Shadows at my Heels

Lavios Daleborn was hired on by a pair of traveling merchants to protect their cart and a family paying for passage.  Not a weighty assignment save for the fact they'd be traveling the Blackwood Causeway alone.  But the passengers were desperate.  The head of the family - Gorin - has a job in Cassomir that can't wait any longer.  While the merchants were glad to have some kind of cargo instead of making the journey to the city empty handed...it was still the Blackwood.  And judging by the light seeping through the storm-swollen clouds above, they'd still be on the last leg of the journey after nightfall. But greed overrode sense when it came to the merchants.  That character flaw bothered Lavios little considering the bandits may be close to hand.

So they set off into the late afternoon, setting a fast pace in the hopes of bleeding every scrap of daylight they could from the day.  But with several leagues behind them, they come upon the form of a dead man in the road.  Further inspection reveals the now familiar tattoo of the bandits holding Lavios' mother.  It's a macabre but solid piece of evidence proving he's on the right track.

In the midst of their investigation, the soul-chilling cyprus trees closing about the causeway like a shadowed fist, several creatures loose fearful howls of ravenous hunger.  The mud and foliage all around them explode with noise and the terrified travelers seek a quick exit from the scene.  Before they can make their escape, hideous creatures out of nightmare burst upon the road and set about devouring the dead man's body.  They bay to the growing night and engender such fear in the wagon's occupants that the driver is willing to break the horses just to get away.  One of the unholy fiends tears itself away and give chase, horrifying speed given it by arms too long for any normal person to possess.

Calling upon great gozreh to give his servant aid, Lavios looses a crossbow bolt and sends the pursuing aberration crashing to the road.  The blessed shot gives the wagon the breathing room to escape.  But the howls of the shadowed creatures from the swamp will stay with the wagon's occupants for a very long time.

In appreciation for his brave stand, Lavios is connected with a man in Cassomir by the name of Jak.  A constable for the Cassomiri government, Jak drifts among the criminal element of Admiral's Fen under a cover of subterfuge.  He's just the man to bring more information to Lavios and put the young Inquisitor on the trail.  He's already gained the name of the bandit group.  The Stag Heralds...