A HENRY STORY 1: Memories Of The Fallen Prince

XXIII. Hunt

Henry's plan was quite simple: To find Goldfang's camp, he would hole up somewhere close to the shore, watching for gnawers entering or leaving the island. He expected the second patrol to arrive shortly; enough time had passed, and Goldfang would certainly want to be informed of what had happened to Hassel and his friend. When they would then come, Henry would wait for them to leave and follow them back home.

He rowed steadily, steering his little boat toward a shallower ravine. Only this part of the coastline lacked steep cliffs, so he gambled the rats would come from there.

He hid his boat in a crevice and set up a stakeout spot not far from it, where he made himself as comfortable as he could and went over the bit of a plan he had. He knew he would have to mostly improvise when it came to the actual assassination, as he had no idea what conditions he would find, but he had some preferences. If possible, Henry knew he wanted it to be a one-on-one confrontation, and if he could not snipe her with his slingshot, he would at least like to have his blade prepped with Ignifer this time.

Henry had no idea for how long he had sat there, for the lack of better occupations doodling in his notebook, when he first made out voices: "Oh, the crawlers most certainly didn't make them disappear like that. They're crawlers."

Henry perked up and peeked out of his hideout. This was definitely the voice of a gnawer. It seemed to originate from somewhere further down the canyon.

"And besides, the island reeked of humans," another gnawer replied. "Hassel and Eyesharp were there, and so was a human. Goldfang needs to hear about this. It might mess with her plans if the humans have their eyes on the island too."

Henry stuffed his notebook into his backpack and retreated deeper into the crevice to let them pass. He had not considered that the gnawers would smell him on the island, regardless of whether he discarded the corpses.

But at least the blood seemed to mask his scent, as their mindless squabbling remained uninterrupted when they passed directly beneath his hideout. They eventually disappeared into a tunnel opening further up the canyon, and only when they were out of sight did Henry dare leap down. It was time for the real hunt to begin.

. . . Or so he had thought. Most of the hour-long trip to their camp was nothing short of arduous. Henry struggled with judging how much distance he should maintain to not be spotted but not lose them either; his extendable fur soles served him excellently, but he couldn't help but be paranoid either way.

Then again, the two were not exactly quiet traveling companions. They continued bickering about whether Goldfang needed to hear of the human presence on the island or not in a most aggravating manner. By the end of it, Henry thought they would make excellent friends for the shiners.

When they finally reached a steep canyon that looked like it had been created by a landslide a while ago and passed an entrance guarded by two other gnawers, he was fighting the urge to stick his sword up their throats just so that they may finally be quiet.

Henry quickly discerned that this was Goldfang's camp. The canyon walls were steep and the space between them was limited, but there had to be usable caves and crevices in the walls. Its shape made it naturally well-fortified, as there was only one entrance . . . on ground level, anyway.

At first, he had no idea how to even infiltrate it, especially without light. It took a few hours until the gnawers finally lit a brazier of some kind inside; in its light, Henry made out a narrow path that he may scale left of the entrance and enter the canyon from above.

It was no easy climb, and he had no safety rope, but eventually he found his footing on the steep wall and inched forward, directly over the top of the unsuspecting guard's head. When he climbed on, he found a path leading further up, and eventually, there was a tight crevice in the canyon wall, not unlike the one he had hidden in by the coast.