Kalin stood at the crest of a great hill, his eyes fixed to the rolling horizon. His simple garb moved lightly with the soft breeze, subtle changes in it's direction revealing more of his muscular figure just before vanishing beneath the folds of cloth. His gaze narrowed as he watched, as if searching for something off a great distance, and as he did, he absently pulled on the rope across his shoulder to which his recent kill had been hung. The sky above played a soft light, the sun having just made it's retreat for the day, the moon and stars yet to take it's place. A seasoned hunter, he knew he should make his way home, the Heartlands being no place for a lone man to venture at night, and yet still, he waited. Something was not all-together right, and he had learned in his life, to trust his intuition.
Something just on the cusp of the horizon caught his attention, and were he not watching it intently, even his trained eye would have missed it. A slight movement, and that is what caused him alarm. Nothing in the Heartlands moved in stealth; the creatures here were all of far too large a size for such behavior. He crouched low himself, hoping he had not yet been spotted by whatever it was that intended the same, and slowly began to make his way to a vantage point amongst a small raise of brush in which a Crat Tree had made it's home. Keeping his eye to the point where he noticed the initial movement, he pulled his body up onto the low branches of the tree's canopy, and lay level with the leaves. As he watched, he noted no other movement than the initial that caught his attention.
But he was not yet convinced. Night was closing in fast, and in the distance to the north, already the howling of the Grahk could be heard, announcing their arrival with the falling darkness. Yet still, he watched.
Before night fell entirely, his eyes widened. At first it appeared as if the entire horizon itself raised several inches from the ground, but as his eyes adjusted to the growing dark, he realized what it was he really saw...
