boots were of soft brown leather. The boy was desperately eager and equally worried about pleasing his father. He too had seen the great size of the stag. If he missed, a chance like this one might never come again.
Stopping for a moment, Rolf knelt down on one knee and looked at the ground. He pointed at the tracks that the stag’s hooves had left in the soft moss.
“There,” he said quietly. “Do you see how the tracks have become shallower and closer together? That means that the deer has stopped running. The confused track pattern just ahead tells us that he wandered about here for a time. Something must have caught his interest.”
Standing, Rolf looked around. After a quick search he found a telling sign. Four low branches of a nearby hinteroot tree had been stripped clean of their berries. An even more meaningful clue was that the same tree trunk was scarred where the stag tried to rub the velvet away from this season’s set of new antlers. Rolf called Dale nearer. Narrowing his eyes and rubbing his red beard, Rolf thought for a moment.
“What do these signs tell you?” he asked.
“That our stag was here,” Dale whispered back. “He ate the berries and scratched his horns on the tree trunk.”
Rolf smiled. “How do we know that our deer did these things?” he asked. “It is not uncommon for deer tracks to overrun each other’s. Perhaps we lost him, only to pick up the trail of a different one.”
Dale thought for a moment. “No,” he answered. “He was here. We have not lost him.”
Rolf smiled. “Explain your answer,” he said.
Dale pointed to the ravaged tree trunk. “Only a buck could have done that,” he said, “because a doe has no horns. And the stag we saw still carried his velvet. Odds are that this was done by him rather than by another.”
“Well done,” Rolf said. “But this great confusion of tracks makes it difficult to decide in which direction to go. How do we choose?”
Dale shook his head. “I don’t know,” he answered.
Rolf winked. “It has to do with the missing berries.”
“I don’t understand.”
Rolf smiled again. “He was hungry-he ate four branches full of berries. Deer find them delicious, but the berries always cause them thirst. Unless I’m wrong, he’ll soon head for the nearest brook. So we will go east for a time. It’s a gamble, but if I’m right it will be worth it.”
Changing course, Rolf started leading Dale east. As night encroached, they soon found themselves standing atop a bank and looking down toward a swiftly running brook. Dale knew this stream; he had fished here before. It was a good place for Eutracian black-striped trout.
The steep bank was lined with trees that made for good cover. Without being told, Dale knew that it would provide an excellent place from which to shoot-if only the stag could be found. Guessing that they were nearing their quarry, Rolf silently motioned that they should move on.
Walking stealthily along the ridge of the riverbank, the father and son soon found their stag. As Rolf had guessed, he stood in the middle of the burbling stream, drinking thirstily. Dale quietly slipped a razor-sharp broadhead from his quiver and notched it onto his bowstring.
Rolf put his lips near Dale’s ear. “He will lift his head soon, and suddenly,” he whispered, so faintly that even Dale could scarcely hear him. “Then he will take a look around. When he does, don’t move a muscle! Don’t worry-he won’t smell us because we’re downwind of him. Wait until he lowers his head to drink again. That is when he will be most vulnerable, so draw your bow and shoot. You know where to send the arrow.”
Just as Rolf predicted, as though the wary stag were trying to catch some predator off guard, he suddenly lifted his head from the stream. His body was broad and his massive horns held six majestic points on either side. Even to the experienced Rolf, he was a beautiful, wondrous thing. As brook water dripped from the stag’s mouth, his dark eyes darted around and his nostrils flared, testing the air. Finally convinced that he was safe, he went back to slaking his thirst.
Rolf knew that the deed now lay totally in Dale’s hands, and that all his teaching and care had boiled down to this seminal moment. He watched his son pull the string back to his right cheek, stretching the bow’s lacquered sinews nearly to the breaking point. Hoping against hope, Dale let the arrow fly.
His aim was true and the arrow buried itself deeply into the stag’s flesh, just behind the right shoulder where the beast’s heart lay. But the stag proved stronger than even Rolf had guessed. As the deer twisted in agony, Rolf realized the mighty creature was about to run. If the wounded stag could charge far enough before bleeding out, wolves might claim the carcass first and the situation would turn deadly.
“Shoot again, son!” Rolf exclaimed.
Dale already had another arrow notched and ready. Without hesitation he let it fly.
The second arrow also found its intended mark, slicing into the stag’s neck. It severed a major artery, and blood began to gush from the mortal wound. The stag struggled for several steps, but his demise was near. He lumbered heavily from the stream, then fell to the grassy bank.
Rolf let go a deep breath. Dale’s two shots had been perfect. There would be other hunts that would further bond him to his son, but this first kill would never come again. Nor could this initial prize have been more wonderful. As he looked at Dale he had tears in his eyes. He placed one hand on Dale’s shoulder.
“Well done,” he said simply.
“Thank you, Father,” the boy said. Despite his modest answer, he couldn’t have been happier.
They hurried down to where the stag lay. After warily kicking the animal to be sure that it was dead, Rolf took out his hunting knife and bade Dale to do the same. Soon a pile of steaming entrails lay beside their newly won prize.
Rolf looked again at the mighty deer. For several moments he considered quartering the animal so that Dale could help him carry it from the forest. But because darkness was nearly on them he decided against it. Carrying the deer would be backbreaking work, but if Dale helped hoist the carcass onto Rolf’s shoulders, he believed that he could manage. This was no prize to abandon to the buzzards, wolves, and flies.
“Come with me,” Rolf said, as he turned toward the stream. “We will wash our hands and knives before we go. I want as little blood scent in the air as possible.”
As he bent down and washed his knife, Rolf looked downstream. About ten meters away, the brook emptied into a deep pool before rushing onward. Rolf again looked worriedly up at the sky. We need to get moving, he thought.
Just then he felt his knife edge bite into his palm, and a few drops of his blood dripped into the river. He shook his head. The wound was more embarrassing than serious. He had been careless, and he laughed at himself a little. As his blood ran downstream and into the pool, he produced a rag from one pocket and wound it around his hand.
Dale scowled. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Rolf smiled. “Yes,” he answered, as he sheathed his knife. “Unlike your foolish father, you must always be careful.”
Rolf decided that he would not mind bearing the short, jagged scar that would later form on his palm. Long after Dale had left Rolf and his mother and started a family of his own, the scar would always remind Rolf of this day. It will be a wonderful story to tell over and over again before the fireplace, he thought. He put an arm around Dale, and the father and son started back up the riverbank.
As they went, something behind them silently disturbed the surface of the downstream pool. Dark, long, and sharp, two twisted horns surfaced. Next came the crown of a skull that was smooth, hairless, and olive in color. As the horrific thing surfaced, its head and eyes showed next, along with its long, pointed ears. The eyes were wide apart, dully opaque, and held vertical yellow irises. Soon the short nose and wide mouth came into view. As the thing’s lips parted, a bright red tongue and rows of sharp yellow teeth were exposed. A pair of snakelike incisors protruded from the upper and lower jaws.
Silently, the hideous thing’s body emerged from the depths. Its olive-colored torso was human in form, with muscular arms, a broad chest, and highly accentuated abdominal muscles. Each of its eight fingers and two opposable thumbs ended in a dark talon. But as the rest of the creature broke the surface and the thing hurried toward shore, any similarities between it and a human being quickly ended.
From the thing’s waist down, its body was a scaled, snakelike tail. As the tail propelled the creature across the surface of the pool, it whipped to and fro with amazing power. Like the thing’s upper torso, the tail was olive in
