“Yes, warrior.”
This was invaluable information. I was glad he was teaching me seriously. Of course, that didn’t mean they would accept me into their group when I reached adulthood, since it was a completely different matter.
Our initial direction was the forest, which, in my mind, I considered to be north-west of the cave based on the sun’s movement in the sky. It was all subjective, though. I wasn’t even certain in which hemisphere we were. Not that it mattered because the concept of cardinal directions didn’t even exist in the cavemen’s minds.
“We’re going to the woods today. Once we reach the forest, we turn left until we reach a river. We cross the river and turn right. After a few hours, we will see the woods.”
This was how directions worked in this world, using geographical references as landmarks. We followed his instructions, walking for about two hours, when the woods came into view. It was a zone filled with trees, but with a lower density than the forest next to the cavern. This allowed better vision, and I guessed the animals living there might be different too.
Once we crossed the border between the meadows and the woods, the trees’ shadows covered us from being hit directly by the sun, and a low quietness surrounded us. We moved further inside until Aldrui suddenly crouched behind a bush. The other warriors in the group swiftly followed his movements, with me shadowing them a few beats later due to being taken by surprise.
Everyone stopped moving, our gazes turning toward where the leader was looking. About seventy meters from us was an animal, in a clearing, which was the reason why we had gone into sneaky mode. Using my knowledge from the common teachings, it wasn’t hard to recognize what sort of beast this was.
It had two strong hind legs, which it used to jump high and eat leaves or fruits from trees. If I said it like this, it might sound cute, but it wasn’t like this. It was taller than I was, standing at around one and a half meters on these legs only, with two smaller legs in the middle of its torso. Its jumping power was incredible, allowing it to fly several meters in the air. On top of that, it had triangular ears, a flat muzzle, and a long tail. But that wasn’t the weirdest part. Its short fur was blue, which in my world would be a sign that something had gone extremely wrong, like some sort of genetically enhanced animal, or some contaminated or irradiated creature. Here, though, it was just a color like any other. There existed beasts of all kinds of colors, including green, blue, yellow, pink, and even orange ones.
This was a jumping heivo, an herbivore beast I had tasted many times during meals. If I had to give a comparison, it looked like a mix between a kangaroo, a rabbit, and a cat from my previous world. It was a great target for hunters since it tasted delicious and its meat was aplenty.
The hunters didn’t dare to breathe too loudly as they waited for further instructions from Aldrui. After a short amount of time, the jumping heivo turned to look in the opposite direction from us, and our leader signaled one specific warrior to take action. The chosen one nodded, lifted its stone spear in the air, aimed as best he could, and sent it at full power toward the beast.
The jumping heivo was startled at it heard the hunter’s sudden movement and the sound of the spear coming. It tried to jump away, but it was too late to react. The spear had incredible momentum and hit it in the torso, just under its secondary legs, penetrating its skin, breaking in the process. The creature released a loud shout of pain, but the attack unfortunately wasn’t enough to kill it instantly. It quickly jumped with all its power, trying to escape.
This was when Aldrui acted. Without any need for stealth, he stood up, aimed at the escaping beast, and threw his spear toward it. The jumping heivo, being in the air, didn’t have any means of avoiding the attack. This time too, the spear pierced its torso, a bit higher this time, just on top of its smaller legs. The beast howled in pain once more and crashed to the ground.
It attempted to stand up again but couldn’t manage to do so. It only convulsed on the ground while the other warriors rushed toward it to finish it. One spear strike in the head and the animal was dead, its sufferings ended.
The warriors cheered at a job well done, congratulating one another. I thought Aldrui might say something about the first warrior not finishing the beast in one attack, but I was wrong. Instead, he only gave him compliments about his well-aimed strike.
I wondered if this was the standard for this level of hunting group, or if it was just normal not to kill beasts in one strike. Maybe the equipment was a problem, too. Both spears broke and didn’t penetrate that deeply despite being thrown with great force and being embedded with magical energy.
Thus ended my first experience of hunting. It was extremely interesting indeed. The warriors knew what they had to do without speaking. It was clear they had a lot of experience and good coordination. On the beast’s side, one missed shot would have caused the jumping heivo to escape. Given its jumping power, it was unclear whether we could have caught up to it if that had happened.
The warriors started to bleed the creature while Aldrui turned to me.
“How was it, Keon? Did you see how it works?”
“Yes, warrior. It was amazing.”
“Haha, that’s good. Remember well how we did it so you can do the same later. Now’s the important part. Because of the smell of blood, there’s a chance for more dangerous beasts to appear, so we need to be careful. We can’t leave yet because we need to hunt one or two more beasts for the clan.”