Upon entering the woods we entered into stealth mode, aka I followed in Dad’s footsteps and tried not to make too much noise. I generally fail, but hey I have gotten a lot better than the city boy I used to be. We advance in relative silence with only the occasional misstep made by yours truly. Dad first started taking me on hunts last year, when I asked to go before that he said, “Son right now you are just a tasty treat for most of the predators in the forest, you need to be a little bigger before I bring you in there. After all the goal is to hunt some prey, not kill off a bunch of predators looking for an easy meal.”
It didn’t take us long to run across a game trail, and that’s when I got to take the lead. As the Susi age their ability to pick up scents decreases, that’s one of the reasons why Mom and Dad didn’t smell those bandits, but I did. That’s why I was taking the leads, I would have a better chance at sniffing out a fresh trail as soon as we found some recently made tracks.
We followed the game trail for close to a quarter of a mile before we finally found our first hint of prey. It smelled like deer, well, they weren’t actually deer, more like some kind of deer impala hybrid, but it was close enough to the same thing for my purposes. I signaled to Dad that I had caught a scent, he caught up to me and checked the trail for signs of recent activity. He pointed out the fresh hoof print and held up four fingers, two index fingers, and two middle fingers. This indicated that we were in fact looking for deer, and a male at that. The two middle fingers indicated long dewclaws, which normally help with traction, but in the male of the species could be used to cause extra damage with a hoof strike.
I was going to have to be extra cautious when finding the creature since it would be more aggressive than the female would normally be, plus it had those horns. Yeah these “deer” didn’t have big branching antlers, they instead had sharp horns that curved backward and had a sharp cutting edge following the curve. If you got gored by one of those horns it would take a miracle or some quick healing magic to survive.
We followed the trail the deer left behind, I focused primarily on the scent, but every now and then Dad would stop me and point out the signs of its’ passage. We didn’t speak as neither of us wanted to alert our quarry that it was being hunted. It took close to an hour of moving carefully and quietly in order to catch up with the deer but the effort was worth it.
It stood close to the edge of a meadow, eating the acorn like nuts that were scattered about. It stood tall, maybe 5 feet in height, 7 if you counted the horns. Its’ flanks were thick from eating all summer and fall, its’ coat was just now starting to fill out in preparation for winter. There was a lot of meat on its’ bones and it would provide meat for our family for several weeks, not only in juicy steaks, but also in the jerky we would inevitable make.
Dad held up 3 fingers which let me know exactly what I needed to do. He wanted to use me as a beater, I would make my way downwind from the deer, thus letting it catch my scent while he moved to the opposite side. Once the deer caught my scent it should start making its’ way toward my dad thus putting it in the perfect position for an ambush.
I slowly made my way from tree to tree getting downwind from our target. I made my gait as smooth as possible so that no sudden movements would accidentally startle the deer. Once I was in position I waited five minutes for Dad to be completely set up, then I started to vigorously scratch my fur. This should ensure that my scent travelled quickly toward the deer, hopefully spooking it toward my father. I could see bits of my fur drifting toward the deer as the lazy breeze made its’ way toward the deer. I saw the deer’s nostrils flare as they caught my scent, and then I saw the deer do the unexpected, instead of avoiding my scent rage seemed to boil its’ blood and it started walking toward me.
I know I hadn’t been spotted yet as I was mostly concealed behind an old growth tree, but the deer definitely had my scent and it looked like it wanted to kill me. We must have chanced upon this particular deer as it entered into its’ rutting period. Basically it was currently full of testosterone, it wanted to mate, and since there were no nearby female deer it would vent its’ frustration by trying to kill me.
Now there was no way I was going to let some horny walking food kill me, so I loaded my sling and readied my spear, preparing myself for an epic battle. As the deer got closer I stepped out from behind the tree and started twirling my sling. The deer caught sight of me and began its’ charge, horns lowered as it prepared to disembowel me. I waited until the deer was only twenty feet away from me before I released the stone in my sling, then I quickly stepped back behind the tree, not waiting to see the results of the strike.
