Micèl was sniggering to himself at the ignorant bungling of his newfound apprentice mage.
This was Tyr’s first hunting-quest for the peerless black buck. The buck was as nimble and graceful as any earthly antelope with the same deadly defensive capabilities, but it was as heavy and as lofty as a moose.
Tyr was looking for tracks where there was none; this is what his mentor found so humorous. These animals, unlike their counterparts on earth, moved so lightly on their hooves that not a trace of their passing was discernable by any of the five senses. You had to hunt them slowly by instinct and intuition. Micèl left Tyr to his own devices after seeing that he was so insulted by the chuckling Archmage that he wasn’t about to ask for help.
After he had had enough fun and had unruffled Tyr close to the point of losing his composure, he made him aware of the fact that there were no spoor and told him why. He told him how he was meant to go about his search and waited eagerly to see the young man’s potential. To himself he wondered idly if the young man had any. Tyr groped with the problem a while before getting up from his haunches and jogging stealthily towards a nearby stream. The old man’s ridicule had set his mind for him; this was his time – he felt it spontaneously, without thrill, in his very being and in the sweet, musty forest-air around him.
He ran downstream against the wind, bow in hand, and swerved inland at a chosen point finding a small clump of tender saplings in the wood. Finding a concealed view of the spot he sat down; hunched quietly. He peered through some leaves that touched his face like stroking fingers as the breeze played with them.
The Archmage, curious, kept his distance. Neither of them had bathed or cleaned their teeth for nearly a month, knowing that cleanliness would cost them the game. Any wild animal could smell a clean man, upwind or downwind, at close quarters – killing it at a distance with a long-range weapon was, for any true hunter, literally adding insult to injury.
The planet’s great sun had not even moved a breadth of a hand when the majestic buck appeared. Tyr lifted the powerful thunder-bow as silently as the charged arrow streaked through the air. There was no thump as it hit home and no whistling scream of agony as the beast slumped gently to the ground – only a loud crack a second after, as of laden skies opening to the rain.
Micèl had forgotten his earlier derision as he suddenly understood why the eternal spirit had chosen Tyr as his successor.
