Accepting defeat, she shook herself vigorously and sat down on the damp soil to lick her underbelly clean. Then she bounded up the steep bank, through the woods and paused at the edge of the fields that abounded with musktoon. At least she could pacify her growling tummy with some of these tasty little rodents that made up the major part of the tabbin diet.
Tummy now full, she trotted off toward the Keep. Maybe she could persuade Tragar and Roshel to help her catch a gize tomorrow. No sense in trying a coordinated hunt today. All the gizen in the area would be alerted now. Hepbeth wondered again what gizen tasted like. She knew that they were delicious, from hearing on the female chat frequency reports of successful hunts. But no tabbi had yet reported a successful solo hunt.
The next morning while the three tabbin were washing themselves in the Keep's garden, Hepbeth telepathed to Tragar and Roshel scenes of her unsucessful gize hunt yesterday. She asked if either of them had ever caught a gize.
"No, not alone. Need two tabbin." Roshel telepathed. "Three tabbin here. Much better luck with gizen now." Without waiting, the dark male trotted off toward the garden gate.
Hepbeth and Tragar stopped in mid-lick and went after him. The three sniffed out the breeze's odors as they trotted across the field to the woods and the stream. They were in luck! Several gizen were in the area. Silently they crept forward through the woods to near where Hepbeth's hunt had been aborted.
Crouching together the tabbin could now hear the soft cluckings of the group of gizen. The birds were still out of sight and seemed to be headed toward the same spot where Hepbeth had laid out her ambush.
"Gizen smart. One go one way, other go other way," she telepathed to the males.
"Roshel go upstream. Wait. Hepbeth, Tragar go downstream. Wait. Hepbeth charge gizen. Roshel, Tragar catch," the older male telepathed, then slinked off to fulfill his part of his plan.
Without a word, the two other tabbin headed in the opposite direction. They trusted Roshel to know what would work best, since he was the oldest and most experienced. When they got downstream far enough from the gizen, Tragar found a good spot to wait. Hepbeth again crossed the stream near the log. As the three tabbin moved, they telepathed scenes of their progress and surroundings to the others.
Now Hepbeth could see the group of gizen. Five. Two mated pairs and an immature adult. One of the males was on look-out while the others ate. She telepathed this image to the male tabbin. Roshel and Tragar adjusted their positions, then telepathed that they were ready.
The success of the hunt now depended upon Hepbeth's stalking skills. It seemed to her that it was taking her much longer today than it did yesterday. But she was being extra careful. She didn't want either male to tell her she'd goofed. Finally she reached her objective, a vantage point from which she could charge the birds.
But the look-out sensed something and honked a soft alert. The other gizen raised heads and looked all around. Hepbeth hoped that one of the pairs was not the same pair she'd tried to catch yesterday. The tabbin waited. Finally the gizen decided it was safe to continue along the stream toward the undercut bank. Hepbeth waited until she judged the gizen were in perfect position--
then burst forth from the bushes in a flying leap that landed her close to the startled birds. They exploded in two directions, one pair upstream, the other three downstream.
Hepbeth watched Tragar's paws swat down the immature bird. It hadn't gained altitude fast enough. As the young gize screamed and honked, Tragar efficiently broke its neck. Roshel managed to swipe a few feathers from the wing of one of the pair that had burst in his direction, but the bird rose free. Hepbeth heard his roar of defeat as she telepathed Tragar's success to him. He trotted through the bushes and the three tabbin sniffed the fresh kill.
"Young gize not good fliers. Tabbin try young gize for next hunt," Tragar telepathed.
Before hunkering down to feast on the bird, Hepbeth telepathed that she was going to save some wing and tail feathers to take to Jozlyn. "Magin use feathers to make marks on paper," she told the two males. Being somewhat fastidious in their eating habits, the tabbin chose to pull out not only all the large flight feathers from the wings and all the tail feathers, but also some of the other feathers from the body. Since Tragar had made the kill, he grasped the carcass in his jaws and swished it in the stream, then carried it up into the meadow. There the three tabbin hunkered down to a very delicious meal. Good to the last crunchy bone.
"Good hunt. Good meal," Hepbeth telepathed. She was glad she finally knew what a gize tasted like. Carefully she gathered as many large feathers as she could manage to take to Jozlyn. |
