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.

[Serril Indaiyu]

Back at the Grove...

Supper came and went, with no sign of either mama or Sibi. It left Serril without much appetite. He gave Tatva the pickle that came with his supper, and spent most of the night pushing acorn porridge around in his bowl, his head turning here and there to try and catch sight of his missing family members. When supper ended, Serril helped Tatva with cleanup, carrying trays laden with empty wooden dishes back to the community kitchen. Normally, cleanup duty was drawn by lots just like all of the work done around the Grove, but parents always reserved the right to pile extra chores onto naughty children.

"Mama and Apple missed supper. When are they coming back?"

"I don't know. They're out awful late for a patrol." Tatva frowned, scouring another plate in the basin before rinsing and adding to the clean stack. "Say, what was everything going on with you and Papa?"

"I'm not supposed to talk about it." Serril replied sullenly, scraping acorn porridge off a ladle as he sighed. Most people liked having a secret to keep. Serril hated it. It felt like somebody standing on his chest, making it hard to breathe. Worse still, it was a terrible secret.

Tatva looked down at her baby brother with a raised brow and a flicking ear. "Never known you to be one for secrets. It's alright." She raised her suds-covered hands with a grin. "Keep your secret. I don't want to get you in any more trouble."

"How'd you know I was in trouble?" Serril took a half step back, ears askew with a wary look on his face.

"Did he pour you a glass of milk?"

"Uh huh."

"That's a trouble talk."

"Oh."

Serril carried a stack of pots and pans precariously over to the basin, setting them down to the side with a clatter.

"Is your trouble a secret too?"

Tatva grimaced, glad she was looking into a cookpot and not at Serril at the time.

"Oh, um, yeah. Yep."

"Is this about the sugar beets you hid in the hollow tree with Jobi Ounay?"

Tatva's expression turned slightly dumbfounded. "What?"

"Ya know the other day, I saw you and Jobi go hand-in-hand, and you said you wanted some sugar, then you both went in the tree. I went over there later to get some too, but there weren't any m-"

The cream patches on Tatva's face turned a shade of strawberry, and she placed a soap-covered hand over Serril's mouth before he could say any more.

"If you never say that to anyone ever again, I just so happen to know that Laughs-Big put half a pecan pie in the pantry. She won't miss a few slices, once we're finished up."

Serril spit out a few bubbles, making an icky face, but his ears perked up immediately at pecan pie, then immediately lowered.

"We're not supposed to eat from the kitchen after supper's done, though." Serril said it wholly without conviction, his appetite coaxed back by the promise of sweets.

"You're a criminal now, Climbs-a-Lot. It's time to embrace a life of crime. Little crimes, like extra pie." Tatva winked, and Serril laughed.


The work passed in better spirits, even after Gadroh Wannigan had packed up his banjo. Finally, there was pie. The two Indaiyu kids found seats at a small table, and had their late night pie.

"So are you and Jobi Ounay boyfriend and girlfriend?"

Tatva speared a bite of pie, narrowing her eyes at her inquisitive little brother.

"Do you even know what that means?"

"Sure. You're a girl, he's a boy, and you're friends." Serril crunched a pecan.

"There's a bit more to it than that."

Serril leaned back, crossing his arms. "This is one of those grown up things, isn't it?"

"Kind of."

The younger firbolg kicked his feet back and forth in his seat slightly as he disassembled the pecans from the top of the pie one at a time before working on the custard level.

"You've gone on patrols past the Bramble like Sibi does, right?"

"I don't usually go in the direction of the Bramble, but I have before. Why?"

"Have you ever seen anything bad?"

Tatva's brow furrowed. "What do you mean, bad?"

Serril twisted the tines of his fork into pie custard, his mouth turned into a slight frown. "I dunno. Monsters and stuff?"

"Well, I've seen a few. Sometimes they drift into the Wild from beyond. We usually just scare them away."

Serril said nothing. He had a strange look on his face. Tatva was about to say something, when she noticed a light through the nearest window, in the direction of the lodge.

