Gnolls Everywhere

Chapter 17 — Gnolls Everywhere

The first tracks appeared two days north of Windmarch.

Deacon saw Zook stop before he saw what had stopped him.

The gnome had been twenty paces ahead, moving along the side of the road where grass and packed earth met. One moment the bright red of his hair was bobbing through the weeds. The next he was motionless, crouched beside a patch of mud.

Deacon raised a hand.

Behind him, conversation stopped.

That was one thing the five of them had learned quickly.

When Zook stopped joking, everyone else stopped moving.

Deacon walked forward.

“What?”

Zook pointed.

Tracks crossed the road.

Gnoll.

More than one.

Deacon crouched beside him.

The prints were easy enough to recognize: broad, clawed, heavier than a human boot. They came out of the trees on the western side, crossed the road, and disappeared into brush on the east.

Zook touched the edge of one print.

“Yesterday. Maybe last night.”

“How many?”

“Hard to tell.”

Deacon looked past him.

Zook turned.

“You want the ranger answer or the Deacon answer?”

“They’re different?”

“The ranger answer is I need a little time.”

“And mine?”

Zook grinned beneath his red mustache.

“Too many.”

Deacon almost smiled.

Almost.

He stood.

Jandar approached, one hand resting casually on the hilt of his sword. The wide brim of his hat threw most of his face into shadow, though the amused look in his sea-green eyes survived it.

“How bad?”

“Tracks.”

Jandar waited.

Deacon said nothing else.

“That is an impressive amount of concern for tracks.”

“They’re gnoll tracks.”

Jandar’s expression changed.

Not much.

Enough.

Vegon and Xil joined them.

The two elves made a strange contrast on the road.

Vegon stood taller than any of them, slender even beneath his traveling cloak, dark hair falling nearly to his shoulders. Xil was closer to Jandar’s height, his pale hair stark against the dark skin of his face. The drow’s silver eyes dropped immediately to the tracks.

“How many?” Xil asked.

“Still working on it,” Zook said.

Vegon looked toward the eastern trees.

“Could they be the same group we encountered before?”

“No,” Deacon said.

Vegon looked at him.

“You didn’t examine them.”

“I don’t need to.”

Deacon pointed down the road.

“We’ve been moving north for two days.”

Then he pointed toward the tracks.

“They’re moving east.”

Jandar adjusted the brim of his hat.

“That does seem inconvenient.”

Deacon ignored him.

The gnolls they had fought near Tavalon had been part of something. He knew that now.

He had wanted the blue crystal to explain it.

A device hidden beneath a ruined city. A way to move gnolls across impossible distances.

Destroy the road, stop the movement.

Simple.

He should have known better.

Nothing involving gnolls had ever been simple.

Zook moved along the trail for another few yards.

“Seven.”

Deacon looked at him.

“Seven?”

“Maybe eight. One heavier than the rest.”

“A leader.”

“Could be.”

Deacon stared into the trees.

The old response came before thought.

His shoulders tightened.

His hand found the grip of his crossbow.

For one brief instant the road was gone.

Not replaced by an image.

Something worse.

A feeling.

Noise somewhere it should not be.

The certainty that something had already gone wrong.

The body remembering before the mind allowed itself to.

Deacon forced his hand away from the weapon.

Forty-odd years had taught him many things.

Time did not erase everything.

“Deacon?”

Xil’s voice.

He looked over.

The drow was watching him.

Not the tracks.

Him.

“I’m fine.”

Xil held his gaze for another moment.

Then he nodded.

He did not ask.

Deacon appreciated that.

“Do we follow them?” Vegon asked.

“No.”

That came out sharper than Deacon intended.

Vegon’s brows rose.

Deacon looked north.

“We have a destination.”

“The Temple of Orozon.”

“Yes.”

“If the gnolls are connected—”

“They probably are.”

“Then following them could tell us how.”

“Or it could take us three days east while the trail we’re supposed to follow gets colder.”

Jandar folded his arms.

“I hate it when he makes sense.”

“You’ll survive.”

“I have so far.”

Zook returned from the edge of the woods.

“They didn’t stop here. Just crossed.”

Deacon looked once more at the tracks.

Seven or eight.

Moving east.

Not raiding the road.

Not wandering.

Going somewhere.

“Mark it on the map,” he said.

Vegon did.

Then they continued north.

They found more signs the next day.

A campsite well away from the road.

No fire.

No discarded bones.

No mess.

That bothered Deacon more than if they had found all three.

Gnolls were not animals, regardless of what frightened villagers liked to call them. They could plan. They could use weapons. They could obey leaders.

But they were rarely careful for the sake of being careful.

This camp had been cleaned.

Zook moved through it slowly.

“Ten. Maybe twelve.”

Jandar stood at the edge of the clearing.

