Tormented Tarns cool enough

She did not press the issue of his dispersal any further, though now she wanted to run a field test. He hadn't expected it necessarily, yet he smiled slowly (and a bit sardonically) at this opportunity to demonstrate his skills. He wondered if she would decline him entry if he didn't make a successful kill or if she merely wanted to assess his skills and make sure they were up to snuff. Either way, he would do his best. He was an experienced killer, after all.

The yearling stood, his dark eyes roving over their even darker surroundings. Night had fallen, though this would not impede his ability to hunt. Many types of prey came awake at night and the rest could be rousted rudely from their beds. He began to stalk to his left, skirting along the pack's boundary line. He led the white she-wolf to a meadow just southwest, where he imagined deer, rabbits and all manner of herbivores came to feed on the grasses.

He stalked forward, moving furtively through the small prairie, and stopped in surprise when he came to a swath of flattened grass. He shot his chaperon a quizzical glance. He knew nothing of the tornado that had ripped through the wilderness nearly a month ago. His eyes roved the uprooted grasses and churned earth a moment, then flicked to several dark shapes moving along the edge of the small clearing.

Gobble, gobble, the hunter thought darkly even as he suddenly dropped to his belly, creeping forward like a cat before jumping back to his feet again and launching himself at the shadows.