Fallen branches are a bit wet, but light with a bit of patience. Most of the clearing is dry, with a few damp patches throughout. In some places tall weeds stand at the sides of trees, but much of the ground is bare dirt and small rocks.
Guillame notices a set of tracks from at least a day prior, tamping out a game trail just around the chosen clearing.
They are three four-cloven-legged creatures that frequent the path, but it's not clear what kind. It would appear the most recent tracks are at least a day old.
Sure enough, within an hour or so a trio of elk, one male and two female, appear on the southern end of the game trail, it running north to south. Guillame notices them before they notice the group.
Crytalis' excitement at the other woman's confession causes her to completely miss Colin's expression, luckily. She again sends the woman warm and genuine smiles. "Oh good, I had thought you had said something like that back with the branch...but then you were being very ordinary again and I began to worry. So who haunts you? Some past lover?"
"Fellows!" hisses Guillame softly, pointing at the elk yonder. "I do not mean to interrupt, but ... if we are swift, and act together, we have meat for the dinner! The smaller female, on my mark ... un... deux... trois!"
The arrow strikes the deer and it stumbles in pain, but does not fall. The rest of the deer bolt at the sudden attack.
One hand on Muadhnait's horse's reins, one helplessly grasping for a solution to her torment, Colin turns at Guillame's whispered alert.
He realizes what is happening and before he considers rushing to get his bow, he whispers in awe, "The cursed stag people..."
Her head swivels towards Guillame at his hissed message and his motion. As his arrow flies, a giggling cackle spills forth. She swirls a hand, gathering luck from the air that she sends after him with a flick or her hand.
The stag dashes further away, disappearing into the wood, the pair of deer in tow.
Guillame sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth in fierce concentration, as he takes aim at the wounded deer. The hairs on his neck stand up at the witch's cackle, not in fear, but in exhilaration. He is feeling lucky...
The arrow strikes the wounded deer and it drops to the forest floor, no longer moving. The second deer is still in sight, and Colin has a chance to act before it flees.
"Wait! Guillame!" Colin cries impotently. "Remember the curse! Those might be people!"
"Haha!" cackles Guillame triumphantly, blowing a thankful kiss to Crytalis. "Hunting is easy with the magick laughs!"
He scampers over to the fallen deer and prods at it with his bow. When (if?) it does not turn into a person, he hefts it onto his shoulders and brings it back to the campsite.
"Is no person, Colin, see?" says Guillame, dumping the body near the fire and drawing his dagger and handaxe."Is just a fine dinner! A good omen, e'?"
Guillame's mood has shifted completely. He happily hums as he cuts away the skin of the deer, and starts hacking out rough joints with his handaxe.
"Hm... It will be a little while before she is ready for roasting." he says to one and all. "My apologies for interrupting! You were speaking of the haunting, non?"
Crytalis gives a small cheer as the second arrow strikes true, with an excited look at Colin she scampers after Guillame, puppy like.
As he prods the deer she drops to her knees beside it, studying it closely to catch the moment with the last light leaves its eyes. "Dream well little deer. Dreams of sweetgrass and endless summer." she drops a quick kiss on the matted fur between the creatures eyes before Guillame lifts it and carries it back.
Again she scampers after the ranger and while he works she watches. A light of fascination turns her eyes an almost copper hue as the animal's skin is peeled away. She flits around him often, popping her head in here and there, always seeking the better vantage point, and usually mindless of being in the way.
She is far from silent, an endless barrage of questions and observations and almost hungry offers of aid fall all around him as he works, or tries to, rather.
Colin pales a bit at Guillame's confidence in the doe being a natural creature and looks on the deer's corpse with mild horror. But he seems to regain confidence by Crytalis' reaction, remembering that she can tell the difference between a real deer and an ensorcelled innocent woman tortured by evil cultists. "If it were a person," he reasons, "she wouldn't be so excited to cut it up like that."
"I wish I were as smart as her," he admiringly adds. "She's always trying to learn new things. For me, these horses are more than enough to occupy me. Leave the big thinking to the big brains, as my dad always said."
Smiling, he leads Muadhnait's horse to the others to begin unsaddling them, wiping them down, checking their hooves for stones, and brushing out any burrs. He finds his anxiety of the unknown Narlmarches and the upcoming trial of battle drift away as he relaxes into the comfort of simple tasks done well.
