Chapter Four : Detrick

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  Tauren knelt down and carefully felt the hoof print.

   He rubbed his fingers around the edge, taking in the damp feeling, and carefully checked how much the soil had dried since the horses hoof had been there.

   His expert knowledge on stalking and hunting made it so that when he saw a simple print made my some passing animal he could find a wealth of information about it.

   He knew that this horse had weighed over 1000 pounds, and he knew it carried a load; he suspected that its right forelegs knee was somehow damaged, causing it to have a slight limp; he could guess that the horse carried a heavy load, but it had only a small rider, seeing as to the way that its prints differed when someone’s footprints where next to its hoof prints and when they weren’t.

   He also knew that whoever was riding it was armed and knew how to use their weapons; he knew this due to the way they had cut their firewood at their previous campsite he’d passed, the strokes where sword strokes, perfectly executed, and with a stunning amount of power. 

   Much of what he could guess from the various signs the rider and horse left him was very uncertain, and he wasn’t planning on risking his life on any of that information.

    He stood slowly, wiping his hands off on his grey cloak he had acquired a few days before at a small town, and turning, leaped up onto T’hunes back.

   The bay didn’t need any directions and started instantly down the small forest road, under the spreading trees; over the beautiful carpet of colorful autumn leaves, leaves that where stopping to fall from the barren branches overhead.

   It had been five days since he had rushed up to the hilltop in Carmenton, grabbed his bow, jumped on T’hune, and rode off into the forest . . . without looking back.

   He still didn’t look back. 

   He had had a hard first day, feeling empty and betrayed, after which he had simply turned T’hunes head down the forest road and started riding, without aim, without anything in mind.

   He had bought some supplies at a town three days before, and had been riding ever since through the vast expanse of forest trails, wandering without cause, not even running into a single other traveler . . . until now.

   The day before, he had taken a new fork in the trail and found that this was a more used path. He had followed it now for three days, and knew that he was catching up on whoever it was that was ahead of him . . . but something was bothering him, perhaps it was the almost indecipherable signs he saw every now and again in the forest . . . perhaps it was the rotting carcasses of two wolves had found that morning, ripped apart and stinking, but fresh, and riddled in teeth marks.

   He wasn’t worried about himself, he wasn’t worried at all, but he felt something was wrong with this part of the world, he could feel it deep inside, gnawing at him.

    He knew that something was seriously wrong in the woods; birds had stopped singing and he saw far fewer of them than there should have been; wolves had stopped howling, and everything subdued, the skies where cloudy and a haze seemed to cover the sun during the brief periods of time when it did come out from behind its covers.

    He couldn’t place it.

    He rode in silence for some time, his senses on edge, listening for any sign of movement from the woods, the sun was getting lower and he would have to make camp soon, T’hune needed rest even if he didn’t.

   He continued on, careful, but still enjoying the woods, the silence, and the peace that always seemed to come with them, but it was peace with a sharp edge.

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