The Hunters

background information and starting story....

Flat on her over sized belly, she dragged herself forward. Weighing over 40kg due to the fragile life she carried inside of her, she was 5kg more than usual, and that five made all the difference.

As silent as the sliver of a moon that she loved, she stalked her prey, straining to hear the slightest movement; the soft, muffled breath of the old moose, the dull thud of cloved hooves shifting packed snow. Creeping closer , then closer still, the musky scent of unsuspecting moose in her nostrils, she glimpsed the light flicker off a floppy ear, meaning the flighty moose had sensed her.

Just one more second and the old and weak but still agile animal would bolt. To catch it, she had to act instantly. Quick as lightning, she sprang forward, muscles singing with power and agility, senses on full alert.

Just as quickly, the moose turned; in a flurry of snow and slushy ice, it was gone. The Mother Wolf collapsed, bitterly disappointed. It was risky, her being out on her own, a litter of pups growing inside of her making her too slow and clumsy to catch anything much bigger than a hare. To survive, she needed to hunt larger prey, or find a pack, perhaps another lone wolf to help her.

Being alone, especially while in pup, was a hugely serious circumstance for a wolf. A lone wolf could not chase down a herd, nor could it guard its territory from any but another, weaker lone wolf. Wolves were made to live in packs, and separating her from her own was a horribly cruel thing to do to the Mother Wolf. However, that's exactly what the Hunter wanted. Hunters do whatever they can to make the hunt easier, and this particular Hunter was especially horrible to the animals he caught. This time he was after wolf skin gloves, and the unborn cubs, he had heard, make the best. So Mother Wolf was on the run, hiding, covering her tracks, trying her utmost to escape the clutches of the Hunter.

With aching limbs, she dragged her weary body up, out of the freezing slush of ice, and lay in the frigid rays of early morning sunshine, on a rough slab of worn granite protruding from the earth. Lifting her moist nose to catch the frozen breeze, she drank in the plentiful scents of the winter forest. There was a newborn calf, reminding her of her own pregnancy. There was a dung pile from half-starved wolverine next to a freshly sprung mountain stream trickling through ancient pine trees. There were a couple of carrion birds nesting nearby and a rabbit in its burrow of recently excavated earth.Through all of this and more, Mother Wolf smelled a tantalizing scent of meat of a young moose, unspoiled by any other animal scent except that of Hunter... But, it was a different Hunter to the one that was after her, so she thought it may not notice her if she was very careful. Maybe, she might even be safer; the Hunter who was after her may not venture into the second Hunter's territory. The Mother Wolf stretched, rose to her paws and leaped off toward the smell of dead moose and Strange Hunter.

It was much further away than she had first judged, across a river, two small valleys and vast expanses of low prickly scrub, before Mother Wolf finally reached a clearing in the trees and brambles. It was about ten by fifteen metres and contained a small, cave-like construction made of dead trees and grass tied together, with a pit in the ground that had been burnt. Also, from a single remaining pine tree near the centre of the clearing and next to the burnt pit, there was the moose carcass hanging from what she took to be a vine.

Mother Wolf knew that the Strange Hunter was nearby, but the smell of him there was so strong and overpowering that she couldn't tell where. This was her last chance to get food for her unborn pups. She was at the last of her energy and desperate for sustenance. Lying on the very edge of the clearing, she eyed the meat from beneath a snow-laden branch, her stomach grumbling louder than her instinct. Slowly she crawled forward, alert but focused intently on the hanging moose which was swaying slightly in the breeze.

She reached the burnt pit. She was a mere metre away, then she was there. Opening her powerful jaws, delicately licking at the blood dripping from the moose's flank. Tasting the air one last time, then, with no further danger apparent, she tore a strip of juicy, still-steaming meat, swallowing it whole . So intently focused she was at that point that nothing else mattered, and she sunk her curved canines into the carcass for the second time.

Click.

She heard that tiny, barely distinguishable click and was fully alert, hackles raised, bloody red teeth bared in an instant. The Strange Hunter, two-legged and almost fur less, appeared in the entrance to the Treecave. The two hunters, man and wolf, stood frozen in place, staring fiercely into each others eyes, each terrorfied but unable to back down, both determined to win that unlikely stand-off.