Muadhnait appears to be just on the verge of answering questions of hauntings when Guillame's whisper is heard. Her focus is drawn toward him and the doe, and she watches as he fells it. Crytalis' cackle coaxes the hair on her own neck to stand on end, but for a different reason entirely. Even when the topic of haunting is brought back up, she seems all too grateful for the break in conversation - opting instead to say nothing. If they ask again, she'll tell. Instead, she just plops herself down on the ground somewhere in front of a tree - leaning back against its trunk.
The weather will remain free of rain for the next two days and should be mostly clear, with the weather remaining a bit cold and not warming into spring quite yet. Because the ground will cool significantly at night from the relatively warm day, fog will be collecting overnight and remaining for the better part of the next day.
Night falls and a suitable camp is arranged. The group has little in the way of tents, bedrolls or the like, but there is no rain and the ground is somewhat soft if not a little wet. The light wind dies down to complete calmness and a fog begins to collect, reducing vision, but also giving a strange sense of solidarity from what lies beyond.
The branches of the trees reach through the fog like thin, gnarled fingers. A full moon can be seen floating far above, a paler disk in the pale grey.
Guillame sets to roasting the butchered doe, answering as many of Crytalis's questions as he is able to keep up with. He grins at her enthusiasm. He seems to have forgotten their earlier unsettling conversation about reanimating the dead.
Amidst the pleasant bustle of preparing and eating dinner by the fire, Guillame also seems to have forgotten Muadhnait's haunting. Rather than pushing for tales of haunting, Guillame pushes burned, juicy elk steak at his fellow travelers. Without asking anyone's preference, he carves off great chunks for Colin and Brumir, and more modest strips for himself, Muadhnait and Crytalis. He is especially insistent when it comes to getting Muadhnait to eat more. "If my grand-mère were here," he says to Muadhnait. "She would say 'This pissenlit will blow away in the wind! Eat! Eat!' Hehe. Is not as rude as it sounds, e'? 'Pissenlit' is ze Old Tongue, it means, er... dandelion: the flower, you know?"
Colin makes a weak attempt at resisting the offered venison but a glance at the cold dried fruits and grains of the trail rations causes his stomach to rumble in anticipation. Soon, he is eagerly wolfing down the haunch, being sure to lick every drop of juice from his chin and hands. Too tired to offer much conversation, he asks Guillame or Brumir if either of them have a whetstone he can borrow when on watch to treat his sword and lance.
He remembers the interrupted conversation with Muadhnait at some point but finds himself too shy to ask again about it. "Nobles' business isn't yours," he tells himself. "That is, unless they make it yours."
When it comes time to sleep, he suggests that he and Cry lie down upon his travel cloak while using hers for a blanket hoping that that, the remains of the fire, and their own generated heat will be comfort enough.
Guillame flips his whetstone over to Colin. "Sharpening is wise tonight, I think. But not too often, Colin, e'? Sharp blades are thin blades, and the thin blades notch easy, non?"
When he is finished eating, Guillame throws a bone carelessly in the fire and pats his stomach in satisfaction. "No wine," he muses to no one in particular. "Is pity, e'? Ah well, time for sleeping then."
Guillame grunts a little, overfull, as he leans over to rummage for his winter blanket. He offers it to Muadhnait. "These two will keep each other warm, I think" he says to her, nodding his head slightly at Colin and Crytalis and giving a small secret smile. "But you should use this mademoiselle, or you will surely catch the cold, e'? Wake me in two hours." Then he pokes his hat forward over his eyes, and settles down under his cloak to doze.
Muadhnait does rather eat like a bird. Wait... don't birds eat twice their body weight? Either way, she picks at her food, gradually eating it bit by bit. She does, however, eventually get a decent sized portion in her. She's still rather evasive of the gazes of her party, and when Guillame compares her to a flower, she states a rather simple, "Dandelions are weeds."
When the blanket is offered to her, she actually smiles; it's small, but it's genuine, and she accepts the offer in favor of wrapping it around herself. "Thank you," she says - returning to the tree trunk where she once sat to carry out her shift.
