Into the Woods

[Quio]

"Eckhart!" she called, and in his rush Quio didn't respond to the name at all. Forgetting for a moment that Eckhart was the false name he'd given her.

She said something about a trap but it was drowned out by his own exertion and the rushing of the water at their side. No matter what she'd said she didn't stop, however, and Quio kept them running, though the wolves did not draw closer. Only ever pacing them, never attacking as hungry animals were wont to do...

And there, ahead. Following the river's path. A rock cliff. It looked to be a dead end, the river finding rock and splitting to the side to round it, but surely there was a cave hidden somewhere upon its expanse. At once Quio realized that he could have doomed them all. Who had told them about the cave? Ville, someone not to be fully trusted, and now they raced for a cave that may or may not even exist.

But ahead Yanaqi was there one moment and then gone the next, splashing into the water and around the rock, out of the sight, and his heartstone thudded in anxiety and sudden hope. "Here!" he called, following his sister. Not thinking as Ismene had that it might be a trap. He plunged to the knee in the river, sloshing around the edge of the rockface to find... the opening to a cave. Just as had been promised.

Quio rushed through the water into the mouth of the cave, up a rocky slope until his feet were no longer wet. Efran right behind him. Ismene--

"Here!" he called again, just to be certain she knew where to go.

Yanaqi was already further in the cave, sniffing around, and he watched as she vanished deeper into the dark. The ring around Quio's forearm, once dimmed in the brightness of the day, now was clear and bright and cast just enough light --like that of a candle, though it did not flicker-- for them to see. Unnoticed before, not even by Quio, another ring had appeared, only this one glimmered around Yanaqi's front left leg. The dog poked at it with her nose and glanced back at him; again that gloating smile of sharp teeth. She pranced further on into the cave, tail wagging.

"Kiki!" Quio called, not wanting to go deeper, but she was gone. He swore under his breath. Then paused as a new voice called out, "Hello?" It came from deeper in. There was a short noise like a yelp and then a snarl. Quio sprinted into the darkness towards the sound.

Down through the tunnel and into a wider cavern he found... Yanaqi facing two older-looking men. In here the ground was wet with water, leading to a pool in the rock on the left side, where the men were currently stood. Immediately Quio recognized them from the caravan. One was large and portly, well-padded with a short, light beard that might have been silver or might have been blond. The other was just as thick but stronger-looking; built like a brick shithouse. Perhaps a smith or woodcutter.

"Is this dog yours?" the bearded one growled, jabbing what looked like a pickaxe at Yanaqi, and the dog leapt forward teeth bared as if to catch and rip the tool out of his hand. He swung at her but missed, the ax throwing sparks against the rock.

"Kiki, stop!" Quio commanded, and the wild dog turned to give him a glare. But she backed off, slinking out into the shadows, the only glimpse of her the ring of light around one leg. The men watched her as if expecting her to turn around and attack. "She is my dog," Quio said, rather wearily.

"Well keep that monster on a leash," the portly one said. Switching from Rakahi to Common as he did. "We thought she was a wolf."

"A wolf?"

"Yeah." He was still angry; his companion seemed calmer. "When we were out earlier we saw a bunch of wolves. We came in here in part to get away from them."

"They followed you here?"

"They were watching us," the strong-man replied in a soft voice, "But not chasing." His tone implied, not yet.

"And was there a girl?" Quio asked. The men looked at him with confusion and he elaborated, "About this tall," holding up a hand to Ville's height, which now that he was thinking about it... she was as tall if not taller than he was himself. "Dark red hair. Dirty. Had a stick? Her name is Ville. From Treth."

"No girl," the strong-man said. "A girl with the wolves?"

"No, with you," Quio said. He and Efran and Ismene had come to the cave like Ville had said. She'd also said before that she had been put with two men from Ne'haer. Surely these were those men?

"No girl," the portly one repeated, still rather angry.

