It was so similar to the one she had left behind. The lush trees, the damp air, even the crackling of wet branches beneath her feet. Every step she took felt like one she had already taken before down a trail she had long since beaten into the ground. She could still remember what was at the end of that path. They didn't have much, but her Father had wanted her ready in case the worst ever came. Either that or he just didn't know how else to interact with her. Regardless, he had set up a tiny training regiment out in the woods complete with what little props he could rig together or swipe from the village. It wasn't much, but then again, she hadn't been either at the time.
She remembered smiling most of the time she found herself walking down that path. Sometimes because she was excited to get to use a knife and other times because she was beating her brother in a stupid little race they held. There were a far amount of times she hated it as well. When her chores had already tired her out and she just wanted to go to bed, but her Father dragged her out anyways. Sleep is for the dead!! He'd pronounce like he was making some grand speech. It was stupid and above all else annoying, but now as the thought came to mind, Lozen couldn't help but crack a tiny smile.
After the madmen came and left nothing to bury, it was hard to look back on all of that in general. It was only when she needed a reminder of what not to do that she did. But now, there was at least something useful she could pull from all those times before the fires. She was just ashamed it had taken her so long to realize that.
Animals, for all their survival specialization, were careless, leaving scents, footprint, and carcasses in their wake. It was always about the next step for them. Hiding from the next enemy, never the one trailing behind them. They were fast, but there wasn't anywhere they could go that she couldn't follow. Her father had taught her that.
She had spent so long thinking that she would be better off forgetting about it. There wasn't much to hunt out where she and the rest of her village had washed up. It wouldn't have been the only thing she tried to forget. Looking back only brought this pain to her chest and made her lose sight of the next step she had to take. But as she started trekking back through the forest, she realized it wasn't that simple.
What do you do when you're hunting something you've never seen before? Her father would ask her and she'd just sit their in the cold grass, dumb founded. Well that's disappointing. It's learn about them. Something may be new, but it's still just an animal. Every creature on this world has adapted in some way to survive. We hunt, deer run, birds fly, and bears forage. If you just learn how something survives, what tactics and patterns it follows to do so, then you can hunt it. She had still been confused. He rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh before continuing Where do birds sleep?
In a nest! She had answered.
Why?
Because it's safer up there.
Exactly. Every animal will do what it knows to be safest because that will help it survive. So where would you go hunting a bird?
Near it's nests!
See? Everything has a pattern it follows to survive. Birds make nests, fish swim down river, bears wait by the shore. If you learn that, then you-
Can hunt them!
Exactly!
Looking back, he hadn't been wrong. Every person may have been complicated, but there was always a pattern they adopted to survive. Even if they left tracks in their society instead of the dirt. A praying eye here, a stray ear here, a mouth that could be pried open with the right amount of persuasion. Just as the earth records every creature that ran across it through the footprints they left or the damage they left the home to, the society they had built did the same. Nothing moved out in the wild without leaving a trace and no one existed in the colonizers society without leaving a footprint. One that would always point her to the patterns they did even know they were falling into. All of them were the same, but each relegated itself to one, specific means of surviving, Moore ran to his cave, Finch stuck to her train, Cane hid in his manor, Florentine followed behind Gregor and Iscariot ran with marauders. Even after all these years, it was still the same. She wondered how he knew that or if he even did. Was it just luck? Intelligence? She wasn't sure she'd ever know the reason, but she knew there was in fact one. How else could she still be listening to him even in silence.
In the forest however, there was no one but the birds to see people as they passed by and so Lozen found herself being forced to go back to the last place she knew they were. It wasn't difficult. She just had to follow the faint wisps of smoke blowing through damp air and the footprints she could see in the beaten ground. The rain wasn't falling hard enough to face any of those signs away yet, giving her a trail to backtrack down as she continued through the forest. There were a few times she thought she heard something snap a twig in the background that made her think she already found someone dangerous, but it was always just some critter who had moronically hidden from the fire instead of running like everything else. In fact, most of the forest appeared to be empty.
There weren't as many birds flying around if any at all and the times she actually heard something on the forest floor with her were so hating she almost fired an arrow at the undergrowth. Everything seemed to be slumbering or at least in the process of waking up, a sign she found both comfort and concern within. On one hand, it was nice to know the marauders were gone and on the other, she hoped that didn't mean their trail had gone cold yet.
