Chapter 75 - Bloody Trail

“You’re safe now,” Celaine whispered. “It’s alright. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Is there anyone else down there with you?”

“No,” the girl said back. “Where’s papa?”

Celaine’s face twinged but she forced a smile back onto her face. “What’s your name?”

“Sessil,” she said after a moment. “Where’s my papa?”

Celaine glanced back in Hump’s direction, frowning as she looked at the blood on the ground. Hump jolted into action just as Bud moved too. He took the rug Celaine had kicked aside and used it to cover over the largest patch of blood, then together the two of them stood in front of it. But there only so much they could hide and there was still the rest of the village to worry about.

“Your papa’s not here right now, Sessil,” Celaine said. “But Kastin’s down by the lake waiting for you. Do you know Kastin?”

“Mhm.”

“Good. Shall we go see him? He’s going to look after you for a while.”

“Okay.”

“Come on then.” Celaine held out her hand. “Can you climb up to me or do you want me to come down.”

“I can do it.”

A few seconds later, a little girl climbed out from below and took Celaine’s hand. She had long brown hair and looked to be four or five. Celaine scooped her up in her arms and hugged her to her chest, carefully shielding her from the view of the room. She walked over to them, the little girl glancing up from her arms, going shy at the sight of the three of them watching. Hump waved and tried to give her a friendly smile, but she hid back into Celaine’s chest.

“These are my friends,” Celaine said. “No need to be scared. Maybe you know Dylan, the wizard’s apprentice. I think he’s brought medicine here before.”

“Hi Sessil.” Dylan waved.

“Mhm.” The girl nodded quietly but didn’t look at him.

Kastin was leaving one of the houses as they arrived, a sack of his back. When he spotted Sessil in Celaine’s arms, his dull face lit up.

“Thank Hestia!” he cried, scrambling over to meet them. He took Sessil from Celaine’s arms and hugged her closely. The girl started to cry, and he shushed her. “You’re alright darlin’. You’re alright. I’m sorry. I was just happy to see you.”

“Kastin,” she cried. “I’m scared.”

“There’s just been a bit of bother around the village and these kind people have been helping us. Nothin’ to worry about.” Kastin looked at Dylan. “Did you find my…”

Dylan shook his head. “They’re not here.”

Kastin let out a deep sigh and nodded. “Then I’ll keep praying. Hestia’s great mercy, I’ll keep praying.”

Dylan gave him a sympathetic look. “We’re going to do everything we can. I know you probably want to stay here, but it’s not safe for Sessil. Can you take her back to the town?”

Kastin gave a quick shake of his head. “I’m not leaving. I can’t. I need to be here if anyone comes back. Gods, I need to search for them.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” Bud said quietly. “We’re going after the creatures that did this. You’ll only put yourself and Sessil in danger by staying her. Get yourselves to safety and then return to us in the morning.”

“Trust us,” Dylan said. “There’s really nothing you can do here, but you can be there for Sessil.”

Kastin bit his lip, his eyes welling with tears, but he managed to hold them back. He glanced down at Sessil and clenched his jaw, an internal fight going on in his mind. “Fine, but Dylan, you got to promise me.”

“I’ll do everything I can to help your people and avenge the ones we we’re too late for.”

“Swear it. Swear it on Hestia. On the Twelve.”

“I swear it. On each of the twelve, with all my heart, I swear it.”

Kastin gave a curt nod, looked over to the rest of them, then turned with Sessil toward his dinghy. “I’ll pray for you too. Gods be with you.”

Celaine let out a heavy sigh. “Do you think they’ll be okay?”

“They’ll live,” Hump said. “With any luck, the girl might be young enough to forget.”

“You don’t forget a thing like this,” Celaine said. Her gaze was fixed on the two walking away, but Hump sensed a certainty to her voice that could only come from experience.

“You handled that very well, Celaine,” Bud said. “Like a true Chosen.”

Celaine gave him a slight smile then tilted her head in the direction of the forest. “Come on. I’ll show you where I found those tracks.”

