Days later, an old man on the outskirts of Old Flood pushed his rickety wheelbarrow across the uneven pasture behind the one reserved for his cows. The ground sloped until it met the forest a good three hundred paces away, and in the distance, the setting moon shone like a curved blade in the early morning sky. Times were going to be hard this fall. Three cows had given up their calves stillborn, and just this morning he had found four pigs slaughtered.
By wolves.
The old man managed to heft the remains of one carcass into the barrow, but the next three were going to be too heavy.
Something nagged him, though.
The pigs looked as if they had been torn apart for sport. Legs and even two heads had been pulled from bodies and left dozens of paces away. What was more, parts of the pigs had been torn and spread all across the ground. Entrails and organs left the frosty grass saturated. The old man had seen plenty of wolf kills in his time. But what kind of wolf left ribbons of intestines hanging from the branches of several old apples? Not even dire wolves did that. Perhaps they had chased the swine up into the tree’s branches. This thought made the old man laugh.
Pigs climbing a trees!
The man’s laughter stopped abruptly when he heard a low and feral growl somewhere behind him. “Get out of here!” the man shouted. “Go on you devil!”
The animal got quiet and the man stood there for several moments surveying the tree line to see if there were any other wolves skulking about. Wolves rarely attacked humans unless hungry or backed into a corner, and by the sound of it, there only seemed to be one. The man stomped his foot as he shouted in the angriest voice he could manage, “Heeya you rabid sack of fur and guts, get on!”
Silence was his only answer. The wolf had probably been just a straggler eating what the rest of its pack left behind. Wolves were cruel to the weaker and smaller of their kind. The old man shrugged his shoulders and turned to go.
Nothing more than an opportunist, he told himself.
But a soft, frigid morning breeze easing down from the Korse highlands brushed through the trees, and above the wispy crackle of dry autumn leaves, he heard more growling. He nearly turned to yell at the animal again, but stopped.
The morning wind picked up something more than growling. The air brought with it a smell that made the old man’s hair stand up on the back of his neck. No wolf smelled like that.
A bear?
The old man suddenly grew frightened. Some real monsters grew in the highlands. Especially cave bears. The old man let go of his barrow and decided to come back with his sons later.
The breeze grew stronger, making the dry limbs clack together. He no longer heard growling, but the smell intensified. As the old man picked up his pace, he winced and cursed his arthritis. Behind him, he heard something moving.
Something big.
The old man kept his pace, not daring to look back or trying to run. Predators had an instinct to chase whatever ran from them. He did not want to see it, at least not until he was safely far enough away to slip behind the barn door. As he swiftly limped over the pasture’s uneven and rocky ground, the sound of heavy footfall made the old man swallow hard when he realized whatever it was had jumped the fence. Now his heart began to hammer. This was no bear.
The old man made it to the cow pasture. Maybe the cattle would distract the thing. As he bent to slip between two fence rails, he caught a glimpse of the thing following him and screamed. The beast staring at him through hungry and savage eyes let out a howl of rage. The old man managed to get one leg successfully through the fence, but jerked his other one in a spasm of fear, catching his foot on the top rail. He went sprawling onto his stomach. The thing behind him began moving swiftly toward him in a hopping gait. Its mouth was pulled back, revealing rows of crooked and needle sharp fangs.
“No, no no!” the man cried out in terror.
With a frantic burst of power, he scrambled to get his stiff legs beneath him. All he had to do was make it to the barn, but before he had a chance to stand, the beast was upon him.
Before the day was out, terrified farmers from all around Old Flood descended on the mayor. He and the small unit of troops passing through the town promised the frightened men and women that they would look into the problem and take care of it.
*
By noon of the second day, five troops, two farmers, a child, and half a heard of cattle were dead. Word spread, and panic was alive and well in the lake valleys.