For a few minutes, the only sound was the rush of whitewater streaming from beneath the rocky ledge on which they stood. A fine mist turned the air damp and cool. The sun painted streaks of rainbow colors through the falling droplets, vivid against the fading green of the forest on the far banks.

Galen kept the section of sky into which the vicious bird creature had vanished in the periphery of his vision, but it remained empty.

“Dragon?” Danto ventured.

Brin shook her head. “Far too small.”

“And too…” Galen hesitated. Too natural, he’d been about to say. And while that somehow seemed right, it also seemed wrong. He shrugged. “Too un-dragon-like. More like a bird of prey.”

Not that Galen had ever seen a real dragon, of course. He couldn’t imagine Brin or Danto had, either. But it didn’t look like the dragon in any of the Redemption Wars cinematics. What it really reminded him of was a pterodactyl, but he didn’t think Redemption Wars lore would include dinosaurs, and he didn’t want to risk breaking the OOC terms in order to test his assumption.

“Hmm.” Brin turned away.

Leaving a trail of water droplets, Brin went and stood with her hands on her hips and her toes at right about the spot where she’d nearly fallen into the water. Shading her eyes with one hand, Brin looked toward the distant stream banks.

“No sign of the raiders.” Despite her having raised her voice to be heard, the rumble of the stream softened the edges of her words. A faint echo rang off the rocky slope above the tunnel from which they’d emerged. “Not from here, at least.”

“None of their dead around, either.” Galen squinted toward the rocky outcropping on the south bank where the dead bear-armadillo-dinosaur beast lay with a half dozen dead men. Even from a distance, their clothing marked every one of them as Valley folk.

“Do you think they led Lord Gastusad’s party here?” Closed around his spear, Danto’s knuckles remained white, as if he intended to remain on full alert forever. He stood firmly in the center of the ledge, well away from the edges. “On purpose?”

Brin lowered her hand and turned to stare at Danto. “As in, they knew about the beasts here?” She paused a moment and nodded. “Possible. Likely, even.”

Danto stood a bit straighter. His grip on his spear loosened. A proud smile curled his lip.

“I wonder.” Brin looked toward the outcropping and paused again. “I wonder if they had something to do with putting the creatures here to begin with.”

Galen followed Brin’s gaze to the bear-like beast sprawled dead among the fallen hunting party. Its back end had crumbled away to near nothing by now. Whatever material had formed it, the water seemed insistent on carrying it away.

Galen took a few steps closer to where Brin stood. One hip twinged, reminding him that he’d fallen onto the rock mere minutes before. He shrugged his shoulders, testing whether he’d bruised anything there, too. A mild sense of something not quite right wriggled along the left side of his neck. He remembered a line burning across that side when the bird thing had passed over him.

Shifting his spear to his left hand, Galen reached back with the fingers of his right and touched the spot that felt wrong. When he drew his hand away, a faint red line smudged his fingertips—blood, but not much.

“Did it get you?” Danto nodded toward Galen’s fingers. “The bird?”

“With one of its claws, I think.”

Danto frowned, but that was it. Galen wanted to be irritated with the should-be healer, but he couldn’t manage more than mild amusement.

“Do you think, Novice, that we should put something on it?” Galen aimed to sound neither too amused nor too annoyed. “It’s not deep, but what if the bird carried disease of some kind?”

Danto’s mouth curved downward into a considering line. He bobbed his head a few times in thought, his blond curls shaking. “You’re probably right.”

Danto lifted his hand toward the strap of the satchel that was always across his chest. His head stopped bobbing, and his brows lowered. In the same moment, Galen noticed that Danto’s hand patted nothing more than his green and brown militia tabard.

“It’s gone. My satchel is gone.”

“I bet that’s what I grabbed hold of when I tried to stop my fall. I had something in my hand, just for a second.” Brin turned and stepped away from the edge, toward Danto and Galen. “The strap must have broken. I’m sorry.”

