35 – Little Toes

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Draft 1 – Updated 22 FEB 2026 (C035/D001)

The riders behind them were coming at a canter. Hunter couldn’t say who they were but deputies seemed most likely. LT’s predawn departure may have caught them off guard. If they wanted to know who he was travelling with, sending scouts would be the best way to do it.

Trotting their own horses meant that the scouts would catch LT and Hunter eventually, but it would be further down the road toward Churnwood than if they had continued along at a walk. 

Two or three deputies on their trail would not be a grave concern. But a dozen working hard, making an effort to catch up might signal trouble. 

Trotting now would better manage the gap between them and the larger group that followed. It would force the deputies to make their intentions clear. It would also tire their Company horses in the process.

Neither LT nor Hunter believed that they were in any real danger, yet. There was a strong possibility that some of the deputies might be aggrieved over money lost in wagers at Two Bears, but an open confrontation with an elf hunter over such a petty thing would be enormously risky. 

Eastbranch, their home base, sat on the boundary with Elvenwood. Should harm befall an elder elf at the hands of Eastwatch deputies, the repercussions could be dire. Then again, without witnesses, the instigators may think they had nothing to worry about. 

LT was less interested in the riders behind them at this moment than he was in the one beside him. For the first time since waking up in the barn in Milton, the elder elf seemed open. LT hoped to learn something useful for the Brotherhood. He might figure out what the elves were thinking. That might open the door to working together again. 

Their commitment to ending slavery was absolute. The Brotherhood would continue that fight regardless. But success without support would be difficult and could be delayed for decades. Getting the elves back on side was the only way to solve the slavery problem in LT’s lifetime.

“They practically raised me, you know,” LT said of his Brothers, hoping to use his own story to break down the wall still separating him from Hunter. 

“Worse families than the Brotherhood,” the elf replied.

That was true, but it wasn’t the point. 

“My birth family never had a chance. The war damaged us. Then the treaty killed us.”

LT wanted Hunter to know that. He doubted elves knew much about the damage done by their betrayal. His father—many human fathers—fought with the other species to end their enslavement by the Company. They had won that war. But then the elves had stabbed them in the back and the allies had lost the peace. The elves saved themselves by making a deal that shifted their bondage to humankind. 

“My father hated your people after the war,” LT said.” He refused to even look for another partner. Then the treaty came and turned him into a drunk.”

The memories were painful to LT. Humiliating. Reliving them filled him with bitterness and shame. He brought them up now only because he had to.

“You put that on us,” Hunter summed up.

“No,” LT retorted. “That’s on the war. After the war came small pox.” His stomach turned and his jaw tightened as he recalled the fear, the feeling of helplessness, and the relief when the plague tents finally came down. “When it was over, they had a reconciliation lottery to replace the set-asides who passed. The Company took three from our parish. One of them was my sister,” he said, nearly choking on the words. “That’s on the treaty.”

LT was young then. It would take a decade for him to fully understand what had happened, but he was old enough at the time to feel his mother’s devastation. She begged his father to do something. But drunk and useless, he had done nothing to get his sister back. 

“After that,” LT confessed, suppressing the toxic brew of shame and frustration bubbling up and souring his stomach, “all they did was fight.”

He glanced at Hunter who was looking back over his shoulder.

“Am I boring you?” he blurted, with an unintended bitterness he instantly regretted.

Hunter’s attention returned to him. “They took your sister,” the elf replied, not reacting to the emotional lash. 

LT rebuked himself. Elves didn’t start this. Humans did.  They enslaved the haff-ra. Then they tried to enslave the rest. Haff-ra, elves, and other species were forced to fight back in self-defence. How much sympathy could he expect elves to have for the species who brought slavery into their world?

“My mother was desperate. She wanted to find Jeannie and take us back to the homeland.”

“Your father refused,” Hunter stated, following LT’s line of thought. 

“He was a drunk. Not a hero.” It was both a condemnation and an excuse. LT hated his father for giving up, but he understood it nonetheless. 

Hunter’s mare nickered and her head bobbed. The forest grew dense here and the trail narrowed. They were less than halfway from the junction to the Churwood turnoff and it was still early in the day. It would be a while before they passed traffic moving in the other direction.

“My mother went to find her,” he said. “Left us our stuff and our stock, but took the money pouch.”

This was the hard part for LT. Recalling the strife in their tiny log cabin brought back bitterness he’d rather forget. But what happened next was far worse. 