“How do you get twelve gnolls and no smell?”

Zook looked up.

“You don’t.”

“I was afraid of that.”

Deacon walked the perimeter.

There.

A broken branch shoulder-high.

Another twenty feet beyond it.

Boot impressions where the ground softened.

Not a camp.

A staging point.

He looked at the shape of the clearing.

Road to the south.

A game trail to the northeast.

Dense growth west.

Good cover in three directions.

“Not camping,” he said.

Zook glanced over.

“No.”

“They were waiting.”

“For what?”

Deacon looked toward the road.

“Maybe us.”

Jandar’s hand moved to his sword.

Vegon stopped writing in his notebook.

Xil scanned the trees.

Deacon shook his head.

“No. Not us.”

“How do you know?” Vegon asked.

“Because if they knew we were coming, we’d already be fighting.”

Jandar drew his sword halfway.

“Comforting.”

Deacon pointed toward the disturbed ground near the eastern side of the clearing.

“They waited here. Then something happened and they moved.”

Zook joined him.

“Fast.”

“Same direction as yesterday?”

Zook studied the prints.

“North.”

That was worse.

Deacon stood.

Jandar saw his expression.

“North is where we’re going.”

“Yes.”

“Of course it is.”

By the fourth day, they stopped pretending the gnolls were unusual.

They saw their tracks every few miles.

Sometimes only two or three.

Sometimes a dozen.

Once, Zook found evidence that two separate groups had joined before turning north together.

Another time they found a deer carcass less than fifty feet from the road.

It had barely been touched.

Gnolls had killed it.

They had not stayed to eat.

Deacon crouched beside it.

He did not like that at all.

Jandar came up behind him.

“Tell me you’re going to say wolves.”

“No.”

“Bandits?”

“No.”

“Very hungry rabbits?”

Deacon looked over his shoulder.

Jandar’s dark hair had escaped from beneath the ridiculous hat again, blown across one side of his face by the wind.

“Gnolls.”

Jandar sighed.

“I keep giving you better choices.”

“They killed it and kept moving.”

That removed the humor.

Jandar looked at the carcass.

“Why?”

“Because they weren’t hunting.”

Deacon stood.

“They were traveling.”

“To where?”

Deacon looked north.

Jandar followed his gaze.

Neither of them said it.

The attack came near dusk.

Deacon had expected it for hours.

That helped.

The road narrowed between two low ridges covered in scrub pine and thorn. Zook had gone ahead, but not far. Deacon had asked him to stay within sight.

He did not like the terrain.

Too many angles.

Too much cover.

Too easy to put a handful of bodies on the road and more above it.

When three gnolls stepped from the trees ahead, Deacon did not raise his crossbow.

“Stop.”

Jandar halted beside him.

Vegon nearly walked into Jandar.

Zook turned from farther ahead.

The gnolls spread across the road.

Three.

Only three.

One carried a chipped axe.

One held a spear.

The third wore pieced leather reinforced with iron plates.

Jandar drew his rapier.

“Are we negotiating?”

“No.”

“Good.”

Deacon looked left.

Nothing.

Right.

Nothing.

That was the problem.

“Back.”

The armored gnoll barked something.

The other two moved forward.

Jandar stepped to meet them.

Deacon grabbed the back of his cloak and pulled him hard enough to make him stumble.

“What—”

“Back.”

A bowstring snapped from the ridge.

The arrow struck the road where Jandar had been standing.

Jandar looked at it.

Then at Deacon.

“Thank you.”

“Move.”

The trees erupted.

Gnolls came down both slopes at once.

Deacon counted without trying.

Four left.

Five right.

Three front.

More behind the ridge.

Not a pack stumbling onto travelers.

A trap.

“Xil, right!”

The drow already had his shield up.

An arrow struck it with a hard crack. Xil turned into the impact, pale hair sweeping across his dark face, then planted himself between Vegon and the ridge.

“Vegon, stay inside!”

“I know how ambushes work.”

“Then act like it.”

Magic gathered around the high elf’s hands.

Deacon heard it before he saw it—that faint wrongness, like strain inside the air.

Vegon’s jaw tightened.

The spell went anyway.

A burst of force struck the left ridge and threw two gnolls backward into the brush.

Jandar laughed once.

“There he is.”

Then he ran toward the three on the road.

Of course he did.

Deacon raised his crossbow.

The armored gnoll was shouting.

Not charging.

Directing.

Deacon fired.

The bolt struck high in its chest.

The creature staggered but stayed upright.

“Leader!” Deacon shouted.

Zook moved.

The gnome disappeared into the weeds at the side of the road, too small and too quick for the gnoll above him to follow cleanly. A moment later he came out beneath the creature’s guard and slashed upward.

Deacon fired again.

