"A forest older than kingdoms does not simply shelter beasts; it raises hunters that remember what men forget." , from a fragmentary bestiary.
Night fell like a blade across the ridge.
Leo had walked until the dim light abandoned him, the canopy sealing the sky in a lattice of branches. The moon's face was swallowed, leaving only a few fractured shafts of silver cutting down through the leaves. Darkness pressed from every side, a weight he could not shake, until even his staff seemed little more than a stick clutched by trembling hands.
He crouched near a hollow log, gathering damp twigs and brittle leaves, fingers stiff and clumsy from fatigue. His striker spat sparks, but they died against the wet wood, swallowed without even a trace of smoke. No fire. No warmth. Only the creeping cold of night.
His breath sounded too loud. Far too loud.
And that was when he noticed.
