Snow fell heavy on the isles this night.
Mountains eaten by the white fall were indistinguishable from the fall itself, dense as it was.
The frost chill gnawed at Malik's lips till they bled. The hide he buried himself in could only keep him so warm when the snow built on the furs. He shook whenever it became too much.
Easy slopes for miles and no terrain rough enough for a fortunate cave or outcrop for cover nor fire.
Zaga was careless of the weather. He stood with his shaven head, braided pony tail and bloodmarks free to catch the snow. This was his home. This was his life.
Malik wasn't sure he'd get sleep. Zaga hadn't planned on getting any.
Come blue-rise and the cease of the white-fall, Malik's hide was buried to his neck in snow like a tent.
Zaga patted Malik's head till he woke. The hood of the hide lifted. Malik peered from beneath it like a rodent peering from its burrow. "Day has come," Zaga said, "Onward. Your final trial awaits." He turned and walked downhill, expecting Malik to either follow him now or track him down later, with no intention of waiting.
Malik shook his tent of a hide. The snow broke and crumbled and avalanched down to his feet. He stood upright from sitting on the stone and opened the cape. His spear and bow toppled over into the snow. He picked them up and brushed them off, then attached each to their holds over his back. He folded and rolled the hide, tying it with twine and strapping it to the back of his waist.
Malik looked up at the sky. Clear blue. To the horizon. He could see the edge of the isle. The drop into oblivion. He sniffled, mucus blocking his nose. He snorted hard to clear his nostrils and spat it at the snow.
He looked downhill at Zaga vanishing into the white forest... Malik inhaled deeply through his cleared nostrils and exhaled a thick fog. Snowy terrain, runny nose and chills aside, he was ready.
He watched his guiding steps as he let his weight carry him downhill.
The weather, though warm for the Sneulands, only melted the snow down to the ankles. Malik was fine with that. He'd handled worse.
Zaga trudged on like he did for the whole journey. Malik followed on his heels, skipping through snow. His leathers and his strain kept him warm enough to stop the shivering.
Their destination was unknown, but Zaga knew they would get there today. He stopped for each and every clue. He crouched to analyse tracks, sniff faeces, inspect damaged foliage. With each clue, their destination became clearer, but it could only be truly known by arriving.
Zaga stopped, took a knee and held his hand up with the palm facing down. Malik did as he was told and got low, slowly moving in a squat to be beside Zaga, keeping his breathing hushed and letting the adrenaline consume.
They looked off the edge of a drop at their destination, their target, their prey - an adult Ganthy Beast; Malik's final trial.
The quadruped lumbered through the snow, ploughing it away with its broad head to reveal the frosted grass beneath. It never stopped. As if farming, it revealed more and more of the green below. Its shaggy fur hung off it heavily. It was hard to tell its actual size with the mass of coat keeping it warm.
Malik never understood the final trial. Nor had his peers. Only those who had completed it did, but they kept it to themselves.
All the texts of the beasts described the creature as a peaceful quadruped with little adaptation to combat against predators. Its only defence was its ability to endure the conditions that its predators could not.
But here Malik was... A man in leathers, warm enough to stand the cold. They were on equal ground and he had to wonder - Why choose the beast least adapted to predators for the final trial?
He suspected it was for their hide. His peers suspected the same. He was meant to earn his Ganthy armour, to be woven from the creature's scales. Those who had already completed the trial always laughed or ignored the question on it.
"This is your final trial, Malik," Zaga whispered, "Slay the Ganthy Beast. The moment you alert the creature, I will not interfere. This hunt is yours. You will either succeed, forfeit, or die. Do you understand?"
Malik looked to him and after a hesitant moment, he nodded... He felt a sudden surge of anxiety.
Why the Ganthy Beast?
What were they hiding?
"Your training and experience have fully equipped you for this trial. Whatever happens, know that you know what to do... Good luck." Zaga looked at the beast and stepped away from the edge.
Malik looked down into the pit... Why the Ganthy Beast...? What is its secret?
He patted over each shoulder to feel for his bow, quiver and spear. He looked at his gauntlets, checking the sharpness of the three steel stakes that protruded from the wrist and pointed forward.
Malik placed a palm on the rock edge and dropped down to place his feet on the wall, clinging with the hand before dropping into the snow. It crunched beneath him. His heart rattled his ribs, thinking he'd alerted the beast.
The grinding sound of the beast ploughing told him otherwise.
He turned to face it, lifting the bow from his back. Its head was down, buried in the snow that it heaped against the walls of the pit.
