Water always flows downwards, they say. From mount to hill to plain to sea, down and down it goes—but that ain’t completely true, and I know it. Wander across this earth as much as I and you will come to know that mists rise, ice melts, blood and sap flows, clouds form and storms rage. Yet far easier it is to think that water is mere water and always obeys gravity in the same manner as the human. And the human—are we not beings of water as well, with blood pumping up to our brains, down to the toes, back to the heart? We and all the living, crawling, swimming, flying things in our small universe. Yes... yet where I now tread, water flows only down, down, ever deeper down.

Ankle-deep is the muddy stream as we make our way further into the cave, moving through a space that is about two arm-spans wide. The sloshing of my boots is joined by that of the two others behind me—Adrok, then Vilka. In front stalks Thulk the thrall, his bare feet stealthier to the ear as we make our way through the damp passage. The tunnel itself—as our headlamps illuminate it—is of a reddish-brown sandstone with bands of darker brown running along the lower wall, a sure sign that the stream we now slosh through runs stronger in the rainy season. Now, of course, it is winter, with the outside world we left behind dusty and dry. Yet this small stream still flows from up high in the mountains, finally coming to a cascading fall. The main stream continues its journey east to join its kin and flow into the Korl Sea, with a steady rivulet of water hitting a great boulder at just the right angle for it to run into the cave. That is where we entered.

“Hear that?” Vilka suddenly asks, stopping. Adrok and I also come to a halt, switching off our headlamps as we turn toward her.

“What?”

“Shh- Slave! Stop.”

The thrall obeys Vilka and I prick my ears, hearing the rhythm of my heart and breath, the passage of the stream—nothing else. Yet Vilka I trust with than more than my life, and her ears even more so. She cocks her bald head to one side, eyes closed, narrow face scrunched up in concentration. We stand like that for a minute, maybe more, when she nods, her smile sly as if she has formulated some great universal truth during our span of silence.

“What is it?” I ask again, shifting my shotgun to the left hand and running the other through the sweaty mess that is my hair.

“Our prey is here,” says Vilka. “I heard its growl.”

“You sure? This is the third fucking cave we’re tramping through and I don’t like to hunt for something that ain’t there,” Adrok complains in his gruff baritone, green eyes scanning the dark tunnel ahead.

“I’m sure-sure, Ad. It was low, but it wasn’t far—the droc is near.”

“You hear anything, Thulk?”

“No master,” the thrall lisps in his slow, stunted voice, eyes downcast. “Thulk only hears the water and the walking—and the talking. But Thulk smells, yes master, Thulk smells something not right.”

“Up ahead? What?”

Thulk turns his head to stare deeper into the darkness.

“Death is what Thulk smells. Not much death, but not old death—a fresh kill, Thulk is sure,” the thrall drawls. I nod, bringing the shotgun’s stock to my shoulder, my finger so near the trigger that the slightest squeeze would cause a solid slug to explode from the barrel and slam into the sandstone wall.

“Lights on. Adrok, take point. Vilka behind me, Thulk at the back.”

The hulking mass of muscle that is Adrok gives a grunt of compliance, casts a quick glance at his sister, then makes his way past me and the thrall, already twisting valves and checking gauges on his flame-spewer. Adrok begins to walk and we follow, the pace slower now that the mow-hawked warrior with the two gas canisters strapped to his back and the long, bulky spewer in his hands has replaced the lanky, sinewy thrall as pointman.

As Adrok strides on, the pilot light on his weapon now lit, I relax my mind and marshal my senses, my eyes focused on a point beyond the man’s bulk. Our headlamps throw shining waves of light over the flowing stream, the ripples of our passage breaking the surface even more. My ears are like that of a cat, every drip and tread and breath I hear. We know our prey well and we know it wouldn’t be attacking us head-on in such a confined space, but it never hurts to be ready. When hunting a droc, caution is the wisest strategy—fools become food, or worse.

“It’s opening up ahead,” Adrok notes, slowing his pace as he rounds a corner. When I do the same, I see that he is right—a great cavern stretches out before us, about twenty spans wide and five high. Our lamplight barely reaches the furthest wall, and I reckon it to be about sixty spans from us. The stream continues on, gathering itself into a pool where the cavern levels out and then escaping into a small cleft in the left-hand rockface, flowing deeper into the planet, deep into the dark unknown of subterra.

