Draft 7 – Updated 7 October 2025 (C002/D007)
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, making campfire conversation difficult. The pack closest to them, hidden behind the screen of trees that defined the pasture’s northern boundary seemed to be winning. Lobbing chunks of firewood in their direction now and then was 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 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. Their bounty 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 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 campfire around which the deputies were arranged was close enough to provide light for those in the tents who might need to get up during the night. Yet it was set far enough away not to endanger them with wayward sparks.
The chuckwagon was parked to his south on the slope below the campfire, nearer the river. It still reeked of supper’s stew and nothing could save Hunter from the smell. Not the smoke. Not the paddock. Not even the three-seater outhouse on the far side of the paddock.
Hunter’s 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. “Ain’t no thing.”
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 assured him 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….
*****
Autumn was distracted. While moving into his assigned position to observe the camp, he had stumbled across some suspicious spoor. It hinted at something that did not seem possible. Gnolls—vicious dog-like warriors at war with every species around them—were no longer present on this side of the bay. Yet…here were canine tracks far too large and far too deep to be anything else.
He knew that Hunter preferred he stick to their carefully laid plans, but this seemed important. Gnolls were massive—towering, bipedal hyenas who outweigh large human men by nearly half. A single gnoll in close combat with a proficient human warrior will shred his opponent and then eat his corpse to celebrate. An elite human warrior, highly skilled with superior weapons, might…might prevail against a single gnoll in hand-to-hand combat. But a pack of gnolls with the advantages of surprise and darkness versus four armed deputies, a single coffle master, and a bunch of unarmed slaves…that would be a massacre.
In order to assess this unanticipated threat, Autumn needed to know what and how many. The tracks he followed took him away from camp. Out of sheer bad luck, he was a considerable distance away on the riverbank across from the old mill when the first war yelps reached his ears. It did not help, in that moment, that the gnolls were immediately answered by the nearby coyotes, for the deputies—unfamiliar with gnolls—took no notice of it.
Hunter, Scout and Autumn, however, were not fooled. Having grown up across the bay in The Wood, where gnolls were common, they understood the danger. They heard the war yelps and immediately grasped their implications. The sounds would draw attention to one side of the camp, but the attack would begin on the other.
Scout was stationed near the wagons, at the end of the camp opposite the war yelps, and realized that her position would soon be overrun. She bolted to the nearest wagon and scrambled around behind it. Hunter was near the center of camp in an everwood. High ground was good, but he was too far from her to help prevent the attack from starting.
A few heartbeats later, Scout heard the first footfalls of the gnolls entering the pasture from the place where the road to The Shadows entered The Beard. They were charging along the treeline that separated the Beard from the pasture. A glance at the adult slave posted nearest her position showed he was alert. Unfortunately, he was looking back toward the campfire and the yipping of nearby coyotes was enough to distract him from the sound of the charging warriors.
Scout stepped into the deepest shadows, readied her bow, and nocked an arrow. She prepped a second arrow in her bow hand, but knew she would not be able to loose it until the entire line of gnolls passed her. Loosing the arrow too soon would give her position away and lead to a quick death. Best to wait until the line passed her and then pick them off from behind while they were silhouetted against the light fabric of the tents and illuminated by the campfire.
She also considered the people in the camp. She wanted to save them all but knew that even with the best efforts of the three elite individuals in her party, most were sure to die. Since that tragedy was unavoidable, she would do her best to save some of the children.
Scout counted nearly twenty gnolls. A few more, she knew, would attack from the other side of the camp. The watchman nearest her, hypnotized by the coyote sounds and unable to see in the dark, provided absolutely no warning to his comrades. The first gnoll took him from behind and ran him through with a machete. He fell to the ground clutching at his stomach, gurgling, trying to keep his insides inside.
Two heartbeats later, they reached the firelight and headed straight for the men rising from their bedrolls. One deputy broke ranks and bolted toward the river without stopping to draw a weapon. The others jumped to their feet, slid their long knives from their scabbards, and absorbed the attack.
After the last gnoll passed her hidden position, Scout stepped out and loosed an arrow aimed at his back. Unexpectedly, the gnoll immediately in front of her target stumbled, forcing her target to take a quick step to its left. This caused Scout’s arrow to miss the trailing gnoll and strike the gnoll in front of him.
