It was an uneasy night. Nothing attacked the flock, but the goats and beetles were quick to bleat and screech whenever anything moved nearby. Martha and Reg were both bleary-eyed when morning came; with his injured leg, Barkle wasn't able to stand watch, and neither had slept deeply when they weren't patrolling around the flock. The memories of the storm preyed on both of them -- the mist twist and the thoughts that weren't their own. On this lower-east side of the Tree, the morning was the brightest part of the day. The warm sun wasn't occluded by too many branches and the light helped drive the nightmares of the night before away.
Barkle had hopped around on his good leg to build up the fire and boil water for tea. His injured leg looked even worse than it had the night before -- the knee was hugely swollen around the splint and was ugly shades of purple, blue, and green. Reg looked at Barkle and Martha, "so, we're headed back to the ranch, right? People back there might need some help, and Barkle, you need a healer soon for your leg to heal right." Barkle nodded, "Yep. Flock isn't as fat as I'd like, but we deal with the web we've got and not the one we want." Reg looked around, "I bet we can fit you on the travois if we organize things a bit. It'll be a rough ride, but I can't think of anything better." Barkle sighed heavily and nodded.
The preparations to head back to the ranch went quickly. Reg and Martha packed the travois, lashing their food, tent, and supplies to the side poles of the travois to leave space in the middle of the silk webbing for Barkle to lie down. They lashed the travois to the steady beetle that normally hauled it and after bribing the beetle with a few slices of dried apple, they got it moving with the increased weight. The flock was easy to get moving; Reg got the sense that they were as anxious to get home as he was. Intellectually, he knew the ranch was a hundred times safer during a mist storm than a grazing spot on a wild branch, but he wasn't going to feel OK until he saw everyone safe with his own eyes.
Reg was exhausted by the time they broke for lunch in the afternoon, letting the flock pause to forage in a glen full of rich mosses. It'd have been a decent size flock for two shepherds, and Martha wasn't much use. She'd gotten better since starting, but she hadn't been raised on a ranch the way that Reg had, and it showed. Her signals to her herding spider weren't always clear and she didn't have the experience to know when a goat or a beetle was thinking about heading in the wrong direction. It was frustrating and Reg kept having to bite back unfair criticism and complaints: she was doing fine for someone who hadn't even seen a goat until a few weeks ago and she'd be doing better at the pace that the flock normally traveled at. It was a bit frustrating, but it was also exhilarating to realize that Ankie and he were able to keep the majority of flock moving at a decent pace while Martha dealt with the rear and kept an eye on the beetle hauling Barkle's travois -- it felt good to feel how much he'd improved.
Lunch was smoked goat meat and some tender dryad's saddle mushrooms that Barkle had spotted on their hike. After a hard morning's work, it was delicious. Barkle finished lunch first and then started fiddling with the travois: "this dirt-touched device is the worst way to travel. I felt every rut and piece of bark on that trail."
Martha laughed, "you know, in the city we have these newfangled things called 'wheels.' They've only been around since maybe the creation of the world or thereabouts? I guess they haven't made it this far down the trunk."
Reg struck his head with his palm, "By the heart, that's brilliant! I cannae believe us downtree hicks ain't never tried that. Wheels! What will they think of next? Couldn't possibly be because they wouldn't work on these trails, no way."
Barkle nodded, "Wish they'd work out here away from those druid-crafted roads. Reg, you ain't never trekked to Ithillia, right? They've got this huge platform, bout the size of a third of a throwball field, and it floats up and down the trunk delivering more than a hundred porters could. Right now, I wish those Nest'eff artificers could figure out a floating cart of some sort. Now that'd be a useful invention that'd save me some bruises."
Reg looked at him, "Barkle, don't jump on my branch. A flying thing that huge? No way, where'd it even get the power? That feels like something out of the old stories that an archwizard would do."
Reg was surprised to see Martha shaking her head, "Reg, he's not messing about. I rode it on the way down here. It had some of the largest crystals I've ever seen. Pure black ones, way bigger than any I've seen for lights or ovens or anything. You should go to Ithillia at some point! It's only, what, a three day hike from your parents' ranch? It's not as fancy as some of the upper cities, but the Achivian Guard is headquartered there, so there are a lot of restaurants and plays and culture. I heard that they're showing Fardew's new play there next moon and it's supposed to be hilarious. And my mum says the market there is one of the best on the Tree because it has crazy things the scavs bring back from below. Lots of metal and magic and herbs and things that we don't even have up top." Martha looked wistful while describing Ithillia.