This time the leader fell.

The effect was immediate.

Two gnolls hesitated.

Another shouted from the right ridge.

A second leader.

Deacon turned.

There.

Better armor.

Short bow.

Not fighting.

Watching.

“Found you.”

His bolt crossed the distance.

The gnoll twisted.

Too slow.

It fell backward out of sight.

Jandar had reached the road group.

His rapier flickered between heavier weapons, never where the gnolls expected it to be. Dark armor turned beneath one axe stroke. He ducked another, came up inside the attacker’s reach, and drove the blade home.

A gnoll lunged from his blind side.

Deacon shot it.

Jandar glanced toward him.

“I had that.”

“No.”

“I might have.”

“No.”

“Still counts.”

Xil hit the right flank.

Deacon had seen clerics fight before.

Most looked like priests forced into battle.

Xil never did.

He moved with his shield close, dark plate catching what little evening light reached the road. When the first gnoll came within reach, Xil met it with enough force to turn its charge sideways.

Then divine light flared.

For a heartbeat his silver eyes reflected it.

The gnoll screamed.

Vegon’s second spell went wrong.

Deacon heard the change.

The air cracked.

Power twisted sideways.

Vegon recoiled as if something had struck him across the arms.

“Vegon!”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“I said I’m fine.”

Blood ran across one of the elf’s gloves.

He started another spell.

Deacon swore.

“Of course you are.”

More movement above.

Three gnolls broke from the ridge.

Not charging.

Leaving.

Deacon tracked them.

One looked back.

Then disappeared north through the trees.

“Zook!”

“I see them!”

“Don’t chase.”

Zook stopped.

That probably saved Deacon from shouting.

The remaining gnolls began to break.

Not panic.

Break.

That distinction mattered.

One withdrew while another covered it.

Two abandoned the road together.

A third moved toward the north ridge instead of fleeing into whatever cover was closest.

Deacon shot one before it reached the trees.

The others vanished.

Silence came slowly.

Branches moved.

Something crashed farther uphill.

Then only breathing.

Jandar wiped his blade.

“That felt organized.”

Deacon looked at him.

Jandar raised both hands.

“I know. You’re shocked I noticed.”

Zook came back onto the road.

“They’re gone.”

“How many?”

“Four, maybe five.”

Deacon looked toward the northern ridge.

“Let them go.”

Zook frowned.

That was unusual.

The gnome liked finishing things.

“So they can tell the others?”

“That’s exactly why.”

Jandar stared at him.

“You want them to report us?”

“No.”

Deacon reloaded.

“I want to know where they report.”

They did not follow immediately.

Deacon made them wait.

That irritated Vegon.

It irritated Jandar more.

Zook understood.

Xil seemed to.

They checked the dead first.

The pattern held.

Better equipment than random raiders should have possessed.

Leather cut to similar patterns.

Several weapons marked with the same crude notch near the grip.

Nothing elaborate.

Nothing magical.

But repeated.

Deacon laid two axes beside each other.

Jandar looked over his shoulder.

“What?”

“Same maker.”

“You can tell?”

“Same balance. Same cut in the handle. Same iron.”

Jandar crouched beside him.

“Gnolls make weapons.”

“Some do.”

“But?”

Deacon picked up one axe.

“This wasn’t made by the one carrying it.”

He tossed it down.

“Neither was that one.”

Xil approached.

The drow looked from the weapons to the bodies.

“Equipped.”

“Yes.”

Vegon heard and came over.

“By whom?”

Deacon stood.

“If I knew that, we’d be going somewhere else.”

He climbed the right ridge.

The dead archer lay where he had fallen.

Deacon searched him.

Nothing.

Then he saw the cord.

A short length of dyed leather tied around the gnoll’s upper arm.

Dark red.

He cut it free.

Below, Xil watched him.

“Rank?”

“Maybe.”

“Religious?”

“Maybe.”

“Unit?”

Deacon looked at the leather.

“That’s my guess.”

He hated the word.

Unit.

Packs were dangerous.

Units were worse.

Zook picked up the retreat trail before dark.

They followed for less than a mile.

The gnolls moved quickly but not carelessly.

They stayed off open ground.

They used the slope.

They avoided soft earth where possible.

Someone had taught them.

Or someone among them already knew.

Deacon felt the years compress again.

A smell.

Dust.

A laugh somewhere beyond sight.

His grip tightened on the crossbow until his knuckles hurt.

Not here.

Not then.

Now.

“Deacon.”

He turned.

Jandar was looking at him.

The pirate’s usual grin was gone.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Deacon waited.

Jandar adjusted his hat.

“We’re losing light.”

That was not what he had meant.

Deacon knew it.

Jandar knew Deacon knew it.

Neither said more.

“Camp,” Deacon said.

