by Kyton » Sat Jan 11, 2003 9:21 pm
The night air was cool and crisp, making their breath and speech show in stark white against the darkness. The inn's position made it easy for them to exit the town, and within minutes the semi-packed dirt rode narrowed, turning into one of many deeply rutted cart paths that ran the countryside.
The darroch forest was nearly a league away, leaving them to travel through a section of open plains this night. If it wasn't for the darkness of night one could have easily seen his surroundings in great detail. Either side of the cart path was hemmed in by waist-high grasses. It was likely an old farm left to fallow, left with game trails and the occasional half-dead tree to line its grounds. Those with better sight than average in the darkness could see a distant herd of feeding mule-deer shift and run in unison.
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The night breeze hummed over feathered wings that glided just beneath the clouds. The figure was no more than a black speck against blackness, but it saw well what transpired below.
The hawk watched the three figures on the path impassively, and the moving shadows that stalked them. They had been followed since leaving the town two hours before. The shadows were stealthy, and kept below the grassline as they moved. The Yrrasi were always good at what they did, and tonight they hunted.
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A forked, lizard-like tongue flicked out from a serpentine maw, tasting the air as it flowed through the grasses. The flesh was close, she could taste its stink. But there was a different scent as well, one she could not identify. It was what held her back, made her hold the others back.
The female turned it's head to look over it's shoulder, the long sinuous neck stretching with the motion. Her males were where they should be, some sinking their five inch talons into the soft earth in anticipation of the kill. None would dare undermine her though. She was their queen, every one of them belonged to her. Every facet of their humanoid forms told of an anchient animal, the kimodo. From their long, black, sharp talons to their hide that was as strong as chainmail, to the poisonous saliva that ran unnoticed from her mouth in a thick, near gellatinous slime.
Her tongue flicked out again, caressing the night air before sliding back behind her scaled lips. A moment of alarm marred her face, the wind changed directions and she could no longer smell her quarry. Her voice rang out in a hushed trill, subtoned with alarmed clicks as she dashed away from the path. They had to avoid giving themselves away for the time being.
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Everyone had been walking at a steady, smooth pace for just over two hours, talking or lost in thought as suited the individual. Suddenly thought and word were disrupted in equal measure by a rustle in the grasses not ten meters from the road, and a series of clicks and trills that as quickly fade to nothing.
OOC: I'm not sure how sensitive your nose is tweek, if it is more sensitive than a human's then you'll likely catch a hint of a foul smell from upwind. It'll be gone before you get anything more than knowledge it was there though.