SABIS the SURVIVOR

Chapter 5: Prey

Chapter 5: Prey

Sabis' left leg started to twitch. This hitch kick made him look like he was dancing.

"Are my eyes playing tricks on me?"

He rubbed his eyes lightly. As he uncovered his eyes, he saw what resembled a ray of SkyGod's light bobbing up and down in the low-lying tundra.

His heart fluttered then his chest ached.

"Breathe," he told himself.

He crouched low to the ground to track what might be some prey. Through the scarce shrubland and hardened ground, Sabis felt heat with the back of his left hand. He felt around further and noticed some droppings as well.

"Okay, you are nearby."

Sabis assumed his balance stance─crouched onto one foot, the other leg almost perpendicular to his body, with that foot pointed to the ground. He held his warrior blade in his right hand.

"Right hand defends, left hand portends."

He whispered a prayer for the hunt,

"Mother Earth, give me the strength to prevail on this day. Your wisdom and foundation and all the creatures that I slay. Let it be."

A rustle and then a darting object! Sabis lunged from his crouched stance and slashed his prey with his blade. He aimed low to injure its legs.

"Cripple your prey first before you take its life." He accessed the times that his Father and he had tracked prey together. As if he had turned on the tap to let his hidden memories flow out, additional lessons now flooded his near-frozen memory banks: "Know what or who you are preying upon. Learn their secrets before you consume their heat."

"How strange you are, my prey." Sabis looked upon this creature with more awe than disgust.

The sight of this squirming greyish denizen of the SkyGod domain triggered both pride and disdain. When he looked at the creature's fangs protruding about five centimeters from just below its snout, he exulted in his ability to impale a potentially lethal foe. It had a thick neck and a stout body. Fortunately for Sabis, this creature had small and thin legs that were susceptible to his blade slash.

"Okay SkyGod, that is one for me and zero for you," he huffed.

Sabis realized that his prey might feel frightened as he held it firmly with his blade embedded in its underbelly. So he prepared himself for the next phase of this capture by talking to his prey.

"Until your last breath, until your last heartbeat, know that you fought with courage, and then died as a warrior."

With his left hand, he picked up whatever loose earth he could find, which was scant in these parts, and sprinkled them over the creature's head and neck. As he did this he prayed,

"Mother Earth, the giver of all sustenance, I give you my thanks for your divine providence."

Sabis quickly withdrew his blade and swiftly and deftly slashed his prey's neck just below the angle where its jaw appeared to reside. As warm liquid squirted out, the creature's aquiline snout and curved fangs sagged backward into the recesses of its facial region. It was as if its snout fell into a furry trapdoor that enveloped itself. As the blood spurted out from the prey's neck, Sabis moved quickly to catch this liquid by using the first creature's shell that was stored in his knapsack. In one fluid motion, he threw his impaled prey up in the air, pried the much smaller shelled creature out of his knapsack while gripping its little feet with the other hand, and ripped the shell clean off from its lower body. Then he positioned the freshly freed shell upside down and let it fill with the warm lifeblood of his larger prey as the soft parts and legs of the smaller prey dangled half in and half out of his knapsack pocket.