3 – Emancipation

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Draft 9 – 20 MARCH 2026 (C003/D0009)

The elf hunter lowered his staff. LT pivoted to face him while maintaining his defensive posture. 

“Who the hell are you?” he shouted at the elf, who turned his back and circled the entangled beasts.

“Who the hell are you?” LT repeated.

The hunter ignored him, completing the circle, tugging on vines, testing their strength, before walking back toward the tents.

“Stop,” LT ordered as he sheathed his sword and followed him. “Where are you going?”

The elf stopped first over the overseer’s dead body. He searched it, taking a key ring from one pocket and some papers from another. Shaking blood from the papers, he stuffed them inside his tunic then tossed the keyring to the ginger eladrin, who had gone to the children at the coffle chain. 

“What are you doing?” LT demanded, looking first at the hunter, then at the eladrin. “I need”—he stopped himself—”They need to go to the Shadows.”

The ginger raised a skeptical eyebrow then shook his head dismissively. “I know. I know,” he said softly to the whimpering children as he struggled to find keys for their locks. “It’s OK. It’s all over. You’re safe now. I promise.”

LT looked around at the chaos of the camp. Everyone, it seemed, was dead. Everyone but the children . . . and himself. He worried about his mission to the Shadows. 

The elf seemed lost in thought, watching the eladrin who was freeing the children. One by one, he sent them to sit before the fire. 

The other elf, the scout, had tied a bandana over her face. She was dragging bodies away from the fire to a corpseline she’d made near the paddock.

“Take the chains off the tads,” the hunter said, sounding as if he’d made a decision. Replace—.”

“Just like we done at Grey Falls,” the eladrin interrupted him with calm confidence. “No need to shout, honey.” His eyes flashed to the child he was freeing.

The hunter lowered his voice so much that LT could barely hear him. “Gnolls gotta break the chain. Drag—”

“I get it,” the eladrin said with quiet impatience, shooing him away with a sharp look.

LT followed him away from the fire. “Who are you?” he asked again, careful this time to keep his voice from stressing the children further.

“Call me Hunter,” he said, stopping to examine the ground at the spot a few steps ahead of a fallen gnoll. “What’s LT stand for?”

“It’s . . . my name.”

Hunter seemed unconvinced by the declaration. 

“It’s my nickname. Stands for Little Tanner,” he volunteered. “My dad’s name was Tanner. I’m . . . Little Tanner.”

“Was?”

“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 heading down the slope past the chuckwagon.

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 this morning.”

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 back up the sloping pastureland, LT followed along in silence, gathering his thoughts, trying to make sense of what was happening, wondering how this would affect his mission.

The shivering children had all been unchained. They were gathered around the campfire covered by filthy blankets. The ginger and the scout were dragging corpses to the slave chain and affixing collars to their necks. The lower half of the overseer’s corpse was dumped next to his upper.

“Find some water in that chuck wagon,” Hunter instructed LT. “Give them tads a drink.”

Hunter turned and walked toward the entangled 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,” the ginger chuckled, shaking his head, “if he thought you were one of these guys . . . ”

*****

Hunter approached the heavily entangled gnolls with no misconceptions. They could speak, but they were animals notwithstanding. 

Fierce growls and glaring yellow eyes tracked him as he circled the densely packed thicket of tangled canines and twisted vegetation firmly rooted in the soil, but they seemed to have dropped out of bloodlust. That would be helpful. Their clipped ear tips and warpaint identified them as Moon Pack—a pack he knew well from The Wood. With a little luck, he might be able to get some answers. 

Hunter calculated the direction of the breeze and stopped upwind. Moving in close, he opened his mouth and exhaled, allowing his limited scent to wash over them. Their noses flared involuntarily as their brains took in the information. Hunter’s interest was in the pack leader alone. He hoped his scent would trigger a memory.

“Grrrrbu̇f,” Hunter said, addressing the largest beast in its primitive canine language. 

The grrrrbu̇f’s ears picked up and swiveled toward him. Then they laid back flat as the pack leader’s eyes narrowed and his black upper lip curled back, quivering over sharp canine teeth. 

