The Book of Dalin, published novel sample

 

[text copyright 2026 James L. Steele. All rights reserved. This is a sample of a published novel, The Book of Dalin, available in print and ebook wherever they are sold.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/249763375-the-book-of-dalin

https://daydreamingintext.blogspot.com/ 

Cover art by Valentinapaz, Valentinapaz.com]

It is the last age of the dinosaurs.

The leafeaters have fought back against the carnivores and now live in cities, safe from danger, leaving the hunters to prey on one another.

The wilderness is an empty, violent place. The only life a predator has is to survive long enough to bring hatchlings into an existence of mindlessly walking from kill to kill, remaining one step ahead of starvation.

One hunter, Dalin, is determined to get out. Raised in a leafeater city as a symbol of how herbivores no longer fear predators, he made a mistake six years ago which exiled him to the wild, and he has barely held on to his conscious mind since.

He has one chance to return to civilization. Appealing to the leafeaters is even more dangerous than facing starving predators, but he is desperate enough to try.

Is giving up his freedom worth a full belly and the privilege to play his flute without fear? Will the herbivores accept a tamed hunter who has tasted life in the wild? Dalin may be the only hunter to learn speech, but can he convince the leafeaters that he is not like the others?

Perhaps there a greater reason he is the only predator to be conscious of his own misery.

 

Hunters

1

Dalin sat before the tiny stream. This was the third week he had endured without food, and in all that time he had not smelled a single living creature. Hunters sat upright, which allowed him to take the weight off his feet and still be straight enough to play his flute.

His backpack was off to his left. Inside he carried his books, a water flask, and the metal restraints that had covered his teeth and claws so many years ago. Pieces of an old life, everything Dalin had ever known.

A dried-up floodplain devoid of trees surrounded him. Nothing but horizon as far as Dalin could see. The land had been like this for weeks. No trees. No plants. Endless ground punctuated by the occasional rock. Hunger was the only thing that thrived here. With nothing to distract him, Dalin could feel himself getting thinner with every step.

Dalin closed his eyes as he played, shutting out the land, forgetting where he was and what he had to do to survive.

The flute reminded him of times when he was happy and full. Memories of lush forests when he slept through the entire night without his empty stomach keeping him awake. Memories of his owner listening to Dalin play. He missed the sound of his owner reading to him, the feel of his scales against Dalin’s as he lay curled up next to him on one of the rare nights when no one else was around. Those memories felt so distant and hazy Dalin sometimes doubted they were real. So long ago, another life, almost a dream.

His hunger and loneliness came through in his song. Slow, measured, and absent of abrupt note changes. If hunger could be heard, it would sound like this.

His only substantial meals came from eating other hunters. They were just as desperate for food as Dalin. Years ago, Dalin would only go a week or two without eating. Now he could endure as long as a month. Dalin played on, forgetting the uncertainty of where the next meal will come from, and that by the time he found something he might not be strong enough to kill it.

Even when the music was depressing, it was easier to face than the future.

He drew out a long, solemn note. It filled the empty floodplain, giving it life for a single breath. Then the note faded, leaving bare, dead soil from horizon to horizon in its place.

He inhaled.

His breath caught.

Behind him...

Hunter scent.

Dalin jumped to his feet and spun around in one motion, taking the flute from his mouth and holding it at his side, crouching halfway between defense and attack posture.

Before him stood a female with a beautiful snout, tapering gracefully to the nose. The scales around one of her eyes were black, contrasting the brown over the rest of her body, which faded to a pale white around her underside. Her ribs showed, and her plumage had fallen out in most places. Her thin tail was to the side, held perfectly still. She looked good for a hunter on the brink of starvation. Dalin involuntarily hid his tail from view, embarrassed to let her see how thin he was. His feathers had been plucked as a hatchling, so his hunger always showed.

Every breath he took filled him with her scent. The uncertainty for the future scratched his bones. Gradually the female did not smell like a fellow hunter. She smelled like a way to stop the pain.

Dalin had just enough presence of mind to set the flute on top of his backpack. She followed his every movement, but only with her eyes. There was no comprehension in her stare.

Dalin crouched offensively. He raised his toeclaws and unfolded the claws on his hands. His calves and thighs squeezed, preparing to leap in any direction.

His opponent copied his movements, spindly muscles rippling under thin, scaly flesh draped over jagged bone. Several fluffy feathers dropped from her arms. Soundlessly she leaped, forehands aiming for his throat, one toeclaw speeding toward Dalin’s chest.

He jumped to the side and leaned back on his legs, holding his tail stiff and his claws up. He opened his mouth and hissed at her. She moaned at him. Dalin croaked in reply.

She moved sideways, holding her mouth open and posturing with her teeth and claws. Dalin made fake jabs, daring her to close in. The longer he breathed her scent the more painful moving became as his body was forced to eat the very muscles Dalin used to make a kill. They circled each other, widening and closing the gap as one made a move and the other retreated.

Dalin barked and slashed his claws at the air between them.

She dug one of her toeclaws in the dirt and backslashed. She bent at the waist and opened her mouth at Dalin, making no noise. They circled again.

Dalin continued breathing her thin scent, reeking of malnourishment and fear. Her scent flowed from his head through the rest of his body, intensifying the pain. Just lifting his thigh to take a step sent searing misery up his spine. Flexing his hands, his bones seemed ready to snap off if he moved them too quickly. The pain merged his aching body into a single purpose, and his mind drowned in it.

The look in her eyes changed. The same absorption of pain was happening to her as well. Her body shook from it, and it came out in her scent. The female leaped for him. Dalin leaped at her. They collided, thrashed, and pushed off each other. When they regained their footing a few paces apart, they turned and faced one another. Dalin was not injured. Blood trickled from the inside of one of the female’s thighs.

She leaned back for another strike, keeping the weight off that leg. Dalin crouched back, shaking. He breathed through his nose to get more of her scent; it kept his body unified in pain, and he didn’t feel it so long as his whole body was in agony.

She launched at him. “Skreeeeaaaaaaak!”

The noise startled Dalin. It was not an attack cry, or a scream meant to distract him. This was a piercing shriek of desperation. A pathetic, pleading sound not like a hunter but a starving, abandoned hatchling begging her mother to feed her. The cry was so endearing that he wanted to let her kill him.

Dalin hesitated.

She rammed him.

He toppled and landed flat on his spine. His opponent was over him, mouth open, charging for his neck. Dalin’s hand rose, and all the strength in his shoulder drove it into her snout.

Slishhh—

His claws burrowed into her muzzle just before her teeth touched his neck. She whipped her head back, trying to yank her snout away, but Dalin shoved deeper. He pushed her to the side, trying to force her to the ground. Wherever he pushed she had to follow—the pain moved her more than Dalin’s strength. She jumped back, pulling Dalin’s shoulder out of joint, but he flexed his claws and forced her to come back to him where he forced her head to the other side of his flank and pinned it to the ground, her hind section still standing.

