It had been yet another lengthly draining trek to only the Gods know where he had ended up so far, in the middle of the night. He was sure he was close, or so he's been told, but there's no telling on how far he has to go. The whole point of this embarked journey was to hunt down a thief. The item stolen had of great importance and history to the client, especially if she was willing to pay the expenses of sending some giant hundreds of miles out to a partially unknown area to kill a man for it. The item itself did not need to be retrieved, it was already back safe and sound, but the thief was still to perish by any means necessary.

So far down this beaten path he had been warned by a number of people, including the client, of how dangerous the family was in this particular village, unlike their relatives, they are not very fond of outsiders and they sported a violent past. X'yros didn't care. A challenge to others meant meer play to him, and money was money. The later the night became, the nastier his mood gradually grew to be. Lack of sufficient food had a major impact, mainly he had deprived himself on purpose. If the villagers show themselves unhappy with a death of one their own… or more, he would be able to handle it. It meant nothing to him, the number of lives that would be lost, in fact he looked forwards to it and hoped they would try to stop him.

X'yros froze when an owl dropped down from its perch on a limb directly above him. The darkness concealed the light flier as it took off into a more heavily wooded area. The encounter so close to his head had brought him out of his thoughts and back to reality. The amount of trees had majorly declined as they were now only visible as sparse clumps clinging to the hills near a distant source of light. That must be exactly where he needed to go. A little further down the road was a long line of what appeared to be stone walls surrounding a pasture of sorts. The pale ground seemed much more worn down within their holds either by large flocks of sheep or heavier herds of animals. X'yros proceeded, but now he was much more careful with his footing so he wouldn't alert anything nearby. The moon softly lit up his stealthy figure walking on for what felt like an eternity until he finally had covered a good distance by the stone wall.

Eventually he came into range of the sound of gentle breathing from slumbering mammals. He looked past the wall and sure enough, his golden eyed saw the outline of multi-colored coats and the low hung heads of drowsy horses. Further down seemed to be a separate herd of cattle bedded down with their young calves besides them. His vision in the dark was wonderful, but a fog had lifted and it made difficulties for his eyes to judge distances and objects. Soon the cattle began to melt into a hazy thickness the night produced. A few fireflies continued to look for mates, dotting the landscape with little yellow flames.

X'yros took a moment to absorb his surroundings and think. The wall was short, but he leaned against it to the best of his abilities to take a load off. It was time to build a plan on how to carry out his actions with the highest results. When farming land was available, his task was simple. Excite and spook the livestock, then lure out your victim and wait. The only downside to this job was how open everything was. A nearby Shephard could probably spot him under the full moon just the way he is unless the fog continues to thicken. If it's a village of shifters, who knows what kind, he might be in trouble. Back in the trail he did see some sort of signs with Fox figures and symbols carved into them but shifters could be more than two things. His scent would lead to a disastrous outcome if they were to pick it up and blow his cover. All of these things he took into consideration while waiting to see if the fog would build up anymore.

The horses, she could tell, were well bred and likely very expensive. Perfect. Caligo walked slowly up the field, mimicking her domesticated brethren as she nosed the grass at her feet. She snorted, the plants were bland and flavorless compared to the sweet meat of most of her prey. She cast her gaze onto the herd further up the hill, scanning them for any weakness or flaw that she could easily take advantage of. She snorted and shook her head as a grasshopper landed on her nose. Vile insects. She wasn't a big fan of insects in general, but she thoroughly disliked maggots. Little meat stealers.

She inched her way up towards the heard and saw a few horses turn and look at her, their ears perked up alertly. She nickered and continued to graze. Let them think I'm one of their own, they will no my true intentions soon enough. The horses seemed content with that and didn't seem to bother her more. She managed to worm her way into the mass of bodies and nudged one of the mares away from her choice of grass. The mare pinned her ears and attempted to bite her. She thrust her head up and bared her large fangs at her, emitting a low growl and causing the horse to run in fright. She shook her black mane and continued to pick at the grass as she inspected her prey.

She caught sight of an older grey stallion who, when he walked, had an obvious limp. She smiled and made her way over to the horse. He caught her scent and looked up at her, his brown eyes sharp with age. He seemed the only one that could pick out the differences between her and the rest of the others. He gave a loud neigh and pinned his ears back at her. The horses looked up and quickly moved away from the black mare. She raised her head up, holding her ears to her skull and peeling back her lips to show her teeth, exposing herself as the predator she was. 