After two hours has passed, presumably with no complications, she strips down and makes her way over to where Crytalis sleeps moves over to where Guillame is slumped. She's gentle in her attempt at waking - first by softly speaking his name, "Guillame," followed by a light nudge at his shoulder with a dainty hand.
Brumir shakes his head to Colin's request for a whetstone, then finds a tree at the edge of the fire's glow to lean against, leaving his armor on and laying his falchion and shortbow on his right side.
On Muadhnait's watch, not long after the sun has completely set, she hears the first few crickets returning to their songs. The fog lays thick and obscuring around the camp, with the light from the campfire reflecting from it in an orange aura.
A wolf howl pierces through the night.
It sounds close, perhaps within a mile.
Muadhnait stiffens against her post upon hearing the wolf's cry. She quietly pushes herself up, and gathers up an armful of wet leaves to toss onto the fire to create a thick smoke. Wolves don't like smoke, right? She'll keep replenishing this until her shift ends, and hope for the best.
For a short time Muadhnait waits, watching for the wolf to appear. The hairs stand on the back of her neck, her fears manifesting as if in a dream- the wolf, matted and shaking, emerges from the fog. It stops with it's figure still half shrouded in shadow, baring it's teeth.
The posture and manner of the wolf strikes Muadhnait as distantly familiar- an intuited likeness to a picture in a book or a fear envisioned long ago. She knew little of the animal in nature, but this was perhaps both a wolf and something else.
Crytalis burrows deeper beneath Colin for warmth, lost in her dreams of bones.
Muadhnait spares the briefest glance toward her sleeping campmates, before returning an unblinking focus to the wolf. She shimmies up the tree, using its trunk as support to rise with slow and cautious movements, before saying, "I don't want to have to kill you..." The words are spoken tentatively - almost with the lilt one would reserve for a child. There's a brief pause as she hones in on her influence, before she seeks to command the animal by way of spellcasting - under the hope that it's more than mere beast, and can understand her. "Leave, and do not return."
The wolf stops and lowers it's head, it's matted fur stands giving the appearance of spikes. Then it slowly begins to back away, before it turns and lopes back into the fog. It does not return.
The rest of the night goes by uneventfully, but the fog remains. Finally, Crytalis' watch ends when it will still be dark for another two hours or so.
Crytalis huddles with Pim through her watch, poking the fire back into dim life occasionally. As her watch ends she first wakes Colin, gently shaking him from dreams. She continues on, waking each companion in turn before turning to feed a few fresh sticks into the flame with which to warm her hands.
Colin rolls unceremoniously out from the cloaks. He returns Crytalis' to her shoulders as she sits at the fire, lingering long enough to press a warm hand to the back of her neck and right shoulder. Then he wraps his own around himself and heads a few yards away to relieve himself in the bushes.
Having done that, he straps on his armor and weapons and, while gnawing on a cold bone of leftover venison, gets the horses ready for travel as quickly as he can.
At one point, after the others are awake, he pulls a brightly lit torch from his backpack. Giving the illusion of dancing flame, clearly it does not burn to the touch. "I have this, if we think we can use it somehow in the fight," he offers.
Guillame rolls over and slowly rises, bleary-eyed and open-mouthed. He stretches, theatrically groaning at being sore for sleeping rough in the cold. Then starts a long, loud, disgusting coughing fit that has him bent over and grasping his knees for support.
Eventually, Guillame spits throatily, apparently finished coughing up his lungs (at least for the moment). He pulls his pipe out. Then, patting his pockets, and finding them empty, he quietly curses. "I hope these bandits have been stealing tobacco, e'?" he mutters to no one in particular."I could kill for a smoke, non? Hehe."
Muadhnait is far quieter in her waking. She returns Guillame's blanket to him - after his coughing fit has ended, of course - with a soft utterance of gratitude. While the horses are readied, she readies herself as well. She never bothered to remove armor and the like, but she lifts her hands to unwind her plaited tresses and coax some order into them. Sure enough, before she's had the opportunity to reweave her hair, an unnatural gust of wind sends the long strands forward in a flurry across her face - and she curses under her breath. Very unladylike. Her second attempt at braiding is done far more hastily, expression twisted into a bitter scowl that's directed at no one in particular.
She doesn't bother telling anyone about her experience with the wolf.
