Jebediah Grier – Tyrant King Press

[Fiction] The Beasts of Kulig County, Chapter 2

Samaraland was being invaded. Giant hoppers, Macropodotherium, were a large species of hypsilophodont indigenous to Vona, an offshore territory of Garacania. When the island had been cut off from the mainland by rising sea levels, its hypsilophodont population had quickly adapted and diversified, occupying every niche available to them. In order to navigate through the tall grasses that had taken over the island’s open areas, most adopted an energy-efficient hopping gait, earning the nickname hoppers, or as some cheeky zoologists called them, “hopsilophodonts.”

[Fiction] The Beasts of Kulig County, Prologue & Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

A storm was rolling in, and distant thunder rumbled across the darkened prairie as lightning etched flickering patterns across the horizon. One by one the three Nasutoceratops lifted their frilled heads and sniffed, smelling the scent of rain on the air. These ceratopsians were not native to the prairie, their ancestors having been domesticated and brought north from the wet, swampy forests to the south thousands of years ago. Despite not being endemic to this mostly open mix of fern prairie and grassy veld the grazers had proven quite adaptable, and now they roamed the land in relatively small, yet commercially valuable, herds.