Talonfall

Talonfall is the hunting cell of the Talons of Veylan given to Keyleth on her elevation to Scaled Bane. They watch the roads, walk people safely down them, and kill what they are sent to kill.

The note

Nettle and four others were already camped in the treeline north of Nuts Deep when the company came back from Elturel in the second week of the downtime. They had been there two days and had not announced themselves. The letter came separately, tied to a hawk's leg, written small on bark-paper to keep the weight down.

Keyleth,

Nettle and the others will have been sitting in your treeline for some days by the time this reaches you. She does not announce herself and she will not come inside your walls, and you will save yourself a season if you stop trying to make her. Everything else about her is an improvement on that.

Five people, then. Nettle runs them and answers to me. The other four go where you send them, and the Talons will add a fifth when your name carries further than it does now, and a sixth after that. I have known it to reach a sixth twice.

There are three things you can ask of them, and I want to set out all three properly rather than have you learn the shape of it by getting it wrong.

The first is watching. Put one of them somewhere and they will tell you what moves through it — a road, a pass, a valley you do not like the look of. You will know a thing is coming before it arrives, which is worth more than most people credit until the one time it saves them. You hear the wind before you see the wolf. Most of what this order does is watching, and nobody has ever thanked us for a season of it.

The second is guiding. They will walk your people through country that would otherwise take something from you. Nothing has ever jumped a party on a road a Talon walked first, and I have been checking that claim for forty years in the hope of catching it out.

The third is the cull, and it is the one you will reach for. Name a thing and they will go and end it. A young wyrm, a brood, a nest of dragonkin that has got above itself. Nothing older or larger than that — I am setting it down in writing so there is no argument about what I meant when the moment comes and you want there to have been more latitude in it.

Understand what a cull actually costs. It is weeks, not days. The tracking is the long part; the killing is quick, or else it has already gone wrong. While they are hunting they are not watching anything and not guiding anyone, so do not ask them for two things in the same month and expect both. They will bring back the carcass, or as much of it as will travel — I am told your company has a use for that, which I approve of. Waste is its own kind of insult.

Moving them costs you time and you should reckon it in advance. Hours to cross a town. Three to five days to cross a region. Ten days to cross the coast, and longer once the passes close. On the road they see nothing and do nothing, so decide where they ought to be and then leave them there.

One thing I did on my own account, which you may reverse. I have put Brannoc Yew on the burned groves. He carves the name of every one of them into his stave and there is not much stave left, and I judged that a man who has been counting those sites for years should be the one walking them. If you would rather have him elsewhere, move him and I will not raise it again.

The last part I would rather not write down, but you are owed it before you give your first order.

I have buried twenty-one of my own in forty years. Nineteen of those were culls. Watching wears people out slowly and you see it coming; the cull takes them all at once and you find out by way of a report that does not arrive. Both facts are true, and only one of them will feel real to you when you are standing somewhere with a problem in front of you and five people who will go if you ask.

So do not count antlers before the rut. Send word to me when you are minded to use them hard, and I will tell you honestly whether I think they will come back.

You have done well by this order. Veylan's ease was owed and you paid it.

— Corwyth Skarn

The cell

Nettle — the anchor, and not counted among the four. Keeps to the treeline outside Nuts Deep and has never been inside the walls. Offers no other name. Nobody has asked twice.

Four hunters stand under her. The Talons add a fifth as Keyleth's name carries further, and a sixth after that.

Standing postings

Hunter	Bears	Currently posted
Hessa Duncroft	Tracker. Ran caravans for the Cult of the Dragon before she left them, and knows how they move because she used to move that way.	The eastern road, ahead of the march on Boareskr Bridge
Brannoc Yew	Half-orc. Carves the name of every burned grove into his stave. There is not much stave left.	Travelling — the Grove Burnings sites
Immeril Stagwatch	Wood elf, ancient and slow-spoken. Has watched the same twelve miles for ninety years and can tell you what changed on a given Tuesday.	The Misty Forest approaches
Sildreth Yarrow	Falconer. Keeps a bird she refuses to name, on the grounds that naming things is how you lose them.	Nuts Deep — watching the northern sky

See also

• Talons of Veylan — the wing; standings are tracked on the Renown Tracker
• Corwyth Skarn — the elder who sent them
• Monster Harvesting — where a cull's carcass ends up
• The Nightingales · The Anvil · The Broken Latch · The Hearthwardens — the other companies' cells
• Keyleth