Eventually, after winding through the sleepy woods for the better part of the morning, she managed to find her way back to the village. Or at least what remained. There wasn't much. Just a massive field of black ash that blanketed the forest floor. There were a few indications of what it had once been, a few pieces of charred wood that had once been used to hold up tents and maybe a rag that had survived the blaze. Most of all however, were the bodies. There weren't many, but there were enough to be noticeable even if their features were not. They were all little more than featureless cadavers stained black and red, but the expression they had been charred in were nevertheless gruesome. Some looked like they were crying to claw the flesh off their faces while others were simply left wide eyed and open mouth, revealing two empty sockets with something drizzling down from them.
She tried her best not to look at them. There was still something she could do and it didn't involve getting lost in her own memories because of those were already dead. She tried sticking to the rims of the village, finding a plethora of human tracks scattering in every direction, but one pair that made it obvious where the men had rushed off to. Horse tracks. Large ones, all flowing away from the remains in one massive line rushing off due north. She wasn't sure how far they'd gone, but it was a better start than anything she had. What is the one thing every animal does? She could remember her father saying. "Rest." Lozen found herself muttering at the memory. No matter how fast they ran or how far they got, everything rested and when they did, they were vulnerable. Even people. So without delay, she started following after the tracks deeper into the undergrowth.
Time seemed to stand still as she dove further and further into the woods, every step feeling identical to the last and causing hours upon hours to be lost wandering through the forest. She tried her best to keep her breathing and heart rate low as she continued through the winding woods, but the sheer distance was wearing down her stamina. Her feet were starting to ache before long and she half considered turning back to try and find Beatrice before something emerged through the rows upon rows of trees. At first she just thought it was another clearing. There was always at least one of them in whatever forest she found herself in and if not for the column of black smoke rising into the gloomy clouds above, she wouldn't have thought otherwise.
Lozen never saw smoke like that before. Not one massive cloud made of several small currents, but a single column spewing black fumes in a single direction. She slowed and knelt herself down as she approached the edge of the forest, pressing her back against a tree and then peering out to see what had caused that smoke.
The marauders hadn't run as far as she thought they had. It may have taken her hours and even the rain had spent itself, but she merely needed a few hours before finding where she was safe to assume they had hidden away. She had to hand it to the colonizers on one thing. They were rather quick when it came to capitalization. In a lush forest full timber, a lumber mill had now been erected in the center of a massive field of stumps. There were two main structures encompassing the place that looked like two massive, conjoined wooden barns with various rustic conveyor belts rising into their top floor. Just to the right of them was a massive three story workhouse of sorts made from old cobblestone and covered in dozens of different windows through which she could see amber lighting leaking out onto the gloomy display.
Surrounding it was a tiny gathering of sheds or something along those lines that she assumed must have been for storage. She could see various fires being lit up around the area with a few fools stumbling around them while many others sat around the fires. While she had never gotten the full scale of the invaders that burned the village to the ground, but the amount she saw now was troubling to say the least. There were dozens upon dozens of them all from what she could see alone. It was absurd and far too much for her to handle. Her target may not have been all of them, but it was going to be much more difficult to get to Iscariot then she predicted. Especially since she didn't have much cover between her and the main structure. The stumps were going to have to suffice if she had any hope of getting close. If she had to guess, that would be where Iscariot had hunkered down. Now, she just needed to get close.
Lozen wished she could have said she had done more with less, but she honestly didn't think there was much she could do and there didn't seem to be any other way around it. She readjusted the bow and quiver sling over her shoulder, crouched down as low as she could, and then scurried towards the closest tree stump. It was so close to the ground she was practically on all fours as she compressed her entire body behind the stump. She swore she could feel her silhouette breaking through the trees, but didn't let herself get caught on such a thought. After a minute's pause, she scampered towards another stump on all words, her body already starting to ache at the unnatural pose she was hiding to move around.
It didn't help that she was using a bow and arrow this time. Fighting was out of the option as even with her weapons. She was grossly outnumbered and gunned. The only advantage she had would be that the bow was quieter than a gunshot and they didn't know anyone was coming. However, as she approached, she was surprised to find that instead of a band of inbred bastards celebrating their latest raid, the camp was remarkably quiet. Apart from the crackling of a bonfire closer to the main structure, the entire place was eerily silent as if it were all lying in wait.
