Long ago bred by mages from rats, rats were used by goblins as guard and search animals. Large, reaching 30 centimeters at the withers, the rats replicated their ancestors in everything except the tail.
The latter was more than two meters long, which was unnatural and disproportionate for the size of the animal, and they were cut off when the animal grew up to be used for farming. For example, a leash for the same rats was made of tail skin. The animals themselves were characterized by high intelligence, surpassing even dogs, excellent sense of smell and wild aggressiveness.
Therefore, human mages bred them, quickly forgot about the failed experiment and tried to get rid of the unnecessary animal. But the goblins found a common language and complete understanding with the new inhabitants of the caves.
Therefore, there was nothing unusual in the fact that the group followed the animal bloodhound. This rat will not run to mate with a female because there are no females here, and so there is something interesting where he leads the hunters.
The small ravine, where the rat was so eager to go, met the group with the richest prey. Nearly twenty human bodies were lying in it in a heap. And even completely naked, which was quite uncharacteristic of humans, who prefer to wrap their ugly bodies in cloth, because the gods, as you know, the normal hair did not give them, angry at the dishonorable creatures.
Only the proud goblins wore wool, as befitted the true firstborn. Now the gods had shown their favor to a hunting party that had come to the surface in search of food. The khorsh was growing poorly, the spoils of the campaigns were scarce and the true lords of the world were beginning to starve.
The family stooped to sending the delinquent warriors to the surface, but not for the sake of attacking humans, but to hunt animals. Such rich prey and on only their second day on the cursed surface! Luck, true luck and the favor of the gods.
The success was celebrated here, eating one of the dead men and being fully satiated for the first time in a long time. The rest of the bodies were stripped, thank goodness they didn't even have to be freed from their rags, and packed away.
The small band of prey directed their footsteps home. The family would be pleased.
The camp fell asleep in an instant. There were still, right now, sounds of intelligent activity here and there, and then it was gone. Only peaceful sniffling and the occasional movement in their sleep.
Not even sentries were posted. It was certainly another mistake of Alexey Gennadyevich, but no one was eager to correct this mistake.
Only Alexander could not fall asleep. The dry hole-split was covered with poles and spruce was thrown on them. The smell of earth, freshly cut branches and needles was in the air, filling the place with a peaceful atmosphere. This dugout turned out to be quite spacious and more or less accommodated the entire group of those who drank human blood.
On the one hand, it was not so reasonable. The strongest representatives among all the unfortunates thrown into the new world were gathered in one place. On the other hand, the fear and distrust of some people was felt simply physically.
Despite the ever-increasing bloodlust that flared inside them, no one was in a hurry to recognize themselves as vampires. And some of them even openly declared the necessity to isolate the "killers". Yes, there were such ideas, too. As it was easy to guess, they were generated by Olga Viktorovna and the chief accountant of the firm who joined her.
Having honestly spent a couple of hours trying to sleep Alexander lay in the dugout and tossed and turned. But everything comes to an end and he crawled out of the shelter, having stopped his attempts. Fortunately, he lay down at the very entrance and did not have to wake anyone with his night "escape".
Pulling himself up, he looked around. In spite of the low-hanging clouds and the complete absence of the usual sources of light, not counting the extinguished embers of the fires, he could see perfectly well. It was about the way he'd seen in his old life in the coming darkness. He was wrong, though.
There were still sources of light. It just wasn't the stars, moon, or lanterns. It seemed that a certain glowing aura was given by plants. Living things glowed with a kind of inner light that couldn't be called a "source", but it was clearly felt. And considering that there was a forest around, there was more than enough light - there was a fairyland of life around.
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