Dalin rolled to one knee, keeping his hand buried deep in her snout. He opened his mouth and reached for her neck under his arm, but she whipped her head back, overextending his shoulder again. Dalin heard his shoulder pop as he was dragged closer to keep her from tearing it out.

She dropped her hind legs to the ground, pointing her feet at him. She kicked both feet at once, and all six of her claws drove into his stomach.

“Saaaaaahhhhhhh!”

She flexed her killing claws up and down, dicing Dalin’s scales and burying her toes in his hide. She whipped her head back again. Dalin clenched his hand and found bone. He gripped her skull from the inside, pushed all his weight on her feet, and rolled on top of her, spearing her snout with his other hand.

She hissed as Dalin flexed his claws all around, oozy, gishing sounds coming from both sides of her muzzle as muscle parted and his claws scraped bone. She bucked, trying to throw him off. Dalin kept his feet off the ground, pushing all his weight on her legs, keeping them folded. Her killing claws stabbed his abdomen again and again. Dalin pulled his left hand out of her, wound up and—

Out the corner of his eye he noticed her hands moving toward his snout. He raised his head and torso, and both hands struck his shoulders instead. The shock made Dalin jump, pulling her head up. His other hand tore from her snout and ripped off a strip of her lips, exposing her teeth. She dug into his shoulders and twisted the muscle around. Dalin screamed. She sliced, dug, and twisted deeper, faster. Dalin went blind with pain. She had found his shoulder sockets and her claws were scraping, digging, prying them.

Dalin squeezed his shoulders, wound up both hands and shoved them deep into her neck, howling in agony.

She didn’t scream. Didn’t remove her hands from his shoulders. She lay with Dalin resting on her feet, his hands buried in her neck, her hands in his shoulders, her toeclaws in his abdomen.

Blood poured from Dalin’s shoulders and ran down his arms. Most dripped off his elbow, but some continued down his forearm and to his claws, where it mixed with her blood. Dalin’s hands were getting hot from all the blood flowing over them. Her breaths became quick and shallow.

And then, the wild in her eyes was gone. The madness of hunger died before she did, and she looked at Dalin not with hate but with sadness. She released his shoulders. Her legs gave out, and Dalin fell on top of her. His nose landed in the pool of blood by her neck. The smell made Dalin’s stomach growl, and his bones shivered in hunger. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked her in the eye.

She gasped and coughed blood in Dalin’s face.

She coughed again.

And again.

And again.

The pulse in her neck faded.

Dalin lay there for a moment, and then he slowly pulled his hands from her neck. The blood flowed abundantly. He felt dizzy and rolled off of her—

—and landed on his shoulder.

“REEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHH!”

He tried moving his legs to stand and take the pressure off it, but his abdomen stung when he tried to move, and Dalin writhed on the ground, trying to get up, but the pain folded him. He curled up and lay still next to his kill, panting through his nose as his shoulders bled and wiggled in and out of joint. Blood shot out from his shoulders in time with his pounding heartbeat. The blood from his other shoulder ran down his back and over his chest. In no time he was lying in a large pool.

More agony. His stomach scratched his spine and forced him to uncurl. The effort knocked Dalin’s eyes out of focus. He raised a leg and brought himself upright to one knee.

“RRRAAAAGGGH—RRRRRRHHHH!”

He couldn’t scream anymore. The pain lodged in his throat and suffocated him.

He dropped to his hands and knees, head hanging over the ground. Blood rolled down his arms, wrapping around them and pooling under his claws. He swung his head up and looked at his kill.

food

His stomach growled. The growl spread through his muscles and strangled his heart.

Dalin lifted his hand. He screamed in a mix of animal and leafeater sounds and painfully moved it forward. He leaned on it, gritted his teeth, and lifted the other. He screamed again as he set it down in front of the other hand, leaned, and lifted the other. He crawled to his kill, streaking bloody handprints through the dirt, keeping the dead hunter in sight.

FOOD!

With the scent of meat this close, the pain became so intense he became numb to it. He leaned back and pumped his legs and stood over her. He slashed her abdomen open with the killing claw on his foot, and then reached inside and gobbled her lungs, liver, heart, intestines, tasting nothing.

As his stomach filled up, so did his pride.

He won.

He deserved to live!

The entrails completely gone, Dalin took her leg in his mouth and ripped it free of the body. It felt good tear it off; made him feel stronger than he really was. He dropped the leg and stood on it with one foot, tearing meat and feathers from the bone. Four bites and five swallows later, the leg was nothing but wet bone.

The pain of starvation slowly gave way to pleasure. Pride. Joy. He was eating. He would live. He felt unstoppable. The more meat he tore from her bones, the more his body rewarded him.

Yes! More! Keep eating! You’re strong! You’re powerful! More!

Dalin peeled muscle from her arms, her back, her flanks, devoured the strings around the neck. The pleasure mounted up.

2

Dalin knelt over the river and looked at his face. His jaws and throat dripped with blood. He had streaks around his eyes. His hands, chest, and shoulders were completely covered. Every scale had changed from deep maroon with green stripes around his joints to bright crimson.

It did not look unnatural. He thought he looked good like this. Strong. Powerful. A hunter.

He dipped his hands in the water. Blood gently lifted from his claws and flowed with the current, making a red spiral that vanished into the stream some ways off. He washed his claws below his reflection. He rubbed his hands together and splashed water up his forearms, a skill he had learned to master even though his hands were not meant for scooping.

It was pure, fiery agony to move his shoulders, but he had to clean himself.

He cupped his hands together and threw water over his chest and his face. Blood streaked down his chin. He splashed again and rubbed his muzzle with his palms.

He opened his eyes. Maroon scales so dark they were nearly black stared back at him from the river. With just a few splashes of water, Dalin had changed from a killer mad with starvation to a placid, tame theropod. This face, the one staring at Dalin right now, the clean, placid muzzle, had just looked at a female of his own species as meat instead of a potential companion. Without the blood, it was hard to remember that he had just devoured a living creature to save his life.

So what if she had been a fellow hunter? If there was one thing Dalin had learned since he ran from Omica five years ago, it was that there is no one out there to trust. Not the leafeaters, and certainly not hunters. They were equally dangerous.

Dalin looked around at his hind section. His tail was blood-free. His back was clean. In the time he had spent eating her, his shoulders and abdomen had stopped bleeding.

Dalin stood. His abdominal muscles seared, so Dalin panted and raised himself slower. He turned, observing what remained of his rival. Now he looked at her with regret.

His owner had once told him that there was a time when hunters did not do this. In the long-ago past, if two hunters met they might join together in the hunt. A pair of hunters could bring down larger prey. His owner had said that there used to be large, unintelligent leafeaters out there walking in herds, nearly defenseless, all the food a hunter could want, and they would eat enough to raise a clutch of eggs.

