Owlknight

But they made it into the shelter of the forest again without mishap, and Darian relaxed a little. But only a little. There was one advantage here; the giant trees were interspersed with “normal” trees, and that gave them an escape route and a hiding place - into the boughs of those trees.

They had gone about another league into that forest, relying on Kel and the birds to guide them towards the mountain pass that was their goal, when Hashi sounded a warning of his own.

:I scent a party of humans - many smelling of fear, the rest of fighting.They come from the northeast and are coming straight for you!:

Darian had been planning escape routes all along as they moved through the forest. “Steelmind - you and Shandi up that tree!” he shouted, pointing to a cedar. He turned and pointed to another. “Wintersky and Hywel, up there!”

He grabbed Keisha’s hand and ran for a third tree, a black pine. All three had the advantage of very thick foliage as well as branches near enough to the ground to be hooked by the climbing stick, a hooked half-weapon and half-tool device, that all three Tayledras carried.

He pulled his own climbing stick from the sheath on his back as he ran, slung his bow over his shoulder and shoved the arrow he’d had ready back into the quiver. In a practiced move, he aimed the hook of his climbing stick at an overhead branch as he ran, and used his momentum to carry him up the trunk. He went hand-over-hand up the stick as he scrambled over the bark of the trunk, and once lodged securely on the branch he had hooked, pulled the climbing stick loose, and extended it to Keisha. She grabbed it, and he pulled her up beside him, then repeated the process with the next branch. Once they were high enough that the branches were closer together, Keisha could climb up by herself without his aid; at that point, he stowed his climbing stick and worked his way up the trunk until they were both well-hidden from below. :Kuari, I need you,: he called.

:I come!: the owl replied immediately. As he waited for Kuari, he made contact with each of the outliers, making sure that the dyheli stayed well out of the way, the kyree hid himself, and Kel stayed high overhead.

Kuari came in to land just as he heard the most distant sounds of forest disturbance, the scolding of corvids. :Go perch where you can see the enemy,: Darian told the owl. :Then let me use your eyes.:

Kuari hooted softly, and ghosted down out of the tree, choosing a branch a little lower with nothing else between it and the ground. He perched there and set his feet well onto the branch, then relaxed - and Darian saw what he was seeing.

No doubt Wintersky and Steelmind were doing the same with their birds.

A bit higher on the trunk than he was, Keisha tied herself into place as a precaution against becoming unbalanced. Darian was so comfortable in trees now that he didn’t need such helps; he could fall asleep in the fork of a tree without losing his balance - and had, in the past. He still preferred to live in an ekele firmly planted on the ground, but that was just a preference.

The scolding of crows came nearer, and through the owl’s eyes, Darian got his first sight of the warriors of Wolverine.

There were more than twenty, perhaps as many as thirty of them; they were more heavily armed and armored than any Northerners that Darian had seen since his last encounter with the fighters of Blood Bear. Most had breastplates of boiled leather, and arm-guards and greaves of hammered bronze. All had bronze helmets and iron swords; they also carried javelins or short spears with iron points, and long daggers. A few were also armed with bows.

But they were not alone.

They had taken prisoners: many prisoners. The captives had been divided into three groups - young women, young boys, and girls. The prisoners within each group were strung out in single-file, and the women and girls (though not the boys) were tied together at the waist by a rope that led from one to the next. In addition, the older women were also tied at the wrists. The boys, all under the age of five, were allowed freedom of movement.

There must have been a hundred prisoners, and by the decorations on their costumes, they were of some fox tribe. Were they allied with Snow Fox - or even related to them?

Their captors were, without a doubt, of Wolverine. They bore the insignia of their tribe on everything - but they also bore the sign of the eclipse. The sight of that symbol, even though it was through Kuari’s eyes, made his blood run cold, and a sour taste came up the back of his throat. The last time he had seen that symbol, it had been terrifyingly close, on a pendant around the neck of the Blood Bear Shaman -

But this time there was no sign of the weird half-human creatures that Blood Bear had counted among its warriors. These were “no more than” humans.

Very well-armed, very large and muscular humans, who seriously outnumbered Darian’s group. And much as he longed to drop down out of the tree, slashing at them with his climbing stick, he knew better. He wouldn’t stand a chance, and from the cowed and beaten look of the women, they wouldn’t even be able to muster the spirit to use his attack as a distraction to make a break for freedom. But it was hard to hide in safety and do nothing, when he watched one of the warriors trip one of the women with his spear butt and laugh to see her stumble - then when he saw the fear in the eyes of girl-captives barely into puberty. They knew what their fate would be as soon as they