The blood trail led deeper into the forest with the meandering quality of someone who'd been either very drunk or very dying. Both was another possibility, though Reyn had limited experience with the combination, although there had been a few times in her younger years that could've fit the bill. The path wound between trees, doubled back on itself, and occasionally spiraled in ways that could be interpreted that the victim had been trying to confuse pursuit or possibly write his memoirs in his own blood.

  "This doesn't make sense," Venn said, crouching to examine another elaborate loop. "Why run in circles?"

  "Terror makes people do strange things," Jarek offered, though he stayed well back from the blood. "I once saw a man run straight into a wall trying to escape from an aggressive goose."

  "Sure that wasn’t you?? Reyn said, noting how the trail suddenly veered left for no apparent reason.

  "Could have been. Geese aren’t that far from horses with wings and worse attitudes, come to think of it."

  They followed the path toward the old barn, though 'followed' implied more linear progress than actually occurred. The trail led them around the barn twice, through a berry patch that left them all slightly purple, and past the same tree four times before finally approaching the building's entrance.

  "Look," Venn said, pointing at the ground near the barn door.

  Reyn knelt, studying the marks in the soft earth. Paw prints, certainly. Small. Absurdly small. Like a cat's, but rounder. Some of the blood had pooled in one, giving scale that made the whole situation more confusing.

  "These can't be right," she said.

  "Maybe it's a baby," Jarek suggested. "Even monsters have babies."

  "Baby monsters don't typically shred grown men to pieces," Venn pointed out, though she was also staring at the prints with the expression of someone reconsidering everything they thought they knew about nature.

  The barn door hung open, darkness beyond suggesting a regular absence of light that exaggerated the mystery. The blood trail led inside, accompanied by more of those impossibly small prints. There was also fur caught on a splinter. Soft, white fur that looked like it belonged on something that should be petted, not avoided.

  "I'll go first," Reyn said, drawing Good Deeds. The blade seemed almost embarrassed to be drawn against something that left prints smaller than copper coins. At least, that was how Reyn felt.

  The barn's interior had the type of darkness that came from windows being boarded up by someone who really meant it. Dust motes danced in the few rays of light that had fought their way through cracks. The smell was curious: old hay, rust, and something musky but not unpleasant. Like a pet shop, if pet shops occasionally hosted massacres.

  More tiny prints crossed the floor in completely random patterns. Tufts of that white fur decorated various surfaces. In one corner there was a pile of vegetables of all sizes and shapes.

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  "Are those... Vegetables?" Venn asked, staring at the display.

  They were. Carrots both small and large. Turnips. Several cabbages piled atop potatoes.

  "Who wouldn’t want vegetables after all that meat. Smart," Jarek said, then paused. "Oh no. It's an intelligent tiny monster. That's worse somehow."

  A sound from the loft above made them all freeze. Not a roar or howl or any of the traditional monster sounds. It was... chittering? Like someone trying to be threatening while accidentally being adorable.

  "Hello?" Reyn called out, feeling slightly ridiculous addressing what sounded like an upset hamster.

  The chittering intensified. Something white moved in the shadows above. Small. Fluffy. With long ears that caught the light and eyes that gleamed red in the darkness.

  "Is that..." Venn started.

  "It can't be," Jarek said.

  "It is," Reyn said, lowering her sword slightly.

  A rabbit sat in the loft, grooming its ear with one paw. Not just any rabbit. This one was particularly fluffy, with fur so pristine white it seemed to glow. Its pink nose twitched. Its whiskers quivered. It was, by any reasonable measure, adorable enough to be painted on nursery walls.

  It was also covered in blood.

  "Maybe it just found the body?" Jarek suggested hopefully. "Innocent woodland creature discovering tragedy?"

  The rabbit's head snapped toward them. Its eyes, which had seemed sweetly pink, now burned with unmistakable malevolence. When it opened its mouth, presumably to make whatever sound rabbits make, they saw teeth. Sharp teeth. Teeth that belonged in something that ate knights, not clover.

  "Oh," Venn said in a very small voice. "That doesn’t look right."

  The rabbit launched itself from the loft with a sound that managed to be both a warrior's cry and a squeak. It moved faster than anything that fluffy had a right to, becoming a white blur of homicidal intent.

  Reyn brought Good Deeds up just in time to block. The impact nearly knocked her backward. The rabbit had hit with the force of a charging boar, if boars were adorable and murderous in equal measure. It rebounded off her blade, landed on a beam, and hissed. Rabbits, Reyn was fairly certain, weren't supposed to hiss.

  "It's still cute though," Jarek said, which was when the rabbit turned its attention to him.

  What followed was a chase scene that would have been comedic if not for the very real danger. Jarek ran. The rabbit pursued with hops that covered impossible distances. Venn tried to hit it with her quarterstaff, missed, hit Jarek instead. Reyn attempted to corner it, only to have it bounce off her head and onto a rafter.

  "Why is it so fast?" Venn gasped, spinning to track the white blur.

  "Why is it so angry?" Jarek countered, diving behind a hay bale that immediately exploded into fragments as the rabbit hit it.

  "Why are we losing to a bunny?" Reyn asked, genuinely curious about how this had become her life.

  The rabbit paused on a beam above them, sides heaving. In the better light, they could see the full extent of its unusual nature. The teeth, yes, but also claws that no rabbit should possess. Muscles that rippled beneath the fluffy exterior. And an expression of pure contempt toward its opponents.

  The rabbit chittered again, a sound that somehow conveyed both threat and disgust. Then it attacked again, but this time with clear intent. It bounced off the wall, redirected mid-air, and came at Reyn from an angle she hadn't expected.

  She managed to deflect with the flat of her blade, but the rabbit's claws scraped across her arm, drawing blood. Real blood. From a rabbit.

  "Okay," she said, looking at the scratches. "Now I'm annoyed."

  "Don't hurt it!" Venn called out. "We can’t kill a rabbit!"

  "It's trying to kill us!"

  "But look at its little nose!"

  The rabbit, perhaps understanding it was being discussed, sat up on its haunches and wiggled said nose. For a moment, just a moment, it was the picture of harmless woodland creature. Then it bared those insane teeth and screamed a war cry that no rabbit throat should have been able to produce.

  "Right," Reyn said, adjusting her grip on Good Deeds, pulling on the confused Rage building within her. "Let's catch a rabbit."

  The rabbit's ears twitched, and Reyn could have sworn it smiled.

  Then it attacked again, and the barn became a battlefield where three experienced adventurers tried very hard not to be murdered by something that could fit in a cooking pot.

  It was the kind of story that, if they survived, absolutely no one would believe.

  If they even wanted to talk about it.