The Shaman ordered the group to get a hold of themselves and they did. The warriors had taken the reigns of the war dogs anticipating an impending encounter with the runner and his ally. The rest stood behind in a cluster, awaiting an order to form some specific formation that never came. The Shaman had reinforced his command on the group or rather the group had proven themselves to be so immature and weak that they decided that it would be better to have someone lead them who could unite them temporarily. The shaman didn't hope for any good from the rest of them. At least the dogs were finding something every once in a while. As soon as the group looked good enough to make a move, he ordered them to do so. As usual, the war dogs pulled their handlers into the forest unable to control their enthusiasm. The rest followed them. Shaman mounted his horse and set off behind them. They followed the barks which faded as well. They walked in the direction of the footprints and soon the dogs were out of sight. The rest of the group was led by the hunters that were knowledgeable enough to keep track of the foot prints, hoping that the dogs were headed in the same direction. The warriors and apprentices followed the hunters blindly, them being the better trackers. The men of the tribal leaders had muddled up the tracks of the preacher. It only left the expertise of the hunters to decode anything in the woods.
They walked on for more than an hour or so in complete silence. The war dogs had caused enough chaos on their way, that traces were unintentionally made. The apprentices looked back at the Shaman and saw a different, more determined man leading them. The warriors just let the things go and went with the flow. A sharp shouting was heard from far away and the group understood that it was coming from the war dog handlers by the distance it originated from. They increased their speed. The hunters didn't need to inspect every direction to pick out a single one. A person was literally calling out to them. They broke into a sprint and the Shaman's horse took bigger strides. Soon, they arrived at the spot of the shouts and saw a warrior waving in front of them. The warrior looked shook beyond repair. The group halted to hear what he wanted to share. Just as they were about to ask, they wondered where his dog was and probed the area. The warrior didn't look in any condition to tell them anything. Some of them, had not seen deaths of their own in years and many, in their lives. They soon found what had reduced the warrior to the state that he was in. The war dog that had dragged him there was gnawing on a corpse of a tribesman that had entered the jungle unsupervised. The most senior of the warriors stepped up and tried to pull the dog away from him but the dog seemed to enjoy the tribesman. The group broke down in tears and some even whimpered in horror. Even the warriors were traumatized by the way the dog was feasting on a person that looked just like them. The Shaman looked at the horrifying scene and struggled to decide his next course of action. The warrior desperately tried again to pull the dog away amid the cries of the group and on another refusal of the dog he simply unsheathed his word and impaled it. The dog turned to him to try and fight him but the warrior was too better trained to be mauled by a dog while wielding a sword in his hands. He limited the job to two swipes and the dog dropped down lifeless. This further added to the horror of the group but only for a short while. They soon came back to their senses and so did the Shaman. The Shaman ordered the warriors to examine the body. A pack of three hesitantly approached the corpse and tried to look beyond the spots where flesh would have been before the dog tore it away. The panthers in the area had never been this aggressive. The villagers and tribesmen had spent their childhoods playing in these parts of the forest. They lacked the skill to differentiate between the bite of a panther and a bite of a dog. They struggled to find anything other than the wounds inflicted apparently after the death.
The Shaman unmounted the horse and walked up behind the men probing the corpse. He put them aside and dropped on his knees. He shifted the body in different positions and meddled with it. The rest of the group averted their eyes from the spectacle. After a while of probing, he cleaned his bloodied hands in the dirt and stood up.
"He was killed by man", the Shaman exclaimed. The group was not expecting to hear that. The villagers had never perceived the preacher as a fighting type. It's probably his ally's doing, they thought. The corpse had, along with scattered spots of missing flesh, a slash across the throat. The cut was too accurate and sharp to be caused by an animal. It must have been one hell of a sharp knife, the Shaman deducted. The brutal wounds inflicted by the dog didn't seem to have caused a loss of blood, indicating that the death had occurred a while ago. The rest of the group was deeply troubled by the thought of having a skilled fighter against themselves. They had barely wrapped their minds around the threat of panthers and other beasts but now this was bad news for their morale. The dog lied in a pool of its own blood alongside the defiled corpse. The older warrior wiped the sword with the furry leather on the dead dog and sheathed it.
The Shaman ordered the search party to keep on moving. The hunters found their place back at the front of the pack and started to navigate. The pack of hunters walked meters in front of the rest of them. The rest of the group tried to decipher the mysteries hidden in plain sight but failed miserably yet the hunters seem to find actionable clues in every few meters. The first piece of unanimously noticed clue appeared after a long hike. Another smothered bonfire. A few leftovers of fish. A sigh of relief would have arrived if the group was not as terrified. They were on the right path. The sun was losing its strength. The orange tint had started to appear on the few rays that managed to penetrate the dense canopy of the forest. The warriors somehow managed to find a few fragments of bravery left deep in them. The rest of the pack didn't even want to imagine themselves in the dark night in the presence of the beasts and the prey who had brutally wreaked havoc on their fellow tribesman. They just wanted it over before sunset. The hunters were hesitant but the apprentices and the volunteers were pale with fear. They had expected a simple search and capture mission. Things had long gotten out of their hands. Every crunch of a dry leaf or a crack of a twig ran a shiver down their spines.
A hunter stopped in his tracks and gestured the rest of the group to halt. He stealthily walked into the bunch of trees to his right. The rest of the group stared, paralyzed in anticipation. He finally stepped back into their view, shared a glance with the other hunters and they converged to him. They had a brief consultation and finally waved the Shaman to take a look at what they had found. The Shaman motioned the senior warrior to accompany him, which he did. He unmounted his horse and walked to the hunters. One of them pointed him in the direction that he was supposed to look in. The Shaman felt the rage coming back to him. He clenched his fists with all his strength. A war dog lied slashed across its belly and its handler almost beheaded. Only a few tissues had made sure to keep the neck in one piece. The cut was deep enough to leave the bones bare. The Shaman was struggling to suppress his anger. A hunter approached him and pointed him to his far right. Nothing but a bunch of shrubs and bushes were visible on that side. The Shaman walked closer to the spot the hunter had pointed at. A dozen dead tribesman lied piled in the bushes. The pile was placed with an intention to hide them from plain sight.
"What the hell is going on!?", the Shaman exclaimed, ignorant to the effect it may leave on the rest of the group. The preacher could not possibly be that skilled or resourceful, he was certain of that.