He slipped an arrow from his quiver and nocked it. He watched the rhythm of the beast's steps and drew the string, aiming the arrow for the heart. A clear shot at full draw and no mercy for the thick scale…
It couldn't be this easy, could it?
Malik breathed once, for air. He breathed twice for peace. He breathed a third time for the shot.
He inhaled and held his breath. His eyes, hands and arrow tracked the creature's heart as it ploughed.
He let the air go and let the arrow fly.
A familiar sound.
The puff against fur, a slip through leather scale and a squelch into an organ.
Malik froze.
The beast howled.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
It was done.
It bucked in pain, surprisingly agile for its build.
It would bleed out.
The Ganthy Beast turned to Malik with its legs in a sprawl. A pose of agility in preparation for attack. He'd seen it many times.
Malik's heart came up to his throat.
The beast howled and the howl tore into a guttural roar. It galloped towards him across the cleared earth and then through the snow, kicking up white clouds that hid it. Malik quickly slung the bow over his back and levered out his spear. Following the sound and what little of a silhouette he could make out through the snow cloud, he dashed to the side and flung the spear in a crescent arc that slashed somewhere on the leg. The bouncing fur tickled Malik’s face as the Ganthy passed. Malik turned to the beast as it crashed side-first into the rock face that he’d jumped from. He stepped backwards, patiently waiting for the bleeding to take effect.
A blood trail drizzled into the gaping footprints in the snow showed him the lethality of the shot. The blood was little, but any blood at all through a Ganthy’s scales were a sign of severity. The Ganthy was losing blood fast.
The beast roared, still hidden by the snow, but the snow didn’t hide the sound of its stomps and it didn’t ease the ground that shook. Malik continued to pace backwards. When the snow settled, he saw the beast clearly, so did it him.
He could just barely see the blue feathers of the arrow sticking out from the fur. Blood dripped with each trod. Mammalian forelimbs. His slash cut the inside of the elbow. The wounded leg flopped forward, but he’d have to cut the rear for it to collapse.
Stupid¸ he thought to himself. He knew this.
As soon as Malik saw his prey, the Ganthy saw its predator. It reared up on its hind legs, the wounded leg hanging. It howled into a roar again. It dropped forward and the moment its feet struck the earth, it charged and shook the ground.
Malik dashed to the side again, this time cutting the arc in the other direction. He felt the terrifying bounce of the blade. It nicked the skin and may have sheared the fur, but no damage.
He listened to the sound of the Ganthy’s breathing over his shoulder and it veered to his back right as the blade rebounded. The creature reoriented itself to ram Malik’s back.
Malik spun himself and in a panicked attempt at countering, he stuck the shaft of his spear in the ground and pointed the blade for the beast. It howled as it came back and charged its neck into the blade. Pivoting over the hilt, the creature’s head raised to the air until its neck was being impaled on the spear by its own weight.
Malik had his feet planted, his back parallel to the ground and his hands clinging to the spear. The Ganthy’s blood showered his face and chest. It slipped down, bit by bit, then the its furred scales gave way. The blade of the spear broke through and the creature collapsed to rest its neck and head on Malik, weighing him down to the snow.
Blood pumped from the wounds, running down to drown Malik. The creature howled softly and in pain.
Malik shoved its head off of him and shimmied out from under to stand up. The spear stood upright with the blade glimmering in red. Malik turned his back to the Ganthy. He wiped the blood from his face and looked at his red palms. The air in his lungs grew claws and crawled out of his mouth.
The creature’s mumbling howls made his heart ache; made him feel something he never thought he could feel for a beast.
A high-pitched, scrappy howl came from his left and then his right. Malik heard Zaga grunt in a panicked way.
He looked to Zaga first instead of to the sound. Stupid, he thought. Zaga’s eyes were wide.
He looked to his left, then his right.
Two juvenile Ganthies, each the height of his shoulder. They howled at him as loudly as they could, but he couldn’t be threatened by it. He stepped away from his prey with his palms forward as they howled at him and cautiously approached their dying mother.
Malik froze. The young sniffed the mother and howled at him occasionally. The mother groaned, her blood pulsing out. The young licked at the wound as if to heal her. Her blood matted the fur on their faces. Malik looked down at the blood on his hands. The blood in the snow. The blood on his clothes. He spat what blood found its way into his mouth.
He turned to look at Zaga.
“… W-What do I do?” Malik cried.
Zaga said nothing and looked down at him.
Malik’s left arm was overcome with a crushing pain as one of the young grabbed him between their gnashing teeth. He yelled as he was whipped down to the snow. The young one shook its head as if to pull Malik’s arm from its socket. The other came rushing to him. Malik’s legs flailed out to keep it at bay. It grabbed his foot and he yelled again.
