To the north a ways (Shaka Shale // Anjella Pallaseri)

The fire was roaring bright, just the way that Shaka preferred it. Bright, in an open area. Able to be seen from the road, possibly for half a mile or more in either direction. The hilltop was perfectly situated for the purpose, and he’d used it for such two years ago the last time he’d been this far south.

It was a campsite begging to be visited. Over the last few years that had become an open invitation to the bandits lurking out in the hills and forests of the northern hinterlands. A fire like this was screaming out into the darkness 'Come, villains. Rob me.'

It was an invitation Shaka Shale was more than happy to put out into the world.

He was not out in the wilds, cold and alone, surrounded by the coldhearted bandits who preyed upon merchants and travellers. They were out here with him. In the wilds, the half-giant was the true predator. By Old Deadeye, I will water this hilltop with brigand blood.

That being said, Shaka was also ferociously hungry after a day on the road. The Swallowtail Festival was set to begin the next morning down in Sandpoint, and he'd needed to push himself hard to make it so far south and out of his usual territory. Another early morning was still waiting for him if he wanted to arrive in time. So, even though the roaring bonfire was the wrong type to cook over, a half dozen skewers with rabbit and squirrel were crackling and oozing juices, filling the air with the smell of cooking meat.

"Lord Erastil," Shaka intoned, his voice quiet and gravelly as he uttered his prayer. "I give thanks for these gifts from your menagerie. I ask your continued protection of my home, and these pathways through your domain. May your blessings be swift and true."

Thankfully, the god of the Wild, whose domain called to Hunters and Farmers, was not a god who demanded long speeches. Shaka threw back his cloak and plucked one of the skewers from the fireside, giving it a sniff.

Not quite done, he thought, and put it back. He looked up at the moon, large in the sky on a clear night, and breathed deeply. He had time.

Sometimes the best way was the most direct way, and yet somehow Anjella had let herself be convinced to take one of the winding Old Roads.

"Don't ignore tradition, she says," Anjella muttered to herself sarcastically. "It will get you in touch with your roots, she says." The route had been dotted with ancient campsites used by untold generations of Varisians, the travelling folk who had shared the lands with the Shoanti for millennia before the Chelaxians sent their armies north to explore, conquer and settle new cities. While Anjella had certainly enjoyed the nights where she happened across one of the travelling bands and families sharing such sites, there had been many more days of long walking and lonely nights. If she had taken a riverboat from Janderhoff or Melfesh, she could have ridden the Yondabakari River all the way to Magnimar and been in Sandpoint days ago, if not weeks.

Instead, here she was, marching along under a moonlit sky. By her best estimate, she was getting close to Sandpoint, but she wasn't quite sure what day it was anymore. She'd lost count in the third week of walking, and it had only gotten worse from there.

At first Anjella hoped the light that appeared ahead was a sign of the town, and that she might finally get to rest in a gods’ damned bed for the first time in a month, but as she picked up her pace she quickly realised it was a campfire of some sort, big enough for an entire group of travellers. She hadn't seen any of the hidden signs that pointed towards the secret campsites of her people, so Anjella pressed forward. She became more cautious when, as she mounted the base of the hill, she didn't hear any noise or see any movement up at the camp.

_They can't all be asleep already with a fire burning that high, she thought. _

All at once, Anjella's hopefulness over the chance at some conversation and food was buried beneath a feeling of danger. Lowering herself to the ground, she crept her way up the hill, trying to use the sparse bits of brush and small dips in the hillside to cover her approach. The problem was, despite a month and a half of travel and her mother being one of the travelling folk, Anjella was well and truly a city girl. Korvosa may have been a lot of things, but it wasn't a hilltop in the wilds, and Anjella felt like every stone she nudged or leaf she stepped on was echoing on the wind.

Nearly at the top, with the cusp of the hill between her and the fire, Anjella still didn't hear any noise. She put a hand on the hilt of her shortsword, then hesitated, before steeling herself and pulling the blade. Better to be prepared, she decided. The sword had been a gift from the family she had set off on her journey with - they had shown her how to use it, and she’d practised with another band she had at a camp site weeks later. The sight of someone willing to protect themselves could scare off most threats, they said. Brigands didn’t expect resistance from the travelling folk, so seeing it made them falter.

Sword in hand, she made a one-handed gesture symbolising the Eye of Aroden, but she didn't bother muttering a prayer. Her god was dead, after all. What was the point?

Over the rise, Anjella kept low with her sword held off to one side as she crept up on the fire. No one was there, but the smell hit her - cooked meat. Her stomach grumbled at the promise of food. Moving fully into the light, Anjella managed to stop herself from immediately jumping for the skewers of cooking meat. Someone had obviously been here; fires and food didn't just appear out of no where, but as she looked around-

The strike knocked the sword out of Anjella's hand, the arrow crashing into the blade with such **** that she could still hear the metal clang ringing in her ears. Thankfully her reactions were faster than her thoughts, and she was already throwing herself to the side around the blazing campfire as her mind caught up to her movements.

She rolled as she landed, and rolled again to get herself away from the light, but collided with a tree.

There were no trees at the top of this hill.

Fuck.

Anjella looked up, and up, at the biggest man she had ever seen. He was pale in the firelight, with a thick brow and jaw. He was bald, his black beard trimmed short, and he was wearing a thick furred cloak over a hauberk of darkened chain mail.

All of this would have been an upsetting turn of events, whether in the wilds or in an alley back home, but Anjella found one more thing that topped it all. The immense greataxe the man was bringing down in an overhand strike that would cleave her skull in two.

