“Impossible” Ginara whispered, as she crouched down beside Punol, just behind the crest of a small hill. They were looking over a valley that stretched for several miles.

“There must be thousands of them there. And are those tents? Firepits?”

The valley was indeed swarming with monsters, both Bigs and Littles. There seemed to be little order to the action happening below them, Littles running around seemingly at random, chasing each other, fighting, eating. The Bigs were less numerous, but still numbered in the hundreds. They were more sedate, but even as they watched, a fight broke out between two Bigs. Other Bigs were sitting and eating, hitting any Little that tried to steal the food, but passing out morsels seemingly at random.

“I don’t understand. This is culture, civilisation. They must be a type of people, Master Scout!”

“Shh!” Punol whispered fiercely. “They have excellent vision and sight. They will kill us if they realise we’re here.”

“Master Scout, how is this not more commonly known? These are not animals, they are people.”

“No! They may not be animals, but they are most definitely not people! They are monsters!” He whispered at her angrily. “Just watch and you will soon see why this mission can’t be done.”

Their goal to find an isolated Little had proven unfruitful, despite two days of searching. They had split into groups and made multiple forays out from their camp hidden in the forest, but while they had found plenty of signs of the monsters, they were all in large groups. After becoming frustrated, they had given up on that approach, and now Punol was making another attempt at proving that they should give up. That is how they found themselves sitting and observing a group of the monsters numbering in the thousands.

“See, look there!” He pointed to where one Big had won a fight by ripping out the throat of his opponent. Roaring in victory, he then prowled back to the fire he had been at before and sat, grabbing a chunk of roasted meat from another Big’s claws. The Big turned as if to protest, but stopped when the victorious fighter growled at him. Such scenes were repeating themselves throughout the valley, seemingly without cause or reason.

“But look there, Master Scout!” she whispered back, pointing at where a several Bigs were passing food to a group of Little. There was even a tiny Little sitting on the ground, who they carefully passed small bits of meat to. “That’s a family unit, or something analogous to it. They are even feeding a baby.”

“Mage, I am not saying that they are not intelligent. They may even have a sort of culture, although I have my own opinion on that. But they are monsters! They are not any form of man. Elves and dwarfs, even the Altenfer are still types of men. We may have different ideas and beliefs about things, but we all think in the same way. They do not! Their over-riding thought is that of hatred for all men. They will kill us if they get a chance to.”

“If they are monsters who want to kill us, why do they remain in the Badlands? Your town of Elderfalls is barely three days ride from it. Even the city of Delnata is just over a week away. Why haven’t they come out and done so? That group right there could destroy your town.”

“First of all, they could not. The people of Elderfalls are fighters and they aren’t about to let some monsters ruin their homes. Secondly, you only get such large groups here in the Lows, when the Bigs and Littles mix like this. In the Highs, the groups are much smaller and far more tribal. The biggest I’ve seen in the Highs is a hundred perhaps, although there have been reports of two hundred. They are very protective of their territories and would rather kill each other than risk losing it.” Punol hissed at they watched the crowd below them.

“And thirdly, groups do come out all the time.” Why do you think Elderfalls is three days from the Badlands? Anywhere closer and they come and attack constantly. It doesn’t matter how strong you are, constant monster attacks that never give up or retreat will eventually destroy a place. We didn’t see any of the old ruins on the way in, but we can stop by one on the way out, if you will give up this fool-baked goal of yours.”

“I have told you, Master Scout, that that is not an option. You have your job to do and I have mine. Neither of us has to like it, we just have to do it.” She replied haughtily.

“Now, why is Elderfalls safe? Why don’t they attack you?”

“Ohh, groups of the Bigs will chase a group back to Elderfalls if they get agitated enough, but once they get out of the Badlands, they seem to lose something. They are much easier to lose, so it’s not often a problem. And the town is always ready for them. Now quiet. If you want a lesson on them, we can do that somewhere safer.”

They say in silence for a few minutes. Punol watched the sky, then checked the shadows on the ground next to them.

“Alright, it’s almost time. Get ready to see something not many people have lived through.” He said to the Mage.

“And you are confident that this is safe, Master Scout? You said they could sense magic used for miles and that they were good trackers.”

“Don’t worry about that. The other scouts will have made scent tracks from an Equigare and an Orkanza. They are both monsters that use magical abilities to fight. They’ll drop the scent bombs by the shore, then head up the river. We use distractions like that all the time when we are trying to scout around the large groups. No, we are more at risk than they are.”

“What?”

“They get riled up by magic use. They won’t find the monsters, so they’ll come back and be in a mood. They are unpredictable when that happens, so we’ll be leaving here long before then.”

“And you’re sure that we couldn’t use this method to capture a single Little?”

“You’ll see, Mage” he said cryptically.

As the sun reached it’s peak, there was a flash from far in the distance on the other side of the valley. As one, all the monsters in the valley froze and looked in that direction. Then, almost as if they were honing in on a target, they all looked at the same point, standing as still as statues. There was a second flash and suddenly the valley was alive with frenzied motion. Most of the Bigs picked up the crude clubs they kept near them at all times and charged up the hills on the other side of the valley. Even as they ran, groups of Bigs started to form, until it seemed almost like units of soldiers. Meanwhile, every single Little in the valley ran to the middle of it and formed their own groups, sitting back to back, looking out. Around them formed a ring of the Bigs that had not left the valley, seeming to guard the Littles. While most of the Bigs looked in the direction that the others had charged, they watched all directions.

