Trouble in Harthunn

[Gabhran(#15443)]

The unforgiving winter of Dunland has shown no mercy to the refugees who came to settle on the ruins of Hartthunn. The silvery white snow that thickly blankets all that is out of doors only looks soft and innocent. It has made an already hard life, even harder.

But ask any red faced child who plays in the snow about his life here, and he will tell you with a smile as bright as the sun on a clear winter day.

\"It was very hard at first. No one knew how to do anything! My mama was a seamstress and my papa was a moneylender back in Kierkgard. We had servants do everything for us. But now, mama splits the wood and papa learned how to hunt! I even help out too by herding the goats! Everybody helps!\"

That these people are not accustomed to the harsh lifestyle of the frontiers of Dunland is abundantly clear by the buildings that dot the landscape. Huts are lopsided, barns are barely held together, and the fences - if one can call it that - is pitiful. But every single person in Hartthun will puff out with pride and point at each and every structure and say \"I helped build that!\"

A village, if you can call it that, has sprung up within the Harthung Keep. But there are outlying farms in the distance. Those with some farming experience started to grow crop there, in hopes of someday, harvesting enough food to feed everyone here at Harthunn.

The day is overcast, but bright. The white blanket of snow reflects back the filtered light from the clouds and makes the countryside around Harthunn peaceful and serene. Lazy trails of smoke drift up towards the sky from most of the homes where fires burn for warmth. Some children are playing and laughing, but one sound echoes from the distance that disturbs the tranquility.

A figure is running from the north, yelling loudly and waving frantically as it fights to traverse the fresh snow that\'s fallen over loosely established walking paths.

[Carac(#32384)] Not all of those who\'ve wintered in Harthunn are refugees, knowing they would need some assistance in establishing their settlement and defending it, Carac left a handful of his Hawk behind to assist the new pioneers. One of those, Shaneon by name, is busy skinning a stag taken on this mornings hunt when he spots the figure running towards the settlement.

\"Looks like trouble of some sort,\" he says to others nearby as he rises from his crouched position by the carcass and wipes his bloodstained hands on his tunic.

[Gabhran(#15443)]

\"Oh, it\'s probably Jonathan. He is always screaming that there is something wrong with his sheep. Pay him no heed, lest you get suckered into relieving a constipated sheep with your bare hands.\"

The woman is Saffron, but isn\'t. The Saffron of old was a soft woman whose tender hands were perfect for tending babies and collecting eggs. Can this woman who now hoists an axe over her head to split wood with the precision of a swordsman be one in the same?

As the yelling.. no.. -shrieking- figure gets closer to the village proper of Harthunn, it becomes clear that it\'s a young woman. Her black hair is flowing behind her and her skirts are heavy with the dampness of wet snow weighing them down. She trips and falls in the snow, but immediately scrambles up again and continues racing through the snow.

Most might recognize her as the daughter of a weaver that lives in town by the name of Carliann, a rather sensitive young woman of nineteen or twenty. When Carli spots the men skinning the carcass she drops down to her knees in hysterical choking sobs, her bare hands pressed down against the slushy mud.

[Carac(#32384)] Shaneon, squints at the approaching figure and shakes his head. \"Ain\'t no man, Saffron,\" he says. \"It be the weavers daughter.\" When the woman drops beside them he scowls slightly, but says nothing, instead he looks towards Saffron.

\"Hunting, building, and patrolling,\" he says. \"That\'s what I\'m here for, dealing with crazed women is your job.\" He tries to put on a sympathetic face as he turns back to the sobbing woman, but it looks more the face of someone suffering from constipation. \"Easy now,\" he says. \"Saffron here will help you if you need it.\"

[Gabhran(#15443)]

Saffron sighs, then finishes splitting the last of the wood before driving the sharp axe into the stump. As some of the curious children begin to go towards the commotion, the sweaty woman stops them and points at the wood.

\"You know your chores. Gather the firewood and put them in the pile. Then when you\'re through gather the woodchips. Can\'t let any wood go to waste, no?\"

Only then does she walk over to the young girl with a reputation of being sensitive.

