When the Boughs Break

[Serril Indaiyu]

In that moment, staring down at the body of the Gnoll she had killed, Sibi felt the wave of fear pass, only to have her tormentor aperate behind her, catching her in a clawed embrace. Wide-eyed, she dared not move, looking back at her mother. Crazy-Mountain loomed behind, snorting and growling as the last of Churr'k's necrotic influence subsided. She backed the play of Kam, as it was her daughter's life to wager.

Kam clasped her hands at her middle and began to whisper soft words. She blinked, and cool light spilled from her eyes. As she spread her hands, the vine that had bound Eshket slackened and yielded, falling softly to the ground and becoming ephemera. As the Gnolls cackled in triumph, the air became heavy and still, light receding beyond the canopy through suddenly-thickening clouds.

Sibi could feel the hairs beginning to stand straight on her ears. She knew what came next. Her mother was trusting her.

"Nakatanta!"

The moment Sibi slipped from sight was enough confusion for her to push away before the coming storm. She felt the air whistle behind at the pass of raking claws, but was already descending on Eshket with the blunt end of her spear, striking her across the back of the head at the same time as the forest erupted into a flash of blue-white light. KA-THOOOM!! The crack of lightning speared through the branches, severing a few in a spray of sparks before it found its true destination - Churr'k. Even through the deafening thunder, the Gnoll's death yelp pierced through.

Just as the ringing in the ears began to subside, the earth thumped with impact as Crazy-Mountain closed distance with Barrdu. She leveled a broad fist across his snout, then tried to cinch him up in an embrace, which the Gnoll managed to wrangle out of. In retaliation, the elder Firbolg cracked him across his back with her club, knocking the fight out of him. Barrdu fell into a twitching heap, which she stepped over to reach Eshket.

"Do you speak common words?" In this form, Crazy-Mountain's already low and slow way of talking came out like treacle, though it would be unwise to mistake her cadence with stupidity. She snorted, tightening her grip on her blood-slicked club as the sky rumbled overhead once again.

[The Dungeon Master]

When the sky itself poured out its wrath against her allies, Eshket let loose a pure animal cry of despair. As Churr'k and Barrdu's corpses slumped into the mud, she eyed the younger female at her back, considering how she might be unbalanced with a frenzied bite, allowing a bold gnoll to flee over the ridge behind her. And then the sky rumbled again, and Eshket considered the speed of a lightning bolt.

She turned back to meet the giant firbolg, her head low and submissive, and lifted her empty paws above her. "M... Mer... cy," she panted. And then she gestured to the dead gnolls lying all around them. "These... Not my clan. See, my fur. Different. Captive. Forced to serve."

She pressed her wrists together in a pantomime of manacles, her eyes bright and doleful beneath the stormy sky.

[Serril Indaiyu]

Crazy-Mountain looked down at the plaintive Gnoll, even after her enormous figure shifted back to her normal 'merely-large' stature. She grunted slightly as she wrenched Eshket's arrow out of her own chest, turning the missile over in her broad hands idly as she talked.

"We are creatures of the Wild. We kill only when necessary. That is the only mercy I give you."

A glance to Sibi, and the Herd Elder spoke in Giant tongue - a clear order to bind both Eshket and Barrdu. The younger scout got to work, cinching hempen rope tightly around Eshket.

"Why have you come here?"

[The Dungeon Master]

As Sibi moved on Eshket with the rope, the gnoll jerked away with a yelping snarl, unwilling to simply submit to being bound. But between Kam's strong grip and a well-placed tap from Crazy-Mountain's club, Sibi was able to wrestle her into the coils of rope and secure her wrists behind her back. The gnoll lay panting and whining. Kam shook her bodily into silence, and Crazy-Mountain asked her question again.

Eshket's eyes rolled up toward Crazy-Mountain, showing the whites. "Hun... ting," she rasped out.

[Serril Indaiyu]

"Mm."

Crazy-Mountain's good eye panned around, fixing on any potential signs of quarry.

"There is quarry here for those who hunt." her gravelly voice drawled as she squatted down to eye level with the captive Eshket.

"I can read the signs, little Gnoll. Better than you by far."

The elder continued playing with the arrow that had previously been lodged in her chest.

"You hunt dangerous game. Why?" Crazy-Mountain peered up, her good eye staring hard at Eshket for her answer.



