The sun had disappeared behind the castle's hill, making way for the night that would come to be known as the end of the Crosset Famine.

Darkness chased after the dozen men as they wound their way between leafless trees, batting away low-hanging branches and sloshing through muddied, half-melted snow. Crossbows and pitchforks jostled on their backs, falling loose from makeshift rope harnesses.

Bailiff Johnsy's plan was straightforward: Get the boy, and they would get the food.

He didn't give any directions for everything in between.

The only light came from a lamp held by the man in the lead: Draken Armorheim the Farmer. Most of the lamp's oil had burned away while they were lost. They must hurtle free of the forest before its last light flickered out. They couldn't camp out and wait another night; there was no telling how many more of their children, women and elders would succumb to hunger during that night.

No, it all ends tonight.

The lamplight fell upon a fallen tree lying across their path, reaching up to Draken's middle. Sighing in relief, Draken affirmed his grip on the lamp's ring and braced for the climb. He had just swung his first leg over the curve of the trunk when commotion broke out down the line.

"Move it, pig! Or I'll snap your neck-bone in half."

The large, bald man down the middle of the line snarled as he gave the leash another vicious yank. The fat little boy at the other end of the rope lurched forth. His dirt-smudged cheeks tensed in pain as the leash's noose tightened against his windpipe. Once he had regained his balance and his breath, he rearranged his features into a sneer.

"Spare me your empty threats. You need me alive to bargain with my father." He challenged, silvery eyes flickering with feigned bravado.

The hulking man with the leash smirked back. Hunkering down so he came eye-to-eye with his hostage, he whispered, voice low and trembling with tempered fury,

"Your dead body will do as well—skinned, quartered, butchered then fried in lard scraped from the wall of your belly. First meal in weeks for my boys."

"—And also their last, Krulstaff!"

Draken interrupted as he hurried towards the pair. The pudgy boy flinched and blanched in horror. Krulstaff's attention snapped to Draken, and Draken told himself to stand firm as he faced down his towering subordinate,

"Chione isn't even half done with us. We keep the boy safe here in Crosset, and his father will keep us all fed throughout winter. That's the plan!"

He reminded his obstinate fellowman for what he felt was the umpteenth time. Krulstaff snorted and shook his head. With one stride, he closed the distance between himself and Draken.

"Why don't you give me that, Armorheim?" He spat, his spade-like hand making a failed lunge for the lamp. "Because, unlike your son-of-a-whore in Meriton, my children are dying as you get us lost in this godforsaken forest!"

Krulstaff's voice rose to a bellow. Draken went paper-white, livid. Seizing Krulstaff by the collar, he snarled,

"Don't you dare—"

Before Krulstaff could retaliate, the other men hauled Draken away.

"He's got a point, Draken." Brodel called, indicating the sniffling boy with his pig-butchering knife. "We don't need him awake. We can move faster with this potato sack on our backs than oozing down here."

Draken glanced at the butcher and swallowed his anger as he remembered all that was at stake. Heaving a frustrated sigh, he gestured towards the boy.

"Cuff him one on the noggin—with the handle, mind! And give Krulstaff the blade if he doesn't shut it about my son." Giving the seething Krulstaff one last glare of pure hatred, he barked at the remaining men, "Move out!"

Before Brodel could take one step towards their squealing captive, the sharp crack of a breaking branch shot through the silence.

The men turned as one to peer into the dense wall of trees, where the sound originated. Crossbows raised and pointed towards a similar target, they backed away one wary foot after the other—then an arrow shot forth into the gloom from Krulstaff's bow.

"Oh, for the love of—!"

Draken's swear was drowned out by the scream of a young girl. However, when he dashed in to see to the poor lass, a gust of wind sent him somersaulting backwards as something barreled past him, crashing through the trees to land before the men.

The shroud of night had almost completed its descent upon the forest. The moon still had not risen. Their lamp was lost. The only pinpricks of light came from two disembodied, glowing green eyes, hanging in mid-air above their heads.

The eyes ricocheted in unseen sockets, glaring at each man spread out below as though the being could see them as clear as day, then vanished as the being issued a roar of rage and pain.

The ground shook and the trees shuddered. Startled birds fled into the night. Out of nothingness, a fan of orange flames blasted towards them. The kidnappers flattened themselves to the snowdrift for dear life, feeling the heat scorching the tips of their hair as it grazed pass.

The inferno collided with the trees behind them, which erupted to flames and flooded the clearing with much-needed light. The men resurfaced to a sight that just as soon made them wish they were thrown back into blindness.

A reptilian creature armored in glinting, metallic scales towered above, trees trampled like hay under gigantic silver claws. Acid-green eyes blazed above a long, narrow muzzle, tendrils of smoke trickling out between silver fangs.

Its claws carved deep welts into tree trunks as it spread its leathery wings wide before dashing forth, snatching the stunned young boy between its talons and soaring off towards the west, trailing the boy's pathetic screams behind it as it disappeared into the night sky.