\"There there. What\'s wrong?\"

It takes Carlianne several minutes to get past her sobbing enough to form coherant words, and they\'re barely able to be followed at that. \"Was.. taking the blanket..\" She manages around several shuddering sobs. \"They\'re dead!\" The young woman looks up with a face that is red, tears streaked down her cheeks and a completely distraught expression on her face. \"Farmer Harold.. His wife.. In the snow! Mama told me-\" She chokes on another bout of tears. \"She said to take the blanket to them.\"

[Carac(#32384)] Shaneon frowns and looks off in the direction of Harold\'s farm. \"Dead?\" he asks. \"I just seen them both the day before last and seemed in fine health to me,\" he says. He begins to wipe his bloodied dagger blade on his cloak as he continues to look off towards the farmstead.

\"Can you say what caused it?\" he asks.

[Gabhran(#15443)]

Saffron wraps her arms around the sobbing young woman and lets Carlianne cry into her chest to comfort her. When Carlianne\'s head is held down, Saffron looks up to make eye contact with Shaneon as if to say There Goes Another One.

\"It happens, sweetheart,\" Saffron says in a comforting tone. \"The winter out here is not the same as Kierkgard. People aren\'t used to it. They wander out, it gets dark, and can\'t find their way. It\'s not your fault. There, there.\"

Carlianne lets herself be comforted for a moment, her thin frame shaking from cold and distress. \"No! No!\" The young woman looks up again, \"Killed! It\'s horrible! Something.. eyes.. someone ki-..\" She loses the shred of control she had and breaks into frenzied sobs again.

[Carac(#32384)] \"Killed?!\" Shaneon exclaims. \"Damn! Angus said he\'d sign of wolves, but I didn\'t think they\'d get this close to so many people.\" He shakes his head and then slips his dagger back into its sheath.

\"Finish up here,\" he says to one of the other men near the stag carcass. \"I\'ll go have a look at what\'s happened over to Harold\'s.\"

Then he turns towards Saffron. \"The two of you should come as well,\" he says. \"If she\'s capable that is.\"

[Gabhran(#15443)]

Another heavy, weary sigh, and Saffron nods slowly.

\"We\'ve had wild animal attacks of late.\" She reminds them both, and to some of the others who had come out of their warm houses to see the commotion.

\"But I thought they were foxes. Surely nothing big enough to kill humans. But you\'re right, Shaneon. If can find tracks, I think it\'s best that we gather the hunters and kill this beast before it kills another. I\'ll come with you.\"

\"Not an animal! A monster!\" Carlianne gasps, then pulls away from Saffron when Shaneon suggests she return with them to the farmstead. \"No! I\'m not going back! It\'s cursed by the forgoil!\" The girl struggles back to her feet and begins stumbling in the direction of her home.

[Carac(#32384)] This new outburst from Carlianne causes Shaneon to scowl. \"Monster!? Now don\'t start talking nonsense,\" he says, perhaps a bit too harshly. \"It\'s still winter, girl, the orcs are still trapped in the mountains. Besides, they travel in warbands, and we\'d have found evidence of them if any were around.\"

He then jerks a hand towards the south. \"As for the forgoil, girl, do you realize how many leagues north of the Gap we are? No forgoil would get this far into Dunland alive.\"

He adjusts his cloak and turns to Saffron. \"Bring her,\" he says. \"Don\'t need her spreading any rumors of monsters and forgoil.\"

[Gabhran(#15443)]

Saffron shakes her head.

\"Let her go, Shaneon. She has had enough. We can find the body ourselves. Let her go home. Besides, it is too late to stop any rumors.\" Saffron looks around at the scared look on the people gathered.

The Mistress of the Chicken Coop stands tall - as tall as she can given her short frame - and looks around those gathered. \"If the tracks are fresh, we can go after it. I don\'t see any storm coming so we can get far today. If not, we will need to figure out a way to trap this thing. If it has learned the taste of manflesh, it will be back, and we shall be ready.\"

She smiles reassuringly at the scared faces. \"You know Carlianne. She sees monsters in every shadows. It is probably a wolf, like Shaneon said. I will go fetch my cloak.\"

The girl rushes off, eager to be in the comfort of her home.

When those that are traveling to investigate are ready to depart, the path to the farm is easy to follow. There was only a light dusting of snow early in the morning and the wind easily blows it across the landscape, stirring up little swirling flurries with each gust.

The farmstead of Harold Pocket is set quite a ways from the main settlement in Harthunn. Harry staked his claim early on and worked hard all through the fall and well into winter to get his small family settled. He built the small home with the help of some nieghbors and put up posts to mark out his fields for next spring. He and his wife cleared the fields of debris, hauling away logs, garbage, and large rocks. The rocks were carefully lined up from the door of the home to outline a path and set the groundwork for a flower garden.

