Chapter 27

"It has been quite a while, this is worrying." Nita said to her sister-wives gathered around her.

"The time stick is going to burn out in a few minutes, most of the contestants are back with their prey and there is still no sign of Grud." said a frowning Froll who was standing nearby.

Prior to this, around a quarter way into the hunt, there were loud roars that came from quite a distance away followed by flocks of birds escaping the area. The more worrying part was that the loud roars sounded like the roars of the Dire Bear that was released earlier.

"Do…Do you think Grud actually went to hunt the Dire Bear?" Nita asked her father.

Froll thought for a while and replied, "I certainly hope not, as strong and blessed by the spirits as he is, it is suicide to take on a Dire Bear on his own. And now that he has not shown up even once with any prey by this time, we can only hope that he is just injured and hiding so we can rescue him later."

Just as Froll finished his sentence, there was an excited commotion from the crowd which brought all attention to the tree line.

From the brush, a painted head of a Tusk Pig came out which brought hope to the people from the Rock Skull tribe, but when they saw who was carrying the Tusk Pig, they were disappointed and worried.

It was one of the three hunters from other tribes that had been bringing in large point prey. Nita could only look down and pray to the spirits and Mita for Grud's safety as they waited.

After a couple of minutes just as the time stick was about to burn out, a huge head emerged from the tree line which caused a huge commotion with some frightened shouts. This was followed by the Spirit Moon tribe hunters rushing out to put themself between the huge head and the rest of the people.

—

Grud finally sat up with a painful grunt after catching his breath and looked at the huge body of the dead Dire Bear.

"This may not have been the best thought out plan, can I even bring this back in time?" after eyeballing the size of the dead beast and looking at the position of the sun.

"Well, I think I still have more than half the time left before the hunt ends, guess I will have to try, or else all this would have been for nothing." Grud went over to the head of the Dire Bear and retrieved his bloody stone knife.

"Now how am I going to move this thing?" Grud asked himself as he looked around for ideas for his problem, his eyes landing on some vines. "Guess that would have to do."

After more than fifteen minutes of collecting vines, painful lifting of the Dire Bear's body, lashing and securing of the Dire Bear's body, snapping of vines from too much weight, angry swearing, more vine collecting, more securing with more vines, and finally, a lot of venomous cussing, swearing and questioning of the Dire Bear's parentage with rude and increasingly impossible scenarios while Grud got under the Dire Bear's chest and lifted for all he was worth.

Even with his enhanced and bulked up body, Grud was lifting well over a ton of Dire Bear which was awkward for him to carry due to the size difference.

With trembling legs, the huge upper body of the Dire Bear was tied to his back, with the rest of the body being dragged behind and using his spear as a walking stick, Grud took his first steps while his ribs and shredded chest were shooting pain throughout his body.

After many long laborious minutes of travel, a heavily panting Grud with a pained grimace on his face came to a stop at a small stream and looked around. After looking around noticed that he was only halfway back to the Great Hunt's event site.

As Grud groaned, he heard and felt something else groan and looked down at his stomach. All this heavy lifting was making him very thirsty, and hungry and he still has half his journey to go 'This is as good a place to rest, might as well eat some of this Dire Bear, what I catch goes to my tribe anyway.'

While he was still standing, Grud purposely fell sideways and was pulled along by his strap, making the Dire Bear fall and roll facing up. Grud united himself and tried to make an insertion, just under the Dire Bear's rib cage with his stone knife, but after using a bit too much force, the stone knife snapped.

"Mmmm… My stone knife was not sharp enough." then he looked at his spear, it was the only thing that was able to consistently pierce the tough hide.

"I just need to puncture the hide once and the rest would be easy." Grud grabbed his spear just below the spearhead, grab a patch of the Dire Bear's hide, stretched it taut, and with some force, cut into the hide of the bear.

After that, it was easy to cut thru the hide and extract the heart, when Grud finally got the heart out of the Dire Bear's chest cavity, he was surprised it was the size of a basketball, he had never seen a heart this big before.

"The only thing that could be bigger than this would be the mammoth's heart… too bad we live too far south to see any mammoths, I would like to hunt one someday." With that thought, he dug into the heart while appreciating the meat's sweet chewy texture.

After he was done with his meal, Grud drank his fill and washed up by the stream, then continued with his journey.

As Grud neared the finish line, his sharp ears picked up the general chatter of people and picked up the pace 'Good, the sooner I am done with this, the sooner I can rest.'

As he broke out of the tree line, he was met with loud and frightened shouts, and soon a line of hunters stood before him hooting had hollering at him like they were trying to scare an animal away.

When Grud revealed himself as he stood taller from his hunched over position while carrying the Dire Bear, everyone soon became silent, and from that silence, came a shrill cheer he recognized as Nita "He did it, He did it, Grud hunted the Dire Bear!!"

