Castle of Glass
August 14th, 2013, 06:04 PM
*Note: This is a story i wrote for English*
One Last Hunt
Falling... the only thing going through my mind. I have lived for 25 years and this is how it ends. I looked down and saw the wolf hit the sharp boulders at the base of the cliff. Like a twig getting snapped in two by fingers, the wolf's head snapped back as the body hit the ground, knowing that my body was soon to follow. Remembering my dogs and love of my life back home, I closed my eyes, praying to Ullr, the god of hunting, that I would survive this fall. Instead of seeing the darkness I normally saw when I closed my eyes, yesterday came back to me.
I woke as I normally did, 2 hours before the sun rose. In the distance I heard a wolf call out to its pack. After getting dressed, I left my hut, where my dogs and love of my life were still asleep. Walking to the Ullr stone shrine in the middle of the village, I heard some commotion behind the tannery. When I looked behind I saw that it was nothing more than just two ravens fighting over a dead squirrel carcass, which one of the village kids had most likely killed with a sling the day before. I turned and went to the shrine where I held my morning prayer longer than usual. Today was a different day. Most days I leave the village an hour before sunrise, and am back three hours before sundown. I spend half of those days setting traps, looking at other traps set the day before and work on small game like foxes, rabbit, and birds. The other half are spent looking for marks of deer and tracking them if the marks are fresh. But this is the one day I go out two hours after sunrise and go deep in the woods to find and hunt something bigger and rarer.
After my prayer, the sun was starting to creep up and the village fishermen were preparing to leave for the day as were the other hunters. As I was walking back to my hut, I saw my friend feeding his falcon.
"Hey Boris Leifsons. How is your morning?” I asked him.
“Good. How about yourself, Erik Gunnarson? Are you going out for deer today or something else?” Boris asked me
“No deer today. Today I am going to try and get something rare like moose or something of that sort.” I replied.
“Well good luck, my brother.” He replied.
After I turned away to go back to my hut, I saw from the corner of my eye Boris taking the hood off his falcon so they could go hunt. Slowly I made my way back to my hut to get all my gear ready for my hunt. On the way I wished my fellow hunters good luck and told them in what general area I had seen good game. When I got back to my hut, I cut some deer meat from the deer hanging in my hut’s meat storage. After feeding my dogs, I cooked the meat and ate alone. Afterwards, I got my bow, recently sharpened arrows, hunting pouch and finally my 6 inch hunting knife.
I left the village in the opposite direction of the other hunters, going toward the mountains near our village. Following the path I had made a year ago, I started my way up the mountain. I spent hours walking to no yield. While I walked in silence, I hear many birds in the distance crying out. Sometimes I smelt fresh berries in the undergrowth, but I did not bother to harvest them, only to learn my mistake later that evening. After I saw that dark was coming, I decided to turn around and head home, but then I realized I was utterly lost. As I put my arrow I had notched on my bow back in my quiver, I realized that I had lost it and the rest of my arrows.
Where did I place it. Too bad, I thought to myself, I had some small bait in it.
I decided to set camp up there and get back to the village the next day. As I started to prepare an area for a fire, it started pouring rain, so I went to bed with no food and no fire.
At around midnight I woke up to sounds in the bushes in front of my makeshift lean-to. As I got my arrow notched in my bow, two gigantic, black wolves with foam in their mouths, appeared. One of the wolves started running toward me and as he jumped I shot him straight through the heart. I dropped my bow and pulled out my knife with the blade pointing down, as I was taught by my father if I ever got in a fight with only a knife.
“Point the tip down, with the blade running parallel to your arm. Slice upwards and make it a fast movement, then bring the blade down on the neck.” I remembered my father’s words.
As the second wolf launched at me, I cut his shoulder up so that you could see all his shoulder muscles. Turning around, the wolf growled at me and bit me in my arm, with enough force that it broke and was out of service. Then he ran into the woods, injured and missing an ear. After recovering my broken arrow from the first wolf, I then realized that I was missing two fingers. When I saw the missing fingers, I thanked my father for teaching me not to feel pain, by making me carry extreme loads and getting cut many times, unless it is extremely severe. After stopping the bleeding from my injuries, I tried to get some rest but sleep eluded me until 2 hours before sunrise. I decided to start making my way back to my village.
I quickly surveyed the woods I was in. I created a mental image of it and looked at it as a bird flies. Seeing that the ground angled down to the south, I decided to head north, as I had gotten into the woods by climbing a cliff. After an hour of climbing, I harvested some of the wild berries I had smelled to keep my energy up.