She paused as she failed to hear any indicators that there were men out here and then quickly scampered towards the first piece of real cover she could find. It was a small, flow smelling wooden shed placed near the edge of the major archipelago of structures that she assumed was an outhouse and while she was certain she had caught something just being so close to it, it was a better hiding spot than the stumps. She kept herself low as she sheltered behind it and used her new found vantage point to peak around the side of the outhouse.
Beyond it, there were still quite a few sheds like structure between her and the main facility, but the part that troubled her was what she couldn't find. Guards. There was the occasional wandering between the buildings with their guns at the ready, but nothing that resembled what she imagined had invaded the village. It made her consider maybe falling back until she could get a better scope of the groups size, but she found a solution presenting itself just outside of her reach. There was a larger structure, probably a storage shed, just to the left of the outhouse she hid behind and leaning up against its back was a drowsy looking man. His shoulders were slumped against the brickwork and his entire body seemed to be dragging itself down to the mud below. Even at this distance, she could clearly see bags hanging from his eyes and a yawn escaped his throat every now and then. He had a rifle in hand, but it worked around in his grasp as if it were always a second away from falling to the ground. Still, he looked like he to was supposed to be guarding the encampment and given his disheveled state, Lozen could think of one or two ways to use this to her advantage.
He had to know something about what was going and how many guards were actually around, information Lozen knew she'd need going into a camp this massive. The only problem was the distance between her and the guard. There was a good thirty feet of flat, uninterrupted mud between them and while the grey clouds above were helpful, they didn't give her the same protections as nightfall. Still, she could work with this. There was an old trick her father had taught her when it came to stalking prey. If you took the mud from the nearby terrain and smeared it on yourself, it should have been able to cover yourself. Of course the same logic couldn't be applied here, but the technique still was. The light from the bonfire was streaking in through the cracks in the shed's formation and illuminating a rather striking shade of red from the mud below. It was rather distinct as dirt went and if she could cover herself in the substance, she might have been able to trick his eyes into ignoring her. Although, even then, she'd have to stay in his peripheral which given his drowsy state, should have been easier than usual.
After taking a few steps away from the outhouse, Lozen started scooping up as much of the scarlet substance she could and smearing it across her entire body. It smelled like poison, but it did the trick and after she was sure she had been covered from head to toe, started creeping around the right side of the outhouse, always trying to stay in the corner of the man's vision. She took a long, curved path around to the guard before she started making a direct beeline towards them. Every second she had to keep herself practically flat against the ground as she made her way towards the man, praying his clear exhaustion and her plan would make his attention past over her like she hoped. There were times when she froze in place as she thought his gaze grew a little too close for comfort, but by the time she got close enough for him to wise up, it was too late.
A hand went down to the blade nestled against her belt just as she saw his attention flicker towards her. Before he could move, she sprung off the ground and lunged towards him with her blade outstretched, managed to both get behind him and press her knife against his throat. "Say a word or make a move and I'll cut out your vocal cords. Now drop the gun." She hissed into his ear, every single word of which he complied with. "Where are the rest of the men?"
"Most of 'em are asleep. Some of them are still wandering around the place."
"How many?"
"I don't know."
"How. Many?" She said as she pressed her blade further into the soft flesh of his neck.
"M-Maybe a dozen. Two? I swear, I don't know."
"They never do."
"P-Please. You've gotta b-believe me."
"Where is Iscariot?"
"What?"
She pushed the blade even further into his neck, a message he didn't need to hear before saying "He's in that office building! Third floor!! There's a few more in the building! And this guy, he's a real monster! Carved up twenty men during our last raid and our boss is there too!!"
"Why are they sleeping?"
"W-We just attacked some Injun village not too far from here. That really drains you, r-right?"
Lozen wasn't entirely sure why but the combination of having found out everything she needed and hearing him so callously addressing the burning down of an entire village caused her to drag her blade across the man's neck. He gurgled as his jugular ruptured and throating started filling with blood, the life having completely flooded out of him by the time he hit the ground.
