The glacier stretched in all directions as far as the eye could see, the surface reflecting the patchy clouds like a mirror. Rrawenna strained her eyes for any shelter below. It was almost certainly colder at higher elevations but the wind on the icy surface caused small ice crystals to whip, stinging the eyes and ears. She began to gradually descend and noticed a dark line on the otherwise flawless surface. As Rrawenna approached the line began to take a more discernable form. It varied in width from a few meters to nearly a hundred along its length. Her best guess was it ran over half a kilometer but the erratic path it traced made the overall length difficult to judge.

Rrawenna carefully alighted nearby and carefully crept to the edge. The darkness was a thin sheet of ice that reveled the rock below. Gradually she was able to made out variations in the colors underneath the ice. Duns, greens and grays became apparent as differences in rocks and possibly even vegetation. Without warning the ground gave way beneath her claws with a crack and she fell through. Instinctively she clutched her baby close and twisted in midair to make use of her wings. The sides of the crevice pressed too close for unrestricted flight so she opted to slow her decent instead. Moments later Rrawenna landed on the floor of the valley. She looked around her, absorbing the vastness of it all. The air was noticeably warmer here and lush vegetation surrounded her. She paused and listened. In the distance she heard the sound of running water and traveled toward it. On the way she passed a grove of trees with large orange-colored orbs hanging from them. She picked one and sniffed at it. The aroma of the fruit was wonderful and she bit into it. Juice sprayed from the fruit and soaked her fur. The flavor was unlike anything she had ever tasted. She chewed it slowly and savored every bite. She quickly finished the first one and picked several more, piling them in around her baby. He purred and snuggled closer to his mother. She passed down small hill and stopped to smell small flowers that poked out of the ground. Then she picked up the scent of an animal. Immediately instinct took over. Rrawenna dropped to all fours and crept along carefully. There was little breeze her to carry her scent to her quarry, but one careless movement could make enough noise to scare the prey away. She was too hungry to allow that to happen.

Creeping through the underbrush after another animal was always exciting to Rrawenna and she had often longed to be male so she could hunt regularly. She took extra care in the grass and leaves. She quickly found that leaves rustled more loudly than the crackling ice that coated the glacier. The scent of prey grew thick in her nostrils and her heart rate grew steadily faster as she proceeded. Rounding a bush Rrawenna was surprised to find a low fence. The round enclosure was almost 3 meters across and 1 meter high. Inside its confines were dozens of small animals. Rrawenna edged closer to the pen but the creatures paid her no heed. She reached it and grasped one of them by the scruff of the neck. Lifting it out of the enclosure she took a moment to study it. It was small, no more than 5 kilograms, had a soft fur covering its body. Its long ears were highlighted by the bony ridge protruding from its forehead and the 20 centimeter long spiral horn at the peak of the ridge. The thing calmly dangled there twitching its nose and blinking its huge brown doe eyes. Rrawenna was struck by the peculiar beauty of the beast. With a gentle squeeze she snapped its neck.

She had killed a half a dozen of the little creatures before both she and her baby were filled with their meat. Rrawenna made her way to the creek to wash the blood and fur from her claws and face. Satisfied with her meal for the first time in days and weary from the long journey she lay down near the brook and fell asleep.

Jorrek sighed. If there was a worse job in the world than koratherding, he'd be surprised to learn about it but a 12 year old Selumari could not be too fussy about the work he could find. He cheered up at the thought of the coins he'd get for this week's work. He might finally have enough saved to buy a bow and practice arrows. He came back from his daydream of joining the army and decided to finish his task. Today a number of the little beasts had strayed away during grazing time. He'd gotten most back into the pen and set off in search of the rest. They had scattered far and wide but he had managed to find all but two stragglers. As the five korat he'd already caught decided to wiggle in his arms he thought it prudent to return his catch to the pen before looking for the rest.

The little coral elf headed back to the small enclosure, his green hair swinging to-and-fro in its ponytail. He dropped them all neatly over the fence. They quickly slumped on the ground and began to slip into slumber. "Of course," Jorrek mumbled, "you couldn't go to sleep in my arms. Had to move the whole time and nearly gouge out my eyes with those cursed horns of yours."

Jorrek counted the animals in the pen again to reassure himself that only two were missing. He was surprised to find that eight were gone! "Now, now." he told himself. "Korat cannot climb and they can jump more than 15 centimeters with that heavy horn on their head. How did they get out?" Being a reasonable young elf he decided to start at the pen and walk in a widening spiral to cover all the ground as quickly as possible. About 20 meters out he found the first corpse.

The korat had died from a broken neck. That was obvious from the spine. The meat and organs were gone, except for the brain, still nestled in the skull. The skin had been removed with almost surgical precision. One long slice along the belly and then peeled back in a single piece to lay like a strangely flattened version of the little beast. The horn was still attached to the skull and it looked menacing with no fur around it. Jorrek started to think through the situation.

"This is probably a poacher. If it was a though, why would the pelt and horn have been left? It could have been a predator, but no big animals live in this valley and they couldn't skin a korat like that anyway?" He decided to look around further and found 5 more corpses scattered nearby all skinned with the same precision as the first. He began to move more carefully, his head darting from side to side watching for any sign of danger. The elf had started learning the art of tracking, the first stage of training as an army scout, and he scanned the ground as well as the trees and bushes. A track was visible in the soft ground ahead. Jorrek paused and knelt next to the track. It was a large paw print and fairly deep for the soil here. He judged that it had been made by a large cat, probably one about 150 kilograms. The placement of the next track indicated that the cat was walking on its hind legs but he didn't believe it was possible. What kind of cat walked like that?

He continued to follow the tracks as far as they led, until a little way ahead he heard the brook. The underbrush began to thin as he approached the waterway and he spied a form in the clearing. Jorrek froze instantly. From this point he could not get a good look and the creature so he crept forward as painfully slowly as possible until the beast came into full view. It was lying on the grass near the water, its black fur like an unholy stain on the ground. It was curled around something making its actual length hard to judge but he place it close to 1.7 meters, not counting the tail. He watched its back expand and contract rhythmically. The thing was asleep.

Jorrek stole away silently to warn the village.