Today, food was so scarce that not even joining with another hunter would change that. Taking a mate did not increase the odds of survival, rather decreased the amount of food one could eat.

She was food. Nothing else.

Dalin walked to his backpack and sat down on his pubic bone. He reached for the flute, thankful it hadn’t been broken during the fight.

His shoulder slipped out of joint. Dalin clutched it with his other hand, and his shoulder popped into join again.

He felt hot liquid.

Dalin sucked air as blood bubbled out between his claws and flowed down his arm. Dalin held his shoulder tighter, remembering the medical books his owner had read to him years ago. He clenched his limb, trying to keep pressure on it, but the blood just kept flowing. His hands were not meant to hold blood in—they were designed to set it free.

Dalin dropped his hand. The blood flowed the same as when he held it. He whimpered, wishing his owner were here, wishing someone out here cared whether he lived or died.

He looked at his hand. He couldn’t see the scales on his fingers for all the blood covering them. He opened his claws to grab the flute, and the blood made a stringy web. Dalin whimpered and raised the hand to his face. He licked it clean. More blood ran down his stomach and between the folds of his genital slit.

His hand was runny and sticky after licking it clean, but it would do. He took the flute, raised his arms, and played a few deep notes, hoping that keeping his shoulders up would slow the bleeding.

Dalin began by playing his favorite note pattern and letting it evolve into whatever it wanted. He was still pumped up with hormones from the kill, which made him feel powerful. Dalin consciously pushed the feeling down and concentrated on the music, refusing to let the pride of a kill satisfy him.

This meal only delayed his death. Every mouthful extended his future one more day. The food in his stomach was satisfying, but in another week he would return to the same state of agonizing, bone-scratching hunger.

He was happy to forget the future.

3

Dalin had removed his backpack and tucked it by a tree, leaving him a naked, wild hunter, exhausted from weeks of walking and terrified of the predator lying before him.

This one was huge. He still had all of his plumage: white and red on his arms and chest, tapering off at the thighs, contrasting green and brown scales. A layer of muscle hid his ribs from view, which meant he was eating well. Taking him down would feed Dalin for days.

Dalin didn’t want to fight. He would much rather play his flute, but hunger made him shiver. The aching in his stomach had not spread to his whole body yet, but if he went another week without food, it would become so debilitating he might not be able to hunt at all.

He took deep breaths through his nose. As he inhaled, his head filled with the hunter’s scent. Now he didn’t just smell a hunter, but a male hunter. A few breaths later he smelled that this male hunter had not mated in his lifetime.

After more breaths, he smelled imperfections in the muscles. Injuries from previous fights. He had survived some minor cuts and stabs, but his breathing betrayed one major wound on his lung—Dalin detected the unevenness in his breath. As he got to know the hunter, the ache of hunger in his stomach faded. His sense of smell told him more about the hunter than his eyes.

His ears merged with his nose. He heard blood pumping through veins. He heard variations in blood flow and sensed exactly where the vessels had broken and healed. Taste and smell merged. He saw, felt, heard, and scented every twitch of muscle, every pulsation of the heart, every rise and fall of breath. Conscious thought drowned in the senses until no fear or hunger or fatigue remained in Dalin.

The hunter showed no unrest. Dalin raised a foot and soundlessly brought himself to a stalking stance, just one twitch of the thigh away from a dashing lunge. The hunter’s chest rose and fell slowly, regularly.

Dalin waited.

The hunter still breathed. Dalin waited until he inhaled, then bolted out of the brush, toeclaws raised, hands already chopping the air ready to drive them into any flesh he could grab. He was only two paces away. His stomach was ready for a feast.

The hunter rolled to his knees and braced himself on the ground with his claws up. He hissed as Dalin took the last step, too late to veer away. They collided. Claws met flesh. Watery slashes. Feathers flew in the hot breeze.

The two hunters fell to the ground in a blur of claws and dirt. The other male rolled a few times and then quickly got to his feet. Dalin hopped upright as soon as he stopped rolling, a few new scratches and gouges bleeding from his bald hide. The hunter held his claws out and flashed his teeth.

They circled each other. Dalin’s prey made fake advances and hopped back, warning him away.

Dalin chirped twice and grunted, as if to say I’m not leaving.

The hunter rose to full height for a beat and then crouched and hissed, lashing his tongue. I’m bigger than you.

Dalin dug a toeclaw into the ground and kicked dirt behind himself.

The hunter bobbed his head and side-stepped, closing the circle. Dalin copied the gesture, adding a warbling growl, mocking the hunter.

Dalin’s prey dashed and leapt, claws out. Dalin dodged the attack, pushed off the ground and jumped. He got a claw into his opponent’s abdomen before the larger hunter hopped around and snapped for Dalin’s neck. Dalin jumped back just out of reach and dug his claws in, hands open, toeclaws tapping the ground.

His opponent did the same, and then made a heart-stopping howl while jumping for Dalin’s throat. Dalin leaped backwards, his tail involuntarily folding to one side and turning him partway around. He landed a good two paces away from the other hunter just as the hunter landed where Dalin had been standing.

While the prey got his footing, Dalin pounced. He buried a hand in his opponent’s chest. His prey was faster this time; he reached around and clamped his teeth on Dalin’s arm. Dalin brought his other arm around and stabbed the hunter in the eye.

The prey let go of Dalin’s arm and stumbled backwards. Dalin moved in and reached under the hunter’s neck and clamped a hunk of lose-hanging flesh and feathers. The hunter thrashed immediately. He waved his limbs in all directions as Dalin squeezed and pulled the hunter’s throat out.

The scent of blood hit his nose. Dalin tasted and smelled it at the same time. The hunter collapsed in a limp heap of feather and bone at Dalin’s feet. Hot blood poured over his toes.

Dalin opened his mouth and let the small piece of flesh slide down his throat. Warm and comforting. He had taken down a larger hunter, which pumped him full of pride. He had control of another’s life, and by his own claws and teeth he had taken it and would use it to feed his own.

Dalin screeched in victory. He was covered in the blood of his prey, and he felt strong. Content. Confident. This was his purpose—he could do this forever—this primal satisfaction when all his senses were one and he could take on anyone and anything that dared to stand up to him. No confusing thoughts, nothing to remember, just chase this feeling until he died.

Dalin bent down and tore into the abdomen, going for the tasty organs. He ripped a gash and probed the cavity with his snout and grabbed a hunk of something. He tugged and tore it free of the body, and then turned his snout to the air and swallowed it whole. He barely tasted it. The heat on his tongue was enough. His organ had slid from his genital slit and throbbed in the hot breeze. Dalin dropped to his side and rolled around in his prey’s scent so everyone would know that he had killed a well-fed male.

Thoroughly covered from head to tail in hunter scent, he stood on his feet and screeched, announcing to the land that he was a powerful male. He gorged himself on what he deserved.

