“I’d almost rather face a centaur,” said one of the Owls.

Neri shook his head. “I’d choose a pack of dreadwolves over one of those monsters. At least dreadwolves belong in our world.”

Halfur spat and shook his head. “No they do not! They were bred as beasts of war in the Shadow Moors, long before the Marches united. They’re nothing like natural wolves. Malak Ysling used them to hunt and torture people who fell out of his favor. He wrote notes as the wolves fed on them. And they fed slowly, and kept their prey alive as long as they could, and they stared into the people’s eyes while they screamed. The first High King hunted them to the brink of extinction, and would have had them all exterminated had Eruhal not attacked again. Trust me, Neri, dreadwolves are twisted creatures made by twisted men, and as much an abomination as your centaurs. We’re down two men until the scouts come back. We’re staying underground until then, and then we’re staying put until we kill the wolf or the Hood abandons his pursuit.”

“I know the Hood’s reputation,” said another of the Owls, “he won’t abandon the chase.”

Halfur snarled and grit his teeth. “How often does the Bladedancer send scouts this way?” he asked after a moment of thought.

“Constantly,” Neri replied, “but I haven’t seen any sign of them, which is strange.”

“Is it? Elves are only seen when they want to be. And we’re being pursued by by an infamous killer and a small army of murderers and rapers, with a dreadwolf in their thrall. And how actively have you been searching for signs of an elf patrol?”

“I take your point, Dread Highness.”

“Find me some elves, Neri. Tell them Prince Halfur of Narhim promises a quiver of mannarim tipped arrows for the elf that kills the wolf, and a spear for whoever kills the Hood.”

Neri bowed and gathered his gear, then ran back along the bank of the Sholai. Halfur ordered two more of the Owls to watch from the trees, and they went back down the stair carved into the wall of the dimroad.

The next several hours passed quietly. Halfur sat in thought undisturbed for most of that time, but was eventually persuaded by Yemi to join her in a game of Tower and Lightning she had in her pack. Some of the pieces were missing. Halfur noted how quickly she had packed when the roof of their quarters began caving in. She was ready to leave before me. Also, while she had left some pieces of her game, she’d not lost anything from her wound dressing kit or her travel rations.

Yemi was searching the ground for stones to take the place of her missing pieces when they heard the first scream.

“Fall back!” one of the Stone Guard was shouting. They came running out of the darkness, their backs to Halfur and their weapons to the enemy. Ten or more of the Hoods men were closing in on them, and the dreadwolf’s eyes glowed in the darkness behind. Balls, Halfur cursed silently. “To sky!” he bellowed. The three Stone Guard formed up around him and Yemi as they climbed up the stair. The Owls all spread out above ground with their bows drawn. The woods were quiet while the wolf growled below. Two of the Stone Guard emerged, while the third, the sick one, shouted angrily as their attackers overwhelmed him at the base of the stairs. Halfur signaled to one of the Owls. “Don’t leave him for the wolf.”. The Owl ran to the entrance to the dimroad and fired an arrow. The dying guard went silent. The Owl then fired two more arrows and Halfur heard them find soft, meaty flesh.

“The wolf?”

“No, Highness. Just two of the humans. The rest withdrew.”

Halfur rolled his eyes and looked around. “To the trees,” he said with a strained sigh.

“The humans can climb better than us, Dread Highness,” said one of the Stone Guard.

“But they can’t kill as well as you, and the wolf can’t climb at all. Owls, help us hide in the boughs.”

The Owls proved their worth then, if they hadn’t already. They found trees with broad leaves and stout branches which they were able to conceal themselves in. Yemi was led to a higher branch than the others, and Halfur tasked both the Stone Guard with keeping her safe.

The Owls quickly dispersed among the trees, forming a perimeter along the bank and around Halfur and Yemi’s trees. One of them stayed with Halfur, though he climbed higher on the trunk. Halfur almost lost sight of him, then saw the glimmer in the soldier’s eyes as he hung upside down with his bow drawn. It was wise of Gund to form this legion. He remembered scoffing at the idea of training a dwarven unit to imitate elven tactics. Now he was thinking of ways to implement them further.

The woods were quiet for most of the day. Now and then he’d hear a scurrying sound to the north where the trees thinned. The northern bank of the Sholai was not densely wooded, with only a few groves of deciduous trees snaking their way towards the mountains. A hundred yards or so north the land was open and bare, and directly to their west was a long expanse of hills. Had he known the Hood would ford the river during the night and come upon them in the dimroad, he would have made camp in a grotto back when they were traversing the hills. We’re always ready for the last war, he mused. Before long his chest began to ache. It had started to feel less sore, but then the flight up the tree strained the healing muscles. He hoped Neri would find help soon, he did not relish the thought of fighting with an injury and a fever.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The sun passed overhead and began to dip down over the hollow hills. His chest throbbed and he began to feel a maddening sense of boredom. He wondered how Yemi was managing to keep so quiet and still. He worried that she might start up a conversation with the Stone Guard, or fidget enough to draw their attackers, but she remained statue still. She never even asked to climb down to make water.

The day waned on, and minutes passed like hours as the sun crept slowly over the western horizon. Halfur began to feel himself needing a bush to urinate on. He wondered how much longer the quiet sentinel above him could continue to hang for. He looked up and saw the man had moved. Where to he couldn’t tell, until he shook a branch to let Halfur he was still there. He was about to climb down to relieve himself, or at least do while hanging, when the dreadwolf came padding silently under him. He froze, one leg dangling over the branch and his hand at his breeches. He wanted to look up, to see if his guardian Owl was readying his bow. Why don’t they shoot? He wanted to give the order, but he was looking at how long the dreadwolf’s body and legs were, and thought how easily she could leap up the tree and grab his dangling foot in her jaws.