She sheathed the blade once again and pulled the body up against the wall before peaking around the corner of the shed. There was a semi clear path leading towards the bonfire and it was as good of plan as she was going to get. Most of them were asleep somewhere and her target was inside the main building with only a few active guards standing between her. If she picked off the ones she came across with her bow and blades, she should have been able to avoid detection. It wasn't going to be easy, but that wasn't nearly enough to stop her now.
Lozen took another look around and then crept along the side of the shed until she could look out at the space running in front of it. There were small patrols of no more than two people running down through the sheds, all of which looked just as exhausted as the first, but were all similarly armed. Their patrol patterns were irregular, but manageable. She just needed to keep her aim steady.
Her fingers gently pulled the bow over her shoulder and held it in one hand as she drew a single arrow from the quiver. It wasn't much, but it should have been enough. There was a single guard walking right towards her and unfortunately, their eyes were focusing right into her. It took the man a brief moment to recognize just what he was seeing before Just like she remembered, she knocked the arrow, drew it back, and aimed in one quick motion, firing off the arrow before the guard had time to say a word. It lodged itself right through his neck, cutting off his ability to scream and killing him in the same instance. His body collapsed onto the mud along with his weapon before she rushed towards it and tore the arrow out of his body. She gripped it and dragged it into a space between the next row of sheds before peaking out to survey the next patrol.
On and on she went, dodging between the structures, sticking to the shadows and just narrowly avoiding detection more times then she could count. Her camouflage certainly helped in that regard, just managing to trick the guards eyes so long as she stayed just at the corner of them, but there were also times where it failed. Either they weren't as exhausted as the others or maybe they were just alert enough to look through her minimal disguise, but either way, they caught on. They just should have done so quicker.
She never wasted a shot. Not one. Every arrow struck a part that made death come quickly, the neck, heart, and lungs. The weapon itself may not have been something she picked up in a while, but she never forgot how to use it. She could still remember how much her father had drilled the skill into her head and all the countless days spent firing at a single target dummy until she could land an entire quiver in its head. It wasn't pleasant, but it was certainly effective. The movements, the sensation, the way she had to place everyone of her fingers in the just the right, but most of all, the breath. It was needed with a gun as well, but not long a bow. There was no steel to compensate for the tiny tremor that came with your breath of pulse. Just wood and your own hands. No matter how great your grip, the pulse in your hands would shake them just enough to set off your name.
The timing however, was something she knew all too well. Keep your breaths even and your heart would do the same. Then all you needed to do was follow the rhythm that came from this. Breath. Draw. Nock. Pulse. Fire. Repeat. Breath. Draw. Nock. Pulse. Repeat. There you go. Just like that. There's nothing more to it. Over and over again, everytime a guard got too nosy for their own good and made her put another one of them in the ground. She never felt for a single one of them and offered now mercy. They hadn't given those people any, so neither would she.
Either because the camp was smaller than she thought it was or she was making more progress than expected, she found herself making her way towards the main structure before long. Though, as she pulled yet another body along with her into the space between the sheds, she changed her course towards the structure she knew didn't have possibly dozens of sleeping marauders inside. The actual mill itself seemed abainsed for the moment, even if her only basis for this was in the fact that it did have lights coming from it. At the very least it was better than the luminescent structure that had to hold at least fifty men. It seemed like the sloped roof of one of the mills joined right at the third floor of the building, so she'd also be able to bypass all the men who might be sleeping in the first two floors. And then it'd just be her and Iscariot.
There were significantly less guards as she found herself approaching the barn like structure, though she still had to fire and then retrieve a few more arrows before she made any leeway. The mill itself appeared to be left in a state of relative decay with the wood construct gut looking like it was moments away from exploding into splinters. She swore she could hear it creaking as she approached and see the thick shadows hanging inside moving as if they were curtains blowing in the winds. It was still a better option than anything else she had.
The door seemed to be missing altogether and, after a quick look around her to make sure no one could see her, Lozen dashed inside the complex. She flattened her body against the wall right next to the entrance as her eyes started adjusting, but, the first thing she noticed was the stench. Something large or in large quantity was rotting in her or maybe even diseased judging from the way the smell stuck to her skin like dust particles. She could feel her stomach convulse after if it were about to vomit and her skin crawl as it tried to get away from the foul air festering in the facility. For a second, she considered trying to get away from this place and not have to deal with whatever was making that odor, but judging from how old the facility was, it could have been anything. It may have been uncomfortable, but it couldn't be enough to deter her.
