Chapter Twenty-Six: The Aggressor (Patreon)

It’s an issue I have to face. Unless I restrict myself to only killing seriously wounded, ill, or very old members of the species, I will have to kill healthy members at some point, and all of those healthy members are potential mothers and fathers. Heck, I may end up killing a pregnant female at some stage, quite unknowingly. I do seriously consider only culling those which are likely to die anyway, but dismiss the idea after a while. In the end, I have to recognise that I need to accumulate Energy, or by the end of the year, I will die. Sorry, but the lives of a few animals don’t outweigh my own life in my eyes.

But can I apply that ruthless thought process to this family? No. I can’t bring myself to kill them. If I only kill the parents, I’ll probably be condemning the juveniles to death, as they wouldn’t still be allowed to hang around with the parents unless they needed to. The idea of killing the parents and then using Dominate on the juveniles does cross my mind, but I decide not to in the end – I’d feel far too guilty every time I looked at them, knowing I’d been the cause of their parents’ deaths. I’ve had too much experience with that particular strain of guilt in my life already.

I withdraw quietly and carefully so I don’t draw the family’s attention and accidentally bring about the whole scenario that I’m trying to avoid. I keep the thought about using Dominate on one of this species in the back of my mind; if I ever come across the tracks of a solitary...what shall I call them – porcupig? Reptiline? No, if everything is reptilian, I’ll run out of names if I begin them all with ‘rep’. Porcupig, it is. So, if I ever come across the tracks of a solitary porcupig, I’ll see about capturing it.

I follow my tracks back towards the river with a strange sense of calm. It feels good to have made a decision. I’ll kill and capture healthy animals, that I know for sure; what I also know for sure is that I will do my best to avoid taking away parents from babies. Plus, that works better with my hunting knowledge – if you regularly kill the next generation, one day there won’t be any more of that species left.

In the end, I pick the tracks of a single creature, not wanting to repeat the same scenario as I’d just encountered. They weren’t precisely the ‘perfect’ tracks – the creature seeming a bit bigger than I would have preferred – but then I remember how different the porcupigs were from what I’d expected based on their tracks. Maybe that will happen again? As I’d thought, my Tracking and Hunting knowledge from another world can be rather misleading at times.

It takes me perhaps a couple of hours to catch up with the creature I’m tracking: it’s not moving that fast, but it had a significant head-start on me. Approaching, I see a creature that reminds me of a chameleon crossed with a snail. That said, it’s not slow, as one would expect from a creature like that. It has the curly shell of a snail, and a long body covered in scales.

Unlike a snail, though, it doesn’t crawl across the ground leaving a viscous trail behind it, but has feet rather like a chameleon’s – six of them! Two sets of legs have knee joints, or possibly hip joints, facing forwards; the rear set has the joints facing backwards. One would think this would add an ungainly sense of movement to the creature’s gait, but it was not at all the case, though the extra set of legs does add an interesting sway.

Now, how am I going to do this? The creature is not nearly as slow as a snail – what if I attack it and it runs away? Or what if I attack it and it attacks me in return? I wish I had a bow and some arrows – even flint would do better than nothing. Then, it hits me. Flint! Sure, I don’t have a bow and arrows, but there are ranged weapons all around me, ones that my ancestors used to great effect for many years.

Retracing my footsteps a little so that I’m not likely to scare my prey off the moment I start casting around for stones, I pick up as many fist-sized lumps as possible. Once my pockets are full, I pick up the creature’s trail again.

Unfortunately for me, I know I’m not the most athletic of people, so I think I’d better get as close as possible before starting. Taking a couple of careful steps forward, I pause. Maybe better get my ammunition ready first. Putting a stone in each hand, I do a final once-over, nodding my head when all seems as it should be. Then, continuing my careful stalk forwards, I find myself wincing every time I step badly and a branch cracks or a leaf rustles. The worst thing is, I know how to walk quietly through this landscape in my head, but my body hasn’t yet learned how to follow instructions. I know it will come with time; I just hope I’ll have enough of that.

It seems like the sneleon – well, what else can I call it? - doesn’t have the most acute of senses, as it only seems to raise its head from the bush it’s chomping on at the worst of my branch cracks. Its head, incidentally, is rounded and looks rather like some herbivorous dinosaur’s in one of those old children’s cartoons. While I can’t rule out the possibility that this creature has some sort of defence mechanism, I do feel more of a sense of confidence about approaching this quarry than my previous, and that’s not even taking the moral dilemma over the babies into account.

I take my time lining up my first shot. It’s a rough stone, which will hopefully do more damage than a round, smooth stone would. Then again, it also has more wind resistance, so… If I’m very lucky, it will hit the sneleon sharp points first, but frankly, I think I’ll be content if I just manage to hit the creature at all. Extra points if I get the body.

My focus narrows, and I launch the rock at the sneleon. Wonder of wonders, it hits! Unfortunately, it hits the shell and bounces off without causing more than a loud cracking sound. In an instant, the sneleon’s defence mechanism engages. To my good fortune, it’s not an offensive one. Instead, just like the snail I likened it to, the sneleon vanishes into its shell with an amazing flexibility. Almost as quickly as I could blink twice, the sneleon went from unaware to protected. Its curled shell sticks up in the air, rocking forwards once or twice as it gets used to its new position, perhaps twenty centimetres nearer to the ground than it was a second ago.

