The pain the beast experienced drove it to new heights of hatred for me and I called out in my mind to the big female beneath me to change course. Obediently she surged off to the left side in a display of several tons of weight in action, even as the fallen beast's teeth raked furrows through the dirt where we had just been.
I let loose with another arrow and caught it in the neck. These things were hard to bring down and this last one of its fallen kind was putting up quite the fight as if it knew what was at stake. It dove at us again, and again at my direction the big female Trican dodged off to the side as I put arrow after arrow into our pursuer.
Suddenly the chase was over and I was shocked by it. Badly bleeding the fallen order beast completely broke off pursuit and headed as fast as it could go towards the open mouth of the valley where the valley opened up into the arid wastelands that surrounded the Holy Mountains.
Never before had I seen such behavior from one of this kind. When they attacked there was no let up until it or its victim was dead.
I didn't give it much of a chance in terms of survival, as my arrows had found their mark, the evidence left behind in a trail awash with blood. There was so much blood that I marveled that it still had the strength to run. Again, there was just something unnatural in the moment.
I calmed the beast I rode as it was still in full flight and slowly she came to a stop, her sides heaving hard as she took in great gulps of air. Then I asked the impossible of her and she listened to me. Turning, she began to follow after the hunter of us both at an easy lope that shook the ground.
*****
I couldn't even see the beast we trailed anymore, but its blood lay dumped out on the ground in a trail that was unmistakable to see. There was just something about this that I did not like, but the desire to understand what was going on had me urging the big female to go a little faster.
The amount of blood grew less and less and then I knew that I was dealing with something beyond the physical realm. Under natural circumstances no animal of such great bulk could go on with so little blood left in it.
"El Elyon help us!" I said, as I urged my increasingly reluctant steed to continue on.