The chase was on.

Perhaps it was too soon. Guff had been clumsy and scraped hard against a stone still fifty feet from their prey. The scratching of scales cut through the still air like a snapping twig; the little group of levin had jumped from their foraging as one and seemed to stare straight through their hiding places. A moment more and the slender she-levin were trotting off into the dry brush of the valley beyond, their tails raised in alert, baskets of berries forgotten. The four men stood in a line facing them, guarding the retreat. The levin had been doing that for moons now, it was said, no matter where the elders ventured out to hunt.

It was young Venn who took action. The ambush had failed; it would be slim pickings today, or none if they were slow. He burst from the bushes on the near side of the clearing, and the spines on his long, hardened back clacked urgently. Guff took the hint and bustled out behind him. “Let’s get ‘em!” Venn roared. He closed the distance as fast as his stubby claws could carry him.

They were halfway across the open meadow when they crashed to an uncertain halt beside one of the harvested shrubs. The levin hadn’t moved. There they stood, solid in their tiny line, paws raised in the air. In those paws, heavy rocks gleamed in the fiery sun.

“Why aren’t they running?” Guff hissed. His heavy-lashed eyes fluttered in confusion. Predator and prey faced off across the open grassland like statues. It was hard to tell which was which.

Instinct was returning to Venn. From the combined weight of a thousand ancestral hunts, he knew they were too deep into the open now. They had to press on. “Never mind. Charge!”

The Instincts had guided them well, though their ancestors had never faced something like this. They scrabbled up to speed, but the levin stood firm. Paws swung back, beady black eyes locked on the aggressors. The air whistled with stones. One hit Venn hard on his plated back, tearing off a spine. He howled in pain and slowed to a stagger, but his brother of the hunt galloped on. Another volley, a stinging rain against their snouts, and then the paws were empty, and the distance was closed. The focused, once-defiant eyes widened in dismay. Levin scattered to left and right, nimble as mice. The momentum of their attackers was too great to react, and they plunged headlong into the empty gap between, but their bond was strong, and they turned in unison towards the scampering target to their side. They had isolated him, a big, juicy grey haired rodent wrapped in strings of carved nutshells, and the end was nigh. Guff could almost taste the meagre shred of fatless meat that would soon be between his teeth. Saliva drooled from his exposed gums.

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The levin was clever; that was undeniable. He bobbed and weaved, but any gain he made was soon eaten up by the huge swinging strides of his pursuers. He ducked expertly between two leaning branches of a green sapling on the slope of the valley, but the giants ploughed through behind with a single sickening crack. He feigned left and hopped right over a chasm in the rocky crag underpaw, and found himself surrounded by tottering rocks. The two reptiles hissed with joy and hunger as they sidled up, near exhaustion. It had been close, their energy almost spent, but persistence and bravery had paid off.

The levin, now greasy and panting, rounded on the beasts, fumbled at a leaf tucked into his nutstring belt, and brandished a sheaf of strange markings in their general direction. His paws and voice shook with fear. “We are protected,” he gasped in broken and halting Skernish. Venn and Guff froze, amazed. “Protected by the union. This c-c-certificate proves it. We cannot be harmed. You are compelled to stand down!”

Guff opened his jaws. The levin threw the leaf by his immense claws. “Stand down!” Guff hesitated. Never had the hunted uttered the words of his people. He turned his head to Venn. Venn snorted at the leaf. It blew over against a rock, exposing a crude diamond etched upon its rear.

When they looked up, their prey had long departed.