The Stag
The letter came to me in the drizzle of an autumn night, sealed with trembling wax. The messenger barely stayed long enough to deliver it, muttering of cursed woods and vanishing travelers. When I read the plea, I felt the weight of desperation pressed into every inked word: "Our families are being taken. The forest tolls with phantom bells. We beg you, hunt the Stag of the Gallows."
I had heard whispers of it before—an antlered beast draped with nooses, a phantom executioner that dragged the living into the realm of the dead. I've taken grim contracts before, but the mention of bells unsettled me. Bells should summon the living, not toll for the condemned.
The client, a gaunt man with eyes ringed in sleepless dark, offered coin far less than the danger warranted. But I saw in him what I had seen in many others: a man who would rather lose everything than see another child vanish. I accepted, not for his coin, but because the cries of the lost are what keep me walking this path.
The forest of Gallowsreach awaited me, and I knew before stepping into its shadow that I would not leave unchanged.
Old Lore of the Stag
Every monster has a story, and stories are the only lanterns we carry into darkness. The Stag of the Gallows was no simple beast, but an old sin given shape. My memory stirred with half-forgotten tales—an executioner's stag, loosed in rebellion, slaughtered with its master and strung from the trees as punishment. Some say its spirit merged with the rage of the hanged, becoming a hunter of the guilty and the innocent alike.
But legends rarely agree. Others whispered it was no stag at all, but a punishment spirit bound in the shape of prey. What all tales shared was the sound of tolling bells, and the rows of nooses swaying from its branching antlers. They say to hear the bells is to be marked, and once marked, only death or fire can free you.
I wrote these notes into my journal, the ink blotted by the quivering of my hand. The lore was too consistent to ignore. The beast did not kill for hunger, but for ritual. That meant its patterns could be tracked—if I listened carefully.
I set out at dawn, my sword at my side, my familiar shifting into a crow to watch the treeline. The forest of Gallowsreach was waiting.
The Investigation
I began in the village that bordered the cursed forest. Empty cribs, half-finished meals, and shoes left at doorsteps told a story of swift vanishings. Those left behind spoke in hushed, fragmented voices. A mother said her son followed the sound of a bell into the trees. A hunter swore he found prints larger than any stag, each hoofprint ringed with disturbed earth, as if the ground itself recoiled from the touch.
Children described seeing shadows in the shape of a stag at the edge of the fields, its antlers heavy with dangling ropes. When I asked if they heard the bells, they all looked away, afraid to answer.
At the edge of the forest, I found signs of disturbance: clawed bark, trampled grass, and worst of all, rope burns in the branches above. My familiar landed near me, feathers bristling. The air was heavier here, thick with the stench of decay and old iron.
I whispered to the trees, a soft elven prayer for guidance, but the forest only replied with silence. Silence, and one faint sound that raised the hairs on my neck: the distant toll of a bell.
Scouting the Beast
I didn't rush in. Reckless hunters don't live long. Instead, I moved with patience, shadow to shadow, my familiar soaring above as my eyes in the sky. For hours I watched. At first, there was nothing—only the creak of branches and the unsettling absence of birdsong. But as dusk settled, I glimpsed it.
The Stag of the Gallows emerged like a nightmare born from the trees. Its body was skeletal, flesh stretched taut over bone, eyes hollow save for embers burning deep within. From its antlers hung nooses, old and frayed, but swaying as though pulled by invisible hands. And when it walked, the sound followed: the toll of unseen bells echoing through the forest.
I did not attack. Not yet. I studied its gait, its pauses, the way it sniffed the air as though seeking its next victim. It circled a tree where claw marks marred the trunk—sign of its chosen ground. It hunted here, again and again.
The stag froze, its head turning slowly toward me. My breath caught. For one heartbeat, I thought it had found me. But then it moved on. My chance to strike would come, but only once. I needed to be ready.
Preparing the Hunt
Knowledge is only useful when paired with preparation. I returned to the village and worked by firelight, crafting what weapons I could. Silver filings mixed with resin, bound to my sword's edge with runes of severance. I brewed a potion of clarity, bitter as bile, to keep the tolling bells from drowning my mind. From a temple ruin I had passed days earlier, I carried a charm of flame—weak, but enough to ward off death's chill.
