Crepsley Senses

Larten often hunted by himself. He hadn’t in the first few years, but Seba had trained him well, and now he was left to his own devices most nights. While he enjoyed hunting with Seba, he preferred the solitude of the solo chase. He’d never feared the dark as a child but had been wary of it. Now he’d grown to love it. Humans retired when the sun went down, leaving the world in the control of the creatures of the night.

Larten wandered freely, relishing the heady smells, the sounds of small animals rustling in the bushes, the cries of owls and bats. While his senses were nowhere near as sharp as Seba’s, he had learned to see, hear, and smell more than most humans ever did. He was aware of a different world unraveling around him, nature rolling its dice as it did every night, animals fighting, birthing, feeding, dying. There were a dozen dramas unfolding everywhere at once, in the bushes, in the trees, beneath the soil. Larten could only follow a few of them—he saw an owl swoop on two mating mice and carry them away, and watched a fox drink by a stream, studying the water as if admiring its reflection. But the snatches he caught put a smile on his face like no human tale of ghosts and gods ever had.

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The Saga of Larten Crepsley: Birth of a Killer, Chapter 9