Punol saw one of the Bigs looking in their direction stop suddenly, as it looked almost right at them. He quickly pulled Ginara, who had frozen in shock at seeing what had happened, to the ground and then hissed at her “time to go! I don’t know if they saw us, but I wouldn’t bet that they didn’t. Feck!”

He swore again, and then pushed her roughly to make her start moving down the hill. He quickly pulled a leather wrapped bundle out from a pouch on his belt and dropped a few of the hairs inside it on the ground. Then he moved down the hill after the mage, carefully sweeping the ground with one hand, and using the other to make indents with his fist.

“Are we in danger, Master Scout?” Ginara asked as the reached the ponies they had tied at the bottom of the hill.

“No, we should be fine. They won’t leave the Littles unless they know for sure that we’re here, and even then they would only do it if threatened them. I camouflaged our scent and tracks, so hopefully they just think it’s another Orkanza. The fecking things normally travel in small packs, so they shouldn’t be too surprised by it. We’ll go the long way back to the camp and wait for the others.”

They mounted the ponies, thanking the mage’s guard who had remained with them and the three set off. They rode their ponies through a river for a short distance several times, almost doubling back on their path, then finally headed for the camp site. They started cooking a meal, with the other group arriving shortly before it was done. Immediately upon the second groups return, Ginara took Yarnis off to the side of the camp, where they sat and had a whispered conversation for some time.

Finally, Punol called over to them “Food’s ready. Come get it, if you want it hot.”

The four scouts and three guards all quickly took plates of the stew he had cooked and started eating. Not long after, the mages came and took their own plates of food. After taking a bite, Ginara turned to Punol.

“Master Scout, what are the options? How can we get a Little? Going back without one is not an option.”

Punol grimaced but before he could reply, Liaz spoke “You don’t take one, mage-lady. It’s impossible, even for the boss-man.”

Punol glared at Liaz, but the other man just grinned cheerfully at him.

“He’s not wrong. The only way I see of doing it is to find an isolated Little and grab him up. Even then, it’s gonna be suicide. We won’t be able to get away from them.”

“We can’t lose their scent like we did before?”

Punol gave a short sharp laugh before reply “with a Little? I don’t think so. I’m not even sure how we would keep it quiet long enough to get out of the Badlands, let alone back to town.”

Traymon whispered to Punol quietly “There is one option.”

“No! That is just a more painful form of suicide. If you want to die so badly, then go and leave off a cliff or something.”

Ginara looked sharply at them and asked “Good Master, what is this option? We are willing to try anything.”

Punol interrupted Traymon with a glare before he could speak.

“It’s not an option. It’s just a stupid idea that we discussed when we were trying to think of ways to do this job. It won’t work.”

“Never the less, we want to hear it, Traymon” Yarnis said in an arrogant tone.

“We’ll never get a Little from the big groups like you saw today. And there aren’t any wandering alone, which happens from time to time. However, some of the small groups that wander around the Lows are a mix of Bigs and Littles. If we track one until its far from any of the big groups, then you two mages can use your magic to incapacitate them, and we’ll run in and grab a Little then make a dash for it. If we drop enough scent bombs, it should throw them off the track long enough for us to get out.”

“It Resonating will not, Traymon!” Punol shouted at him. “All that will do is get every fecking pack of those feckers chasing after us.”

“Calm, Master Scout. Why do you say it is impossible? We saw today that we can lose their scent.”

“No, they never had our scent today. Even the other time when they chased us, they were reacting to the magic more than to us. But if we have a Little with us, then every last one of the feckers will be after us. And even if we ignore that, we would need a group far larger than this to deal with even a small group of the Bigs.”

Punol glared at them all, but Ginara just stared back at him calmly, before turning to Traymon.

“And you believe that we could do this? That if we incapacitate them, then you can get us out of the Badlands?”

“I believe that Punol could do it, no matter how much he might complain. But to be safe, we would need all of the others to be incapacitated for at least a day and you would need to get that all at once. Once they sense you using magic, they’ll react instantly, so you’ll only have one shot.”

“Don’t worry about that, Scout.” Yarnis interjected. “There’s a good reason that we were chosen for this mission. We are specialised at using magic for this sort of thing.”

“Yarnis is correct, Good Master. We can handle our end if you can find the group and lead us out. We must do this.”

Traymon nodded in agreement with the mages, then turned to Punol.

“What do you say? We need you in for this to work. If you’re not, then we’ll just have to do it without you.”

Punol glared at them all, trying to make them back down through sheer force of will, then finally swore to himself in defeat.

“Fine, we’ll try it. But you better make sure that you incapacitate them all, otherwise we’re bailing. Also, to be clear, we only get one shot at this. Even if we fail the first time, we have to run immediately. Even without a Little, we are still gonna be chased the whole time. We wont even have time to stop for camping until we’re at least out of the Badlands, so you better expect to be up for several days at least. I hope you all can sleep in the saddle.”

“Thank you, Master Scout. We are in your most capable hands” Ginara thanked him.

“When are we doing this? We will need some time to prepare.” Yarnis asked.

“We’ll take a few days to do some hunting to build up supplies and rest the horses while I find a group that is hanging about in the right place. Is that enough time for you?”

“That will do perfectly, Master Scout.”

“Fine. In that case, I am gonna go get some sleep, if you fools are finished wanting the impossible done.”

With that, Punol stood up, gathered his blankets, and moved away from the group, lying down to sleep, while the others murmured softly to each other in conversation.