Izalette Reinloft and the abandoned tower 1

The campsite goes rigid. The gaunt thing in grey furs steps out from the trees, blade low, eyes fastened on the unconscious captive.

The Healer plants themself between monster and stretcher, hands shaking over fresh ointment and bloodied cloth. Izalette's lamp throws a thin gold across the ground, and the captive stirs only faintly.

The words seem to crawl out of the furred throat, wrong and hollow. The rusted blade lifts, not in warning, but in a slow, hungry reach toward the captive.

Izalette shifts to cover the healer, rapier leveled. The ring of iron in the tower feels suddenly near, as if the thing is only the hand of a larger curse still waiting in the ruins.

Izalette snaps the lamp up in her left hand and hurls it. Her rapier flashes through the glass in the same motion, and fire blossoms across the stranger’s furs.

The gaunt figure jerks back with a scorched hiss, blade wavering. Burning oil spatters the ground and licks at the dead grass between the trees and the fire ring.

The Healer drags the stretcher farther from the treeline, smoke and moonlight strobing over their shaking hands.

The stranger stumbles backward into the dark, fur blazing in ragged patches, but a harsh dragging scrape answers from deeper in the forest.