The Watchman watched from wooded land,
her feathers spread o’er tree and man,
a shadow long and dark and deep,
her voice a hiss about her beak.
Jungle trees of mighty height
Hid her presence from our sight.
Frightful sun and fearful moon,
Her shining claws shall strike us soon.
-Arthur’s Translated Poems, c. BUE 100
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KRIDARNN
“Anybody feel like we are being watched?” His question hung in the air, thick like the humidity.
The gaze penetrated under his armor, between his scales, and into his heart. He made it stand bravely in his chest as he squared with the treeline, squinting. Whatever this creature was, it was not natural. Not like the water beast or the pack of predators had been. Those, they had handled well, each man claiming his own battle while supporting the other. They had emerged alive. Scathed, but intact. Despite the magic-resistant iron on his chest and the casters around him, he felt less confident about a fight with magical monsters.
“Yeah,” Syrdin stood at his heel, following his squint, “and not by those cat-things either.” Slowly, stiff with pain, zhe settled onto the long tendrils of grass and reeds, half an eye turned to the forest.
Mell stopped where she had trod up. Her shoulders shuddered with fear. “Yes, now that you mention it, there is an… intense presence in the forest. What do you believe it is?”
His claws tapped on the hilt of his blade while he thought. Fenn would know better than the rest of them. He glanced over to where he comforted his lady. His hand was on her cheek. Krid jerked his head away, feeling like he’d intruded on a moment not meant for him. “There’s no way I can tell, but I doubt it’s friendly. We’ll have to wait for Fenn’s thoughts. Until then, I’ll watch it.” His voice growled more than he intended at the end.
“Easy, soldier,” Syrdin leaned back on zheir hands lazily, “whatever it is, I don’t think it is keen to leap out at us like the panthrae. It watched me while I went to check for more, and I couldn’t find any sign of the source.”
Mell heaved herself down next to Syrdin, squeezing water from her artfully twisted up clumps of hair. “We should still investigate, once we’re a bit rested and those two are feeling up to it,” she nodded toward Fenn and Gale. “It could have answers that the pond beast didn’t.”
Investigate. Answers. That meant they would try to approach it. So far, all of the creatures they had spoken to had attacked them. Still, he could see the wisdom in facing their challenger head on–once they were well rested, not just a “bit.”
He growled in discontent. “We are barely patched up. We should move away and rest for a while. Make camp, if we can. Assuming there is danger behind this, it has neither come out from the forest, nor attacked Syrdin within. When we do face it, I’d rather be fully recovered.” He stated his mind plainly. Anyone could follow his logic.
“Not to mention our unfinished business right here at the lake.” Syrdin thumbed toward the shimmering surface.
Two pairs of footsteps shuffling over grass warned him that Fenn and Gale were finally approaching.
Mell spoke up, unaware of that fact. “I’m not sure we do.” She flicked droplets off the tips of her… was the word “braids?”... and leaned forward, thoughtful. “I have a sinking feeling that the pixies sent us after that beast we just wounded. That pond isn’t deep enough to hide much else. As for the beast, I know for certain it cannot speak the tongues of man or Fae. We won’t be able to question it. Fenn will know more–”
“Not a word, right? Not even Faerish?” Fenn spoke from a few steps behind her, and she whirled. Behind him, Fair Galendria clung to his elbow like it were a lifeline over sinking sands, her face pale with fear.
Krid couldn’t understand. The she-elf had overcome the creature that had attacked her. Normally, that bolstered someone’s courage. She should be proud that she protected Fenn.
Mell sat up straighter. “Yes, not a one–that’s discounting the command spell. It transfers intentions, so it didn’t need to understand that.”
“Right, then.” Fenn nodded and reached into his satchel. “I may be able to find it in the records of fae beasts, rather than the magical monsters.” He dug around, eventually pulling out a green book. Lowering himself and Gale to the ground, he flipped through it for a while, worn pages falling softly with each turn. Normally, this would bore Krid, but at the moment it stalled them from taking any action toward the presence, so he made his peace with it, choosing to watch the “shoth” swoop in and out of the trees.
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“Aha! Flotymus. A water-dwelling herbivore of very large size. Highly territorial. The book recommends avoiding them.” He snapped the book shut. “Described pretty much as we saw it, with no mention of a relation to pixies.” His brow wrinkled and his head sank with shame. “I see no reason for them to have sent us here. I… I’m sorry.”
“No reason except it’d probably kill us.” Syrdin flicked a shiny bug off zheir trousers. “They’d find that funny, wouldn’t they?”
Mell and Fenn uttered twin sighs that meant yes.