He felt something crunch in his arm and a sharp pain strike through him. He impulsively bent his fist down and struck the creature in the top of its head with the protruding stakes of his gauntlet. Crunch, squelch, squeal. It collapsed, letting his arm go.
He bent his leg and pulled himself to the other child and hit it once with each hand. The same. Crunch, squelch, squeal. Crunch, squelch, squeal. Collapse.
Malik scrambled to his feet with a limp. The air rushed to leave him but his lungs fought to pull it back in. His heart felt as if it were going to explode and his head felt hollow. He put a hand on his chest and a hand out in front of him, slowly catching the ground as it came up to meet him. He stared into the bloody white snow. He struggled for breath.
He fought for control. He breathed deeply once for air. He breathed deeply twice for peace. He breathed deeply a third time to get back to work.
He stared at the snow for a moment longer before standing up and looking to Zaga.
Zaga stared at him stalely. “Your trial is not yet complete, Malik.” He nodded to the mother Ganthy.
Malik looked behind him. The mother’s hind legs were standing. It pressed up on its forelegs before all legs buckled and it collapsed itself deeper onto the spear.
Malik’s skin went cold. He stepped forward to the creature. It no longer howled. The only vocalisation it made was the bubbling hissing of air through its fractured windpipe. His boots quickly soaked in the pool of blood. He gripped the spear under the blade and slipped it out the rest of the way.
The creature’s head rested at his feet and its body started to lean to the side. Its eyes blinked slowly. It looked at him. It managed a sound like wind through mountains. Its body rolled onto its stomach in an attempt to stand up again.
Malik put his foot on the Ganthy’s neck. He hovered the tip of his spear over its eye and then drove the blade in hard and deep.
Its body dropped back onto its side. Its legs kicked. Malik pushed deeper and twisted, then the legs stopped and the last breath of air left its body as a whisper. He pulled the spear out and avoided eye contact with the socket he mutilated.
The juvenile he struck twice in the head was convulsing, whimpering and whining. Its legs shook and its spine bent back and forth. Malik hung his spear and took out his bow. He quickly shot it through the eye and it stopped.
The final one had been inhaling the blood that its wound gave; its body mostly still. It sucked in and then sputtered out as it desperately tried to breath. Its legs moved and twitched slightly as if it were trying to get up.
Malik nocked another arrow and aimed it at the eye. Dead eyes. Dead eyes on a body that was still breathing and still trying to stand.
The arrow shot into the ground as Malik dropped to his knees and buried his face in the snow crying.
Zaga dropped in and struck his spear into the final child’s head to end its suffering. He kneeled beside Malik, staying silent as the boy sobbed to the ground.
Subtle winds carried the tale through the forest as the scent of Ganthy blood. Zaga waited patiently, on both knees, with his hands on his thighs, his spear lying beside him and his eyes closed. The furs of his hide leaned with the wind.
When Malik finished crying, he wiped his eyes with his wrists, sniffed his nose clear and straightened his back. He’d started shivering again from kneeling in the snow. He waited for Zaga to finalise his trial.
Zaga inhaled deeply and exhaled a thick fog.
“… Do you understand the lesson?” Zaga asked.
Malik looked to him. “What lesson?”
“These trials are not simply tests, Malik… Surely you’ve figured that out. The trials are lessons, taught to make a hunter of a fighter. Now, what was the lesson of this hunt?”
Malik thought of the way the creature fought with an arrow in its heart. The way it had persisted as it bled out. The fight that it still had.
“The spirit of survival,” Malik said, “Every creature with a will to live will fight for its life when out of options.”
The image of it. Its legs buckling. The howls it had made.
“Anything else?”
The children… The fear that he thought he saw in their eyes. The screams they made when he hit them.
“Everything is alive… I think. The way the—… The way the children looked at me. I felt sympathy for them. And empathy. I felt hurt… Everything feels pain no matter how primal. Suffering is a shared experience among all living things.”
The way their bodies struggled as they died. The pain he saw. The suffering he identified with. The suffering he’d inflicted…
Zaga put a hand on Malik’s shoulder. “As someone who cares for you… I would suggest that you choose a way of mourning and honouring your prey. As your mentor, I want you to learn from this experience, and every hunt to come. There is no correct answer to what the lesson is. What you’ve learnt from this hunt is your personal lesson… Well done, Malik. You are no longer a Sneuland beast fighter. You are now a Sneuland Beast Hunter. May you serve yourself and your people well, and may I never choose you as my prey.”
Zaga stood up and left Malik in his spoils.