Johan righted himself and stretched his legs. His back hurt from picking berries and checking rabbit snares all day.

“Anything good?” A large man in a dark green cloak matching his own called from across the wood. Johan grinned held up the brace of conies he had retrieved and slaughtered.

“Ayo- very good then! Here’s mine.” The man, Daucus, held up a string of fish from a nearby river. “Lets hope some of those bastards back at camp have at least started on a fire,” he yelled, cheerily enough.

Johan had gotten used to this routine. Those who were in camp at the time would forage for food and rotate various duties like digging latrines or cooking. Messenger larks came in on a daily basis, sent by the scouts who were out hunting various “offenders.” The group didn’t chase one bounty at a time. Instead, they were split into duos and each duo was assigned a bounty. Once they caught and delivered the bounty, they would rest a few days and then receive their next assignment at the main encampment. He had feared, when he first took the dead Harris’ place, that he would be found out due to his only passing knowledge of the man’s mannerisms. Luckily for him, his cover had been a fairly new recruit and had been playing lookout as a sort of training-on-the-job experience. Clearly, Grel hadn’t figured there would actually be much danger dealing with the Mayor.

He had been mostly right.

Johan’s second fear had been that he would be close to Grel, who was clearly a savvy leader and likely would have sniffed him out eventually. Luckily, he had been paired with Daucus who was as dumb as he was cheerful. This was not to say he wasn’t good at what he did - Daucus was a bruiser and could track much better than Johan could, grinning like an idiot no matter what they were in the middle of. He was an original member, one of the troop of rangers who had started the Briarband. It didn’t mean he was terribly bright, though - supposedly he lacked a partner because he had consistently gotten all of the others killed with his neigh-legendary carelessness. So that was reassuring.

They had been on a total of three missions together - a drunk gambler, a amorous bard, and a run-of-the-mill murderer. None of them had made him feel particularly bad about turning them in, but some of the jobs the other duos discussed around the fire sounded less…savory. His disbelief at a group of mercenaries hunting down a child had quickly dissipated after he heard some of the others talking. Regardless, Johan kept an ear open about Kel’s contract, occasionally catching snippets and hearsay. The bounty on the boy wasn’t considerably exciting to the Briarband, so it wasn’t quite the fireside gossip that some other contracts produced. What he did know, however, was that the pair sent after him had been gone for a few days now.

Johan and Daucus crossed the tree line back into the camp. An array of small tents spread out before them, the ground peppered with supply boxes and the occasional campfire. Grel sat in front of the largest tent, holding court with his men. As the two approached with their catch, a messenger lark sailed in on the breeze. It warbled a greeting and sidled in for a landing on Grel’s shoulder. It chirped merrily into the man’s ear and then perched silently, bobbing its head to look around at the various goings on in the camp. Johan eyed the two warily and hoped he looked inconspicuous.

The towering mercenary frowned and shifted in his seat. “It’s Stallings. Says they haven’t heard anything from the two on the Fellow assignment. They missed their nightly check-in; no lark sent either.”

A man who Johan had concluded was the closest thing to Grel’s second in command spoke up. “But they had protection, right?”

“From shitty magic, sure. Doesn’t mean nothin’ else could have happened to them.”

“Maybe they deserted,” Daucus offered, dropping his fish into a basket by the fire.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“You know for yourself what we do to deserters.” Grel mused for a moment. “No, When my men disappear, it usually means they’re dead.” He turned to his second.”Where were they going, again?”

“Five Points.”

“Then that’s where we go!” Johan, as Harris, was trying to play the eager recruit. So far it had worked. Once he had figured out that no one here had really known the man very well, it had been easier to relax into the role without fear of being discovered.

“No, I have a better idea.” Grel rubbed his grizzled chin. “You and Daucus head to the merchant’s road to the north of Five pines. I’m sending Stallings and Matthew to Five Pines to find out what happened. If they flush out the boy and he runs, you’ll be there waiting. A boy like that can’t survive the wilds, even the mild ones between here and the capital. He’ll stick to the road.” He casually strode to the edge of the forest, plucking the lark from his shoulder and setting it on the lowest branch of an oak tree. He took a deep breath and howled, a long low sound that lasted for about a minute. No one seemed to find this odd, so Johan said nothing.

Within a few minutes, a wolf crept into the clearing, slinking among the shadows to stay out of the hot midday sun. Grel bent down low, his face too close to the wolf for Johan’s comfort, and murmured something to it. He gave a nod of satisfaction and sniffed as the wolf slunk back into the forest. “Yeah, he’ll stick to the road alright..” He turned and gave directions to the lark. It listened, tilting its head curiously as it hung on every word. Then, with a wave, it was on the wing again - off to give Stallings and his partner, both of whom Johan couldn’t quite picture in his mind, their orders.

As he and Daucus marched out of camp on their respective mission,something felt off. He could have imagined it, but the way the other mercs were looking at him was suspicious. Hands seemed to casually reach for knives and swords. Looks were exchanged, greetings and farewells as the two nodded and waved to the others seemed a bit chillier than usual. Had he been found out? Perhaps he was just being paranoid.

As they hit one of the smaller trails and began to make their way to the road, Johan made the mistake of looking behind them. Two other men were following, men who were supposed to be in camp tending to fire and food. Had Grel given them special orders as well? Regardless, it was time to go: Johan now knew Kel’s most likely last whereabouts and this disguise was wearing thin. He grunted. “I..I have to take a piss.”

“Right then, I’ll wait for you.” Daucus waved him off with his trademark easy smile.

Johan walked into the brambles and shook a few bushes to give the appearance of fumbling with his clothes and urinating. Then, as quietly as he could, he began to step - heel-toe - away and into the thick of the woods. He had learned a few tricks from Daucus and if he could get about five minutes of lead time, Johan was sure he could get away. He would have preferred a clean break, out on a mission, but he wasn’t sure he (and Daucus) would have lasted that long. Safer for both of them this way.

He hit the lesser used beast trail, a barely worn path overgrown with shrubs and vines. The two men from camp were just coming through the brush to emerge on the left of the trail. This was no coincidence. He took a hard left turn, pretending to drop off the trail to relieve himself. Still, they turned at the exact same spot. All pretense lost, Johan broke into a run. As he did, he dropped all effort in disguising himself as Harris. The spell sloughed off him like snake-skin, taking with it all semblance of the man he had pretended to be for the last few weeks.

Leaves and branches scratched at his face but he kept running. He zigzagged through the forest, keenly aware that he was not actually Harris, adept forest ranger, and was instead Johan - a city boy who had been forcibly retired to the country. This terrain was something he had gotten used to, but he wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long. Not against men who ate, slept, and breathed the wilds.

A few times, he heard an arrow wiz over his head or into the underbrush he had just cleared. Taking refuge behind a great ceder tree, a hearty thunk revealed an iron-headed arrow sunken three inches into the bark of the tree he had just hidden behind.

Gods, he thought to himself, If I make it out of here, it will be my last camping trip for some time.

Johan burst into a sprint and fled through a thick layer of brambles, fighting the urge to look back. He had just stumbled out, freeing himself from clawing vines and leaves, when he stopped short. He was teetering over the edge of a high ravine. An arrow whizzed by his head and in his haste to find cover, Johan’s foot slipped.

He tumbled over the edge and rolled, head over heels, down the steep ravine walls. There was not enough time to worry about the dizzying fall, his pursuers, or the fate of Kel Fellow. Before he reached the bottom of the ravine, his head struck a rock and all Johan could contemplate was darkness.