When Ravens Call: The Fourth Book in the Small Gods Epic Fantasy Series (The Books of the Small Gods by Bruce Blake (books under 200 pages txt) 📗

juice and meat and saliva, past the fetor of wood and needles and moss. Unusual, but familiar. A scent recently detected but which also lingered from sometime long, long ago.

It stopped, surveying its surroundings with one carrion-filled hand raised halfway to its face, blood running along its stick-like fingers, pooling in its palm, dripping from its wrist. It observed the world through the usual gauze.

The hairy beast lay splayed at its feet, chunks torn away from its body, used, and cast aside in the brush. It no longer breathed, the lump of muscle in its chest ceased beating; it made sure of it by tearing it out and devouring it. One other crouched to the side, preoccupied with ripping flesh from their fallen prey, opening its abdomen and pulling out loops of entrails. The second other had strayed from the kill.

It straightened, turned its head first one way then the other until it detected a flicker. The other stood several paces from their feast, facing away. It wondered what made it leave behind such delicious fare. More movement—two figures beyond the other. One of them had been with the beast. Even with the overpowering stink of the animal's matted fur, the odor of her womanness had been clear. But why forgo tasty meat for a skinny woman?

But the second figure caught his attention. It bore the same scent he'd detected recently with a little one and was why the other had deserted their feast.

Once-was-Rilum took a step away from the fallen beast himself, wanting to get a clearer scent of the air. Two steps from the kill and the odors became more recognizable. He smelled the woman, the man, the forest more plainly. His brow wrinkled and all but what he searched for filtered through the flaps of skin long ago grown over his nostrils.

As with every part of their home, a faint whiff of a small one remained here, but its faintness suggested some time since the little creature passed. The fellow previously accompanied by a gray one wasn't so protected now.

Once-was-Rilum understood why his companion had wandered from their meal. A different quality in the flesh of a man attracted him, an enlivening it brought not found elsewhere. An energy, a flavor, a fervor. Rarity. He took two steps away from the dead beast, following along behind the other. With his brethren so fixated on its prey, it wouldn't notice him coming to partake alongside.

His feet whispered in the creepers and leaves lining the forest floor, the sound of his passing so quiet, he couldn't hear it himself. Thick, gummy saliva oozed into his mouth, held fast by sealed lips. Silent and quick, he moved closer to his companion. The odors of the man and woman grew with each step. Instead of enticing him, the man's pungent scent made him wary. During his unknown time in this place he'd found few men, either on his own or after he allowed the others to join him. But he remembered each one—their aroma, their flavor, how consuming them gave him energy. Enough for him to wonder if his companions might have the same effect, a question answered when the third other met its end.

It should fill him with expectation and excitement at what lay in his immediate future, but a quality about the odor quelled it. Instead of anticipation buoying him, anger made his bones leaden. The desire to strike out in punishment filled him, threatened to spill out.

Two more steps and not only did the man's stink fill his head, his face assumed a shape and features. Older and more wrinkled than he remembered, the cheeks weathered, the eyes sadder. He recognized the man without knowing him until one word swam out of the miasma of his mind and made itself clear.

Father.

Had once-was-Rilum heard it spoken, he wouldn't have understood its meaning. But it clarified in his head not as a sound uttered, but as a package of images, memories, feelings; things near unrecognizable to him as he'd experienced none of them in so long. The combination conjured a variety of responses within him, each of them tingling along his flesh. He knew the tightness in his chest and tension in his muscles, though he didn't know to call them anger, but the speed of his heartbeat, the rapid pulse in his ears, were foreign.

Ahead of him, the other stopped, coiled. Once-was-Rilum recognized the action; many times he'd done the same, readying himself to pounce on his prey. The way of the world. They needed nourishment, had found it together for a long time. Not now. He wanted the other to stop, for him to leave the man alone, but not to have the flavorful morsels of his flesh to himself.

Inexplicably, he wished the fellow to live.

The other leaned back, collecting energy for the leap as once-was-Rilum had taught him long ago. After the change, this one had been like a newborn, unable to hunt for himself for ages, needing constant attention and instruction, but he'd learned, and learned well. Now, as instinct and nature required, he readied for another kill in a long history of kills. The first once-was-Rilum didn't want him to make.

The last he'd ever attempt.

An instant before the other left his feet to pounce, once-was-Rilum tensed, coiled, and leapt in one smooth movement. He hit his companion in midair, catching him by surprise and throwing him off course. They flew past the man and woman, and once-was-Rilum saw the expressions on their faces through the gauze covering his vision: fear and shock. He wished to see thankfulness, appreciation, recognition, but found them absent. He suspected they'd been so before the change, but he still couldn't allow the other to end the man's life.

They crashed to the ground, and something popped—a bone, a joint. Momentum sent them rolling, and the son saving the man took advantage of catching