The Black Woods were a strange place, unlike other forests I’d been through in the past. The black trees were packed closely together in some areas, and further apart in others, and they lacked any truly distinguishing marks. Luckily, between my compass and the tracks I was following, I had a way to keep my bearings. The tracks were mostly uniform, and from the way they were spaced I could tell they were moving the dirtbikes slowly through the uneven terrain in order to avoid accidents. I felt it was foolish of them to take the bikes at all, but to the Horde leaving them behind had likely been something they’d found unconscionable. As I was following the trail I received a notification.

Congratulations Citizen! You have earned a rank in tracking! Like the brave Indian on the fertile grasses of the west following herds of buffalo, you carry on a proud tradition!

I still didn’t know exactly what the hell a buffalo was, but hey progress was progress. I continued making my way through the woods and following the signs left by the patrol when I noticed something. A fresh set of footprints following behind the tracks of the Horde patrol. They weren’t human. There were two pairs of them that lined up with each other and left deep impressions in the ground which led me to believe that the creature walked on all fours and was massive. As I followed the sets of tracks, I noticed the large creature would break off in another direction, then return further down as the patrol got further and further in. I realized after a while that whenever the beast’s footprints would return, one of the patrol’s sets of footprints would vanish. The beast was intelligent, whatever it was, and it was stalking the patrol to take it out one person at a time.

I followed the tracks into a clearing, and found the first few of the patrollers. The smell of blood was heavy in the air, several trees had been torn down, and there were four dead men on the ground. I noticed dozens of shells scattered all around, as well as what looked to be a broken piece of treated wood shaped like a pole. I examined the corpses. All of the men had been torn to shreds. I could see a mixture of bite and claw marks that went deep, too deep to survive. Aside from the red blood of the dead men, I could see a large pool of black blood in the clearing’s center, as well as torn off patches of black fur. I examined the spot closely, and noted that there were a number of tracks near the blood and it seemed to move in a specific direction, as if the creature had been dragged away when it had been killed.

I went back over to the bodies to examine them more closely. Three of them were what I’d expected. Men covered in tattoos, bolts and other jewelry still on the bodies, though some of it had clearly been removed which meant some of the patrollers had survived to remove them. The fourth body was a surprise. He was wearing some kind of metallic body armor. It looked newer than the scrap I’d usually see raiders wrap themselves in, and there were deep rends along it from the creatures hands. The body had no tattoos or jewelry. I stepped away from the body to get a better view of the armor as a whole. It reminded me of something I’d see on one of the Gavain book covers. Like something a knight would wear.

I looked back over the tracks and this time I carefully counted them to determine the number of people who’d been involved in the skirmish. I figured that there were at least a half dozen more people involved than just the patrol. Their bootprints were heavier, and I guessed they were likely armored in the same way that their dead companion had been. I looked back over the scene and did my best to reconstruct it in my head. The creature had been following the patrol since shortly after they’d entered the woods. It had stalked them silently and efficiently, picking off those in the rear as the party slowly made their way forward. Eventually, someone had likely noticed that several of their men had disappeared. That led to the discovery of the creature, and a fight breaking out. The beast charged, with enough strength to fell trees, and the patrol unloaded their guns on it. Sometime in the middle of the fight, a third party arrived. They attacked the beast, losing one of their own men in the process, and together with the patrol they managed to bring it down. After the fight was over, the beast was carried off in another direction, and both the original patrol and the new group headed that way.

Well, that direction was certainly looking like the way I’d need to move to figure out what exactly was going on. I started to follow it, when suddenly I smelled something strange. A powerful musk seemed to fill the air. It was the same scent as what I had smelled of the beast that had been killed, so for a moment I thought I was smelling something lingering from it, but then the musk grew stronger. I ducked behind some trees, outside the clearing, and held my breath, hopeful that my black clothes would provide me some measure of camouflage in the dark woods I found myself in.

The musk grew even stronger, and I heard quiet movement in the clearing. I risked a peek around the tree I was hidden behind. What I saw made me more afraid than anything I’d seen before. It was a massive black beast, almost twice the size of a car. Its black fur almost perfectly matching the trees that surrounded us. Its forearms were long and thick, ending in razor sharp claws the size of butcher knives. Its head was massive with a powerful set of jaws through which glimpses of large black teeth were just barely visible. I guessed it was some type of radded out bear. I’d seen bears before of course, even ones mutated in dangerous and terrifying ways, but this was on an entirely other level.

I watched it search the clearing. It moved things to the side with its snout and claws, sniffing the air and observing everything around it. When it came to the pool of blood, it made a deep inhale, its massive chest filling with the scent of it. After that it stood up on its hind legs, and gave a kind of low terrifying whimper as if mourning its fallen brother. After that it slowly moved to the corpses that had been left and began enjoying a grizzly meal of them. It ate every bit, starting with the unarmored Iron Horde patrolman, and ending with the dead stranger in armor. It picked around the parts not covered in metal, but then seemed to lose patience and started biting into it, making a horrifyingly loud screech as its teeth crunched into the metal. When it was done, it shook out its fur and walked back into the woods. It was frighteningly quiet and its fur let it melt into the blackness of the woods almost immediately. The only indication I had that it was there was the musky smell it left in its wake.

I waited until its scent disappeared, and then began to slowly extricate myself from the tree I was hiding behind. I had more difficulty doing so than I expected, but I eventually managed to force myself to move. I had seen a lot of things, but that beast was beyond anything I could’ve expected. I had a distinct feeling that it, and its species, were likely the reason that no one who’d entered the black woods, ever returned.

That made the question of how in the radded wasteland of the world, had a group of people managed to survive living within the woods. A group that apparently had no guns to speak of, and was relying on primitive weapons as if they were a wild settlement. I shook my head to myself. Things never seem to become less complicated as they go on, only more. Still, I’d found no women’s bodies which meant that there was still a solid chance the Khan’s daughter was alive and among the group that had left the clearing.

I went back to the trail that had been left, and resumed my tracking. It was almost daylight out again, and I was hopeful that I could find the patrol, the strange group, and a safe place to lay my head without needing to be worried about a massive mutated bear tearing it off and eating it in one bite.

Just as the sun was starting to rise, I came out into the largest clearing I’d been in so far. I found myself, for the second time that day, completely at a loss about what I was seeing. In front of me, made of massive stone blocks and guarded by rows of defensive wooden stakes, was a castle. Not a ruined building made to look like a castle, or some old amusement park done up like one, but an honest to god castle.

I ran a hand across my face. For the first time, I felt myself missing just being a courier.