"I swear, each one was as big as my head. I almost wished for death, right then, right there."
     "You might well have, spending your whole sack on one fat whore."
     "Worth every coin! And when we march our way back, backs laden with gold, I'll take that fat whore as my wife!"
     Brok, marching on the outside, spoke over the laughter, "Aye, Jorn, and I wonder what Moll and your little boy would think of your Dinatosi whore? She seemed the motherly type."
Amid more laughter Jorn snapped back, "Brok the purehearted didn't even get an eye on her, couldn't even bring hisself to step inside the whorehouse."
     Jorn spoke facetiously about Brok, but Brok's attention had been pulled elsewhere. Of course, he had left his gold with Gran Cath and had no spare change for whoring, and otherwise, he had been filled with a sense of unease since before they entered the Dinatosi lands. For one thing, the figure leading them on horseback was a different hired knight, this one less grandly armored. He wore all brown leather and scale that looked like painted feathers weaved together, although the pattern was hard to see and seemed impossibly dark to look at as they marched in bright daylight.
     "Do you think that's Griffinscale*?" Brok asked Reg, who was marching beside him and much more engrossed in the boasting of Jorl and Jorl's mate, Tarn.
     "Eh?" Reg said, clearly not listening or ascribing any importance to the shift in leadership. In Dacian, the capital of Dinatos, after a series of meetings none of them were privy to, the hired knight disappeared and this scarred, ugly, sullen man had announced he would be leading them into the dark lands, and had spoken only twice each day, to signify the beginning and ending of their march. It must be Griffinscale he wore, and the visual illusion it produced only added to the growing pressure in Brok's gut. He bore a bow, though Brok knew little of any wood, having grown among fields and hills.  Brok had a feeling like this new hired knight was no knight at all.
    Brok, staring at the Griffinscale for several minutes, faltered a step.  He felt dizzy and decided not to inspect the man further. Reg finally turned his attention away from the other fieldmen marching in Red Sect livery and focused on Brok. "Are you right? You've been grumpy for days now, now you're nearly tripping over yourself." Reg held tight to the necklace he had purchased in Wexley, a long chain with charm he was told was pure silver from the high mountains of the Blighted Range, far to the north. Reg's eyes and fetish with the necklace told Brok he believed it was silver, that it had been mined by dwarves as he had been told it was, and though he proclaimed it was a gift for his wife, Brok thought Reg would never take it off his own neck if he could help it.
     "I'm fine, right as ever, only-"
     The horse leading them danced a couple steps forward before turning.  "We camp here for tonight."
      A murmur arose from the men, but one of excitement rather than worry. It was barely after high noon, and some still carried liquors from the last town they had passed. Brok wondered at the change in pace, but the group had all broken rank and began setting up their lean-to's in a small gully off the road. They made camp there, and drank by the fire. Brok watched the Griffinscale knight out of the corner of his eye most of the knight, wondering why the man kept himself so far apart from them. He wondered why not one figure passed them on the road the day previous. His unease was now a churning in his gut, the feeling of having filled one's belly with ale and milk at once.
     The next morning at first light, they broke camp and dragged themselves into the formation they had been instructed to hold. The Griffinscale knight mounted his horse, and turned to address them all. "Today, we enter the Black Hills." A moan arose from several of them, a weak cheer from several more. "Do not be deceived," he continued. "The land looks no different in most places. Eyes shall be watching us, however. Every step of the way, danger will be sniffing down our backs. Whatever you do, DO AS I SAY, and you may yet all live."
     No more cheers arose as he turned and ordered the march.


Two days later, they come upon the first village, or what used to be a place where people lived.  It looked surprisingly like their home village, three months march west into the open plains. The houses there had been torn down, not burned or scavenged in any way.  As he viewed the half-standing walls, shredded into grotesque shapes of claws and teeth, The turning in Brok's stomach became a full-fledged stinging pain, with bloody (he imagined) acid rising in his throat.
     "It's like...." Reggis was moved to speak, but received at least twenty hard stares that discouraged him from finishing the sentence.