They stalked through the silent forest. Even out here, there were no bird songs, just the eerie wind of waning summer. It didn’t take long for them to reach the spot where Celaine had found the tracks—a small patch of woodland that Hump wouldn’t have glanced twice at if not for her. Up close though, signs were obvious even to him.

A giant tear carved through the bark of an oak tree, the wood beneath left splintered and marked with the unmistakable impression of claws. Specks of red stained the exposed wood.

Hump held up his palm against the claw mark. It was bigger even than his hand, and the gash it left in the tree was more than deep enough to split open a man’s belly. “Whatever these things are, they’re big.”

“That just makes them easy to track.” Celaine gestured at a nearby patch of stirred soil and torn shrubbery. “I found a few separate tracks around here. Half are heading southwest, the others back toward Lakewood.”

“So they’ve probably established a base somewhere,” Dylan said eagerly. “We follow the trail; we find the den.”

“I expect so,” Celaine said.

“Then let’s go,” Dylan said, leading the way. “I gave Kastin my word and I intend to keep it. We’re going to kill these beasts, whatever they are.”

There was an edge to Dylan’s voice that made Hump nervous. Anger was one thing, but when that anger interfered with one’s decision making it became dangerous.

“We need a plan,” Hump said. “This could go from zero to a hundred in a blink, and we don’t know what we’re up against.”

“I’ve done a lot of this,” Dylan said. “Whether with the town guard or Master Vivienne, I’ve been clearing the area around Fishers Lake of monsters for years. I know what I’m doing.”

Hump nodded. “That’s good. We’ll need that experience. First thing we need to consider is whether we want to run the risk of fighting in the dark. It’s already late afternoon, they could have gone ten miles by now. Maybe more. We only have a few hours of light left and if these creatures are adept at stealth, we could find ourselves in trouble.”

“I don’t think they would have gone far after gorging like that,” Celaine said. “This wasn’t just a quick meal, but a feast. They’ll need to rest.”

Hump nodded along. “So with a bit of luck, we might catch them while they’re sluggish. I’d like to have surprise on our side.”

Celaine glanced at Bud. “No offence, but with Sir Rusty stomping alongside us, we’re not going to surprise anything.”

Bud grimaced. “I’ll admit, stealth is far from my speciality.”

“But it is mine,” Celaine said. “I’ll move a few minutes ahead of the rest of you. If I spot something, I’ll return and warn you. Otherwise, I’ll check in every now and then to make sure you’re not lost.”

“Is that really a good idea?” Bud asked. “If they spot you—”

“They’ll see you long before they see me, believe me. I won’t get eaten.”

“Perfect,” Hump said. “With a bit of luck, they don’t eat us either. Anything you’d like to add, Dylan?”

“No, this works for me.” He sounded calmer than before. “I’ll follow your lead.”

There were no trails to mark the way beyond the line of broken ferns and bushes left behind by the beasts. Hump only caught glimpses of Celaine as she ran on ahead, darting in and out of view like a ghost. Out in the hilly woodland, she might as well have been one. He wouldn’t have a chance of spotting her if she didn’t want him to. She was that good. Like the shadows themselves enveloped around her.

The trees were thick from the get-go, and the ground damp and difficult to walk on, particularly for Bud who lumbered about in his heavy chainmail and mismatch of plate. All that alone must have weighed as much as Hump, and the big man himself twice that. Despite that, he was a Chosen, and had stamina beyond what any ordinary human could match. The three of them made fast progress with Celaine’s guidance. At times, she was gone from sight long enough to make Hump nervous, no doubt pressing on ahead to scout out the area and search for the trail’s end.

When she finally came to a stop, she was standing in a woody area. It was thick with bushes and spindly saplings that didn’t get quite enough light down on the forest floor, leaving them twiggy and full of yellow leaves. Her gaze, however, was directed above.

Hump’s stomach twisted as the body came into view, or at least what remained of it. The upper half hung upside down in the tree, wedged between two branches by its arm. He couldn’t recognise whether it was male or female, the body was so badly damaged. All that remained of the face was skinless, bloody flesh. Its chest had been torn open, soaking the rest of the body in so much blood it was a wonder that any had made its way to the ground at all.