Like I said, there was no way I was going to let food kill me, and one of the ways you let food kill you is try and stand up to a charge directed your way by said food. I heard the stone connect with flesh and bone which let me know my aim was good, when I heard less than half a second later a large crashing sound I knew my aim was perfect. I quickly stepped around the tree to see the results of the sling throw, and by seeing the unnatural angle of one of the deer’s legs I knew my stone had connected with its’ knee.
I quickly dashed out from behind the tree and thrust my spear into the deer’s chest, aiming for where I knew the heart would be. My spear sank into the deer’s flesh and I felt its’ heart trying to beat around the spear’s head. The heart was quickly torn up and I could see blood gushing from the wound. The deer spasmed and its’ jerky movements tore the spear from my hands, I stepped back a few paces and let the deer die.
Dad caught up quickly after the death of the deer with a grin on his face. He said, “Looks like you got your first solo kill, you know what that means right?”
I replied, “Yeah, yeah, I have to clean the whole thing myself right.”
Dad continued to grin, “Of course, we can’t buck tradition can we?”
I said, “For some reason I get the feeling this tradition is made up and you just don’t like cleaning up carcasses”
He laughed at that and said, “No no, of course not son, it is a time honored tradition, you clean what you kill unless you receive help, since my presence made no difference in this hunt, you get the honor of cleaning your kill.”
I sighed knowing there was no way I would win this argument and got to work cleaning the kill. It was bloody, it was messy and by the end of it there was a pile of offal that would quickly draw scavengers. I wrapped the usable organ meat in the cavity that used to hold its’ stomach then tied the legs together. We inserted a large stick between the tied legs, hefted the stick to our shoulders and made our way back home.
Along the way some Susikin found us but a few stones launched from my sling discouraged them enough to search for easier pickings.
When we arrived at home, Mom had a big smile on her face. We brought the deer into the barn and hung the body on a hook set up for butchering. Mom rolled up her sleeves and grabbed a big knife kept in the barn for just such occasions. She said, “Looks like we are going to have some good food tonight. Aatto, go invite the Taikas over for dinner, there should be plenty of meat, and ask Westra if she will bring over some of her delicious baked beans, they should go nicely with the deer ribs.”
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She then turned to me and said, “Swift, go wash off in the river before you start to attract any flies, and make sure you bring a change of clothes so you can wash off your pants. Then when you get home, you can tell me about the hunt, based on how covered in blood you are your Father didn’t help kill the deer, which means he didn’t help with the cleaning either.”
I nodded my head in agreement and said, “Could you make the deer extra spicy tonight? I don’t want Dad to totally enjoy the fruits of my labor.”
Mom smiled and said, “Sure, so long as you catch a fish or two while you are at river so your father has something to eat when the spice finally overwhelms his tongue.”
I nodded, grabbed a couple of fishing spears, went into the house and grabbed a new pair of pants then went over to Gurt’s place. I arrived just as my Dad was leaving and told asked Kurt, “Is Gurt free? I’m going to the river to wash off and figured I’d do some fishing while I’m there. Can Gurt come too?”
Kurt pondered the question for a few seconds before nodding and saying, “Sure, just make sure you stay out of the forest, Gurt is still too small to enter without an adult around to keep him off the menu.”
I smiled and yelled, “Hey Gurt let’s go.”
He ran out of the house with a grin on his face and we slowly started jogging north. I had to match my pace to Gurt’s short stride and lower endurance, so it took us fifteen minutes to make it to the river instead of my usual eight, but having Gurt along would make things easier.
