Qeya River Into your lungs

Autumn came with the changing of leaves, the bite of frost, and the thickening of fur. In the woods, moose bellowed, elk screamed, antlers clashed and clanked, bone against bone. The challenges issued in the pink light of morning would be settled by the golden hour.

But not for the pair of bucks whose tines had become locked together in the duel. They thrashed through the woodlands, across grasslands, stumbled together down ditches and splashed through brooks. Sides heaving, the whites of their eyes red from effort, they remained with their foreheads pressed together their breaths mingling.

Until one last stumble caused one to fall into a position where his windpipe was compromised; the other capitalized on the situation without knowing. He remained rooted to the position, exhausted. 

The other slumped, and pulled the victor to the ground where he lay, sides heaving, head propped up by the angle of the other’s head. 

It was too tired to panic when Sheep Killer spotted it, and sent up a howl for his packmates.

the girl had been trailing scents when the sound came, abruptly, from further along.

the sounds of heavy breathing and struggle crescendoed the closer she got, and as sulukinak caught sight of a figure, her attention shifted between that and the locked tines of two beasts that became one eight-legged shadow; the light catching a horrendous outline.

chuffing a note of surprise, she considered leaving the cryptid thing alone until she recognized the one called sheep killer there.