Bandit raid on the camping stagecoach

The Midnight Toll at Hollowstone

The stagecoach, a lumbering beast of wood and iron, sits precariously in the center of the gorge, one wheel shattered against a jagged rock. The campfire is a flickering amber eye in the oppressive, creeping mist of the Hollowstone Pass. Around it, the silence of the wilderness is too heavy, broken only by the nervous stomping of the tethered horses and the rhythmic, distant whistle of the wind through the crags. Shadowy shapes flit between the jagged pines—not wolves, but something with the glint of steel and the cold patience of the gallows. The Grey-Feather bandits have closed the trap, using the terrain to bottle the travelers into the ruins of an old stone waystation. Here, in the damp chill of the mountains, the line between a sanctuary and a tomb is as thin as a bandit's blade.