Hama shrugged. He didn’t think he’d find anything important, but orders were orders. Even if he didn’t find anything, surely someone else would.
“Let’s go looking, lovely one.” He clucked to Lluagor and rode towards the south as Frea had commanded, keeping Lluagor to a gentle walk, so he wouldn’t miss anything that might lay beside or on the path itself. After a while, the trees and bushes all started to look the same. Hama thought briefly about going back before he got lost, but the idea of the older soldiers losing their tempers at him was not pleasant. He continued on.
Then Lluagor shied and danced away from a bush surrounded by some sort of tracks. Hama was no tracker, but even he could see that they had been made by some sort of doglike animal, dragging something heavy.
“Steady, my pretty lady, steady now. There’s nothing about to be so frightened of. What scared you so? Let’s have a look now, shall we?” He continued murmuring nothings to the frightened horse, gently patting her side. She calmed slowly, but eventually stood still, panting. Hama ground-tied her, leaving her reins to dangle a safe distance from the bush that had caused her such alarm.
He parted the branches of the offending bush, and nearly became sick. A half-eaten horse’s head grinned at him from a bed of blood covered leaves. The rest of the body was mostly gnawed bones. Doglike prints the size of his hand, fingers spread, surrounded the carcass, and the tooth marks on the bones looked to belong to mouths big enough to snap his arm, easily. He stepped away, barely holding in the contents of his stomach, and went back to Lluagor. The scent of the d.ead animal did nothing to reassure her, and it took him several minutes to calm her enough to mount.
[ August 06, 2003: Message edited by: Tinuviel of Denton ]
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