Spring 4th, 512 av, middle of the night
I woke up only few hours after having fallen asleep. Suddenly, I felt I was in danger. The deep feeling of the predator that for once had become the pray. Perfectly awake in a second, I peered at the prairie, trying to see what caused my instinct to panic. But despite my very good wolf vision, I could not see anything. I sighed, thinking I was wrong, and tried to find a better position to sleep. But when I finally closed my eyes…
I heard it a second before I smelt it. Bear. I felt shiver down my spine; it was just down my tree. I could not flee anymore, it was too close. My branch was high, too high for the bear to catch it but it seemed being starving, otherwise he would not have tried to hunt a human. I should be the only food few miles around. And a starving bear was obviously able to wait hours long that its pray decided to quit its hide place.
As I was starving and parched myself, I had no choice but to fall down and face the beast before being too tired and weak. I took my two-bladed sword on my back. I hardly knew how to use it, but a bare handed fight was not a good way to stay alive against a bear. I thought a moment that I could shift and run. As a wolf, it would be easy to let the bear far away on my back. But I had done this all journey to take my things back to Zeltiva, not to lose them in the middle of nowhere. Sitting on my branch, I hesitated during long minutes. If I felt down, I could not flee as a human: too slow. If I was to fight, I had no good chances too. God, it was a bear! And I could not stand there waiting for a providential help. It cut no ice.
I looked at my bag. Would I be able to hold it on my wolf jaws? Certainly not without breaking my teeth and this was out of the question. All right then, it left me only one solution: ruse.
I took my bag and threw it the further I could. It felt few feet further with a metallic thud and caught the beast attention. I did not wait any longer. As quick as I could, I jumped from my branch, swiped along the trunk and rolled in the grass, my sword pressed on my palm. The bear turned its big head and looked at me with its tiny black eyes as I stood up. Suddenly, my bag was no more interesting to him and I saw him standing on two paws, growling. He was much huger than I had expected, much more underfed too. I knew I was not able to kill him; my only chance was to hurt him on its paws, so that he would not be so fast while running. And if ever I was to be beaten, I could always shift at the very last second, even if it meant loosing my only belongings.
The bear attacked before I was ready. At the very second, I parried its claws with the tip of my sword, cutting no more than some fur. Half-scared and half-ready, I was waiting for the bear to attack again, to find a break on its defence and turning around it, jumping and dumping to avoid being hurt by its huge paws that could kill a man with one slap. This strategy enabled me to wound it twice on its back paws and I was quite sure that it left knee was now unable to bear its weight. But as I was to injure it one last time, its muscle paw hurt me on the shoulder as I had been unable to duck in time. Covered with blood, my shoulder became fast very painful. It was no more time to check if the bear could run or not. I had to flee, right now, before having lost too much blood.
Turning carefully around the bear, I ducked very fast to catch my bag and without another look, I showed a clean pair of heels. My sword on one hand, my bag on the other, I ran as fast as I could, straining my ears to know whether the bear was behind me. It was not. It tried to follow me few feet long, but soon its knee injuries threatened it to much. I thanked all the gods I knew for that chance.
More scared than exhausted, I ran a mile or two, until my legs could no longer hold me. When I finally stopped, I looked at my shoulder and grimace: the wound looked terribly bad. I torn a piece of clothe of my pan and tried to dress it as I could. It burned evilly.
“I shall not stop” I said to encourage myself.
I pushed my bag on my healthy shoulder and put my sword back on my back. In the horizon, a silver line was growing. The last day of my journey had just begun.
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