The Emperor's Elephant(2)

I breathed a sigh of relief. I had been troubled by the heartless way the labourers had teased Walo. He was an easy target. His arms and legs were too short for his body, and the slack mouth and the half-closed eyelids in a moon face made it look as if he was about to drop off to sleep at any moment. Nor did it help that his speech was slow and often slurred, and what he said was sometimes what you might expect from an eight-year-old boy, not an adult. His appearance made it difficult to tell Walo’s age, but I guessed him to be in his mid-twenties. Vulfard was fiercely protective of his son. He had rounded angrily on the man who grumbled that Walo was too simple-minded to be made a lookout. The royal verderer had snarled that he would withhold the man’s wages on account of his insolence. Then he had sent the fellow packing. I feared that if Walo botched this task, the men’s taunts would make his life even more difficult.

I must have fallen into a doze soon afterwards, for the next thing I knew I was jerked awake by a deep wheezing grunt. The sound was so hoarse and powerful that it seemed to reverberate right inside my own chest. I had never heard a sound like it, but the message was unmistakable. It was a challenge.

I could not stop myself. I twisted round and looked behind me. The sight was something from a nightmare.

An enormous animal stood among the tree trunks, some thirty paces behind us. How such a bulky and massive creature had managed to come so close and in such silence was shocking. Even Vulfard, the most alert of huntsmen, had been taken off-guard.

The beast had ambushed us. At the shoulder it stood taller than the very largest stallion. The body bulged with muscle and was covered with a coarse blackish-brown pelt. The creature was a grotesque version of farm oxen that I had known as a child. They had been domestic animals, plodding, slow and placid. The creature that now stood close behind us was larger, stronger, hostile, and infinitely more dangerous. I stared with horrified fascination at its horns. They projected from its brow in a long forward curve, half the length of my arm, then swept upwards to end in a deadly sharp-pointed hook. They were designed to pierce, gore, and then fling aside a victim. They were weapons for killing.

Unbidden, the name of the beast surfaced in my mind. Vulfard’s informant had called it ‘aurochs’. In Frankish this meant ‘ancient ox’, an apt name for a throwback that belonged to a distant age when all manner of gross creatures walked the forest. I had failed to foresee that beasts that deserved this name might still claim mastery over their ancestral domain.

The huge beast gave a second resounding grunt. Louder, more aggressive than before, the challenge was even more obvious. The animal resented our presence. We were trespassers, and the carefully sited trap had gone disastrously wrong. We had planned for the aurochs to approach from the far side of the glade and we had placed ourselves downwind. But the beast had come from behind us, sensed our presence, and come to investigate. Now we were the ones who were trapped.

The beast tossed its head angrily. A great gob of drooling spittle flew through the air.

My guts turned to water. I was so frightened that I doubted I could even get to my feet. For a stupid moment I thought that if I stayed absolutely motionless the creature would ignore me.

Then the aurochs swung its head from side to side, displaying the terrible horns in a further warning, and I saw the creature’s eyes. They had a mad, glaring look, a white rim around the darker, gleaming centre. There was no chance that the creature would leave us alone.

It was so close that I could see the slick wetness inside the flaring nostrils of its broad black muzzle. The aurochs snorted angrily yet again, then gave another threatening side-to-side shake of the horns. The creature stamped down, pawing at the ground. The hoof dragged a deep furrow in the soft earth, and the monster lowered its head. It was about to charge.

At that instant, Vulfard saved my life. He was either very brave or very foolish. ‘Lie still, Sigwulf!’ he rasped, then he sprang to his feet, snatching up his cap. Spinning round to face the aurochs, he waved his cap in the animal’s face and taunted it with a shout. Then he turned on his heel and ran directly towards the pitfall.

It was impossible that such a huge animal could move so fast. One moment the aurochs was standing still. The next, it had gathered its huge haunches and sprung forward, head down, the great legs moving in a blur. The ground shook under me with the sudden thud of its hooves, followed by a waft of musty air as the animal raced past where I lay paralysed with fear. In a heartbeat it was closing the gap as Vulfard sprinted to escape the deadly horns.

He ran out into the glade. Now he was on open ground and totally exposed. Yet he kept his nerve. With perhaps three paces to the lip of the pitfall he glanced over his shoulder and, at the very last second, swerved to one side. The aurochs charged on past him, unable to halt its headlong rush.