Near the house, a large old oak tree spreads it\'s leafless limbs up to the gray skies, and in the summer will cast shadows over a hastily built animal shelter where a few animals are kept. A goat, a couple of sheep, and a pig.

[Carac(#32384)] Shaneon excuses himself after Saffron\'s words to return to longhouse where he and the other Hawk have taken shelter. Though he scoffed at Carlianne\'s words concerning monsters and forgoil, the Hawk is equipped with quite an arsenal of weaponry when he returns. Longbow, longsword, handaxe, and a brace of daggers over his shoulder are visible, but there are bulges beneath his bloodstained cloak that suggest there may be more weapons beneath.

He says nothing but merely waves an arm for Saffron to come and heads off for the outlying farmstead. Upon arrival he looks about and gives a slight nod of approval. \"Harold picked himself out a good spot,\" he says eyeing the layout of the farm. \"See any tracks?\"

[Gabhran(#15443)]

Saffron\'s steps grow more cautious as she nears the farmstead. Her breath comes in white puffs that appear and disappear around her face. At Shaneon\'s question, she shakes her head. She then looks carefully around the grounds, looking for any signs of prey or victim.

\"I\'ll go check to see if it killed the livestock.\" Saffron announces before heading that way.

The most obvious tracks are those of Carlianne some time earlier. They go up towards the door of the house, where snow is pushed aside from it being opened, then seems to travel back away again and towards the small animal shed. About halfway to the shed, which is perhaps a hundred some paces from the house, there\'s a bright spot of color in the snow. It\'s the blanket that\'s left where Carli dropped it, green, blue, and yellow in alternating patterns. That\'s where the tracks stop.

Both the farmer and his wife are laying frozen in the snow. They\'re on their stomachs with a thin layer of ice over them, arms stretched in front of them as if drug into position. Both of their heads are pulled back to appear as if they are looking up from the ground, but the eyes have been gouged out. There are dark streaks of blood that flow down their cheeks, and where the grisly, hollow sockets should be, bright painted blue wooden beads have been pressed in.

Harold has a worn hat pressed into his head, and from beneath the rim clumps of yellow straw are sticking out. His wife has a scarf wrapped about her head and tied tightly, and the only hair that shows is also yellow hay that pokes out.

The gastly visages of both are staring sightlessly towards the south-east.

[Carac(#32384)] Shaneon spots the corpses and curses loudly. \"Kiern\'s balls.\" Moving towards the pair of lifeless bodies he kneels down at their side and shakes his head. \"Well it wasn\'t no animal that did this,\" he says with disgust. \"Can see why the lass thought forgoil were involved,\" he adds he removes Harold\'s hat and tosses the straw away.

\"They\'ve been here awhile, most likely happened sometime in the night for this much ice to be on them.\" He shakes his head and with a bit of effort attempts to turn Harold\'s corpse over to look for any other signs of who or what commited this atrocity.

Gabhran walks carefully around the grounds, away from where the bodies are. She has not yet seen them. The sound of her boots squeaking against the packed snow is unnervingly loud.

Even before she gets there, the noise of animals assure her that they are alive.

\"Goat, two sheep and a pig. That Farmer Harold. He told me a sob story that he lost his sheep so I gave him an extra dozen eggs.\" Saffron shakes her head while smiling a bittersweet smile.

\"What did you find, Shaneon?\"

Was Harold bald? Perhaps, perhaps not. The hat is plucked away and some of the straw sprinkles away while other pieces cling to the icy flesh. There\'s a wide, black bruise at the back of his head, the skin tender and swollen.

As Shaneon pulls the corpse up from the snow to roll it over, the snow beneath is stained a dark ruddy color from blood. The man\'s head was kept propped up from a sharpened tree branch that was driven in beneath his chin and the end pokes out, still.

Nothing was amiss in the shed, seemingly, other than a goat that grows noisy at the sight of a person in the doorway.

[Carac(#32384)] Shaking his head in disgust, Shaneon rises from his kneeling position as Saffron returns. \"Murder,\" he says simply as he points towards Harold. \"May their ancestors welcome them in the next world,\" he says softly and leans down once more to pull the branch from Harold\'s throat with some effort.

Tossing the branch away he next moves to turn his wife over. \"Tell me they didn\'t have any children,\" he says to Saffron as he grunts with the effort of turning the frozen corpse onto its back.