"What in the...?" Quio muttered, more to himself than anyone else, at a loss. Turning towards Efran and Ismene. Efran wasn't much use; he was still catching his breath, and just shook his head. Quio looked to Ismene. "What is this? What should we do?"

He wanted to make sense of this. His mind struggling to put it all together. There was Ville, who had appeared and then disappeared as if a ghost, just as the wolf pack had showed up. The carts which had been gone, or moved. The cave and the men inside, who Ville had claimed to be with but who obviously didn't know her.

For some reason he wanted to go back out, out of the cave and track down wherever the carts and the rest of the caravan had gotten to. But the wolves were out there so it couldn't be safe. So far the wolves had not followed them into the cave. So was the cave safe or could it not be trusted, just as Ville herself could not be?

He didn't know. He didn't know about any of it. He couldn't remember the Willow Woods being this confusing when he was a boy.

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Ulehi"

[Ismene]

Eckhart either couldn't understand or deliberately ignored her panted warning, and unwilling to stop and risk having to face the wolf pack alone, she followed him helplessly towards the cave. His dog bounded straight through the water and in through the rocky entrance - which at least meant there probably weren't any wolves inside, Ismene thought, the dog was many things but definitely not stupid, and it would have smelled them. She plunged into the water after them, but then hung back a second. Her heart was pounding from the desperate sprint through the forest, and from the fear that was enclosing it as in a vice. She had felt in her gut from the moment Ville had appeared that she did not trust her, and yet here they were running to exactly the cave Ville had told them to go to. And Ismene had not forgotten the strange way Kiki had seemed to know the girl. Her mind was still swarming with doubts she barely had time to consider. If Ville was using the cave as a trap, and the dog knew Ville, did that mean Eckhart was somehow involved in Ville's plan? Was Ismene the victim of some elaborate ploy?

She contemplated turning and running, away from the cave, away from Eckhart and his unsettling dog, away from the whole nightmare, but a quick glance behind her showed the wolves rapidly fanning out along the river bank, growling and snarling, effectively blocking any chance of escape although not, she noted, wanting or needing to enter the water yet. It was as if they were waiting for her to go into the cave. She took a deep breath. If this was a trap she was well and truly inside it now, and there was nothing she could do about it. The only way was forwards. She picked up a wet rock from the river bed and advanced slowly into the cave, the rock held above her shoulder in her right hand, ready to strike.

She was in time to hear one of the men in the cave explaining they had come in to escape from the wolves. She recognised them as being from the caravan, but was grimly unsurprised to hear that they had no idea what Eckhart was talking about when he mentioned Ville. So she was lying, the little bitch. Ismene hated being tricked, and her hand compulsively gripped the rock she was holding so tightly her knuckles went white. Eckhart turned to her and asked what she thought. 'I tried to tell you when we were running,' she said. 'I think it's a trap. And we ran right into it,' she added bitterly, scowling. 'The only question now is, what sort of trap are we in?' The wolves had still not crossed the river into the cave, but she was sure they had not seen the last of them. 'Those wolves could have had any one of us several times over while we ran. They chose not to attack. I thought it was because they wanted to herd us into the cave, but we're here and they still haven't attacked. They must be holding back for a reason, and we need to find out what that reason is for ourselves, or we'll be finding out the hard way soon. And I'll bet my right tit Ville has something to do with this. Wild wolves wouldn't be that controlled, that strategic. She's guiding them somehow, I know it.'

She scanned the cave more carefully, looking for anything that might provide a hint. As she walked further into the cave, past the pool on her left, she noticed a tuft of wiry grey hair dangling where it had caught on a sharp finger of rock. It felt greasy when she rubbed it between her forefinger and thumb, and when she raised it to inspect it more closely in the light, she caught a strong, musky scent. 'Wolf fur,' she said, lifting it up so Eckhart and the other men could see. 'We're in their territory.' And a little further on, with an almost triumphant shout, she bent down to pick something else up and marched back towards the little group, holding it in front of her like a trophy. It was a long, dark red hair; unmistakably human. There was no need to spell out what it meant: Ville.