“Moon Pack far from home,” Hunter continued with a string of barks and growls. “Why this place?”

The surge of bloodlust was subsiding. Struggling against Autumn’s entanglement spell was wearing them down. They were all beginning to pant. “Grrrrbu̇f slaved,” the pack leader growled with diminished intensity. “Taken from White Mountain.”

Hunter considered the response. Gnolls don’t lie. But they speak only one language and, outside of their own activities, they understand very little. “Who slaved grrrrbu̇f?” he asked.

“You pack slave grrrrbu̇f.”

Hunter was not surprised. The Beloved Council had been debating Moon Pack’s relocation for most of this century. Hunter weighed the vanishing sand of Autumn’s spell against the slim likelihood that the gnolls might know more. Then he addressed the pack in the traditional way.

“Grrrrbu̇f. Strong grrrrbu̇f. Many kills. Much meat. Many bones. Strong victory.”

Grrrrbu̇f inhaled deeply, puffed out his chest. “Release me,” he growled, baring his teeth again.

“Soon,” Hunter promised. “We go. Then grrrrbu̇f go. Keep meat. Keep all things. Strong victory.”

Hunter walked back to the camp, passing a slack-jawed LT, who had witnessed the exchange. “You get them all?” Hunter asked Scout, nodding toward the pile of corpses around the coffle chain.

“All but one,” she replied walking backwards, dragging a corpse by the heels. 

He nodded. “Fraid that one’s in the river.”

“Should I get it?” she offered.

“Naw,” he shook his head. “Too risky.” He turned to Autumn. “How are the tads?” 

“Alive.” Autumn shrugged. “Confused. Terrified.”

Hunter paused for a moment considering what to do next. At no point had he imagined the possibility that this hunt would end with him being responsible for human children. Obviously, he wasn’t going to let the gnolls have them. He also wouldn’t take them to the Shadows. Nor could he take them back to Three Mills.

“You’re just gonna let those animals eat the dead?” LT demanded. 

“I think we needa let that happen,” Hunter replied. “Gotta look like there were no survivors.”

LT hesitated. He appeared to be thinking, calculating the logic of Hunter’s unfolding plan.

“What about the horses?” he asked.

“Gone have to leave them, too.”

“And let the gnolls eat them?”

“Gnolls ain’t eat horses . . . less they starving.”

Once again, LT paused to process the information. Then he moved on.

“Wait a minute,” said LT, stopping. “What am I going to ride?”

“Dead men don’t ride horses,” Hunter said over his shoulder. Then he stopped and turned to face the young man. “Unless you’re one of them”—his head tilted toward the corpse chain—“dead is better than alive right now.”

The two locked eyes in silence for several moments. LT’s mouth opened but words did not escape. His head tilted almost imperceptibly. Then his mouth closed and Hunter went back to work.

“They’s a village up the hill,” he said to Scout. “Abandoned, but some buildings still standing. Take as much grub from them wagons as y’all can carry.” Then lowering his voice and nodding in LT’s direction he added: “Make sure everybody gets some rest.”

“Sure,” she agreed. Her firelit eyes acknowledged his unspoken words above the mask covering her face.

“Can you cover they tracks?” Hunter asked, turning to Autumn. 

“Much as I can,” the druid replied, acknowledging the limits of his magic. 

“Do your best,” Hunter said, placing a hand on the ginger druid’s shoulder. “Maybe we get lucky.”

*****

An old barn on the far side of the abandoned village served as shelter for nineteen exhausted children, three horses, and four adult protectors. LT fed the children pieces of bread and cheese from the stores pilfered from the slavers’ wagons. He rationed out water from his canteen—two sips per child—and wondered what to do now. It seemed like his mission was over.

*****

Autumn lingered near the meadow long enough to ensure that the children’s tracks were covered and the gnolls were released from the entanglement spell. He monitored from across the river as the gnoll warriors called the rest of their pack and took nearly everything from the camp, except the wagons. He watched as three gnolls shouldered the macabre corpse chain, dragged it into the bush, and vanished. Not a single body was left behind.

