His boots sank into the sod with the steady confidence of a man who had once traversed marble palace floors and raced over battlefields yet chose to leave both sets of chains behind.
He moved with the ease of someone who preferred mud underfoot, wool on his skin, and honest labor over gilded lies and acuminated swords.
Molten glowing eyes surveyed the harsh sprawl, counting his flock, his eyes resting on all the individual creatures scattered across the plains.
They knew his voice, the gravel-deep rasp that called them home, and they answered it with soft, trusting bleats.
For he fed, guarded, and tended them with unceasing devotion.
They grazed along the narrow ridges with instinctive ease, their muted calls rising and falling beneath the constant thunder of the sea.
He caught the sound of a weak wail from a hapless young ‘un that wandered too close to a dense, sprawling scrub of coastal gorse.
Moving towards the bleats, he spotted the tiny creature with horned branches caught tight in its thick, insulating wool coat.
The lamb kicked its hind leg once in a brief, useless protest, then stilled, whimpering for help.
The man pursed his lips and stepped toward the immobilized animal.
He crouched beside it and reached for the tangled burrs.
His sizable, sinewed hand swept aside the needle-like thorns of the bush.
He began working methodically through the knotted fibers, removing each twist of bramble. At the same time, he sent a calming psionic touch over the animal’s flank so it wouldn’t jerk in panic.
Halfway through the intricate task, he froze, his head tilted a fraction.
His eyes narrowed to slits of concentration.
Muscles coiled beneath his skin as a new sound bounced off the cliffs, one so imperceptible the wind’s howls almost swallowed it.
The unnatural, muffled, and strained thrum drew his attention to the roiling firmament. The sight that met him at first glance appeared empty of life.
Only the slate-colored clouds churned in heavy, layered slabs, as lightning threaded through them in radiant arcs.
He ignited hisSsignakhtvision, and his perception slipped beyond the veil of the stormy firmament.
A golden radiance washed into his irises, burning brighter until his pupils glowed in a molten gleam.
The illusion dissolved.
A form emerged against the sky, a metallic silhouette suspended in unnatural stillness, cloaked in a distortion field.
A soft grunt escaped him as he eased loose the final tangle and kept the small creature beneath his palm, lending it heat and comfort.
His senses expanded, flooding outward across grass, stone, wind, and the heavens, as a score of figures masked in optical stealth dropped from the hidden ship in precise synchrony.
They descended through the churn of the towering, dense cumulonimbus surging with hail and wind.
Moments later, their boots touched down.
They formed into a perfect, lethal ring, encircling him in a radius of fifty feet.
He parsed their murderous intent with an arched brow.
A kill team, ay?
He turned back to the stricken animal with a huff and checked it over one last time.