Brumir awakes and stretches out his long limbs, seeming to focus on his somewhat hunched back. "If we head due west, we should reach the Thorn river. Then if we head south along the river, we will find the camp. I can't guarantee we'll make it before dawn."
They head out through the forest, the darkness and fog still covering all. Few other forest animals are awake at this hour, save for the noisy crickets. Brumir appears occasionally to exchange affirming nods with Colin and then continues on ahead of the group.
As light begins to slowly appear, they come upon a river. The bank tapers calmly down to the murky brown water, being some forty or fifty feet wide. The current looks strong, still moving the runoff from the winter's melted snow.
The fog breaks over the river, but clings to the forest around them. Above the trees the sky is clear, turning from a light pink and orange to blue.
Brumir is crouched on a rock overlooking the bank. "River runs southwest from here, but it should bank to the southeast and go that way down out of the wood," He looks at Colin and shrugs. "Could be another few hours before we get to their camp. I still think we'll have them by surprise. No reason they'd know we were coming. And we headed straight off, so... We still have that." He tilts his head to the left and heads off downstream, keeping away from the bank, back into the trees.
As Brumir trots back towards the misty trunks, Colin holds back a yawn and shivers in the dewy morning.
"So," he says to the others. "I keep expecting that the bandits will have a bunch of tents or something, but I suppose it might be a palisade fort like the Trading Post. Or maybe some old ruins. Or a cave."
He shrugs. "In any case, if we're going to go with the plan we talked about, when we're close enough to see them we should picket your horses. Then, your two groups should try to creep closer while I hold back. Then, maybe Pim could signal me to ride up between you in plain sight. Maybe a javelin's throw between me and each pair."
Frowning, he adds. "I'll just give them a minute to surrender. Not too long for them to prepare anything nasty for us, I hope. But long enough that they have a chance to rabbit. I'll tell them if they throw down their weapons and leave the Greenbelt that they can go. I will kill them if I have to but not without offering them at least that."
Staying mostly silent through the morning's travels, Crytalis spends her time peering through the misty fog and dreaming up all manner of mystical beings shrouded by it.
She keeps Pim close to her, tucking the little thrush in the crook of her neck, her long hair falling to form a curtain for him to peek out from.
As the sound of the river grows stronger she beings to fidget, she stills her nerves and her fears, though. The only tell being the almost compulsive darting of her hand into her pouch. Her slim fingers caressing the small bone found there, soothing her.
At the breaking of the fog and the sight of the wide river she gently lifts Pim from the nest of her hair and sings low to him, sending him off down the river.
Until you find a place built by human's hands
A place of stone, or fabric or log
Then return to tell what along the bank stands
The two men's voices break the silence that has accompanied them and she tilts a head to their words. There is a quiet sort of resignation in her features as Colin once more insists on following such a thing as honor, but there is love as well and she simply nods to his plan. "Yes, that is a fair enough chance for those who have been seeking a way out...like Brumir. I can try to charm them as well if you wish." Her eyes flicker faint guilt towards Brumir at her offer.
After about two hours of following the river Southwest, Brumir returns from ahead, a particularly concerned look on his face.
"I think we've found them. I saw two watch stands in the trees. They had a lookout on each. The rest of the camp must be close. I didn't want to risk getting too close yet."
Pim flutters through the branches and comes to land on Crytalis' outstretched arm. It chirps eagerly.
Out there
I saw
A squat of humans, four
A watch
They set
A return of maybe more
Colin's face takes on an expression akin to a child's as the concept of reproduction is explained to him. His mouth opens and closes a few times but no noise emerges.
"In..." he begins, then looks up above him to the overarching branches. He glances down to his heavy armor, his heavy horse, his heavily-armored horse, his heavy weapons as if reassessing not just the decisions that led him here to this moment but every decision leading to every moment. "In... the trees? How high up?"
He takes his lance and stands in the stirrups, stretching the 10-foot weapon as far as he can. "Higher than this?"
"Aye. Just a bit out of reach for a man on a horse with a lance. You'd be able to split their toes, or a shin if you stretched."
Brumir, crouched on the ground with his elbows on his knees, stares off into the woods for a long moment.
"I can try and get up into one of the stands. They'll likely see me on my way up, but maybe not. If there is more on the ground, Colin, you could busy those. Maybe draw a few arrows to your shield."
