Ank awakened and yet could not see, could not breathe, could not move. Was he still dreaming? No, of that he was quite certain; his head hurt, for one thing, as though someone had hit him with a great hammer. He reared up suddenly, the dirt cascading down the sides of his snout like sand, and looked around: a dead were-raptor lay nearby, half-buried in rubble, and beyond that, another.
He rose his entire body with a groan and shook himself off, causing a great cloud of dust to dissipate on the wind. There were only two of them—the others were either buried where he couldn’t see or had fled after the collapse of the cliff face. Either way, they were no longer a threat, at least not for now.
And yet ... the world had changed, he could tell. He had changed. Something inside him had awakened
