With the bow looped across his chest, John knelt down beside the pawprints. The soil was damp from the rain that had fallen at dawn. A drizzle was all that remained.

“Oval shaped paws with four toes and visible claws. Either a large or a spotted wolf. A single set of tracks and it isn’t marking its territory either. Probably dispersed from its pack.”

“Very good,” Dene complimented from behind him. “And when did it pass through here?”

He looked back at the tracks. “Doesn’t look like it formed a puddle, so it was after the rain. It’s ahead of us by two hours, at most.” He turned to see his mother nodding in approval.

“So, what do you want to do? Go after this one or look for another game?”

“Let’s go with this one,” John stood up and wiped the dirt from his dark breeches. “Who knows how long until we find another one. I want to be back home before it starts raining again.” He glanced at the heavy clouds peeking through the canopy above. It was morning but looked like evening.

“It’s your decision, after you then.”

John nodded and turned to follow the tracks. He barely took his third step before Dene told him to stop.

He quizzically looked back and she had a finger on her lips, signaling for him to be quiet. She remained like that for a couple of seconds before saying, “hand me the bow and quiver.”

John did as told and she handed him the empty burlap sack. He was about to ask what it was all about when he heard it. The sound of hooves beating the ground towards them. Not fast, but numerous.

His first instinct was to stand in front of his mother before realizing it. Whatever was coming, he would be a hindrance rather than of help. So instead, he stood behind her and waited.

He could make out horses coming from behind the bushes. Before long they appeared. Two, four, six, eight horsemen lined up in front of his mother. John could make out six of them as Fighters, but not the two in the center who seemed to be in charge. He could only hope they were both Crusaders and not Paladins.

“Greetings,” one of the two spoke. His rough black hair only reached down to his ears while his face was perfectly shaved. The bright gold sash over an indigo gown gave him a scholarly look, which was contrasted by the sheathed sword on his hip and gruff looking companions by his side. “Sorry for the disturbance, we were heading to Greenflower when we got lost. Could you please point us the right way?”

Dene nodded. “If you’re coming from the east, then you’ve already passed it.” She pointed to her right, “go south until you find a road, follow it east and you should arrive there in an hour at most.”

The man looked towards where she pointed then back at her. “Thank you very much,” he did a slight bow of the head and turned south, his companions following after.

John followed them with his gaze until he could no longer see them.

"Here," Dene handed his bow and quiver back. "Forget the wolf, let's move away from here." She looked back towards where the horsemen disappeared to. "Better safe than sorry."

With that, his mother grabbed him with one arm and began rushing through the forest. Low branches, tree trunks, rocks, and protruding roots; she would use all of these to avoid stepping on the ground and leaving tracks.

If she couldn’t make the jump to the next footing, she would grab on a higher branch with a shadow leash and swing from it.

The cold wind blew on John’s face, all the while he wondered when he would be able to do something similar. His teeth were chattering when they finally landed.

“Here should be far enough. Do you need some time?”

John shook his head. He wouldn’t let a bit of cold hold him down.

It didn’t take him long to find another set of tracks, this one belonging to a… a… “What is this?”

The front paws were huge, asymmetrical and half as big as a normal bear’s, with long claws. Its hind paws were smaller in comparison. The front ones had sunk two inches into the soil. That thing was big and heavy.

Dene came to his side. “That’s from a Nandi bear,” she spoke with a hint of shock.

“You never told me about those.”

“Because I never thought you would come across one of them. They are from back home.”

“A bear in the desert?”

“Further south, the savanna. It must’ve been brought here as an exotic beast and escaped.”

John looked around for any tracks of other animals but found nothing. “How strong is it?”

“To you? A lot. A single swipe will maul a Fighter to death, and its skin is too thick to be pierced by your arrows.”

“What about my swords?” Besides his bow, he always brought the shortswords along during his hunts, if for whatever reason he couldn’t fight from a distance. The longsword he left back home.

“It’s possible, but you’ll need to be constantly on the move. The skin below the knees is thinner, so you’ll be able to cut its tendons. From there you go for the neck. Don’t try to slash it, pierce it with as much force as you can.”

John took it all in before following the tracks. While they walked, his mother would give all the advice she could think of.

“Mom? Are you sure you want to kill this one?”

“I know what you’re thinking, but no. Those things are way too ferocious and they attack anything that comes close. I almost died against a Nandi bear when I was around your age.”

“Well, thanks a lot. That is a comforting thought when I’m about to fight one of them.”

“You’re welcome,” she snickered. “But seriously, don’t worry about killing it. It will die either to you or to the winter.”

Finally, they reached the edge of a clearing. On the opposite side, the Nandi bear rested under the shade of a large oak tree. Besides big and heavy it was also ugly. Even asleep it was menacing, looking like a horrible hybrid of bear and hyena.

It was powerfully built, especially at the front which caused its back to slope down. A disproportionately large head, with two lower canines too big to fit in its mouth and a short snout. It had bristle brown hair except for the white underside and red snout from its last meal, not very far from where it slept.

“Hate to say it,” Dene whispered, “but the longsword would work best here. Regardless, try your best. Anything goes wrong and I'll step in.”

