The Great Bear

Wait... whispered the familiar feeling in Lirak's mind as he stood at the southern edge of the oval shaped clearing. Sweat beaded the swarthy skin of his forehead above his steely gray eyes. Silently drawing back the arrow in his bow, he watched the great bear's head and shoulders emerge cautiously from the shadows of the massive oaks and towering redwoods to his west. His resolve momentarily faltered on seeing the immensity of the beast. In his sixteen summers living in the great forest, he had never seen or heard of anything like the man-eating monster sniffing toward the bloody deer carcass. Even the vividness of his dreams had not prepared him for such sheer gut-wrenching size and menace.

Wait... As taut and tense as his bow, Lirak absorbed the strain on his shoulder and forearm, welcoming the sensation as a distraction from his knee-weakening fear. The bear moved fully into the clearing, nosing the slain deer. Lirak estimated it would be more than twice his height if fully erect. Each leg alone was as massive as Lirak's entire body. Sending a short, silent prayer to Kathoias, he hoped that his careful planning had been enough. The bear's massive head dipped down to the bloody carcass exposing glistening teeth as long as Lirak's fingers.

Now!

Lirak slipped easily into a familiar sensation of time slowing down as he released his first arrow. As it flew he plucked a second from the three held in the fingers of his bow-wielding left hand. Drawing this arrow back, he stepped into the clearing, a hundred steps from the bear and twenty steps from the uprooted bushes to the east. Just as he settled the second arrow against his cheek, the first arrow's obsidian point pierced deep into the beast's right side. Bellowing in spittle-flying fury, the bear spun quickly to its right. Lirak loosed his second arrow, noting that it sparkled for an instant as it pierced a rare forest sunbeam. Instantly, Lirak nocked his third.

The bear's howling pain and fury crashed against his ears. Riding the crest of a sensory wave, Lirak could feel every muscle tingling and nerve singing. His swiftly pounding heart felt to him like a slow, rhythmic thumping. He could feel even the subtle vibration of the arrow shaft against the bow as he drew the third arrow back. The bear's eyes locked on Lirak just as the second arrow plunged into its snout. Rocked back by the pain for only a moment, the beast lunged forward and charged just as Lirak's third arrow flew.

Defying the growing ball of panic in his gut, Lirak nocked his last arrow. His mind still racing ahead of his body, he drew back the bowstring while taking a lungful of air. For an instant that felt like an eternity he studied the charging bear, and released the final arrow just as his third arrow stabbed into the bear's chest.

Dropping the still vibrating bow, Lirak spun on the ball of his right foot and sprinted toward the row of uprooted bushes. His long black hair flew out into a billowing tail. There was a choking cough, and he heard the bear's charge falter for a moment. Lirak knew the final arrow had plunged through the raging maw into the bear's throat. Slim, powerful legs drove him away from the monster and across the small clearing. Closer and closer from behind came the deadly roaring. Hearing each paw slam into the hard ground behind him, he feared the bear was about to crush his back with one massive blow. Faster he prayed, wishing his body could match the racing speed of his mind.

Knifing between the bushes at the far edge of the small clearing, Lirak leapt with all his strength, stretching his body out and reaching forward as the ground fell away below him. A sudden sharp impact on his left calf sent a blast of pain through his leg and a shock through his body. Desperately reaching out with his right hand; he managed to grab the dangling rope which bit into his palm and fingers. With a painful jerk to his shoulder, his body whipped around and he frantically brought his left hand onto the rope as well. Now facing the bear as he swung outward, both hands burned as the rope slid through his hands for a brief moment before stopping against a knot. Arcing upwards, his body's weight on the rope abruptly bent the branch above, jolting free a sudden cloud of leaves and dust which sparkled in the sunlight.

Blinded by an all-consuming rage, the bear plowed through the line of uprooted bushes, scattering them right and left. And down. Twisting halfway around at the last instant, long lethal claws desperately dug into the dense clay at the crest of the cliff. Eight deep parallel furrows in the hard earth ended in a cloud of dust at the rim of the ravine. The heavy bear's roars of rage and frustration suddenly ended in a piercing shriek as it crashed into the rough boulders thirty feet below.

Swinging slowly under the massive oak limb, Lirak watched the bear die. Only now did he feel the burning pain in his hands and the wetness of blood on his leg. Ignoring the pains as much as he could, he climbed to the tree branch above, untied and coiled his rope and climbed down the ancient oak to retrieve his bow, quiver and pack. Moving past the uprooted bushes he had placed to hide the cliff edge, he descended to the dead bear, noting how his third arrow had been driven deep into the bear's chest as it hit the rocks. With a sense of relief mingled with satisfaction, Lirak drew his sharp stone knife from its buckskin sheath and began the laborious effort of skinning the great beast.