The woman who approached the fire wasn't nearly as good at sneaking as she thought she was. Shaka shook his head and stayed low where he was, just around the hill, using a dip to hide his form from her and the light of the fire. He was impossibly still, imagining himself like a boulder unmoved for an age. The woman shifted like an animal, sniffing away at the food, her sword out like a bared fang.

Shaka stood silently and lifted his arrow to cheek, his longbow straining for a moment under his heavy pull before he loosed.

He'd been aiming for her hand or arm, but the clang as the sword went spinning away was surprisingly satisfying. With a grunt, Shaka dropped the bow and pulled his great axe from it's loop on his back. The woman was already diving and rolling towards him, closing the distance quickly. How did she spot me so fast?

Shaka raised his axe and was already swinging down at the thief as she came to a stop and looked directly up at him from between his legs. He decided, in a split second, not to cleave her in two and to just scare the shit out of her instead. He wasn't sure why he decided that - but he did. Maybe because she was still young and didn’t have the look of feral desperation that meant she was capable of anything. He'd bury the axe in the dirt next to her head and scare the absolute-

Everything stopped for a moment as the pain blossomed in his head, rode every path it could through his body and down to his groin, and then exploded.

She'd kicked him right in the dick.

"FUUUuhuuuuuck!" Shaka roared.

His axe bit and buried into the ground, but not on purpose as he faltered wide and went down to one knee. The woman rolled away, springing to her feet more nimbly than he could track through the haze of sharp pain. She threw another kick, this time at his head, but Shaka got a hand up and caught her foot in one of his big hands. He deflected it away, and again she tucked and rolled with the ****, springing back up to her feet.

With a wordless grunt Shaka pulled his axe from the dirt and stood and squared off with the woman. She raised her fists, taking on a fighting stance. This woman seemed more than willing to face down a man more than half again her size with nothing but her knuckles.

"Fucking cheater," Shaka said, taking a chance and saying it in Varisian. The girl looked at least half-Varisian, with the right kind of hair but the wrong shade, and the warm tan of someone who had spent time travelling the open road. "You kicked me in the dick."

"You shot an arrow at me from the dark," the girl replied in the same language. It was musical on her tongue, making his own use of it sound coarse. "And tried to cut me in half."

They eyed each other, weighing their options.

With her long coat now dangling loosely, Shaka could see the girl was physically capable despite her size. She was wearing a loose, colourful red shirt unlaced under the coat and even in the dark he could tell she was surprisingly muscled. Even without a weapon she was looking confident, if wary of fighting him.

"My eyes are up here, you giant boar," the girl said.

Shaka hadn't been staring at her bared cleavage, at least not intentionally. "That medallion," he said, pointing at the golden icon hanging from a leather cord around her neck. "Who did you steal that from?"

She clutched the amulet protectively. "Fuck you, this is mine. I'm no thief."

"Then why are you sneaking up on my camp with a blade out?"

She scoffed. "Why are you hiding in the dark, waiting to ambush people coming to your fire?"

Shaka buried the head of his axe in the ground again, keeping it upright and within reach as he shifted his cloak. It was old and worn, but the elk antlers sigil of Erastil burned into the back was still discernible. "Because Old Deadeye hates bandits, so I make sure to welcome them appropriately to my camp."

The girl narrowed her eyes as she slowly lowered her fists. "You serve the Stag God?"

Shaka nodded. "And you serve the Last Azlanti?"

"Not much to serve," she said. "Dead gods don't ask much of their servants."

"You follow his creeds, though?"

She shrugged uncomfortably. "As much as there are any left."

Shaka sighed and nodded, his mind made up. Aroden had not been the most popular god among the Varisians, they not caring so much for the spread of civilization, but those that did worship the now-dead god had focused on his lesser calling - fulfilment of prophecies. "Fine then," Shaka said. "Come share the fire. You'll take first watch, and you can have some of my food."

After a long moment she nodded. "Good enough," she said. "I'm Anjella Pallaseri."

"Shaka Shale. Be welcome."

Anjella looked across the now smouldering fire at the immense form of the Erastilian warrior. It had been a tense half hour, and they'd barely traded any more words. He told her they were only a few hours from Sandpoint, shared half of his food without complaint, and after fetching his bow from the dark he promptly rolled over and went to sleep. Now he was silent, his huge chest slowly rising and falling, wrapped in his worn cloak with only his travelling bag for a pillow.

Shaka Shale was gloomy, and huge, and dangerous. Anjella felt like she was sharing a fire with a grumpy, wild bear. He was nothing like anyone she had ever met, and the streets of Korvosa had been relatively diverse in sights and travelling folk.

The worst part of it all was that for some reason she couldn’t discern, Anjella was feeling antsy. There was something so wild about this giant of a man that she couldn't let it go. He was a predator of a kind she didn't know how to deal with. She didn't like it. Didn't like feeling like this man was bigger than her in more ways than size.

Anjella fell back on what she knew. Restless, and needing to stay awake for her watch, she got down on her hands and began doing pushups. The exercise, thankfully different than the monotony of walking, pumped her blood through her veins and gave her a new ache to focus on. A distraction to stop her thinking about the beast across the fire.

There were many hours to morning still, but the way the mountain of a man had made it sound, he was planning on being up and out early. If he knew the way, then she was going to follow him for the last, short stretch.

The exercise pushed Anjella, unknotting some of the tension in her limbs. Diffusing her worry as she focused on the push and pull of her arms and the blades of grass directly under her nose. At Sandpoint she could split off and leave Shaka Shale to his work for Erastil, whatever that was, and she could find her cousin and get off of her feet for a gods’ damned day.

All I need to do first is sleep next to a cave bear and trust he doesn’t get hungry.

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