Erling heard the elk before he saw it. There was a deep, percussive crash of something immensely heavy smashing through undergrowth, followed by the sharp crack of a sapling snapping like a dry twig under the weight of an animal that sounded like it could trample a horse without slowing down.
The ground seemed to shudder beneath the pounding of massive hooves, and the sound of the thing's passage through the forest was so violent that for a moment, Erling's mind didn't register it as an animal at all. It sounded like a boulder breaking free from a clifftop and tearing its way downhill through the timber.
Then it burst from the treeline on the far side of the creek, and every thought in Erling's head went still.
The bull elk was enormous.
