The first stars could be seen before the sun had set completely. By the time the fiery ball had retreated behind the horizon, the moon was up, bright and nearly full.
Or maybe the moon here was always egg shaped. Fyn had no reason to believe the celestial bodies obeyed the rules he knew. He hadn't been paying attention to the moon, so there was no telling if it waxed and waned.
He couldn't even say with any confidence that what he was looking at was a moon. It could be an egg, one that hatches every thousand to release a flood of demons upon the earth. The orb in the sky could be a portal to a land of talking strawberries who spent their days swimming in seas of cream.
In a world of magic, science and common sense were wimpy little kids who calmly preached tolerance while they were being kicked to the ground and robbed of their lunch money. Fyn wanted to feel sorry for the principles of knowledge and sanity, but then, Fyn had a cheat. He'd probably end up taking the poor saps' shoes while they were wiping the snot off their faces.
Grabbing his line, Fyn sent it flying with a flick of his wrist. The stone that he had tied on to weight the hook barely had time to sink before a tremendous force snatched at his bait. The line went taut and Fyn hauled back on his rod.
The fish in the river proper were a little bigger and meaner than the ones in the pool, but they were just as predictable. Breaking the surface, the yellow pike spit out the hook and soared through the air towards Fyn.
Setting his feet on the large rock he had chosen to fish from, Fyn tightened his hands around his pole. A firm wack drove the pike to the ground. Kneeling on the stunned fish's side, Fyn drove his knife viciously through its eye.
Holding his palm over the fish, Fyn verified the presence of an improvement point. A surgical slice to the pike's forehead removed the white pearl, and Fyn directly brought it to his status dot.
"Total of seventeen white," Fyn murmured too low to be heard over the roar of the river. Grabbing the pike by the tail, he tossed it onto his growing collection.
He had prayed the fishing would be bad. However, the gods of this world continued to disappoint. If anything, the fishing outside the grotto was better. He had pulled eight pike out of the water so far, and four of those had provided white improvement points.
Sitting down, Fyn grabbed a water-filled gourd and removed a flat, smooth stone from inside. He began to draw his knife blade across the stone, honing the edge. Grace had suggested this, showing him what type of stone to use when she gave him back his shirt.
Fyn quibbled about whether he should be grateful for the lesson. Grace had only taught him when he complained about how hard it would be to kill the fish.
"The river pike around here have hard scales," she had told home, "That knife will dull after killing one or two."
She had found and demonstrated the use of the stone for him, kneeling close by as he practiced.
"After Sophie fires," Grace had whispered, her mouth close to his ear as she leaned over to adjust his hands on the knife, "jump into the river and swim downstream. After she fires! Remember that."
It was the most ridiculous advice Fyn had ever received. With a sharp knife and his increased strength, killing a pike out of water had become a straightforward task. In the water, the fish would shred him like soft cheese.
Fyn would take a swift end from a crossbow bolt to the head, over a slow death by a thousand nibbles.
Fyn tried to consider Grace's advice seriously. He was willing to believe she knew more than he did. The Drifter was as fixated on cleanliness as a certain weasel-rabbit. Grace could have tested the waters and discovered that the river pike didn't mind bathers invading their territory.
But Fyn had made his own discovery. It turned out that Grace, for all her charm and skills, was a silly person.
"Hey rock," Fyn looked to his left without turning his head, "Do you think I made a mistake by becoming a Gatherer? What class would you choose if you were in my position?"
The "rock" quivered. Almost as if it were a woman, curled in the fetal position and covered by a grey blanket, who was annoyed that someone was pointing out her inspired disguise.
"Rocks don't have classes," Grace snarled from under her blanket, "and they don't talk. Shut up and fish!"
Shut up and fish. Now that was good advice. Talking while fishing was one of the greatest sins you could commit. People thought fishing was about catching fish, but they were mistaken.
In Fyn's opinion, the greatest fisherman never worried about actually catching anything. Fishing was about being in and around nature. It was peaceful stillness, disconnected from any goal or purpose.
However, Fyn found it was challenging to enter the proper state of mind tonight. Not when he was acting as the bait on the hook.
"Come on," Fyn tested the edge of his knife and kept sharpening, "Play along. No one will hear us over the river."
Grace kept her mouth closed, perfecting her rock impersonation. Fyn heaved a sigh, set the knife down, and picked up his rod. Standing, he collected the line in one hand. Just as he was about to throw the line out, a streak of white fur bounded up to sit beside him.
"Morning Ricky. It's an ambush. Run."
Fyn's voice was calm, only putting the slightest edge on the last word. Ricky tilted his head, pointing one long ear at Fyn, while the other rotated independently, as if Ricky was sweeping the clearing for unusual sounds.
Fyn huffed out a single, bitter, chuckle. It had been in his head the whole time. Ricky didn't understand him. Fyn's fear and loneliness had imposed an artificial intelligence on the animal.
Ricky's ears twisted to face the same direction, like they were locking on to something with weasel-rabbit radar. Nose twitching, Ricky hopped two feet into the air, coming down on all fours, hackles raised.