      Like the roofs were torn off, Brok thought, so the inhabitants could be scooped up by...something.

Another two days later, with a rocky outcropping to their northern side and marshy flats overgrown with reeds, snakes, and insects, the band approached a lone figure in their path, the first living thing spotted in a week. Before them stood a black-robed and slightly hunched stranger. The Griffinscale knight called for a halt and rode forward, but stopped at least thirty feet away from the figure. Brok couldn't see the face of the person, couldn't tell if it was an old man, or and old woman, or a wolf standing there with a black coat over its head. He could barely make out the words the knight was calling out with, inviting the stranger to join the band in the name of the Red Sect, then he was boasting of the red sect. It seemed to be a diplomatic introduction, of sorts, but it also seemed lost on the stranger.
     The knight bristled. "Need you any assistance at all? Shall we simply pass by and leave you be?"
     Beside Brok, Reg was squirming and clutching at his chain with both hands. "I have a bad feeling, Brok. I've had a bad feeling for days."  Days? thinks Brok. "I know," he says.
     The stranger straightened upward a bit, but only a bit. Brok caught a hint of shine from beneath the cloak, as well as the outline of a nose. It was a woman. Hands also appeared at her side, raised up as if she were welcoming them all. No words came from the stranger. Then she snapped his hands over. The Griffinscale knight drew his sword and spurred the horse away just as the air around the spot where he had been became filled with a cyclonic, light-devouring energy, to all appearances the deepest purple Brok had ever seen, the stranger behind it weaving the same energy between her hands, her relaxed fingers tickling the humours as they danced before her darkly illuminated face, her black hood slipping away and revealing dangerous beauty that nearly froze Brok, not only seeing such amazing beauty but that she seemed in the height of ecstasy as she weaved the unbelievable, and finally the moment was broken as the energy between them all coalesced into a solid, giant canine form with eight sets of eyes staring out at them, man as dark as night, the troops itself simply stepping back, hardly one of them able to take a breath, no swords having been drawn, the Griffinscale knight dancing on his horse before them and screaming "Fight, you bastards! Draw your damned weapons!" before the monster skipped forward and swiped with one of its four front claws, taking the horse out and sending the knight skipping across the shale and glancing off a large boulder, before coming a rest, while all in the same moment half of the men drew their swords, still stepping backward, half of them turned and began to flee, Brok himself ducked to the side and watched the great night hound dance into their ranks, sending bodies, whole and halved, flying away from it, seeing Reggis standing only a foot away from the monster, sword in one hand, chain in the other, not backing away, and then Brok couldn't see him any more, but three of them were standing behind the beast and all turned to charge at the stranger, Brok jumping up and running along but forgetting to draw a weapon, getting halfway before the stranger herself reached out with impossibly long, kaleidoscopic purple arms, and she whipped each of the men from five paces away, each exploding into blue flame and falling away, and then Brok was standing before her unarmed, breathing hard, resisting the urge to vomit, behind him and to his left and right thirty men screamed in the throes of arcane agony, and before him two eyes burned bright with magic energy, Brok assuming he would combust from the inside at any moment, unable to move forward or backward, the growling and booming of the beast's stride echoing on the walls of the canyon until it stopped, and all was silent.
   Brok was alone with death and the stranger. She was smiling at him. He vomited, mostly on himself. When he looked again he saw the bright sheen of her eyes had faded and she before him once again became stooped, older and quite uglier, delicate hands fading to grizzled bony fingers, and moonlit complexion becoming bulbous, mole-flecked skin. The face disapeared beneath the cloak once again.
    "Why--" Brok choked on the words. She was turning from him. "Who are you?" he managed a firm demand. "You leave me alive for a reason, to go and tell them all. So tell me, who are you?"
    She paused, but only for a moment, and then was gone.
    Brok looked around. Fifteen or so bodies littered the ground, another fifteen stray body parts strewn about. He approached the middle of the field and found Reg's chain lying in the gravel. He found no sign of Reg's body, nor the Griffinscale-clad knight, nor about ten other individuals.