A bellow of agony brought him from his deep inner reflections, jarring him back into the land of the living. He opened his heavy browed eyes, suddenly alert as another keen of pain assailed his ears. Blood. He could smell blood.
Quickly, the young bull jumped to his feet from his kneeling position. He had been meditating with his mentor, their pundit and shaman.
He looked at the weathered creature before him. His grey mane of slick fur, old and worn. His coal black eyes, normally droopy with age, were wide and alert. He knew of the dangers that the younger bull felt. Their herd was under attack.
The young bull watched as the elder grabbed his totem that was lying in a rack against the goat hide tarp of their wheeled pergola, and made his way to the exit flap.
The young bull looked at his pundit’s totem. It was a long mahogany shaft, nearly six feet in length. At the base was a pointed spike and at the tip an egg shaped glistening white stone. Inside the stone was the natural earthen piping of green, blue, amber, and red.
Though unarmed, the young bull was far from defenseless. All around him inside was an arbor formed of horizontal trelliswork supported by a single central post. Draped throughout the workings was a multitude of vines, all trailing to the wooden floor. This was to help connect them to Brahma, the great World Spirit. Brahma would give him strength.
The great grey pundit shook his head at the young bull. “Stay where it is safe. Brahma will look after you in here.”
The younger one shook his heavy head in response. His ebony horns were in full growth; he was near an adult by their standards. “I will not let our herd matrons be slaughtered, nor let our shepherds be endangered when I can assist my pundit.”
The elder’s eyes held firm on the young student, causing him to fidget. “This is a fragile time for you young Pan. You must wait here.”
With that, the elder left the young bull alone inside their tent to listen to the screams of anguish and confusion coming from his herd outside.
Impatient, he idly toyed with a vine with his large auburn thumb, thinking of all the ways he could be out there assisting the pundit and their herd.
Something crashed hard into the side of the wheeled pergola, rocking the massive mobile construct, causing the young bull to fight to maintain his balance and sending vines swinging wildly about. He could hear the strong wood groan under the strain.
The young bull paced angrily. Though he trained all his life toward a peaceful existence, he knew well the reality of the greater world around him and of the real danger of these woods.
Again something crashed hard into the wagon, garnering another groan under the strain of the impact. This time, the left-fore wheel buckled, causing its axle to shatter. The whole vehicle tilted hard to the left, and pitched the young bull forward.
He struck the goat hide tarp with full force, his entire two-thousand-pound frame pulling hard on the trellis above him. Unable to cope with so much pressure, the bracing splintered and gave away, and then the young bull realized he was falling out of the carriage, taking half of the growing flora with him.
He hit the ground in an attempted roll, but the tarp hindered him, bringing him up short, leaving him trapped in its leathery holdings. The vines wrapped themselves around him, hampering his movement even further.
Outside, amid the bellows of pain, he could now hear screams of panic and what sounding like the chittering of some bizarre animals high above. Then he felt the impact of something piercing into the heavy coverings.
A small javelin thrust its way through the tarp and plunged into the earth inches away from his snout. Then another drove through hide and vine scoring a scratch against his belly. Immediately the wound began to burn.
“Poison,” he whispered to himself. Frantically, he struggled to escape the sheeting as more javelins rained down upon him. Some penetrated the hide. Others did not. But soon they began to pierce his flesh too, adding pain and burning as he fought fiercely to free himself.
He felt the poison eating its way through his veins, and his movements gradually became more sluggish. His amber eyes grew heavy and as he fought through his lethargy, he realized that the yelling outside was becoming slurred. The poison was at work, and soon it would be his end. Pan had hoped to prove to his pundit that he was ready for his Takewatha, his spirit journey, but now he realized that his true journey was upon him. He was destined to see the World Spirit now, and begin anew in the fires of a new life, risen once again. He closed his eyes as darkness brought him into that strange new world.