“Pa gave me to the Broken Chains. Said he couldn’t raise me alone.”

Hunter’s hand lifted and the riders came to a stop. LT’s thoughts were jerked back into the present. Hunter stood in his stirrups, attention focused forward. The quiet pause brought LT some calm. When the elf was satisfied, they started moving forward again but their silence continued for the better part of a league.

Hunter was the first to speak. “Drop back and move up on my right,” he said, speaking softly. 

His eyes were trained on something ahead and to their left. LT followed the instructions, slowing until Hunter’s horse passed, then slid across its rump to the right side of the road. As he came up alongside again, LT traced the elf’s line of sight to a mountain lion sunning itself on a rock above them on the slope. 

The predator was not likely to risk an attack on two mounted horses, but it was best to let it know it had been spotted. Both riders made eye contact with the beast and maintained their steady speed. Their mounts turned their ears toward it, watched it carefully, and snorted unhappy warnings to their riders, but neither shied nor spooked at the sight of it.

“You was going to the Shadows when I found you.” Hunter broke the silence when the cat was safely behind. “Looking for papers ‘bout your sister, I expect.”

LT’s breath hitched. That’s a good idea. The Shadows would probably have papers. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted. “I wanted evidence they were breaking the treaty.”

Hunter gave him a skeptical glance. “You think people would go back to war over a goliath?”

LT flinched. The question touched a sore spot. “It was the best I could come up with.” He suddenly felt defensive. “The Brotherhood can’t beat the Company alone.”

“You want your allies to fight your battles,” Hunter summarized flatly as he scanned their rear once more. 

“Don’t!” LT felt the burn of indignation bubbling up. This time he could not contain it. “Your people instigated a rebellion and then used the treaty to force humans to enslave our own.”

Hunter’s amber eyes fixed firmly on his. “That a fact?”

“It is a fact, Hunter,” LT snapped, his volume rising with his ire. “People like my father, hundreds of resisters in the Brotherhood, fought with you. They fought to free you. They put their lives on the line for you. Then you people stabbed them in the back.”

His mount nickered. Her ears turned back and her head swayed to the side. LT patted her neck apologizing for his angry outburst. He turned to check the hunter’s reaction.

His heart sank. “What?” he blurted. He had seen that look from older men before, growing up, when he had said foolish things in front of the Brothers.

LT’s mare snorted a second time. Her ears twitched back in the way they always did when horses were approaching from behind. He glanced back but saw nothing. He checked Hunter who did not seem concerned.

“Weren’t no treaty done that,” the elf flatly stated.

LT scoffed. “I’ve seen it,” he shot back. That was true enough. He had studied it. Everyone in the Brotherhood had studied it. He could cite every relevant clause. But before he could express these thoughts, his mount’s ears twitched back a third time and noise from behind caused him to turn and look back.

“Company men,” Hunter informed him calmly.

LT saw the first deputy rein his horse in and slow. Two others joined him moments later. Eastbranch war horses were big—carefully selected to intimidate. But these were travelling horses: smaller, lighter, mountain ponies bred for the terrain. They had been cantering off and on for more than a finger now. So they were wet and breathing hard. 

“We can outrun them,” LT said, thinking aloud. They had been trotting while the deputies were cantering, so their mounts were fresher by far.

LT looked to Hunter for confirmation then realized he had done it again. Of course the elf knew they could outrun the deputies. He was a ranger with centuries of experience. He’d said words that need not be spoken.

Hunter slowed his horse to a walk and LT slowed to stay with him. The deputies did not approach. In fact, they stayed a safe distance back. 

LT stilled his tongue and listened, resolving not to speak the next words. 

That the deputies were talking to each other was clear to him. His mount’s ears kept turning back in response to their voices. Although he could not hear the words himself, he knew that Hunter could. The elf would update him eventually, he realized. In the meantime, while Hunter’s attention was behind them, LT would focus on the road ahead.

The turnoff to Churnwood was still a ways off. Past that was a Company camp and a fully stocked remuda. The deputies could get fresh horses there. Would they do that and turn back? Or would they continue on home to Eastbranch?

He realized that the only thing at Churnwood was the livery. People travelling to Elvenwood stabled their horses there, crossed the bridge, and then travelled on foot through The Wood. Company men would not follow them once they crossed the border. But that was still more than half a day distant.

