A man walked once through the Wildwood, hands tucked behind his back casually, clad in form fitting clothes and leather armor. At his side hung an ax, but it was clipped and not at the ready. His head was free of hair, but for a bright ginger beard that dusted along his jawline. His royal blue eyes stared forth at the road, dark as the day grew. He seemed at ease, unbothered and unworried. The darkness of the tall trees didn’t hinder his gait.
Not far from him, a group of bandits were plotting their first roadside robbery. Four strong, but a lone walker in the Wildwood would make for a good test target. They had tailed the bald fellow, and were malicious in intent. His coin would be theirs, his skin would be bruised, his dignity shattered. They were certain of themselves. Perhaps if he were another man, they would have made something of themselves some day. They waited until he hit a dark patch of road and struck, demanding his valuables, his ax, his coin, his clothes. They surrounded him.
The man smiled at one of them, pursed his lips, then stretched his mouth and pressed his tongue against the back of gritted teeth. He drew breath deeply through his nose, then began to make a single note noise that stretched for miles, and filled the night air. He hissed.
Well the roadway bandits laughed, of course, at first. He could not threaten them. The last of the daylight left, and the moon barely illuminated the scene through the trees. His hiss never ended. Instead, the bandits stopped laughing as the noise he made seemed to…multiply. Another hiss, then another. From the shadowed treeline, a cacophony of hisses, constant and in innumerous multitude. The bandits realized too late that they were not ambushing. They were ambushed.
Not much else is known about that night, but for a figure appearing. The hissing stopped at that point in the story. From down the road behind the four frightened road thugs, a man in a strange, featureless, white mask, cackling into the night.
