Филип Этанс: The Savage Caves

She scanned the room quickly, having worked out long ago what she would take with her when she left. There was the crossbow and a quiver of quarrels, a flint and steel, her long, straight quarterstaff. She scooped up the earrings that were all she had left of her mother and put them on. They were heavy, jagged things that only accentuated her boyish haircut, but they were her only possession of any real value.

She stripped out of her work clothes and slid on a pair of beige harem pants she’d sewn herself and never worn, then a long-sleeved, corseted top and a stiff leather riding hood. There was a tall mirror in her room, and she looked at herself. She looked like a traveler, a pilgrim, a wanderer, an adventurer. She looked like anything but a sheltered girl bent to endless study.

She smiled and, taking her staff, turned and walked out of the room she’d called her own for six years without looking back. If she’d thought about it, she might have spent a moment or two soaking in the sights and smells of the tower as she made her way down the long spiral stairs. Instead, she took the stairs practically at a run and almost bowled her aging mentor over when they emptied out onto the ground floor of the tower.

“At least have the good manners not to appear to be in such a gods-bedamned hurry, girl,” Larktiss said, sincerely annoyed.

Naull took a deep breath and steadied herself. The old man held up a strap of old, threadbare pouches. He nodded, and she tipped her head down to let him drape them over her shoulder. The bandoleer was surprisingly light, the leather soft with age. She straightened and forced a smile.

In his other hand he held a little leather sack, bunched together at the top and tied. He handed it to her, and she took it, surprised by the weight.

“A few coins,” he said, then nodded to a backpack on the floor at her feet.

Naull smiled and said, “Larktiss…”

“Bah,” the old man scoffed, waving a hand at her. “Don’t get too excited, girl, they’re mostly coppers… but they’ll get you started if you stay clear of thieves and avoid the finer things in life.”

Naull laughed, and Larktiss looked away. She was sure she saw the old man smile. He turned and opened the door, letting in the bright late afternoon sun and the warm, muggy air. Naull bent and grabbed the backpack, slipping it around her shoulders. It was heavy.

Her mentor waved her out the door, avoiding her eyes as she passed. She stopped in the doorway to give him a kiss on the cheek. He did smile then, and patted her on the shoulder the way he always did when he didn’t know what else to do.

“Farewell, Larktiss,” Naull said, stepping out of the tower into the wide world.

He said nothing, just closed the door behind her.

Regdar crouched and ran a finger over the dry grass. When he drew his hand back, the tips of his fingers were stained with blood.

“Sheep?” Jozan asked him.

Regdar looked up at the priest, grunted, and said, “You overestimate my abilities as a tracker.”

Jozan smiled and nodded. “This is the place the shepherd boy described?”

Regdar stood. “Something was killed here,” he said, “and recently.”

He looked around again and saw no sign of giant spiders, though there were dozens of sheep wandering the short, drought-stunted grass on the side of the hill.

“Very good, Randar,” Lidda said. “So, everything’s fine here.” She clapped her hands once and took a step back away from the two heavily armored men. “The spiders are gone, and the sheep look fine. So, thanks for everything, but—”

“My name is Regdar,” Regdar cut in. “And you will be free to go when Jozan says you’re free to go. If you pretend to not understand that, I will be forced to—”

“Easy there, big fella,” she sneered, “you’re sweeping me off my—”

“That’ll be all,” Jozan interrupted in turn, glancing at Regdar, “from both of you. Let us assume that what the shepherd boy said was true and that a sheep was attacked and killed here. He said it was dragged off… in which direction?”

Regdar looked back at the ground and said, “There’ll be a trail of blood. It hasn’t rained, so the blood wasn’t washed away, but it has soaked into the dry grass.” He held up his bloodstained fingers.

“So once again, Pelor shows us that the path to enlightenment is best traveled on our knees,” Jozan said. He knelt as quickly as his stiff armor allowed and began to pass his hands over the brown grass. “We may not be able to see the blood trail, but we can feel it.”

Regdar lowered himself to his knees near where he’d found the first bit of blood. He passed his hands over the ground in front of him the same as Jozan and soon found the patch of blood-soaked grass. In a less than a minute, he had determined a rough perimeter of where the sheep was initially attacked and was reasonably sure he knew in which direction it was dragged.

“It’s this way, Jozan,” he said. “Find anything, Lidda?”

There was no answer, and Jozan said, “Lidda?”

Regdar looked around and saw Jozan do the same thing. The halfling woman was gone.

Regdar drew his greatsword from his back and ran in one direction while Jozan ran in the other. They both knew she wouldn’t go back to Fairbye, so they didn’t bother looking for her that way. The hills made it hard to see very far, and there was the odd copse of trees here and there and in one direction, the edge of a proper forest.

Regdar had never been trained to hide, but he had been trained to seek. He scanned the shadows under the trees for any movement and the underbrush for signs of anything bigger than a squirrel. He kept moving the whole time. She’d been gone for a couple minutes, no more, but a fast little halfling, who was most likely a thief just like the people of Fairbye thought, could get far in a couple minutes.

“Anything?” he called out to Jozan.

“She’s gone,” Jozan answered. “Never mind. Let her go.”

Regdar turned around, and it was all he could do to keep from sprinting in Jozan’s direction. He hadn’t known the priest long, but he knew Jozan wouldn’t decide to stop looking for the halfling. Though Regdar wasn’t sure what the priest was trying to tell him, it was obvious that Regdar was looking in the wrong direction.

He was nearly at Jozan’s side when the priest waved him off. Regdar met the other man’s gaze, and Jozan nodded once, then moved his eyes slowly to one side without turning his head. Regdar resisted the temptation to look in the direction Jozan had indicated. Instead, he sheathed his sword and bent to one knee.

Regdar touched the ground and said, “Good riddance to bad company, then. I’ll find the trail again, and we’ll get on with it.”

The fighter tensed his legs, ready to spring forward into a run, and Jozan took a few steps backward, but in the direction he’d indicated with his eyes. There was a sheep a few yards from him, grazing at the dry grass, as oblivious as one would expect a sheep to be. It was grazing near the edge of a copse of trees that were being choked by a dense mat of underbrush—tall bushes with brilliant yellow flowers. The branches were dense enough, and the shadows dark enough to hide a halfling.

Jozan whispered something, and Regdar was about to ask him to repeat himself when the priest looked up and shouted, “ Scream !” in a voice that made gooseflesh burst up on the undersides of Regdar’s arms.

The command was followed immediately by a loud, shrill scream like a little girl’s. It was coming from the underbrush, and Regdar leaped to his feet, counting off the seconds to himself.

…two…

Under the scream he heard footsteps, light and close together, and receding.