Dawn Watch: Prologue
Added 2021-03-28 09:03:31 +0000 UTCA hush fell over the rolling foothills and plains that led to the sea. The sky was dark. High clouds covered the stars but the air was still. Heavy. If anyone had been present to taste that air, they might have noted that it tasted like iron. Expectant. Electric. As if a storm was on its way. But there was no storm. There was no one to notice the strangeness.
The battle-scarred mountain slopes of Havi were beginning to heal. Green shoots had burst through the scorched and blackened earth with the last rains. The tumbles of stone and rock had settled. Birds had returned to the crags. The bloodstains had long since soaked into the earth, nourishing new life. The scars on the rock face would remain in mute testimony to the violence of the last battle.
For a brief moment the sky was illuminated by brilliant gas clouds in hues of pink, and green and turquoise. The clouds melted away to be replaced by the dazzling whirl of stars that usually illuminated the skies of the Night Nation. But there was no one to see it. Just as there was no one to see the shadow crawling out of the rock pile. The shade wavered in the darkness as if it was weak. Then, the shadows pooled, stretching and growing. They solidified into the shape of a pale, antlered woman, who looked over the deserted valley.
She smiled and walked into the night.
