into the woods as it could. It was tired... leaving all that blood behind.
It felt pain.
And frustration.
It was panting, its energy seeming to drain away with every passing moment.
Pure hatred welled up in its mind, but the instinct to survive spoke louder in that brief moment.
Its scars revealed the countless battles throughout its life as it climbed the food chain, but today it felt more frustrated than at any other moment of its existence.
That human atop the wolf had wounded it the entire time, while it only chased them and continued to be struck by those strange branches flying toward it, with enough power to kill it.
A crow flapped its wings above him, it knew. It had found him...
The bear was far too intelligent not to realize that the bird had been connected to all of this from the very beginning.
The sounds of footsteps echoed through the forest.
Its eyes darted from side to side, searching for the source of the sounds.
It could hear a white mass running, camouflaged against the snow.
It was that white wolf.
They were hunting it now.
It had become the prey.
A wolf's howl echoed through the forest. A wolf larger than any other this bear had encountered in its life, and it seemed to reach even beyond this region.
The bear did not know their exact location, since the wolf already seemed to have moved again after the howl. The bird continued flying above its head, while the sounds of the wolf's footsteps circled around it.
Ghost finally appeared about thirty meters away from the bear, stopping to stare at it.
But he was alone.
The red eyes of that creature stared at the bear like a challenge. The wolf was afraid, but hatred also mixed within its mind.
The bear roared.
Then, suddenly, it felt three sharp stabs piercing its side at the same time, making it leap and look to the side, finding that human having just fired another projectile while standing atop a rock.
Jon used Ghost as a distraction while releasing three more arrows almost at the same time, enough to pierce its body and open even more wounds.
Jon wasted no time and grabbed another arrow, staring at the bear with a cold look no child should possess.
"This is for my father!"
He released the arrow.
It shot forward with full force, too fast for the bear to react in time this time, piercing directly into its left eye.
The bear roared in pain.
"Ghost, now!" Jon shouted.
The wolf immediately charged while the bear approached Jon consumed by fury, abandoning even its survival instinct. Only animalistic rage remained now.
While Ghost ran around the bear, the crow in the sky also swooped downward under Jon's command.
Once again, before the bear could react, its other eye — the right one, which had not yet been injured — was struck by the crow's claws, which slashed it immediately.
The bear tried to catch the bird with its teeth, turning its head upward drenched in its own blood, but the crow quickly escaped.
Now both of its eyes were useless.
It was blind.
That made the creature stop advancing for a moment.
Ghost was already upon it.
The wolf leapt swiftly, sinking his teeth into the bear's neck.
Jon prepared another arrow, striking the creature's side while it tried to shake Ghost off from a blind spot.
Jon quickly ordered Ghost to retreat when the bear began throwing itself onto the ground, which would place the wolf at a disadvantage.
Ghost released the creature's neck and jumped backward, while Jon released more arrows, striking both the belly and the neck.
The bear covered the ground in blood.
Ghost also had blood on his teeth.
"Ghost!" Jon ordered.
The wolf ran toward him while the bear struggled to rise.
Jon quickly mounted his wolf and began running across the snow again.
Now the bear no longer had any advantage.
It was blind and completely wounded. It was only a matter of time before they brought it down.
Jon continued circling around it, releasing arrows while Ghost ran around the creature.
Jon did not know how long it lasted, but it did not last much longer. The moment he realized there were no more arrows left in the quiver, his eyes returned to the bear.
The creature was already lying on the ground, completely covered like a porcupine with so many arrows stuck in its body.
There were more than twenty arrows lodged in its body, three of them in the head and another piercing through its eye.
In addition, there were the two deep wounds Ghost had made with his teeth on its neck, and the other eye destroyed by the crow's claws.
The bear was there, living through its final moments.
It was already far beyond saving. The only reason it still resisted until now was its strange and unnatural endurance. Even with its head pierced, its neck torn open, and dozens of injuries, it remained alive.
But everything had its limit.
And that was its own.
With its last strength fading away, the creature simply collapsed slowly as it died.
Jon sighed while his body relaxed atop Ghost. The wolf remained a few meters away.
"No, Ghost, stop." The moment he caught a glimpse of the bear's teeth moving again, Jon noticed and stopped approaching.
"It's preparing to launch one final attack! That bastard still wants to kill us," Jon murmured, intrigued...
He knew the bear was only conserving energy. It intended to leap at Jon the moment he got close enough.
Jon jumped down from Ghost and walked to an arrow that had missed the target and struck a tree behind the creature. He pulled it free, set it on the bow, and fired directly into the bear's head with all the force a shortbow could deliver.
This time, he did not miss. The arrow penetrated deeply into its skull.
The bear moved at that moment, proving that it truly had only been waiting for an opportunity, but it was already incapable of doing anything to stop the attack.
The creature writhed before collapsing once again.
This time, the arrow had pierced its brain more deeply than any other.
Jon let out a long sigh. That creature had finally died.
"Finally..." Jon said while observing the gigantic body, covering an entire area of snow with blood.
He then began thinking about what he could do with the corpse. Certainly, the fur and hide would still be useful, even full of holes caused by the arrows. Perhaps he should speak with Uncle Roman.
At the same time, he knew his uncles and his mother would become hysterical when they discovered what he had just done in the forest. That was if Mari had not already told everything — although Jon had no guarantee she would break her promise.
Well, in any case, Jon needed to somehow warn everyone that the bear threat in the region had been neutralized and that the forest would now be safer.
He climbed down from Ghost and approached the corpse's head. Now he no longer felt any trace of life coming from the animal. It was completely dead.
Jon drew his sword and began striking the creature's neck.
He had no saw or proper tools, so he would have to cut using only the strength a boy of ten name-days possessed, raising and bringing down the sword repeatedly while the flesh split open more and more.
Until he finally managed to remove the head.
It was gigantic, larger than what he could even lift by himself.
Jon then took a rope he had brought together with the arrows in his bag and tied up the bear's head.
He was lucky when Ghost lay down beside him without even needing to be ordered, allowing Jon to secure the weight to his body.
"Sorry, buddy... you'll have to carry this weight all the way back to the farm," he murmured, staining Ghost's white fur even more with the creature's fresh blood.
The head was so large that it practically covered Ghost's entire back.
Jon left the rest of the bear behind, still full of arrows, removing only the head before mounting Ghost once again.
They needed to return to the farm.
Jon already knew his mother would react in panic. Jon had gone to hunt the bear after saying he would not, and he had lied to her as well, but he did not regret what he had done. Neither he nor Ghost had been seriously injured. Even his crow had helped during the fight.
Even so, he could not help but shudder as he imagined how his family would react.
Then they moved on once again, leaving behind that blood-covered place and the enormous corpse of the bear.
Strangely, Jon seemed to know how to navigate through the forest, as if he had some way of easily knowing where to go within it, even without the animals' help. He found the bag he had left behind before the conflict, picked it up, and returned to the farm.
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