Our lights play over the relative calm of the pool, over the walls bordering it, failing to illuminate every dark corner and hidden alcove of the vast cavern. The sandstone is more of a pale beige this deep in, with the air less damp and far more stale.

“Thulk? Vilka?”

“Nothing,” says the huntress, her long-fingered hand already resting on the revolver holstered at her waist. Thulk takes a deep sniff, two more, then nods.

“Is here master, deeper, further—I smell prey and beast.”

I nod. The thrall’s nose is as keen as that of a pig’s, so if he tells me there’s death then there’s death. It’s a shame that the proctor is dead, but that is the way of the world. If we had tracked the droc here sooner we might have saved the man’s life and gotten our bonus from Holdmir Tolk, yet I had known from the start that the chances of this were slim. In truth, we were lucky to have hit the trail on our third try—droc hunts can drag on for weeks or even months, depending on the beast’s sex and habits. Finding signs on our fourth hunt-day is a stroke of luck, and the loss of coin is nothing compared to such fortune.

“Anything else? Musk? Nest-slime?”

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Thulk slowly shakes his head as his beady eyes stare off into the distance.

“Too much water to smell right and far, master. Might be, might not.”

I nod, gazing at the pool ahead of us. Where the stream enters it it is far too muddy to see the bottom, but about five spans in where the silt has already settled I can see it clearly. The water is about two man-heights deep in the center, leveling out to one in spots where it borders the cavern wall.

“Thulk?”

“Yes, master?”

“Find us a way. I’m not keen for a swim.”

The thrall gives a slight nod, then sets about the task. First he wades to the left, enters the deeper part, and swims to the edge of the wall. Once he’s there, I can see that his feet will not touch bottom. He swims on, left hand tracing along the wall as he searches for handholds. Fifteen spans on, past the cleft, he reaches the far edge of the pool, gets out, and repeats his search along the opposite side. Here the going is easier, with Thulk’s feet now and again touching rock and the wall rough enough for him to keep himself abreast in those spots where the pool deepens. Though still too much swimming for my taste, it seems to be the best path.

“Right, we de-gear here. Packs off, you know the drill.”

Thulk shakes his head a few times, his lamp bobbing as the headband shifts over his skull, with rivulets of water spattering every which way from his stringy hair. Then he approaches and starts to help Vilka and me loosen straps as we remove our packs and stow the gear that we don’t plan on taking into the pool. Adrok again sets about twisting valves as he kills his spewer, sealing the weapon off from its fuel.

“Thulk, go ahead. Me and Adrok will follow. Vilka, cover us.”

“Sure thing,” she says, eyes fixed on the far side. The thrall enters the pool again, with Adrok behind him, the giant man holding his spewer above his head with both hands as he starts to wade along the wall, going much easier than Thulk or I thanks to his height. I have my shotgun gripped by the stock in my left hand, raised above the surface as my other hand guides me along the wall, my legs kicking in behind me every time the wall grows smoother and the pool deeper. The water is cold, far too cold for comfort, but I grit my teeth and bear on. Finally, the three of us reach the opposite side. As Adrok again sets about readying his weapon and Thulk once more shakes himself off like a wet dog, Vilka enters the pool and starts making her way across. While the other two get themselves ready, I stroll deeper into the cavern, trying to work some warmth into my muscles. Twenty spans in, I note that the walls remain regular, with no signs of any side-passages. A few paces more and I notice a hollow in the rockface, and in it I find our corpse.

“Thulk!”

The thrall comes running, then grinds to a halt when he sees the body.

“This what you smelled?” I ask, nudging the corpse with my foot so that it flops onto its back, a wrinkled face and milky eyes now staring into the void. It was once a wiry elder, and he is garbed in a strange, knee-length robe which is surely woven of red silk, judging by the texture.

“Yes master.”

Adrok makes his way to us, with Vilka having reached the shore and checking her gear.

“One good thing then—it’s not the proctor,” I tell the warrior. “He’s far fatter.”

“Don’t get my hopes up for a bonus, Lenik. By now, it should already have the fat bastard. Greedy fuck of a holdmir ain’t gonna pay us for pieces of his proctor, that much I know.”

“Why you think it dropped this one?” I ask, looking at the dead man laying like a ragdoll on the stone, his neck clearly broken.

“Probably already got the proctor and is saving the skinny one for later. Or it smelled us and buggered off, which makes no sense, never seen ‘em done it,” opines Adrok. “What you think, Vilk?”

