Chapter 28: Badland Ants
The Ouros System wasn’t trustworthy and couldn't see much farther than Tulland himself could, but this wasn’t the kind of thing it would lie about. Tulland scanned the ground, missing the pit four times before he finally caught the subtle difference in the dirt-on-dirt motif of the world around him. There was a depression in the ground about twenty feet ahead, doing nothing in particular and displaying no particular activity around it.
Compared to anthills back home, it looks positively dead. Not like an anthill at all.
This is, as you know, hardly “back home.” But it does follow a certain logic, if you know how to see it.
Oh, yeah? Tulland kept his responses to thought, so as not to jostle any activity out of the pit before he was ready for it. And what’s that?
As a rule of thumb, the larger an animal is, the less of it there are. Bigger things take more food to feed.
But they can take down bigger prey, working together.
There is a balance to everything, you’ll find. And exceptions to any rule, for that matter. But as a general thing, a wolf is around the largest animal you are likely to see.
Unless I see something else.
Indeed.