Draft 15 – Updated 28 AUGUST 2026 (C009/D015)
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 howled their murderous intentions, she made immediate adjustments to her plan.
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 sound from the nearly identical replies of the gnolls’ coyote cousins. So the humans would likely not realize they were under attack until gnolls were in the act of tearing out their throats. In fact, 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 edge of 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 her, 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 his people. 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.