Spooktober 2025: Foes

Previous Chapter Spooktober 2025: Remote   The marching boots drew steadily close, and I am not a shamed to say that I panicked. The only thing I could think to do, unencumbered as I was and with an entire mountain to flee to, was to climb one of the trees by the spring. I picked a nearby cedar, needles thick and healthy, and scrambled up it with surprising agility. At the last minute I remembered to reach down and pull the staff up behind me, before making my way around the trunk so that I could just see the animal trail I had used to approach the spring.   I hugged the trunk, shivering, hoping that the rattling of my teeth (or more likely the staff clenched my had rattling against the tree) wouldn't give me away as, with a bit of luck the shadows deepened. The wind also seemed to pick up, waving the branches around me more and hopefully covering any sounds that I was making.   I tried even harder to still myself as the people making the footsteps came into view. There must have been two dozen, wearing a mismatched assortment of armor. The one thing that unified all of them was the curious helms they all wore, the silhouettes reminding me of nothing so much as a great horned owl. I thanked the stars that they moved without the owls silence. With that thought the staff in my hand let out a thrum.   When the reached they pond the group came to a stop, and one knelt down and stuck a finger in the pond, giving it a brief taste before holding up and amulet and spitting on it. Symbols lit up in sequence around the edge, either catching the moonlight as the amulet spun, or lit by some magic. I hoped the former, as the latter would surely dash any hopes I had of escaping this group.   "Nothing" the holder of the amulet muttered, "The trail ends here."   A second voice from within the group spoke up, "The trail never ends. The wind carried the song to us, and it would never lie. They are on the mountain somewhere, and we will find them before they leave it."   The speaker came forward and looked around, scanning the tree-line, and I felt for a moment that our eyes must have met, though in they continued turning. "Light the torches, signal the others. we will encircle the mountain and flush them towards the summit."   I prayed that "they" was not me as I tried to sink further into the shadows, but deep down, I knew that it was. Unbidden, the song that I had been humming earlier came to my mind, the staff in my hand seeming to thrum in time to the music in my head, the shadows around me darkening despite the strange blue light given off by the torches being lit by the group below me.   Next Chapter Spooktober 2025: Swift