Lindsay
Schopfer

By Lindsay Schopfer

The calls of the crested blue robin came to Keltin from several directions at nearly the same time, but he hesitated to return the call. The spiked thresher had bowed itself to the earth, its elongated snout snuffling at the forest floor. Keltin waited, trusting that the members of his team would not fire until he gave the signal. The thresher seemed to catch a scent and raised itself up, its long spikes glittering like obsidian in the morning sunlight.

Keltin gave the signal and two shots rang out from among the trees. The thresher’s body contorted as the blasts hit it from opposite directions. It bellowed a challenge even as it fell to the ground. Jaylocke and Bor’ve’tai emerged swiftly from the underbrush. The thresher turned and lurched in Bor’ve’tai’s direction, forcing the Loopi to jump back or have his legs swept out from under him by the beast’s heavy, clawed forelimbs. Jaylocke immediately took advantage of the beast’s distraction. Using a scythe he had found at the farmyard and sharpened to a razor’s edge, he leapt to the wounded creature’s side. With a graceful arch he brought the point of the elongated blade down into the thresher’s shoulder between three closely growing spikes. The beast convulsed, wrenching the scythe from Jaylocke’s hands as the gypsy dodged the thresher’s wild swing. Bor’ve’tai used the opening to move forward and deliver a resounding strike to the creature’s head with the honed blade of his ax.

With practiced haste, Keltin and the rest of the team surged into the small clearing. After only a brief glance at the thresher to make sure it was no longer an immediate threat, Keltin and the three other hunters spun and faced the forest again, their rifles poised and ready as Jaylocke and Bor’ve’tai finished the dying beast behind them. Sure enough, the rustling of foliage announced that something had been drawn to the sounds of battle.

A whip leg burst from the trees closest to Garthen. He barely had time to fire off a shot before the swift creature was upon him. Weedon, standing closest to the pair, fired two shots into the whip leg. The beast gurgled terribly from a bullet in its lung, and Garthen was able to push it off. He rolled away to safety as the whip leg became entangled in a thorny bush, thrashing wildly in its death throes. Weedon moved closer to make sure the beast didn’t rise again as Frederick and Keltin continued to scan the surrounding trees for any more attacking creatures. The forest was still, and soon the sounds of the dying beasts faded to silence. Keltin turned to Garthen with concern.

“Are you all right?”

The hunter nodded with a grimace as he clutched his arms around his stomach. “One of the whips got me in the middle. Knocked the wind out of me, but I’m all right.”

“I’d better check it anyway,” said Jaylocke, leaving the still form of the spiked thresher. “We don’t want any internal injuries.”

Keltin nodded. “Good idea. The rest of you keep an eye open. We may still draw more of them to us.”

Bor’ve’tai and Frederick dutifully turned to face the surrounding trees, but Weedon’s attention seemed bound to the dead whip leg. His young face was twisted into a fierce snarl as he delivered a savage kick to the still body.