Not for nothing had he lived to sire offspring.
The yearling stood poised above his kill, looking about him cautiously.
He felt neither sadness nor elation, only the openness around him, and a
sullen determination not to surrender his prize. Taking it firmly by
the scruff of the neck, he dragged it back among the timbers. Lifting
it across the same fallen trunk he had leapt in pursuing it, he set it
to rest in the hollow just beyond, and once more looked around him. No
sight or sound broke the silence of the afterkill.
It was only then that he let himself rest, and remembered his hunger and
his pain. His leg ached dully and his muscles tried to knot. But these
could be denied. His hunger could not. Licking a spot on the carcass
as he would a bosom friend (the feelings were not dissimilar), he lay
down and began to eat, and once more to feel pride and confidence in the
strength he possessed.
He had made, with help, the long climb back. He would endure.
*
Kalus stood at the beginning of the plain. In one hand he held the
snares he meant to set, but in the other was his spear, which stubborn
optimism had told him to bring. And at his feet were the tracks of the
tiger. Studying them more closely, he saw that despite the sharp climb
up from the gorge, there was no blood from its injured hind leg, and
only a trace of a limp.
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