4

As Dalin crawled away from the empty carcass, he couldn’t raise himself up to a standing position. He had been licking his wounds until sundown. From head to tail he was covered in dirt and blood that had gelled into a sticky goo on his scales. Only now after his senses had separated and he had calmed down from the rush did he notice.

He reached his backpack and slowly rolled over to a sitting position against a tree, panting. He looked at his arms and stomach. He was slimy, blood-soaked, gritty. The feeling of the filth covering his scales nearly made him throw up. Dirt, crushed ferns, feathers, some panic-dung mixed in there, too. If he licked it off, he would have to eat it. He ran his fingers over his forearm. His claws only made slices through the coating.

His belly was full now, but he was so dirty he couldn’t stand himself. He wondered why he had rolled in his prey’s blood. What had he been thinking?

He braved licking his hand. By the time he had cleaned his hand, the taste had become so disgusting it took everything he had to hold his stomach down.

The effort made him fold into himself and and he fell over, shrieking and gasping. He ran his claws over his featherless flank, trying to wipe the slime off, trying to get rid of the stench that covered him.

He scratched his head. His muzzle. His neck. Nothing came off. He scratched his arms vigorously up and down, but his claws only made slices in the slime.

Bathing kept him clean, but he was nowhere near water, so he would have to stay this way until he found a pond. The thought intensified the disgust.

“Saaaaaarrrrrragggghhh!”

Killing was so filthy, so detestable, and yet he had to do it over and over, and his reward was another long walk to the edge of starvation for another kill that would only add to his filth.

Dalin rolled to his feet, panting from exhaustion. He eyed a lone tree. The bark looked sharp. He trotted up to it and slammed his body against it, rubbing the underside of his muzzle, scraping the scales clean. He scratched the goo from his arms, his thighs, and then his back. He circled the tree, rubbing everything he could. Finally he felt clean...

...but now his hide burned, as if it wanted to wiggle off his bones and run away. He clenched his teeth and stumbled to his backpack, snatching it up and carrying it to the empty carcass that had been his prey. He was breathing calmer now, and he involuntarily reached inside. He found the flute and clutched it. His hand stuck to it. He pulled it out and looked down. His hands were still sticky. His gaze drifted up his arm, and the pieces of tree bark stuck in the goo. His eyes darted quickly over every part of himself he could see. Pieces of bark were all over him!

“RRRAAGH!”

He fell to his side and went into another fit of scratching. He rolled on the ground, scraping anything he could reach. No matter how many times he did this, he never got used to it. He shouldn’t have rolled in that hunter, but it had felt so good at the time. The thrill of taking down a hunter larger than he was had been so satisfying he had to keep the scent.

Eventually, he surrendered to the filth and fatigue. The slime and stench intimidated other hunters, which was always a good thing. He would have to live with himself.

He was full. Unable to remember the last time he had eaten, how many days it had been, how long he had walked just to find a single, living hunter, he was glad the pain in his stomach was gone.

Dalin groped the ground for his flute, unable to move his neck to look down. Dirt stuck to his hands and claws every time he touched the ground.

His fingers found the flute. He shook off the dirt, held it to his slimy lips, and started playing. His hands played slow, peaceful notes while Dalin tried to control himself. Sometimes he overplayed the notes because his breath kept catching.

There had been no sounds in the land all day since his prey had fallen, and now he alone created something. He let his senses merge with his hands, forgetting how to play and allowing his fingers do whatever they wanted.

He was the only living hunter in scenting distance. The only creature making a sound, defying the emptiness. He was also the only thinking creature in scenting distance. He filled the empty space. He created instead of destroyed.

While he played, he could believe that it would never end. He would never have to get up and search for another kill. He had no filth covering his scales. He was a clean hunter back in Omica, sitting with his owner in front of a fire, half a dozen leafeaters talking to his owner while Dalin listened, his stomach always full and he knew when his next meal would be.

He whimpered. Only three notes hesitated.

5

Barren dirt dotted with occasional clusters of trees and ferns had been all that filled Dalin’s vision for days. He now lay in one of these clusters, preferring the cover of the trees to sleeping under open sky. His stomach ached, and all he wanted was to retreat to dreams where the hunger would not follow.

Just as he was beginning to drift off, Dalin’s head shot up and his nose involuntarily scented the air.

... female ... hunter.

Dalin leaped to his feet. His ears focused on the sounds around him. Wind blowing through tree fronds ... pieces of dirt brushing along the ground ... an insect crawling on a nearby fern.

He turned, catching the wind from different directions. Gradually a map of the scents that surrounded him formed in his head. A twelfth of a day in front of him was female hunter scent ... starving.

Her scent made Dalin’s heart race. After years in the wild, the scents of fellow hunters did this to him, similar to how when he had first run from Omica he hated the smell of blood, but over the years he made the connection between that and a full belly. Now he delighted in it. Blood scent made his stomach growl. Likewise, every time there was a fight, every time he had to kill for his life, one of these scents filled his head.

His body prepared him for a fight to the death—to kill the scent and feast. His ears tuned to their environment, detecting the slightest vibration on the ground. His heart pumped fight into his muscles and Dalin began to shake as his body readied to be overworked while fatigued. He sat, trying to calm himself.

... hunter moving closer ... half a twelfth away ...

The scents of the land had become part of Dalin. His toeclaws had risen and would not relax. The scent of the nearby hunter held them up, keeping them ready. It was irrational, Dalin knew, since she was still far away, but he could not force his body to understand.

... hunter ... too close!

Dalin’s thighs squeezed, bringing him to his feet. His hands were up in front of him, and his toeclaws tapped the ground. Walking a few paces away, Dalin urinated and dropped a dung pile, warning the hunter to stay away. His fight would be scentable in his dung.

Dalin waited. He walked around and checked the air every breath from all angles and directions.

... she had stopped ...

He faced that direction, stretching his neck out and scenting the air from as high as he could reach.

... she’s hesitating ...

Dalin couldn’t take it. His muscles were wound tight. He turned his neck up and called to the sky, a low-pitched barking noise. Once. Twice. Three, four times. He challenged anyone who could hear him. He was ready.

She halted dead still. Dalin could now hear her head moving somewhere just outside the trees. Dalin’s heart pumped more hormones and fight throughout his body. He urinated again to let the intruder know he was ready and he was powerful.

The female ... hesitating.

Dalin tapped his toeclaws and scratched dirt behind him. He was sure she could hear him.

... she is ... she’s still standing there ...

Dalin had had enough of this. He charged through the trees, making as much noise as he could. His muscles thanked him for the exertion.

The hunter heard him coming and audibly jumped back. She was still well outside the trees, out of sight, but her scent gave her away.

Over Dalin’s noisy footsteps, he heard her dash off to the left. She had left a dung pile as well, and Dalin didn’t need to get close to smell the fear. There was no fight in her scent. Only starvation.

He stopped and listened.

... moving away ... fast and scared ...

