Draft 11 – Updated 27 APRIL 2026 (C002/D011)
The day was done. The sun was down. The Devil’s Beard was coming to life. 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 urge to hunt.
The river camp sat just off the colony’s main road. It was a long strip of gently sloping pastureland stretching away from the road along the north bank of a river. The top of its slope emerged from the foot of a dense alpine forest known locally as the Devil’s Beard. From there the pasture rolled down through a tree-studded meadow to the rocky north bank of the river
The forest above the pasture was ancient, tangled, and dark. It covered the lower third of the mountain like a beard covers the lower part of a man’s angry face. Above the Beard, thrusting skyward, were a pair of rocky peaks—glacial horns, whose snowcaps, when the clouds were just right, glowed red in the light of the setting sun.
The overseer and three of his deputies were sitting on their bedrolls sheltered by the overlapping branches of two towering everwoods. The remaining deputy kept watch over the coffle while a lone adult slave kept a sleepy eye on the wagons near the road.
Two raucous coyote packs, one on either side of the camp, were engaged in a loud battle over territory. The pack closest to the camp, hidden behind the screen of trees that defined the pasture’s boundary with the Beard, seemed to be winning. Lobbing batons of firewood in their direction now and then was the only way to quiet them and make conversation possible.
*****
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, seated at the fire and scheduled—soon—for second watch, was now under magical influence. With a little luck, he would doze off during his watch and that would bring an end to the mission.
In the unlikely event that he managed to stay awake through his entire watch, Hunter and his team would move to a riskier Plan B and abduct their target the hard way. Regardless, though, this night was their last chance to get him, because tomorrow night their bounty would be sleeping in a barracks at the Shadows.
Hunter’s position, high in an everwood overlooking the campfire, gave him a commanding view of the battlefield below. He could see the unhitched wagons lined up beside the road and the cluster of tents adjacent to them.
The campfire around which the deputies were arranged was close enough to the tents to provide light. Yet it was set far enough away from the tents not to endanger them with sparks.
The chuckwagon was parked below them on the downslope. It was positioned halfway between the campfire and the bank of the river and reeked of supper’s stew. Nothing could save poor Hunter from the smell. Not the smoke from the fire. Not the manure in the paddock nor the three-seater outhouse but on its far side.
Decades of experience as a bounty hunter told him 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 current predictable path it might be the little girl, and her cough.
Under normal circumstances, Hunter would be able to count on the cruelty of the slavers to ignore the child’s illness and stick to their comfortable routines. However, these were not normal circumstances.
*****
“Sounds like that cough done took,” said one of the deputies.
The overseer 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.”
Should have done the three-silver treatment. “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 Elrond,” LT said with a smirk.
“What about him?” asked the overseer.
“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 in the firelight.
“That’s a dumb gotdam joke,” the overseer snapped. “Go relieve Porkchop.”
The young deputy stood, adjusted his sword and headed out into the darkness. As he passed the coffle, he tugged once on the chain to make certain it was secured to the tree.
*****
Hunter watched the scene unfold beneath him. He heard the familiar old joke and smiled as the young man checked his gear. He saw him tug on the slave chain and, for the first time, understood the pulse of colour that passed through him.
“Ain’t right,” Hunter heard him mutter, confirming what he now suspected.
At precisely that moment Hunter also heard a cricket trill. It was his daughter, Scout, letting him know she was awake. She was ready in her assigned position.
In a moment, he should get a similar message from Autumn verifying that he was in place as well. One-hundred heartbeats later, however . . . nothing.
*****
LT walked to the edge of the light and patiently surveyed the darkness. When his eyes adjusted to it he relieved his comrade and waited for him to go to his bedroll. When LT’s eyes and ears convinced him that everything was as it should be, he moved stealthily over to the coffle.
Keeping one eye on the fire-blind deputies in their bedrolls, 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 inside his coat.
*****
Wha’choo up to, boy? Hunter watched the slaver-who-was-not-a-slaver attend to the children in the coffle. It made no sense for him to accept a contract that took him into the Shadows—unless he had a plan that made the risk worthwhile.
Hunter knew that waiting to see what the kid was doing increased the risk of something going wrong with his own plan. But he couldn’t help it. His gut told him to help the kid, if he could just figure out what he was up to.
*****
Autumn was distracted. He was supposed to be moving into position to surveil the camp and prepare to play his part in their abduction of the fugitive. But he’d stumbled across something he hadn’t expected to find—something he didn’t think was even possible anymore.
