Chapter 31: One-Horned Tiger (5)
The tiger’s yellow eyes, which had burned with such fury moments earlier, went out like candles in the wind. Its body, which had been tense and vibrant only moments before, relaxed completely. Its legs gave way.
The heavy body of the One-Horned Tiger collapsed to the ground with a dull thud.
The impact kicked up a cloud of dust that enveloped Clavor in a brown haze. Dark blood flowed from the wound in the beast’s head, spreading across the earth like a crimson cloak.
Clavor remained motionless for a moment, the sword still embedded in the creature’s skull, his chest rising and falling with deep, ragged breaths. Beads of sweat ran down his face, mixing with the blood from his own wounds.
He pulled the sword free with a clean motion.
The metal made a wet sound as it came out.
Clavor wiped the blade on the tiger’s fur, an automatic gesture repeated hundreds of times over the years, and sheathed it. The click of metal against leather was the only sound in the forest for a long moment.
He looked at the corpse for an instant, his head slightly tilted. His dark brown eyes traveled over the beast’s body, assessing the damage, the value of the hide, and the quality of the broken horn.
Then he muttered, almost to himself,
"Huh. That was harder than it should have been."
He ran a hand across his sweaty face, wiping away the blood trickling from a scratch on his cheek.
"Maybe I really am getting old."
Clavor wiped the blade on the tiger’s fur one last time and slid the sword into its sheath with a firm motion.
"You can come out of the carriage now," he said suddenly, his voice steady and calm, seeing that the danger had passed. His words carried the authority of a man who had just won a battle and knew the field was secure.
Lukas did not wait even a second.
The moment he heard his father’s words, he moved.
His small body moved with a speed that surprised even Aurora. He slipped free from his mother’s protective embrace, not violently, but with a determination that admitted no resistance, his tiny hands gently pushing Aurora’s arms aside.
He reached the carriage door.
The wood of the handle felt cold beneath his fingers. He twisted it with a quick motion, carefully controlling his strength, remembering not to break anything, and the door opened with a creak.
Lukas jumped.
His short legs carried him out of the carriage in a leap that was not graceful but fast. His bare feet struck the dirt road, and he ran, ran as fast as his ten-month-old legs could carry him, toward the fallen beast.
His violet eyes were wide with excitement.
He completely ignored Clavor’s minor injuries.
Ignored the blood running down his father’s arm.
Ignored the air still thick with ozone and the scent of recently used magic.
The only thing that existed in that moment was the corpse of the One-Horned Tiger.
Clavor merely chuckled softly, a tired but genuine laugh, amused by his son’s insatiable curiosity.
Lukas stopped a few steps from the corpse.
His heart pounded in his small chest so hard that he could feel the pulses in his temples, in his fingers, and on his tongue.
"It’s enormous..."
The tiger was larger than a tiger from Earth.
Easily over four meters long, from snout to tail tip, which still swayed slowly as though death had not yet realized the body had stopped. Its muscular shoulders rose nearly to Clavor’s chest. Its paws, even lying limp and lifeless, were as large as Lukas’s torso.
Defined muscles rippled beneath reddish-orange fur marked by irregular black stripes, not the vertical stripes of Earth’s tigers, but a more chaotic, almost artistic pattern reminiscent of cave paintings.
The fur was thick and dense, and in certain places it gleamed with a metallic sheen beneath the sunlight, as though tiny particles of ore were trapped between the strands.
The broken horn still emitted a faint blue glow even after death.
It pulsed weakly, like the light of a firefly at dusk, growing dimmer with each passing second. The base of the horn, still attached to the beast’s forehead, was warm. Lukas could feel the heat radiating from it even from several steps away.
"The horn... it was the source of its power."
Lukas stepped closer.
His steps were small but firm.
He crouched beside the beast’s head, the head that moments earlier had contained yellow eyes filled with fury and murderous intent.
Now the eyes were open but empty, like two yellow gems devoid of light.
His own violet eyes analyzed every detail.
The long, curved fangs, still stained with dried blood, differed from those of Earth’s tigers, thinner, sharper, each bearing a small groove that might have been used to channel venom or mana.
The retractable claws, still partially extended, each the size of one of Lukas’s fingers, curved at the tips and were perfectly suited for tearing flesh.
The rounded ears bore tufts of black fur at their tips, like those of a lynx, but larger and more mobile.
Lukas noticed that the inside of the ears was covered with fine white down, almost translucent.
Different from the outer fur.
’Special sensory organs?’ he wondered.
"Father..." he called without taking his eyes off the animal.
His voice was calm, but there was a barely contained vibration of excitement within it.
"The horn... did it have something special about it?"
