The executioners had primarily stayed with the game trail. Bent grasses and twigs on either side offered mute testimony of the passage of the men.
And the woman, Haarn reminded himself.
He loped through the forest, occasionally hearing his traveling companion pass through the brush behind and to the left. Broadfoot was nearly five times as big as Haarn, and his greater bulk wasn't built for stealth. That was why Haarn had gone alone. Still, Broadfoot remained nearby, ready to come to Haarn's aid at a moment's notice.
As he intersected then crossed the game trail the hunters followed, Haarn catalogued the different strides and mannerisms he could identify by the marks they left in the soft earth as well as their passage through the brush.
There were nine different members of the party. Two of the eight men were heavy and tall. Haarn judged that by the length of their strides. They were also confident, and he knew that because they were consistently in the lead. They also had similar mannerisms, which marked them as brothers or perhaps students of the same teacher.
The woman was interesting. She moved confidently, but she seemed to stay in a position that sometimes placed her apart from the eight men in the party. Her stride was long, and when Haarn measured it, he guessed that she was about his height and weight. She was also the one who left the least in the way of marks to point to her passage. Haarn knew she would be dangerous.
One of the men carried pipeweed, meaning that he seldom traveled in the woodland areas far off the beaten path. Anyone who spent time in the woods knew better than to carry pipeweed, perfumes, or soap because it stood out against the forest scents.
The other five hunters showed varying degrees of familiarity with the forest. They were accomplished hunters-for city dwellers. One of them had a habit of stopping occasionally to check their back trail, always starting off the next step with his right foot. Another had a slight limp. Still another continually marked the trail by twisting small branches together so he could find it easily. Haarn untwisted the branches as he passed so the trees would grow as Silvanus and their nature had intended.
In only a few more strides he was close enough to hear them.
With the deepening night falling full bloom across the forest, the light of the lanterns carried by the hunting party stood out sharply. The golden glow didn't travel far and was partially masked by the trees and brush.
Haarn slid his scimitar silently free of its sheath. The blade was blackened so that it wouldn't reflect the light that lanced through the trees in places. He crouched lower to the ground, his eyes moving restlessly, but he kept moving forward.
'It's getting too dark,' one man said. 'You keep hunting in these woods this late at night, you're only asking for trouble.'
'These damned wolf scalps are worth gold, Ennalt,' another man said, 'but not so much that we can be lolly-gagging about this piece of business.'
'Aye,' another man agreed. 'Forras has the right of it, I'm thinking. Better to be into this bloody work quickly and out of it just as quickly.'
'It's only a little farther to Evenstar Lake,' the woman reasoned. Her voice was soft and low, holding a throaty rasp that made it sound deep. 'We can camp there for the night and take up the hunt again in the morning.'
Less than fifty feet from his quarry, knowing Broadfoot would slow as well and await his signal, Haarn turned to the right and went up the slope of the wooded hill. He stayed low so the hunters gathered in the brush below couldn't skyline him against the star-filled night. As he moved, he caught brief glimpses of the eight men and the woman as they clustered within the small glen below.
Scimitar still in hand, Haarn sat on his haunches beside a thick-boled maple tree and watched the group.
'Me,' another man said, 'I'm all for bed. The sun will come up early enough tomorrow and we can set to hunting them damned wolves again.'
'They're nocturnal feeders,' still another said. 'I'm telling you, with or without that enchanted charm the shepherd gave us, this is our best time of hunting wolves.'
'It's also the most dangerous,' Ennalt argued. 'While we're hunting them, they can be hunting us.' He was a small-built man who had a habit of lifting the lantern he carried and peering into the forest. 'Especially that scar- faced bastard the shepherd's promising to pay the bonus for.'
'We've killed nine of those wolves,' one of the earlier speakers said. 'I say we've done enough for the day- and the night-to warrant a rest.'
Another man laughed. 'You're just wanting to get next to that jug of elven wine, Tethys.'
'And what of it?' Tethys snapped. 'I'll drink the wine to replace the blood I've been donating to feed all these damned thirsty mosquitoes.' He slapped at the back of his neck. 'At least the bottle will numb some of the itching and put back some fluid into my body.'
'That's what you've got water for,' the woman replied evenly, but her voice held steel. 'I won't abide any drunken fools on this mission.'
' 'Mission,' she says,' Forras said. He was the one with the limp. Even now as he stood in the glen, the man favored his weaker leg. 'Spoken like she was a sellsword guarding the Assembly of Stars or Lord Herengar himself.'
The woman met the man's gaze and he turned away.
'We were hired to kill wolves, Druz,' Tethys said, 'not to give our lives to some noble cause you might imagine up.'
Haarn stared at the woman with interest. As solitary as his work and commitment was, he seldom saw others, and he saw women even less. He sometimes found them interesting, as his father had laughingly told him he would, but there was always the heartbroken side of his father that kept Haarn in check. Feelings between men and women, the elder Brightoak had pointed out during the time Haarn's education had touched upon the subject, were not as simple as the mating seasons that drew on animals. Liaisons between men and women were lasting things that Haarn had seen emulated between wolves, who tended to mate for life.
The woman was a few inches short of six feet, and her form was filled with womanly curves the leather armor she wore couldn't hide. Her red-gold hair was bound up behind her in an intricate knot, and the lantern light turned her beautiful features ruddy, though dirt and grime stained them. She carried a long bow slung over one shoulder, a long sword at her hip, knives in her knee-high, cracked leather boots, and a traveler's pack secured high on her back.
'Trust me,' Tethys said, 'this is a lot quicker work and will pay more handsomely than guarding some fat merchant's caravan from Alagh?n bound for Baldur's Gate, Calimport, or even Waterdeep.'
Haarn turned the names over in his mind as he listened.
Baldur's Gate, Calimport, and Waterdeep were all famous cities of the Sword Coast known to him through stories he'd heard as a boy growing up under his father's tutelage. Ettrian Brightoak had been more socially driven than Haarn had turned out to be. Though he had no desire to go see those cities, thinking of them still fired his imagination.
He had yet to see even Alagh?n, the so-called Jewel of Turmish, and it lay within three days' travel of Morningstar Hollows where he spent much of his time. The idea of being in a place that housed so many people was at once exciting and terrifying.
Still, his father's descriptions of the Throne of Turmish, as the city was also known, held fascination, especially when Ettrian Brightoak waxed eloquently-an art Haarn had never acquired-about the history of the city that included stories of Anaglathos, the blue dragon that had ruled the city for a time, or of the Time of Troubles when Malar himself-also called the Stalker and the Beastlord-entered the Gulthmere Forest to destroy the Emerald Enclave.
'Gakhos, the shepherd,' Tethys continued, 'is a rich man, and he's drawn to vengeance. In my experience, a man drawn to avenge-even by proxy, which is what he hired us for-will pay until there is nothing left of his gold or his anger. We can kill a lot of wolves for the gold he's paying and not have to worry about taking one of those damned overland trips to the Sword Coast.'
'Or maybe you're wanting to begin a new career as a sellsword aboard one of those new ships that are being