Inside there appeared to be some sort of massive small contraptions covering the floor and were in turn shrouded in thick layers of cobwebs. Conveyor belts with buzzsaws poking through the wood, a few of which still had half cut logs lying across their faces. The entire place was clearly no longer in use, but at the very least there appeared to be easy access to the higher floors. On the side of the barn were a set of stairs rising up into next level that looked decrepit, but should have sufficed. She took another look around, making sure she really was below down here before she scampered off towards the steps. The floorboards creaked on more than one occasion, but not one of them was the reason she found herself freezing on the steps.
That powerful odor she had smelled at the entrance was getting stronger. It was subtle, but nothing that could pass her nose. Every step felt like it drilled a new wave of the stench into her nose and made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. As putrid as the stench was, it couldn't have been more than just old horses carcasses they stored whenever they lived past their usefulness. Or maybe even their own bodies. These people didn't look like the type to bury the dead. Still, something in the back of her mind was telling her this was a bad idea. Maybe it was just the smell and her animal instincts filling in the blanks or there was something else she was missing.
To make matters worse, as she approached, Lozen could see something trickling down from the opening. A weak, flickering light just barely strong enough to push away the shadows. It made her freeze as she noticed it out of the corner of her eye, but unlike the smell, gave her something concrete to work with. Light meant people and people could be killed.
Keeping her feet light and an arrow at the ready, Lozen slowly crawled up to the top floor of the farmer and only stopped when she could see over the edge. What she saw didn't inspire confidence. The exact opposite in fact. The top floor seemed to have been cleared of all the bulky machinery that would have otherwise covered it, but the falls filled this otherwise imposing lack of substance. Nailed to nearly every inch of them was a thin slab of flesh dripping with some sort of dark substance she could barely make out in the shadows. Not that she needed to. The smell was more than enough to put them pieces together. She almost let out a gasp as she recognized them.
All this time, she has assumed that Jebediah was exaggerating. No one scalped anyone. Especially a colonizer. They detested it. But there they all were, each hanging from a single bloody nail. The vein riddled insides were facing out towards the room with stringy, blood ridden hair arching around the edges. From what she could see, the walls were covered in long stains running down from each of them, soaking the ones below and leaving very little unstained wood. She felt her body try to recoil away from the walls as she noticed the gruesome displays, but before she could fully wrap her head around whatever she was lookin at she heard something on the floor below.
A footstep.
After that, her feet carried her onto the second floor without another thought. Miraculously she managed to keep the sound of her own footsteps to a minimum as she rushed onto the second floor and took a quick look around to see if there was anything at all she could have used to hide behind. There was nothing of the sort, but there may have been a way to escape. Just on the back of the floor appeared to be some sort of ledge with a pitiful, wooden railing preventing people from falling over. If she could just make it there, she could prepare herself to drop to the bottom floor in case those footsteps came to the top.
Her feet drifted across the floor boards even as her heart hammered in her chest. She swung her bow back over her shoulder and placed the arrow back into the quiver, each centimeter her muscles moved causing just a fraction of sound that she feared was too much. Every slight step like a gunshot, every beat, a drum, and every society breath, a gale that would have told whoever was below all they needed. Her senses stood on end and the blood racing through her threatened to burst as she sensed the threat coming. Her steps never felt like they did enough and her racing mind refused to believe they'd save her from what was coming.
But the ledge was there and it was getting so close. Just a few more feet. She could already feel the wood under her hands as she vaulted it and the relief from her twisting gut that would come from simply having a plan. Her hands gripped the railings and she quietly vaulted over the edge, crouching down as low as she could for when the time came to jump. She braced herself and waited to hear when the footsteps.....she couldn't hear them anymore. They had stopped. Why? Were they just going to stay on the bottom floor. No. That wasn't it. They were already here.
Her eyes snapped over towards the stair behind her and the unit caught a small glimpse of mattered scars covering skin before a lifeless voice spoke from a dead tongue.
"Not quiet enough."