Avian

How it fights

A predator fights like something that has done this before and expects to again. It opens carefully, watches what you do with the first exchange, and commits only when the answer suits it. Nothing about it is overwhelming and nothing about it is forgiving either: it will take any opening you leave, and it is patient enough to wait for one rather than make its own.

Field notes

The great raptors nest high and hunt wide, and a country under one is quiet at midday because everything small has learned the shadow. It rides the warm air in circles that tighten over what it has chosen, and it does not hurry. It will take from a fire's edge, from a saddlebag, from a hand if the hand is slow. Feathers and cast pellets under a crag mark the roost, and the roost is where it comes back to at dusk.

Where it is met

Met in the High Ridge, Wreck of White Interior, Waste of Scoured Country, Turret of Northern Reach, Patient Maze, Blind Gullet of Southern Marches, Sealed Keep and Turning Coils, by travellers of levels 1 to 35.

Known by these names

Known by these names: beast of the pack, rock pika, carrion crow and sentry beast.

What it leaves

Worth hunting for the lightning brand and sharpening it leaves behind, when it leaves anything.

The roll

Under this kind stand seven of the least sort, 15 of the common sort, eight tough, eight elite, two champion and one worldboss, and two named: Heldis, the Voice of a beast-lord's range and Skarth, the Fang of a beast-lord's range, besides one that lead without a name.