We rode through the night, taking only a few short breaks for the horses. The archers traded duties before the final glimmers of light bent over the horizon, but in full night they remained with us. Most of our little warparty seemed to be expecting to hear the braying of the wyldemen giving chase to dim with the night, assuming the beast men couldn’t keep up their pace for so long.

Gresham and I knew that there would be no stop to the chase.

In the early morning, the sun beading its first light on the horizon, Farthing and Black Caleb rode out ahead to try and find somewhere for us to make a stand or an ambush. We had pushed further south and east, and the softly rolling hills had begun to steepen, the stands of trees growing larger. Our archer scouts disappeared ahead, and we continued our progress.

It was Constance who called a halt to our train, her squire Taldrin pointing at the top of a nearby hill where a large horseman was watching us. It took a moment for me to understand what I was seeing - at first I thought I was looking at a bulky, armored knight, but there were things wrong with it.

When the creature raised its arm, a head dangling from its fist, and it howled a cry that echoed through the hills, I realized this was no man. There was no horse's head before it. This was another creature of the Wylde, a mockery of the progress of man. It threw the head, rearing on its back legs. From the distance between us I would have assumed it a centaur, but I had seen a few of that equine species before when a tribe traveled through Bloodbraid and paid homage to Zeigtrygger, and they hadn’t been nearly the size of this thing. With another roar and a glare down at us, it turned and left the top of the hill.

“Farthing!” Shilling yelled, leaving our horse column and riding straight up the side of the hill, towards where the head had struck and rolled.

“Not alone, Shill,” I shouted, and took off after him, waving to the others to wait.

Shilling found it first, sliding off his horse to pick it up from the hillside and then collapsing onto his ass. He heaved, and I couldn’t tell if it was sorrow or relief that had him in his state. As I dismounted near him he held up the head - it was missing its lower jaw, but the stained black teeth showed it was not Farthing.

“Come with me,” I said. “Bring Caleb.”

He nodded and retrieved a sack from his saddlebag, a simple thing he usually used to carry foraged fruits or vegetables he found while we traveled. This was a much more somber fruit he had plucked from the ground, and I doubted the sack would be used for such again.

We rode the rest of the way up the hill, and I cautiously topped it. The beast, whatever it was, had chosen its point well - it was the tallest hill in the area, and I could see a good distance in all directions. I didn’t spot it, but I could see two different mobs of wyldemen still chasing us through the hills at our backs, one of which had grown much larger overnight.

“Look for tracks,” I told Shilling, and we dismounted and scoured the hilltop.

Eventually I found something, what looked like half of a track. Instead of a hoof, as I would have expected from a centaur being, I was looking at a claw mark of some sort - almost wolf-like, but with larger and with prominent claws like you might expect from a bear.

“What is it?” Shilling asked me, staring down in horror at the huge track. It was nearly as long and as wide as my armored boot from heel to toe.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I have a feeling we just met the fucker who wrangles these beasts that have been chasing us.”

“I need to find Farthing,” Shilling said, moving to mount up again.

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I shook my head, and went so far as to grab his mount’s harness to stop him from kicking into a gallop. “That’s a bad idea.”

Shilling looked at me like I’d told him to kill Farthing himself. “He’s my brother, I’m not just leaving him out there.”

“And you have no idea where he is,” I said. “They split up, Shilling. So whatever that thing is, it didn’t find him when it found Black Caleb. If you ride off in a fit, it might get you first, or you might lead it right to your brother.”

“I can’t just do nothing,” Shilling said, grinding his teeth.

“Get back to the caravan,” I said. “Deliver Caleb to Zeklan. Do that for starters.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I’ll be down there in a moment,” I said.

He rode down, taking it easy on the downslope, and I watched him for a moment before turning and looking over the horizons again. We were five days out from the battlefield now, something like a day’s ride from a little town in the middle of nowhere. Our options were slim, and as I watched the two wyldemen mobs merged into one, continuing on our path. There had to be seventy or more of them in that one running, churning mass.

I couldn’t see hair nor hide of the monster that had beheaded Black Caleb, nor the archer’s horse.

“Fuck,” I said to the wind.

As I joined the others between the hills, I could hear the arguing over what we should do. “We need to talk on the move,” I said loudly. “They are getting closer.”

We set the Squire and Shilling at the front of the horse trains, with the footmen managing the pack horses and empty saddled riding horses. Each of us Lancers and man-at-arms were still riding our warhorses, and weren’t likely to be giving them a rest any time soon.

“The way I see it, we’re fucked no matter which way we turn,” Zeklan said. He had Caleb's head, bundled in a finer cloth than Shilling’s sack now, tucked under his arm as if he needed a reminder of the loss. “We should head for Yarrow’s Tomb. Even if all they have are torches and pitchforks, better to have more bodies on our side.”

There were grumbles of agreement, but I shook my head. “We all know that will be the ruin of that village. I’ve had a thought - I don’t like it much, and I’d rather us find a place that is advantageous to us, but it’s something.”

“Are you going to share your plan, or keep us in irritated suspense?” Constance asked. Her scowl had become constant over the past day, and the lady knight seemed to be dealing with the lack of sleep by getting even more aggressive than usual.

“The way that thing roared at us, threw its trophy,” I said. “I think it was a challenge. I think it wants a fight.”

“What, a duel?” Ethelmeir scoffed. “You think a thing like that respects duels?”

“Not the way you’re thinking of them,” Gresham said. “Think about it, if that thing is more beast than being, it’s like any other animal challenging another in its territory.”

We rode for a moment with nothing but the hooves of the horses to interrupt our thoughts.

“I’ll fight it,” I said.

“No, I will,” Zeklan said. “Caleb was my man.”

“I think you’re both idiots,” Constance said.

“That might be true,” Gresham said, “But I respect it.”

I looked at Zeklan. “If I die, it’s your try. But whether we kill that thing or not, we also need to try and win a battle against an enemy that outnumbers us almost ten to one. You have the greater experience with battles, yes?”

“Also the greater with the sword,” Zeklan countered.

“Not against me,” I said. “That thing had claws the size of a dinner plate, and was just its feet - we don’t know what sort of weapons it might wield. I mean no offense, Sir Zeklan, but I am bigger than you, and I am stronger than you. And most of all, I was raised on the training yard of Bloodbraid - I knew the blade before I knew any other toy. If anyone is going to have a chance against this thing in single combat, it’s me.”

Zeklan narrowed his eyes, looking me up and down. “Jon Hellspawn, eh?” he muttered.

“No one’s ever called me that to my face,” I said.

“Maybe they should start, you big giant-blooded fucker,” Zeklan laughed coldly. “Alright. So now that we have a martyr, we need a battleground.”