Bats (Common and Giant)

Bats are winged night-fliers whose forelimbs stretch into membranes of thin skin. The common sort is a mouse-sized insect-eater, harmless on its own but unnerving in flickering clouds that boil from cave mouths at dusk. The giant kind is a true threat: bodies the length of a forearm, a wingspan twice a man's reach, and a taste for warm flesh. Both navigate by hurling shrill cries into the dark and reading the echoes, so deep gloom blinds them not at all. A startled swarm whirls into a confused storm that snuffs torches and fouls aim, making any narrow tunnel treacherous. Hunters prize their leather wings and the rich droppings heaped beneath roosts.