By this point, I’m very curious about this creature. I walk over to it, a little cautiously in case it lashes out the moment I get close, and place my hand gingerly on its shell. It’s cool, warmer in an area where a ray of sunlight is shining. The creature when I arrived had been about a metre long with its legs being approximately thirty centimetres long when fully extended, but twenty centimetres in the normally somewhat bent position. Its shell added an extra thirty centimetres to its height, which had made me think I was dealing with a bigger creature than I actually ended up with.

Now, it’s just the shell, around thirty centimetres high and almost that wide at its base. Its length is probably more like forty centimetres, creating something of an oval-based, blunt-tipped cone. How a creature probably around a metre long and ten centimetres or so in diametre manages to squish into this thing, I don’t know, but the proof is in front of me.

I push the shell a little, gently at first, and then harder. It rocks from side to side. Nothing happens. I’m very curious now, but wary at the same time. I back away a bit, and then start throwing rocks at the motionless shell. I miss more than I hit at first, but my aim does improve. Nothing happens except for a rocking shell every time I hit, until one hit to the top lands with enough force to knock the creature over. I jump back in case it’s capable of sending out some sort of ranged attack, but after rolling a little, the shell settles and becomes motionless again. Once more gingerly approaching the creature, I look with fascination at what, in a snail, would be its ‘foot’. In this case, they’re feet as the six feet of the creature seem to have locked together to create a solid barrier.

I’m starting to understand this creature’s place in the food chain. Much like other defence specialists, like the snail I thought of earlier, and a tortoise, this creature doesn’t have speed on its side, nor does it have strong natural offensive ability. Instead, it’s a walking fortress to probably most if not all of the creatures in this forest. It would need something with significant crushing power to get through the shell. I’m sure Kalanthia would cope, but I’m equally sure she wouldn’t bother unless she was unable to find anything better.

And that’s probably exactly the niche this creature exploits – being too tough for creatures its own level to deal with, and not being an enticing enough target for those which could actually pose a threat to it. Based on its size, I reckon that the attacker would have to be able to open their jaws more than thirty centimetres at a minimum, as well as then apply bone-crushing force to get through its shell. That’s more than most of the creature on Earth could boast, possibly more than any of them could cope with. Well, maybe a crocodile could cope, but then the sneleon would have to literally crawl into its open mouth for the crocodile to apply its immense pressure when snapping its jaws shut.

Otherwise, I suppose there could be birds that are capable of lifting it and dropping it upon a rock to crack open the shell, but again, it’s not that big, but it’s probably big enough to cause difficulty for most birds. Plus, it’s in the forest, not on the mountainside, meaning that one of those birds would have to come in past the forest canopy to find it.

So in short, a pretty good defence mechanism. Unfortunately for this sneleon, it’s met me – a mammal capable of using tools. Feeling a bit sorry for the creature that is defenceless against man, I still approach, hefting another stone in my hand. What defence is a tough shell when facing against someone with patience and a hard rock? Speed might be a better defence, but then again, humanity’s ancestors were also capable of defeating that with patient, enduring pursuit.

By about ten hits in, I stop feeling sorry. This blighter is a tough nut to crack. Or rather, a tough shell. I’m making a difference, but I was expecting it to crack like an egg in a few hits: instead, it’s only starting to show signs of cracking after ten.

I did try another approach when I’d seen no benefit for my effort after five strong hits with a rock. Seeing its interlocked feet as a potential opening, I tried to pry them apart with my knife. Unfortunately, I don’t find that I get very far with that approach – the hair-line gaps between each foot are barely wide enough for my knife to slot in and I don’t have anything like the leverage power I’d need. I even try whacking the feet with my mace, but the interlocked pad just seems to absorb the force of my hits with little trouble. Stymied, I return to my previous strategy. This time, though, I decide to use my mace for its extra power.

By the time I reach sixteen strokes, the sneleon makes a move. I back away quickly as I see it emerging from its shell. It’s not nearly as quickly leaving as it was in withdrawing, but I still keep my distance in case it’s got something up its proverbial sleeve. I watch cautiously, preferring to potentially lose my prey than get injured – again.

However, attack seems to be the last thing on this creature’s mind as it heads straight for the nearest tree. Realising it means to escape into the foliage either above or below, I go back on the attack. With its entire body now visible, I don’t attack its shell again, but go straight for the head. It avoids my first two blows and even tries to latch onto my leg in a last-ditch attempt to protect itself, but I dodge easily and finally manage to bring down my mace on its head.

Victory is mine, but I don’t get that same triumphant thrill which I did every other time I overcame my foe. I bite my lip as I try to figure out why. In the end, it strikes me that in my previous encounters, I was the victim, and when I won the struggle, I’d fought against the odds and aggressors which tried to pull me down. Here, Iwas the aggressor, and one with an advantage which my prey couldn’t defend against. There’s little glory or achievement in patiently beating at a shell with a rock or mace and then bashing in the occupant’s head as it tries to escape. If anything, it makes me feel like the bad guy rather than the hero….

I try to make myself feel better for repeating my reasons for going on the hunt in the first place, and reminding myself that aiming for battles where I will probably get hurt at the minimum is not a good way to attempt to preserve my life. I remind myself that my ancestors would have chosen easy prey over hard prey ten times out of ten – that’s why they’re my ancestors instead of dying before they could have progeny. I still feel guilty.

I hesitate over butchering the corpse, but then eventually kneel down next to it. If it’s a sin to have killed the creature in the first place, wouldn’t it be even more of one to just leave its carcass lying there abandoned? And if I end up muttering apologies and a little prayer over the body before digging in with my knife, who is going to know?