The Hunter's Moon

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Beast Blood
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Re: The Hunter's Moon

Post by Beast Blood »

"You will hunt on an empty stomach? You may as well then simply lay down and let the predators of this land eat you, wolf friend," Rorn commented.

They would soon reach the rest of the herd. While the tracker led the way, Kovar remained at the back of the group, blue eyes and pointed ears focused on anything that might come up.

She did not like this. The forest was too quiet. Even the wind's haunting whispers seemed calmer than they had been a few moments before.

---

The lantern of one of the Hirstaang tribe's members came closer to Vulfrad, casting a warm glow upon the mighty warrior. He was just as hulking and burly as the moose-like warriors and hunters, but resembled a caribou more than a moose.

"You must be a fierce warrior," the antlered stranger said, gesturing his lantern towards the bear pelt settled on the warrior's shoulders. The caribou-like traveler's eyes were as warm as the orange light of his lantern. It seemed he wanted to hear of the man's tales.

His words seemed to have captured the interest of the nearby warrior of dark brown fur, as he turned to look towards Vulfrad as well.

Two more of the moose men were gawking at the bugbear up and down, trying to figure out just who and what he was.

---

Tyberius briefly glanced towards where Jormungandr had slithered off to, before turning her eyes back to her draconic conversation partner.

"Hraaldstag lies beyond this glacier," she said, motioning towards a great wall of ice far to the north. "But the pass is blocked by a magical barrier. To take it down, you must find its anchors," the bear grumbled, "and stamp them out. Only then will you be able to pass. The little ones have their own quest as well."

---

The carrion birds heeded not the words of the short traveler. They prepared to bite him, to tear him into small chunks of meat to fight over and swallow whole. More and more flocked to the tree he sat on, a swarm of ravenous, merciless predators. His spear shifted to the throat of one, then the beak of another, balancing keeping away each one that approached too close. One of them grew weary of this pointed obstacle impeding their incoming attack. It snatched the spear into its beak, throwing it in the air. The wooden javelin pierced the cold wind as it literally speared into the deep snow below.

As Tait's gaze followed his lost weapon and lowered, he noticed the branches of nearby trees shaking in a beat disturbingly similar to that of footfalls.

The thunderous beat of half a dozen pairs of wings resounded loudly and clearly through the area, and Tait covered his head with his arms, bracing for the cruel talons and beaks about to assault him...

But none struck him.



Instead, all but a handful of the predatory birds flew off into the snow-laced skies, and even they did not stick around for long. A single one, who had been acting protective over the little wanderer this whole time, opened his wings and beak wide in a threatening posture. The feathered pinions flapped a few times, curved talons carving deep into the wood of the branch below the bird. His feathered body was turned to the east, where the trees were the most agitated. A flurry of birds from these rows of trees and plants took off with panicked wingbeats.

Something big was coming.

The sound of breathing soon reached the traveler and the bird, a horrible, gasping, raspy sound like that of an injured animal. The deep rumbling of this haunting song rattled the trees and shook the snow with its horrible echoes. With each step of the advancing predator, banks of snow jumped as if startled, leaves shuddered as if in fear.

Before the beast that made the terrible sound would actually come into view, the carrion bird took flight, grabbing Tait as he flew. His rushed wingbeats battered the wind, disrupting the snowfall around him as he took his quarry away from the monster lumbering nearby. As his feet kicked into nothingness, Tait saw that there was a village nearby. Hulking moose-like warriors strolled about, smoke rising from the fires and torches around their homes. A few of them had taken notice of him and gazed up to him - and that was all he could gather before the piece of clothing brutalized by the talons of the bird carrying him gave way under the weight and rough wingflaps, accidentally dropping the lone traveler towards the branches and deep snow below...
Last edited by Beast Blood on Tue Jul 21, 2020 2:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Giratina93
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Re: The Hunter's Moon

Post by Giratina93 »

The silence of the forest was lost to Menai, but not to Ramia. Her eyes darted left and right, and with her lance materialized in hand, she kept a careful eye out. Silence like this wasn't natural. Normally if there was a predator around, local wildlife would begin screaming their heads off in alarm to alert the rest of their group and others of a large predator in the region. This kind of silence didn't make any sense...

Unless whatever was here was something no creature dared be near, something there was no standing against, only fleeing or staying as silent and small as possible.

A hand was placed over Menai's mouth as she began to speak, and the lame girl's eyes saw the focused gaze in Ramia's own, and the realization finally hit her as well.
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Re: The Hunter's Moon

Post by HayesAJones »

"I can cook and keep watch at the same time," Ragnhild began to protest, but the next sentence died in her throat. The silence struck her heavily, same as Ramia.

Silently but urgently, the beast-woman put away her axe and replaced it with her bow. Whatever had laid the forest dead, she wished to do the same to it from a distance. She knew no creature capable of such tension. Even gods did not hold this sway. The bounty hunter's ears stretched high and her nostrils flared wide, trying to catch wind of what might be coming...

---

While he had been taken off guard by the sudden interference of the benevolent carrion-eater, a plunge like this was actually quite familiar to the dwarfand snapped him back to sharp attention. Almost all foes he fought towered over him, and some towered over even Ragnhild, so high falls into deep snow were nothing new to him.

Balling up to better control his fall, Tait twisted to the side and hit a rather thick branch hip-first, snapping it cleanly from its base, the thin twigs that entangled it flying like shrapnel. The impact was harsh and painful, but better than drowning in collapsed snow. As the tiny humanoid and the sizable branch tumbled into the powder bank below, he made sure to reach out and grab onto it, holding tight even as they were immersed in snow.

Snow gave no foothold, but a nice, sturdy stick? That could be his anchor: his lifeline.

While he could not make heads or tails of where he was in the snow bank, the stick didn't care. It knew solid ground when it touched it, so he made sure it was wedged against the earth and began shimming in the opposite direction. The snow took any space it was given, so he was careful to find and penetrate air pockets, spaces yet unclaimed by the snow.

After so many minutes of this slow, cautious ascent, Tait eventually found his head naked and cold, finally free from the snow.

"Alright," he sighed aloud, sliding completely out of the snow like a slug and rolling to solid ground, "where is my spear?"

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