This was followed by a cheer from his six other wives and a victorious roar from the rest of the Rock Skull tribe members.

Grud could only smile as he continued dragging the body of the Dire Bear across the finish line and fall sideways and let the weight of the Dire Bear roll him up facing the sky.

Besides his own tribe, the only looks he got from his from the rest of the people and his competitors were dumbfounded looks, and predatory gazes in the case of quite a large number of women.

While everyone was staring, the last bit of the time stick burnt out and the man keeping the time prodded Vice-Chieftain Crig out of his staring.

Crig looked at the man, looked at the burnt out time stick, and remembered what he said in jest before the hunt began "Well, if anyone manages to hunt the Dire Bear, I suppose they win the competition."

'Well, I got to be a man of my word, and even if he did not bring in the most prey, I think that one Dire Bear has more meat on it than any of the multiple prey that his competitors had brought back on their own. And the fact that he hunted a Dire Bear and dragged it back on his own undisputably warrants merit. At least now we do not need to send out hunters to kill or chase away the Dire Bear.' Crig thought to himself as he stroked his beard and then gave the signal for the end of the Great Hunt which was followed by a blast of a horn to recall any of the competitors still out hunting.

After a few minutes, Grud was unstrapped from the Dire Bear, and his wounds were treated by a cranky old woman spearing ground up herbs on his wounds making him hiss in pain. "Stop moving, if you can fight a Dire Bear, you can stay still for some herbs." The cranky old woman said as she berated Grud.

When all the competitors returned, Crig's voice boomed out. "I did say if anyone hunts the Dire Bear, they would be the winner, and it seems we have a winner! Grud from the Rock Skull tribe!"

This was met with cheers from the audience, and even louder cheers from the Rock Skull tribe who soon after the cheering died down, immediately sought out people from other tribes who handed over their goods with sour looks on their faces.

Grud was soon swarmed by his wives and fellow tribe members who were laden with a few times the number of goods that they brought with them.

"Grud my boy!" Froll said with a slap to his back making him cringe and wheeze from his still aching wounds, noticing his discomfort from his wounds, "Sorry about that, but you just made the tribe a lot richer. Ha ha! Because of you, we won the bet from a few other tribes."

Then Froll turned to Grud's wives "Bring your husband back to rest, we will take care of the Dire Bear's body."

Grud just gave Froll a tired nod as Nita and her sister-wives fussed over him. "Husband, let us bring you to get cleaned up before you rest. We still have something special we promised that we will do for you tonight." Nita said while looking at Grud with hearts in her eyes.

Hearing this, Grud smiled then leaned in and kiss Nita "My love, as much as I would like your "something special", I think it would have to wait for another night while I heal."

Nita along with her sister-wives looked disappointed "Ok" Nita said then leaned into Grud's ear, "But we are still going to do our wifely duty and empty you of your seed. All you need to do is relax and let your wives pamper you." and licked his ear as Nita brought her head back.

Grud could not help but pop a boner after that and had to position his wives around him to hide the dick that was almost bursting out of his loincloth while they were on their way back to their tent.

—

After bringing this year's Great Hunt to a close, Vice-Chieftain Crig went to the Chief Shaman's hut.

When he entered, he saw the Chieftain, Shaman, Vice-Shaman, and the Chief Shaman all seated waiting got him. "Is it true?" asked Chieftain Dhun.

"I see word has reached you already. Yes, Grud of the Rock Skull tribe defeated a Dire Bear on his own. From what I can see from the wounds on the beast, he blinded it, damaged its nose so it could not find him by scent, injured its limbs then attacked vital areas to bleed it out." Crig reported

This report was met with murmuring between those already seated, after a while Chief Shaman Zargall spoke, even though his eyes were clouded with cataracts, they shone with a pale blue light. "Hmmm…. This may be a good and bad omen. Not only is he a powerful shaman, although not trained yet, but a powerful hunter as well. The good omen is that we may have a powerful champion in the making, but the bad omen is that the rise of a champion always precedes times of strife and harsh times, and it is in those times that we will see if he becomes a powerful warrior."

The rest of those present nodded and muttered in agreement. Hard times were coming, it did not take a shaman to see that as shown by the sharp increase in attacks by predators in the south.

Chieftain Dhun spoke up, "Chief Shaman, I recommend we increase more of our hunters going on the expedition and also request more hunters from the bigger tribes. And I would also like to go on this expedition."

"Mmmmm…. I would allow this and also ask the medium sized tribes from the north, east, and west if they can chip in more resources or volunteers, avoid the small tribes or they may have population problems if any of their hunters fall. Vice-Shaman Ghak, assist Dhun, the rest of us will continue with preparations."

With that, the meeting was adjourned, and all parted ways except for the Chief Shaman who stared slightly upward as if he was peering far into the distance, "O Spirits, must times of strife come before I join the ancestors?"