Something as old as sin lies caged beneath the hangman’s tree. Gnarled old roots twist in thick knots around its limbs. It lies in wait, ancient heart beating too slowly to register as a rhythm.

The creature has four long limbs, each with an enormous paw and dull claws. It has a long snout, filled with more sharp teeth than should fit. Long hair spills from its emaciated sides. It suffers not torment for its long confinement. It waits for its purpose to be filled again.

It has been summoned, and it has been kept, and it has been called into action so many times before.

And in this moment, this one terrible moment, it can feel the slow blood in its ancient veins quicken with movement. It shivers with anticipation.

Above, on the ground, a foot slips against one of the containing roots. In that instant, the beast that dwells below knows that which has touched upon its cage. It knows the crimes. It knows every one of the ill-intentioned actions. It knows the just punishment owed by the unrepentant.

But the cage does not break. This one’s sins weigh not heavily enough on the balance of the heart against the feather of truth. The beast must wait.

“She’s gone into the woods!” It hears the words, but it cares not what they mean.

A set of paws touches the tangled cage of roots and shortly after, their master.

“I’m right behind you!” The voices do not bother it, muffled by so much dirt and debris.

A deep purr escapes the beast. Too low to be audible, it disturbs only the worms that work their way through the dirt. A person with so few crimes to their name is a rare and beautiful thing. It warms the creature like a beam of precious sunlight. There is a pause, and the creature feels comforted enough by this to rest.

It settles, resting the long, horrid snout in among the grasping roots that hold it secure.

When the presence of that lighter soul has left, it has already nearly returned to slumber.

And then.

A foot treads upon the ancient roots.

Now this one is not like the others. The weight of its villainy is every bit as heavy as the precious one’s was light.

The creature can smell it. It can taste the malice which twisted that mind into commanding the body to perform heinous actions.

“He’d water you well,” that horrid thing speaks, as if it knows the beast lurks below. “If he knew all the details, there’d be a feast for these old roots.”

It can feel the slick blood, the cut of the wire, the pull of the bowstring, the lighting of the torch. It can feel the weight of the noose in his hands.

It knows full well what this man is about.

“Well, I can’t let that happen, can I?”

And the man’s weight crushes one of the woody bars of the cage that hold the beast down.

It stirs, so, so slowly.

It is not a fast process to dig oneself out of a cage meant to hold for eternity.

It is not fast enough to snap its jaws and take the murderer to his just reward immediately.

It is not fast enough to see which way he goes after leaving the shade of the hangman’s tree where fair Justice has left her least pleasant pet caged.

The creature begins its escape slowly. Its heart speeds in its chest, gaining life in its limbs as it grows more and more aware of more of its surroundings.

Mud sucks at its long hair, pulling it into the earth as if the cage desires to keep it held in place even though none of its supports remains. Roots snap as the sinewy limbs stretch and claw toward the surface.

The long snout emerges first. Teeth snapping at the air in vicious fury, it rips its way through the wooden cage.

But there is something in the way.

Something prevents it from emerging and engaging fully with the world.

It is raining.

The deluge of moving water prevents the creature from moving. It feels to the beast like a fog on its thoughts. It cannot concentrate. It lacks focus.

It cannot move, for the rain pulls it down to the ground, where it must sleep.

The rain is too much.

Too much.

It yearns to run. It aches with need.

There’s a monster that must receive what it is due. This creature’s entire purpose is to reap what others sow. It cannot fill that dire goal while each fat drop of rain batters it into a prostrate position, belly dragging on the ground as it pulls itself forward by inches.

The last part of the creature to emerge from its ancient cage is its long, shaggy tail.

The creature inches forward, using its blunt claws for leverage and gaining ground at a merciless crawl.

The rain is implacable.

But the creature is patient. Nothing can stop it. It is as implacable as the rain itself.

And the longer it spends free from the grasping cage of the hangman’s tree, the greater its awareness spreads.

The creature knows more about its nature. It knows its design.

And it knows its name.

Khuldral.

In an older language, it might have meant something at one point in time.

Now it is just a name, and one that has lost all other meaning.

Khuldral senses that the rain has lessened, not by hearing it lighten or feeling fewer drops upon its hairy flanks. No, Khuldral knows the rain has let up because its tail lifts off the ground and returns with a great, loud thump.

The hangman’s tree lies silent behind it, with twisted roots ripped to shreds at its base. The ancient and sturdy tree will not survive another year so damaged. Water already pools in the hole left by the creature’s absence.

A rot will replace it.

Khuldral lifts its long snout from the ground where the water running from the sky has forced it to drag.

It takes a long sniff.

The damp air muddles Khuldral’s sense. It can taste the faint taint of the sins of mankind from every direction.

It licks its nose with a long black tongue. Ropes of saliva fall from its maw as it huffs in the scents of petty meanness that invade everyday life. The resentment that builds over small wrongs is not the thing that it so desperately seeks. There are too many of those, and while they are deserving of ire, they are not enough to wake the beast to its grand purpose.

The creature creeps along as the rain lessens to occasional drops from the heavens above.

It gains the ability to lift its belly from the dirt.

Khuldral, the hideous pet of Justice, stands on all four of its paws, as tall as a man at its shoulder. It shakes itself as though it were a mere dog. Rainwater sprays from its long, limp hair in great arcs.

It has come from the earth where the dead should rest. Thousands of years have passed by since magic entombed it beneath the tree. The sapling planted at its head is now an elder tree and not long for the world anymore.

It has come with a purpose. And it has come with a vicious hunger.

Khuldral has not eaten. It does not know the taste of that which would feed its flesh or its soul.

But it knows.

It knows what it seeks.

With another long sniff of the air, the creature also knows which direction its quarry has fled.

There is still too much water, and it is still too fresh from the ground to give swift chase.

In frustration, it sits back on its enormous haunches. It lifts its shaggy head toward the lightening sky.

And it howls.

The sound that issues forth is a challenge. It is a threat. It is a promise.

It is an oath.

The long single note carries well across the landscape.

People in their safe homes in quiet Aegis lock their doors in fear. Shepherds alert as their flocks stampede in panic. Dogs bark angry replies.

And somewhere in the woods, a man knows fear.

Khuldral snorts dismissively. It shakes its mighty head to clear the hair from its beady gold eyes. Limp wet strands of black hair fall into place. It stands, slowly and agonizingly, against the rest of the falling rain.

And it walks, step by careful step, into the woods.

And the woods know it.

And it knows the woods.

They are not enemies, these two ancient things. But nor are they friends.

Drops of remaining water fall from the tree and hinder the creature’s movement. It pushes through the underbrush, thin limbs ignoring that which would hamper a lesser beast. Though the trees scrape and claw at its hairy hide, Khuldral slowly makes its way further.

It aches to sink its teeth into that which evades it.

But there are rules.

It follows the stench of sin, of sweat and blood and lust and money and all the things that make a man into more of a monster than even it. For a man makes a choice and a creature such as this serves its one and only purpose.

And that purpose is to hunt such a man.

But there are rules. And one of them is that it cannot cross running water.

And where does it find such a man?

He is sitting in the middle of a river, just far enough from either bank to be out of reach by fiat of unnatural law.

With the scent of this horrible creature in its nostrils, Khuldral lowers itself again to its belly. It lurks, patient as stone, hidden in the deeper shadows of the menacing woods. It licks its teeth in anticipation.

He will walk right into them.

The monster doesn’t even know that the woods, too, have teeth.