KIRKHUSA

KIRKHUSA

"Kirkhusa look more like big land-bound otters than canines. They're trainable, cheap as anything because they eat only the leaves of low bushes and the insects that grow on them. And they're even cuter than puppies when they're small....but this kirkhusa isn't cute. It's big, a good hundred pounds of healthy, sleek-furred flesh."

"It's growling, and as it slinks out of the grass and up onto the road, you see red blooms in the fur around its mouth and on its clawed, prehensile paws."

"That's the problem with kirkhusa, see. The reason everyone can afford them. They eat leaves -- until they taste enough ash, which triggers some instinct within them that's normally dormant. Then they change. Everything changes during a Season."

N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season