Ciri is sent on a hunt.

The last hints of summer lingered leaving the autumn wind warm and Ciri was thankful for it. The lack of heat from a summer sun or the blistering cold of winter winds had made travel quick and pain-free. The morning dew left the ground soft and pliable, making tracking a relatively easy task.

There had been warnings of bandits in these woods, of men preying on hunters and traveling tradesmen but if they were out here they had kept their distance. Ciri had not been worried. The caravan was small, but the men traveling with her were well armed and would make poor targets for a group of thieves.

They had stopped for the day, finally reaching a suitable location for what needed to be done. Leaves fell from the trees, blanketing the ground orange and brown. Men behind her carried loads of equipment, nets, chains, wood and iron spikes, others set up tents making their camp.

Ciri paused watching them, a half dozen of Lord Karlik’s men led by one named Caleb. Most of them were poor hunters and even worse trackers, nothing more than low rent mercenaries really. Idiots and fools, better suited to lazing around their rich Lord’s manor than actually accomplishing anything. Ciri could not help the feeling of disdain for these men from rising up inside her. It was an odd feeling, she had worked with fools before, but something about these men, the way they the looked at her put her on edge.

Ciri watched one hammer a tent post into the ground, it sank easily in the soft soil. His arm raised, hammer coming down, the muscles in his forearm tightening with the blow. She could still feel that hand on her, wrapped tightly around her neck, holding her down, forcing her--

Ciri swallowed and the memory passed, she walked forward standing over the kneeling man, she didn’t know his name and she didn’t care too. He looked up at her, a yellow-toothed grin crossing his pockmarked face.

“Are you deaf or dumb?” she asked. The grin fell from the man’s and he stood, he towered over her, at least two heads taller and three times as wide. A thick ugly scar covered much of the lower half of his face from ear to chin leaving his beard patchy and unkept.

“What ye’ say?” he asked

She kicked the post he had just driven into the ground, it shifted easily angling sideways in the dirt. “You know what we are hunting? You know where it lives, where it hunts?”

The man looked down at the ground, his brow furrowing. “Under the ground.”

Ciri nodded back, “Yes under the ground.” she repeated, “Like I said before we left, we only camp on solid bedrock. Unless you want to share your bed with a giant centipede.”

“Fine,” he muttered looking down at the tent he had just set up.

“Good, I don’t need any idiots dying on my watch.”

Ciri turned to leave but stopped as the man grabbed her arm. His fingers wrapping tightly around her bicep, he pulled her back forcing her to face him.