"What about those dark clouds?" Garbleday asked, pointing up.

Trashscarf was up front now, keeping up with the lolloping Mrrp? and stealthily harvesting its shedding fur for scarf material. He was keeping up a patter of his usual rambling talk to the big beast, which seemed to be mostly ignoring him. It was alternately diving into the woods and back out again, and perching sneplike on any fallen trees or boulders as they passed.

The Woodstrider had melted into the forest around them, hunting for game-- if the Catterpillow did get hungry, she wanted something to throw at it before running. She was pacing them-- occasionally, from the depths of the surrounding forest, something like "POUNCF WOOF!"--"No! Get off me!" would erupt.

So it was Offswitch, strolling along with his coat off and tucked under his arm, that Garbleday's meterological observation was directed towards. The assassin looked up.

"Dark clouds, yep," he said. "That happens a lot; they kind of billow up out of this part of the Old Road-- and some people say they've had bad experiences with them. Like living nightmares. No one's been actually killed, that I know of, but a few people have gone missing. That's what the boss is trying to stop, I guess."

"The Woodstrider?"

"No, the scarf guy. Boy, you really were out of it when you signed up, huh?" Offswitch gave the younger man a friendly punch in the shoulder. "It's okay, kid. I got yer back."

"Thanks," Garbleday said, looking around. "I just... I always wanted to -do- something, you know? I grew up wanting to be someone, someone who did things, not just another farmer or craftsman or whatever, making up the population of a place and barely even having a name to my name. I thought joining the Watch would be a good start-- but it's even worse there. You get a little training and some beat up old weapons and armor-- and I'm always the one who has to do armor-cleaning duty because I'm the youngest-- and then what you do is, stand around and hope to gods nothing happens because if some kind of fight breaks out, it seems like most of the people out there-- like you, or like Woodstrider-- could tear someone like me apart in less time than it takes to shout "Stop thief!". I mean, even pickpockets--"

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Offswitch said, taking a hopeful swig out of Garbleday's pocket flask and finding it empty. He returned it to the Watchman with a grin. "You should have become a rogue instead of a Watchman. You get more skill points, and we could play swop."

"But..." Garbleday stared at his flask, felt the absence where he usually kept it, and sullenly shoved it back into his pocket. "But that's against the -law-."

"Ohhhh," Offswitch said, a sighed groan of understanding. "You're one of those. Lawful types. Poor kid. Do you know about Stats?"

"I don't believe in that stuff," Garbleday said firmly. "My parents taught me that everyone is special and worthy, no matter when they were born, who their parents were, or what some invisible numbers in the sky might say."

"Okay, okay," Offswitch chuckled. "And your folks are probably right, to be honest. My folks were the same way, only even more so-- D'you hear that?"

Offswitch stopped a moment, so the squeak and clink of his gear silenced, and Garbleday stopped too. And for a moment, it seemed they were all alone on the road; Trashscarf and Mrrp? had vanished around a turn ahead, and the Woodstrider hadn't been seen for many minutes.

There was a sound, a sound made of lots of many sounds; voices? horns? No, the cause was caws-- the grey clouds seemed to be breaking into a thunderstorm above them, a downdraft of hot, sickly air pouring around them, and riding on the wind-- crows.

Thousands and thousands of crows, their black wings flapping wildly and their voices a cacophonoy (or cacawphoney) of not only crow-caws, but weird ravenous cries and wild shrieks and brays and what Garbleday was pretty sure were some words his Momma would have smacked him for using.

"Run, kid!" Offswitch shouted, slapping at his pockets and pouches in search of something. Garbleday started to turn, but Offswitch grabbed his arm and yanked him ahead.

"But that's where they're coming from!" Garbleday yelped, ducking his head as the first of the birds came screaming and yammering overhead. One knocked his hat off, and another gave Offswitch a nasty peck on his forehead.

"There's nothing back the way we came to hide in! Gotta catch up to the others and hope they've got something better!"

The assassin and watchman ran-- Offswitch had taken some kind of gizmo on a string out of one of his pouches, and was whirling it around in a tight circle, like a sling, as he towed Garbleday. The device made a horrible, two-toned noise-- a moan and a shriek weaving in and out between each other--and the crows seemed to flinch away from it, their own voices raising even further in fury as they swirled like gnats around the two Humans, who ran as fast as they could.

Garbleday batted one determined corvid away from the back of his collar, where it had been perching like a woodpecker and hammering at his scalp with its beak-- it flew back up into the air and was thrown back by the bellow from Offswitch's noisemaker.

"I've got a sword, you've got a machete, if we can get our backs against something we can fight them, they're just birds, if we kill enough of them--" Garbleday panted, trying to remember his tactical training. It hadn't covered crows, though.

"Even killing one of them is too much," Offswitch gritted, wincing as one of the crows came in too close and was knocked sideways by the whirling noisemaker-- it lost a couple of feathers but fluttered away unharmed though unhappy.

But up ahead on the road they saw something familiar-- the massive white mound of the Catterpillow, curled up like a hedgehog. The crows cawed and mobbed it and battered it with their wings and beak, and tufts of white and grey fur were flying, but it seemed its hide was too tough for the small, light animals to make much impact, and its head was hidden somewhere in its coils.

The end of Trashscarf's scarf was sticking out from under the hillock of fur, and Offswitch threw himself forward into a slide as though trying to make it safely to home plate, dragging Garbleday with him.