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monsters walked. In three thousand years, the Parian had spread well beyond Tirah’s streets and into the dense expanse of the Great Forest, but it was far from tame.
    This night, a creature far from home had ventured on to those streets, driven there by desperation and hunger. As a hero of the Western Tunnels, the most vicious battleground of a long-standing war, he’d been chosen as a seeker, for only the strongest could survive the rituals that entailed. Despite the risk posed by humans, the seekers were sent out in small bands to all corners of the Land, following the trail of magical artefacts their people needed so badly. Whatever spells the priests of home had burned into his flesh, they had made him aware of magic, leaving him as tormented as an addict by its bitter Perfume drifting on the wind. Barely thinking, he’d trudged on, intent on his search, even as his comrades fell to the creatures of the forest, it was loyalty that had taken them north in the first place, and it was loyalty that brought them, enfeebled and afraid, to their deaths in a land of cloying scent, numbing cold and constant rain. No God would claim their souls and he feared that this place was so distant it would be impossible for any of them to join their forebears in the Temple of Ancestors, to guard over the next generation.
    The daemons stalking him had caught the scent once more. Their chilling calls went up even as he found cobbles underfoot. The child in him wanted to turn and shout, beg for some respite, even as his aching heart strained to keep tired limbs moving. The warrior in him said run or die. The blanket of fog brought their wail from every direction, and from an indeterminate distance. But they were close. He could feel them.
    He ran, blindly - but it was a dead end, and at last there was nowhere else to go. Blank stone walls rose up on either side; the only window he could see was too high to reach. A low wooden storehouse hugged the left-hand wall, but he was too exhausted to climb. The time had come. Panting, trying to fill his tortured lungs in the choking, sodden air they had here, he allowed himself one moment to remember the warm taste of home, then readied his claws for battle. Drawing himself up to his full height, he called out his battle-honours with what strength he could muster. The long list declared his prowess even as it summoned the beasts to him.
    Then he crouched, his withered limbs tense and ready, and a sibilant snarl cut the night’s mist. It scarcely had time to die as three leapt on him as one and bore him down. So much for his pride. Now empty eyes ignored his limp body being torn apart; unhearing ears were deaf to the guttural snorts as his flesh was devoured, his blood licked up.
    A figure watched the dying, but he felt nothing for the outmatched and pitiful creature. He knew nothing of the Siblis race except that that they were unsuited to these parts. A long cloak billowed out behind him as he ghosted over the cobbled ground. But something had compelled the Siblis to come so far, into so inhospitable a place. Curiosity stirred. Gliding over to the jerking body he threw back the huge wolves with ease and bent down to inspect what remained.
    The beasts, baulked of their prey, snarled as they retreated a step. hackles raised and ready to attack. Then they realised what he was, and that recognition elicited a whimper of fear, but the man ignored them. With heads down, and bellies brushing the ground, the wolves backed away until, at a safe distance, they turned and fled back to the forest. They had melted into the mist before they even made the tree-line.
    The man knelt down and placed the bow he was carrying to one side. It was a beautiful weapon, fully six feet in length - the man was extraordinarily big and could draw it with ease - and slightly recurved, with an intricately painted design down its entire length. The grip and tips were finished in silver but it was the hunting scene tracedwith