The beginning of summer had been cooler and wetter than any Hasan remembered previously. It seemed that for weeks he had woken to the sound of rain, and clouds so thickly shrouded the Forest that it felt like dusk at all times of the day. With visibility so low, and the ground water-logged and treacherous, Hasan was less mobile than usual. He still traced the borders every morning and evening, but the going was slow and slippery, and so he spent the rest of his time sheltering beneath the canopy of the trees, listening to the sounds of the foals playing and hoping his coat would dry even a little.

The rain also had the effect of washing away any and all scent-marks of the herd until Hasan could smell nothing but damp, rotting things. It was not a concern, then, when he did not scent Baba Yaga for a day, then two, and then three. She had relieved herself of the Forest before, and had always been back. Her presence was one that Hasan had come to count on, one as steady and dependent as moss on a rock.

Then, one day, as he ranged up the shoreline on his morning rounds with rain slapping at his back, he found her scent. He doubled back, circled, tested the air and the ground like a bloodhound, then finally found the source: a clump of hair on a log of driftwood.

Baba Yaga's hair.

With a sick feeling in his gut, Hasan ruminated the rest of the afternoon. He did not like what the hair might mean, but not liking it and not facing it were two different things altogether. He knew he must do something.

And so, as evening descended on the Forest, Hasan perched himself within the heart of the territory, at the edge of a small clearing—so that his voice would carry as far as needed—where brambles grasped at his sides and puddles splashed beneath his hooves. He let out a loud, sonorous call for whoever might hear him, and waited with anticipation twisting in his gut.