The Fisher of the Forest

May 26, 1759

The sun was already well below the tree line as Jacob prepared his belongings for his return journey to Mason City. Thanks to a long explanation by Ashton, a deep and sincere apology from Glenn, and tidbits of information regarding the presence of the Ayo Atsila in Penshaw, the citizens of Bradford accepted in the tired travelers and promised to get them back on their feet. While the people passed around warm food and drinks, Jacob had quietly slipped off in order to prepare for his trip.

As he took up his pack, he started heading for the town gates, only to be stopped by Ashton who gave Jacob’s hand a firm grip.

“You didn’t think we’d let you just slip away without so much as a thank you did you? After all, without your efforts we wouldn’t be standing here.”

“I’m just glad to see that you’re all doing well and will be on the mend. With your care I’m sure that everyone will be as good as new in just a matter of days.”

“Nonsense, my efforts may have kept them alive but it was thanks to you that they’ll recover. On behalf of Penshaw, I offer you my most sincere thanks. I promise you, one way or another, we will repay you for everything you’ve done for us. Glenn! Come here! I believe you owe him more than anyone else! Wasn’t it thanks to you that the others nearly left us to burn?”

Glenn sheepishly stepped towards Jacob and stuck out his hand, taking a hold of Jacob’s and gripping it tightly.

Seeing the fear and embarrassment on his face, Jacob replied,

“I understand why, Glenn, believe me, you’re not the first to try and save the people he cares about with rash decisions, but next time, try and give it some thought before you resort to using fire.”

Jacob gave a smile that melted away Glenn’s fear, allowing him to shake his hand with confidence and happiness.

The survivors all turned to face Jacob, each smiling and with warm, flush faces thanks to the hot food and drink.

“We can’t thank you enough for all that you’ve done.”

Now Jacob began to feel embarrassed.

“It’s no problem, I assure you.”

After more handshakes, hugs, pats on the back, and words of gratitude than he could count, Jacob gave a final wave goodbye and began heading for the town gates.

Each of the survivors watched him walk away, some already felt as though they missed him despite having only known him for three days, but one amongst them felt something more, and as she watched him, she bit her lip and clenched her fists. Taking notice of this, Ashton nudged her forward.

“I saw how much you admired him when he helped the others back in Penshaw. He really sparked your interest, right? Well, instead of just standing there, why not go on and ask him?”

Elise, seeing the others encourage her silently with smiles, then took a deep breath and called out,

“Mr. Norwood, please wait!”

Jacob immediately stopped and turned.

“Yes?”

“Uh, Mr. Norwood, what you did for my town… I mean… it was… thank you,” she said, turning her face down to her feet.

“You’re very welcome, but it seems as though you have something else on your mind.”

And it wasn’t quite hard to see what.

“Well, I was just wondering… I mean, I was curious if you’d…”

“I’d be grateful if you’d like to come with me.”

“…,” Elise was absolutely speechless.

After all that he had shown her from his notebooks, the stories he told about the Echoes, and the work that he had done, it wasn’t hard to see the glow radiating from her; besides, not so long ago, he was the exact same way as she was: a curious mind with a desire to journey.

“I could always use some help with my work and it’s not often that someone volunteers. Do you think you’d be interested?”

“Yes sir. I’ll do anything I can to help.”

“Are you sure? It’s not easy work.”

“I want to learn about these Echoes and about being a Preservist. I want to see this world and all that’s in it. I want to see the world as you do.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“But are you going back right now? Isn’t it a bit late for you? Why not stay and rest for the night?”

“While I would like to, I’m afraid I must get back to Mason City with all speed.”

“Then, I’ll come with you.”

“Very well then, shall we go?”

“Yes.”

And there they began, with Jacob taking the lead as Elise followed closely behind. Even with all that had just taken place only a few hours ago, Jacob seemed to move with ease while Elise, not having been used to such work before, was beginning to drift behind. The two had not gone more than three miles before Elise was nearly out of sight behind Jacob and was growing quite tired. She had not eaten a bite since the day before even though she worked to feed the sick that Mr. Ashton had taken in to care for and it was beginning to wear on her.

