Wolf

By Paul G Mann

Wolf is one of the main characters in NEWTH (The Early Years) and explains the truth of how Fredrick Marchland became known as 'Wolf'

Long before the story of Newth began, Fredrick Marchland earned survival hunting Rippers and the fighting the Hunter killers known as the Hunki He had been a young castaway, shipwrecked while sailing on a privateer in the vast South Pacific Ocean before the hated Hunki rescued him from his island home and left him with thousands of others to fend for themselves on a hostile planet far in the reaches of space.

He was the most feared and respected hunter on the planet where both Rippers and Hunki hunted humans for food and sport. Living on nothing but his wits armed only with a bow and arrow and a knife, Fredrick Marchland hunts Rippers for a living and kills Hunki warriors without mercy, both acts thought impossible by his fellow natives on this strange planet they have been left on.

Civilization is a dream; most of humanity lives in dirty, disgusting filth in underground tunnels to hide from the Hunki hunters. Fred roams the woods and forests hunting and watching the sky’s in his quest for survival. It’s a lonely existence but preferable to the conditions underground; in the woods and forests he can breathe fresh air, eat fresh food and not have to look over his shoulder watching for thieves and murders after his hard earned goods.

It was a lonely existence but one born out of necessity on a planet that one wrong step meant death. He was an expert in his craft and deadly with knife and bow; fabled among his own kind he used both weapons without mercy against the hunters, animal and alien, who thought humans were nothing more than a food source.

One day the Hunki would pay for what they did to the men and women on Newth, until then he would hunt Rippers, the other scourge on this planet that had the rest of humanity trembling in fear. He would hunt, he would kill and he would live for the day he could wage war on the Hunki.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul G Mann
• Release date: Aug 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311232366

Paul G Mann

Writing never came easy to me, even at school but somewhere inside me I always thought I had a story to tell. Before word processors and spell checks the bringing up of a family and out working to support them took precedence over such things as writing and as such setting my story down on paper was the least of my priorities.Things changed in 2007 when I suffered a heart attack which effectively ended my working life. My first computer back in 1988 was an old Amstrad word processor that allowed me to take work home from the office without the need of a ream of paper and white correction fluid. All I needed was a small three inch disc that fitted quite nicely into my pocket. It made letter writing so much easier and renewed my interest in writing although at that time I didn’t pursue it.I have had a large and varied working life to give me inspiration. I was a seaman for three years in my teenage years; I worked as a bus conductor on leaving the sea to raise a family before training as a plasterer and working in the building industry. A telecommunications factory offered better pay and conditions so I moved into the production of telephone exchanges for six years until securing a job in BT for seventeen years until made redundant in 1992. Ultimately I worked as a private hire taxi driver until illness forced me to stop.I am twice married with 3 children of my own (all grown up and flown the coup now) and 3 step children (also flown away). My present wife Gillian is a rock to me and who without her support and encouragement these books may never have been finished for publication. So if you don't like them blame her not me.The heart attack changed my life. I had to find something to occupy my mind and soon decided the best thing I could do was write. I readily admit I am not and probably never will be the most gifted writer in the world but as an exercise in keeping the old grey matter in working order it cannot be surpassed.All my work is ready for reading in e-book format from Smashwords and Paperback from http://www.Feedaread.com (cheaper at smashwords}

Book preview

The WOLF

One

He stood rock still barely taking a breath. His shoulders ached as the pressure of keeping the powerful bow string drawn back to his chin began to cramp his muscles, but he knew, one false move, one sound out of the ordinary could be his last if the Ripper he was stalking, caught his scent, heard him or saw him. He had the beast dead to rights, all he lacked was a clear sure shot through the trees, and while he was a patient man while hunting, he had a gnawing feeling that the Rippers mate, now out of his vision, was circling, hunting him, getting ready to spring and tear him to shreds.

Rippers were nasty beasts; half the size again of a wolf hound, and twice as heavy, they resembled a dog only in the way they looked and ran. Four legs with wicked claws that unlike a dog were retractable like a cat. A long snout with serrated teeth more in keeping with an Earth shark, and fast, faster than anything he had ever seen or heard about back home on Earth. They were the scourge of Newth, roaming the forests and grasslands, killing anything they thought of as a meal. Like the shark they had a blood lust that once aroused couldn’t be sated or satisfied until whatever they attacked had been killed and eaten. Even when sated, only the foolhardy would go anywhere near one, without fear of the flesh being sliced from your body.