“Gods,” Dylan said, staggering back. He gagged, then spewed up over the ground and groaned.

Hump spotted the other half of the body in the bushes at the druid’s feet and forced his own stomach to settle.

“Get it out of your system now,” Celaine said. “We’re close. I found what looks like a cave about half a mile from here. There’re body parts out the front and they look older. It’s their den, no doubt about it.

“Did you get a look at them?” Hump asked. “I don’t know what would kill like this.”

“No. There were none outside,” Celaine said. “Some large cats are known to drag their kills into trees.”

“I don’t think there’s any native to this area,” Hump said. He turned to Dylan, whose already pale complexion had turned green. “Have you heard of any around here?”

“No. And I expect Kastin would have mentioned it if he thought it was possible.”

Hump fiddled with his bracelet. “This cave, do you think we could sneak up on it? If we’re dealing with some species of cat monster, anything we can do to negate their mobility will help.”

“I think so,” Celaine said. “I could hear some inside the cave, and the area is good ground for us. The cave is in a clearing, at the top of a slope. It’s one of those little rocky outcrops. I circled around it but only saw the one entrance, and it’s narrow enough that only two people could stand side by side.”

“So we trap them,” Bud said.

Hump grinned. “We’ve got a druid and an earth wizard; I reckon we’ll be able to work something out.”

Celaine led them up to the clearing at a snail’s pace. They arrived on the high ground off to the side of the cave in an attempt to avoid any echoes or scent from reaching the creatures inside. At the peak of the hill was a rocky formation. Years of erosion had left it jagged and full of loose stone. The remains Celaine had described littered the hill. Mostly just bones, broken and chewed so that hardly any flesh remained.

It struck Hump as odd. These were signs of animals, not people. And why would the missing adventurers have established a base here of all places.

There was a distant rumble, and a snarl. Then a second snarl that went silent with a bark-like yap.

“Those don’t sound like people,” Hump said. “There goes the shapeshifting theory.”

“It changes nothing,” Bud said. “We can still trap them. Let’s worry about what they are after we’ve defeated them.”

Vines dangled from an overhang that sheltered the actual entrance to the cave from rain and wind, leaving a single, narrow entry point. It was a tough position to assault—some old mineshaft Hump guessed. While the tunnel would restrict the creatures inside, it would restrict them too, leaving them unable to properly coordinate. At the same time, the tunnels gave Hump an idea.

“Do you guys remember what Lantheer suggested back in that first meeting at Bledsbury Dungeon?” Hump asked.

“Smoke,” Celaine said.

Hump smiled and nodded.

“You want to smoke them out?” Bud said.

“Yep. We’d need to be fast. If we bundled up a bunch of pinewood in the cave entrance, I sealed it in using Transform Earth, then set it alight, we could flood the cave with smoke. It would force the creatures out, blind, choking, and completely at our mercy.”

“How long would it take you?” Dylan asked.

Hump scratched his chin. “I’ll need a formation to make it work, which will take me a couple of minutes to set up. Once that’s in place, the spell itself should take even less than that, depending on how hard the dirt is. It will only be dirt though—I don’t have the essence to create a stone wall, even aided by a formation.”

“Will it be enough to block them inside?” Celaine asked.

Hump shook his head. “No. It will keep the smoke in, and they’ll have to figure out how to break through but creating something strong enough to block them in is beyond me.”

“I can help with that,” Dylan said. “They’ll probably be strong enough to break through, but my vines should slow them down. Might give us time to get in an extra shot.”

Hump raised his eyebrows. “Yeah. That would be great. It almost sounds too easy. We’re here for experience after all.”

“No,” Bud said. “We’re here to put these monsters down and make sure they never hurt anyone again. Everything else is secondary.”

“Of course,” Hump said gravely. “It’s not all simple either. I need to be closer for Transform Earth to work.”

“How much closer?” Celaine asked.

Hump pointed at a tree a dozen or so paces from the cave entrance. Its roots extended out of the hill, creating a small, sheltered spot that he could crouch behind. “That tree should be close enough.”

Celaine followed his direction and pressed her lips together. “I hope you’re feeling sneaky.”