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The shaggy mountain lion lifted its greying muzzle and sniffed the air. It was a mighty beast, the old scars on its flanks and shoulders testament to the many battles it had fought to hold on to its position as the dominant male in the Pride.
However, like all living creatures, it was subject to the whims of time. Its once formidable fighting and hunting skills sullied by the inevitable, its position as leader had been usurped by a younger, stronger male.
He had put up a fearsome struggle, his know-how and experience threatening to overwhelm the younger challenger, but youth and strength had prevailed in the end. Driven out of the Pride, he had been forced to seek other hunting grounds.
His nostrils quivered, he couldn’t scent the feared man-creature, but sensed something amiss.
The air crackled, an unusual smell assailed his nostrils, and a strange light appeared between the two pillars standing on a wide plinth a short distance beyond the jumbled rocks before him.
A strange unease hit him. Climbing to his feet, he leapt off the flat slab on which he was lying, and loped away. Stopping briefly to glance over his shoulder, he growled defiantly and disappeared from view. The game here was pretty sparse anyway. He would seek a better hunting ground.
The light faded and an impossibly tall, thin translucent figure, verging between solidity and transparency appeared between the pillars as if stepping from thin air.
Herald breathed deeply though his semi-corporeal body had no need of air. He hadn’t breathed air for almost a thousand years, but he remembered how sweet it tasted. Other memories – of a red-haired child laughing in a field of yellow blooms, and a tall willowy red-haired woman looking on lovingly, seeped into his mind, but were savagely dismissed.
Soon… he would feed – the thought of the life essence of the frail humans suffusing him made him shiver with anticipated pleasure. He had seen the lion fade into the distance, but had always found the life essence of beasts rather unpalatable. Human essence – now that was sweet.
Once he fed and his body became corporeal, he would be strong enough to summon his brothers and their Bahktak. Then they would range across the land and feed, sharing the precious life essence with the Masters to whom they were symbiotically linked. Strengthened by the sustenance, the Masters would rip down the portal, return to the world of flesh, rebuild their great city of Tor-Arnath and reclaim what was once theirs.