As I walked, I kept an ear out for the massive monster that had left the tracks. The fortunate thing about large beasts is that they were usually not terribly stealthy. Unfortunately, such rules tended to fall to the wayside when magic got involved.
I doubted that the creature would be able to move silently through the jungle or turn itself invisible, but magic could do some strange things. I needed to be ready for such an unlikely scenario.
Every so often, I would spot another footprint. While I appreciated having clues to which direction the creature went, I wished that they didn’t all point in the direction I was headed.
Continuing along, I spotted a pair of tracks that nearly made my heart stop. Two footprints were placed so close together that one partially overlapped the other. Unless the creature had doubled back at some point, the second footprint was very bad news. This thing probably wasn’t alone.
I really, really hoped that the thing had simply looped around, but it didn’t appear to be the case. A closer examination of the prints showed that one of the clawed feet that had tread this path was very slightly larger than the other.
At least a pair then. I doubted there would be more than two, but even one was already problematic. I didn’t want to imagine the unlikely scenario that there was somehow a full pack of these monsters.
It was a few marks before sunset when I found signs of the creatures beyond just tracks. Smashed trees, trampled bushes, and spilled blood spoke to a terrible battle.
It didn’t take me long to find the results of the massive conflict. Two massive corpses were surrounded by a dozen drake sized bodies in a large clearing.
It was hard to discern what sort of creatures the larger beasts had been. The bodies were torn apart and much of the meat had clearly been devoured. There were bloody feathers all over the place, but the beasts clearly hadn’t been birds. Rather than beaks, the two monsters had massive jaws full of teeth longer than my knife.
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The surrounding bodies were in much better shape. Some had massive chunks bitten out of them, but others were mostly just deformed by crushing impacts. Though much smaller than the two bodies, I still wouldn’t have wanted to run into one of these.
The pack hunters were large, stocky beasts covered in dark gray fur. The things had broad shoulders and thick limbs, implying that they would have been able to swing their long claws with a great deal of force. The long snouts also looked like they could easily tear a limb off.
After taking a cautious look around, I noticed something odd about the bodies. There was hardly any lingering mana in most of the corpses. The large corpses in particular felt like they had been completely drained.
The bodies were still warm enough that the battle couldn’t have been more than a few marks before, so the lack of mana was quite strange. Massive creatures like these almost always had large amounts of mana. Where did all of it go?
A little confused, I took a closer look at one of the bodies that still had some mana left in it. Even as I watched, the mana gathered into a small area on the other side of the corpse. Cautiously stepping around to get a better look, I found a large, jet black condor with its beak buried in the dead monster.
I could feel a surprisingly large amount of mana in the scavenging bird. Looking around, I spotted other scavengers of various descriptions feasting on the fallen monsters.
Watching the scavengers, I saw that many of them were siphoning away mana along with the meat they were consuming. In the case of some creatures, such as a large greenish moth, they didn’t even bother with the flesh while taking their magical sustenance.
Interesting though it was to see this aspect of nature at work, I didn’t linger. It was entirely possible that there would be worse scavengers on the way. There was also the threat presented by any surviving members of this pack of monsters.
Continuing along, I occasionally spotted older signs of the pack's passage. Occasionally gouges in the trees and other signs told me that these things had probably held this area as their territory for quite some time.
I couldn’t be sure how large the remaining pack was. There had been quite a few bodies, but the larger monsters had clearly been ripped apart by many hungry maws. I suspected that at least half the pack probably remained.
It was unfortunate that their territory lay between me and my destination. At least they probably wouldn’t be hungry anymore.