With only half an hour to go till sunrise, I started recognizing the woods. But then out of nowhere a huge brown wall stood in my way. A grizzly bear had jumped in front of me.
“Remember Erik, if you get in a situation in which you are facing a bear,” my father's words came to me, “Don’t look him in the eye. If you do, be ready to kill him somehow.”
I realized straight away that I was in trouble as I was staring a bear in the eye. In a split second I had my knife out ready to slice the bear. The bear struck me in my bad arm, causing me to scream out in pain, but not before I manage to slice the bear’s armpit. The bear took a couple steps back and started circling me to get a better attacking side. But before the bear could surprise me with his attack, I was already facing him. As he lunged at me I slit his nose open and blinded him by bringing the tip of my blade straight through his eye. The bear took a step back. It roared as it charged me. The ground shook with each step of his. I waited for the last second as I jumped out of its way and sliced his back open shallowly. Turning around, the grizzly stood up on its hind legs, and roared. It charged me and jumped at me. I fell to my back, and dug my blade deep into his upper body in hope of puncturing his heart. Then I pulled my knife out and slit the grizzly bears throat.
Screaming, I heaved the bear off me. I then saw the mess the bear had caused on me. I was missing half of my left arm, my right hand was missing a finger and my foot was angled backwards. I bit on a branch as I twisted the foot back in place. I then saw that I was entirely covered in dry wolf blood, fresh, warm bear blood, and my own blood. And muscles were as stiff as old trees in the forest. I started heading to the sky I could see from in between the trees. Only then did I notice that it had stopped raining. As I walked to clearing, I saw the smoke of a village, which looked kind of like my village, with a large stone statue in the middle of it.
I found the path leading down to the village but as I was about to take my first step, I heard the low rumble coming from behind me. I turned around and saw a black wolf. It was limping as it walked toward me and it lowered his head as to show me that it was missing an ear. Then it charged me at full speed and jumped at me. The last thing I saw was the flat clearing turn into the ridged side of the cliff. I was stuck with the wolf, spinning in the air. Punching it, getting clawed in return. I kicked the wolf so it was a couple meters below me. That's when I started praying.
At that moment, my eyes opened and I figured that I had just seen my last hunting trip replayed. As I spun over I saw a falcon with a rabbit in its feet flying toward a person in the distance. Boris’ Falcon will see me die. I decided I would face death face first, so I spun once more before saying on last prayer to Ullr. 2 seconds later my body hit the stones.
One Last Hunt
Falling... the only thing going through my mind. I have lived for 25 years and this is how it ends. I looked down and saw the wolf hit the sharp boulders at the base of the cliff. Like a twig getting snapped in two by fingers, the wolf's head snapped back as the body hit the ground, knowing that my body was soon to follow. Remembering my dogs and love of my life back home, I closed my eyes, praying to Ullr, the god of hunting, that I would survive this fall. Instead of seeing the darkness I normally saw when I closed my eyes, yesterday came back to me.
I woke as I normally did, 2 hours before the sun rose. In the distance I heard a wolf call out to its pack. After getting dressed, I left my hut, where my dogs and love of my life were still asleep. Walking to the Ullr stone shrine in the middle of the village, I heard some commotion behind the tannery. When I looked behind I saw that it was nothing more than just two ravens fighting over a dead squirrel carcass, which one of the village kids had most likely killed with a sling the day before. I turned and went to the shrine where I held my morning prayer longer than usual. Today was a different day. Most days I leave the village an hour before sunrise, and am back three hours before sundown. I spend half of those days setting traps, looking at other traps set the day before and work on small game like foxes, rabbit, and birds. The other half are spent looking for marks of deer and tracking them if the marks are fresh. But this is the one day I go out two hours after sunrise and go deep in the woods to find and hunt something bigger and rarer.
After my prayer, the sun was starting to creep up and the village fishermen were preparing to leave for the day as were the other hunters. As I was walking back to my hut, I saw my friend feeding his falcon.
"Hey Boris Leifsons. How is your morning?” I asked him.
“Good. How about yourself, Erik Gunnarson? Are you going out for deer today or something else?” Boris asked me
“No deer today. Today I am going to try and get something rare like moose or something of that sort.” I replied.
“Well good luck, my brother.” He replied.
After I turned away to go back to my hut, I saw from the corner of my eye Boris taking the hood off his falcon so they could go hunt. Slowly I made my way back to my hut to get all my gear ready for my hunt. On the way I wished my fellow hunters good luck and told them in what general area I had seen good game. When I got back to my hut, I cut some deer meat from the deer hanging in my hut’s meat storage. After feeding my dogs, I cooked the meat and ate alone. Afterwards, I got my bow, recently sharpened arrows, hunting pouch and finally my 6 inch hunting knife.
