John Ringo - There Will Be Dragons

Kane rode over with a coil of rope in his hands. “Can you tie a knot?” he asked.

“A few,” Herzer admitted.

“There’s a slip knot in the end,” Kane said, handing over the rope. “If something gets killed, drag it off to the side; somebody will take care of it from there.”

Herzer took the rope and found a place to tie it on the saddle. He wasn’t sure about dragging something with Diablo, much less with Butch or Duchess. Butch and Duchess tended to wander away when he dismounted, among other things.

He didn’t have much time to worry about it, though, because shortly afterwards, to a general cry, a deer jumped over one of the fences and into the open area. It was well outside his sector so he didn’t bother to try to uncase his bow and get a shot and it quickly bounded across the open area. But when it saw the line of people along the fence it turned towards him.

He kneed Diablo towards it to get it turned, then saw it was ignoring the horses. He was just starting to get the bow out, not easy on a trotting horse, when an arrow from the side took it down. It still continued to run but then dropped as the message got through to its brain that it was dead. He trotted over to it, dropping the bow back in the case and dismounted, untying his rope. He got the slip knot around the rear legs then walked back to Diablo who unaccustomedly shied away.

“He doesn’t like the smell of blood!” Kane called. “Talk to him.”

“Shah, horse,” Herzer crooned, letting out the rope. “Good horse. Stay. Whoa.”

He finally got on its back, with the rope nearly at full extension, and kneed him toward the nearest fence. The weight of the deer nearly dragged him from the saddle but he wrapped it into the leather it had been tied on and started dragging. Unfortunately before he had gotten more than thirty meters the second animal appeared; a half mature tiger.

At the sight of the great cat, which was no more than fifty meters away, Diablo went nuts, rearing and trying to run away from the cat and the deer it was dragging simultaneously. Herzer somehow stayed in the saddle, his hand painfully caught in the leather and rope. He pointed the horse away from the tiger, which was just fine by it, and towards the fence. But the tiger, seeing something fleeing, started after the horse, then turned and leapt on the deer instead.

The combined weight of the deer and the tiger stopped the horse in its tracks, nearly throwing it on its side. This time Herzer managed to get his hand free in time but the rope burned through his hand painfully. He kicked Diablo into movement again and then turned to look at what was going on behind him.

The tiger had stopped on the carcass of the deer, looking around at the people and horse with a baleful glare. After a moment it crouched on top of the deer and let out a roar.

Despite his mount’s rearing and shying Herzer managed to get it stopped and turned. Whispering to it he uncased the bow and pulled out an arrow. It was a clap shot if he could just get the horse to hold still for a moment; he wasn’t about to dismount under the circumstances. He lined up the tiger and let fly just as Alyssa fired from the other vector.

His arrow flew into the tiger’s chest just under the neck but one arrow, even driven from a compound bow, wasn’t going to stop the beast and it turned around, snarling, wondering what had hit it. He fired again, before Alyssa and the second arrow drove into the tiger’s ribcage.

It took three arrows from him, and more from Alyssa, before the cat finally stopped spinning and hissing. Herzer stayed where he was, though, and waited until a pair of hunters came out from the fences and prodded at the beast with their spears.

“Good shooting,” Alyssa said, cantering by.

“Thanks,” he responded, taking a moment to catch his breath and soothe his upset horse.

All things considered, he decided that it was best to keep his bow out.

While the excitement had been at his end of the corral, more animals had been filing into the area delineated by the fences. He saw some cattle and some absolutely gigantic deer that had to be the wapiti that Kane had talked about. They were nearly the size of the female cows and had antlers in velvet forming on their heads.

“Bull herd,” Kane said. “Kill ’em or drive ’em to the corrals.”

They were so magnificent he didn’t want to have to kill them but when the first one entered his sector and he tried to drive it towards the pens it took extreme exception to the idea and reared on its hind legs, waving sharp hooves at the horse. Backing Diablo, who clearly wanted to show who was boss, he somehow drove three arrows into the deer’s chest almost as fast as he could draw and fire, and the magnificent bull dropped to its knees then rolled over on the side.

He wasn’t about to try to drag that monster so he waved to some of the men along the fence and went out looking for something that would actually drive.

The massive corral was starting to get crowded with animals by this time, all of them angry, bewildered and driven half mad by the smell of blood that was starting to permeate the area. But it didn’t get really bad until the herd of pigs disgorged into the area.

The pigs had apparently stayed in their herd and Herzer had no idea that that many pigs were even in the forest, much less would stay together in a massive wave of tusks and smell. There must have been at least fifty of the larger ones and innumerable babies. Following them was a puma and then another tiger.

At the sight of the tidal wave of dangerous and deadly creatures most of the riders gave up any pretext of trying to herd cattle and wapiti and instead looked to their own defense. Many of them headed for the gates along the sides, abandoning the field altogether.

Herzer was well to the side of the mass and he started firing arrows for all he was worth. With a couple of exceptions he wasn’t sure where they went except downward; he was being careful of the people on the far side of the fence. He saw more arrows coming from the few hunters with longbows along the sides of the fence but it wasn’t stopping the pigs. The tiger had disappeared — he hoped nobody had been hurt when that happened — but the puma was chasing Kane for all it was worth.

Herzer took two shots at the running puma and saw one hit, turning it, then either Alyssa or one of the hunters got a killing shot in on it and it ran a few feet and dropped. But by that time the pig herd had scattered and there were at least a half a dozen big, nasty, angry “pigs” in his area.

He shot two and then saw one making a beeline for the fence and Shilan.

He dropped the bow in the case, pulled out his spear and decided to see if he could actually stay on Diablo’s back at a full gallop. With a yell he dug his heels into the horse and pointed it at the charging pig.

It felt for a moment as if the world went sideways. The horse bunched its muscles and took off like lightning, so fast that he seemed to hear his own shouting doppler behind him. He realized he was screaming madly and trying to line up the pig with his spear but it was going to reach the fence first.

The six hundred kilos of enraged boar hit the rickety wooden fence at nearly thirty kilometers per hour and the fence didn’t have a chance. The nearest posts snapped off even as the poles shivered to pieces. On the other hand, the encounter had seriously shaken the boar and it stopped for a moment to shake the blood out of its eyes. But when it had regained its senses the first thing it saw was Shilan, thrown backwards and onto the ground from the backlash of the fence.

Herzer shouted louder, hoping that the sound would turn the boar but there was no chance, it lowered its head and charged the stunned girl.