Кейт Новак - Finder's Bane

“Sounds like a plan,” Joel said.

Holly finished the remaining rabbit while Jas took to the air to scout out the lay of the land. When she returned, she reported they were still northeast of Dagger Falls. They needed to continue due west for several miles before they could cross the river out of sight of the town. They drank their fill from a stream before they began their trek in earnest.

The day was fair and warm, and the terrain was not difficult. About noon, Holly risked knocking on a farmhouse door. As she’d predicted, the farmer’s wife looked frightened and didn’t offer any hospitality, but she did send her away with two waterskins full of milk and a big loaf of bread—things she could claim had been stolen.

The three adventurers hurried away to put some distance between them and their benefactor. In the shade of some woods, they feasted on the handouts and rested about an hour. Then they headed southwest toward the river. They reached the water by nightfall and camped. Holly caught some fish for dinner.

Jas took first watch and woke Joel after midnight. Other than a raccoon family raiding their camp for the discarded fish heads left from their meal, Joel’s watch was quiet. Holly, on the last watch, woke the other two before the birds began to twitter. “There’s something out there,” the paladin said. “Something is howling. It’s been getting closer.”

Joel and Jas listened for a while. The howl came from the northeast. “Just a wolf,” Joel suggested.

Holly shook her head. “Wolves travel in packs. When one howls, the others answer. This is something traveling alone.”

“A werewolf?” Jas asked.

Joel held up his finger and listened to the howl again. Holly was wrong. There was an answer, a much more disturbing noise. The bard could just barely hear it.

“There’s a horn. A hunting horn,” the bard told them. “Coming from behind us.”

“What could anyone be hunting at this hour?” Jas asked.

“Us,” Holly whispered.

“Don’t they have better things to do with their time?” the winged woman groaned.

“We need to throw their hound off the scent,” Joel said.

“So we cross the river,” Jas said.

“Not just yet,” Holly answered. “We need to lay a false trail.”

They gathered up their weaponry and the waterskins and proceeded west down the river path. With only a tiny sliver of light from the setting moon to show the way, it was slow going. They splashed through two creeks that emptied into the river. At the third creek, Jas picked up Holly and flew across the river.

While Joel waited for the winged woman to return, he planned the magic he might need for the day and prayed to Finder to grant him the spells. The howling grew so close that the bard became edgy and impatient. The birds had begun chirping, and the sky was beginning to lighten. Joel was just considering trying to swim the river when Jas finally returned.

“What kept you?” he demanded.

“Holly insisted I land far past the riverbank so they won’t be able to pick up our scent by following the water’s edge,” Jas explained. “Let’s go.”

Joel wrapped his arms around Jas’s neck as Holly had. It felt awkward to have a strange woman wrapping her arms about his chest. Jas didn’t seem to be bothered by it. Joel was reminded of Walinda wrapping her cloak around him to hide from the beholder, but while the priestess had smelled of roses, Jas smelled of leather and sweat. Then they took off, and Joel could think only of returning to earth. Without wings of his own, Joel was terrified by the sensation of nothing beneath his feet.

Jas landed in a meadow beyond an untended apple orchard. Holly was digging in the dirt with a sword around a scraggly plant with white flowers.

“Are we going to hide in a tunnel?” Jas teased.

Holly held up a small red potato. Joel and Jas joined the paladin on their knees. When they’d amassed several handfuls of the vegetable, they continued on their trek, following a deer trail.

Shortly after dawn, duly warned by Holly to stay out of range of any spellcasting, Jas took to the sky to check out their pursuers. The paladin and the bard kept moving.

By the time the sun had climbed over the Dagger Hills, coloring the Desertsmouth Mountains a brilliant red, Jas returned.

“Well, there’s good news and bad news,” the winged woman reported. “There’s about a dozen of them on horseback. Didn’t spot any griffons, though. I’m pretty sure one of the riders is a priest and one’s a mage. They seemed to have figured out we crossed the river. They’ve turned back downstream.”

Holly nodded. “The river is way too deep and fast for horses to swim. The only ford is below Dagger Falls.”

“What’s the bad news?” Joel asked.

“The hound we heard. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Jas said. “It walks on its hind legs like a man, and it’s as hairy as a werewolf and as black as soot. It’s also huge … bigger than a man. The river didn’t scare it. It jumped right in and started swimming across. The current carried it quite a ways downstream, but it came out on the opposite bank. That’s when I turned around and came back.”

“We better keep moving,” Joel said.

They made for the mountains, and the peaks seemed to grow reassuringly closer. They hadn’t heard the Zhent beast’s howl since they’d crossed the river, but the creature was on all their minds. Joel kept estimating in his head how long it would take for something to sniff them out, but the farther they traveled, the less worried he became.

Holly traveled with the crossbow loaded, keeping an eye out for game. For lunch, they had two more rabbits with their potatoes. Since their fire couldn’t be the only one in the dale, they didn’t worry too much about anyone spotting the smoke. They rested for an hour in the shade of a line of trees bordering a stream. Joel had nearly dozed off when he thought he heard a voice say, “Listen.”

The bard jerked awake. A howl reached his ear. He called out to Jas and Holly. The howl came again. Without any discussion, the three gathered their meager belongings and moved on.

In the late afternoon, they nearly stumbled upon a skunk chomping on the rancid corpse of a deer. Holly and Jas pulled back, but Joel stood watching the creature for a moment, then began singing softly.

“What is he doing?” Jas whispered to Holly, gesturing at the young priest.

Holly shrugged and didn’t reply, afraid that any noise might alarm the animal. She wondered if perhaps Joel, a city boy, might not know what it was he faced.

Joel finished his song. The skunk looked up at him expectantly. Joel began another song. Then he addressed the skunk in its own animal tongue.

When Jedidiah had taught the bard to charm and speak to animals, they had practiced on a cat. “You should charm the animal first before speaking with it,” Jedidiah had explained, “because charming it gets the animal’s attention. Especially cats. They’re notoriously bad listeners.” With a skunk, Joel figured, charm was essential, since it kept the animal calm. The conversation with the skunk was similar to the one Joel had with the cat. Simple. Very simple.

“This is my food,” the skunk said.

“It’s your food,” Joel agreed.

“Do you want some?” the skunk asked. It was, after all, enchanted by the bard.

“No thank you,” Joel replied. “I’m just passing through.”

“Too bad. There’s plenty of food here.”

“Unless some bad creature comes and takes it away,” Joel agreed.

“What bad creature?” the skunk asked.

“Some big, hairy howling thing following me and my mates,” Joel explained. “Maybe after we pass, you should spray our trail. That will keep him away. Then he won’t steal your food.”