Chapter 174: A Hunter’s Plan
In the refugee camp, the two biggest problems were finding people a place to rest, and making sure they had plenty of food to eat.
Thankfully for Ollie, Sir Thane had lived through more than a few wars and he understood well the needs of people who had lost their homes. When Ollie first set out to warn the villages with Marcell, Sir Thane had already given orders for every able bodied hunter to deliver additional fish, fowl and wild game to the castle to feed the influx of people.
Some of these people had hopes of returning to their villages, while others only had the strength to move once. No one knew yet where everyone would end up but in the near term, Thane was determined to at the very least ensure that no one starved or went without a place to sleep. Everything else could be sorted out in the days to come.
Among the many people who had responded to Thane’s call for additional hunters, two surprising figures crept through the late morning mist, moving carefully so as to avoid startling any of the small game birds that were plentiful in the forest closest to the castle.
The human hunters Eamon and Darragh had leaped at the opportunity to do more independent work in the Vale of Mists with Eamon passionately promising that they could hunt much more efficiently if he and Darragh were allowed to work as a pair.
Thus far, they had only been allowed to use their skills in very limited ways, assisting other hunters from the castle in occasional outings to hunt for grouse, pheasant and other birds native to the area. Longer hunts that kept them out of the castle for multiple days had been expressly forbidden, as had hunting any large game whether that was deer or bear.
All of the captives Ashlynn had taken after defeating Sir Broll were still kept under close watch, but Commander Bassinger looked for ways to reward them for good behavior in line with Ashlynn’s desire to see if more humans could integrate into the community of the Vale of Mists.
Since Eamon and Darragh had been particularly zealous about demonstrating their good intentions toward ’Her Holiness’, Bassinger saw no reason to restrict the men now when their skills could be used the most.
"Eamon," Darragh hissed, crouching low and holding out a hand with several clusters of brilliant red berries. "Red Baneberry," he said with a wide grin. "If we slather this on the meat we deliver to their ’welcome camp’, it should thin out the weak among the refugees. It looks like that traitor has taken command over there, the blame is sure to fall on him."
Rather than looking happy, however, Eamon’s hand struck out with the speed of a snake, knocking the berries from the younger man’s hand and scattering them in the bushes.
"Idiot," the grizzled hunter hissed. "This is not the time and targeting Her Holiness’s friend is not a wise move." Red Baneberry, in small doses, would cause anything from a bad case of the runs to days of dizziness and weakness. Mixed into food, however, with a chance to concentrate, could produce a dish so toxic that it caused the body to spasm and weak hearts to fail.