Dalin considered following her, but she was too far ahead. He screeched and barked in her direction, warning her to stay far away.

She settled about two twelfths away. Dalin breathed through his mouth and let it out through his nose, trying to calm down. His heart still beat as if he were running, and every breath only filled his head with the image of his surroundings and the nearby threat. Her scent kept his heartbeat at full speed, his muscles so tight they cramped, and his senses so sharp they left no room for thought.

Dalin covered his nose, trying to shut the scents out, but his tongue tasted them. His body told him hunters are out there! They might attack! Prepare for a fight!

He breathed through his mouth. The mental image of his surroundings flickered, but his tongue tasted the air and kept him tense. He warbled at her, wishing she would go away and let him sleep.

He hissed at himself, trying to tell his body she was no threat anymore, but his claws remained up, and his hands remained tensed. His legs were so tight they whipped around on their own even when Dalin only wanted to adjust them a little. Dalin lay down and closed his eyes.

“Calm down. There’s no danger. Go to sleep. Please... let me sleep.”

Fight surged through him. With nowhere for the energy to go, Dalin convulsed. He considered running to find the hunter and kill her to give his body peace, but now his body was giving him what he wanted. It was coming down from the rush. The energy was already in his muscles, and they had to use it somehow.

His senses remained hyperactive. Branches clicking in the breeze sounded like footsteps. The wind through the fronds sounded like breathing. Insects walking nearby felt like a predator coming straight for him. Dalin’s breath quickened to take in more scent. His heart ran at full speed all night as he convulsed. Sleep never came.

6

In ideal conditions, Dalin could smell everything within half a day’s travel. The scent that caught his nose now was unusual and unsettling. Most days went by with only fading scents of hunters who had long since passed by and could be as much as a week away. Occasionally there would be a hunter in scenting distance. Even rarer, a mating pair.

The scent in Dalin’s nose was exciting. It was near the edge of his nose’s limit, about five twelfths away. Dead hunter scent, mixed with something living. Someone had made a kill not too far from here. Dalin’s legs began moving before he decided to pursue this chance, tail straight back and arms tucked firmly into his chest for extra speed.

The distance closed. Dalin passed no trees or rock outcroppings. Bare dirt passed beneath his feet as he chased the scents on the wind.

More scents filled his head. Other hunters also closing in on the kill. His muscles tightened and his legs carried him even faster.

He would do better to stay back and let the frenzy happen from a distance so he could move in and only have to fight injured and fatigued predators. Maybe he could pick up the unguarded scraps for an easy meal. But as Dalin crossed the dusty land, the scents of other predators became potent, and reason began to fade.

They were closing in, and if he didn’t hurry and grab as much as he could before too many arrived they would take it all. They would be stronger than Dalin and would hunt him next. He had to be there first. He had to kill them all before they killed him.

Dalin covered the distance. The scents became stronger, and so did the fight in Dalin’s muscles. After running nonstop for more than a twelfth, the kill rose into view. A predator stood over the bodies of two half-eaten hunters—this rival had beaten everyone to the kill and had attacked the predator who made it and was now defending both his kill and the one he took. Three more predators had beaten Dalin to the scent of death and were flashing teeth and claws at each other, croaking and screeching.

He ran headlong into the crowd. The challenging predators turned and flashed their teeth at him, crest plumage puffing in display. Dalin body-slammed one of them. The thin hunter raised his arms in defense, and Dalin’s teeth wrapped around his arms. The hunter tipped and slammed to the ground on his spine.

Dalin landed on top of the hunter and squeezed his jaws harder. Bones in his victim’s arms cracked, and the hunter howled and kicked his feet. Dalin felt annoying weight on his back keeping him from moving with the agility and speed he expected, but he had forgotten what it was and it was too late to do anything about it.

Starvation. The collective scent of the hunters around him weighed heavy with it. Dalin had broken up the standoff, and the other predators now stood together and faced him.

“Ehh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh!” they chorused, shaking their feathers to make themselves look bigger.

Dalin could not return the gesture, so he pushed his mouth down to reach the hunter’s neck, but his arms were in the way. Dalin’s toeclaws found soft flesh and stabbed and slashed again and again.

Three predators advanced on Dalin, holding their claws and teeth up. Dalin eyed them. When they were close enough, he released his victim’s arms and shook his bloodied teeth at the challengers. Dalin smelled more scents and turned to look. More predators were running to join them. He crouched over his struggling prey, turning in all directions, facing everyone and warning them away.

Six hunters closed in on the kills, eager to take what they could. Dalin stood over his victim as blood and feathers flew. Dalin forgot why he was fighting. The scents of other hunters turned in his empty stomach, ripping his thinning body apart, and Dalin fought even harder, desperate to stop the pain.

He swatted and slashed at everyone who came near. Every hunter who attacked was thinner than he was and chose to leave Dalin alone and confront easier prey. The larger hunters surrounded an emaciated theropod with mottled plumage and brought him down. A female stood over the body and postured. A male knocked her off and hissed at everyone. The female regained her footing and mauled the male. The smell of blood drowned out the screeching and calling.

The hunter beneath Dalin’s feet howled and thrashed, but Dalin’s claws had already torn long gashes down his stomach.

...hungry...

The featherless theropod went for the throat, but the victim held his claws in front of his neck, preventing Dalin from finishing the kill.

Dalin’s toeclaws flexed and slashed while he tried to reach his neck. Dalin failed to move his mouth anywhere else; all attacks to the neck were completely cut off.

Flex, slash. Flex slash. His feet did it on their own. Flex, slash—glisshhh

A rush of hot, liquid scent spilled over Dalin’s feet. The hunter’s intestines had fallen out. Dalin’s feet continued slashing through the gooey entrails. His prey thrashed harder, but his strength was waning fast.

His hands started slashing, digging, gouging through his victim’s chest. The hunter still held his hands up and barked weakly at Dalin. He tried for the neck again, but the hunter would not drop his arms. Dalin’s stomach couldn’t wait. His hands made stronger, deeper slashes as he smelled more blood running out of it. Ribs cracked.

Dalin felt teeth on the back of his neck, and he rolled out of the grip, swiping his hand in an arc and slashed the feathery underside of a hunter’s jaw. The would-be kill thief gagged and stumbled away. Sensing the injury, three predators who had been fighting one another now cooperated to bring down the injured hunter, and then they fought over their victim.

Dalin rolled around to his hands and knees and noticed new hunters eyeing the bleeding theropod Dalin had been carving up. Dalin leaped to his feet, purposefully catching a piece of intestine on his toeclaw, and jumped off the body. He screeched at the hunters approaching his kill. They glared at the entrails clinging to Dalin’s foot and backed away.

He turned his tail to them and noticed other hunters also eyeing his kill. Dalin dove for his victim, but the hunter still had a guard over his neck. He croaked and moaned in weak protest while Dalin tried to bite him and end his struggle. Dalin tried using his hands, but the hunter swatted and parried all attempts to grab and move his hands. Dalin was about to kick him in the neck and finish him, but rivals were approaching quickly.

