never made it as a wise man

. . .



Cross had assumed that they?d be going after the buck, but perhaps that had been a rookie mistake. More meat was a bonus, but not if it came at the price of antler wounds. As he ran after the two prey animals, he saw a shadow break away from the tree line. Suddenly Eria was there, blocking the doe?s path and forcing it to turn. She was so fast she made the deer look slow by comparison! Cross switched tactics, leaving the hart to escape while he ran to cut off the doe. He heard Era?s frenzied shout ? all he needed to know that this was on his shoulders now. Great.

With a new spurt of determination, the boy ripped across the plains to come at the doe from the side. His lips peeled back in a snarl. His emerald embers blazed. He didn?t want to make another mistake! He wanted to be worthy of the job that he was being given! The hunter and the hunted came together in a corner, but Cross didn?t try to speed up to get in front of her, or slow down to get behind; he just kept going, straight as an arrow. And as he ran straight- he leapt upwards as though trying to clear a wide stream. The timing was perfect ? his jaws closed around the deer?s throat, and as his weight and momentum pushed his body forward, his fangs ripped and tore away the tender throat, severing the windpipe and surrounding veins. His angle made it so that the cut went straight across the throat.

It all happened so fast, that, to be honest, Cross didn?t know for certain what had happened until he was tumbling away into the ferns and brush off to one side, with a mouthful of flesh and a chest stained bright red. Still, clamping onto the meat, he shook his throbbing head and stood, ignoring the bruises that were sure to be sprouting up like daisies under his coat. The doe was thrashing in a heap off to the side a little ways away, ready to be pounced on by Eria and finished.

Cross just stood there panting, eyes twitching and twisting in disbelief.

?. What had he just done?






. . .