Meanwhile, Kam swept the perimeter with her daughter. In the midst of taking care of Barrdu's bindings, the Indaiyu matriarch noticed a track where she shouldn't be seeing one.

[The Dungeon Master]

Eshket turned her head so she could look up at Crazy-Mountain with both her eyes. Her short brush tail tucked inward, clinging to one leg as she lay bound in the mud.

"They will kill me," she whined, and her eyes flickered toward Barrdu. "I... say what I know. I run from your lands. I never come back, pain of Yeenoghu's lash."

[Serril Indaiyu]

"Speak.

I will decide the weight of your words. Fail, and by the Oak Father, I will tell the beasts of the Wild to hunt you as their quarry and take from you everything. You will never leave this place, and your Demon Prince won't find enough of you left to torment."

Crazy-Mountain's focus momentarily shifted, noting Kam spotting something of interest in the background, before shifting back to her captive.

"You were responsible for the killing of the Outlanders at Mithral Pass?"

The elder used the arrowhead of her new prize to pick the grime from beneath one of her fingernails, never wavering her attention from Eshket.

[The Dungeon Master]

"Maybe?"

Eshket quailed when she saw the firbolg's eyes harden at the perceived non-answer. "What I mean... Many die in pass. And... many gnolls in war party. Cannot say which corpses you find."

[Serril Indaiyu]

"Hm."

Crazy-Mountain dismissed Eshket's explanation, looking back to Sibi.

"Wake the other one."

Sibi tore her attention away from where her mother was glancing, and back to Crazy-Mountain, and Barrdu bound before her. Her shoulder ached something fierce from the mauling she took, but this was no time to go quavering over a flesh wound. She brusquely prodded Barrdu at his shoulder with the butt of her spear.

"Do you understand me? Wake up!"

Kam returned from her search, eyes fixed on her daughter with a stern expression yet unseen. That relented only slightly as she tended to Sibi's injury, causing the younger Firbolg to glance back. At that moment, the hand that was at one moment channeling healing energy into Sibi's shoulder then pinched the tender flesh after it knit back together. Not enough to cause her to cry out, but enough pain to quietly get Sibi's attention, as Kam sharply whispered close by "Eldest-Daughter, we have *much* to talk about."

Sibi in that moment saw the hard look of anger in her mother's eyes, and realized where they were standing. The tell of that realization was all over her face, and Sibi didn't even meet her mother's eyes.

"I know."

As that happened, Crazy-Mountain approached the waking Barrdu, pulling Eshket along with her. She looked disappointed, if anything, as she knelt down to him.

"Are you going to tell me why you are here?"

[The Dungeon Master]

Eshket yelped as she was bodily dragged down the slope to where Barrdu lay, her feet kicking impotently at the mud. She twisted her neck to look back over her shoulder to where Sibi was prodding Barrdu awake. "He does not speak the city-tongue," she rasped. "He will say nothing but threats!"

Barrdu did not jolt as Eshket had. His lips peeled back in a silent snarl, and his brawny arms flexed against the ropes binding him, which creaked with the strain. One bloodshot eye rolled back to challenge Crazy-Mountain, burning with defiance. "Chovok ash mogh. Mogh pash Tanar'ri!"

Eshket nodded her muzzle toward him, as if in confirming what she had just said. "He says you will all die when the demon comes. See! Stupid threats. You should kill him."

[Serril Indaiyu]

The horned matriarch stood with a grunt.

"Take this one."

She pushed Eshket towards Sibi, then snatched Barrdu up by his mohawk-like mane, ramming his head against a tree trunk until the skull gave way like a melon. Tossing aside the twitching body, Crazy-Mountain wiped a smear of the Gnoll's blood from the bridge of her nose, turning her attention to Kam.

"We are going. Leave no trace."

Sibi began to trace a somatic pattern into the air, chanting as the group seemed to merge into the shadows of the deep wood, as Kam spoke aloud to the creatures around her.

"Beasts of the Wilds, we leave these dead things as an offering and a sign of our covenant. Take all of them."

The sounds around them came in all directions, approaching growls and howls and screeches from carrion birds above.

Sibi drew a duck cloth sack tight around Eshket's muzzle, and the four disappeared into the wood, minutes before the first of the wolves began to approach for their share.