The dying hunter kicked his feet and mumbled.

If I don’t eat, they’ll take it all!

Dalin dove at the hunter’s abdomen and tore into it with his hands, ripping off feathers and scales and exposing the hot meat underneath. He opened his mouth and sank his teeth into muscle and entrails. The hunter howled as Dalin gorged himself. His stomach relieved the pain in his body, and pleasure took over as he gulped.

From the corner of his eye, Dalin saw feathery hunters standing, watching. Their body posture suggested they feared Dalin for what he was doing, but they also knew they could do the same to him. Dalin bared his bloody hands and teeth at all of them, making no noise. Two thin rivals overcame their fear and challenged Dalin for the meal. Dalin leaped off his kill and mauled one of them. The hunter staggered away, cupping his right eye, screaming and shaking, as if trying to keep his eye in place. The others backed away.

Dalin stalked to the cavity and swallowed mouthful after mouthful. He gnawed the liver free and gulped it whole. He reached under the ribcage and ate out the lungs. The dying hunter choked, still trying to breathe. The body cavity halfway hollowed, Dalin took a quick bite of the thighs.

He saw movement out the corner of his eye as the other predators fought one another. Dalin tore off another hunk of muscle and gulped it down.

The thighs gone and the body hollowed, Dalin took a step back and observed his victim. The eyes were open, but he lay motionless, hands held in front of his neck, claws flared. Dalin licked his teeth. It was worth fighting for.

Dalin’s nose told him where he was. Four more hunters lay in pieces, their bodies torn from apart from predators fighting over them. The survivors had dragged away whatever pieces they could grab and stood protecting them from the others.

He looked back down at his victim. The hollowed-out victim blinked. Dalin fled.

7

Scents moved away in all directions. Dalin ran until he smelled no hunters within half a day’s walk. When the scents were gone, his senses calmed and his legs slowed him. He collapsed to his side, remembering what had just happened.

I should’ve stayed away until the fighting was over. I could’ve waited until everyone was dead and picked up the pieces...

But he had not. The urge to be there first and take what he could before everyone else took it all had been too urgent.

...he was alive...

His legs curled up to his chest. It was blazing hot out here in the open, but he felt cold. Dalin began to shiver. He smelled his victim again. He felt his intestines sloshing over his feet. He remembered eating the hunter while he struggled to breathe even after Dalin had eaten the lungs.

His stomach thanked him for filling it. How satisfying it had been. How good it felt compared to now.

Dalin remembered the weight that had bothered him during the kill. He wiggled out of his backpack and then cupped his bloody, sticky hands over his eyes and cried like a hatchling. His shoulder popped out of joint and then slipped back in. Dalin curled up and screamed until his cries dimmed to whimpers and he finally fell asleep.

8

Flat land sprawled before Dalin, so dry and lifeless the scents of any creature which had been here had blown away in the wind long ago, giving Dalin the feeling that he was the last creature alive. Most of the land he had seen over the past five years was just like this. Scentless ground between mountain ranges and clusters of trees.

He walked from early night to late morning, slept during the heat of the day, and then resumed the trek, open sky touching the ground the only sight from horizon to horizon. His only companions were small reptiles that darted for shade whenever Dalin got close, and biting insects desperate for water. Rocks, scratchy shrubbery, ferns, and ground plants. Sometimes he saw a flower in bloom. He always paused to look. It could be the only color he saw for weeks.

His water flask ran dry, but small ponds dotted the land. Some plants held water, and he often cut a few of these open and squeezed water into his flask. Dalin had learned this from his owner, not by example, but from stories. If he were an animal, he would die of thirst, never even thinking to use a plant for survival.

He looked back from time to time as he walked into the dusty emptiness. He left no footprints. Leaving no tracks disturbed him. With no evidence that he had come from someplace, there was also no evidence that he was going anywhere. Empty stretches like this went on for days. Sometimes months.

It was easy to question his memories. With nothing around to distract him from his own thoughts, he wondered if living in a leafeater city had been only a dream. Had he once been a tamed hunter?

His owner had told Dalin never to stop thinking. He had kept Dalin away from the smell and taste of blood, discouraged him from running, and encouraged him to keep talking and keep playing his music.

If life was so easy then, how could he be here now, in a wasteland with a half-full water flask, his stomach beginning to ache and his tail thinning visibly day by day? Even if his memories were true and he had been a tamed hunter, they did not help him survive now.

Playing the flute reminded Dalin these were not false memories.

He hoped to find trees again. Water. Rolling hills. Someplace that had life. It mattered little which direction he walked. It was all barren land.

On the tenth day, Dalin came across the ruins of a leafeater city. He did not wonder what an abandoned leafeater city was doing out here in the middle of an empty land; he had come across places like this many times in his travels.

The city was scentless, which meant nothing would be alive, and he wanted to avoid places that had no scent. The city was immense, taking up the entire land as far as Dalin could see, so he walked straight through it, climbing over the piles of wood that had once been houses arranged in parallel avenues. Rubble, fragments of furniture, dead trees, broken pieces of pottery.

He played the flute while he walked through the ruins. He played to forget that civilization was out of reach, food was always somewhere else, and no one other than Dalin himself knew his name.

9

In the setting sun, the tiniest pebble poking from the sand cast a shadow twelve times its size, and insignificant plants looked like mighty trees against the bare ground.

Dalin turned and looked at his own shadow reaching far behind him. It copied his every move longer, wider. He raised his snout, and the figure in the sand made a similar motion that covered a hundred paces. Dalin flicked his tail. His shadow cut an arc all the way to the horizon. Dalin reached his hands to the sky, standing as tall as he could. His shadow assumed the same stance, and his hands disappeared over the edge of the land.

He stood motionless for a moment and enjoyed feeling a hundred paces tall and affecting everything he touched. He thought he looked good except for the lump on his back. How awkward it made him seem. He and his shadow shrugged it off and dropped it to the side. The backpack’s own shadow cast an enormous, ugly gloom beside him.

Dalin turned profile and looked at himself. A hunter. Thin, bald, but alive. Head and neck reaching to one horizon, folded arms touching another, and his tail touching a third. He covered the landscape.

He crouched and leaped as high as he could. His shadow jumped with him. Dalin waved his claws in midair and dug them into the ground when he landed. His shadow looked fierce.

He reached into the gloomy lump beside him and pulled out the flute. Standing in profile, he raised his snout and held the flute to his mouth. His shadow was poised and ready.

He wanted something to make him feel as immense as his shadow, so he began with a single, drawn-out note. It became a series of notes. The music was best when he didn’t try to control it. He let it take him somewhere. The music did not seem to come from him. He was too small to create such a sound. This came from the enormous predator covering the ground.

