Read The Fearless War :: In The Forest 02

My head was filled with the vibrations of footsteps, I still had to train myself to avoid the dizziness and pains of trying to discern various things. When it stopped, I could hear better what it was that caused my sensory blindness, they were footsteps equal to those of a blood bear. But the number was too large to be a simple herd. Their footsteps kept accelerating and they were getting closer and closer.

I climbed higher in the tree where I was to avoid detection, and when they began to enter the plain, I could see the danger in front of me. There were more than 10 bears, from cubs to adults, when they reached the center they stopped and put the cubs inside the center, it looked like they were running away from something. I had to warn the others, one bear alone was not a problem, but it would take several hunters to subdue a group like the one in front of me.

While I was thinking how to warn the others, more powerful footsteps reached my ears, not only the tone of them was louder, the weight they carried was even heavier than that of the bears. The bears had also begun to notice them, their fur bristled and they were preparing their fangs. It came from a small mountain in the forest, where the bears' nests were usually located.

I had to hold on to the branch where I was to avoid falling from the surprise, what came out of the forest could not be described in any other way than a beast. The red fur was the only thing that could relate it to a blood bear, its skull had fangs and horns intertwined, an armor that made it immune to a clean shot to the head and neck. His size was no more than twice the normal size, but for that reason alone everything that made them normally dangerous was duplicated in him.

His eyes focused on the cubs in the center, the other bears stood between him and the cubs. But despite that wall, the beast didn't flinch, he let out a roar as he dug his claws into the earth. It lunged at the bears and with its deformed skull, pierced their bodies, finishing off a couple in seconds.

I was paralyzed not knowing what to do, whether to run and warn the others, or stay and eliminate the beast. At that moment a whisper came in my head, it was a voice I didn't know, but I didn't feel any hostile intent or lies from it.

"A hunter, does not kill for pleasure, he does it for a purpose, so one must overcome the hunting instinct and focus on protecting."

Those words reminded me of what my father had said, but for one reason it also reminded me of one of my grandfather's phrases.I didn't have time to think about it, just as the voice had said, I had to protect, and I couldn't let some cubs die without a fight.

I extended the bow and aimed at the torso of the beast that had already finished with more bears, there were only 3 adults protecting the cubs at that moment, I launched the first arrow, but unlike the first time I had shot, this one only managed to pierce the skin. I prepared the second one while I moved to distract the giant bear, the others took advantage of that moment and pushed it away from the center.

As I reached another branch, I launched the arrow and hit it in its paw, it let out a scream that deafened me, but I continued down the tree preparing the next arrow.

"You must try better than that if you want to distract me you big lump of bone!"

My provocation caused him to lunge at me as I continued to rack up bear damage, the third arrow hit him in the chest, which stopped his run. But he was still not falling. The bears attacked him from behind and managed to tear a leg out of place.

Already on the ground, I separated the bow into the two blades and prepared to pounce against the beast. He was still fighting the bears and threw a claw in the face of one of them and took out one of its eyes. Taking advantage of the fact that it was going to finish off another bear, I approached from behind and while running I skidded and severed the other rear leg, causing the beast to fall to the ground. Despite not having two legs and having wounds on its back and front leg, it was still fighting, attacking from a single position. To prevent it from continuing to suffer, I grabbed both blades together and avoiding the attacks of its claws I thrust the short spears into its neck, they only penetrated a little before hitting bone.

With all my strength, I stabbed harder, until I heard the bone of his skull break, and his eyes blurred, before falling, he pushed his head on me and I could not dodge because I had my hands on the spears. One of his horns penetrated my arm and he finally fell dead.

Ignoring the pain I pulled the spears out of his body and set about cutting the horn that held me steady. My ears rang as I heard small footsteps, people running in my direction. They were far away but steady, I had to hurry. As if reading my mind, the bear I saved by killing the beast approached me and chewed the horn, freeing me. He placed his head on my shoulder to stop the bleeding and when I was free I could see the ravages of the fight, 7 adult bears slaughtered and one of the cubs dead. It was more damage than could be repaired in a season without hunting. I opened my bag and took what was left of the meat and offered it to one of the adults, who threw it to the cubs. From the look of their complexion the beast must have kept them without food.

I heard footsteps approaching and saw lamplights approaching. I sat on the plain surrounded by corpses and three bears positioning themselves to protect me. The first group that came to where I was, was made up of my father and Eve, and some neighbors from the village. They all had their bows and crossbows drawn, but when they saw me playing with the cubs, they lowered them.

My father stood watching me with his mouth unclosed and my sister was hesitant whether to hunt the bears in front of her or pull me to were she was.