Bearers of the Black Staff

“I could eat something,” Prue observed.

“Right after we give our report,” Panterra agreed.

They entered the village and made their way to the longhouse that served both as a gathering point for the Trackers of Glensk Wood and as a residence for their leader, Trow Ravenlock. It was early still, and there were torches burning at the entrance and candlelight flickering from within. But when they climbed the steps of the porch and peered through the door, they found the common rooms empty of everyone but Trow himself.

The Tracker leader was seated at one of the tables, studying a collection of hand-drawn maps. His short, lean body was hunched over as he worked, and his angular features were tightened in concentration. But he looked up quickly as they entered and hesitated only a moment before getting to his feet. “What’s happened?”

Clearly he had read something in their faces. They walked over until they were standing in front of him. “Bayleen and Rausha are dead,” Panterra said. “Killed before sunrise, probably in their sleep.”

“Before sunrise,” the other repeated. He looked from face to face. “So you’ve been tracking the killers?”

Pan nodded. “Since early this morning, up the slopes of Declan Reach and back down again. We cut the trail of the killers first and then discovered the killing ground. We kept tracking until we found where they had bedded down amid the remains. Then, toward midday, we caught up to them.”

He stopped, waiting to see if Trow had heard clearly. The Tracker leader ran his hand through his iron-gray hair and blinked. “They killed them and then ate them later?” he asked slowly. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“They dismembered them so that they were all but unrecognizable,” Prue answered. “Show him, Pan.”

Panterra reached in his pocket and produced Bayleen’s bracelet. “That was how we know who it was,” he said.

Trow Ravenlock sat back down slowly. “What sort of creatures would do something like that? Were they Kodens?”

Pan shook his head. “We thought they might be Kodens, but they weren’t. They weren’t like anything we’ve ever seen. Like anything anyone in this valley has ever seen. We tracked them, Trow, but they caught our scent or heard us. They set a trap for us; they were waiting in ambush. We almost died. But someone saved us.”

He told the Tracker leader then about their encounter with Sider Ament and how the Gray Man had done battle with the creatures, killing one and driving off the other. They told him, as well, of the Gray Man’s warning that the wall of the protective mists that had kept them safe for five centuries was breaking down. Prue added her own opinion: that Sider Ament was right and the things that had killed their friends had not come from within the valley but from somewhere without, from the world their ancestors had abandoned, because nothing so terrible had ever been seen in their own world.

Trow Ravenlock listened silently, and when Panterra and Prue were done, he looked at them a moment before shaking his head. “It isn’t possible. What you’re telling me about the mists? It isn’t possible. The legend says—”

“It doesn’t matter what the legend says!” Prue interrupted heatedly. “What matters is what we saw! Those things, Trow, were clear proof of what the Gray Man says is happening.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Trow held up his hand as they both started to argue anew. “It doesn’t matter what you or I think, in any case. What matters is what the members of the council think, and they’re going to listen to the Seraphic. His voice is the law on matters concerning the Hawk and the future of this community’s people beyond the valley. We can argue this until the cows come home and beyond, but it doesn’t change things.” He paused, looking from one face to the other. “Does it.”

He made it a statement of fact. He sounded so calm about it Panterra was immediately angry.

“No, it doesn’t,” he agreed. “But we are obligated to make our report to you, and you are obligated to carry it before the council.”

Trow shook his head. “I am obligated to do what I feel is best. In this case, giving a report to the council is not a wise idea. What I will do is to send other Trackers back up into Declan Reach to see if we can make sense of things. I will even order them to test the strength of the mists, so far as we are able to do so.”

“‘To see if we can make sense of things’?” the boy repeated.

“Don’t make it sound like that. It’s just a precaution to make sure you didn’t miss something, that what you think you saw is what you actually did see.”