Page 6

Then blood, so much blood...

The bitter flavor of blood assaulted his tongue as his own jaws ripped through flesh...

Everything went black.

The pounding in his head was nearly too much to bear.

He felt the heat of the sun radiating off of his face... the sun? He'd started the hunt in the evening...

How much time had passed?

Shielding his eyes and opening them he saw the body... the Fomorian's corpse, mangled, its abdomen was torn open as if by a bear.

A bear wasn't to blame... he'd done it...

He didn't mean to. He'd never killed anyone before. Not even a Fomorian... but still, the creature was almost human. It's skin, bark-like in appearance. His head, oddly shaped. A bit longer than a normal human head. The closest thing to a human, that wasn't one, he'd ever seen... and his guts... what had happened to his insides?

Sétanta's stomach churned... and a second later he'd inadvertently answered his own questions as he vomited blood and pieces of meat on the ground beside the Fomorian's mangled corpse.

Stumbling to the river, Sétanta cupped water into his hands and rinsed the vile taste from his mouth.

Returning to his feet he stepped back and examined the carnage that surrounded him. He cringed, spotting the half-eaten corpse of the boar he'd caught.

The people of Ulster didn't get their feast. But when he never returned they'd assume the worst. It would be only a matter of time before his mother would send a hunting party to track him down. They'd assume the worst... if only they knew...

It wasn't that he was afraid they'd discover he'd killed a Fomorian. If ever you encountered one, at least if the bardic legends were to be believed, you were lucky to survive at all. But if they knew how he'd done it... what he'd become...

Whathadhe become?