Alright, here is the new novel. I haven't decided on a name just yet, so I'll figure that out later. As previously stated, if you want access to the last one, just let me know.
You were already given a bit of an intro into the world in a previous post, so I'll assume you at least looked over it. It may make things clearer for you I hope.
Questions to be answered
1. Can you tell this section is done from the PoV from a predator? What are you feelings on that, as far as a non-"sophant" perspective?
2. How about the way it goes along? Does it seem to sound like coming from the PoV of a predatory animal? If not, what can be improved or changed?
3. How about the animal itself? Can you gather a decent picture in your mind of what it is or what it looks like? What can't you picture about it?
4. Any other observations? This is relatively short for a normal piece (around 1600 words).
Chapter 1
At that time, I wasn’t aware that the creature that had been dubbed the Byzarch Man-eater was anywhere in the proximity of my home. We were living in a very remote cabin at the time, easily ten or so miles away from the nearest large village, a small place called Kyl’s Wells. Pa rarely headed into town, and any news he picked up, he kept to himself. I sometimes wonder if he had known about the presence of the beast at all beforehand.
The animal crept through the dense undergrowth that covered all of this section of the mountainside. Each step that the animal took sent a lance of pain through its body but was strongest in its rear left leg. The animal knew something was wrong with that limb, as if a foreign presence had been introduced to the leg that even now bit and slashed at his limb with determined ferocity. But many inspections on previous occasions had turned up nothing there. The beast recalled a time previous when the pain had first appeared many darknesses ago.
Lying after taking a kill down, the beast had been resting in the shade that provided such a pleasant distraction from the otherwise intense heat of the day. There had been a loud crack off in the distance, like that of when one of the great trees fell to the ground. A lancing pain had shot through that same limb, and he had bolted away from the area in fright.
Now, the pain still lingered, and had become such a problem that the old male could no longer hunt the prey that he once had feasted on. To take down one of the larger beasts, the ones with the great shields on their heads and backs required speed, agility, and strength. He had all but the first, and that was enough to have spelt his doom.
The old male had been around for a long time, and many passages of the great freezes stuck in his mind of the ages that he had wandered this land. He had ran with the packs, and mated and produced many offspring. Now he was well past the prime of his life but for all his many weathered years, he still considered himself top dog and any of his brothers or sisters that encountered him knew that. He was far larger than the others of his kind and age had only given him a grizzled determination. He knew were it not for that pain in his rear left leg, he could still easily take down any beast of the forests that he came across.
He crept forward again through the dense brush of the forest. Each step was cautiously measured so as to not startle his prey, nor give them any warning that he was even in the area. Hundreds of kills over the many long seasons had imbued him with a perfect sense of how to stalk prey, and he rarely if ever missed a kill.
His limbs were lithe and muscular, and each of his legs branched off into a two pronged foot and each foot ended in a softly padded “hoof”. The digits gave him unparreled balance, especially when he was forced into the mountains, or the great sharp bush forests that lay farther up the mountain sides. He levered his long flat tail to the ground, keeping it low to the ground. The tail allowed him incredibly power when he came to the great waters, and it allowed him great balance as well when he moved through the mountains. The females of his kind likewise were attracted to those who had such great plumed tails and he was well aware of the magnificence of his.
His large crescent shaped head kept low to the ground, and he listened for the motions of his prey. Each sonar ping bounced back to the affirmation that his prey had not moved. Their obliviousness was the strange thing about these targets, but was one that he had quickly taken advantage of.
The great hard-shell herds, and their smaller cousins would have noticed the pings that he now boomed out to gain a clearer view of his prey and would have either scattered or formed their great circles around their young, and prevented him from acquiring a kill. But these ones seemed to be completely oblivious to his presence and his calls. Still he watched. Simply because the last few hadn’t noticed him was still not merit to remain unwary.
His prey was dangerous. Far more dangerous than the hard shells were even though the hard shells were much more massive. These two-legs were smaller than him, easily half his size, but they carried sticks around that made loud noises. But if they weren’t aware of his presence then they became the easiest prey he had ever stalked and feasted on. Even given his injured state, he could run them down without difficulty, and once he was close enough, a quick flick of his head would impale them squarely on the great spikes that marked the edges of his crescent shaped head. One sweep and they were down, never to give him trouble again.
But their small size meant they didn’t offer as much nutrition as he preferred in his prey. A single hard-shell would feed him for several darknesses, but each of these lasted maybe a single darkness at most before he needed to hunt again.
His prey still remained motionless out of its large shelter down below him. The shelter was of odd construction, like the trees around the male, but it wasn’t. He had tried his hardest to break into many in darknesses past, but found them semi-impossible to get inside. No, he would have to wait until they were outside like this one and their guard was down.
He had just moved across country during the early morning light, passing through the field that others of his species made their homes. Each kill would sometimes require the long movements across the land, because the others of his prey would inevitably leave their surroundings and flee for safety with others. He may have been strong, but he knew enough not to risk attacking many of them at once. There was too much of a chance of getting injured there. A break in one of the impaling horns on the side of his head would mean his death.
He stalked forward another pace, keeping low to the ground again. The prey looked up, and for a moment, the beast tensed where he lay, thinking his prey had spotted him and his cover was blown. If that was the case, he would have to just bet his luck and charge in after them, hoping to still be able to overbear the prey before they managed to get inside their shelter.
He relaxed his muscles, when the prey looked away, knowing that the prey may have heard something, but had just passed it off as one of the annoying little fliers that flew around the jungle. Many of them lay perched in the trees, crying out their own little pings of sound at his presence which was obvious to them. However his prey must not have heard their calls at all, or if it did hear them, had disregarded them.
He was lucky these beings existed in such amble supply. He had nearly starved to death those freezes previously, when he was unable to kill any of the hard shells and had been forced into scavenging the unliquefied remains of those kills left behind by his uninjured brothers and sisters. It had been quite by accident that one of the smaller beings he now preyed on had come up on him and startled him while he slept.
He rarely had approached them previous to that and this encounter certainly hadn’t happened as a result of his own choosing. Ever since he had come out of the hard shell, his mother had taught him to avoid them. They did not have much food on them, and they were just as liable to attack you as you were them. But when the one in the false skin that these creatures wore stumbled over him, he had leapt to defend himself and impaled it right through the chest. The being had given a loud scream that he felt more than heard, and in a panic he had ran away, leaving the corpse still impaled on the horn.
After he had calmed, he became aware of the limp corpse hanging off the horn, and let it slide off. He had almost left it there, for where there was one, there could be others, but the rumble in his stomach and the smell of the corpse enticed him further. After liquefying part of the corpse he had eaten. It had a bizarre taste, stranger than anything else he had preyed on, but he had at least found nourishment off this being.
That had been the first, and he had since started hunting them exclusively, except where he was able to bully kills off the much more nourishing hard shells that his brothers and sisters brought down. Against the odds, he had managed to survive, and now he was still able to hunt.
He crept forward on his haunches right to the edge of the forest where the tall plants still covered his body adequately enough. His muscles tensed and adrenaline flooded his bloodstream and he pounced forward at the prey, bursting out of the vegetation like a boulder rolling down a hillside. A moment later it was over. Another kill down, and food guaranteed for the rest of the day.
