Rangers

Wait.

Listen.

There, south east, about a mile, a silence in the song.

Following. Can you know that? Well, it’s certainly not random. A hunter or chance traveller would have birds scattering and crying. This wasn’t that. So it’s something quiet, that moves well. A big cat maybe? Too close to winter, but you guess there could still be one roaming around. Possible, but improbable; And tracking the scent of multiple armed strangers? Maybe, if it’s starving and wounded and can’t catch anything faster. Possible, but again, improbable.

Somebody once said that the land speaks to you. It was one of the stupidest things you’ve ever heard. All you do is pay attention. It’s hard to do though. And a lot harder if people can’t stop making NOISE! How in the Seven Divines has this group survived this long? Stumbling, stamping, snapping twigs, snapping branches even! Coughing, wheezing, gasping, laughing and talking, always talking talking talking, you may as well have brought a bell factory with you.

It’s going to try to kill you tonight. It smells like rain around sunset, that will dampen the fire along with everyone’s wits. You’ll want to sleep and visibility won’t be good. Alright, plan time then. Keep walking. Don’t stop. Don’t look back. Just like the Old Bastard used to say: “If you find their sign then they can find yours.” They will be here, in this spot, in fifteen, twenty minutes. You can’t let them see that you stopped, or that you discussed something. Depends how good they are… what would you do? Well, you’d wait, you’d kill whoever’s watching, then attack while everyone sleeps. Over in five minutes if you got it just right.

Couterplan then… you’ll get lost. Perfect. “Hand me the rest of that whiskey, will you?” The silly little elfling looks surprised. You realise you haven’t spoken since this morning. You smile and think about where’d it be best to make your stand. The crags somewhere, amongst those pillars of white rock the mage calls calls ‘karst’. That would be a near-believable mistake to make. Lead them into the karst. They will follow you in where the hard stone will hide tracks and the pillars will give cover.

You suppose this is as good a place as any. “Wait.” You say and walk around a little. Back and forth, back and forth. A tread here, a mark there, just four or five minutes of lost time total. Lean on this stump and make sure to take of a smear of moss. Other people like you have disappeared from the world of Humanity, walking off into the Spine or the Witchmire, surviving somewhere totally removed from the noise and murmur of thinking beings. But not you, or at least not yet. You keep coming back, back to the noise and the stink, the booze and the idiot politics. Why?

You need things, very occasionally, complex or manufactured things, and for those you need coin. But it’s not that alone. It feels good to be of use. There are things out here in the wild, things even you can’t avoid or escape, things that even you can’t fight alone. Some problems need different skills, different thinking. And it feels good to be needed.

You down the drink in one. They’ve never seen you drink before and someone makes a joke. Not the halfling with the quick hands though, they might not know you are being hunted but they know trickery when you see it. You hurl the booze-bottle into the bushes nearby, empty.

“I thought,” the elf says, “you told us never to leave signs behind?”

“This way.” You reply. “We don’t have much light left.”

“Are we stopping to camp?” Asks the halfling.

“Yes. But before that, in about fifteen minutes, we’re going to kill a silent hunter in a labyrinth of white stone. Then we can eat.”