Danto’s brow smoothed. He shrugged. “It’s probably not that great a loss. I’m just sorry it didn’t stop your fall.”

Galen noted that not only did Danto seem unconcerned about the loss of his satchel—which wasn’t entirely surprising, really—but that a smile continued to play about the corners of his mouth. With disheveled blond curls spilling across his forehead and a gleam in his brown eyes, Danto reminded Galen of a child whose playtime has been particularly amusing. Galen replayed some of the exact words Danto had been shouting during the bird fight and tried to decide if they’d held an OOC slant.

Could be that Danto’s not the NPC I’ve been assuming.

“Maybe it washed up someplace where we can get to it.” Brin sounded doubtful, but she once again shaded her eyes and scanned around them.

Galen blocked the late morning sun with his hand and joined her in the perfunctory attempt, peering for the first time into the water itself instead of the banks to either side of it.

“There.” Brin’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. She pointed.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The satchel bobbed in the water, shoved by its force halfway onto the same outcropping where the hunting party had made their stand and failed.

“That’s great.” Danto didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic. He looked around them, and Galen did, too.

The ledge that protruded from the tunnel entrance narrowed at either end and sloped downward. It never quite reached either bank of the stream that flowed out from some source beneath the ledge, but it dropped closer to the level of the banks. To the south, a few larger rocks protruded above the stream’s surface, creating a possible path to the other side. Their water-darkened surfaces glistened, promising that no attempt to use them guaranteed a safe crossing.

“I don’t know how badly I really want to go after it.” Danto followed up on his words by staying exactly where he was.

Brin sighed. She put her hands on Danto’s shoulders and nudged him in the right direction. “We have to go after it. The leather should have kept your things mostly dry. You need to treat Galen’s shoulder. While you’re getting your bag, I’ll scout around and see if I can figure out which way the raiders went.”

Galen blinked. A freshet of alarm trilled up his spine.

“You think we should keep going?” Danto’s question lilted hopefully as he glanced back at Brin.

We should stop here. I should insist.

They could take what they’d discovered back to the commander or at least just wait here for the full militia to catch up. They’d found the hunting party, after all. They’d followed orders. There was no reason to press on.

We’re not high level enough to keep screwing around out here.

But a restless buoyancy rose in Galen’s chest, and he discovered that he didn’t want to stop now, either.

“I think I’d like to accomplish more than just reporting back that the people we were sent to help are dead and all I managed to do was get knocked into the water by a bird.” Brin’s voice rose and fell with a heated ferocity.

She’s mad at herself.

Even so, she was holding it together admirably. Galen really did like her.

“It was a really big bird,” Danto said. “A monster.”

“You got knocked in the water trying to save my life.” Galen blurted it out with an uncomfortable amount of warmth and tried to reel it back in by following up with a casual shrug. “Thank you, by the way. Both of you.”

Danto grinned. “We showed that thing what-for. Didn’t we?”

Brin waved them both away, but Galen thought she was smiling. “Go. Let’s cross the rocks. You get the satchel. I’ll scout.”

In the end, they decided to tie themselves together with a length of rope—from Galen’s pack, of course. He’d never imagined he’d actually need a torch or rope when he’d put them in his pack with all the usual basic bullshit gear. But that was what he habitually did, and so that was what he’d done. Danto eased down the slope toward the crossing stones first, while Galen and Brin stayed back and prepared to brace themselves if Danto fell.

By now, the sun was a bit more than halfway up from east to directly overhead. Beneath the tops of sparsely-leafed trees, the ground wasn’t fully shadowed but seemed less dazzling. The sun was warm, and the air was cool, and Galen felt oddly comfortable with the entire situation.

I have to be here, anyhow. I may as well enjoy it if I can.

“Thank you, too.” Brin spoke without looking back, her gaze fixed on Danto’s cautious progress. “For hauling me back onto the ledge.”

Galen grinned at her back. “I only did it so you could help save my life again. When you tackled that bird creature? That was amazing.”