Brumir grabs a stick and draws a few lines in the dirt, giving a rough outline of where the stands are. There is a path that cuts over the river, which shrinks to less than ten feet, split in two and then reconvening.
Crytalis translates Pim's song for the others before listening to the conversation between the men. "Would a distraction work? And what do you suppose Pim meant by four? Four men?"
Colin looks at Brumir's drawing as Crytalis asks her question. He says, "It seems there are a lot of trees around. Perhaps we can keep to the original idea with pairs of you trying to get closer to those platforms while I speak to them and present myself as a target. That could be all the distraction you need?"
At Crytalis' attention he adds with a confident smile, "Don't worry. I'll have my armor, the trees, the potion, and I can ride out of their range if I start to look like a pincushion."
Brumir grunts and points to the squares he made out to be tree stands.
"I could only make out two, one on each stand. If there are only two more, then the rest would be out and away somewhere. How many did Happs say there were?" He says and looks to Colin and Crytalis.
"Nine," answers Colin. "Nine in total."
After a moment's thought, he adds, "Maybe Pim was able to see, from above, another one lying down on each stand. Maybe sleeping?"
"One way to find out. Our plan is solid, so we should stick to it. If more show, we'll adapt. Once the arrows start flying, plans tend to go to s%@*, anyway, so... Just keep your head on straight."
Brumir draws his shortbow and loosens the strap on his falchion sheathe. "Who's coming with me?" He says and looks to Colin, and then sweeps over the group with a grimace.
"Mademoiselle! says Guillame to Muadhnait, gesturing at the map in the dirt. "Perhaps we two take this line of attack, e'? Then we are in a good position to make the distraction if need be."
Muadhnait really has little experience in planning an invasion - so when her opinion is asked from Guillame, she simply agrees. There's a moment of pause, deliberation evident within her expression, before she queries a tentative, "I am to distract? With sound and moving branches?"
"We make the distraction if Mr. Brumir is in the danger, non?" says Guillame to Muadhnait. "Otherwise, we keep our subterfuge hidden away, until we are needed for the confrontation, e'? Who knows - perhaps they surrender to Colin? And if not, then I send them a little love note..." Here Guillame pats his bow. "... and you teach them how to smile again. Haha!" Here Guillame gestures at Muadhnait's dagger, with gleeful anticipation of violence.
Colin sets his mouth in a grim line. "I'll try to make sure their attention is on me. If I'm clanking and splashing and shouting to them, that might help cover up any noise you all might make."
He turns to Brumir. "Should we leave the other horses here or ride up a little closer first?"
"When we split up, Crytalis will go with you." He smiles at the pale girl with the rusty tresses. "Keep him safe, Cry."
Colin’s confident smile is met with one of concern, and then her glazed-over look of imagining as his comment of being a human pincushion sends her thoughts in that direction. She takes in the image of arrows piercing through the exposed parts of him, those parts she had brushed her lips across not so very long ago. She dispels the image with a shake of her head, thinking instead on the elk from the night before. Arrows had pierced it as well, deeper even than she imagined they could go. She had always thought of skin as strong, a wearable armor. Guillame’s arrows had sunk deep though, killing easily such a large beast. His knife had been quicker yet, so easily severing through the glistening strands between the hide and meat. Perhaps I can wrap him in my invisible armor. But no, he is better wrapped in steel.
Her golden eyes appraise the others, imagining arrows in them as well. Better them than him, although that thought still brought her sadness. Colin would never allow another in his place in any case, would never allow a full out ambush either. For a moment she feels the white hot rush of anger at his honor, his unyielding sense of justice. A shake of her head dispels that as well though.
Happs’ name on the half-orcs lips causes her eyes to slit, the smile that suddenly forms is anything but pleasant. It is a smile full of dark promise for the man who lied to Colin, to her. Perhaps she could bring the fair bandit's head to him as a gift, maybe her heart. No, Colin wouldn’t allow that either, probably. ”Happs was a liar though, so we might expect more than nine.”
Brumir’s grimace is met with a wry look of amusement, it only deepens as Guillame claims Muadhnait and Colin bids her to keep Brumir safe, finally bubbling out in a blithe and apologetic laugh. ”Looks like you are stuck with me. I shall keep you as wrapped in fortune as possible.” she reassures him.