The Hunter

Ve'A woke, sweat pouring down his face. His fire had gone out, and the shimmer of dawn could be seen thorugh the everpresent canopy of trees above. Despite the warm weather, he shivered. An unpleasent force was present here. Ve'A had never wandered this far into the great forest, but game was getting harder and harder to come by as the seasons and years pressed on. His mother would be worried for his safety deep in the forest, his father would be more concerned that he hadn't been able to find anything in the Nearwood, that stretch of dispersed, less dense woodland before the forest proper. "Ve'" He'd say, "Are you so deaf to your surroundings that you heard no dear? So blind as to not see their tracks?". Only he had seen their tracks. Their tracks led him here.

Where here was wasn't exactly clear to Ve'. He had seen scores of them, hoofprints and pawprints of all shapes and sizes, each moving parallel towards the centre of the great forest. Each print was as calm and oderly as the last, wolf and deer both travelling collectedly like natural companions. Thats what concerned Ve' so much, the strict order in the animal's movements. No beast walks in such a manner he'd muttered to himself when he came across the tracks, but how could they be anything else?