The fox prints appeared sometime before dawn.

Halla had been walking for the better part of a year, following hints and half-heard rumours across roads that grew less familiar by the week. She had passed through Jones's Hill without incident, moved into territory that smelled of wet earth and something older, and woken that morning to find the prints circling her camp with the easy confidence of a creature that had no reason to fear her. She knew that smell. It was a long way from home.

She followed them.

The trail led her off the road and into the margins of Fearfen Swamp, where she had expected mud to the knee and instead found the ground surprisingly dry underfoot. The swamp was loud around her — birds, insects, things she couldn't name — and the fox prints wove between the roots like a path laid out by someone who knew where she needed to go. When the trees began to thin, the prints faded.

What came into view instead was a pack of gnolls. A small horde of them, more common on this side of the Sunwell Ocean than anything she had known growing up, and they were moving with intent. On the horizon, barely visible through the canopy, a thin thread of smoke from a campfire.

The gnolls were heading for it.

Halla gathered herself and broke into a jog.

Cirillian and Tyrion were walking back through the trees when Tyrion stopped.

"Old wet animal," he said, brow creasing. "Something close. We should slow down."

He slowed. Cirillian glanced at Lyka, who had already lifted his nose to the air. The wolf's amber eyes tracked something invisible for half a second before he took off like a loosed bolt. Cirillian swore in Giantish, stooped to grab the shield they had dropped earlier, and ran.

Halla reached the campsite ahead of the gnolls, barely. A woman stood alone at the fire, masked, white hair loose around her shoulders. The mask had a moth stitched over the eyes.

Halla kept her voice low and level.

"You need to leave. There are gnolls coming this way."

The masked woman startled. A whip appeared in her hand as she turned.

Behind them, Cirillian was still running, catching only the shadow of Lyka through the undergrowth. They called back to Tyrion, breath short.