Ravanan

Chapter-31

The villagers were impressed with the brave heart of Arasu . Still they weren't ready to sacrifice such a brave one in the hands of a beast. So they decided to accompany him to the forest. The villagers promised him that they would take him to the place of the jaguar by morning. The crew climbed up on the tall tree and Arasu climbed the tree too with his wife on his back. The felt weird and a sweet aroma of their love in the air because it's a strange thing that Arasu brought her everywhere on his shoulders with a smile without abandoning her. The people were even impressed when they came to know that her leg was broken even before he married her. Arasu brought her all the way to the top of the tree and fed her with his hands. They both played , laughed and enjoyed there life without worrying about the surroundings. After seeing her sleep, Arasu left the crude and jumped to the nearby crude where his friends and other villagers were drinking the fresh extracted juices of sugarcane and playing their traditional flute made with the sticks of bamboo. The villagers kept guarding the crude day and night with people shifting their work. After having so much fun everyone fell fast asleep on the same crude.

It's was a dark night with no moon. The entire forest was swallowed by darkness and there were nothing to see in darkness. There were only fireflies and the fire lamps glowed in the forest. Even the restlessly shouting beetles too went to sleep that day. There were only dark and silent in the forest apart from the range of fire lamps. The smell of native flowers with the combination of the gracing music of flute made the people to enter into a state of deep sleep. The little children of the tribes stayed awake with their parents snoring at their side. When the owl sat at the branch of the tree and turned his head in a creepy way, the children tightly hugged there parents and closed their eyes.

While the darkness stretching it's carpet , the silence in the forest spread the red petals of rose, he sauntered in the forest carefully without even breaking a small stick. His yellow eyes sharply pointed the crude at the centre . His strong legs and paws were blessed with the ability to walk without even making a little noise. Even the night guards didn't know the presence of him due to the fireflies roaming around the forest. People says that he one of the conquerors of night and it would take only one bite for him to get his food. Some days that they even take on large bears and hard shelled crocodiles for fun and good meal.

There he stood with his powerful limbs and claws ready to take down anything standing in his way animal. The man with black spots covered all over his body was ready to fly all the way to the crude.

He broke the silence by running towards his target trees and revealed himself like challenging them to capture him if they could. The young night guards heard the disturbance in the ground and noticed a young jaguar climbing a thirty feet tall tree with his claws in a lightning speed. The people of the tribals were killed by the jaguars and that was the reason for them to climb up the trees for living and they thought that the jaguars wouldn't climb the tall trees. But when he saw the jaguar climbing a tree with his claw the guard felt like his heart would burst out in fear. The jaguar climbed the tree as if the death itself showing its frightful face in the form of the jaguar. Before the guard could escape from his shock and alert the people , one voice of a lady boomed in the woods mixed with the roar of the brutal killer .

This alerted everyone on the village and the fire lamps began glowing more and killed the alliance of the dark king by bringing the brightness in the wood. But without losing his mind the jaguar majestically walked out of the crude of a family while his tooth tightly wrapped around the neck of a lady crying and jumped all the way down to the floor without letting his grip slip away and dragged her in to his kingdom known as darkness and disappeared inside the woods without any traces. The voice of the lady disappeared after a few seconds with a sound of neck bone snapping away. When the guards and the crew members of Arasu jumpd into the floor and searched for her, nothing was there except the blood and the necklace of the woman made up of bones. Arasu understood the seriousness of their threat. He stayed out of his crude and guarded the place with his trident. His eyes and the fire lamps glowed brightly in the forest without rest and guarded the place.

When the sun peep out of the sky and glowed in the vast sky , Arasu and his crew member got ready to hunt down the predator. Arasu sharpened his trident and spear and prepared himself for a challenging predator which he had never faced in his life. The villagers and the family members of the dead woman gathered the remaining piece of torn clothes and her necklace and buried them as a symbol of their love. She would always remain in their hearts. After doing all the rituals, the leader of the tribals splited the men of the village to fetch food, water and other things and asked two of his men to go with Arasu for jaguar hunting. Arasu left two of his men to guard his wife who was pregnant at that time.

The group traced the path of blood and went inside the forest.

