It came as little surprise that our stores of sustenance had begun to dwindle in that barren land. Thus, I resolved to lead my companions upon a hunt, seeking what meager game might yet linger in the shadowed crags and silent canyons. Winston, ever the trembling leaf in the storm, voiced his fears with a quavering tongue.
“What if a great bear finds me to its liking and makes me its midday meal?” he stammered, his eyes darting to every shadow as though beasts of legend might spring forth at any moment. Truly, the lad was a bundle of nerves, his courage ever in short supply.
“I do not know if I shall return alive,” he muttered, as though our past encounters with daemons, necromancers, and worse had been mere child’s play compared to the imagined perils of a desert hunt.
His words drew a
