Intrigued, and instantly vigilant, Korg shifted his weight and looked up.
A strange figure stood at the lip of the hole, blending almost perfectly with the night. The figure wore a white wolf pelt that covered his head and shoulders.
Korg tightened his grip on the flint, his muscles coiling like a spring, ready to strike at the man’s ankles if he made a hostile move. "Who are you?" Korg hissed, baring his teeth.
But the words that quietly left the wolf-clad stranger’s mouth left Korg stunned.
"We can save your daughter," the teenager whispered. "But what price are you willing to pay?"
Korg stood frozen for a few moments as his exhausted brain tried to process the words spoken by the strange youth.
All he had in his mind was a single, blinding thought: *Can Elin still be saved?*
Korg dropped the flint. It hit the dirt.
"Anything," Korg answered as soon as he regained his clarity. "Anything, shadow. I will do whatever you want. I will kill anyone you point at. My life is yours."
"Wrap her up. Follow my steps exactly," Silas commanded.
Silas led Korg and Elin out of the slave pits, navigating the blind spots of the elite guards’ patrol routes with terrifying precision.
They slipped through a small gap in the palisade logs that Silas had clearly prepared beforehand, disappearing into the forest.
After a silent trek up the mountain paths, Korg found himself entering a fire-lit cavern.
To his immense shock, he was not led to a mystic Shaman. He was led to a well-lit, organized alcove where a boy no older than twelve winters was waiting.
Frodo didn’t chant or shake bone rattles. He simply took Elin, placed her near a controlled fire, and began feeding her a concentrated broth made of pure rendered mammoth fat and crushed willow bark.
"The fever will break by morning," Frodo assured Korg, wiping the girl’s brow with a warm hide. "She will live."
And thus, the Ghost of the Palisades was born... a blade planted deep inside Kael’s camp, loyal to the boy-leader of the mountain.
***
In a hidden side-tunnel of the cavern.
Frodo looked at his Head Scout. "How is the reconnaissance and recruitment going, Silas?"
Silas leaned against the stone, replying with a somewhat complicated tone. "Better than expected, Frodo. The recruitment is too easy. There are hundreds of starving people in Kael’s camp, and the cruelty keeps increasing. But... it is painful to watch them suffer like that in the pits, knowing we cannot save them all."
Frodo’s eyes narrowed, staring into the flickering firelight. "With Korg as our eyes on the inside, we will know every patrol route, every weakness, and every weapon cache they have."
The Reconnaissance network quickly expanded in the following weeks, recruiting several desperate captives similar to Korg...
Before Kael even realized it, Frodo had built an organized, intelligence agency operating right under the warlord’s nose.