Read The Dawn of the Raven Omnibus 1: Episodes 1-5 for Free Online Page A

this one piece of evidence remained.  He turned to report this information
at once.
    “Sir!” 
Garen shouted across the clearing.  Captain Vol motioned for all of his other
men to be silent.  “Sir, there is a track!  Great care was taken to disguise
it, but they missed one edge!  Someone was here.”
    “How many? 
When?  Which way did they go” the captain shouted back.
    “I can’t
say.  There is only this one mark, and it is just the edge.  But I think it was
recent.  And, I believe, they must have exited the clearing . . . here . . .”
    As he said this, Garen paced out towards the edge.  He pointed
down towards the forest floor. 
    It happened so fast, it didn’t seem real.  It felt like a
dream.  Like a hallucination.  The captain watched his man motion below a tree,
and then the tree began to shake.  The leaves, just above Garen, began to shake
as if a giant animal were perched in it.  Then, something jumped down, and it
grabbed Garen up, and with only a quick, short scream, which died as soon as he
was ripped back out of view into the forest, Garen was gone.  The thing . . . 
the thing that had grabbed him . . . it had been large.  And disgusting.  It
looked dead.  Its arms, and legs, so long.  Its flesh looked rotten.  Its skin
taught, barely covering the sinews and muscles, like it had been starving.  And
it’s eyes, dark and soulless.  Yet, it was powerful, and strong, and so fast. 
It had grabbed up Garen like he was a pup . . .  
    The captain quickly got himself together, forced his mind to
focus.  He called out to his men, bellowing orders for them to get in
formation, to draw their swords and spears, to raise their shields and prepare
for an ambush from the side where Garen had disappeared.  He ordered his
archers to raise their bows and target those trees, and to await his order to
fire. 
    They all peered into the dark trees.  There was no more
movement.  No sign that anything was there.  No sign that anything had ever
been there.  It was still as if it had never happened.  Captain Vol, tired of
waiting, ordered his men to fire their arrows into the trees where Garen had
disappeared. 
    “Sir!” shouted
Feur, the captain’s top lieutenant.  “Garen is in there!  We cannot fire, we
will kill him!”
    The captain ignored his man’s advice.  He knew that Garen
could not be saved.  That thing that had grabbed him . . .  the way Garen had
screamed.  It was too late.  He reiterated his order, and the arrows flew. 
They stood and waited for a sign that they might have hit something, but
nothing came.  Suddenly, arrows and spears came in from all sides.  The men
were ill-prepared, having been directed towards the one spot on the edge.  As a
result, several arrows and spears hit their mark, and Captain Vol’s men
immediately suffered casualties.  He shouted out new orders, adjusting as
quickly as he could, forming his men into a circle, with shields up on all sides. 
But his men were shuddering now.  Their confidence had wavered.  The captain,
sensing this, barked out more orders, both to prepare them to fight off
whatever lay out there, and also to give their minds something to focus on
other than fear. 
    Captain Vol rediscovered his courage.  He calmed his mind. 
Losing Garen had been a shock.  The sophistication of the attack against them
had been a shock too.  But now he knew what he was up against.  A true threat. 
Whether this was Gekken or Typhorians, the danger was real.  He and his men
were to be truly tested.  He knew they were up to the task.  The Typhorian
prisoner began shouting at him, telling him this was it, they were here, they
were all going to die.  He ignored her, and took action.  His archers had their
bows ready, but held back.  There would be no more wasted arrows.  They would
protect themselves here with their shields, and wait out the attack.  Wait for
the enemy to expose themselves, if they dared.
    The men were