LT knew this part of the colony road better than the section they had just travelled. A little more than two leagues from here the land would fall off on their right and the slope to their left would steepen. If the deputies intended harm, that is where they would make their move. 

Beyond that stretch they got into swiner country. Three Tusk was a quiet tribe. But they were far from passive and abided no camping on their lands. If push came to shove, LT and Hunter would likely be better off in the woods with the swiners than trapped on the road with a dozen ornery deputies. But both situations were better to be avoided if that was possible. 

Hunter caught his eye and turned LT’s attention to their rear just as one of the deputies turned around. He was walking his horse back in the direction from which they came.

“These two gonna pass us once they rest they horses, yo,” Hunter said, his voice directed only to LT.

LT nodded, waiting for more.

“Rest will catch up in a finger or two.”

Letting the deputies pass them would create the potential for an ambush. But unless they were planning to run, that was likely to happen eventually anyway. In the meantime, it was best to stay ahead of them for as long as possible, taking care not to run their horses out.

As they settled into an easy walk allowing their mounts to rest, LT turned his attention forward. The terrain ahead, leading into the eastern province, was rugged. Beyond the border it opened up again into a wide valley with terraced farms. But this part of the western province was sparsely settled at best. 

Loggers, miners, and prospectors dominated the lower slopes. Fur traders and hunters worked at higher elevations. Most of this territory was still inhabited by swiners. The Company was pushing them out gradually, but they still did not have the upper hand. 

“Explain what you said about the treaty,” LT suddenly said aloud. 

Hunter looked long at him, doing more than simply checking his colors, but his expression did not reveal what it was. 

“Yo bondage ain’t on account of my people,” he replied eventually. 

LT was tempted to scoff again, but he maintained his self-control and chose to follow a more constructive path. “Have you read the treaty?” he asked politely. 

Hunter shook his head. 

LT frowned. “Then how do you know what the terms were?”

“I know what was said,” he replied with an air of unequivocal certainty. 

LT was puzzled. He wondered if Hunter could read. Or maybe it was a language issue. The way he spoke suggested that his understanding of human language was far from comprehensive.

“Do you understand what I mean by treaty?”

“Piece of paper,” Hunter said with a side-eye. “Saying the war’s over.”

“Exactly. Signed by both parties. Humans and elves. Have you read it?”

“Ain’t a thing, yo.”

“What do you mean: ain’t a thing? Of course it’s a thing. I’ve seen it. Everybody’s seen it. Copies were posted everywhere for years after the war.”

“Who posted them?” Hunter asked. 

“I don’t know.” LT had never thought about it. “I expect it was the Company.”

Hunter nodded.

“Why does that matter?” LT demanded.

“My people don’t write.” 

LT frowned. That made no sense. “How do you make contracts then?”

“We don’t,” Hunter replied.  

It frustrated LT that Hunter did not understand even the basics of law and order. Civilization depended on writing things down. Otherwise how could agreements be settled?

“How did the war end then?” Maybe Hunter if explained it to him . . . 

“Company surrendered.” 

“Under what terms did they surrender?” he asked with forced patience. 

“Weren’t no terms required.”

“Meaning the Company just ended slavery on their own.” The idea was ludicrous. He hoped saying it aloud would make Hunter realize that. Slavery was their primary income. The Company wouldn’t give it up unless they were forced to. 

“That’s what they done.”

“Just like that?”

Hunter shrugged. “They was losing, yo.” 

That rang true. It’s what LT had been taught. The Company was losing. The elves were about to move in and slaughter every human in the colony. The Company could have fought to the last man, they had a right to. The settlers were obliged to fight. But the Company paused to spare human lives. 

They accepted the terms forced on them in order to reorganize and rebuild. When the time was right, and they had enough professional soldiers in the colony to guarantee victory, they could start the fight all over again. 

“So the Company sued for peace and accepted Elvenwood’s terms?”

Hunter shook his head in patient disagreement. “Ain’t work that way.” 

It had to. That’s how wars ended. The loser asked for peace. The winner laid out terms that the loser agreed to abide. Then the fighting stopped. 

Since Hunter did not understand this, LT thought it wise to have the elf to put it in his own words. “How did it work then?”

Hunter took a lengthy pause, examining LT thoughtfully, before continuing. When he spoke again, he did so slowly. “Company asked the Council to stop. Claimed a change of heart. So the Council ordered a stop.”

“And then they signed a treaty,” LT said, insisting on this final logical step. 

