That's A Lot Of Bull...

Fern sees the anxiety that her choice causes Bowen and she swallows down the guilt. Hopefully, she can still trust the gray girl after this. The plan is laid out, the wolves crept closer and Rudy offered some whispered final words. Turning her bright blue eyes to catch his golden gaze, the gray girl gives a short nod before returning to the task before them. She jumped up, got close enough to the elephant to deposit Puff and was already racing away. The shout for the rest to join is answered and everyone performs exceptionally. Jane and Reila make enough noise to startle the large creature, its giant ears flapping in uncertainty as it swings its massive head around. Erza and Rudy poke their antlers into the elephant’s joints, snapping and biting where they can.

The bull becomes angry, the minor annoyances that the wolves and stoat are making finally gets the lumbering giant to begin moving and its attention falls on the caramel streak that makes circles around it. It tosses its head and a small flash of brown flies through the air causing Fern to quickly move and catch the falling Puff. Small paws grip the leather of her armor and the stoat regains her position on Fern’s back. The elephant’s head lowers, deadly sharp tusks pointing toward Bowen and it begins to charge. The thundering beat of the huge feet fill the air as the group pushes the elephant to follow after Bowen. They run, over the grassy meadow and into the dark, twisting paths of the forests. Onward they go, around turns and over logs. Bowen never flags, never falters and neither does the group. Finally, Fern spies Reddy in the branch of a tree ahead of them. Letting out a short bark to inform every one of the approaching traps and to slow down, the gray girl watches as Bowen approaches the barbed wire trap with the elephant not far behind.

Ocean-hued eyes dart to nearby trees, spying the metal wires that stretch from truck to trunk, anchoring the trap wrapped trees. Fern may not have had the best plan for the hunt but she knows how heavy elephants are and, because of this, had spent the day before wrapping the trees with thick metal wires. Rudy had wrapped the crisscrossed section of barbed wired that would be the point the elephant ran into today but Fern had made sure to anchor the day before. It might pull up the first two trees or the first four but it is no match for twenty-five. Bowen slips away and the charging monster has no time to detour. With a mighty crash, the elephant is snared by the trap, the trumpets of rage are drowned by the sounds of trees being ripped from the earth. In the end, the wire cuts bloody lines into the thick skin and tangles the enormous feet, bring the mighty beast low.

Five trees lay uprooted, but the elephant will have no time to recover. Fern shouts, “Now! Go for the throat! Be careful of the sharp wire!” The elephant wiggles on its side as the gray girl leaps forward, trusting the others to kill it while she moves to pin the writhing trunk.


"Fern Lark"