The savage dance of predator and prey was playing out into the realm of the cold deserts outside of Cairo. A fat moon and unending sea of stars provided the only light in an otherwise darkened world of sand and shadow. The black form of a werewolf dashed across the landscape kicking up sand in its wake, its midnight colored fur one with the darkness. The monster once known as Karim Tadros ran as swiftly and silently as death itself, a phantom in the night. And deep within the creature's wild mind, it was afraid. A primal fear of the end sent blood rushing through its veins, blood seemingly tainted by the need to survive the night. It was seemingly as much a force of nature as the wind the beast was running with.
Behind the werewolf was a storm, three predators riding the swiftest horses their order could procure. They fired their silver loaded guns wildly at the vicious fiend, but the shapeshifter consistently stayed just far enough ahead to avoid having its pelt punctured by the silver bullets. Nayla rode out in front, screaming orders to her fellow hunters. But try as they might, the werewolf's desperation seemed only to make it faster, outrunning the horses and maintaining its distance from those that would slay it.
The werewolf bounded over a particularly large dune, paying no heed to the strange mist floating near by it. When the monster hunters approached the dune however, their fortunes changed drastically. Just as Nayla's gun caught the monster in its crosshairs, a terrible shriek tore through the desert night, a sound that was heard over the shouts of hunters and the heavy breathing of prey. As her remaining two warriors attempted to stop upon hearing the ear splitting noise, Nayla cursed at them and ordered them to continue their charge. Silhouettes of human shaped figures appeared on the horizon of the dune, illuminated by the moon's light, figures rising from the dune itself. Nayla frantically changed her course of action, trying to halt her advance.
She halted her horse but not fast enough. With another blood chilling shriek the shadowy figures were leaping towards her hunting party. The scent of grave dirt hung heavy in the air in those moments. Sudden bursts of gunfire from the hunters couldn't keep the darkness at bay. For those few split seconds when the flash of a gun's muzzle illuminated the night, the howling figures were visible for a brief moment. Ashen grey skin framed thin faces marked by fang filled maws. The creatures wore tattered clothing, and brandishing claw tipped hands. Their faces were locked in expressions of dire, unending hunger as they lunged for the two remaining hunters under Nayla's command.
"Ghouls!" one of the hunters roared above the sound of his rifle, unloading a cartridge into the skull of the first fiend to fall into his range.
A wave of night shrouded figures descended on the hunters, screaming like the desert winds, frantically charging towards the horse mounted warriors. Movement in the shadows could be seen, but the monster slayers found that they could only take blind shots at their enemies. A rare few bullets managed to pierce the flesh of a monster, even as all three hunters were firing as fast as their weapons would consent to fire. The ghouls that did manage to reach their prey without being shot cut the hunters with their dirt and blood encrusted claws. The first wave of ghouls to do so proved to be easy prey to the hunters, losing their unnatural existences to point blank shots that cried out into the desert night like thunder.
But still the ghouls continued pouring out of the shadows and directly at the hunters. The hunters fired their guns wildly to try and keep the ghouls at bay. But with every wave of ghouls, an ever increasing number managed to reach the horse riders. One hunter, a former solider named Hakim, fired his guns at the advancing horde until he ran out of ammunition. As he fought his panic to reload a weapon, the ghouls fell upon him. A claw shot out of the darkness and ripped Hakim's arm open, causing him to moan at the pain. The rest of the ghouls took this as a sign of weakness and began to attack him en masse. The fact that the smell of raw flesh was sent on the desert winds also helped create what could only be described as a crazed feeding frenzy. His fellow hunters fired desperately into the mob of ghouls swarming their comrade, but all their efforts were rewarded with were the terrible screams of gleeful predators. The sound of bones snapping and a horse braying drastically changed Nayla's battle plan.
"Retreat!" she shouted to her sole remaining warrior, a city guard named Taymullah who was untested against the forces of darkness that the Blessed Hunters struggled against.
Her order was swiftly followed by her subordinate, and the two of them raced away from the foul ghouls. Their progress was good for only a few moments before the ghouls looked up from their macabre meal and dashed over the dunes in pursuit of new prey. As Nayla pushed her horse to run faster, she glanced over her shoulder only to check on the last remaining member of her party. Soon enough she found herself having to fire her now rare bullets at the ghouls that were catching up with her comrade. Dividing her attention between what was ahead and what was behind her, Nayla only managed to catch bits and pieces of what happened next.
As Taymullah dashed past particularly high dune with the ghoul pack howling at his heels, a lone ghoul bounded off the top of the dune screaming to the moon. The monster's silhouette could have been seen in the moonlight at it leapt, its claws bared and about to fall on the hapless guard's form. Taymullah instinctively looked up at the screaming monster, his eyes widening as he realized that death had come for him. Nayla glanced back just in time to see the leaping ghoul spilling her comrade's blood across the cold sands. It was then that she realized that she was the only one left alive. She kept pushing her horse forward, firing back at the ghouls with every bullet that remained in her supply, cursing at the monsters as she struggled to kill them. Her head start over the undead and the distraction of human carrion was enough to save Nayla's life from the creatures.
As she retreated from the site of the battle, only thing on her mind was piecing together what had just happened. Nothing about the ambush made sense to her, and she realized that there was something much larger than the werewolf that had escaped her grasp. Elsewhere in the freezing deserts, Karim kept running, stooping down to all fours, kicking up sand as he ran. He too understood that something significant had made itself known, and in the depths of his instincts, he knew that this was the doing of the voice of nightmares.