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He placed his forefinger and index finger on his lip and then placed them on Ynang's forehead.
Ynang leaned her back against the tree and closed her eyes. The chirping of birds and nattering of squirrels filled the forest edge.

Ynang woke with a start. Nangow was tapping on her forehead. Ynang blinked several times and looked around blearily. There were insects everywhere. They crawled on her feet, her legs, and on her hands that had been resting on the ground. Some even crawled up her chest, across her shoulders and up the tree. flies, bees, wasps and moths zipped by her head. She looked around wildly: no longer were there birds chirping, no squirrels gathering nuts; there remained only the sounds of the buzzing insects and in the far distance, wolves howling.

Nangow placed a black halberd in front of him. He twisted the pole-arm and the halberd turned left then right; he repeated this three times; the blade caught the moonlight and reflected it. Across the plains in the forest to the west there were three flashes. Nangow tapped his daughter on the forehead and pointed to the plain.

The girl looked across the plain, sitting up straighter and then squinting her eyes. Her eyes caught a mound of dirt as the focus of her father's finger. The mound started to grow and clumps rolled off it as the mound became taller and more angled. The father placed his hand on the girl's head, looked directly into her eyes and shook his head once.

Nangow picked up the halberd and strode from the forest. He moved south along the tree-line. Stopping after several minutes he thrust the tip of the halberd into the grass before him. It stood straight up as it stuck out of the ground. He removed the leather pack from his back. A crossbow was inside and he placed it on his thigh as he loaded it with two arrows. The crossbow rested against a shoulder and Nangow looked down the sight at the mound.

The girl watched her father. She sat up straight and strained her eyes as Nangow disappeared into the shadow of the forest. Ynang turned back to the mound, and sucked in her breath as she saw claws emerge from a hole in the centre of the mound. Moments later, the mound now had a hole and grey arms were dragging their way out. The girl leaned forward, her eyes wide, and watched as the torso followed the arms, and the head. And then she jumped as she saw the black wings, almost falling back. She turned again to where her father had seemed to vanish. A low growl brought her gaze back to the mound that was now a pit. She saw the eyes of the beast as they glowed grey. The girl scrunched her eyebrows together and cocked her head to the side. There was a low whistling sound and the beast turned towards it: two bolts hit it, one in the eye, and a second in the cheek.

The beast roared. It reared back, and shoving its fists to the sky it spread its great black wings. Rain began to fall. The beast lowered its head and began looking in the direction the bolts had come from. At that moment two more bolts sailed toward it.