Most importantly, I fashioned a noose of my own, braided from consecrated hemp. If the stag bound its victims with rope, then rope might be the key to binding it in return.
My familiar, back in its fox form, watched silently, its amber eyes reflecting firelight. It knew, as I did, that tomorrow's hunt might be our last. Still, I have never walked away from a hunt. To do so would be to let fear rule me, and fear makes poor company on the road.
When the preparations were complete, I closed my journal with a steady hand. The hunt would begin at dawn.
The Bells Begin
The forest greeted me with mist, each breath chilled and damp. The trees seemed taller, their limbs like gallows poles stretching into the sky. The bells began not long after I stepped past the boundary: low, hollow tolls, like the heartbeat of a distant cathedral.
I drank the potion of clarity, and the sound lessened but did not vanish. Without it, I would have lost myself to the rhythm—walking blindly, like those children.
Through the fog, I saw remnants of the stag's passage. A fresh carcass of a wolf, strangled by rope that left its body suspended from the branches. Its tongue lolled, its eyes glazed with a terror I felt in my marrow. I cut it down, whispering a prayer.
Then the mist shifted. The stag was near. Its bells tolled louder, echoing in my skull. My sword hummed with runes, the silver glinting faintly.
And in the distance, I saw them—antlers swaying, ropes dragging, eyes burning like twin coals.
The First Clash
It saw me this time. No hiding, no watching. The stag lowered its skeletal head and charged, antlers scraping branches as it thundered toward me. The sound of bells shook my bones.
I swung my blade, now a whip of silver and flame, cracking across its hide. Sparks flew, flesh seared, and the stag screamed—a sound not of any beast, but of the hanged crying out at once. Its ropes lashed out, animated by unseen hands, seeking my throat.
I dodged, rolling beneath its hooves, striking upward. My arrow form loosed, each shot piercing but never stopping it. The stag bled smoke and ash instead of blood, and still it came, relentless as judgment itself.
My familiar shifted mid-battle, from fox to wolf, leaping at the ropes, tearing them free. For each rope severed, another appeared, sprouting anew like cursed fruit.
The clash was brutal, my arms aching, ears ringing, but I held my ground. For now.
Binding the Beast
The noose I had crafted burned against my skin as I drew it. The stag circled me, its bells now deafening, every toll a hammer against my skull. My vision blurred, but I forced my steps steady, whispering elven words of anchoring.
When it lunged, I cast the rope. The noose caught on its antlers, glowing with faint firelight. For the first time, the beast staggered. Its antlers shuddered as though bound by an invisible weight.
I struck then, my sword flaring with silver and flame, driving deep into its chest. Smoke poured from the wound, and the stag screamed again, rearing as the ropes upon its antlers writhed like dying serpents.
It thrashed, nearly breaking me, but the noose held. For a fleeting heartbeat, the bells fell silent.
Death of the Gallows Stag
With its strength waning, I pressed my assault. My whip cracked, searing its flesh; my bow loosed arrow after arrow, each glowing rune sinking into its hollow eyes. The stag convulsed, ropes snapping one by one.
My familiar leapt again, sinking teeth into its leg, dragging it down. I raised my sword high, both hands gripping, runes blazing. With a cry that tore from my soul, I drove the blade down.
The stag collapsed, the bells tolling one final time—long, mournful, and fading into silence. Its body withered, collapsing into ash and rope, leaving only antlers blackened and cracked.
The forest grew still again. For the first time in decades, perhaps, Gallowsreach knew quiet.
Reflections and the Road Ahead
I buried the antlers deep beneath the earth, binding them with wards so they could not rise again. The village will never know the truth of what I faced. To them, I will say only that the curse has ended. That will be enough.
But I know the truth. The stag was no mere beast. It carried the wrath of countless condemned souls, their judgment given form. To slay it was not victory—it was reprieve. For creatures like this never truly die. They wait, in the shadows between stories, to rise again when the world grows weak.
As I left the forest, my familiar padded beside me, silent save for the crunch of leaves. I felt the weight of the hunt settle upon me, but also the quiet satisfaction that at least for now, families would not hear phantom bells calling their children into the dark.
The road stretched ahead, endless as ever. And so I walked it, for there will always be another shadow, another hunt, waiting for me.