[Quio]

A chill went through Quio as Ismene spelled out her suspicions. He followed after her, using the ring around his arm for light as she found not only wolf fur, but a long red hair. "Ville," he said, aghast, still trying to puzzle it all together. He looked towards Yanaqi, trying to find her in the dark, but she had crept up beside him without him noticing. The large sandy-furred dog nudged his leg, then raced back further into the cave. Folding his arms as if he was cold, Quio followed.

In the darkness it was hard to see what Yanaqi was doing, but she was obviously trying to tell him something. Her eyes glinted in the dim light, looking from him to the ground. Quio bent and inspected the loose rock and soil.

A few trills later he saw it. Footprints. The ground in here was rocky in places but in others it was muddy. He pressed his fingers into a paw print-- obviously a wolf's. Wolf prints were scattered around the place but also... also human prints. Not boot prints, but prints in the shape of human feet. He traced the outline of one, trying to recall if Ville had been wearing shoes, but he couldn't remember.

"Look," he said, indicating the floor, and then stopped and, frowning, looked harder. "There..." His voice trailed off. He looked over at the others who had gathered around him. "There is more than one set of human tracks. Look. This foot," he pointed at one, "is bigger than this one." He pointed at another.

And that wasn't all. The footprints were odd in some way he just could not place... until, with a sudden realization, he saw. Sounding mystified he said, "They all... they are all missing the second toe?" All the human prints only had four toes, the big toe and then a gap, and then three little ones. Each print was missing the second toe, no matter what size they were. The wolf prints seemed normal enough.

What in the world did it mean? But Yanaqi didn't give them time to figure it out. She turned and trotted away to a different corner of the cave and Quio went after her, knowing she wanted him to follow.

In this newest corner, unnoticed before, he found several neat piles of human clothing. Folded carefully as if having been stored away. Quio picked up a shirt and inspected it. It was in the style of Ville's clothing, made entirely of leather and fur which had been crudely cut and stitched together.

"Are people living out here?" he asked. "Living with wolves?" It was so like and yet unlike his own childhood, so close as to be uncanny even. Though he himself had never learned an animal form, his mother had been able to turn into a wolf. Just as Yanaqi turned into a dog.

"T-They're shape-changers?" That was Efran, speaking up from the back. He sounded terrified by the prospect. He was probably frightened of magic; Quio himself wasn't too fond of that which he didn't understand. The two other men were too busy grumbling about not knowing what was going on to contribute. Though they too seemed uneasy.

Quio set the shirt carefully back down in place, folding it again, and stood. "I think," he said, just as grimly as Ismene had before, "We need to get out of here."

"Yes, leave."

That was a new voice, echoing in to them from the entrance to the cave. No, not exactly new: a voice Quio now recognized, cheerful and female and somehow turned villainous. Ville.

Efran put his hand to his mouth to stop himself from whimpering. "You will let us leave?" Quio asked. Shifting back towards the entrance as quietly as he could, trying to pick Ville's shape out of the gloom.

There. There she was. She was standing just inside the mouth of the cavern, not far from where cave met water. Surrounding her on all sides were the wolves. They did not move or make as if to attack. They simply watched. It was eerie to see so many animals holding so perfectly still and attentive. Quio felt his heartstone jump up into his throat at the sight of them but he tried to stay calm. Yanaqi had come to his side and was pressing close to his leg again, head down, ready to attack if need be. But for once she didn't make the first move.

"We want you to leave," the girl said just as cheerfully. But there was something ominous too in her voice. "We've gotten what we need from you and your people. A due toll, for what you have taken from the forest." One of the wolves made a sound, maybe a low woof. "And now you must leave."

