““Then it hit him. Something else had come with the storm besides rain, lightning, and thunder. Something that had blotted out the campfires and made the soldiers disappear. The forest was so quiet that Talis could feel the birds, insects, and animals retreating to some protected place. Something had descended with the storm clouds and that something was stalking through the forest, searching. Talis felt a strange sensation scratching and jittering under his skin. There it was. A small shadow roaming across the pale, moonlit jungle. It stopped as if sensing something. The shadow shivered, an inky cloud of malice bubbling toward them.””