“Leto,” a voice called. The wolf was sniffing at the base of his tree, but lifted her head at the sound of the voice. A tall, thin human strode into view. The wolf nuzzled his chest and he scratched her between the ears. “You hungry, girl?”. He pressed his face into her fur and scratched her chin. The beast stretched stretched its neck and kicked furiously with one of her hindligs.

“Shall we make camp, milord?” said another voice. Halfur inched his head upward and peeked through the tree’s wide leaves. Thirty men at least were milling about beneath them. It was no wonder the Owls hadn’t loosed any arrows. The goal was to escape, not die after slaying one animal.

Halfur turned his head slowly to his sister. Somehow she’d managed to completely disappear behind the leaves of her tree. The two Stone Guard remained where they were, though they’d managed to draw their weapons. His groin began to ache, and he wished to the red candle that he’d relieved himself earlier.

The Hood directed his men to set up camp. The formed a ring of stones for a fire, erected tents, and several of them played lutes and sang. The scent of food rose from the fire. Halfur’s stomach then began to groan along with his bladder. The scent of roasted partridge was strong in the air, mixed with pungent herbs from a pipe the Hood smoked beneath him.

One of the humans, a short and bent creature with a long nose, sat close to the Hood and spoke quietly to him. The others seemed to keep their distance, though the wolf freely ran about them, sniffing at their food and bounding in the air playfully. One of threw a branch in the air and she leapt off her feet to catch it. Halfur shuddered. She would have no trouble reaching his foot. He decided to ignore the wolf, and strained to hear what the squat fellow was saying to the Hood. It seemed like a code, though a few words stood out to him.

“The Whimsey’s afoot as well, milord,” the man was saying, “Red Spittle led their fighters south and has the Mud Patch under guard, and the slinkers have the petty realms under wraps. The Corn King may as well be on the books with Gurgu, so it’s good we have the Salamander on a leash. Still, we best keep our noses clean up north. The Red Eyed Goat went back to culling our kin. They say he’s collecting our scalps and makin’ a cloak outta human skins. And the Moorsmen are riding south of the Shield Lands. To what end, who knows?”

“I’ll make a new hood out of the Goat,” said the Hood. “I’ll stitch his scalp to his goat horns, and wear his dead face over mine.”

Halfur noticed then that the Hood had no hood at all. His cloak had been cut above the collar, and his hair was dreadlocked and filled with dirt and twigs. He tried to get a look at the man’s face, but the wolf came back as soon as he started to crane his neck.

“Very good, milord,” said the squat underling. “Shall we feed milady now that we’ve had a rest?”

The Hood nodded, then whispered something to the wolf. She looked up at Halfur instantly and snarled, then leapt up the tree. Her moth snapped open and almost closed around his foot, but an arrow whizzed past him and plunged inter her throat. She fell hard with a loud thud and the Hood went mad.

“BURN THEM!” he howled. The men all leapt to their feet and lit torches in the firepit, then set the trees ablaze. Orange and yellow serpents coiled around the trunk of the tree and struck at Halfur’s feet. He heard Yemi scream and looked over to her. The Stone Guard nearest her was sitting limply against the tree trunk with an arrow jutting from his visor. The other stood on his branch and was covering Yemi with his body. Arrows rained down with vengeance from the trees, but the humans were now swarming around them a hundred strong.

The squat underling had an axe and started to chop at Halfur’s tree, but his Owl guardian put an arrow through his left eye. The Hood was gone, but Halfur could hear his voice screaming madly. A dagger flew threw the air passed his face and he heard the squelching of blood, then the Owl fell from the tree. The Hood then dove from the shadows, thrust a torch in the fire, and started to climb the tree. Halfur drew Yalla and tried to climb higher, but the pain in his chest caused his shoulder to seize. He lost his grip on the branch and almost fell. The Hood thrust his torch upward towards Halfur’s breeches. He swung Yalla and sent the torch flying through the air. The Hood then drew his own sword and stabbed upwards. Halfur parried the first two thrusts, but the third punctured his thigh, and the fourth just below his belly. He grunted in pain and kicked and slashed downward, but the Hood dodged both his his boot and Yalla.

He heard Yemi screaming again. He chanced a quick look and saw four humans climbing her tree. The Stone Guard had pinned one to the trunk with his sword, and was wrestling with another. One of the men had wormed his way up the trunk behind Yemi and was reaching for her throat. Halfur hurled his sword. Yalla sang is she flew like a dart into the man’s hand, and the weight of the weapon spun him and he flew from the tree. Halfur felt a stabbing pain under his arm and a strong hand gripped his boot. He kicked again, but the human’s bony hand gripped him like a vice. He felt blood draining from under his arm. His vision grew dark as his body drained, and soon he felt the human’s hand grip his beard and pull him out of the tree.

He landed hard, though he was too dazed from loss of blood to feel the pain of the impact. A woeful vision then unfolded before him. Brindled men with the faces of rats and dogs danced in the fire, circling wildly around a hideous skeleton crowned with the horns of a great bull. Sagging skin was draped over the monster’s bones, and a gangrel shewolf darted about its feet with human clothing trailing from her jaws. Flames swirled about the trees like the arms of a fiery kraken breaching from beneath the world, and the night was alive with screams and smoke and the snapping of bones. The skeletal beast reared up on a cluster of misshapen legs and held a man aloft, then opened its mouth and swallowed him whole. Halfur heard animal voices snarling in his ear while long wet tongues lapped at the blood pouring from his wounds, then he felt his eyes roll back and all went dark.