"Why?" Quio asked. Stalling for time with the first question that came to mind. "Why pretend to be one of us, before?" He took a step back as the wolves started to move, but they did not approach, only parted, scattering to either side of the cave's entrance. As if making way for Quio, Ismene and the others to get out.

"Why?" Quio asked again. Unwilling to walk any closer.

"Why?" Ville asked, and laughed. "Why not? But you weren't fooled long, were you?" He could hear her smiling. "I have no ill will against you, any of you." A pause while she considered. "Well, except for the blasted dog. She's quite the observant bitch, isn't she?" Yanaqi huffed out an angry breath but otherwise did not respond. She knew when to keep quiet.

"How about this?" Ville said. Still with such a pleasant tone. "I ask only to commune with your mutt. The rest of you can go ahead freely, back to the caravan. Take what you need from the forest this trial, in fair exchange for that which we have ourselves taken. I will give you and the others from Ne'haer three breaks to locate and remove anything you see fit. Then you must go." She motioned towards the cave's exit. "The next time you come out here, be more careful where you step unless it is your wish to intrude upon our territory. But for now, however, I promise you all safe passage from the trees."

"You can't have Kiki--" Quio started to say, but before he could finish Yanaqi had left his side. The she-dog burst forward from the cave and into the river. She raced by the pack of wolves and the animals turned to give chase. Sprinting after Yanaqi as she tore off into the forest and out of sight. "No!" Quio shouted, but it was too late.

"Go freely," Ville said, and then like before she vanished and was gone.

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Ulehi"

[Ismene]

'Shape-changers.' The man merely said aloud what Ismene had already begun to suspect. It made perfect sense: the way Ville looked, and the strange way the dog had reacted to her, as it would have done to another predator; the way Ville had disappeared just as the wolves came, and the things they had found in the cave. It also explained why the wolves had been so unnaturally controlled; not like wild beasts at all but like strategic thinkers. A thought popped into Ismene's mind, and she briefly glanced at Kiki. She remembered how the dog seemed to understand what Eckhart said, and how its expressions were sometimes unnervingly human-like. But she dismissed the thought quickly. If Kiki was a shape-changer, she would surely have changed form and told Eckhart she had sensed something odd about Ville instead of letting them be chased into a trap. Unless... Ismene's heart pounded. Had Eckhart and Kiki been part of the plan all along? She carefully moved away from Eckhart and towards the burly man with the pickaxe, gripping her rock tightly.

Just then Ville appeared, and Ismene listened to her words in mounting confusion. There was something off about her explanation, but before she had time to formulate her doubts into words, Ville had claimed the dog and Kiki was racing out of the cave, closely followed by the pack of eager wolves. Eckhart shouted after her, a desperate, pleading shout that Ismene knew instinctively was not an act. He had switched unthinkingly back to his native Rakahi, but his one simple word was one Ismene understood, and the tone of his voice and the look on his face told her he was as confused and worried as her. So he hadn't been in on the trick after all; he was as much the victim as she was. Her first instinct was to offer to reassure him, offer to help find Kiki. But there was something even more urgent bothering her. 'A due toll... in fair exchange for that which we have ourselves taken.' Ismene felt her stomach twist. What had the wolf-people taken? 'Eckhart... and you,' she said, nodding to the other three men, 'we need to find the rest of the group.' Kiki would have to wait. If Ville wanted to 'commune' with her - which was a very strange word to use of an animal, come to think of it - that meant she wouldn't kill her, at least not immediately. And anyway, the animals would be far away by now and there was no way the comparatively clumsy humans and Biqaj would be able to keep up.

