The call to move pulled Collop out of slumber before first light.
He got up quietly, dressed quickly and grabbed weapons and supplies. On a whim, he grabbed a thick length of rope from Poldi’s supplies and put it in his travel sack.
Collop crept away from the camp and disappeared into the dense foliage.
As a young Kefi growing up in the distant solatails1, he was encouraged to pay attention to this kind of magnetic pull in his gut.
His father told him over and over, “Heed the deeper calls, Col, me boy. Not all can feel them, and many will think ye daft, but pay attention to’em just the same. Dunn’s are a rare lot. We feel the call deep in our bones, and when it pulls, we follow. Do ye understand?”
Young Collop always nodded and said that he did, but he didn’t yet.
When he came of age, that all changed.
The call brought him luck, opportunities, and saved his life or the lives of others on more than one occasion; he learned it should not be ignored.
So he moved deeper and deeper into the thick green canopy, his footsteps muffled by a season’s worth of fallen leaves.
His skeen hung loose in its sheath, and a quiver of arrows bounced against his back as he ventured further.
Birdsong and the muted noises of the waking world filled the air all around him.
The call urged him to go further and further, up low rises and down into shallow gullies and through places where the plants and thorns grew together, so completely he could barely make it through.
Through the leaves and branches high overhead, he could see the light slowly increasing as the sun rose higher into the sky.
The rest of the group must be up and moving by now, and for a moment he questioned the call, wondering if it was somehow mistaken or leading him astray.
He’d just crested a small hill and was on his way down into a small natural ditch when he heard a loud noise over his left shoulder.
The leaves of the trees on his left side rustled, vibrated, and then flew out of the way.
Branches snapped off as something large plowed into them and continued falling.
Collop caught a glimpse of something sizable rolling and tumbling down the side of the ditch and heading straight for him.
He managed to say “What th-” before it slammed into him, sending both Kefi and object to the bottom of the ditch.
Mountainous region north of the Gungur basin.
Oh man!! I can’t wait to read what happens next.