Krid rumbled with irritation. Vile pixies, killing for fun.
“So, what about the looming presence, then?” Mell pulled everyone’s attention back to the present problem.
Krid tensed.
“The…” Fenn glanced at the treeline, “I had hoped my mind was playing tricks on me. Do we know what it is?”
“So you don’t know, either?” Mell’s shoulders sank as the Newt shook his bright head.
“It’s danger; that’s what it is.” Krid turned from the treeline, his shoulders prickling with the gaze. “As I’ve already told the others, I think we should shift around the lake and try to camp, rest. We are better off facing it more recovered–if we face it at all.”
“It is probably something more intelligent than the flotymus,” Mell offered. “And likely more powerful than a handful of pixies, too, with how it can expand its presence.”
Fenn rubbed his chin, his delicate soft-skin turning red from it. “I wonder if it could be a Watcher. It is… pervasive and quite strong. If it is as powerful as Mell thinks…” He raised his face, strained with thought. “Well, it could very well answer all of our questions.”
“A what?” Krid asked, his senses still set on the forest, on the swooping shoth and skittering fae mice there. They, at least, were not afraid of being hunted.
“Something that would kill us in our sleep, sounds like,” Syrdin inserted. He squinted at zhem. That contradicted zheir prior opinion.
Fenn took a deep inhale, a light awakening behind his glasses. It was the look that overcame him when he was prepared to lead a scenic tour of some unimportant facts. At least a lecture gives us time to rest.
“It’s called a Watcher. In the old Fae legends, the gods had large swaths of land under their tutelage, more than they could reasonably care for. First, they attempted to send scouts, but after some time they instituted–”
“The abridged version, Fenn?” Mell cut him off.
Camel dung! That cut their rest time by ten minutes, probably.
“Right. It’s a creature with dominion over a certain region. The caretaker of that land, if you will. Each was originally placed by a member of the pantheon, though whether the Watchers still answer to a master, I could not tell you.”
Excitement lit Mell’s face and she leaned forward on her haunches.
Double dung! She’ll definitely want to find it, now.
Syrdin didn’t miss that either. “What about their hostilities? Methods of attack? Are they known to be underhanded?” Zheir tone was firm, and Krid did not miss that zheir words again supported the idea that rest was not safe. If Syrdin knows something about this, zhe had better share.
“I’m unsure. It’s been so long that the old–”
“Let’s not find out,” Krid interrupted Fenn to cut off Syrdin’s control. “We should not approach it.”
“And you’re in charge now, Captain?” Syrdin’s tone chilled him.
He drew up and took a step forward. How dare zhe accuse me of forcing my way! “No, I am trying to keep us safe!”
“By encouraging cowardice?” Syrdin remained unmoved, laying on the ground.
“There is wisdom in watchful rest. This is dangerous, even more so than I first thought.”
Syrdin huffed. “It’s a danger to be faced with courage. Personally, I don’t wanna die in my sleep, drakeman.”
He clenched his jaw. “Then state your reasons.”
Syrdin barely raised zheir hooded head as zhe spoke to him. “Simple. Because dying sucks, and I don’t wanna go out like a coward.”
An ironic, snarling smile cracked his lips. One who won’t show zheir face to allies is calling me a coward? He arched over them, choosing his words.
“Blights! But those eyes are bone-chilling, aren’t they?” Galendria broke her silence. She had locked her gaze on a single point and had not moved for the duration of the debate until now.
Their heads whipped in unison as they all set their attention on her. They stared as insects hummed, one a roaring screech. Krid dropped his arched stance.
Eyes? He glanced again at the trees, but saw no eyes.
“Galendria,” Fenn spoke in a hushed tone, as if he might frighten her away, “what do you see?”
She swallowed hard. “It’s just there,” she pointed with her free hand to a place under the bows in the treeline, her other one still white-knuckled on Fenn’s elbow. “With the most intense yellow eyes! Just behind that branch where it tangles with the low bow of another tree.” Galendria looked up at Fenn for a moment, wide-eyed, before peering once again into the trees. She waited expectantly on his confirmation, as though the sight were obvious.
Krid searched again, but there was nothing.
“You can really see it?” Mell said at last.
If she could, they could at least locate the source–and, fates willing, avoid it. A Watcher, a servant of a god, sounded like a powerful foe to meet.
“You can’t?” Gale’s question was directed at Mell, and then to the others. “Any of you?”
They were silent.
Syrdin finally sat up, holding zheir side. “That’ll be magical.”
Krid’s tail lashed over the grass. The whole five of them would end up as fae-fodder if he didn’t stop it.