run from us as soon as he realized that we menaced him. No other game we had ever hunted had stood to receive our first charge. Even the lion runs from the hunter until he is wounded or cornered. How could these obese animals behave differently?
'His head is so big, it will make a fine target,' Tanus exulted, as he nocked an arrow. 'I will kill him with a single shaft, before he can escape. Run in close under that long, ridiculous nose of his.'
Behind us the rest of our column was strung out in single file. Our plan was to come in and split on each side of the bull, firing our arrows into him as we passed, then wheeling around and coming back in classic chariot tactics.
We were right on the bull now, but still he stood his ground. Perhaps these animals were every bit as dull- witted as they looked. This would be an easy kill, and I sensed Tanus' disappointment at the prospect of such poor sport.
'Come on, you old fool!' he shouted contemptuously. 'Don't just stand there. Defend yourself!'
It was as though the bull heard and understood the challenge. . He threw up his trunk and loosed a blast of sound that stunned and deafened us. The horses shied wildly, so that I was thrown against the dashboard with a force that bruised my ribs. For a moment I lost control of the team, and we swerved away.
Then the bull squealed again, and he ran.
'By Horus, look at him come!' Tanus roared with astonishment, for the beast was not running from us, but directly at us, in a furious charge. He was swifter than any horse, and nimble as an angry leopard set upon by the hounds. He kicked up bursts of dust with each long flying stride, and was on us before I could get the horses under control again.
I looked up at him, for he towered directly over us, reaching out with his trunk to pluck us from the cockpit of the chariot, and I could not believe the size of him, nor the fury in those eyes. They were not the eyes of an animal, but those of an intelligent and alert human being. This was no porcine sloth, but a courageous and terrible adversary that we had challenged in our arrogance and ignorance.
Tanus got off a single arrow. It struck the bull in the centre of his forehead, and I expected to see him collapse as the bronze point pierced the brain. We did not know then that the brain of the elephant is not situated where you would expect it to be, but is far back in the mountainous skull and protected by a mass of spongy bone that no arrow can penetrate.
The bull did not even check or swerve. He merely reached up with his trunk and -gripped the shaft of the arrow with the tip, as a man might do with his hand. He pulled the shaft from his own flesh and threw it aside and came on after us, reaching out towards us with the blood-smeared trunk.
Hui in the second chariot of our line saved us, for we were defenceless against the old bull's fury. Hui came in from the side, lashing his horses and yelling like a demon. His archer from the footplate behind him fired an arrow into the bull's cheek a hand's-span below the eye, and that pulled his attention from us.
The elephant wheeled to chase after Hui, but he was at full gallop and raced clean away. The next chariot in line was not so fortunate. The driver lacked Hui's skill, and his turn away was inept. The bull lifted his trunk high and then swung it down like an executioner's axe.
He struck the near-side horse across the back, just behind the withers, and broke its spine so cleanly that I heard the vertebrae shatter like a brittle potsherd. The maimed horse went down and dragged its teammate down with it. The chariot rolled over and the men were hurled from it. The elephant placed one forefoot on the body of the fallen charioteer and, with its trunk, plucked off his head and tossed it aloft like a child's ball. It spun in the air spraying a bright feather of pink blood from the severed neck.
Then the next chariot in line tore in, distracting the bull from his victim.
I pulled up my horses at the edge of the grove, and we stared back aghast at the carnage of our shattered squadron. There were broken chariots scattered across the field, for Kratas out on the left had fared no better than we had.
The two great bull elephants bristled with arrow-shafts, and the blood streamed down their bodies, leaving wet streaks on their dusty grey hide. However, the wounds had not weakened them, but seemed only to have aggravated their fury. They rampaged through the grove, smashing up the capsized chariots, stamping the carcasses of the horses under those massive padded feet, throwing the bodies of screaming men high in the air and trampling them as they fell back to earth.
Kratas raced up alongside us, and shouted across at us, 'By the itching crabs in Seth's crotch, this is hot work! We have lost eight chariots in the first charge.'
'Better sport than you expected, Captain Kratas,' Prince Memnon yelled back at him. He would have done better to keep his opinion to himself, for up until that moment we had forgotten about the boy in the confusion. Now, however, both Tanus and I rounded on him together.
'As for you, my lad, you have had enough sport for one day,' I told him firmly.
'It's back to the fleet with you, and that right swiftly,' agreed Tanus, and at that moment an empty chariot cantered by. I do not know what had happened to the crew, they had probably been thrown from the cockpit or been plucked out of it bodily by one of the infuriated beasts.
'Catch those horses!' Tanus ordered, and when the empty chariot was brought back to us, he told the prince, 'Out you get. Take that chariot back to the beach and wait there for our return.'
'My Lord Tanus,' Prince Memnon drew himself to his full height, reaching as high as his father's shoulder, 'I protest?'
'None of your royal airs with me, young man. Go back and protest to your mother, if you must.' He lifted the prince with one hand and dropped him into the vacant cockpit of the other vehicle.
'Lord Tanus, it is my right?' Memnon made one last despairing attempt to remain in the hunt.
'And it is my right to wrap the scabbard of my sword around your royal backside, if you are still here when I look around again,' said Tanus, and turned his back on him. Both of us put the boy out of our minds.
'Gathering ivory is not quite as easy as picking up mushrooms,' I remarked. 'We will have to think up a better plan than this.'
'You cannot kill these creatures by shooting them in the head,' Tanus growled. 'We will go in again and try an
