The Sunbird

eyes, and his smile was unconvincing.

‘That fool Zadal spoke in haste and without meaning it. No man here doubts your courage, Huy, except you yourself. Do not seek to prove it too convincingly. Life will hold little for me without my Sunbird.’

‘My lord,’ Huy’s voice was hoarse. He was touched to the heart by Lannon’s concern.

‘The first cut is the dangerous one, Huy. Be careful that when he drops, he does not fall upon you’

‘I will remember.’

‘Remember also to bathe before you dine with me this evening.’ Lannon smiled and stepped aside.

Twice during the afternoon small herds of elephant passed them, moving swiftly up the slope amongst the trees. Each time Huy shook his head at Zadal and let them pass for they were cows and calves and immature bulls.

The day drew towards its close, and Huy felt an uneasy sense of relief. Perhaps the gods had decided in his favour and would not seek to put him to the test.

There was an hour of light left now. Huy and Zadal sat quietly beside the path, hidden by a screen of monkey apple vines that hung from one of the trees.

The dung had dried upon their bodies, making Huy’s skin feel stiff and uncomfortable. He sat with the vulture axe across his lap and watched the path, hoping that nothing would come up it before darkness and he could abandon this mad adventure to which he was committed by honour and hasty choice. It was strange how inactivity dulled even the brightest passion, Huy thought, and grinned wryly as he fondled the handle of the axe.

He saw movement far down the slope, a grey drifting movement like smoke amongst the trees and he felt his skin prickle. Zadal had seen it also, he stopped his restless fidgeting and sat woodenly beside Huy.

They waited, and suddenly two elephants came out of the trees. Two big old bulls, with heavy ivory, stepping lightly up the slope. They were a hundred paces apart, spaced out on the path and there was an alertness and a sense of purpose in their tread that warned Huy they had been freshly disturbed, possibly wounded, by the huntsmen down in the valley.

‘We will take these two,’ Huy whispered. ‘Choose one.’

Zadal was silent a moment, watching the two bulls with an experienced eye. The leading bull was older, and his one tusk was broken off at the lip. He was leaner and rangier-looking than his companion, and his leading position showed he was the more experienced, the more alert, and the broken tusk would make him meaner and his temper more uncertain.

‘The second one,’ Zadal whispered, and Huy nodded. He had expected it.

‘I will move back now. We must try to attack at the same moment.’ He left the cover of the hanging vines, and slipped back along the path opening a gap between him and Zadal approximately equal to that between the bulls.

Huy dropped into a patch of coarse grass beside the trail, and looked back. The elephants were striding steadily up towards them. The leading bull passed Zadal’s hiding place, and came on. Huy saw that the gap between the two bulls had closed. Zadal’s elephant would reach him before Huy’s came level with the clump of grass where he lay.

If one of the hunters launched his attack prematurely the other bull would be alerted, and the danger multiplied many times. Huy knew he could not rely on consideration from Zadal. The man would think only of his own best interests.

As the thought came to him he saw Zadal leave the shelter of the vines, and run silently out into the path behind the second bull. Huy’s elephant was still fifty paces from where he lay, and it was facing him.

Zadal was following his elephant, running close upon its heels. Huy felt a moment’s admiration for him. Perhaps he had misjudged him. Perhaps Zadal would follow the second bull and wait for Huy to get into position.

Then Huy saw the huntmaster’s axe go up and glint at the top of its swing; as it flashed down, Huy transferred all his attention to the leading bull.

There was a squeal of pain and alarm as Zadal’s axe struck, and Huy’s bull burst into a full run. Sweeping down on him until it seemed to fill the whole field of Huy’s vision, an animal as large as the very path it sprang from.

As Huy rose from his hide he knew he had a few fleeting seconds in which to strike. The the bull would be gone.

He went bounding along beside the bull, keeping uphill of him for when he fell he would roll down the slope. The pace stretched Huy’s long legs to the full, and he was losing ground swiftly, falling back to the bull’s hindquarters.

With every pace, as the huge weight of the grey body fell on the hind legs, so the hamstring tendons running down the back of the leg from knee to heel tightened under the coarse eroded skin. The tendon was a thick cord, that flexed and bulged, thick as a girl’s wrist; it carried the whole weight of the bull at each stride.

Huy swerved in his ran, crossing behind the bull and as the tendon in the nearest leg tightened he slashed the blade of the vulture axe across it, severing it cleanly so that the sound of it was a sharp snapping, like the sheet of a sail parting in a gale.

The bull lunged off balance as the leg collapsed under him, he teetered wildly on the edge of the path, his weight held only on the good leg.

‘For Baal!’ Huy shouted with excitement and the axe went high as he swung. The second tendon parted as sharply, and the huge grey beast dropped heavily. The sound of its fall carried clearly to the watchers on the ridge, and a cloud of dust boiled up from the dry earth. Huy had danced back from under the rolling body and that terrible flailing trunk.

He steeled himself for the final act. as he danced about the rearing floundering animal, knowing he had only seconds to exploit his surprise, seconds before the maimed animal braced itself and saw him, and he searched for his opening desperately.

The bull reared up on its front legs, dragging its crippled hind legs behind it. In its unreasoning rage it was tearing at the trees, and slashing its terrible trunk in wild circles, gouging the earth with its single tusk.