The huntress strides to us, eyes settled on the corpse. She crouches next to the man, taking his head in hand and twisting it this way then that. Then she draws a dagger from her boot and cuts through the silk, parting the folds to reveal the man’s naked form. Next she flips him over onto his stomach, and again cuts through his robe to study his flesh.

“Not a drop of blood, no wounds. Don’t know how you smelled him, slave,” Vilka notes as she continues her examination. “Neck broken, wrung, but no claw marks. Red welts though, definitely fingers. Clothes aren’t wet, and this man hasn’t been dead for more than three hours, the excrement is still fresh—he comes from deeper in, or he flew across the pool, which I doubt considering his age and lack of wings.”

“What? Inside? You sure?”

“Only way that makes sense,” she answers me.

“What if we got a bunch of bandits here and they crossed the pool with a boat? Then they offed this one and went on their way?”

“His socks ain’t wet, Ad. And no scratch marks and splashes on the rock showing they pulled a boat, unless they carried it out, or used a raft. No... he comes from deeper. Maybe someone carried the corpse in by hand, but why take the trouble to keep him dry if he’s already dead? And why bring him in in the first place when a grave, crevasse, river, or fire will do a much faster and effective job of disposing his corpse? Someone killed him, and the droc passed him by.”

Now, I’ve been a hunter for most of my life, and have offed two drocs on my own. If I know one thing and know it well it’s that drocs don’t waste a kill. One thing I know even better is that the beasts don’t allow folk to walk about in their lairs willy-nilly, so if this man lies here, neck snapped by human hands and with him having come from inside—then either there is no droc, or it has already moved further in and ignored the corpse, with both eventualities making no sense. Hadn’t Vilka heard the beast, and Thulk smelled it? And Surely a droc wouldn’t leave fresh meat to waste if it has passed this way?

“Bullshit,” states Adrok, spitting on the ground, his thoughts clearly having run along the same lines as mine.

“I tell it like I see it, brother. What do you think, Lenik?”

I was silent for a few seconds as I stared at the corpse, then further into the cavern.

“Whatever this is, whatever he’s doing here, there’s only one way to find out,” I say, shouldering my gun and motioning for the others to follow me. As we near the end of the cavern, covering every corner with our weapons, I notice that the roof starts sloping down. Soon enough we reach the far wall and there, to the left, discover a passage that runs slantwise up, as wide as a horse’s arse. I halt before it, listening, watching my companions to see if they sense something. Vilka is ready for action, but it's clear that she hasn’t heard the beast, while Adrok remains as stoic as ever, hand near his spewer trigger.

“You still smell the beast, Thulk?”

“Yes master, yes, closer now.”

“Right. We don’t know what’s going on here, but it sure as fuck ain’t normal. Now, old Thulk here has a nose that can locate a rose in a shit-pit, so if he says he smells a droc I’m inclined to believe him. Vilka? Adrok?”

“I heard it before we hit the cavern,” is all the huntress says.

“If it’s here, it’s here,” opines the hulk. “It’s just that a brooder wouldn’t be leaving around flesh when she can use it for egg-laying, and a bull sure as fuck ain’t gonna make his way past a corpse without taking a few good bites. No, even if knew that we were chasing it, it would’ve picked the meat up and carried it away. Way I see it, bunch of bandits entered here some time ago to hide away, right? And maybe there’s a nest. So we got a brooder, she smells the bandits, and rushes in to save her nest, right? Now, why they went and iced that old fella I don’t know, but maybe they dragged him here so as to take him out later, so as to not stink up the place.”

“Might be,” I say, “but why would a brooder leave her nest?”

“Maybe her larder was too small and she went out to—”

“But we found no prey near the entrance, unless she smelled them sooner and dropped it when she started tracking them—or never caught it,” Vilka interrupts. “Still, Lenik is right. I’ve never heard of one leaving her clutch.”

“Maybe it came here to make a new lair, then got a whiff of us and made a scram for it, missing the old fella. Means it might double back if there’s trouble ahead.”

Vilka shrugs. “Easier for us.”

“Time to find out. Adrok, point.”

And so we enter the passage, walking over dry stone as the narrow tunnel twists and turns its way up into the mountain. Adrok, followed by me, Vilka, and Thulk—all of us determined to solve this mystery.