The stallion rushed at her, surprisingly nimble and all the traces of the limp gone. He rushed her and she sprung back on her hindquarters, cutting at the air with her forelegs. The horse turned and she wheeled around to cut him off. He lunged at her, teeth bared to take a piece out of her flank. She flicked her bony tail, catching him across the cheek and she slammed her front down onto his body. She felt him nip her chest. She dropped her head to bury her fangs in his neck. He screamed and thrashed but she locked her jaws and sank her teeth deep into his flesh. He managed to turn and kick her in the side, which caused her to loosen her grip enough that he could escape. 

Blood poured out of the puncture wounds, dying his neck red and dripping down his front legs. She paused for a moment to catch her breath and lick the blood off of her teeth. The stallion was still processing what happen when she went for his throat and flipped him onto the ground. If she had been a normal horse, he would have been a very hard challenge. But she wasn't normal. She yanked and jerked his head around, feeling the bones snap in his neck. She watched his legs do their death kicks and she moved from his neck to his belly. She easily opened him up with her teeth and the still steamy blood and organs came pouring out of the body cavity. 

She tore into them with flourish, splattering blood and gore around the field like a horrible piece of art. She didn't pay the horses much mind as she heard them run to the far side of the field. She was content with this kill, at least for a few nights anyway. She loved peeling the heavy muscle from the bones and hide of the carcass, affirming to herself that the owners had put quite a hefty coin into their livestock. She thanked them for it, she prefered to eat high class. 

Only a moment to think had been given to him as soon drifted over an eerie, distant scream cut the tranquil evening. Both X'yros and the horses lifted their heavy heads to catch echoing pain, followed by the sound of thundering hooves. Now all of the horses in the herd stood wide awake and alert, along with the cattle that had once been huddled on the ground heavily asleep. X'yros swung his legs over the wall and quietly took a few steps towards the herd of horses. Two mares picked up his uncaring gait and immediately turned to his direction. Their ears jammed in his direction signaled high alert, but this hunter didn't really care much for them. He snorted and startled the herd which quickly turned and peeled off in a panic back towards the lights in the distance.

Now X'yros faced the cattle, who all stood and faced him with low chuffs and drool dripping muzzles. It was time for him to start a full out stampede and set some lures. Granted, he was quite little weary about attracting whatever other predator was out stalking the herds tonight. A few steps forward and the herd was on edge, not sure where to go. He turned himself and made a deadbolt sprint top the best of his weighted abilities towards the end of the herd and forced them to take off after the horses. Something inside of him snapped when they began slamming their cloven hooves against the terrain in sheer terror, for the next thing he was aware of was knocking a young heifer over in a body slam that sent her tumbling down into the dirt, but that didn't satisfy him. He grabbed ahold of a flash of horns from an older cow trying to make a mad dash past him. 

His titanic feet brought him to a sudden stop, even his clawed toes had sank into the soft ground to anchor his position while he partially swung the bawling cow over. Her feet tangled beneath her and her chest sank to the ground. X'yros had been pulled out of his own footing from the combination of weight and higher speed. He didn't trip however he did come crashing atop the cow over her flank, but a soft landing for him was perfectly acceptable.
The herd continued past them and became nothing more than thunder in the distance. X'yros shook his skull while he comfortably remained partially turned on his side, his elbows propped up against the shoulder of the cow while his large clawed hands covered her face and kept her neck against the ground. His fall and left her ribs broken along with her collarbone, she wouldn't be able to stand even if she wanted to. From behind him came the painful wailing of the young heifer, crying out painfully from her broken front limbs. X'yros listened while she tried pushing herself onto her chest, only resulting the young animal into sliding about in the slippery grass. These two moaning beasts would be his keys to lure out any shepherding guards in the area, perhaps even villagers once they see how stressed numerous herds are. 

He shifted from directly above the cows ribs to keep from crushing her lungs while she painfully cried out. She quickly gave up sooner than he hoped, so he slowly dug his sharper nails into her eyes which resulted in numerous sets of screams that would ring out for miles. 
Satisfied he pushed himself off from her back to stand. He let her breath for a moment and tuelrned back to the broken heifer to inflict more pain into her as well.

When he turned, he could see tiny lamp lights on the horizon, but it would take them a while to reach the scenes. It appeared that sound carried for a wonderful distance out in this land.