At last the Ripper moved, and instinctively his fingers relaxed releasing the bow string. The four foot long arrow sped true from the powerful bow, taking the animal in the neck severing windpipe and jugular that stopped a full throated scream from the beast. With nothing more than a gurgle of blood, it fell to the forest floor where it had stood. To his left, he heard the unmistakable snarl of an adult Ripper, quickly followed by the sound of trampled shrubbery as the beast charged him through the undergrowth. Panic and fear was useless, he was too experienced a hunter to let those two killer emotions invade his mind.

The bow was of no further use. The speed of the charging beast meant it would be on him before he could have an arrow knocked, and the bow turned in the direction of the enraged animal. He pulled his knife; eight inches in length, made from flint, honed and sharpened to a razor edge; hours of work, but he knew it would only give him one decent hack at the beast before it broke. At the same time, his other hand plucked the arrow from the ground where he had placed it and in one fluid movement, he turned in the direction of the on-rushing Ripper.

It was less than a dozen yards from him, back legs already digging claws into the ground ready to spring, teeth and front claws looking to tear the flesh from his bones. He crouched and dived, rolling as he did so towards and underneath the animal pushing the arrow upwards with all his strength as he came out of the roll, on to his back, and quickly onto his feet, turning in a crouch to face the snarling beast. He knew instinctively by the scream the creature made, and the way in which the arrow was snatched from his grip that he had drawn blood.

Wounded it may be, but Rippers were quick, and anything short of a killing blow would not deter it from trying to rip him apart. He knew these animals well, hunting and tracking them was his business, a business very few if any others on this God forsaken planet followed. His movements in tackling his quarry, was one of a well-trained hunter; knife in hand he crouched, his leg muscles, fine-tuned coils of power ready to spring away from the Ripper as it turned to attack him once more. Irate it hadn’t killed its quarry on the first pass it sprang once again with an increased viciousness, the arrow in its underside ignored as the blood lust desire to rip flesh from bone drove it to bury its teeth into its prey. Cool and calm the hunter waited, muscles taught, waiting for the right moment to thrust the knife into the animals’ throat.

He watched as it sprang; this was the most dangerous time of the hunt, he could avoid the animals’ fangs with ease, what he trusted to luck and God, was his ability to avoid the wicked hooked, barbed, and razor-sharp claws that the slightest of touches would slice right through his flesh to the bone. The knives these claws made would let him trade for enough goods and provisions to see him through the winter.

He feigned to roll under the animal once more; at the last second, he let the roll take him to his left, bringing the knife upwards from waist height as he did so, and buried it in the animals’ neck under the jaw, the blade penetrated the throat, up through the roof of the mouth and into the brain; the momentum and weight of the attacking beast breaking the knife at the hilt.

He felt the blade snap and knew that his last chance to kill the Ripper without severe injury to himself had gone. The next few seconds would tell if his last blow had done its job, and whether he lived or died today. He sprang to his feet, covered in hot stinking Ripper blood, a cursory once over look at the Ripper told him it was dead, and he let out his pent up breath. Another cursory look at himself showed no serious injury, but he had been lucky, he had nothing more than a few deep cuts across his chest where claws had caught a glancing blow, those and a small cut on his upper arm would need a stitch or two; his other minor injuries needed nothing more than a good cleaning and all would be well. It had been a good mornings work, two Rippers with their coats and claws was a good return for the weeks effort he had put in tracking and stalking the animals. He set to with a will, skinning the animals and roughly scrapping the fat off the hides. He cut the four claws away from each pad, wicked things, the smallest six inches in length, the biggest nearly nine.

The claws once shaped and honed would make nice knives, the biggest he would keep for himself the others he would trade in Haroldstown market. The pelts he would unload on to anyone who lived alone away from the hovels of the towns and villages. They would bring him a dry bed for a few nights with home cooked food if he was lucky.

The few people who did live out here in the woods would be glad of them; Rippers steered clear of their own smell; the only thing a Ripper feared was another of its kind, and a Ripper pelt hanging over a cave entrance, was a good deterrent. With the animals skinned and de-clawed he left the meat to rot on the woodland floor; the only thing Ripper meat was good for was to feed the birds. Tough and stringy with a bitter taste, and a smell of rotten eggs, that even a starving man would hesitate to eat; it was best left where it was for the woodland scavengers. He would come back in a few weeks for the bones; once they had been picked clean, these too would make strong knives, arrow heads, spade blades and axe heads from the thigh and hip bones. The rest of the skeleton would make any number of other useful tools and implements that would be traded next spring for goods and provisions.

Most people on Newth congregated in tunnels underground; mainly for defence against the Hunki, not that they gave any defence. These places stank to high heaven and Fred hated them as much as he hated the Hunki. He was also a giant of a man standing six foot eight tall, weighing about twenty stone. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him; his massive frame was all hard,