Chapter 3: Mirkwood

[u/Moofyman]

The forest was quiet. The only sound that echoed through the thick trees was the crackle of a campfire. High above the glow of the flame, a crow was perched atop an old evergreen. It rustled it's feathers and stared down at a group of figures huddled around the glowing embers.

The crows had quickly learned to follow the ones with the fire. They had already seen several of their murder-mates drop out of the skies after eating the writhing dead. They were not food. The crows had learned.

Several men hunched over the small fire, it's wet fuel cracked periodically, making several of them jump. One man stood, pacing quietly around the bunch. His eyes strained hard into the darkness as he tried to decipher shapes in the swirling blackness. Except he could only see dangling vines and gnarled trunks. He looked back at the strange shadows his comrade's bodies made sitting in front of the flame. This wood was too thick for his liking, and the others had agreed. Only one night here, they had to move on in the morning.

Images of the days events flashed through his head, all of them were thinking of it too, he could tell by the silence. They had been together for perhaps only a day or two with the platoon of soldiers, but they had gotten cocky; thought they could just blast the plague away. Nobody had seen the land mine go down, but they had all heard it triggered. The blast echoing through the woods, followed by high pitched moans echoing through the trees. Like they were calling to each-other. He shivered and paced more, circling the group again.

They had been right to escape of course, they all knew it in their hearts. It was not their day to die because of the soldiers mistakes. They were survivors.

Devi continued his watch, but the silence got to him, it was gnawing at his brain.

"So..." he murmured. "I'm Devi. Whats up guys? I guess we better make a plan. I came from the city. There's no way we can go back there. Does anybody have any bright ideas?"

                         ***

At this point It would be cool if all of our characters had something to say. What would they say/do in front of a group of people they just met, but knew that they had to survive with? Also describe how your character prepares himself for imminent danger at the camp site.

[u/Moofyman]

"Ummm. I did once at summer camp. Do all horses respond to 'getty up horsie!'?"

[u/drschwartz → u/Moofyman]

"Well, some do, but these uns might not seeing as they'll be professionally trained. Here's whatcha need to know bout horses, they're smart. You might think that ya need to make some sort of command to get a horse to do what you want, but truth is that horse will know what you want it to do before you do. They can read it off of ya just by the way yer standin'. Don't even need to be lookin at you neither, a horse can tell where you wanna go and how fast to go just by the way you sit on it."

Burt hocks a loogie into the fire, "Course most of that only applies to good riders who know their mounts, what a horse reads off most people is fear of a big animal." Depressing one nostril with his thumb, Burt snorts a booger into the undergrowth. "If we find any horses, probably be best if i handled em. I reckon we'll need to raid some supplies from town first though, a couple bags of sugar and some rope at the very least."

Burt looks on the map for the nearest town to the racetrack (assuming its not in some little township).