A sharp, crack on the other side of the river drew Fyn's attention. It was too far away to make out in the poor light, yet Fyn was sure that in the morning he would be able to see a crossbow bolt in the direction of that sound. He was curious if the noise had been the bolt breaking or stone shattering.
Ricky was smart and Ricky was fast. His hop had let the crossbow bolt pass underneath his paws. The timing of that jump left Fyn flabbergasted. The slightest miscalculation would have resulted in a skewered weasel-rabbit.
Now was Fyn's opportunity. It would take a few seconds for Sophie to reload. Her crossbow was a heavy weapon, not a quick one. Fyn could throw himself into the river, and he would be swept away by the current before a bolt could pierce him.
Grace thought the water was his best chance of escaping. Fyn wasn't so sure. The river was running high, fast and cold enough that certain parts of him wanted to retreat into his body just looking at it. Add two to three foot long monster fish and the river appeared to be a death trap rather than a swift road to freedom.
Grace remained under her blanket a few feet away while Fyn was locked in indecision. Ricky kept his eyes and ears glued in the direction the bolt had come from, his muzzle open, snarling. The first person to move was Bram.
Bursting from the tree line a hundred yards away, Bram bellowed as he charged out. Fyn instinctively turned towards the warrior. Wearing his helmet, with his mace in his hand, Bram had produced a shield from somewhere, holding it in his offhand as he ran.
The weight of armor and weapons didn't slow the warrior. Fyn's mouth fell open at the man's speed. Fyn estimated Bram would be able to close the distance between himself and Ricky in fifteen seconds. It was slower than a crossbow bolt, but for a man wearing sixty pounds or more of equipment, the pace was remarkable.
Ricky took a step in Bram's direction. Fyn tracked the weasel-rabbit's movements with his eyes, his jaw opening further. With each prowling pace, Ricky grew. After two steps, Ricky had changed from the size of a large cat to a monstrous six feet at the shoulder. On the third step, Ricky had completely transformed.
Twenty feet tall, bunched muscles visible under shining white fur, Ricky's stub of a tail had become a whip that cracked the air as it swished behind him. Teeth as long as Fyn's forearm were bared, and claws like knives dug into the soil as Ricky crouched.
Bram stubbled as he tried to stop. His shield slipping on his arm, Bram's war cry caught in his throat and he began backing up. Fyn couldn't see the terror on Bram's face behind the visor, but he felt a horror in his chest that must have been echoed in the warrior.
Ricky pounced, closing the distance between himself and Bram in a heartbeat. There was a leisurely swipe of claws as the monster passed by the warrior. There should have been a shriek of metal being rended. Bram should have flown backwards from the impact. However, all was quiet as Ricky landed nimbly behind the warrior. Bram's body slid apart in several sections, sloshing to the ground in a spray of blood.
The death was too quick and before Fyn could process it, a crossbow bolt thudded against Ricky's flank. The bolts that Fyn had seen pin a man's skull to a tree, that he believed shattered stone just seconds earlier, entered Ricky's fur. Fyn swallowed hard as the killing implement bounced off.
Ricky looked at his hind quarters. His gaze traced the path of the bolt and landed on a thick section of trees. His tail twitched irritably. Twisting his long body around, Ricky flashed forwards.
At the trees, Ricky whirled, his tail streaking out and slashing between the branches. With a flick of his rear, Ricky retracted his tail. A body, impaled on the tip, bounced off trunks as Ricky's posterior swung. With a flick, the monster flung a pale, dark-haired woman through the air. Sophie landed with a crash, rolling through thorn bushes without a scream.
Ricky stalked back towards the river. He took a brief moment to crush Sophie's crossbow beneath his paws, then proceeded to look over at Fyn. Standing on his rock, hands limp at his sides, Fyn craned his neck back to meet Ricky's unfeeling blue eyes.
Once Fyn was looking, Ricky gave a marked glance at the pile of fish.
"Hrrmmm… henrmmm…" Fyn smacked his lips, trying to restore moisture to a mouth dry as ash, "Help yourself."
Permission granted, Ricky tore into the river pike. Daintily, he picked up each of the fish and nibbled them slowly, an act of absurdity with such massive teeth. One by one, with eyes narrowed in pleasure, Ricky savored the fish. Finished with the ones Fyn had already caught, Ricky settled on to his stomach, staring at the water, tail flipping behind him.
Picking up his rod, Fyn checked the bait. Neither he nor Ricky reacted as Grace crawled out from under her blanket and moved to stand beside him on the rock. The tall blond women seemed smaller now, but Fyn didn't comment on it.
They settled into a rhythm. Fyn provoked the fish into a senseless assault. Grace, using the two stilettos she carried, speared the fish out of the air, checked them for improvement points and tossed them towards Ricky. Ricky ate fish, growling contentedly with each bite.
Grace's daggers must have been of better quality than the one Fyn took from Lucas. She never stopped to sharpen them, which accelerated the process considerably. A half-hour later, twelve fish and three white improvement points gained, Ricky stood and stretched, moving toward the waterfall without acknowledging the pair of fishermen.
His size dwindled as he went. By the time Ricky vanished into the grotto, he was a small weasel-rabbit again. And yet, a monstrous shadow seemed to hang over the clearing, darkening the pale light of the moon.