A Quest of Heroes (Book #1 in the Sorcerer's Ring)

in silence, breathing hard, watching the woods,
Thor suddenly realized he had drank too much water. He had been holding it in
the entire hunt and now he had such a pain in his bladder, he could barely
contain it.
    “Excuse
me,” he said, and began make to his way into the woods.
    “Where
are you going?” Erec asked, cautious.
    “I
just have to relieve myself. I’ll be right back.”
    “Don’t
go far,” Erec cautioned.
    Thor,
self-conscious, hurried into the woods and went about twenty paces from the
others, until he found a spot just out of view.
    Just
as he finished relieving himself, suddenly, he heard a twig snap. It was loud
and distinct, and he knew—he just knew—it was from no human.
    He
turned slowly, the hair rising on the back of his neck, and looked. Up ahead,
maybe another ten paces, was another small clearing, a boulder in its center.
And there, at the base of the boulder, was movement. A small animal, he could
not tell what.
    Thor
stood there, debating whether to go back to his people or to see what it was.
Without thinking, he crept forward. Whatever the animal was, he didn’t want to
lose it, and if he headed back, it might be gone when he returned.
    Thor
stepped closer, hairs on edge as the woods got thicker and there was less room
to maneuver. He could see nothing but dense woods, the sun cutting at sharp
angles. Finally, he reached the clearing. As he approached, he loosened his
grip on his spear, and lowered it down to his hip. He was taken aback by what
he saw before him, in the clearing, in a patch of sunlight.
    There,
squirming in the grass, beside the rock, was a small leopard cub. It sat there,
squirming and whining, squinting into the sun. It looked as if it had just been
born, barely a foot long, small enough to fit inside Thor’s shirt.
    Thor
stood there, amazed. The cub was all white, and he knew it must be the cub of
the white leopard, the rarest of all animals.
    He
heard a sudden rustling of leaves behind him, and turned to see the entire
group rushing towards him, Reece out front, looking worried. In moments, they
were upon him.
    “Where
did you go?” he demanded. “We thought you were dead.”
    As
they all came up beside him and looked down at the cub, he could hear them gasp
in shock.
    “A
momentous omen,” Erec said to Thor. “You have found the find of a lifetime. The
rarest of all animals. It has been left alone. It has no one to care for it.
That means it’s yours. It is your obligation to raise it.”
    “Mine?”
Thor asked, perplexed.
    “It
is your obligation,” Kendrick added. “You found it. Or, I should say, it found
you.”
    Thor
was baffled. He had tended sheep, but he had never raised an animal in his
life, and he had no idea what to do.
    But
at the same time, he already felt a strong kinship with the animal. Its small,
light blue eyes opened and seemed to stare only at him.
    He
approached it, bent down, and picked it up in his arms. The animal reached up
and licked his cheek.
    “How
does one care for a leopard cub?” Thor asked, overwhelmed.
    “I
suppose the same way one cares for anything else,” Erec said. “Feed it when
it’s hungry.”
    “You
must name it,” Kendrick said.
    Thor
racked his brain, amazed that this was his second time to name an animal in as
many days. He remembered a story from his childhood, about a lion that
terrorized a village.
    “Krohn,”
Thor said.
    The
others nodded back in approval.
    “Like
the legend,” Reece said.
    “I
like it,” O’Connor said.
    “Krohn
it is,” Erec said.
    As
Krohn lowered its head into Thor’s chest, Thor felt a stronger connection to it
than to anything he’d ever had. He couldn’t help but feel as if he’d already
known Krohn for lifetimes as the animal squirmed and squealed at him.
    Suddenly
there came a distinct sound, one that raised the hair on the back of Thor’s
neck, and made him turn quickly and stare up at the sky.
    There,
high above, was Estopheles. It suddenly dove down low, right for Thor’s head,
screeching as it did, before lifting at the last second.
    At
first Thor wondered if it was jealous of Krohn. But then, with a split second
to spare, Thor realized: his falcon was warning him.
    A
moment later there came a distinct noise from the other side of the wood. It
was a rustling, followed by a charging—and it all happened too fast.
    Because
of the warning, Thor had an advantage: he saw it coming and leapt out of the
way with a second to spare, as a massive