John nodded. “I should be able to pierce its eyelids with my arrows.”

The Nandi bear had its head against the ground but sideways to John. He looked for a good spot to attack facing it and found a mound rising behind two trees at the edge of the clearing. After slowly making his way there, placed his quiver on the ground.

Hit or miss, he would be against a strong and angry beast. He nocked an arrow but didn't draw the bow, instead watching the beast breathing. Every time it did, its head would move a little. Rhythmically it would exhale, inhale and pause for a few seconds before repeating the cycle. John had to hit it during that pause.

Before drawing his bow, John took a last look at his mother. She had managed to climb up the large oak tree and was standing on a branch directly on top of the beast. Anything went wrong she would save him.

With that, he drew the bow, waited for the pause and let it fly. The next second there was an angry roar from the beast who now had an arrow sticking out of its left eye. The second arrow landed on the ground between its stocky legs as it stood up, serving only to show where John was shooting from.

It looked even more threatening now, standing almost as tall as John at around one and a half meters.

The third arrow bounced against its skull, the fourth one flew wide and the fifth one pierced the nose. That was the last arrow as it was now running up the mound.

John threw the bow to the side and ran towards a tree behind him. He jumped and ran three steps up the tree before somersaulting over the Nandi bear, just as it slammed its head against the trunk.

He landed with a back roll and was soon on his feet again, this time running down the mound towards the clearing. He didn’t want to trip on the undergrowth during the fight.

As he reached the center of the clearing, John finally unsheathed his swords. The beast rushed after him and slammed at John who rolled to its left side.

The Nandi bear stood on its hind legs to swipe a paw bigger than John’s head at him. He barely managed to duck under it and immediately moved to avoid its descending paw.

He ran circles around the enraged beast, always to its left where it couldn’t see him. When it finally tried to stand on two legs again, John rushed and slashed it right above the left hind paw, spraying blood on the grass. He didn’t wait to see if it worked and jumped back, avoiding the beast’s falling body.

When it stood up again, the Nandi bear was slumping heavily to one side. But either not caring or not understanding its injury, it jumped again at John.

For the first time, he dodged to its right. By instinct it tried to swipe at him with his left paw, forgetting about its now useless hind leg and tumbling to the side. It was almost funny.

He took the chance to slash at the other hind leg, and now all it could do was drag its lower body.

Just for safety, he waited for a chance to also cut the tendons on its forelegs before jumping on its back. It reminded him of his fight against the great boar years ago.

Just like back then, John sunk his word on the beast‘s neck, and just like back then it got wedged. But this time there wouldn’t be an asshole trying to kill him. Hopefully.

John looked up to the branch where his mother had been and found nothing. His heart skipped a beat before feeling a tap on his shoulder.

“Good job,” Dene spoke with a smile.

John breathed a sigh of relief.

She pulled the sword free, wiped it mostly clean with the burlap sack and handed it back to John. “Now go get your bow and arrows, I’ll take care of the skinning.”

“I know how to do it,” he protested.

“I know you do, I thought you myself. But as you’ve already seemed to have forgotten, its skin is too thick. If I leave it to you there’ll be nothing but scraps.”

Head hanging low, John did as he was told. More than anything he was ashamed of having forgotten something so basic.

When he came back his mother was halfway done with the beast’s side. “Rather than standing there watching, how about a little test?” She pointed a bloodied hand at the carcass of the Nandi bear’s last meal. “What can you tell me about that?”

“It’s dead.”

“You don’t say? Anything else?”

“Yeah, the bear ate it,” John chuckled.

“You do realize that I can hit you without needing to move from here, right? Carcass. Now.”

John gave a short laugh before turning to the animal’s body. What did she expect him to find? “I mean, the body it seems to have been a deer.”

“What else?”

John didn’t understand what was so important about it. “From its gray fur, I would say its a wind deer...”

“Do you see it now?” His mother was done with one side and was rolling the bear on its other side. “How did such a fast beast got killed by this bear? Maybe the bear got lucky and found an old one?”

“No, it was still young, else it would’ve started to lose muscle.” John finally got interested and took another at the carcass. Other than its entrails, the head was also missing. “Does the Nandi bear also eats the head?”

“Sometimes it does. The only way to know for sure is to open its stomach and check. Want me to do it?”

“No, that’s okay.” His mother had seen something about this body and didn’t need to open the bear open to it. John got closer to the body, shooing the flies away. The grass around the body was painted red with the deer’s blood. “Wait...” John compared the area around the neck with the one around the open entrails. “There’s a lot more blood around the neck.”

He examined the neck more closely and found a small hole a near where it ended. With a gloved hand, John prodded a finger inside a touched something hard. He cut the hole open with a knife and grabbed what had been stuck inside; a broken-off arrowhead.

With that, he had a pretty good guess of what happened, but he had to be sure. He took another look at the deer’s body. It was on the smaller side, either a hind or a young stag. He pulled its hind legs open and found his answer, “it was a stag, someone killed it.”

“That’s right,” his mother was done with the pelt. “And if so, they likely also took its antlers. We’ve got ourselves some poachers do deal with.”