Hunter shook his head. “Ain’t sign nothing.”

“Then how do both sides know what was agreed to?”

“Witnesses.”

LT rejected the idea. “They must have done more than that. Signed paper. Shook hands. Something.” 

“Company stopped what they was doing. Council stopped what they was doing.”

“Then where did the treaty come from?”

“Y’already said so.”

LT was not old enough to remember the details. He was barely a child when the war ended. But there were copies of the treaty posted in all of the important public places for most of his life.

“You’re saying the Company forged a treaty. You’re saying they made it all up. 

“Don’t know ‘bout that.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“Elves didn’t cause no slavery, yo.”

LT frowned, pondering his meaning. 

“Company started slaving y’all after the war,” Hunter added.

That also made no sense. “Your people never said different.”

“Ain’t our business what you people do to each other.”

Would the elves really say nothing? Is that why they stopped working with the Brotherhood?

“So you knew the Company was lying to us about human slavery and you said nothing.”

“Ain’t our business.”

“But you could have said something.”

“I ain’t make the rules, yo.”

LT wondered if any of this was possible. The Company was losing the war. So they ended the non-human slave trade and got the elves to withdraw. Then they lied to their own people about the terms. If that was true, then elves like Hunter may have been ordered to silence. 

“But why break the rules now?” he wondered aloud. 

Hunter’s head lifted sharply and he drew a deep breath in through his nose. Startled by the unexpected reaction, LT did the same and quickly scanned their surroundings. His first thought was smoke, but he smelled nothing more than fresh forest air. 

The elf released his breath and began snuffling toward him, like a wolf over a burrow searching for a hidden rodent. LT scanned to his right searching for signs of smoke then shifted his focus to his ears. 

“Sniff, sniff,” came sounds from the elf to his left, followed by a haunting guttural growl.

The familiar sound reached deep into LT’s soul, sparking visceral terror. His manhood turned to mist and he was transformed into a frightened tad. 

The growl came from Hunter, whose horse’s flank was now pinning his leg. The elf’s eyebrows pinched into a bloodthirsty gaze. A creepy, bare-toothed grin spread across his face as he leaned in toward him. 

“What the fuck?” LT exclaimed, overwhelmed with childish fear.

The menacing face sniffed the air a handspan from LT’s own. “I smell bare feet.” Some of the words sprayed in the slobbering accent of a giant.

LT felt his color drain.

“Is it you wot ‘as bare feet?” The giant’s eyes narrowed to murderous slits. 

LT’s jaw sagged as memories came flooding back.

“Cuz I likes to eat bare feet,” Hunter growled, his hot breath tickling the skin of LT’s cheeks. “And when I do, the li’l toes go crunch crunch in my teef.”

Then the elf leaned back and separated his horse, leaving the young man dumbstuck, searching the misty memories of his childhood. 

“Uncle Dev,” LT said weakly, old images taking shape in cloudy forgotten memories. 

Hunter chuckled softly, appearing quite pleased with the reaction he’d provoked. “LT ain’t short for L’il Tanner,” he said confidently. “And your papi’s name worn’t Tanner. It was Butcher. Max Butcher. The Butcher ah Grizzly Holler.”

LT nodded silently, still sorting through his memories, trying to recall things forgotten. 

“LT is short for L’il Toes,”Hunter announced. “A name I give you myownself.”

LT recalled. “You’re the reason I’m still scared of hill giants,” he confessed. 

“You hated wearing ‘em socks,” Hunter laughed. “Drove yo mama to distraction? Wager you wear ‘em now though.”

That was true. LT still thought of hill giants every morning he saw new snow on the ground, but he had long ago forgotten why. 

“I had a toy,” he recalled, “carved from wood. A little elf . . . with a bow.”

Hunter pulled his horse to the right, guiding LT’s mount to the dry ground adjacent to a track trap covering the left side of the road. 

“Your papi carved it when yo mama was birthing you,” Hunter replied.  

“He threw it in the fire,” LT recalled. “I hated him for that.”

“He was a good man, yo,” Hunter said, eyes fixed on the slope above. 

LT scoffed. “He hated elves,” he reminded Hunter. 

“War changed us all in one way or ‘nother,” the elf replied without turning his head.

LT traced the elf’s gaze but saw nothing to be concerned about. “How long have you known who I am?”

“Since the joke in the river camp.”

LT frowned. “That’s an old joke,” he said, turning back to the elf. “Lots of people tell it.”

