He found himself walking along quite a distinctive trail.

It was a lot of blood for a rabbit.

He bent down and pulled something that had snagged on a gorse bush.

And that wasn’t rabbit’s fur…

His face wrinkled in distress. He was going to find a sheep. One that might perhaps have injured itself. But that was his head talking; his stomach was beginning to tell him something else.

And it was correct. He was at the end of his search: the remains of a sheep, its body rent open and its exposed entrails scattered recklessly about. In obscene contrast to the stark stillness of the animal, the gaping wound was crawlingly alive with flies, a shifting shroud glittering iridescent blue-black in the bright sunlight.

As Farnor approached, the writhing mass disinte-grated and rose up in front of him in a noisy black cloud. He flailed his arms angrily and pointlessly.

Then, as if released by the departure of the flies, the smell struck him and he took an involuntary step backwards. He swore at his reaction. He’d seen enough dead animals and encountered enough smells in his days.

Except this was peculiarly awful.

And the damage to the sheep…

It was – had been – a good-sized animal, certainly no weak and ailing stray. And there was a lot of it missing. He had seen worried sheep before, although he had been much younger, but this seemed to be different. Whatever had killed it must indeed have been large and powerful.

Farnor looked around to see if there was any other sign the creature had left that would help his father and the villagers in the hunt they must surely now mount.

But there was nothing. Not even an indication as to which way the creature had gone, no footprints on the short grass, no damage to the nearby shrubbery, nothing.