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It is dawn in the human's village and Sven, the head of the village, is making his early morning inspection of the outlying parts of his territory. When he gets to the most northerly house in the village he makes a grim discovery. |
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Lying in the dirt outside the house he finds the badly mauled body of "Gee" a close friend and one of the senior males of the village. Looking into Gee's hut Sven discovers that the place is saturated in blood and Gee's family are lying dead in a bloody pile in the middle of the room. Sven knows immediately what has caused this horror; it is the work of a man-eating raptor that has been plaguing surrounding villages for several moons. |
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Sven realises that he must take swift
action. Gee had been the village's foremost raptor hunter, and his
loss will send the people into a complete panic. Sven determines
to take action immediately! He has heard that a formidable raptor
hunter has arrived at the neighbouring village and he sprints off to
that village to get help. Three hours later Sven returns from the neighbouring village accompanied by a young muscular woman dressed only in a loin cloth. Her name is Rhynna and she has just arrived in the area from a land far to the east beyond the mountains. She is said to be the most fearless and skilful raptor hunter in the land, but Sven is doubtful that a female on her own can possibly rid them of this murdering raptor. |
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Seeing Gee's badly mauled body Rhynna drops to knee alongside the bloody corpse. She looks carefully at the slashes in Gee's body and smells the raptor's saliva that has congealed in the sun. "It is a young male raptor!" she declares. "He is strong and vicious, and he has a taste for human blood!" "Can you track him down, so we can kill him?" asks Sven anxiously. |
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| "He'll be easy to track. See where he has dragged a body from the
hut!" she says pointing at a trail of blood stained and disturbed ground
that leads away from the hut and into the bush. "He will carry the body to some sheltered spot where he can eat it in peace. That's where I will find him, and that is where I will kill him!" Rhynna comments coldly. |
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Sven goes into the hut and after a few moments comes out and vomits into the grass. He looks a greenish shade of grey as he reports, "Gee's son Haa's body is missing. The raptor has taken his son! I will go and collect the men of the village and we will go with you to get this raptor!" "NO!" commands Rhynna, "It is not for you to hunt this raptor, he is mine! I will take care of the beast and will bring you his head by nightfall or I will die in the process!" Before Sven can argue Rhynna gets to her feet and moves off into the bush following the all too obvious trail that the raptor has made. |
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Two hours later Rhynna has come to an area
where the ground is firmer and the raptor's tracks less obvious.
She drops to her knees to look at the marks he has made in the ground. She looks up and sees a glade of shadow trees about a mile away. "That's where you'll be my precious; eating your lunch in the shade of those trees!" |
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| In the centre of the glade the raptor is busy eating Haa's body and is
totally unaware of the human female approaching. Being at the top
of the food chain he's not a creature that is used to being "on guard"
while he eats. Rhynna circles round behind the beast and creeps towards it. She knows that the sound of its jaws crunching on the bones of Haa's legs is covering any slight sounds she might make. |
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| Silently, she sneaks up to within inches of the raptor, then she leaps onto its leathery back and wraps her muscular arms around its neck. The raptor reacts instantly, violently bucking, throwing Rhynna off. | |
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