When Autumn arrived at the barn, the children were still eating their cold suppers while Scout, chewing on some jerky, was outside in the dark stacking firewood. Autumn picked a clear spot on the barn’s dirt floor and used a flat rock to scrape out a shallow depression. He filled it with tinder and sat crossed legged before it. 

The children, who recognized him as the funny man from the church, watched him curiously. Taking some dried holly leaves from a pouch inside his coat and two small twigs from a garland braided into his hair, he rubbed them briskly between his palms while quietly singing a cracking little tune to himself. As his tune ended, tiny flecks of dried leaves rained down from his hands onto the kindling, igniting as they fell.

“Whoa,” whispered a wide-eyed little boy nudging the boy beside him.

As the tiny flames swelled in the tinder, Autumn looked around for larger kindling. One of the children was a step ahead and handed him what he needed.

“Why thank you, honey,” Autumn beamed with genuine appreciation.

The little girl bobbed her head in the manner of a servant and immediately retrieved more kindling to offer to Autumn.

“Why thank you again, honey. How do you know so much about making fires?”

“It’s my purpose, sir,” she offered meekly, looking at the ground.

Autumn, who had never lived in a house, never met a servant, and never, before this night, conversed with a human child, was puzzled.

“What do you mean: it’s your purpose, honey?”

“I’m a char girl, sir,” she explained. “I tend the fire. I sweep the floors. I do what the kitchen-maid tells me too,” she said without looking up. “It’s my purpose.”

Autumn looked around the barn and took in all of the dirty little faces. He realized that he knew almost nothing about them. A sudden burst of coughing snapped him back to the present and reminded him of some unfinished business. 

“Oh my goodness,” he said to the little girl, “do you still have that nasty cough?”

The little girl said nothing, but her eyes began to well.

“Oh, sweetie,” Autumn cooed tenderly, “I know,” he held his hand out to her in sympathy.

The little girl walked shyly toward him as another fit of coughing took hold.

“What’s your name, child?” he asked her, but her coughing fit made answering impossible.

“She doesn’t have a name yet,” offered another child.

“No? Why not?” Autumn, who was still sitting cross legged before the fire, stood and lifted the child into his arms. She instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her cheek upon his shoulder.

“She doesn’t have a purpose yet,” offered one of the old boys. “She’s still a baby.”

“Then why don’t we give her a name?” Autumn asked the children. “How about Baby?”

The other children giggled.

“What’s the matter with Baby?” he gently demanded. “I think Baby is a wonderful name.”

“A name is not what you are,” one of the boys explained. “A name is what you do?”

“Really?” replied Autumn. “What does she  . . . ?”

“Kitty,” interjected the sick little girl suddenly lifting her head. “I want to be called Kitty,” she insisted, before returning her head to Autumn’s shoulder.

No, said the other children laughing uproariously. A person can’t be named kitty.

“Why not?” Autumn said, gently stroking her hair. “I think Kitty is a beautiful name. I have never met a kitty I didn’t like.”

“But she’s not a cat,” one of the boys insisted.

“She could be,” Autumn replied. “She can be anything she wants.”

“But she’s not a cat,” the same boy insisted, this time strenuously.

“OK, children,” Autumn spoke to the group, changing the subject. “Time for sleep. It’s been a long night.”

As instructed, the children pulled up their dirty blankets and lay down on the barn floor. Some closed their eyes; others stared into the fire. Autumn continued rocking the little girl who was slowly drifting off but continuing to cough. 

Quiet humming gradually gave way to an elven lullaby about a kitten who lost her name. As the song progressed, Autumn was bathed in a soft orange glow that seemed to be reflecting the firelight. One by one, however, the children who were watching became aware that the glow, which was growing in intensity, was coming from within Autumn. And as the glow intensified, Kitty’s cough diminished and gradually disappeared.

“Whoa,” mouthed one little boy to another, as Autumn lay Kitty down on the ground next to the other children and covered her with a blanket.

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