Steeling herself in case there were any wolves still lurking outside, she strode out of the cave and looked around. There was no sign of Kiki or the wolves, except for the wet footprints criss-crossing each other in a jumbled overlapping mess on the rock floor. The forest was as silent as ever, and she strained her ears to try and hear where the animals had gone. She thought she could hear a branch snapping, away to the north, but otherwise the trees seemed empty. She plunged into the river and out onto the other bank, and started walking quickly back the way they had come. Their frantic rush had left plenty of broken and bent grass and ferns to mark where they had run. She glanced behind her to check the men were following, and picked up her pace. There was a knot of dread clumped in the pit of her stomach as she half walked, half ran back towards the clearing where the wagons had been and then gone.

[Quio]

"We need to find the rest of the group," Ismene said, striding off, and Efran and the two men from Ne'haer followed after her, trying to keep up.

Quio knew he should go with them. That there was no point staying here. But he couldn't get his feet to work. He almost couldn't believe what had transpired.

Yanaqi. Yanaqi was gone, perhaps in grave danger, and Quio had not expected to feel so torn about her leaving. She was a tough person, a bad person; she had killed before, she was a murderer, even. But though Quio did not love her, not the way he had as a child, she was still his sister.

How could he leave her to her fate?

Suddenly he was moving, splashing after the others into the knee-high water and then scrambling up the muddy bank. "Ya--!" he stared to yell then choked on the name, before shouting instead, "Kiki! Kiki, here!" He leaned back and cupped his hands to his mouth to shout louder. "Kiki!" But there was no response. The forest was still and the air as quiet as it had ever been, as if it was still waiting for something.

"Come on!" Efran said, taking Quio by the elbow to encourage him to keep up, and reluctantly the Yludih joined the others as they half-ran back down the bank of the river, retracing their path.

Soon enough they had made it the short trip through the trees and bushes to the clearing where the caravan had once been and--

--and now they found with some perplexity and suspicion that the wagons were back, just as they had been before. Pulling up short, half-distracted, Quio studied the couple of wheeled carriages from a distance before treading quickly closer. He paced in a circle around the clearing, checking the surrounding area for traps or clues or whatever else there might be, but he couldn't see anything. The ground was not nearly as wet here, and the grass gave little indication of where the caravan had gone before, or if it had ever really been gone at all in the first place.

But if the wagons were here, then what had Ville and the wolves taken?

"Search the forest," he said, worried for the rest of the people from Ne'haer, and then like an animal he sensed something: a prickling sensation, the presence of something, some danger. He knew this feeling, this specific tenseness in the air. Someone was pointing a weapon at him. He turned and found himself face-to-face with one of the people from Ne'haer. A woman who had been with the caravan. She had a crossbow pointed at his head.

"Whoa!" he said, taking a step back and trying to swing his face away from the tip of the bolt, but she tracked him.

"Are you with the wolves?" the woman demanded, and Efran and the two men from the cave stumbled over themselves trying to assuage her. It took some convincing but after a bit or two of terse talking the woman lowered the weapon. She turned and, putting a hand to her mouth, gave a sharp whistle to the forest.

Others from the caravan came out nervously from where they had been hiding amongst the trees and rocks and grass.

"Sorry," the woman said shortly, not really sounding all that sorry at all, "But those damn wolves have given us enough trouble."

"It's okay," Quio said without paying much attention. He was still distracted. He kept searching the landscape for any sign of sand-colored fur. But so far nothing. "Kiki!" he yelled again, paused, then, "Kiki, here!"

Still nothing.

"Wolves've been bothering us all trial, making a nuisance, scaring people," the woman said. Others were now returning to the wagons and setting down their gear and the meager items they had managed to collect in the mayhem, their weapons clutched in nervous hands. Many of the people, already worried by the Willow Woods before, looked like they just wanted to get out of here and fast. Efran himself looked pale and antsy as if wanting to go.

"They didn't attack much. But they chased the horses off and scattered them around. We've been trying to round them up ever since. Thankfully we've found nearly all of them." To the side the people were now leading seven or eight horses back into the clearing. The animals were wild-eyed and unruly. Obviously frightened by having been chased by the wolves. The Ne'haer'ns did what they could to settle the animals and get those that needed to be lashed properly to the wagons again.