"That's weird. Why's a light on at the lodge at this hour?"

Serril grabbed his pie crust and headed to the window, munching it as he watched the dim light in the distance. A shadow passed in front of the light, then another. The light snuffed out, then the doors creaked open.

"That's Sibi and m-" Tatva's hand clamped over Serril's mouth, pulling him away from the window.

"Keep it down!" She hissed "I know you're new to getting in trouble, but the lesson you're supposed to learn is how *not* to get caught."

They listened from within the kitchen as sounds of conversation came from outside....

[The Dungeon Master]

Eshket was a good deal sorer now than when their journey had begun. If it wasn't bad enough knocking into roots and stumps she couldn't properly see with a burlap bag over her muzzle, she'd been made to crawl through a seemingly endless patch of twisting briars with dagger-like thorns in every direction. Despite her thick fur, her hide was now covered in dozens of tiny punctures and tears that stung no matter how she moved.

And once they're left the briars, she'd been blindfolded, and a few miles after that she was made to lie down on a tarp and wrapped up to be slung over Crazy-Mountain's back like a deer freshly taken from the hunting tracks. She'd whimpered at first, sure she was to be weighted down with stones and sunk in a river, but a harsh whisper from the horned firbolg convinced her to suffer in silence.

And then she began to hear chattering voices, scattered footsteps, the clucking of chickens. And she smelled even more: sweat, wood smoke, leather and lumber, the tantalizing savor of cooked food, though not, she noted with disappointment, the tang of roasted meat. She knew she had been brought to their settlement. And now her terror renewed, as she was certain they would not let her leave alive.

A door creaked, and the bustle of the village was muffled away as she passed into some sort of room. There was conversation she did not understand, and a sharp poke that made her yelp through her muzzle. At last she was dumped onto a hard-packed earthen floor, and the tarp was pulled away, leaving her blinking in the dim torchlight as tall creatures gathered around her with varying expressions of horror and wrath. She rasped pathetically until her muzzle was removed. She worked her stiffened jaws and spat out foamy flecks of dried drool.

"Wa... waaaaaa... terrrrr," she begged.

[Serril Indaiyu]

One of the prime elders reached for a clay carafe, pouring some lukewarm water into a simple drinking vessel, which was passed to the Gnoll. Beyond, elders from both prime and nomad families were murmuring. It wasn't a full moot, with a quarter of the elders in the room.

"They speak common words." Crazy-Mountain assured the other elders. She'd come with her war club, though she was mindful enough to clean the blood and gore on the return. It would do no good to return home with such a grisly display.

"We encountered four, east of the pass, north of the Bramble. This one claims they are the prisoner of the others and used as a guide. There may be merit to it. The others look unlike gnolls we have seen in the Wild before.

As for those, we left them slain for the beasts."

The murmurs intensified. Mrs. Broadleaf spoke up. "There will have to be penance. The covenant..."

"I am aware of debts to pay. We each took a life. There will be time for penance for each of us."

Crazy-Mountain gestured at Eshket slightly with her club.

"This demands more of our time. Agree?"

Mrs. Broadleaf looked to her larger nomad counterpart, nodding. "I know that you wouldn't have done it if it wasn't necessary. The need is urgent." She turned, giving Eshket a scrutinizing eye, crossing her arms over her chest.

"How many were with your band that came into the Wild? Tell me of your leader."

[The Dungeon Master]

Eshket gripped the earthen mug as well as she could with her paws still bound and half-numb, and rather than trying to tilt the vessel into her muzzle, which she knew would splatter most of it across her chest, she sent out her long, pink tongue to lap at it until her throat was less parched. She hunched submissively as she listened to the cow-men deliberate in their strange, airy language. And then she lifted her head when Mrs. Boadleaf addressed her.

The first question gave her some trouble, in one part because she did not know where the cow-men's concept of the Wild began, and in another because she did not typically need to count so high. She did not know the names for such numbers.

