Chapter 17: Chapter 17

The bow that Su's father brought for Alice to use was a recurve made from ash wood.

Being a resilient hardwood with good shock resistance, ash wood was an ideal material for a recurve bow.

The bow's draw weight was around 13 kilos, quite difficult for a young teen lass like Alice to draw.

Alice spent much of her time studying for her future in managing her feather's trading business, so she didn't have the same built up muscles as Su, who spent a lot of time in the woods.

After picking out a practice target, Alice knocked an arrow and began to pull the bowstring.

Due to the high weight of it, she had to strain with all of her might to get the string pulled back, at which point she immediately let the arrow go, sending it spiraling over a meter away from the target.

"Crap, looks like it is too heavy for you to pull back right now. Looks we are going to have to put you to work if you want to be able to shoot by the end of the hunting trip."

Su took the bow back from Alice, then walked to where the arrow had landed.

The tip of the arrow was dull, and had been even before the shot. Firing an arrow into the dirt would damage the arrow, so knowing that Alice had never shot before, Su had packed a few practice arrows for her to use.

Returning the bow to the weapons carriage, Su motioned for Alice to follow her.

Instead of joining the hunt, Alice would be a spectator, watching the rest of the group.

All of the ten or so hunters were ready, and Hugo stood in front of the group, addressing them.

"Alright y'all, we will split up into groups of two. I'll take little Alice here with me, and show her around the woods a bit."

Hugo then glanced at a younger member of the group, a thin young lad with a scholarly look to him.

The young lad looked familiar to Ash, but he couldn't place where he'd seen the man before.

"Also, no harming any wildlife that you don't intend to harvest. You all already know what kind of stuff is worthwhile. Meet back here before sunset, and good luck everyone."

The group split up into pairs and began heading into the woods.

Su waved to Alice as she left with another hunter, making their way off into the woods.

Hugo walked over to Alice, placing one of his bear-paw like palms on her shoulder.

"Try to walk quietly, we don't want to startle any wildlife. The second an animal notices us, it will bolt."

Alice nodded, following Hugo into the woods. There was quite a bit of shade in the woods thanks to the intertwining branches of the trees towering above them.

Birds dove between trees, and a few squirrels could be seen gathering up nuts on the ground.

When they noticed the humans walking forward quietly, they went on guard, but seeing that they meant them no harm, they didn't run… until they saw the wolf following behind the two humans.

Ash turned his head about, taking in all the scents of the forest.

A particular scent caught Ash's attention, something he had only smelled once before: a deer!

'Hugo would probably like a deer hide, and venison will make a tasty dinner.'

Ash nudged against Hugo's leg, getting his attention, then crept into the undergrowth, following the scent of the deer. Hugo and Alice followed, creeping as quietly as possible in Ash's trail. Hugo moved like a ghost, stepping expertly to avoid every branch and leaf of the ground. Alice tried her best, but lacking experience, she still made a bit of a racket. She cringed a bit with every step, her face twisted with shame.

If she made too much noise it would scare away the deer, and while she knew that Hugo wouldn't get mad at her, she didn't want to bring down their hunting group, so she focused solely on the placement of her feet on the ground.

She came close to bumping into Hugo's back multiple times, but managed to catch herself in time.

The scent of the deer grew stronger as Ash followed its trail, and soon he caught sight of it. A good sized doe was digging for acorns underneath a large oak tree. Deer have great eyesight and hearing, as well as an impressive nose. The hunters were in luck, as there was a lot of undergrowth between them and the deer, allowing them to sneak closer, but any noise would cause their prey to flee.

Lifting his head up, Ash looked at the fluttering of the leaves. At the moment, the wind was coming from the east, and the deer was due north.

Hugo motioned for Alice to wait while he and Ash circled around the doe, heading to the west side. There was good cover along the path, and the deer didn't notice their movements.

Ash and Hugo reached a small open spot on their path, and Ash lay down. There was enough of an opening for Hugo to take a shot at the doe, but he would have to wait. The doe was currently facing directly away from them, denying any chance at a good shot.

Hugo and his crew were good hunters; they didn't kill needlessly, and tried to provide a swift death to their prey, limiting the pain it felt before death.

This was a stark difference from the Red Falcons, who treated the woods as a slaughterhouse.

All three members of the group sat silently, and Alice began to worry.

'It can't possibly take this long for them to get into position, right? Why aren't they doing anything?'

The doe continued to eat, keeping its back to Hugo. Soon five minutes passed… then fifteen minutes.

Alice started to lose her cool, looking anxiously back and forth into the woods. The main reason she had previously declined to come with on the hunting trip was coming to fruition. Alice was scared of being alone, specifically alone somewhere that she wasn't familiar with. If she got lost in the woods, she wouldn't be able to find her way out. Suddenly, the green trees no longer seemed so inviting, instead looking dark and foreboding.

'Did something happen to them? How could they possibly just disappear without alerting the deer?!? Unless… they left me out here. Ash would never abandon me though, right?'

Just as she was beginning to get scared, the doe finally turned to dig for acorns in a different spot, but before it had to put its head back down, a dull thwang rang out through the woods.

Before the deer had a chance to react, an arrow pierced through its side, passing directly through its heart before leaving the other side of its body.

It was a perfect shot.

The deer took off, sprinting into the woods faster than it had ever run before. Now that the shot had been fired, the hunters no longer had to stay quiet. Alice ran over to Hugo and Ash, giving the latter a hug with tears in her eyes.

Hugo looked at the girl in confusion. Was she crying because of the deer they just hunted?

"Alice, we have to hunt to get meat. I understand that seeing an animal hunted for the first time can be sad, but this deer is just passing its life on to us. We won't waste a single part of this kill!"

Alice nodded, finally calming down. The explanation Hugo offered for her tears was a lot less embarrassing than the real reason, so she just ran with it.

"Yea, i just thought it looked a little sad. I'm ok now."

Hugo turned towards Ash, trying to figure out what was up with the pup. Ash was young, too young to have hunted big game like this before… and wolves didn't hunt by ambushing their prey. How could this pup not only understand how he wanted to hunt the deer, but also pick out an optimal path, their scent being blown to the deer and avoiding open areas.

It felt more like he was hunting with an experienced woodsman who also possessed an incredible nose. Having a companion like this would make hunting many times easier.

"Alice, how long have you had this wolf pup? I've lived much of my life in the woods, and I've never seen a similar animal. Su wasn't kidding when she said this furry guy had the intelligence of a human."

"About a week, he seems really interested in the books I have, so I've been reading to him a lot. I think he can understand everything we are saying too."

Ash had only been learning the language for a week, but his learning was quite fast. He had twice the brain power of an average person thanks to Roth, and Alice was a great teacher.

He still couldn't be called fluent in the language, but he could understand most of what was said by the people around him.

It had been about ten minutes since Hugo took the shot, and the deer should have run out of steam by now. It was time to track and collect their prey.

CREATORS' THOUGHTS
OakFlame

Sorry for the late chapter today. I have a lot of classes on mondays, and I was busy during my normal writing time, leaving me to finish today's chapter just now.

Thanks for reading!

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