"Is everyone here?" Quio asked. "People?"

"We think so. We didn't take a roll but no one has noticed a group missing, nor has anyone lost one of their own group members. We're all accounted for."

"Do you want to stay or go?" As briefly as he could Quio explained the situation, how they had met Ville and who she was. Her demands and her talk of having taken a 'toll'.

The woman from Ne'haer swore. "Little witch," she said darkly. She made a symbol across her chest for warding off magic. "Should have known. Only the strange ones dare live in the Woods."

Having lived here himself, the Yludih made no comment.

"We'll leave as soon as we can," the woman said a moment later. She was obviously the impromptu leader of the group. Probably the one least frightened by being so far away from the city, or perhaps the most respected member of the Hand with them. "But we want to see if we can track down the last few horses."

"Leave that to me," Quio told her. The woman looked at him doubtfully. "I'll find them. I used to live out here."

Now she squinted at him.

"I'll find the horses and bring them back," Quio said impatiently. "You all go. I'll find you later." If he did a quick search, and if the caravan took the same route back, which it would, he should be able to catch up to them in perhaps a break or two. If the search took too long he could always go towards Treth instead, which was probably just about as close to where they were now, if not a smidge closer than Ne'haer.

He turned and glanced at Efran, asking with a look if the younger man wanted to join him, but Efran, looking apologetic, shook his head. Quio nodded and looked to Ismene. "You?"

Whether or not she joined him he would get a quick sense of time and direction from the placement of the suns, and then run off once more into the forest. Looking for horse tracks, but more than that searching for signs of Yanaqi.

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Ulehi"

[Ismene]

Ismene didn't hesitate when Eckhart asked her if she would go with him. Partly she still felt guilty about her suspicions earlier. Helping Eckhart find his dog was the least she could do to redeem her conscience. But more importantly, she felt a burning curiosity to know what Ville had meant, combined with anger at the wolf-woman's trickery and arrogance. She had played them all for fools, scaring them just for the sake of it and turning them against each other, and the self-satisfied way she had explained everything had made Ismene's blood boil. There was nothing she found more irritating than being made to feel like an idiot, and she wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to find Ville and somehow take revenge - how, she had no idea, but she would cross that bridge if they ever came to it. She nodded at Eckhart, and said a quick goodbye to his friend, who clearly had no intention of coming along.

As she followed Eckhart into the woods, the sounds of the group of people knotted around the wagons gradually faded away. It didn't take long before the dense trees blocked out the sound again. For a while they did not spot any horse tracks, or at least any that seemed useful. The ground was chewed up with hoof marks, presumably from when the wolves had driven the horses mad with fear and caused them to rampage around, but as a result it was impossible - at least for an unskilled tracker like Ismene - to distinguish any individual tracks that might tell them where the missing horses were. As they got further from the carts, however, the tracks got less frequent, and one trail became visible leading away from the others. The hoof marks in the mud were matched by trampled undergrowth and a broken branch dangling from a dead and brittle tree, the still-pale heart of the wood showing that it had snapped recently. Ismene stopped and listened, trying to make out sounds of horses or even of Ville's wolf pack pursuing Kiki, although they were probably nowhere near close yet. She thought she could hear a sound away to the east, but it was so faint she might have imagined it.

She followed the trail of hoof prints and mangled bushes, and soon she could hear the sound of flowing water. Ismene did not have much experience navigating and had mainly been following Eckhart, but she was pretty sure they had not been walking back the way they had come from the river. Anyway, this sounded like a smaller stream. It was probably a tributary of the river with the cave. The sound got louder and louder, the hoof prints apparently leading them straight to the stream. It seemed that the ground sloped down towards the water, and it was clear from the hoofmarks in the mud that the horse had still been bolting when it reached this area, because some of them had deep skids where it had slipped on the steep, root-pitted incline. Hanging on to tree trunks as she half walked, half slipped down the slope, soon Ismene could see light flashing on the water through the trees, which grew thick and dense overhanging the river. They blocked her view of what was in the river until she was right on top of it, standing on the abrupt, crumbling bank that seemed to be held up only by tree roots.