Taking notice of Elise’s condition, he drastically slowed his pace; while he had grown used to walking everywhere over long distances and rough ways, Elise was not, in fact, this was more than likely her first venture out and away from her home, and without the proper clothing, it was only going to get harder for her. With the growing darkness and the coming autumn, the path was littered with fallen sticks and leaves and already Elise had had her fair share of trips and stumbles leading to her arms and legs looking like a patchwork of dirty bruises and cuts.

Jacob came to a stop and allowed Elise to stumble into him without her having realized it.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Fine. I’m fine,” making the lie so obvious that she was practically ready to collapse had Jacob not been there to grab her by the shoulder.

“How about if we stop here for the night? We might not have gotten as far as I would have hoped but in this light it’ll only get more difficult.”

“But I can still see the road alright. Can’t we go a little further?”

“I would normally say yes but since we’re heading out into the wilderness and Mason City is still about thirty miles ahead of us, it just wouldn’t be safe.”

While Elise was more than eager to jump into the new life that awaited her, it was not enough to get her to just bound off into the dark and find herself lost on the side of some forsaken mountain in the middle of nowhere. Looking up at Jacob’s face, she suddenly realized that he had not once taken off his goggles, in fact, ever since she had first seen him in Penshaw, she had not seen his eyes even once. While her curiosity urged her to question them, she also felt as though it may be rude to ask, but it wasn’t as if Jacob didn’t already know she wanted to know.

“I guess you’re wondering why I’m wearing these, am I right?”

Following Jacob’s question, she felt more at ease about the situation.

“Yes, I mean, how can you even see out here while wearing those? With those goggles on you should have fallen just as much as me. Don’t you at least have a lantern we could use?”

“To tell you the truth, I’ve never actually needed one. For a long time now I’ve been able to see in the dark with no problems. Until today though, I’ve never actually had someone tag along with me either. It’s been one new experience after another these past few days, but I guess for you, it’s like stepping into a whole new life.”

Elise pondered on this man. He seemed so determined and focused when they were back in Penshaw, but out here, away from everyone else, it was like he was a completely different person, as if he were inexperienced and more laid back.

“Anyways, I guess it is getting late. We can stop here for the night and set out in the morning. I hope we’ll be able to make it back to Mason City soon, things tend to pile up fast when I leave.”

“Pile up?”

“Yes, I run a small clinic in Mason City and being the only Preservist within 100 miles of the city, I really have my work cut out for me. I have a few assistants who help with basic things like paperwork or sorting and cataloging my records but most of the work I do myself. It’s a very hard job to maintain, especially out here with so little help.”

Jacob set down his case and from one of the drawers pulled out a flint and tinder kit.

“Here,” he said as he handled her the kit, “See if you can get a spark going and I’ll go and find us some firewood.”

Gathering up some dried leaves and sticks, Elise managed to get a small fire going. After a few minutes, Jacob returned with a bundle of small, broken tree limbs. Slowly adding them one by one, the fire grew warm and bright. Overhead, the stars began to appear. Elise sat back against a tree and looked up at the sky.

“I haven’t gotten to look up at the stars in so long; I almost forgot how beautiful they are.”

From his case, Jacob pulled out a small, pint-sized jar. Inside was an assortment of dried, roasted vegetables.

“Here, you must be hungry. I’m guessing you haven’t eaten much since before I got to Penshaw, right?”

Elise politely took out a piece, “Thank you,” she replied before turned aside to quickly nibble at it, for indeed it had been almost two days since she had gotten the chance to eat, and even then it had not been that much since most of the stew that Ashton had prepared had been allotted for the sick that he had taken under his care.

“Ah! I almost forgot!” Jacob snapped before opening yet another drawer from his case. He produced a small jar, this one having a black, inky liquid inside. He opened the jar and set it close to the fire, shortly after, a fetid, rank smell radiated up from it that was as strong and foul as that which had enveloped Penshaw, but it was not like that of burning flesh, it was more akin to rotting leaves, mud, and smoke. Elise quickly covered her nose so as not to breathe in any of the scent, but Jacob seemed to not be troubled by it all at.

“What is that stuff?”

“It’s a brew made from boiled black walnuts. It works great as a general Echo repellant but more specifically, it keeps away the Asuni Adohi.”