Yet, here it was in front of him: a set of tracks too big and too deep to be anything other than what they appeared to be. And if what they appeared to be checked out, their plan absolutely had to change. Urgently and immediately. Tonight.
He knew that at one time, decades ago, long before humans took control of this valley, they lived here, too, Gnolls: towering, bipedal wolves in a permanent state of war with every sentient species around them.
Humans, alone, were no match for gnolls in combat. An average human with an ordinary weapon had no hope one-on-one against a gnoll. Even a pup would easily defeat a typical human adult—and then eat his corpse to celebrate.
An elite human warrior, properly trained and equipped with superior weapons, might . . . might prevail against a single adult gnoll in hand-to-hand combat. But a pack of gnolls with the advantages of surprise and darkness against four deputies, a single overseer, and a bunch of unarmed slaves? There was no question that would be a massacre.
And while Autumn knew that Hunter would prefer to stick to their carefully laid plans, he knew, also, that disconering gnoll tracks was far too important to ignore. The presence of gnolls here, near the river camp tonight, would complicate everything in the worst possible way.
But so far, he had little information to go on. In order to verify and assess the level of this unanticipated threat, Autumn needed to know more. Only then would he raise it with Hunter.
The tracks he followed took him away from camp, increasing in number as he went. Out of sheer bad luck, he was a considerable distance away, at the bottom of the pasture on the riverbank, when the gnolls’ first war yelps confirmed their return to the Beard.
*****
Scout was no stranger to gnolls. She, too, had grown up in The Wood. She was as familiar with their war cries as Autumn. So the moment they yelped their murderous intentions, she immediately adjusted her plans.
The problem here was the human presence. Few in the river camp would have any experience with gnolls. And none would be able to distinguish their yelps from the nearly identical replies of the gnolls’ coyote cousins. So the humans would likely not realize they were under attack until gnolls were tearing out their throats. And most of the humans would be dead long before they understood what was happening.
If Scout was not to die with them, she needed to get up off the ground. Gnolls, she knew, don’t climb well and they don’t do well against archers. So she bolted for the safety of the wagons and put one between herself and the Beard.
The first yelps came from the far side of camp near the outhouse. That would be their leader drawing attention to himself, she understood. When the humans turned to face him, his pack would attack them from behind—which meant the bulk of the pack would soon pass by her near the wagons.
Hunter might be able to protect their bounty from his position. He was near the center of camp and was high up in an everwood.
But he was too far from her position to prevent the attack from starting.
A few heartbeats later, Scout heard their first footfalls. They were charging toward the camp along the treeline that divided the Beard from the pasture alongside it. They would soon pass by the wagons.
A glance at the adult slave posted nearest her position showed he was half alert. Unfortunately, he was looking back toward the campfire and the yipping of nearby coyotes was enough to distract him from the sounds of the charging beasts behind him.
Scout climbed up into the driver’s seat in the wagon next to het, crouching low to avoid detection. She readied her bow and nocked an arrow, then prepped a second arrow in her bow hand. But knew she would not be able to loose either arrow until the entire column of gnolls had passed by her.
Acting too soon would give her position away. If she waited until they were past, she could pick them off from behind—while they were silhouetted against the light fabric of the tents and illuminated by flames of the campfire.
Scout counted nearly twenty shadows as they filed past her position in the darkness. A few more, she knew, would accompany their leader, attacking from the other side of the camp.
The slave watchman assigned to the wagons, fire-blind and hypnotized by coyote sounds, provided absolutely no warning to the camp. The first gnoll took him from behind and ran him through with a sharpened stick. He fell to the ground with a grunt, clutching at his stomach, trying to keep his insides inside him.
Two heartbeats later, the first cluster of gnolls sprinted into the circle of firelight while others turned and headed for the tents. The deputies leapt to their feet, slid their long knives from their scabbards, and absorbed the attack rolling into them. One deputy panicked, broke ranks, and bolted toward the river without stopping to draw his weapon.
When the last gnoll passed her position, Scout hopped onto a standing barrel and loosed an arrow at his back. Unexpectedly, a gnoll in front of him stumbled, forcing her target to sidestep a collision. Scout’s heart fell as her first arrow sailed past her target without hitting it. She got lucky when it sank into the back of a different gnoll ahead of him.
But the accident, by then, had betrayed her. Her intended target, now alerted, had stopped. He was searching the darkness for a sniper. Having already drawn her bowstring, Scout stood as still as possible hoping to avoid detection.
