The Guardian's of Nature Trilogy
Book one
The Chosen
Prologue
"Hello?" He called into the dark forest. "Hello?" he called again, taking a few steps deeper into the somber woods, cautiously and nervously looking for the wailing sound he heard earlier. He walked a little farther, looking everywhere, listening for anything, twigs snapping, the rustling of leaves, animal calls, anything. It was a bright day, there were barely any clouds in the sky, the first sun was almost at its highest peak, and the second sun was a little above the horizon to the north. Outside the forest. Inside, it seemed to be almost night, the heavy foliage, almost completely blotting out both suns, darkness everywhere, it seemed like the trees were pressing in, closing off everything around him, trapping him in the darkness.
Sweat was beading down his face, despite the cool autumn breeze.Terror seized him in its cold embrace, his mind and heart racing, he stopped, closed his eyes and breathed slow and deep, calming his nerves. He held his breath, keeping his eyes closed, and focused on all the noises around him, blocking out everything else, he listened. He heard something in the underbrush ahead, he opened his eyes and slowly started walking towards the noise. As he approached, he noticed something in the low-lying foliage, he moved aside the underbrush and brambles and found an injured falcon-wolf pup, struggling to breathe, with a gash in its stomach.
Quickly, he found a spider's web and used the webbing to soak up the blood and hold the wound together, then he found a small bush with green berries, Kly berries, growing on it, he picked a few of them, then found a S'rill plant, that grew leaves starting out yellow, then fading to red and plucked a few of them off the stems and went back to the pup. He forced the unconscious animal to chew and swallow two of the berries to ease the pain, then he crushed the rest in his hands with the leaves mixing them together making a paste out of them, he then applied the paste to the wound to draw out any bacteria and infection and to aid in the healing process. Then he took off his tunic cut a strip off with his belt knife, and wrapped it around the falcon-wolf, tying it off, he took the rest of his tunic and fashioned it into a crude sling. Gingerly he picked up the pup and placed it in the sling, and carefully picked up the sling and placed it around his neck and started back towards the village, walking slowly being careful not to disturb the sleeping form that he cradled.
Close to the end of the trees, he stopped at a small stream and set the bundle on the ground. He scooped some water in his hand, and tilting up the pup's head, poured the water down its throat a few times, then he bent low and drank from the stream as well. Suddenly he heard a noise in the woods behind him, he turned around, although he didn't see anything, he felt the apprehensive feeling of being watched. He turned back to the falcon-wolf and put the sling back around his neck, and set back off to the village. he only went a few feet before he heard something behind him, he turned and studied the landscape of the forest, but couldn't find anything, he turned back around and started walking, then he heard the noise again. He stopped and turned around, looking again for what made the noise, he suddenly heard something growling ahead of him, further down the path. He turned back abruptly and saw it.
It stood about five-and-a-half feet at the shoulder, its huge wings slightly unfurled, repilian-like tail, lashing back and forth. Spikes running from its head to the end of its tail, it was the shape of a tiger, orange with a white under-belly and around its muzzle, black stripes all along its body. Its head was lowered and it snareld at Hawke, taking a small step towards him