After a distance , the blood path disappeared. But the tribal people were skilled enough to locate the jaguar without the blood it spilled all the way. He claimed ," the jaguars do live in drier regions, they normally strongly associated with water, and they thrive in rainforests like the sss and in dense swamplands and wetlands that provide plenty of cover for stalking prey. These monsters have incredibly powerful jaws, strong enough to pierce a skull and crack a sea turtle’s shell. They are fearsome predators and will hunt anything from frogs, fish and reptiles to livestock, cows and deer. They can survive in many different habitats. They are normally found near water, and prefer swampland or tropical rainforest. They also survive in forests, grassland and scrub. I was saying all these stuff because my father believe you guys were capable of killing that beast. So I have shared all the informations I have learned in the woods right from my birth and don't let us down."

Arasu took the advice of the future tribal leader and they witnessed a footprint with a four paws and called out the tribal. The the young tribe checked the footprint in the moisture filled soil. The said that was definitely the footprint of a jaguar and the crew slowly followed the path while they made sure there weren't any other predator stalking them. The crew walked in the forest with their hands raised with their weapons and ready to attack at anytime when a threat approached. The search of the crew continued for three days and yet they weren't able to have an encounter with the jaguar. All they could find and attain was the pieces of bone with it's flesh completely wiped out of the body and blood.

On the fourth day , a man came to the group and informed them that they saw the jaguar walking to the shore of the river located in south. The group rushed to the river and settle things down. Arasu ran crazily with his spear in his hand and trident at his back. He ran along the shore of the river like a wild boar running in the forest. The crewmates and the tribes couldn't keep up with his speed and followed him at a long distance.

At the other side of the shore line , a six feet long crocodile , after eating a fully grown deer rested on the shore without caring about the surroundings. And then he entered the scene with his eyes locked on the poor crocodile. The king of the darkness came out in a bright and sunny day as if he wanted to show his courage and guts to others. He carefully soaked his body into the water and went inside the river. Among his cat family members, he was the one and only man who never hesitate to swim. Jaguar went deep inside the water to completely hide its presence. Even under the water his eyes remained still locked at its prey . The got to the other side of the shore and walked silently without even shaking away the water from his body . The clueless ruler of the river stayed at the same place with his mouth wide open as usual without knowing the death itself was approaching him.

The jaguar slowly but carefully raised out of the water without letting the crocodile to notice and sneakily walked behind the back of the large crocodile and reached its range. When the water from the body of there jaguar touched the hard scale of the crocodile, it sensed something was behind and before it could react , the jaguar placed his all sharp teeth and it under the neck of the crocodile. The crocodile realized the danger at his back and fought back by shaking it's body . But the strong grip of the jaguar didn't allow him to escape and kept burying his teeth deeper. The crocodile wanted to fight for his life till he die and battle between the ruler of night a d the ruler of water remained undetermined for a long time. But due to the lose of blood and strong biting force of the jaguar, the crocodile slowly felt a numbness in his body and gradually started to give up the battle.

Everything went well and the king of the darkness successfully took down a well grown long crocodile. He stretched his beautiful, yet dangerous claws out of his paws and buried it inside the body of the crocodile in order to make sure the crocodile wouldn't have any chance to escape. And all that was remained was to increase his biting force and pull it until he hear a snapping sound of his neck bone and that would be it for the crocodile. The jaguar buried his claws even deeper and took a long breath before applying his biting force on the neck of the crocodile. But a voice boomed in the woods which caught the attention of the jaguar and he leaned forward to check the sound. To his surprise, there were a bunch of noisy and weird looking hairless monkeys running towards him. The king didn't want that monkeys to ruin his day . So that the jaguar decided to finish the work quickly and to go his place . But suddenly a stone flew from a distance and stroke at the nose of the jaguar. The jaguar was really shocked by the sudden impact and lost his grip on the crocodile and accidentally let him escape. The crocodile after getting escaping death , widened his mouth even wider in surprise and jumped in to his territory in no time. The crocodile went deep inside the river bottom and made the water unclear by rubbing its hands and legs in the river bed. The crystal clear water became

dirty and unclear due to the act of the crocodile. The entire good day of the king was ruined by a stupid group of monkeys. The volcanic lava erupted through the eyes of the jaguar and the angry jaguar gazed at the annoying monkeys with his sharp eyes. The jaguar became even more annoyed and ignited by the noise made by Arasu who kept shouting and jumping on the trees. He entire spoiled the silence in the atmosphere and all the animal in the forest would have been scared off and ran away from the surroundings .