There is no need for Sigismund to run. He has every confidence that he knows where this chase will lead, and he knows that the fastest way there is not the most direct one.

His primary target punctures the tree line alone. The secondary target shouts back in his direction.

“She’s gone into the woods!” comes the call. The short man struggles with the leash of his flea-ridden beast.

“I’m right behind you,” Sigismund responds with the ease of a careless and oft-repeated lie.

This has been a long time coming, and he prepared for the eventuality.

He strides confidently across the wet field, his raincoat keeping him protected from the deluge. It is not long since the hour of dawn and the angry skies yet withhold the break of day. But he knows where he is going and that is an advantage that the targets do not have.

Sigismund lets the useless deputy clamber alone into the forest. He pauses underneath the hangman’s tree’s ancient boughs. It’s a hideous tree, he thinks in the privacy of this moment.

“He’d water you well,” Sigismund says to the mute branches. “If he knew all the details, there’d be a feast for these old roots.”

A bird calls under the leaden sky. The hangman’s tree does not answer.

“Well, I can’t let that happen, can I?” His deep voice is a low growl of tightly constrained fury. The root of the tree snaps under the weight of his steel-toed boot. He scrapes his hand on the rough bark of its trunk while steadying himself.

Putting himself

The Sheriff of Aegis Township walks purposefully into the forest alone.

The dim light is just enough for him to locate the narrow path he seeks. It meanders vaguely through the dense brush, kept clear by the passing of deer. But it is enough.

Sigismund walks the path carefully. He knows these woods are unsafe in the best of conditions, and a dark rainy morning is not the best of conditions. He carefully sidesteps away from a dangling vine of poison ivy and pulls the hem of his raincoat close to avoid catching it upon a thorny tree.

Listening closely to the surrounding activity, he travels with care down the narrow path. The woods are active enough that the noise of splattering raindrops and morning birdsong drowns out any chance that he could still hear Deputy Clarkson and that ugly little dog as they ineffectively trample through the brush.

Sigismund is not nearly so loud. And he has been here many times before.

That is how he can find his way so easily. He seeks familiar landmarks along the trail and soon finds himself at the first of several.

The remains of a burned house would be easy to miss if one didn’t know to expect that it was there. Of course Sigismund knows it is there. He could never forget it.

But today there is nothing to the old house but a rough, charred collection of bricks and rotted wood that mark where its chimney and foundation once stood. The remains are barely a foot and a half high, and shrubbery has thoroughly reclaimed the area. A sapling, already several inches in diameter, has taken ownership of the center of the house’s remains. It counts the years since the roof collapsed with the rings of its trunk.

Sigismund counts them differently.

Behind the old chimney, he locates a cache. This is a familiar place, and he knows exactly what should be there.

Set underneath a large, flat rock is a narrow metal box.

Set inside the narrow metal box is a sturdy longbow, unstrung and well-oiled. There are five poisoned arrows in the box with it, their broad points configured for causing maximum tearing on both entry and exit. They rest in a simple little quiver, just five shots of murder in a protective tube.

Sigismund removes the bow from the box with something approaching reverence. He carefully places the coiled bowstring in a pocket of his raincoat and tucks the bow and quiver underneath its protective shroud.

In the box he places two items in return: his baton, which the Law insists he use instead of a sword as the symbol of the judicial intent to be separate from the barbarians’ lethal violence, and the badge the Law insists keeps him bound to its rules and oaths.

There are no words that can bind a man. Sigismund believes this with every fiber of his being. But there is magic between these dark old trees and the symbols of a thing can mean more than the thing itself.

The rain has stopped, but the damp trees continue to deposit their weight upon the ground.

Sigismund carefully, cautiously, places the lid back on the narrow box, and the stone back in place to hide it. As he steps away, he takes care to reposition the disturbed fallen leaves. He has been here before, and he knows well how to hide that fact.

Armed and with intent, he stops to listen in the woods before making any other movements.

It is quiet. The dripping trees obscure other noises, but for the time of day, it feels that the silence is inappropriate.

Something other than Sigismund must move through those woods as well. They would not typically be this quiet at this time of day.

But he does not see anyone, or anything, moving that stands out against the movement of the underbrush due to rain.

Still suspicious, he stands to his full height and returns to the faint trail.

In time, that trail leads to a wider path. And on the path, he knows it is much safer to let his guard down against the dangers the forest itself poses.

The path is wide enough for two people to walk with hands held. It is free from growth, if not free from moderate debris. Fallen leaves scatter across its width, lying atop carefully laid gravel. A careful border of small, round, white stones delineates the edge of the safe zone.

There may be magic in it, Sigismund is unsure, but if there is, it is older than even Aegis itself.

Sigismund follows this path in the comfort that he has seen nothing more dangerous than himself upon it.

And he knows exactly where he heads.

He hears his destination long before he sees it. A little river cuts through the woods, neither deep enough nor wide enough to pose much more than a brief inconvenience for most who travel without the benefit of this well-laid path. But those who take it have the most excellent gift of a small stone bridge.

The bridge is most definitely less old than the path it connects to. The squat, round arches date it back to a more specific range of a few hundred years than the more generic construction of the path itself. Flat stones crafted into careful geometric shapes create a series of three perfectly round arches that straddle the little river.

They are low arches, which funnels the river into three little tunnels. And they are only a few feet high.

But on the opposite side of them, the moving water has carved three deeper channels from having been constricted into their narrow space. This gives the river the appearance of a fork. Two thin strips of land stick out from beside the bridge.

And one of those is Sigismund’s destination.

He hops over the low wall of the bridge’s rail and onto the artificial sandbar. It is a perfect spot for an ambush. From here, he has an optimal line of sight on the downstream channels and the point where they merge. And he has protection from the line of sight of the embankments on either side of the stream as well. One would have to be standing directly on the bridge to spot this position from upstream.

And here he plans to wait. Because if he knows his cousin, and if he knows his deputy, he knows they will eventually end up coming this way.

Because between the three of them, he is the one who knows his way around these woods the best. And he has taught the other two a few things to remember when inside these dangerous confines.

When you find the river, if it is deep enough to be over your head, head upstream to find the road.

If it is shallow enough to wade across, head downstream to find the road.

If you find yourself at a larger waterfall, then you have gone too far and need to find shelter for the night.

It’s a pretty simple way to remember how to find one’s way when one gets lost. And one is very much likely to get lost. Sigismund is almost certain that once one steps off the path, the woods rearrange themselves when one is not looking.

And while considering the risks the other two are taking, and contemplating the chance that his task will complete itself without his intervention, he hears a terrible sound in the distance.

Something is howling. He knows not what.

But that is not the stupid little dog. And it is definitely not a wolf either.

Man hunted wolves to extinction in these woods. He was part of that effort personally. It cost him much and gained him more.

Sigismund takes this opportunity to string the old bow. He plants it in the arch of his boot and catches the bend with his knee. It’s a practiced maneuver that makes up for the demands of the bow in terms of strength. This weapon is old, designed not for hunting, and he picked it up specifically for punching through targets who may have armor. Or thicker hide.

And right now, Sigismund worries that five arrows will not be enough for both the targets he knows and the howling thing he does not.