It echoed off distant hillsides and returned even larger. There were no trees or underbrush to absorb the sound. It was free to go as far as it pleased. Dalin hoped someone out there was listening. He hoped a leafeater heard and wondered who could be playing something so large in this wasteland.

The shadow danced, sometimes standing erect, sometimes leaning on its tail. Sometimes it whipped its tail and walked in rhythm. It shifted from foot to foot, aiming its flute to the horizon, covering as much of the land as it could. It grew longer as it played.

As light faded, the shadow sat and faced the sun. It watched the disc until the stars took its place. It could have played more, but it decided it was time to move again.

10

Dalin’s toeclaws scraped the dirt, making him stumble and teeter. His other foot caught up and kept him from falling. He lifted his leg, but it would not rise all the way. Looking down, it didn’t appear wounded, yet he couldn’t lift it. Dalin took another step. His one leg dragged behind him uselessly.

He gritted his teeth and limped along. He flexed his thighs, but they didn’t lift him. Dalin walked half crouched, struggling to keep the ground from pulling him down.

He dragged himself a few dozen paces like this, halfway down, a tired, useless leg trailing behind him. His thighs would not hold him up anymore, so he sank lower and lower every time he put his foot down. He jerked his neck upright and willed his legs to lift him. He refused to stop now. Not now. Not out here. But it had been more than a month since his last meal. His bones tingled underneath his scales. His empty stomach writhed in his abdomen. Panting, Dalin squeezed his thighs one last time to raise himself upright.

His legs stopped. He stumbled from one foot to the other, trying to walk. He held his arms out and swung his tail, but instead of propelling him across the land, he fell forward. His neck hit the ground a heartbeat after his stomach, followed by his head, which made a dull thump.

He stared ahead vacantly. The horizon had not come any closer in days. Not a living thing in weeks. How did he know he was moving at all? There were no scents here. Nothing to follow. Dalin was just walking, hoping to find something, the ache in his stomach worsening day by day. It pinched all night, unceasing.

All he wanted to do was sleep.

His stomach screamed at him. He brought his arm back and felt his stomach. He once had a healthy bulge, but now he swore he felt his spine. His hand drifted up his chest. He felt his ribs. One. Two. Three. Four, five. Six. Seven. Eight... Nine.

Nine? The last time he felt himself he had counted only eight.

Dalin whimpered as his hand dropped. He was bald scales stretched over bone. Dalin struggled to breathe under the weight of his own backpack. He vaguely remembered a time when he had been strong enough to take out a hunter and then defend his prey from a mass of other carnivores. Now his body was eating itself alive just to give him the strength to draw breath.

Resting felt like the best thing to do.

Please... just let me rest. I’m tired of walking. I’m tired of looking for food. I’m tired of needing food.

He had a moment to consider this last thought. Looking back on the past five years, it was all he had done. Walk. Find food. Walk some more. Walk until he starved and found food. Just enough to keep him going.

Dalin rolled to his side to make breathing easier. His shoulder stayed comfortably in place. He settled down for a restful nap. Yes... just a little rest. The more settled he became, the more the ground beneath him felt as if it were reaching up and surrounding him in a comfortable bed in front of a crackling fire, just as he remembered in a leafeater city. Dalin snuggled up in it. He did not have to move from here. Ever. He could be comfortable for the rest of his life.

Dalin’s breathing relaxed. Soon the pain of hunger left him alone. At peace. The fatigue in his muscles and joints drained from him while the ground cushioned his body.

No regrets. He had nothing to lose. Dying would actually make things easier. All he had to do was lie here and let fatigue take him. Right here. There would be nothing to it. Just lie down and sleep for a while. If he woke up again, lie here for a while longer and sleep again, and if he never woke up, the pain would end. Finally, all the rest he needed.

Dalin whimpered half in sorrow and half in complete joy. He did not care if he woke up. He was at peace.

He had stayed alive on his own for five years. That was his accomplishment. This was his reward.

Years ago, his owner had shown him maps of the land. He had pointed to Omica in the forest. Lor in the plains. Kemcheh in the south marshes. Tun’ra in the north. Ilcinia in the northeast, the center of all medical research. All of these places he had wanted to see, and looking at them on the map they seemed so close. In the days with his owner, he had held the vastness of the land in his hand, and so it became full of wonder.

But then he was thrown into this immensity. The distance between those leafeater cities held him in its claws, and the land was not full of wonders waiting to be discovered, but a void that swallowed him.

He had been from sea to sea, followed one river and then another, crossed sandy wastelands like this more times than he could count and found nothing but hunger and fear. Fear that a leafeater would discover him. Fear that eventually he would fail to find something to eat, and then he would fall somewhere and rot without a single creature knowing he existed.

It happened. Finally, it happened.

Just one month without food, and the kills he eared were meaningless. His prowess as a hunter, irrelevant. As Dalin’s mind drifted in and out of consciousness, he regretted that he had not mated. He never even tried to have eggs. For reasons he could not identify consciously, this gnawed at him.

11

Something on his back was pressing him down. The hunter was just standing there, and Dalin attacked him again and again, but the weight on his back held him down. In complete agony, he rose to full height. His saddle bowed under the strain, but he had to kill this carnivore. He clawed, bit, chewed, slashed, and stabbed the hunter again and again, but his claws bounced off her scales. He stared at her impassive face and cried. Finally, the weight crushed him. His opponent had not made a move...

Dalin’s nose woke him up.

There was scent ... hunter scent ... female ... Weak. For a moment Dalin felt relieved. It was over. The walking, the loneliness, the struggle. His life had a purpose after all. His body would feed another, maybe allowing her to survive long enough to have eggs.

Footsteps crunched over bare ground. The weight was heavy, but hollow, meaning she was just as hungry as Dalin. She was still on the horizon, but Dalin heard her as if she were right next to him because his ear was pressed against the ground.

Ten years with my owner.

The hunter trotted closer.

Five years in the wild... This is how it ends? I lived to feed this hunter?

She stumbled. Her legs looked like twigs from here.

Why did I flee Omica? Why didn’t I just stay and let them use me? It would’ve been over then ... instead of stretching my death out for five years.

The hunter was at full speed. Something in Dalin stirred. Something that hadn’t stirred in days. His heart.

Why?

The words of his owner came to him like a quiet breeze.

“Hunters do not think, Dalin. By their nature they are bound by the desire to take lives and feed on them. Hunters do not think about what they do, or why they do it. They do not understand the present or look to the future. They never question where they’re going or where they’ve been. They only know the emotions of hunger, thirst, and mating, and they live to satisfy those urges. It is survival. It is all they know. They live to satisfy their instincts because that is their purpose. No hunters are capable of music as you are. No hunter before you ever learned to speak. You are not an animal. You are different, my hunter.”

It had happened. Dalin became an animal, even though he clung to his mind for five years.

Five years...

After everything he learned, after everything his owner did to prevent him from turning into one, it would end like this.

I can’t...

