Rivers flowed, the sun rose and fell. 4 years had passed since the day Malum had learned of his history, of the world, and of the universal truth.

He was now in a new village, this one a 4/10 because most of the villagers were insufferable. The hunting party was alright, and that was the only reason it wasn’t contending for the bottom of his list.

In particular there was a single man whome Malum had come to recognise and his first proper mentor.

“Johan are we hunting today?” said a taller Malum, knocking on the ragged door of his hunting mentor.

Waiting, Malum looked at the flowers around his mentors hut. He could name most of them and could tell that two were poisonous. The rest were rather mundane, but it did make a nice pop-quiz for his waking mind.

“That yu Malum?” said a face poking through the door. It held messy brown hair, matched with the man’s clearly well-tanned skin and the gleaming smile revealed the man’s polished white teeth.

“Of course it is, or has age finally caught up to your eyesight.”

“My eyes have seen eagles from mountains away, it’s just yu have an uncanny ability to look just like Angela’s dog.”

Imagining the sickly rat of his neighbour Malum laughed as he walked into the man’s house. Part of the reason the two got on so well was that they constantly bickered with each other, like an old married couple.

Regardless of the nonsense coming from both their mouths, they collected their equipment and got on the road toward the local forest.

Picking up bread on the way, they finally decided to land on a topic that wouldn’t erode both of their shared brain-cell.

“Talking about rabid cats, today my young protegee shall take on a family of panthers. I located them during the last weekly hunt but saved them just for yu.”

“Thanks, any tips or am I going in with just that?” Malum checked to see how many arrows he had, 14 would be enough for 2 grown panthers considering he hit them and didn’t recycle any of his arrows.

“Where would the fun of that be? No, today you take them on blind with just your hope and my best prayers.”

“How kind of you...”

Starting with the easiest part, Malum took a second and laid his bow on the ground. He got out a knife and pricked his thump on his knife. A drop fell on his bow and Malum said his prayer,

“Let my hunt be fruitful, let my arrows find my mark, let me wander you domain. Amen.”

After that, Malum got pointed into the right direction and the two began to split up as Malum got locked in. Journeying through the forest required that he maintain constant awareness of his surroundings. Ambushes were rare, but vigilance didn’t hut, and ignorance certainly did.

That required all of his senses, but most importantly sound.

The sound of his breathing dimmed as he began to feel his surroundings. The birds that never ceased to chirp, the swaying of the leaves, and the small breaths of a rabbit hidden behind the tree.

Malum needed to know of these, and he had honed them with help of his teachers insight and his Uncles helpful hints.

Ensuring he made as little sound as possible, Malum moved closer to his destination as he made sure he kept close to natural covers. Finding a muddy bog, Malum covered his face and clothes in a fresh layer as he had heard about the panthers incredible sense of smell.

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It was still daylight and their black fur had yet to wield their natural advantage. They were nocturnal creatures that slept in trees, but Malum hated complete assumptions. For instance he was a diurnal creature but that did not mean he couldn’t be awake at night and when his life was on the line he would never take that risk.

Deeper and deeper Malum went, his eyes slowly darting to wherever sound was created. The smell of pine was about as much he was receiving from one of his senses but luckily his eyes caught something laid atop a tree.

Black and surprisingly large, Malum quickly checked to see if there were any more in surroundings. If he could pick them off one by one then he certainly would take that offer.

A family of panthers meant a female protecting and hunting for their young, and a male would sometimes continue to linger in the surroundings.

Considering the size of the beasts Malum could safely guess that it was a male and such Malum decided to take it out here and now. He slowly tiptoed his way towards the panther, and only stopped when he was around one hundred steps away.

The bow he held was a medium sized bow without the power needed for long distance shooting. He wanted to end it in a single shot through the eye into the brain, he just needed to prepare alternative plans in case his aim failed him.

Checking the tree to his left, Malum felt the bark to see if it were safe to climb. It wasn’t wet but it wasn’t bone dry either, that gave Malum the confidence to climb onto a high branch. The panther was pretty high up, and he needed the right angle to better his odds of penetrating the brain.

First he slung his arrows onto the large trunk, he then strapped his bow to his back and everything else unnecessary by the stump. He then hopped and caught the branch with both his hands. The sound created was no doubt fairly loud, but it was mostly the leaves at the end of the branch clashing against each other: a sound that wouldn’t alert the predator.

He then pulled himself up using his core and his flexibility before he re-attacked his quiver to his belt. Pulling out his bow, he now only had one last step to go.

He took a breath, ensured nothing around him had changed, aimed...

And shot.

Overthinking it was stupid, and Malum quickly reloaded ignoring whether or not he hit the beast or not. Considering the yelp, he could assume he did.

With another arrow in place, Malum pulled and began to see the beast still alive eyeing up his surroundings looking for his attacker.

Malum took a breath, made a rough calculation as where the beast would move next and aimed his arrow to land there. He then released and began the cycle again.

As he began to aim again he noticed the beast had fallen. He shot one more arrow, this time looking for any response but found the beast continuing to lay still.

He shot one more arrow and checked around him to see if it was safe to secure his hunt. It seemed so. With that, he double checked before climbing down and checking out his score.

Happy with his small achievement Malum checked the beast for size before looking at its other features for future reference. They held small heads, which noticed he had managed to secure an eye shot, and exceptional achievement which he was sure to brag about later.

Next was it body which was sleek and held Malums 3 other arrows. Checking its organs really quickly, Malum saw it punctured some sort of liver or something, Malum was no expert on animal biology but if it made the creature die he would note down the location of it. The other two, Malums safety shots had pierced the beasts skins, clearly they weren’t the killing blows.

Happy with his achievement, he retrieved his arrows, placing back in his quiver before continuing his hunt.

Next was the female whome should be around half the weight of the male.

Malum found her pretty quickly, she and her young were in a larger tree and Malum could not help but brag that he was 2 for 5 out of real shots, hitting the eye today and that was it for his hunt.

“Good job my young protegee it seems I have taught you well.” Said his master appearing from behind one of the nearby trees.

Ignoring his masters talent at hiding Malum continued unaffected. “Sure, what you’re looking at is talent. Certainly not the result of your lousy lessons.”

Malum caught a jab for that one, but he thought it was well worth it. He was proud today, and his smile was going to endure more than just a small jab.

“Arrogance is the poison of the talented, but if that’s for you drown for all I care. Now we move onto what you did wrong. Firstly, your second shot on that first panther was nigh all luck. Whilst I do believe you could have killed it before it got to you, I must remind you: head, heart, legs. You got me?”

“Yeah, I didn’t want to aim for those skinny legs, so I shot the chest and hoped for the best.”

Happy to hear one of his sayings be used the old man got unusually happy, “What wise words, except for the fact that the legs were a much better objective choice. Yur aim is never the issue Malum as much as I hate to admit it yu are one of the best shots I’ve ever seen, and yu won’t get better by limiting yurself. This is a lesson, so learn as much as you can.

Right old boy, pack those two into bag and we’ll head home. Tonight we shall eat some panther meat!”

Malum could only laugh as he began to pack his prey. Today had been successful and now he needed his reward.