"The hunting band you found was one of many," she said, haltingly. "There are many more back at camp, beyond pass. Not yet in your Wild, but coming."

She spent a moment in silence ticking her fingers while mouthing the count in Abyssal, four fingers to each paw. Then she looked up at each member of the assembly and ticked off eight fingers again... and again... and again...

At last she held up her paws, fingers all raised. "This many... twice... for each of you in this room. Not one tribe. Best warriors from six, maybe seven tribes. Together under Tanar'ri. Demon of flesh and fire."

She shuddered, eyes wide to show the whites at both the top and the bottom. "Everywhere Tanar'ri goes, she demands tribute of strongest, fastest gnolls. Tribes send what they have, even if none left to hunt for winter. Those who do not send..."

Eshket looked up, her eyes shining in the torchlight. "...My tribe... burned. Taken by force."

[Serril Indaiyu]

More murmuring spread through the half dozen elders. This was an invasion.

Windra Broadleaf looked back to Crazy-Mountain, who shook her head. She wasn't familiar with the name, either. Demon required no translation, however. Her expression was hard and serious, milky eye glinting in the torchlight.

"What can you tell me about Tanar'ri?" Windra asked. How do so many Gnolls owe fealty to one?"

[The Dungeon Master]

The gnoll swallowed hard, faltering under that milk-eyed stare. The word fealty was not in her modest vocabulary, but she felt she could make sense of the question.

"She is... small, but powerful," she said. "Smooth skin, like those who tunnel under mountain. Eyes like fire. Hair like blood. And magic... fierce magic. Flames bend to her will. Devour everything in her path."

Eshket's eyes flicked from Mrs. Broadleaf to Crazy-Mountain. "They believe she is chosen by Yeenoghu. To them, her power will be their power, if they follow. Those who do not believe are afraid. I am afraid. You should be, too."

[Serril Indaiyu]

Sibi sat heavily into her seat at the back of the lodge room, Eshket's words landing like a cudgel. If what she was saying was true, a hundred or more Gnoll raiders were on their way. The three they fought were more than enough! Sibi massaged her sore shoulder, the flesh still pink from where the bite she'd sustained had been freshly healed. All she could see when she closed her eyes, however, was that one bloody moment, watching the life ebb out of the Gnoll's eyes as it died with her spear in its belly. She grimaced, unable to get the thought out of her head, like picking at a wound and perpetually delaying its healing. She blinked hard once she felt the warmth of her mother's hand on her shoulder. Sibi looked up to see her mother.

"Eldest-Daughter, I know your heart. I know your pain, because it is mine also." There was the faintest crack in Kam's voice as she spoke softly, only for her daughter. Sadness creased here expression, even if reserved. "We can't show that here. There will be time for that. Soon."

Sibi traced a finger up, finding a tear she didn't know she'd spilled. Discretely, she blotted the moisture away.

"Mama, I'm scared."

Kam considered Sibi's admission, and nodded.

"Me too. We can't show that here, either."

Kam's hand reached down, lacing her fingers with her daughter's own. They held hands, then Kam parted, looking back briefly to Sibi as she returned to the interrogation.

"Your Tanar'ri has raised an army. Why? What does she want?"

[The Dungeon Master]

Again, Eshket did not answer immediately, but this time it was not for a lack of understanding. She stared at the dirt floor, and her panting breath quickened into soft, nervous yips, what smooth-skins took for laughter, but among gnolls could mean a hundred different things. Right now, it meant terror.

"I don't know," she said. She looked up into Kam's eyes, trembling. "I don't know. Maybe your warriors. Maybe your food. Maybe there is some treasure you have that she desires. Whatever it is, you must give it to her. Or she will burn all you have and take it anyway. You are just one step on the path to her."

[Serril Indaiyu]

Mrs. Broadleaf looked back to Kam, who nodded.

"Show her."

Windra approached Eshket, and knelt in front of the Gnoll, unfolding the crumpled, slightly-bloodied note with a sketch of a carved, forked branch on it.

"Have you seen this before?"