Dalin’s heart sped up to running pace. Fifteen years had to be worth something.

I can’t die an animal!

He rolled to his stomach, uncurling his hands, and pushed. He couldn’t lift himself. Breathing took as much effort as climbing sheer rock.

The ground called to him to lie down and rest. There was no pain in lying down. Even his shoulders had not complained. But Dalin clenched his teeth, squeezed his legs, and jumped to his feet, shrugging his backpack off and tapping his toeclaws on the ground. He scented the air, letting his body fill with the hunter’s scent. His heart squeezed its last drops of fight into his muscles.

The challenger slid to a stop and regarded Dalin, crest plumage rising and falling. Dalin flared his claws and opened his mouth. He called to her. She ducked her head and returned the call, plumage puffing all over her body. Dalin picked up his foot. His legs felt hollow. So did his arms—the way it felt when he moved in a dream. He ran to meet her.

12

“Ilcin.”

He had heard that name often, especially when his owner was reading. After Dalin learned to speak, he never mentioned it in Dalin’s presence. His owner either asked Dalin to leave, or he and the other leafeaters would speak further without him present. Dalin always wondered about this, and he asked once why the name Ilcin was so revered. His owner had only replied that he would tell him when he was older.

The shelves built into the walls of every leafeater house in Omica were full of books and loose pieces of parchment. Some of these were merely pages tied together with string. In every house there was always one book with a green cover, often worn from frequent use, but new copies appeared every now and then.

If other leafeaters were in the house with him and his owner, a conversation about Ilcin would always ensue when his owner took the green book from the shelf. Just as his nose prepared him for a fight every time he smelled hunter scent, or his ears made him jump every time he heard something break, Dalin became used to leaving the house and busying himself elsewhere whenever his owner reached for the green book. He read from it often while alone, talked about it among leafeaters when others were in the house, but he never once discussed it with Omica’s tamed hunter.

Dalin had taken one of these green books with him the day he fled Omica. He was holding it now, looking for the familiar, comforting pictures.

Dalin was shaking, coming down from the rush of the kill, trying not to let the joy of killing consume him and make him run wild, never stopping until he found another kill and more of this feeling. He had lost his mind when he was fighting and he won, but he had to calm down. Had to remember. Had to think.

The thin, feathered leafeater on the page in the green book was standing upright, holding what looked like a stick pointed on both ends. Below this image began the strange marks and scratches that his owner had called words. Symbols representing spoken sounds so they could be repeated exactly as they were once before. Most of this book was made up of these symbols, few pictures for him to look at. Other books on that wall had been nothing but drawings. Dalin liked these books because he could understand them, but something about this book drew him back to it time after time.

Dalin tried to turn a page, but seven of them slipped between his claws. Another page of hypnotizing glyphs and scratches replaced the previous. If he stared at them long enough he would give himself a headache. Turning the pages was easier now, but he still could not match his owner’s skill.

Frustrated, he held the book over his head, letting the pages fan out. He blew air through them. After five puffs he found a picture, held his claw there, and lowered the book to eye level. It was a full page image of another leafeater, the way they used to look. No serrated teeth or tapered spines down their backs or garish patterns on their scales. They were considerably thinner, like saplings, lacking the bulk and fierceness herbivores had today.

He wished he could understand the words. If he had known he would eventually end up here, he would have asked his owner to teach him.

Dalin was still shaking from the rush of fight and the glorious feeling of being fed. The hunter had just enough meat to be satisfying. By everything that was natural and wise, Dalin should be moving right now, for he was still starving, and staying here looking at a book would not keep him alive.

He refused to run from one kill to the next. He had to get his mind back.

Still shaking, he held the book over his head again and parted the pages. He found another picture and let the pages fall away as he lowered it. This was a strange drawing of a creature walking on all four legs. In all his years wandering the land, he had never seen a creature do this before. It was probably not a carnivore, for he had never found a picture of a hunter in this book. What kind of leafeater might this have been? It had what looked like a frill around its neck, with two horns on the top of its head and one on the nose. Horns like these were popular alterations for leafeaters today.

Dalin held the book up, blew the pages, and found another picture. He recognized it as a detailed drawing of the face on the leafeater he had seen on the first page. For a leafeater, he looked timid. As with all pictures of them in this book, he had no visible teeth, no horns, no impossible bulk, no spines anywhere on his head. Nothing threatening about him at all.

He turned the page normally—the way his owner had—and surprisingly one page flipped over. More hypnotizing symbols and scratches. He turned to the next. And the next. And then next. Nothing but words. Books without pictures were so boring, but his owner had spent twelfths reading from them. If he could only understand them, he might know the stories for himself.

His owner had read to him from many other books. Stories of how hunters gathered in packs and stalked leafeaters. Leafeaters had once run from the hunters, hiding their young.

His owner had not told Dalin that hunters no longer formed packs and took down prey together. He had not said that carnivores hunted each other. He had never once hinted that Dalin would have no time to seek out the wonders of the land because he would always be too hungry to look.

Leafeaters had it easy. They could bend over and pick whatever plant was by their feet and nibble on it. They could eat anything that was green, and it never ran from them or fought back.

Dalin shook less as his mind focused on the pictures and the memories of his owner they stirred up. He barely remembered what the hunter tasted like now, but every time he thought of it he felt happy. Not just the taste, but the feeling of the meat tearing off his prey’s body and sliding down his throat on its own blood. Only the memories stimulated by this book kept him from giving in to the panic of hunger and running in any direction until he fell somewhere and died.

He enjoyed the music in the same way he enjoyed hunting: it happened without thinking. When he played his music and looked at his books, he had purpose. Reason. Identity. He was creating something useful, not destroying life to preserve his own.

He flipped through the book, taking comfort in the placid leafeaters on the pages, imagining he could meet someone who looked like this. Someone who wasn’t trying to eat him. Someone who would talk to him instead of hunt him. Seeing leafeaters like this made it easier to imagine.

No longer shaking, now he inhaled the hunter’s carcass and did not have an urge to roll in the smell of his prey to warn off other predators. With all this food in him, maybe his tail would finally thicken up.

...why do I care about that?

It was another of those thoughts that, even when fully in control of himself, still popped up. Consciously he didn’t care about it, but he was a little self-conscious about the size of his tail. He thought the same thing about his legs, but it was always his tail he glanced at first, always the first thing he hoped would bulk up after a meal.

He shook the thought away and continued flipping through this special book with the green cover, full of leafeaters that did not exist. Peaceful, comforting leafeaters that were not trying to kill him. Looking at either of his two books allowed him to live in another place for a little while. For some reason, this helped him face reality.

[text copyright 2026 James L. Steele. All rights reserved. This is a sample of a published novel, The Book of Dalin, available in print and ebook wherever they are sold.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/249763375-the-book-of-dalin

https://daydreamingintext.blogspot.com/ 

Cover art by Valentinapaz, Valentinapaz.com]