“What’s an Asuni Adohi?”

“It’s better known as the Fisher of the Forest, and if not taken care of, it can devour entire populations of animals, other Echo, and sometimes people.”

Elise nearly choked.

“There are Echoes like that out here?!”

“Absolutely. There are all kinds of Echoes out there and Preservists like me are still discovering new ones all of the time. In fact, I had only discovered the Fisher just a few years ago, before that, no one had even heard of such a thing, so I guess it’s a regional species to these mountains, maybe even a mutation of another Echo altogether.”

“So what was it like, seeing the Fisher for the first time?”

“Honestly? I was terrified down to the soles of my shoes. I had just only come to live and work in Mason City for a few months before getting the job to handle the Fisher. Before that, I was handling small jobs around town just trying to make a living. When I first got there, no one had heard of Echoes, much like back in Penshaw, but as more and more people came to live in and around Mason City, the number of encounters with Echoes increased.

“Some grew ill after eating Echoes that looked like plants or getting bit by Echoes that looked like insects, so work began going more smoothly and I was able to set up a small practice in an apartment over a store. It wasn’t long after that that the notices from Ives began coming in.

“Ives was one of the first settlements in the Takodas. It started out as a small lumber mill and then expanded to a trading post between Holfield in the north and Hartmoth in the south, and from there, more and more people settled in the area, most of them taking up hunting and using Ives to sell furs and meat to the traders that came through the area.

“Anyways, at first, the messages from Ives didn’t seem all that bad, just the numbers of animals was somewhat lower than usual. I thought it was only because the last hunting season had been so good that the numbers hadn’t fully recovered, but what happened next was what caught my attention.”

“And what was that?”

“The hunting dogs were going missing.”

“That doesn’t sound so strange.”

“Dozens of them had disappeared, in just the span of a week, and all without so much as a sound or trace of an attacker or thief left behind.”

“Ok, now that sounds more like an Echo.”

“Exactly what I was thinking. It was then that I decided to pay a little visit to Ives to check things out. About two miles outside of Ives, I ran into a young boy named Barton.”

“Excuse me, but I’m looking for a dog. He’s short, has yellow fur and a brown spot on his left ear. You haven’t seen him haven’t you?”

“Sorry; I can’t say that I have.”

“Where did that dog get to? I swear he was just here.”

“Are you sure he came this way?”

“I’m certain. We were tailing a doe along the road and he chased off after it. He stopped barking a little while ago so I can only think that he got lost or hurt. I’ve already checked everywhere where he might have turned up but his trail’s gone cold. We don’t need another dog going missing, we’ve already lost too many as it is.”

“Wait. Missing? Tell me, you wouldn’t happen to be from Ives would you?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“My name’s Jacob Norwood. I’ve noticed that your town has put out a lot of requests in a hunt of some sort.”

“Yeah, something’s been snatching up the wild game around here and not only that, our dogs as well. The first night we lost six dogs that we had just taken out that morning, and then the next night we lost the eighteen we used to try and track down whoever took them!”

“Have there been any clues as to what might have taken them?”

“Not one! I don’t know what we’re going to do! If we keep losing our dogs, then the whole town’s going to under!”

“Maybe I can help. I’m a Preservist by trade and I investigate these types of problems.”

“We need all that help we can get.”

“It took the two of us about an hour to get to Ives. Barton had told me about how his father, Sawney, who was essentially the mayor of the town and was heading up the investigation; however, nothing ever turned up that might lead them to catch the culprit. At the time, they had no idea that they were dealing with an Echo. But while I knew that this had to be the work of an Echo, I had no idea just how dangerous this hunt was going to be.

“Now Ives was not all that big of a town. It was a few houses and a general store at best and a stockade and camp at worst. The houses were all made from the same wood as the surrounding trees and were shaped like tents. The entire town was surrounded by a fence about as tall as a man with the top carved into spikes so as to prevent unwanted people and animals from coming into the town. The fence was kept up by braces built on both sides and the only ways in were a gate beside the general store and one at the rear of the town away from the road, unless of course someone or something could jump over the fence.