Zook pointed toward a low stand of trees west of the trail.

“There.”

They left the gnoll tracks.

For now.

The fire stayed small.

Deacon insisted on that.

No songs.

No unnecessary light.

No one argued.

Even Jandar.

That bothered Deacon almost as much as the gnolls.

They ate in relative silence.

Zook sat close to the fire, the orange light turning his already red hair brighter. At three and a half feet tall, he could make almost any piece of ordinary travel gear look oversized, but nothing about the gnome himself seemed fragile. He sat with his back to a tree and worked a whetstone along one blade with patient, practiced strokes.

Across from him, Vegon had his notes open.

Of course.

The high elf was studying the leather strip from the gnoll’s arm.

Deacon had already told him it was leather.

Vegon apparently hoped scholarship might make it something else.

Xil sat slightly apart, pale hair loose around his shoulders, dark face almost disappearing beyond the firelight except when he turned and the flames caught his eyes.

Jandar lay on his back with his hat over his face.

Deacon knew he was awake.

“You’re thinking too loud,” Jandar said from beneath it.

Vegon looked up.

“I haven’t spoken.”

“Exactly.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It makes complete sense.”

Zook smiled without looking up from the blade.

Xil said, “Let him have this one.”

Vegon frowned.

“Why?”

“No one knows.”

Jandar lifted the hat just enough to expose one eye.

“Jealousy.”

Deacon looked away before they saw him smile.

Good.

That mattered.

More than he liked admitting.

A few hours ago they had been surrounded by gnolls.

Tomorrow they might be again.

And somehow Jandar was still irritating Vegon, Zook was still sharpening a blade as if they were home, and Xil was still willing to contribute exactly enough to make the argument worse.

Normal.

Or what passed for it now.

Deacon took first watch.

No one challenged him.

He did not sleep when his watch ended.

He tried.

His body wanted it.

That made the failure worse.

Deacon lay beneath his blanket and listened to the night.

Wind through branches.

The small crack of the fire.

Zook breathing.

Jandar shifting once.

Nothing dangerous.

Nothing wrong.

He closed his eyes.

A gnoll barked in his memory.

His eyes opened.

Darkness.

Trees.

Camp.

Now.

He exhaled slowly.

Across the dying fire, Jandar sat with his back against a tree.

Second watch.

The pirate had removed his hat and set it beside him. Without it he looked younger somehow, dark hair hanging around his face, some of the careless bravado stripped away with the shadow of the brim.

Jandar was looking directly at Deacon.

Deacon waited for the question.

It did not come.

Jandar simply turned his attention back toward the trees.

A minute later he picked up a stick and nudged one coal closer to another.

Nothing else.

No joke.

No sympathy.

No attempt to make Deacon explain something he had no intention of explaining.

Deacon closed his eyes again.

This time he almost slept.

At dawn, Zook found the trail.

Not the one from yesterday.

Another.

Deacon knew that before the gnome said it.

Too many tracks.

Fresh.

Very fresh.

They crossed within a hundred yards of the camp.

Jandar stared at the ground.

“They passed us?”

“During the night,” Zook said.

“How many?”

Zook walked a short section.

“Six.”

Deacon looked at Jandar.

Jandar looked back.

Neither mentioned the watch.

“If they knew we were here,” Deacon said, “they would have attacked.”

Xil crouched beside the prints.

“So they had somewhere more important to be.”

“Yes.”

Vegon fastened his pack.

“North?”

Zook shook his head.

“East.”

Deacon frowned.

The trail left the road entirely.

They followed.

This time Deacon did not argue.

The gnolls had passed close enough to smell their fire.

They had kept moving.

That meant something.

The tracks led through trees for nearly an hour, then down into broken ground where gray stone pushed through the soil.

Zook slowed.

“Cave.”

Deacon saw it a moment later.

A dark opening beneath a shelf of rock.

Nothing remarkable.

No ruins.

No markings.

No reason for six armed gnolls moving with purpose to come anywhere near it.

Deacon raised his fist.

Everyone stopped.

Jandar drew his rapier.

Vegon moved one hand closer to the components at his belt.

Xil brought his shield around.

Zook studied the ground.

“They went in.”

“All six?”

“Yes.”

Deacon looked at the cave.

Something moved deep inside.

Not footsteps.

Not gnolls.

A sound.

Thin at first.

So faint Deacon thought it might be wind passing through stone.

Then it came again.

A scream.

Long.

Raw.

Wrong enough that the hair rose along Deacon’s arms.

No one spoke.

The scream ended.

Silence returned.

Jandar slowly looked at Deacon.

“This cave should not matter.”

Deacon raised his crossbow.

“No.”

From somewhere deep beneath the earth, something screamed again.

Deacon moved toward the entrance.

“But it does.”