Bad hunter chases, good hunter waits.
Old Iroquois saying
He hunted occasionally, not so much for coin, but to relax and think. It was a welcome change to get out of the armor and spend some time in the woods. The minks were coming into season, and he had caught some bear tracks earlier. He would catch the sharp end of Alyntha's tongue, when she found out he was bear hunting again, but the wolves had become too easy and he had yet to track down the lair of gargoyles. So bears it was. The poor of the Slums could certainly use the meat and fur that a large grizzly could provide.
Geeeeeeerrrrrt.
A high pitched voice wafting overhead. He heard the sound of a deer bounding off into the trees, spooked by the noise, and he looked around, behind him, annoyed. "You just cost me hours of sitting. What is it?"
Up heere, Gert.
His head snapped up and he peered through the branches. A small figure sat in the branches, shoes with curled toes dangling into the air. His painted face, peered down at him, the awful smile on his face.
"You," he growled. Images flashed through his mind, the dead girl's head lying separate from her body, a frozen look of terror etched on her small features. The blood everywhere, the grieving father, the burying of the small corpse. And this... fiend was the cause of it all. Worse, it had threatened Alyntha and their unborn children.
His bow dropped to the ground and his axe was in his hand almost instantly. "Come on down here, then, coward. Let us settle this like men."
"Oh, I think I'll stay up here, out of reach, of that wicked axe. I just want to talk to you."
His eyes narrowed. "So talk."
His wicked grin widened. "I just wanted to ask how Alyntha's and my children are doing?"
The beast woke and snarled, and this time he felt no need to keep it in check. "You are mistaken, sir. The children are mine, not yours."
"Oh they will be mine, soon enough. Alyntha and you were never my targets. She is safe, as are you are. After all, I need someone to carry on my work."
"Your thrice damned work, will end with your wretched life! You can surrender to me now, and I merely turn you over to the Citadel. If I have to hunt you, well these wolf leather boots are a testament to what happens to the things I hunt."
"Oh please. I can stay out of the reach of your axe easily enough. You're too slow and clunky to chase after me!"
"Easily remedied." Gert picked up his bow and notched an arrow, lining it up with that grinning face.
The Jester burst into laughter. "I've been sitting up here, watching you with that bow. You couldn't hit a cow with two broken legs!"
Gert's aim did not waver. "Are you willing to wager your life on that?"
The grin faltered, just a hair. "Since I'm still here, I am doing just that."
Without preamble he let the arrow fly. The point struck the Jester in the shoulder, and he screeched grabbing onto a branch.
"You HURT me!" The fiend turned and bounded away across the tree tops, with impossible jumps. Gert watched him flee, knowing that he could not follow. Gritting his teeth he muttered. "So you are only human, and can be hurt. Come near my family again, and I may accidentally slip a poisoned arrow in with the regular ones."
The beast snarled again, unsatisfied, but there was nothing to be done for it now. As he turned to retrieve his axe, he spotted something lying in the leaves. Something that the Jester had dropped... a book of some kind.
He picked it up and thumbed through the pages. Hand written, the ramblings of an unhinged mind. By all the gods, a personal journal?