“When I came in, the town was quite busy. Some were repairing what looked to be the pens where the dogs were kept while others were combing the area for signs of a break-in. Near the center of town, a large group of people had gathered together around a house. Off to one side was a pen that held two dogs. The dogs were quite large, coming up to about my waist, and upon seeing me, they started barking furiously, which, of course, made everyone gathered turn to look at me.

“Since this was my first actual job in the field, alone, I nervously bowed and introduced myself, and when the townsfolk saw that I was no threat, they immediately turned back to talking to each other. Almost as if they had forgotten that I was there in the first place.

“Barton took me inside the house, which was actually a lot more spacious than I thought when I saw it on the outside.”

“Dad! We have a visitor!”

“From somewhere further in the house came a tall, lean and muscular man with gray patches of hair and sunken but piercing eyes. He stood well over not only Barton’s but my head as well. The man was practically a giant!”

“Another one coming to volunteer to help us out?”

“He said he was a Preservist or something from Mason City.”

“Preservist? Never heard of such a thing. So what is it that you do exactly?” Sawney said as he took and shook my hand. His grip felt like a vice and it took everything I had to keep from wincing in pain.

“It’s my job to investigate abnormalities in the world and to prevent and or undo any and all problems that are caused whether directly or indirectly by the organisms known as Echoes. As such my title, Preservist, meaning I preserve the balance between nature, mankind, and Echoes.”

“Echoes? Never heard of them either. But if you’re here to lend a hand then I welcome you.”

“Sawney led me into a sitting room and we had a long talk about all that had happened in the past few days. Apparently he and a few others had gone on a trip somewhere deep into the forest where the year before, one of the hunters had spotted a large boar. Hoping to track it down, they followed its trail to a cave where they found an assortment of animal bones, but nothing to suspect that the boar was still nearby, but now they came to believe that they had stumbled into a wolves’ den. They quickly left the cave and decided to hunt in a different area of the woods. However, what they hadn’t expected was that they had already stumbled into a trap laid by the Asuni Adohi.

“By the end of the day, they had not found anything and so they set up camp, planning to try a different area of the forest the next morning. Sometime in the night, the six dogs that they had brought along started barking and then ran off, chasing something into the woods. One of the hunters, a man by the name of Benneit, chased after them. After a few minutes, the barking stopped and the forest got quiet but neither the dogs, nor Benneit returned. The next morning, Benneit had still not returned and there was no signs of the dogs.

“The party searched around the camp but did not find anything to tell them where either Benneit or the dogs had gone to, at least, not until they found their worst fears. In a clearing, about half a mile away from their camp, they found a torn leg from one of the dogs, and just a little ways away they found Benneit, or at least, what was left of him. His body was ripped apart and drained of blood. It was as if he got attacked by a bunch of wild animals. It was then that Sawney and the group suspected that wolves were the culprit and had ganged up on the dogs and gone after Benneit when he showed up. And so, without the dogs and having lost a good hunter, Sawney and the rest retreated back to Ives, intending to come back and exterminate what they thought was a den of wolves, right down to the last pup.”

“We got together everyone who could point a gun or handle a blade and set out within the hour. There were about thirty of us and thirty dogs. We headed out to the cave we found intending to set a trap and ambush the wolves, but none ever showed up. After about three hours, we split up into five groups and searched the area for any signs of the beasts. Throughout the whole day the dogs never caught the scent of anything. We met back up at sundown with nothing to show for it and decided to head back to town. But as it grew dark, something happened.

“We were set upon by some kind of thing. It started going after the stragglers, pulling them back into the woods and then suddenly disappearing before we could catch sight of what got a hold of them. Both the dogs and hunters we brought were being dragged off one by one, and we had no way to stop it. When a dog was dragged off one way, we would give chase or fire, but then, a hunter or dog would be dragged off in another direction. It was as if we were surrounded! The strange thing was though, was that there was no sound coming from whatever was after us! No breathing, no movements, not even a snapped twig!”

“By the time that they returned to Ives, only twelve of the thirty dogs they had started with remained and about twenty-one of the hunters were still alive. From that day forward, no hunter was allowed to leave Ives past sundown and the town gates were sealed until dawn, but even so, this still did not stop the disappearances.”