Fall of the Mighty

Deep inside the forest, near the stream.

The rescue party had just arrived at where William had originally found the stream, led by the animal and human prints left behind by them.

The horse hoof prints had changed direction a while back, but the group had ignored them and instead followed the marks left behind by William as well as its pursuer.

Brian studied the site with the other hunters, after which he made his way towards the lord before he spoke.

"My lord, your son had left behind some traces and clues for us to follow after him, from the disturbed mud there" he pointed at the spot at which William extracted and used the mud to cover himself. " I can guess that he probably covered himself with it hoping to cover his scent."

Lord Ulric dismounted and made his way toward the clues as well as the stop where the mud was disturbed, examining each and every one of them carefully.

"Is this the same old William? To think of all this while being hunted down by a beast, have I underestimated you all these years son?" lord Ulric was very much shocked by William's 'cool' level-headed thinking considering the circumstances.

He had felt nothing but worry and anger ever since William had disappeared, but now he was feeling pride, pride at his son's resourcefulness and levelheadedness in the face of such grave events.

"Where do his tracks lead?" the marquess asked.

One of the hunters spoke to answer the lord "The marks he left on the trees lead along the stream, his footprints match those as well."

The marquess mounted his horse once more and gave his command "come on men, William's on foot so we should soon catch up to him" and he rode along the stream, soon followed by the rest.

----------------------------------------------------

In another part of the forest.

William's fall down the steep slope completely disrupted the bear's "calculations", making it miss its target by quite a margin. Bears generally had the ability to see very well at night and muscle ball here was no exception.

The only problem it had faced was that it was so focused on its target, which was on its final ropes almost tunnel visioning on it, that it missed the big change in topography that was about to happen, landing it in the situation it found itself in right now.

William simply fell and rolled around all the way down the slope, thankfully encountering no big or sharp rocks on his way down.

The bear on the other hand was not so blessed, considering the fact that it had jumped front paws first, only to find a steep slope where its pray was supposed to be, as well as the fact that one of those front paws which it could have used to stabilize itself and softened the fall is injured made for an ideal recipe for disaster.

The bear landed front paws first as expected; since it could only realistically rely on one of them to support itself, the healthy one fracturing from the heavyweight offloaded to it which was again expected.

What was unfortunate however was that a big and jagged rock was directly in the path of the bear's fall, after landing on its front paws which buckled under its weight, the bear continued its forward momentum resulting in a forward roll. Before finishing it however its back made contact with the big and jagged rock.

" SNAP!!!" a sound of bones snapping echoed and was followed by an immensely pained roar from 'muscle ball'.

William who was all the way down the slope and had passed out was suddenly woken up by the bear's 'scream".

As he tried to move his body, great amounts of pain shot through it, making him grit his teeth.

"What the hell, what happened?..... AH YES, THE BEAR" William turned around to look for his pursuer only to find it lying down next to a big rock halfway down the slope.

William was about to turn around and run at first, but his body could barely move at this point. He had exhausted himself completely; to the degree that even standing up has become quite the difficult endeavor.

So he stood there and observed the motionless bear for some time "is it asleep? NO!!! of course not ….. what a stupid question, it's probably injured, but why is it not even moving anymore? Has it given up? Am I no longer worth the trouble?" for some strange reason he felt a bit insulted by that last question.

William was getting a bit curious, so he slowly and cautiously made his way up towards the "unmoving giant bear". It was a stupid thing to do; that was something he definitely knew.

"If I can kill it now that it's down…." William contemplated.

As he drew closer he saw that the bear was not quite completely still, it weakly moved its head from time to time as well as weakly growled.

He paused a bit to observe it a more before he continued making his way towards it, always cautious and on the lookout for any sudden movements.

Soon he was directly in front of it, the distance separating them being no more than a couple of meters.

As he looked at it from so close, he remembered how magnificent this creature had been when he had first encountered it; Proud, powerful, large, it was a true king of the forest standing above everything else, yet now seeing it in such a sorry state he could not help but feel a bit sorry for it.

"Maybe this can be the fate of all the mighty, today's giants could be tomorrows insects, whether in the animal kingdoms or the human kingdoms, it's a fact of life" as he thought about it more William could not help but feel that he had just learned a valuable lesson, a lesson that no amount of books can truly teach him.

As he was deeply absorbed in his thoughts, the bear suddenly and loudly roared once more, this time more so of anger than pain as the injury had probably immobilized it almost completely and with it probably most the sensations in its body.

This roar pulled William out of his deep contemplation and made him jump back from fright.

This was his breaking point. William finally snapped; he was tired, hungry and lacking sleep, his nerves were about to fry and he was finally driven over the edge.

"EVEN AT THE BRINK OF DEATH, YOU'RE STILL TRYING TO KILL ME? WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE TO YOU HUH? WHAT? WHY ARE YOU TRYING SO HARD WHY?" William screamed at the bear and without even realizing it, drew his dagger and began stabbing it.

As he did so he continued to shout "WHY?" over and over.

He stabbed it everywhere he could, in the stomach, the legs, the eyes, over and over and over, even as the bear's roar's tuned to whimpers and its breathing fainter until it completely stopped. William never ceased stabbing fueled by his rage.

With a final stab, William looked to the sky and gave a final roar of his own, letting out all his fury, frustrations, helplessness and fear. Before he himself collapsed on top of the now lifeless corps of the bear, unconscious no doubt experiencing what may be the first of many nightmares to come.