“Everybody else say Tower of Torinth though. You said Tower of Elal.”

“Yeah. I suppose I do.” But he didn’t see how that was important. 

“You say it same as yo papi,” Hunter explained. “That, ‘long with LT, and you fighting like a Brother,” he smiled, “he’ped me figure it. Now”—he reined his horse around to face the deputies trailing them—“let’s deal with these fellas before they get around us.”

Hunter swung a leg over the back of his saddle and dropped to the ground. The deputies trailing stopped, watching him curiously from a distance. 

“Keep a good hold ah them reins, L’il Toes,” he said just loud enough for LT to hear. Then he sauntered a half dozen steps forward and stopped in the middle of the road. 

The deputies glanced at each other, wondering what he was up to. The tall one with the bushy black beard, removed his hat, ran fingers through his greasy hair, and replaced it. The other, a swarthy, wooly-headed man, whose hat hung back on his shoulders held by a string, adjusted in his seat and leaned curiously forward onto his saddle horn. 

Hunter fixed his eyes on them in a hard animal stare. It was the kind of stare that could start a dog fight, LT thought. He held the stare for so long that LT began to wonder if he was waiting for the deputies to ride up to him. Then Hunter unbuttoned his fly and a moment later LT heard a strong stream of urine splashing onto the rocky road. 

The deputies, initially surprised, began to snicker. Then they took turns tossing insults, mostly about the size of the haffer standing in the roaf before them. But there was no doubt in LT’s mind that Hunter’s provocation was effective. For the moment the elf finished making his mark, the bearded man stepped down and began making his own mark in precisely the same way. 

LT watched the pissing contest unfold and wondered if he should be doing something more than just watching. He thought he oughta take charge of Hunter’s mount. But Hunter had not told him to do so and since LT did not wish the elf to think him insubordinate, he gripped his own reins and waited silently to see what might happen. 

When the deputy with the bushy black beard finished marking his territory and tucked himself back inside his britches, the elf took two more deliberate steps in his direction. The wooly-headed man was so provoked by this development that he, too, dismounted and moved up to fill the vacant space next to his bearded partner. Both of the uniformed men now bore grave looks that signalled they were ready for business.

For several moments, the three figures—now separated by no more than sixty paces—stood stock still on the rocky, tree-lined road glaring at each other. LT had an urge to dismount. He felt obliged to even the odds. But Hunter had given him instructions and to do otherwise might suggest that LT was questioning his leadership. 

The Company men were not backing down from the challenge being offered. And when the elf took another step forward, it was immediately answered by a counterstep from the deputies. 

“Hunter,” LT said, in a voice so low it barely reached his own ears. Hunter’s right hand, which had been hanging loosely at his side, opened. His fingers spread, signalling LT to silence.

“Whatchoo waiting for, squirrel?” Black-beard shouted, raising his chin.

Hunter, as usual, said nothing. 

“I don’t like this,” the wooly man mumbled suspiciously, eyes fixed on LT. “What’s his partner up to?”

The elf responded with two more steps forward which were promptly answered in kind. 

“We supposed to watch him, not kill him,” wooly-head reminded black-beard. 

“He started it,” black-beard shrugged. “No one said we couldn’t rough him up a little.”

“Yeah, but things could get out of hand.”

“You saw what he did,” black-beard retorted contemptuously. “Haffer squirrel marked the colony road like he owns it.”

Black-beard had a fair point. It was disrespectful. The haffer hadn’t oughta done a thing like that. 

“Just don’t kill him ‘less you have to,” Wooly warned.

The elf took two more steps toward them and the deputies responded with two of their own. There was something very odd about this situation but Wooly couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Savages always seemed to know when trouble was coming their way, but they almost never started trouble on their own. 

This one seemed to know what they were up to and was trying to bring things to a head. But if the haffer’s intention was to fight, why put himself down two-on-one? His partner was just sitting there and that didn’t seem right at all.

The longer the elf stood there glaring at him, the more it put Wooly’s thoughts in an uneasy light. He scanned the slope between them and the forest on the other side wondering if this was an ambush but could see nothing suggesting it was. 

“I got the vermin,” said Blackbeard. “You hold back and keep an eye on his partner.”

When the gap between them had closed to a dozen paces, Wooly stopped moving forward in unison. Then Blackbeard seized the initiative and closed the remaining distance. Wooly watched the elf’s partner closely. The fact that he was facing them and not controlling the other mount suggested he might be planning to charge.