I left the village in the opposite direction of the other hunters, going toward the mountains near our village. Following the path I had made a year ago, I started my way up the mountain. I spent hours walking to no yield. While I walked in silence, I hear many birds in the distance crying out. Sometimes I smelt fresh berries in the undergrowth, but I did not bother to harvest them, only to learn my mistake later that evening. After I saw that dark was coming, I decided to turn around and head home, but then I realized I was utterly lost. As I put my arrow I had notched on my bow back in my quiver, I realized that I had lost it and the rest of my arrows.
Where did I place it. Too bad, I thought to myself, I had some small bait in it.
I decided to set camp up there and get back to the village the next day. As I started to prepare an area for a fire, it started pouring rain, so I went to bed with no food and no fire.
At around midnight I woke up to sounds in the bushes in front of my makeshift lean-to. As I got my arrow notched in my bow, two gigantic, black wolves with foam in their mouths, appeared. One of the wolves started running toward me and as he jumped I shot him straight through the heart. I dropped my bow and pulled out my knife with the blade pointing down, as I was taught by my father if I ever got in a fight with only a knife.
“Point the tip down, with the blade running parallel to your arm. Slice upwards and make it a fast movement, then bring the blade down on the neck.” I remembered my father’s words.
As the second wolf launched at me, I cut his shoulder up so that you could see all his shoulder muscles. Turning around, the wolf growled at me and bit me in my arm, with enough force that it broke and was out of service. Then he ran into the woods, injured and missing an ear. After recovering my broken arrow from the first wolf, I then realized that I was missing two fingers. When I saw the missing fingers, I thanked my father for teaching me not to feel pain, by making me carry extreme loads and getting cut many times, unless it is extremely severe. After stopping the bleeding from my injuries, I tried to get some rest but sleep eluded me until 2 hours before sunrise. I decided to start making my way back to my village.
I quickly surveyed the woods I was in. I created a mental image of it and looked at it as a bird flies. Seeing that the ground angled down to the south, I decided to head north, as I had gotten into the woods by climbing a cliff. After an hour of climbing, I harvested some of the wild berries I had smelled to keep my energy up.
With only half an hour to go till sunrise, I started recognizing the woods. But then out of nowhere a huge brown wall stood in my way. A grizzly bear had jumped in front of me.
“Remember Erik, if you get in a situation in which you are facing a bear,” my father's words came to me, “Don’t look him in the eye. If you do, be ready to kill him somehow.”
I realized straight away that I was in trouble as I was staring a bear in the eye. In a split second I had my knife out ready to slice the bear. The bear struck me in my bad arm, causing me to scream out in pain, but not before I manage to slice the bear’s armpit. The bear took a couple steps back and started circling me to get a better attacking side. But before the bear could surprise me with his attack, I was already facing him. As he lunged at me I slit his nose open and blinded him by bringing the tip of my blade straight through his eye. The bear took a step back. It roared as it charged me. The ground shook with each step of his. I waited for the last second as I jumped out of its way and sliced his back open shallowly. Turning around, the grizzly stood up on its hind legs, and roared. It charged me and jumped at me. I fell to my back, and dug my blade deep into his upper body in hope of puncturing his heart. Then I pulled my knife out and slit the grizzly bears throat.
Screaming, I heaved the bear off me. I then saw the mess the bear had caused on me. I was missing half of my left arm, my right hand was missing a finger and my foot was angled backwards. I bit on a branch as I twisted the foot back in place. I then saw that I was entirely covered in dry wolf blood, fresh, warm bear blood, and my own blood. And muscles were as stiff as old trees in the forest. I started heading to the sky I could see from in between the trees. Only then did I notice that it had stopped raining. As I walked to clearing, I saw the smoke of a village, which looked kind of like my village, with a large stone statue in the middle of it.
I found the path leading down to the village but as I was about to take my first step, I heard the low rumble coming from behind me. I turned around and saw a black wolf. It was limping as it walked toward me and it lowered his head as to show me that it was missing an ear. Then it charged me at full speed and jumped at me. The last thing I saw was the flat clearing turn into the ridged side of the cliff. I was stuck with the wolf, spinning in the air. Punching it, getting clawed in return. I kicked the wolf so it was a couple meters below me. That's when I started praying.
At that moment, my eyes opened and I figured that I had just seen my last hunting trip replayed. As I spun over I saw a falcon with a rabbit in its feet flying toward a person in the distance. Boris’ Falcon will see me die. I decided I would face death face first, so I spun once more before saying on last prayer to Ullr. 2 seconds later my body hit the stones.