[Gabhran(#15443)] Saffron looks over the shoulders of those crouched and lets out a horrified gasp as she sees the corpses.

\"Children? No..\" she manages to say, in between her effort to keep from vomiting.

The woman has a similar stake shoved into her chin, but there is far less blood surrounding the wound. Her neck has thin red lines depressed into it that is likely from a cord used to strangle her. This one was dead before being drug outside. Harold was not so fortunate.

[Carac(#32384)] Shaneon rises from his crouched position and shakes his head as moves towards Saffron. \"Don\'t look at them,\" he says. \"They\'re beyond our help now.\" He places, what he hopes, is a comforting hand on her shoulder.

\"Damn,\" he says as he removes his hand. \"I should have brought some of the others with me.\" He shakes his head once more. \"Nothing to be done for it now.\" He pulls one of the daggers from the brace on his shoulder and holds it out towards Saffron.

\"I doubt the one responsible is still about, but better safe than sorry,\" he explains. \"Stay close to me and we\'ll check the house and outbuildings.\" He waits not for response, but begins to head for the door of the cottage.

[Gabhran(#15443)]

\"We\'ll have to have a proper burial,\" Saffron says biting her lip hard to maintain composure. Even though Shaneon bades her not to look, it is still too difficult not to stare in disbelief.

When he hands her the dagger, she takes it, accepting it with a practiced grip. Then and only then does she tear her gaze away from the corpses to follow the large man to the cottage.

Inside the house is a scene that is both ordinary and out of place. The small home has one main room and a small bedroom. There\'s little warmth to be had, for the hearth is cold. When they open the door a cat looks up from where it\'s curled on a quilt in a chair. At the dining table there are three chairs, one fallen back on the floor. A full meal is set out. There are two plates that still have food on them while a third is clean, and a glass of milk is spilled over, the liquid mostly absent from being lapped up by the cat. Everything is mostly ordinary at a glance.

Further study shows spots of blood on the wood planking of the floor. There\'s a fork beneath a chair, as if dropped. Near the cooking stove is a water basin that has thick clumps of hair floating in it.

[Carac(#32384)] Shaneon steps into the cottage, but keeps within arms reach of Saffron as he looks about the interior. His gaze settles on the table and the three plates and shakes his head yet again. \"I\'d say whovever was resposible had been invited to dinner,\" he says.

\"Whoever did this is beyond scum,\" he says. \"To kill someone after they\'d invited them to table . . .\" he shakes his head once more and falls silent for the moment. \"Don\'t touch anything. Might be something that can help find the bastard responsible, but I\'ll come back later to look for that. Right now want to make sure they\'re not still around.\"

[Gabhran(#15443)]

Saffron steps inside the cottage that she once helped build, looking around. \"How do you know he was invited to dinner?\" She is too jittery to notice any details, such as three place settings for a family of two.

Instead, she looks for the obvious: The murderer. And when the murderer isn\'t found, her next focus goes to a creature in need: The cat.

\"Come here kitty.. there there. That\'s a good girl.\" She scoops the cat into her arms and walks over to the cooking stove where she discovers the hair clump.

With a disgusted gasp, she staggers back.

\"Invited to dinner.. does that mean someone in the village did this?\"

The cat is delighted in the attention and immediately begins purring in Saffron\'s hold, slowly kneading paws against her arms. The hair in the basin is long and brown, and more than enough to have been an entire head\'s worth. Other than the two people investigating and the pet, there\'s no sign of life.

[Carac(#32384)] Shaneon\'s brow furrows in thought and then he shakes his head. \"Not from the village,\" he says. \"Least I don\'t think so. Most likely it was a traveler of some sort.\" He pauses once more and scratches at his head. \"Can\'t remember anyone saying anything about travellers coming through from the south. So, most likely they came from the north. Tharbad, I\'d no doubt. Nothin\' but scum lives in those ruins.\"

With a sigh Shaneon shakes his head once more. \"Don\'t look like there\'s anyone here, let\'s get you back to the others.\" He moves towards the door, but stops and turns to face Saffron.

\"For now,\" he says, \"if anyone asks was wolves that killed them. We tell the folk what really happened here and we\'ll have a panic on our hands. I\'ll round up my men and we\'ll search the area around town for strangers. May even send word to Carac in Mathain. Still, keep what we\'ve found quiet.\"