[center][h2]Vaught[/h2]
[sub]Early Spring of the Year 315 P.F[/sub][/center]

Plants needed water. Even the toughest cactus in the most arid desert required the occasional rain to come down from otherwise blue skies, but of course the more green colleagues it had in its vicinity and the taller those were, the more of the precious liquid was in demand. From that point of view the terrential downfall that had occurred in The Greatwood area a few days prior was an event to be thankful for, but the hunting party that had gathered in the nearby village thought otherwise.

For them any of the larger puddles was just one more reason to stay further apart from each other. One of the men had fallen back into the usual routine and closed in on the others a few minutes ago and was covered in the cold mud their horses' hooves had sprayed still. The humid ground slowed them down, forced them to evade additional obstacles and kept alive the dense mist that only helped their prey. They were a ragtag group of four peasants who had convinced their local horseshoer to forge them some spearheads, to sharpen their pitchforks and to check their primitive crossbows, but even to those non-professionals it was obvious that both their own equipment and the current conditions were not in their favor.

Still they pressed on, knowing that their path would only lead them closer to The Greatwood itself. It was the forest that stood for the unknown like hardly any other region in Outremer and the unknown was what most humans feared most, but what had happened in the village of those humble peasants had been frightening, too. Their fields had been fertilized with the blood of the cattle they were intended to nourish! The wooden fence intended to keep away the wolves had been broken and yet another of the sheeps had been brutally torn apart, but the rain had reduced the perpetrator's traces to meaningless shapes yet again. The fourth time this month...

The four men had no coin to spare, no food to give away to what might be just a big, wild boar or even a large bear. There was enough scum roaming around in the region around Portus Cruor that used to oppress people that living there was hard enough already. Even if they wouldn't be able to find the exact animal, they were determined to decimate the population and to scare the remainder. They had already hunted down one boar and wrapped it up nicely on one of their spare horses, but their lust for revenge was far from satiated yet.

The Greatwood didn't present itself with a clearly cut and abruptly upcoming treeline, but it was a steady increase in how close the trees stood to each other. The terrain slowly became rougher, grass and trees taller and roots came sprouting from the ground. Also the fog started to thicken so it was decided to turn around and continue in another direction, but not after a short but well deserved break. The small party slowed down gradually, then came to a complete stop in the midst of what seemed to be a large glade. A gentle mixture of sounds came to their ears: a small creek, woodpeckers and other birds, a fly whizzing by and finding its sudden death between a man's swift hand and his leather clothing. All harmless things that wouldn't harm anyone.

Yet a few minutes into the break there suddenly was disturbance: a loud crack like a thick twig snapping on the ground. A large animal perhaps ? The horses had been tied to a tree near the water so they could drink and eat a little. That's where the sound had come from. Jacob stopped eating and started running towards their location as one of them whinnied. The fog made seeing what was going on difficult from any significant distance.

"Hel..."

Jacob's outcry came to an abrupt end only to be followed by a dull sound. Now George, Harod and Flynn started running, too. They were greeted by the sight of what they only believed to be a human upon a second glance. Staring down upon them was a pair of reddish glowing eyes situated at least seven feet above the ground. The individual it belonged two didn't move much. It just pointed downwards towards Jacob who seemed to be unconscious, but bleeding from a broken nose at least.

"I think he's still alive. I'll take these two horses and leave you the others to get yourself and him out of here!"

For a brief moment, the three peasants just stood there in shock and watched with obvious disbelief as the almost gray-skinned, hulking man untied two of the animals without even looking at the arrangement of improvised weapons their owners had brought along with them. At least that was until Flynn made an attempt to end things in an instant as he charged forwards, pointing his spear directly at Vaught as the latter bowed in order to undo yet another knot in the rope.

Vaught's elbow hit the wooden shaft so hard that the whole thing was sent flying far into the woods, but not without interacting violently with Flynn's temple. The man cried out and landed face-first in the mud, bleeding from a serious looking head wound.

"Don't you listen ? Go before I trample your two friends and hunt you down like a sheep out at feed!"

It was not only the incredibly chesty voice alone that put fear into the men's hearts, but also the sight of teeth that seemed more suited to consume flesh than anything else. Whoever, whatever this wickedly huge, strangely pale... man... was, he wasn't joking. George and Harrod did not make any further attempts to attack him, but just watched in awe as Vaught reached for one of the steed's reigns and mounted the other. The horse buckled beneath him to a large degree, but would suffice for quite a while still.

It was only when the four peasants had already disappeared in the fog behind him that Vaught realized his mistake. He had said something that might trigger more of the village's attention instead of reducing it. This probably wouldn't be the last hunters he'd encounter, but he was tired of them. Why was he showing mercy to those humans if all they seemingly had in mind was to eradicate everything that disturbed their way of living ? The general feeling of 'enough' had risen to an uncomfortable level he just refused to ignore anymore.

Something more drastic than just feeding on sheeps while everybody was asleep had to be done.