Richard’s arms are tightly folded; he’s been standing quietly amidst the carnage, disapproval carved in grim against the bones of his face. The tidiness of Gallows life has faded from his leathers. He’s scruffy, and tired from a long day’s travel, and this isn’t how he’d imagined this pursuit ending at all, with raided assets and their young strewn messily about.

“There might be other herds in the area to pursue,” he says. “But to answer your question, we’ll be able to kill more of them if they’re sleeping.”

A little black owl snags into a clumsy landing on a felled branch nearby -- familiar, by now, to the party.