Reg shrugged, "I'll go eventually for sure. I hear the spider auctions have breeds from all over the Tree. I'd love to see that. And it'd be fun to see a real dueling circle competition. Maybe I could even give it a go myself."
Martha gave him a friendly punch to the shoulder, "Should have guessed you'd only care about spiders and dueling. I'm going to drag you there and take you to a play and get you some cuisine."
"You should listen to her," Barkle added. "It's worth doing. 'specially if you go to a throwball contest or two; it's top-fork. The Verdant Goats got a new sniper and they've been on an absolute tear since she joined. Just smuggle your own drinks in, the prices in the stadium are criminal."
"All right, all right. I'll go after we finish this season's work. It does sound more exciting than what we get up to in Willowbend," Reg responded. He paused for a second, "Martha, why did you come down here? Every time you talk about the city you light up. You don't have to say if you don't want, but you don't seem like someone who wants to spend their life out on the wild branches."
Martha looked down for a few seconds. "There's not a lot to it. My folks work in a minor noble's place in House T'adhana. Have you been around young elves before? Ones under a century?"
Barkle let out a soft "oh."
Martha nodded, "Yup. Takes elves a lot longer to grow up than us humans. Their son was only thirty or so and got it into his head that what his life needed was a fling with the gardener's daughter. It wasn't the worst thing, but not remotely what I wanted my life to be like, and his parents just shrugged and said that 'teens will be teens.' My mum is old friends with yours, Reg, so she sent me down this way to work for a season or two. The pay is good, so I'm hoping with a few seasons of work I can put together enough to get a small shop going in Ithillia. Maybe I could even sell some of the silk and cheese from the farm. It's quality stuff. Just as good or better than what we had in Sungleaf." She paused, "none of that is secret, but I'd still appreciate you not spreading it around."
Reg and Barkle both affirmed that they wouldn't be telling folks, and Barkle grumped about "mist-touched elf lordlings who think their droppings smell like ambrosia lotus." with the sound of a man who had his own grievances with them.
After a few more minutes of rest and chatting, they got the flock moving again. The afternoon went quickly and the flock started moving more easily as Martha and Reg got used to managing the herd without Barkle's help. Midday was the darkest time of day because the sun was directly overhead the Tree and little light trickled down to their depth, but as the afternoon wore on, it got brighter as the sun found a better angle to shine through the branches. A few hours after lunch, Barkled let out two loud whistles. Reg and Martha brought the flock to a stop on the fork that they'd just reached. As soon as they stopped the flock, Reg realized why they'd stopped: most birds had stopped singing, but he could hear a murder of raven's cawing loudly at something.
Reg and Martha met Barkle at his travois. Reg felt his face flush red: he should have been paying more attention. Not paying attention to obvious signs like that is how you lost goats.
Barkle eyed Reg's red face, "you hear it now then, lad? You think you can handle it? Can't be something too bad if the ravens feel bold enough to harass it."
Reg swallowed and then nodded. They needed one of him or Martha to keep an eye on the flock, and both Reg and Martha knew that Reg was a better bet for dealing with a beast. Martha was getting better with her shortbow, but she still spent most of her time practicing chasing down errant arrows. "Ankie and I will deal with it."
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The two of them skulked down the branch towards the sound of cawing ravens. They went slowly and quietly, ducking behind the shrubs, small trees, and vines that grew on the branch. Then, through a gap in the vines, Reg saw the glint of scales and a horn. Reg stopped Ankie and pointed the shape out to her. He spent a few minutes eyeing it: from here, it looked like it was a juvenile chimera-cat. Not too dangerous unless it got its beak or stinger into you. It'd be a lot simpler to deal with if it were an adult: you could drive them away. Young ones were bloodthirsty and stupid, and their ungainly bodies -- panther frontends with a powerful snake's rear -- could move deceptively quickly through thick forests. They were known for charging whole flocks and sometimes killing a few goats before being put down.