“You’re pissing on Company property, Squirrel,” sneered Blackbeard, now within arm’s reach of the haffer. “Vandalism like that could be answered with a rope.”

The elf said nothing, but his partner’s eyes shifted up and looked past them, causing a jolt of panic in the wooly man’s mind. The horses, he realized, were more than forty paces behind now. If the elf goaded them into a fight, his partner could dash by and chase off their mounts. He was about to step forward and warn his partner when Blackbeard slid his long knife from its sheath.

“Or maybe we’ll just cut your tail off and let you be on your way,” Blackbeard said, bringing his blade up to eye level in front of the unflinching elf.

The haffer’s partner squirmed uneasily in his saddle. He leaned to the side a few degrees as if about to take the reins draped over the free mount’s saddlehorn, but seemed to change his mind.

Wooly debated how to prepare for the charge that he felt was surely coming. He could step right into the mare’s path; but even with his weapon drawn, that would be risky. A well trained horse would ignore him, might even trample him.

“What you think, Wooly?” Blackbeard asked over his shoulder. “Should I fine him one finger or two?”

The elf did not appear perturbed by the threat. And considering what he had witnessed at Two Bears, Wooly was not at all surprised. If anyone here was in trouble right now, it was probably Blackbeard.

“Maybe an eye,” Wooly replied, backing his partner the way he was expected to.

Blackbeard smirked. “What you think, Squirrel?” he asked, the point of his knife tipping slowly toward Hunter’s face. “Should I take an eye?” he asked, before his tone turned truly sinister. “Or would you prefer I took one of your ears?”

The elf’s partner tensed in his saddle as the point of the long knife crept toward the unblinking hunter’s face. Flapjack, uneasy with his partner’s escalation and uncertain about the intentions of the other fellows, felt an equal amount of tension. A sharp snort from behind him told him that the horses were felling to tension, too.

Wolly did not relish the idea of putting himself in the path of a charging mount, but he felt he could not back away to take control of their mounts. He had to stay with his partner and hope the pair could bluff the sprinting horse into faltering, possibly rearing and throwing its rider. So he took two careful steps to his right which might force the charge to a longer path around them. The move simultaneously gave him a clearer view of what his partner was up to with the savage.

Blackbeard’s long blade changed direction as it neared the haffer’s eye. It slipped past his face and came to rest on the top of the savage’s ear. Wooly worried about his captain’s reaction if his partner’s actions were more than a bluff. Cutting an elf’s ear off would not be taken lightly by the commanders back at Eastbranch.

“Or maybe I just let you off with a warning,” Blackbeard smirked with a hateful, evil chuckle, turning the blade’s cutting edge in toward the savage’s cheek. “Maybe I just give you life-long a reminder about who owns this place and how you vermin are expected to behave,” he said, drawing the knife back and tracing a bloody line on the hunter’s cedar-skinned cheek.

Wooly’s mind turned back to the horses as droplets of blood slid down the shiny blade and dripped onto the haffer’s collar. Their regular mounts were grazing in Company camp down the road. The horses they were riding today had been taken from the remuda. He had no idea how battle-trained they were and was worried about how they might react to the smell of blood. A second sharp snort gave teeth to this gnawing concern. And then the snort gave way to scream.

Spinning back, he saw one mount bolting toward him as the other sunk to its knees. A large cat hung from its throat, forelimbs wrapped around the horse’s neck. Blood sprayed from a wound where it had buried its teeth into horseflesh. The panicked horse thundering toward them, obliged them both to dodge. 

As it flashed past, Wooly drew his frontier knife and charged toward the animals wrestling on the ground. He got there first and slashed the cat’s shoulder with his longblade. The big predator released the horse, yowling and twisting in the air. It landed on all fours, then swiped at his knife hand with a stroke of inhuman speed, before crouching low, pinning his ears back, and hissing a warning. 

A lone sharp claw had caught the back of his hand, slicing a bloody gash before Blackbeard arrived at Wooly’s side. The two men bellowed, thrusting their long knives out before them. Overwhelmed by two aggressive humans and threatened by wildly flailing horse hooves, the mountain lion spun and bounded up the slope, vanishing into the trees.

The fallen horse struggled, kicking, and went limp, its life pouring out onto the wet stoney ground. Wooly looked around for their other mount and realized the elf was gone. 

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