Draft 6 – Updated 6 October 2025 (C002/D006)
The day was done. The sun was down. The Devil’s Beard was stirring and its nocturnal residents were becoming active. The high rhythmic trill of crickets drowned out the rustling of small mammals and the calls of distant owls. Large predators were yawning, stretching, and feeling the pangs of hunger. The time to hunt was near.
The river camp sat just off the main road in pastureland studded with towering everwoods. The pasture itself was a long strip of gently sloping land that followed the north bank of the Cold River. The top of its slope emerged from a dense alpine forest with an infamous reputation. Here it opened into a wooded meadow that rolled down to the water’s rocky edge.
The dark forest from which it emerged was tangled and old. It covered the lower third of the mountain like a beard covers the lower third of a face. Above the beard, thrusting skyward, were a pair of rocky triangles, glacial horns, whose snowcaps—when the clouds were just right—glared red in the light of the setting sun.
The river camp itself was once a homestead on land partially cleared for farming. All but the largest everwoods had been removed before tragedy struck. Never finished, it was now pastureland perfectly placed to serve the chateaus that guarded the colony’s main road where it passed between the horns above.
Within the boundaries of the camp, the knockers, the wagoneers, and the camp workers were snoring in their tents. The children were shivering on the ground covered by filthy blankets; the steel chain that held them was secured to the trunk of an everwood.
The coffle master and three of the deputies were sitting on their bedrolls sheltered by the overlapping branches of two towering everwoods. Two nearby coyote packs were engaged in a vocal battle over territory and were making conversation difficult. The pack closest to them, hidden behind the tangle of trees that defined the pasture’s northern boundary seemed to be winning. Lobbing chunks of firewood in their direction now and then seemed to be the only way to quiet them…temporarily.
High above the deputies, beyond the reach of the firelight and just past the range of their hearing, lounged the elf bounty hunter who had been staking them out for weeks.
The final deputy of their group was posted on guard duty, along with two of the adult slaves. The elf’s black-hatted bounty—called LT as Hunter had learned weeks ago—was seated at the fire. His turn at watch, the elf knew, was scheduled to begin soon.
Thanks to the little charade in front of the church earlier in the day, the stage was set for the final phase of Hunter’s plan. LT was now under Autumn’s spell. With a little luck, he would doze off during his watch and that would be the end of it.
In the unlikely event that he managed to stay awake through his entire watch, Hunter and his team of bounty hunters would move to a riskier Plan B and abduct their target the hard way. Regardless, though, this night was their last opportunity, because tomorrow night their bounty would be sleeping in a barracks at The Shadows.
Hunter’s position gave him a commanding view of the battlefield below. He could see the unhitched wagons near the road and the cluster of tents set up next to them. The chuckwagon, parked exactly in between the tents and the campfire below, still reeked of supper’s stew. Nothing could mask that smell. Not the fire. Not the paddock. Not even the three-seater outhouse—and that was placed on the far side of the paddock, as distant from the chuckwagon on this side as the wagons were on the other.
His perch was in the strategic center of the camp. Not only could he see everything, he could hear everything as well. The snoring in the tents, the banter at the fire, the snorts and nickers of horses paddocked uncomfortably close to warring coyotes, the coughing children, and signals from his partners.
Decades of experience as a bounty hunter told Hunter that their mission was likely moving forward to a successful conclusion tonight. If there was a bump in the road that could divert their plan from its path it might be the cough of the little girl that appeared to be spreading to others.
Under normal circumstances, Hunter would be able to count on the cruelty of the slavers to ignore the child’s cough and stick to their comfortable habits. However, these were not normal circumstances. One of these slavers was not a slaver at all.
“Sounds like that cough done took,” said one of the deputies.
Overseer Wilson silently clenched his jaw. Another cough emerged from the darkness. This one was not a child’s cough.
“Damn!” Walking to the edge of the firelight, he raised his voice. “You sick, too, Moonshine?”
“Naw,” replied a voice from the darkness. “I’m good.”
Shoulda done the three silver treatment, Wilson chastised himself. “What about y’all?” he demanded of the group at the fire. One by one, they all told him that they were fine.
“I’m like the guy who jumped off the Tower of Elal,” LT said with a sly smirk.
“What about him?” asked the captain.
“As he was falling, people on each floor kept hearing him say, ‘So far, so good!’”
“And?”
“So far so good,” LT replied, eyes sparkling playfully.
“That’s a dumb goddam joke,” the captain replied with a glare. “Go relieve Porkchop.”
LT stood, adjusted his katana and headed out into the darkness. His path took him directly under Hunter. As LT passed the coffle, he checked the chain to make certain it was secure. Two of the children were coughing. The youngest girl’s cough was especially bad and it seemed to be getting worse.
Hunter took it all in from his perch. He heard the joke, watched LT adjust his gear, watched him check the slave chain, and noted an intense pulse of red as he passed the girl with the cough. “Ain’t right,” he heard LT mutter under his breath.
At precisely that moment Hunter also heard a cricket trill at a slightly lower frequency than all of the other sounds in the background. It was his daughter, Scout, letting him know she was awake and ready in her assigned spot. Hearing that, he waited for a response from Autumn verifying that he was in place as well. One-hundred heartbeats later…nothing.
Below him on the ground, LT relieved his comrade and carefully surveyed the darkness waiting for his eyes to adjust. When his eyes and ears convinced him that everything was as it should be, he moved stealthily to the slaves.
Keeping one eye on the deputies gathered around the fire, LT opened his canteen, sat the little girl up, and gave her a long drink. When she finished, he wiped the canteen with his sleeve and gave the coughing boy next to her a long drink as well. Then he wiped the canteen one more time and put it back in his coat. The coughing subsided.
All of this Hunter observed with interest. Wha’choo up to, boy? he asked himself silently about this unusual behaviour. Wha’choo up to?
Why would a wanted man take a Company contract, he wondered? More importantly, why would he take a contract that took him toward The Shadows and not away from them? It was an extraordinary risk.
This wrinkle—this unexpected behavior from a fugitive—was the reason Hunter was waiting until the last possible moment to pull the trigger on an abduction that should have happened days ago. Hunter knew LT was up to something, but he did not yet know what.
That was the moment at which everything changed.
Nothing about that moment seemed historic. Hunter was in a tree, which to be honest was where one would normally find him. The slaves were in their chains. The overseer and his deputies were reclining on their bedrolls. Everything and everyone was exactly where one would expect to find them—except….