Caitlyn sat on the tree limb, more than 12 feet above the ground, with a small torch tacked into the trunk beside her, burning low.  She looked away from all the sources of light, preserving her night vision.

Fawnlum could feel the oppressive atmosphere filling the night around them.  She glared into the darkness, then at Caitlyn, who gripped her bow tightly.  The will that Caitlyn had spoken of – the spirit that wanted to harm the living – etched at her thoughts, acting as a slow poison to her spirit.

She resisted the temptation to draw her saber and swing at the darkness.  She steeled herself, pushing back the gloom’s influence, and waited for their enemy.

Sye-nitch watched, hanging back as Bloggo exited his shroom.  Thelch and Ulgger, his two lieutenants, led their own small groups from the sides.  Bloggo gave the signal, and the boys closed in on the glow of the campfire in their usual formation.

To Sye-nitch’s point of view, the lookout in the tree was staring away from him.  The fools had three smaller fires going.  The little flames were burned down to coals, making little light.

Nothing but the humans’ snores could be heard, along with occasional strange chirping sounds of some creature he did not know.  He kept his eyes on the patterns of heat surrounding each human body, as the fighters closed the circle.

He jumped, as a sudden clatter of branches and howl of alarm shattered the silence.

In the instant it took him to realize Thelch was caught and hanging upside down from a tree, he dropped to the ground, making less of a target of himself.

Among its other gifts, Khostead’s western seashore was home to a particular species of sea-life.  Fittingly called ‘fire-eels’, these large, serpent-like creatures could create heat, turning surrounding water warm.  If they were gathered in a pod, they could turn the ocean into a boiling cauldron.  Vicious when provoked, their dripping blood would burn a human’s flesh.

As soon as the ‘twang’ of the snare snapped through the night, Sienna and Dreighton sprang up, each grabbing a torch tipped with a bit of oil procured from fire-eel flesh.  Especially potent, fire-eel oil would light with the slightest spark, and burn especially quick, bright, and hot, putting all other oils to shame.

The Coastals lit their torches in the glowing coals, and threw them as they flared to life.  The burning missiles – terribly bright even for human eyes  – brought a chorus of outcries from the tri-cleorps.

Fawnlum stood in the glow, the whole scene laid out before her.  She rushed a tri-cleorps gripping his eyes, and slashed his midsection.  She was closing on another enemy before the body hit the ground, and Caitlyn’s arrows flew above her head.

Sye-nitch kept watching from a distance, leaving the actual combat to the fighters, and experiencing a sinking feeling in his guts with each outcry.

As he slunk away and back to a gate-shroom, he willed himself to think quickly, about how he was not going to lose his life over this.

Fawnlum picked up one of the torches, and surveyed the scene around her.  The fight was over; the bodies littered the ground.

Rather, most of the bodies were on the ground – – she had killed the one hanging in the snare.  She ventured out into the darkness, looking and listening as sharply as she could.

Satisfied, she made her way back to the campsite.

“Caitlyn?  Any more?”

“No,” came the answer from above.

Sienna and Dreighton snuffed the torches to preserve the oil.  They let the night come again around the soft glow of the campfire, and allowed the darkness to sharpen their other senses.

Sienna stood up as she cut the right ear from one of the kills.

“It’s not right,” she said.  “This cursed air weighs on our spirits and slows us down.”

“Endure it,” Fawnlum said.  “Intrude on it with a warrior’s heart.”

Dreighton spoke up.  “This was a lucky spot!”

“We’re moving on at first light,” Fawnlum replied.

Sye-nitch walked out of the dimensional door, once again into the grove of giant shrooms filling the cavernous room.

There were more lookouts present than fighters; and that suited him just fine at the moment.  His tribesmen’s curiosity about the raid increased as he remained silent.  Word was going to reach his company leader anyway.  He knew the warm flush on his skin was visible, telling the story.

Then he turned with everyone else, as a groaning and cursing filled the chamber, and Bloggo emerged from another door, an arrow embedded in his right shoulder.  The warm blood shone like a kindled fire as it seeped from his skin.

Another fighter – Hunshuh – stood up at the sight.  Bloggo walked past him, proudly showing he was not dead yet, and, dropping his sword, sat on a stone bench.

Sye-nitch watched as the now-packless leader sputtered under his breath, trying to pick at the protruding shaft.

No one moved to help him, as kindness was not the common practice of tri-cleorps.

Nobody saw Sye-nitch, as he picked up the dropped sword, and walked right past the onlookers.  Before Bloggo could say anything, Sye-nitch plunged the blade into his chest.

Hunshuh roared in anger, and wheeled on Sye-snitch, but the smaller lookout held his ground, brandishing the sword and ready to defend himself.

“What are you about?!”

“He deserved it.”

The statement caught the stupid fighter off guard, and gave Sye-nitch his chance.  He locked eyes with the fighter, to distract from his trembling hands around the weapon’s handle.

“The surface-scum had a fire, and this idiot walked our pack right up to it!  They’re dead, all of’em!”

He watched the anger in the fighter’s burning cheeks.

“Yer lyin’!”

“If he had won, he would have said so as soon as he came back,” Sye-nitch said, nodding toward the body.  “We would also have the captured meat all ready to present to the Oolar.  If you don’t believe me, go up and see for yourself!”

Hunshuh glared at him, but made no move.  There was no love lost between the smaller lookouts and the arrogant fighters.    The other lookouts stood around Sye-nitch, adding their support to their comrade.

“We’ll take him to the nemeq pits,” Sye-nitch said, ending the conversation.  “It’s all he’s good for now.”

“No!  Take him down the darkest tunnels,” Hunshuh said.  “Let the deepway beasts have him.  And keep this quiet!” he added.

Sye-nitch nodded, and lowered the sword.  “Come on, boys,” he said to the other lookouts, bending down to take hold of the corpse.  “Hunshuh can tell Imep what happened.”

He would be blamed if a squad died, because, as the fighters saw it, the weaker lookouts should be blamed for everything.  But now the higher-ranking pack-leader had paid for the failure.  He was safe.