Hugh settles beneath the eastern wall, keeping low beside the oldest stall. Brindle searches the straw while FOXY watches the moonlit pens and the open ground beyond.
Hugh
The horses screamed from the eastern pens. I saw Garran walk toward them, and I saw Silas follow. That much is certain.
Hugh points across the stalls, marking each position with two fingers. His voice remains quiet, but he pauses whenever memory gives way to darkness.
Hugh
I inferred the rest. I did not see Garran vanish. I found the torn standard afterward, and assumed the dark shape took him toward the drainage cut.
Brindle noses beneath the oldest stall and paws aside packed straw. A blood-darkened buckle emerges, its metal stamped with an unfamiliar mark unlike Garran’s known standard.
Hugh
That mark is not ours. If the buckle belonged to Garran’s men, I never saw it. If it belonged to someone else, the evidence begins here.
Hugh leaves the buckle where Brindle found it and studies the surrounding straw, waiting for FOXY to compare the object with his account before they move on.
✓ Quest Accepted
Identify the owner of the blood-darkened buckle