While Scout was lucky that this arrow managed to drop the gnoll it actually hit, she was unlucky in that the gnoll she missed turned around looking for an archer. Having already drawn her bowstring, she stood as still as possible hoping to avoid detection.
*****
At the other end of the camp, LT became aware of the gnolls as they reached the campfire. He drew his long, curved, single edged sword and was about to join the battle at the fire when a shout from overhead—“Look to the tads!”—locked him in place, defending the coffle.
Mayhem ripped through the camp. His comrades at the campfire did what they could. Two gnolls fell, but it was not enough. The survivors were immediately gutted by the larger gnolls. Coffle Master Wilson died first, cleaved by a machete from his right shoulder through to his left hip. In moments, the others disappeared in a mist of blood amongst a hail of blades and gnashing teeth.
Hunter knew the camp was lost. Protecting the children was his only concern. Two gnolls who broke off from the campfire toward LT were immediately taken down by arrows—one in the neck, one in the groin. The last of these two stumbled into LT’s feet clutching at his crotch and was dispatched by a single chop of his sword.
The lone human deserter fled down the slope past the chuckwagon, heading for the river, but was quickly overtaken by a pursuing gnoll. Hunter fired two arrows into the melee hoping to hit the gnoll with both. Unfortunately, the first arrow found the coward’s kidney. He dropped to the ground and started crawling for the river on his hands and knees. The second, punctured the gnoll’s neck, severed his spine, and protruded from his throat. He expired gurgling on the ground close behind the injured deputy.
*****
The gnoll looking for Scout quickly spotted her. As recognition sparked in his eyes, an arrow flashed toward him. His iron helm saved his life but the intensity of the blow knocked him back and watered his eyes. He never saw the second arrow, the one that ended his life. Nevertheless, his awkward death bought his fellow tribesmen precious seconds, allowing them to swarm the tents.
*****
The attack on the far side of the camp began just as the first group arrived at the fire. The gnoll leader, flanked by two of his largest fighters, emerged from The Devil’s Beard and charged along the treeline past the outhouse. LT could not see them in the dark, but Hunter could.
The distance was long, the target was moving, and leaves from an adjacent oak were partially blocking his view. Hunter aimed for the center of mass and loosed an arrow through a gap in the foliage. He immediately reloaded and loosed another. The first arrow pierced a gnoll in the side of his lower belly and stopped him, grunting, in his tracks. The second arrow struck the leader’s shoulder cap with an audible chink and ricocheted into the paddock where it started the horses.
LT, alerted by the horses, heard the pounding footsteps and turned to see the gnolls coming. Positioning his two-handed sword low in near ward position, LT planted his feet and prepared for the coming rush. Hunter recognized the stance. Whoever this fugitive was, the Granite Brotherhood taught him to fight.
*****
Cries of horror from inside the tents were quickly silenced. Scout took the bloody gnolls down one-by-one as they stepped out of the tents back into the firelight. With everyone now dead on her side of camp, she dashed past the fire toward Hunter.
Autumn topped the slope at a full sprint just in time to see the leader and a flanking gnoll close with their black-hatted bounty. The flanking gnoll was a two steps ahead of the leader charging LT with his sword above his head. As he stepped in close, LT shifted his weight, lifted his sword, gutted the gnoll and stepped past the collapsing corpse. Stopping his sword overhead in house position, he blocked the leader’s downward strike, absorbed his power and rolled clear of a second strike that just whistled past his ear.
*****
The children tried to run, but were chained together. Running was not an option. Some screamed, some cried, and some yanked desperately on their chains. Several gnolls, having finished their battle with the deputies at the campfire, bolted past them to join the fight with their leader.
Knowing what must be done to end the battle, Hunter scanned for Autumn and spotted the druid cresting the hill. He slung his bow across his back, drew his staff, and jumped down from his perch hoping Autumn would see him in the open. He pointed at the charging leader with his staff and slid into position back-to-back with LT. The gnolls closed a circle around them.
“Cavalry’s coming, yo,” Hunter said over his shoulder, parrying an attack from a gnoll. “Get ready to roll.”
“What?” exclaimed LT, relieved to have help, but having no idea what the stranger meant.
“We gonna roll out,” Hunter shouted over the growls and howls of the attacking gnolls. “Watch for a spot.”