Lying completely motionless, half in and half out of the river was a horse. Its head was almost fully submerged, with just a wildly staring eye and an ear protruding above the water surface. Its back legs were out of the water in a churned up mudbath that suggested it had been thrashing there for a while. One of its front legs was bent at a gruesome angle at its side, and the other was invisible under the water. It must have fallen down the bank and broken a leg, and then slowly drowned as its strength drained and it was unable to hold its head out of the water any longer. Ismene was not a squeamish woman, but she felt her stomach roil nevertheless. She turned to Eckhart. 'Well that solves the question of where at least one of the horses went. It must have been so terrified it didn't notice the drop before it was too late. Do you think the wolves chased it here deliberately? Maybe that's what they took.' If so, the toll the wolves had taken wasn't so bad after all, although the horse's owner might not think so. But she felt in her gut that Ville's 'due toll' was more sinister than just a dead horse. She looked quizzically at Eckhart to see if he shared her doubt.

[Quio]

OOC: Sorry for taking so exceptionally long.

Ismene followed and for a moment Quio felt ingratiated that he would not be left in the woods on his own. He gave the young woman a quick nod of thanks before turning back to scan the ground and surrounding trees for any sign of wolf or dog. He needed to find Yanaqi.

The only problem was that he had come out here on the pretense of finding the horses, and so when Ismene picked up a track the Yludih reluctantly shifted his focus from Yanaqi to the horses' trail.

It was easy enough to follow, especially with a second pair of eyes which pointed him unerringly in the correct direction; soon enough, though the trail had thinned, he and Ismene crossed to a crumbling bank and followed the sound of water downhill until with a start he noticed what Ismene had apparently already seen. A horse, lying dead and drowned in the creek.

Cautiously, perhaps too cautiously for what seemed to be an accident, Quio scuttled down the sharp slope to settle next to the animal's lifeless body. He noted all the same things Ismene had at a distance; the broken leg and signs of distress in the mud. But upon closer inspection--

The horse's throat had been slit. Next to it, clear in the river muck, were a set of pawprints and a matching set of human tracks.

There was no evidence of blood; the water must have taken it downstream.

Quio stood back up, feeling a shiver cross him as he glanced at Ismene, pointing to the horse's cut neck in case she hadn't already seen. On a hunch he followed the set of tracks as they led further downstream. Every once and a while he came upon what appeared to be a partial horse track not far from the water's edge, and he made note that at least one of the other horses had come this way. This horse had been followed, apparently, by at least one of the shifter wolves.

It was in a clearing a little ways from the water that he found the second horse. Blood splattered the grass and leaves and gathered in muddy reddish puddles, and the horse lay still on the ground, unmoving and silent forevermore. This one's throat, too, had been neatly cut, and there did not look to have been much of a struggle. Quio imagined that one of the wolf people had approached the animal as a human, earning its trust, before ending its life so cleanly. But why?

To one who knew little of magic, it just didn't make sense.

He followed his instincts again, turning away from the river and deeper into the woods, and soon enough chanced upon two other horses, perhaps the final two, lying side by side. Both were deceased with similar signs of slaughter. Blood soaked into the ground and he dared not get close or he would be forced to step in it.

Still, he couldn't help but ask aloud, "Why?" As if his companion might have any answers.

"Do you think these horses were the price?" he asked a moment later. Looking away from the quiet carnage. What did the wolves want dead horses for? Just to eat?

"Kiki," he said softly. Obviously worried now; if they had done this to the missing horses, what would they have done to his sister?

He didn't know, but looking around there was still no sign of her, and no longer any sign of the rest of the wolves.

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Ulehi"