Scaley's Arc

Chapter 7 of 9

Scaley finds Willow at the edge of the marsh, standing near a cypress stump with two figures Scaley hasn't seen in weeks. Gnewt leans against a moss-covered post, arms crossed. Stryker sits on a weathered crate, cleaning mud off a blade. Scaley adjusts her straw hat and approaches slowly. She counts the variables — Willow's an outcast with a blood oath, Gnewt's a tracker who works alone, and Stryker's a bounty hunter who doesn't take sides without payment. Behind them sits a charred structure with blackened beams and a sagging roof. Willow gestures toward it. "We've been talking," she says. "The three of us. About the elders and what happens if they get their hands on the Beast." Scaley stops a few paces away. She didn't expect this. Stryker looks up from the blade. "The turtle you let go? He went straight to the elders. They're moving the meeting point. Gnewt tracked him." Gnewt nods once. "New location. Deeper marsh. They're setting a trap for you." Scaley pulls out her ledger and flips it open. She writes down the new location as Gnewt describes it — a wooden platform built over deep water, hidden by hanging moss. "There's a trapdoor," Gnewt says. "Built into the planks. Step wrong and you drop twenty feet into the muck." Scaley looks at the three of them standing together. This changes the math. She came here expecting to track down cultists alone, but now she's looking at people who've already done half the work. Willow crosses her arms. "We're not asking permission. We're telling you the plan. We hit them before they're ready. Tonight." Scaley closes her ledger. She doesn't like rushed plans, but the alternative is waiting for the cultists to come for her with a trap already built. She looks at Stryker. "What do you get out of this?" Stryker sheathes the blade. "Willow says the elders have a bounty on her head. I collect it when this is over — from them or from whoever takes their place." Scaley nods. It's not trust, but it's enough. She updates her count — three cultists left, and now three allies who know the terrain better than she does. The hunt just became a coordinated strike. She adjusts her hat and looks toward the deep marsh. "Show me the platform," she says. "I want to see the trapdoor before we go in."