*****
Scout came into range just as Autumn topped the hill and the gnolls closed the circle. She could not see Hunter behind the curtain of seven foot animals, but she knew where he had to be. She also recognized the druidic gestures that Autumn was making and understood what she needed to do. Two quick arrows sunk deep into their targets’ backs, creating an opening.
The ground at their feet shuddered. The soil began rippling like water. “Now!” Hunter shouted, grabbing LT and rolling through the opening.
LT felt something grasping at his boots, but they rolled free and came up in house position, weapons held high ready to block an attack. As the snarling beasts pivoted toward them, long grasses, grasping thistles, and thumb-thick saplings snaked up from beneath the soil entangling their legs, slithering through gaps in clothing and armour, wrapping their arms, curling around their throats like bark-armoured pythons. Two fell and were immediately overcome by the coiling vegetation.
One broke free, stumbled during his escape, and dropped to his knees at the feet of LT and Hunter. With a quick downward swipe, LT removed his head. A second broke free and took an arrow to the brain from Scout. Moments later, all remaining gnolls were immobilized and the battle—for the moment—was paused.
Hunter lowered his staff. LT pivoted to face him while maintaining his defensive posture.
“Who the hell are you?” LT demanded.
Hunter circled the entangled beasts, carefully examining arms and legs to ensure that none could break free.
“Who the hell are you?” LT repeated.
Hunter ignored him, completing the circle and walking back toward the camp.
“Stop.” LT ordered as he sheathed his sword and followed the elf. “Where are you going?”
Autumn went to the children. Scout wrapped a kerchief over her face before checking every gnoll corpse to make sure they weren’t playing possum. She also began the process of retrieving every arrow loosed—broken or unbroken.
Hunter stopped first over the coffle master’s dead body. He searched it, took a key from one pocket and some folded papers from another. Shaking the blood from the papers, he tossed the key to Autumn as he walked past on his way to the treeline. The papers were folded and stuffed inside his tunic.
“Take the chains off the tads. Replace them with corpses.”
Autumn nodded.
“The gnolls gotta break the chain if they want to drag all of the bodies away at once.”
“I get it,” Autumn replied.
“I’ll answer your questions,” Hunter said to LT, stopping to examine the ground at the spot where he had put an arrow into the slave’s kidney. “But first you’re gonna answer mine.”
“Depends on the question,” LT replied, squaring up his chest and putting his hand on the pommel of his sword.
Hunter scoffed, shook his head, and squatted down for a closer look at the ground. “What’s LT stand for?” he asked, following a blood trail across the meadow in the general direction of the river.
“It’s my name.”
Hunter looked at him skeptically.
“It’s my nickname. Stands for Little Tanner,” he volunteered. “My dad’s name was Tanner. I’m Little Tanner.”
“Was?” Hunter asked.
“He passed.”
Hunter paused for a moment, considering what he’d been told. “Sorry to hear that,” he offered before turning his attention away and following the blood trail down the hill.
LT tagged along. “It was five years ago”—LT’s eyes widened—“You were in the tree,” he blurted, in a moment of recognition. “And you three…I saw you in town.”
Hunter stopped halfway down the hill, gazing at the ribbon of river reflecting the moonlight.
“What are you looking for?” LT wondered aloud, searching the darkness.
“Blood trail.” Hunter pointed to the ground, tracing a line with his finger. “Leads to the water.”
“What…how the…It’s pitch black out here,” LT exclaimed.
“Naw, son,” Hunter replied. “You just night blind.”
“So there’s a guy in the water?” LT asked, half drawing his sword.
“Most likely,” said Hunter before turning and walking back toward the camp.
As Hunter strode up the hill, LT followed along in silence, gathering his thoughts, trying to make sense of it all.
Approaching the camp, Hunter saw the shivering children in their filthy blankets gathered around the fire. Scout and Autumn were dragging corpses to the slave chain and affixing collars to their necks. The lower half of the coffle master was dumped next to his upper.
“Find some water in those wagons and give those tads a drink,” Hunter instructed LT.
Hunter turned and walked toward the entangled pack of gnolls.
“You understand that I’m a deputy, right?” LT called after Hunter. “Those kids are the property of The Shadows.”
Hunter kept walking.
“Oh, honey,” Autumn chuckled, shaking his head, “if he thought you were one of these guys…”