Reg turned to Ankie, "Alright girl, hunting time." Ankie's pedipalps waved happily and she started anxiously tapping her front legs on Reg's thighs. Reg pointed to a small clearing nearby about 50 feet from the chimera-cat. And then pointed to himself, "bait. Bait. OK, girl?" Her large principal eyes traced from the spot Reg had indicated to the chimera-cat's resting spot and then played around the rest of the forest. After looking around for a long minute, she creeped into the thick shrubs and Reg quickly lost sight of her. Reg waited for a count of 500, before heading towards the clearing he had indicated. He couldn't see Ankie, but he'd hunted with her enough times near home that he knew she'd be in the right spot. This was more dangerous prey than they'd gone after, but the principle was the same. He rubbed his sweaty hands on his pants and made sure his knife was loose in its sheath. He pulled out his sling, stepped into the clearing, whirled his sling quickly to get it up to speed, and then released the sling bullet towards the scaled back of the chimera-cat, the one bit of it that he could see clearly through the thick underbrush.
The sling bullet struck hard and the chimera-cat let out a pained yowling screech. It then started hurling itself through the forest at Reg. When it opened its beak to screech at him, Reg could see two sharp fangs inside. Its face was that of a cat but was topped with two sharp horns like a goat's. It used its strong front legs to pull itself around trees while its powerful snake's back end manically pushed itself forward faster than a man could run. Reg pulled out his knife. Ankie was there, he knew she was. But he didn't want that beak anywhere near him.
As the chimera-cat hurtled around a small fungal growth 20 feet from Reg, he finally saw Ankie's large eyes and her beautiful purple and green carapace leaping off of a low branch. She landed on the scaly flank of the chimera cat and bit down, hard, on its spine before leaping away again. The chimera-cat only made it two more lunging slithers before its front legs gave out. Its body shook for a few minutes before it finally died. Ankie meanwhile came over for abdomen pets and praise that Reg happily gave. Being bait was terrifying, but it was reassuring to see how easily Ankie had been able to take down the much larger chimera-cat.
After a few minutes, Reg started to head back towards the flock before realizing that Ankie didn't want to come. She'd started wrapping up the chimera-cat in webbing. Her pedipalps went down when he tried to convince her that they needed to head back. After a few minutes of cajoling, Reg found himself dragging a surprisingly heavy chimera-cat corpse through the woods while Ankie pranced happily beside him.
It took over an hour to get back to the flock and rig up transport for Ankie's dinner, but once the chimera-cat corpse was swaddled in webbing in another travois behind a sedate beetle, Martha and Reg got the herd moving again. After a few hours, they reached the same large clearing that they'd rested in on their way out to the grazing grounds weeks ago and set up camp.
Barkle had bullied Reg and Martha into letting him take one of the watches: "rot and canker, with one leg I'm still worth twice of either of you in these woods, and I just spent the day napping easy as you please. I'm taking a mist-touched watch."
Sleep came easier for Reg than it had the last night, but he was still tormented from nightmares of walking off of the branch. In one of his nightmares, he convinced his father to walk off the branch with him. In another, his younger sister Daphne had wrapped herself around his waist and plummeted with him. Martha's panicked mutters when he woke her up to take her turn watching the flock made it clear he wasn't the only one still suffering.
The next three days settled into a comfortable routine. Reg and Martha got more and more used to working together to handle the full flock. Barkle kept trying to make the travois comfortable, but judging by his continued attempts, he wasn't finding much success. As the days went on, they started making it closer to home and civilization -- it was harder for the goats and beetles to graze as they moved because the shrubbery and moss had already been eaten close to the trunk. They ran into a wood harvesting crew carrying their massive hammers, wedges, and a single ax singing a work song about a Nest'eff scholar and her wand. Reg didn't entirely understand the song, but judging by Martha's giggles and Barkle's normal scowl turning into a grin, it was likely something ribald. Why was it surprising that a mage's wand had more magic than her shepherd fiancé?
Early on the fourth day, Barkle and Martha broke off to take Barkle into Willowbend to find the druid healer. This close to the ranch, the flock was easier to manage and wild beasts weren't lurking, and Martha and Reg both wanted Barkle to get his leg looked at by a healer as soon as possible. Reg continued down the branch to his parents' ranch driving the full flock before him. As he got closer, he got more and more anxious. What if the storm had been worse here? What if the ranch wasn't there anymore? He kept reminding himself that the Olverspiel Ranch had been there for over a century and had weathered much worse mist storms than that one, and that the effects of mist storms were attenuated closer to the trunk and around towns. Still, those worries preyed on him, and it was a relief to see the smooth curve of the barn rising out of the barn in the distance.