*****
At the far end of the camp, LT, who was leaning back on the paddock fence facing the coffle, became aware of the first wave as they charged into the light of the campfire. He drew his long, curved, single edged sword and was about to launch himself into the battle at the bedrolls when a shout from overhead—“Look to the tads!”—locked him in place next to the children.
Mayhem ripped through the camp. The deputies at the campfire did what they could. Two gnolls fell. Two more were cut. But that did nothing to turn the tide. The deputies, surprised and overwhelmed by numbers, fell quickly before the much larger beasts.
LT watched the overseer die first, cleaved by a machete from his right shoulder through to his left hip. A second gnoll bit down on his throat. In moments, the remaining deputies disappeared in a blizzard of blood amongst a hail of clubs and gnashing teeth.
*****
Hunter knew the camp was lost. Protecting the children was his only concern. Two gnolls broke off from the orgy at the campfire, charging toward LT near the coffle chain. Hunter took them down with arrows—one in its chest, the other in its groin.
The last of these two stumbled to the ground near the children clutching at his crotch and howling. LT stepped over the cowering slaves and dispatched the gnoll with a single chop of his sword.
The deserter fled past Hunter’s position down the slope toward the chuckwagon. He was heading for the river with a gnoll in hot pursuit. Seeing how close they both were to the children, Hunter loosed two arrows into the melee, hoping to hit the gnoll with both.
His first arrow was unlucky and found the coward’s kidney; he dropped to the ground and started crawling for the river. Hunter’s second arrow penetrated his target’s neck, severing its spine and protruding from its throat. The beast expired gurgling on the ground, reaching out for the wounded deputy.
*****
The beast searching for Scout at the wagons quickly found her. As recognition sparked in his eyes, an arrow flashed toward him. His thick skull plate deflected her arrowhead saving him, but the intensity of the blow knocked him back. Its impact watered his eyes. So he never saw the second arrow. But his stubborn death bought his pack a few precious moments, allowing them to swarm into the tents.
*****
The attack on the camp’s opposite flank began moments after the first wave arrived at the fire. The gnoll leader, in the company of two large fighters, emerged from the Beard and bolted past the outhouse and followed the paddock fence into camp.
The distance was long, the target was moving, and everwood needles blocked parts of 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 panicked the nervous horses and set them rearing.
*****
Alerted by the ruckus in the paddock, LT turned to see the gnolls coming toward him. Positioning his two-handed sword low in near ward position, he planted his feet and prepared for the coming rush.
*****
Hunter looked down and recognized the boy’s stance. Broken Chains. Now things were really making sense.
*****
Cries of horror from inside the tents were quickly silenced. One by one, Scout took the bloody gnolls down as they stepped out of the tents back into the firelight.
With everyone now dead on her side of camp, she leapt from the wagon and dashed past the fire hoping to connect with Hunter.
*****
The flanking gnoll, two steps ahead of his leader, charged toward LT, his club raised over 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 their chains held them tight. Some screamed. Some cried. One puked.
*****
Hunter scanned for Autumn and spotted him cresting the rise. As soon as he was in range, the druid dropped to his knees, plunging his fingers into the soil. Hunter descended the everwood moving from branch to branch. He drew his staff and jumped to the ground, landing behind the kid.
“Cavalry’s coming, yo,” Hunter said, sliding in back-to-back with LT. “Get ready to roll.”
“What?” LT parried a club aimed at his face.
“We gonna roll out,” Hunter shouted over the growls and howls of the attacking beasts. “Watch for a gap.”
*****
Scout and Autumn came into range from different angles as the gnolls closed the circle. Scout could not see Hunter behind the curtain of seven foot animals, but she knew where he had to be. She saw that Autumn was on his knees and understood what she needed to do. Two quick arrows sunk deep into a target’s back, dropping him and creating an opening.
*****
The ground at LT’s feet shuddered. The soil began to ripple and churn. “Now!” Hunter shouted, grabbing LT and shoving him through a materializing gap.
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, grasping thistles, grassy tendrils, and thumb-thick saplings snaked up through the soil—entangling legs, slithering through gaps in clothing and armor, binding arms, and encircling throats like bark-armored pythons.
Two gnolls fell and were immediately overcome by the coiling vegetation. One broke free, stumbled during his escape, and dropped to his knees. With a quick downward swipe, LT separated its head from its shoulders.
A second gnoll pulled free and took an arrow to the brain from Scout. Moments later, all remaining gnolls were immobilized and the battle—for the moment—paused.