Brin snorted. She still didn’t look back. “It might have been, if it had worked.”

Galen wasn’t notified of any rolls Danto might’ve been making, but they must have been good ones. Danto reached the far side and anchored himself there. With he and Galen holding the rope for her, Brin followed him across, and then Galen followed them.

[You rolled a 15 for Agility.]

He must’ve rolled a natural 15, because his AGI modifier was nada.

The soles of Galen’s soft boots resisted attempts to truly grip the water-slick rocks, but the rope held him steady. The entire experience was oddly less terrifying than Galen had thought it might be. In fact, the thumping of his pulse made him feel exhilarated. Alive.

Free.

On the outcropping where the hunting party had made its last stand, Galen looked over the scene while Danto fished his satchel out of the water. Brin worked along the forest’s edge, her braid swaying as she crouched and studied the ground before taking a few more steps and repeating the process.

The bloody scene turned Galen’s stomach, but he squinted his eyes and tried to look past the gore to more important details. How many dead? Any signs that anyone had escaped?

“That’s Lord Gastusad.” Danto shook his retrieved satchel as he walked up beside Galen. Water splattered the side of Galen’s face. “Sorry. That one there, with his spear in the thing’s throat. I think that’s the lord.”

Galen blinked water droplets from his eyes and rubbed at his cheek. Judging by the man’s clothing, finer than any of the other dead people wore, Galen thought Danto might be right.

“None of them have swords.” Galen glanced at Danto to see if he’d noticed the same thing. “Or shields. There are spears all over the place, but none of the heavier weapons.”

Danto frowned. “They couldn’t all have been using magic. Some of them had to have had swords.”

Galen nodded, but honestly he didn’t know enough about this world yet to know if that was really true. The question he’d have asked his GM rose in his head.

Is there anything else I’d know about a noble hunting party like this?

Magic is not usable by everyone but also not uncommon, although most with a magical knack are limited in how it can be used and how powerful it is. An even more limited magical use can also, in some instances, be taught. A hunting party with the resources of a noble lord would typically include a tracker, someone talented and trained in using a divining rod to follow a trail.

Galen digested all that before parlaying the provided details into something that sounded more like natural conversation. “They’d have had a tracker, too, probably one with a knack but also training with a divining rod. This was a lord’s hunting party. But I don’t see a rod, either.”

Danto fell quiet for a long moment. Galen waited to see if he reached the same conclusion Galen was considering.

“The raiders doubled back?” Danto eventually ventured. “Stole what was left after the hunting party was dead?”

“The most valuable things, anyhow.”

The two of them stood side by side and looked at the scene for a few moments longer.

Then Danto nudged Galen. “Come on. Let’s go see what Brin’s found.”

Galen started after Danto but then stopped and doubled back. Picking out a spear still in decent condition, he bent and retrieved it. “Sorry,” he murmured to the dead hunter beside the spear. “We’ll try to make good use of it.”

When Galen turned, Danto and Brin were watching him. Galen got within arm’s length and held out the spear toward Brin. “Yours went into the river. I didn’t think they’d mind.”

Brin hesitated but eventually took the spear. Then she led Galen and Danto to a spot where grass grew thin enough to expose some bare earth beneath. A curved indentation had been pressed into the ground.

“A bare footprint.” Brin didn’t explain why that mattered.

Galen pictured the dead raiders they’d seen back at the manor, with their rough woven reeds for clothing and their bare, mud-caked feet. Brin had definitely discovered their trail.

The real question is whether we ought to actually follow that trail.

But Brin had already waded through the grass and into the forest.

An odd sense of prescience suddenly gripped Galen, as if something inside the forest ahead had wakened and was looking directly at him. Waiting for him, even. No dice rolled, and time didn’t slow like when combat started. But he felt the weight of a moment of choice, as if whether he followed Brin or turned back instead mattered more than it seemed to on the face of things.

A sense of something waking. Like what? Another bear-dino or bird?

The narrator either didn’t know or wasn’t telling. Silence answered Galen.