Despite his desire to sprint to the ranch-house to see everyone, Reg started taking care of the flock first. He drove them into one of the large corrals and then went to the barn to haul over some feed to dump for them. Hauling over his second load, Reg was interrupted by the excited shrieks of his sister.
"Ankie, you're back! Who's a cutie? Yes you are! Yes you are!" Daphne, Reg's younger sister, had run out from the ranch house and was rubbing Ankie's abdomen and cooing over her. Ankie was prancing and preening.
Reg's father, Adrian, followed her at a brisk walk. Reg's father wasn't a tall man, but he was still slightly taller than Reg. Unlike Reg's more wiry build, Adrian had a bit of a gut and the slabs of muscle that come from years of wrestling recalcitrant beetles, ornery goats, and brood-spiders that want to eat their breeding studs. Looking at their faces though, it was easy to see that they were father and soon: both had heavy brows and hooked noses that Reg's mother regularly joked must have come from the Olverspiels having a harpy somewhere in the family tree. Reg's father was slightly tawnier than Reg: Reg's blue eyes and brown hair both came from his mother. As soon as Adrian was close, he engulfed Reg in a huge hug.
Reg's father had a powerful hug, and so the initial questions -- "Are you OK? Did the storm hit you? Are Martha and Barkle OK? Where are they?" -- went unanswered until he loosened his grip.
Reg answered his father's questions and asked some of his own while the two worked side by side to feed the flock and check them over for burrs and any small injuries that they'd picked up while out grazing. The storm had been weak here and the family and workers at the ranch had had a quiet night playing levels inside. There were only two other grazing flocks out at the moment. One of the flocks, run by Reg's older sister Nadia and three older hands, had sent word that they'd weathered the storm without issues. The third flock, run by Reg's mother, his older brother Jeb, and Auntie Bel, was still out as well. They'd planned to head far out to let their flock of dimension spiders hunt and mate. Dimension spiders were a lot of effort to manage, but their silk fetched a high price.
Adrian sounded a little worried about that crew, but if anybody would be fine through the mist storm, it'd be them. Auntie Bel had been herding for decades and had taught Reg everything he knew of the sling. Reg's mom, Jemma, had spent even more time than Auntie Bel on the wild branches. Reg's father liked to joke that the only reason she came back home was for his cooking. And Jeb, Reg's brother, had spent the last five seasons out with the flocks and always came back with stories of the incredible things he'd seen. Reg had a small chest with a collection of pressed plants, glimmering claws, and feathers that Jeb always brought back for his siblings. They were one of the best shepherding crews on the tree. Plus, nothing in its right mind would tussle with a herd of phase-spiders. Still, it was hard not to worry.
Later in the afternoon, Barkle and Martha made it back to the ranch. Barkle was leaning heavily on his staff and moving slowly, but he was standing on his feet again. They put up their spiders after checking them over for any problems and giving them some special treats, including some slices of purple and blue meat from the chimera-cat corpse.
That evening, Reg's father Adrian slaughtered a goat and made a celebratory dinner full of funguses, vine-bread, and fresh berries. Barkle told the exaggerated story of their mist storm and return. Barkle downplayed his own role and talked up the work that Martha and Reg had done to get them through the storm and back home. The older ranch hands didn't fully believe Barkle's story, but Reg could tell that he and Martha had passed some sort of test. There was some good-natured ribbing of Reg and Martha -- "Reg, you know it's OK to admit you thought a kitten was a chimera-cat. Happens to the best of us."; "Martha, no shame in hitting Barkle’s knee and calling it a mist-twist. We've all wanted to whack him once or twice." -- and it felt good to feel like part of the ranching community.
Once Daphne was put to bed, other hands told stories of whispers and compulsions that they'd felt during past storms, some stories silly, and others terrifying. One hand, Neda, showed a patch of iridescent scales that had grown on the back of her hand during a past storm. Another, Harold, told a story of how a friend had been caught with a goat in a storm, claimed that it was a compulsion of the mist, and then they'd later found out that it was something he'd been doing for years and had just taken the storm as an excuse. They stayed up too late in the evening telling stories and enjoying each other's company.