When we reached the river I dropped the spears and my spare pants then dove in. The water wasn’t particularly deep here, so I had to make the dive a fairly shallow one, but it felt great to get the blood off my fur and cool down from the still warm fall day. I swam around for a couple of minutes, letting the slow moving current wash away some of the blood before I really started to scrub. It took me a few minutes of vigorous scrubbing before I finally got rid of all the blood on my fur, then my pants got the same treatment. I put the wet but now clean pants back on and yelled to Gurt who was still on the shore, “Throw me a spear, then get on in here, we need to catch some fish.”
Gurt tossed a spear to me before asking, “why are we fishing anyway, didn’t you just kill a deer?”
I replied, “Well, Dad made me clean it all by myself, so I asked Mom to make it extra spicy tonight.”
Gurt laughed knowing my father’s aversion to spicy foods, he said, “That’s just mean, you know he is going to get you back for that right? He will probably double the length of the run tomorrow just to make sure you don’t get to enjoy the full effects of the deer.”
I thought about what he said for a second and then said, “That’s probably why Mom wanted me to do some fishing, so that Dad won’t kill me tomorrow.”
Gurt responded, “Probably, you are lucky she was looking out for you.”
I realized something in that moment, ever since I had gotten a kid’s body my impulse control had really gotten much worse. I didn’t use to pull so many pranks, especially with people who had power over me. Either I was subconsciously trying to live my life to the fullest, damning the consequences or being in a child’s body just naturally reduces your ability to foresee the consequences of your actions. Guess I’ll find out when I get older.
When Gurt got into the water it was close to twenty feet upstream from me. From long practice, we had determined it was easier to put some distance between us that way he could scare fish downstream toward me and I could scare fish upstream toward him. I advanced slowly upstream working my way toward Gurt, eyes peeled for any movement that would indicate where the fish might be hiding. Gurt stayed relatively still in the hopes that any fish I scared might just swim close enough for him to spear.
My slow advance upriver was apparently fast enough to startle one of the hidden trout. It shot upriver toward Gurt who made a stab at it. Unfortunately he wasn’t fast enough and the trout was able to rocket past him. I sighed when I saw him come up empty. He gave me an apologetic shrug and I continued on with my slow advance.
I spotted another fish not too far away from me, so I crept closer to it. Despite my stealthy advance the fish seemed to sense my presence and thus started making its way upstream. This present Gurt with another opportunity which he took advantage of. With a quick thrust of his spear he managed to snag the slower moving target. He almost gave a triumphant cheer, but I hissed at him before he could fully open his mouth. He looked a little chagrined at being reminded not to scare away the fish then handed me his spear. I gave him mine and brought our catch ashore. I quickly cleaned our catch and put put the flesh on a stick I quickly whittled for the occasion.
I then threw the guts into the river a little upstream of Gurt in the hopes of attracting more fish. I then made my way back downstream and we repeated the process all over again. By the time an hour had passed we had caught three decent sized fish and missed another 2. It was good enough though, so we made our way back home, fish in hand.
Dinner was excellent of course, say what you will about my mom, but one thing no one could possibly deny is that she is an excellent cook. The ribs were spiced to perfection, and by perfection I mean Dad ended up crying after his second bite. Muwahahaha, that will teach him to not help with the cleaning of a kill. The beans had enough fire in them to keep things interesting without overpowering the flavor, and the salad mom made was light and refreshing. I didn’t have any of the fish, but then I didn’t really want any either, not with those tasty ribs available.
After dinner our two families played a game of cards, it was a local game that reminded me a bit of spades, though the number of cards in the deck were wrong and there were only 3 suits. Still though it was fun, and after the games ended and everyone went to bed I began to meditate again. I had a goal and one of the ways I was going to reach that goal would be by surpassing the limits of my species.
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AN: Next chapter we have another time skip, the MC will use some magic and one of the main antagonists of the first arc will be introduced. Unless of course the Magic portion of the chapter lasts longer than what I am picturing, then it might it might take an extra chapter before an antagonist is introduced.
Also, someone asked if there will be any romance, the answer is yes and she will be introduced when the MC visits the Wolf Clan.