Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell
Chapters - Brandon Sanderson
Prologue
A man called Daggon holds court at Madam Silence's waystop, spinning tales about the infamous bounty hunter known as the White Fox to a nervous fellow who has given his name as Earnest. Daggon describes the White Fox as untouchable - able to kindle fire in the deepest night and unafraid of shades - and uses the promise of more details to coax his companion into buying his drinks. The waystop's owner, Silence Montane, moves through the room with her habitual scowl, while the storyteller remains oblivious to what she really is.
Chapter 1
Silence Montane recognises the men in her common room as Chesterton Divide and four of his gang - wanted for over fifty murders, including the slaughter of Sebruki's entire family. She instructs her daughter William Ann to dose their beer with fenweed while she saddles their horses with pouches that will allow her to track them into the Forests. Her plans are complicated when the corrupt tax collector Theopolis arrives in the stable to press her over debts and dangle a writ of seizure over the waystop, and further threatened when the traumatised Sebruki steals the crossbow and nearly kills Silence in a bid to avenge her dead mother.
Chapter 2
An hour after nightfall, Silence and William Ann set out into the Forests carrying glowpaste lanterns and a keg of gunpowder to track and kill Chesterton's gang. Silence uses wetleek sap in the horses' water to create a glowing trail, and together they locate the camp, killing four of the men with hammer blows before Chesterton wakes and flees - forcing Silence to tackle him and beat him to death with a rock just as the surrounding shades turn black with rage. When a group of fort bounty hunters led by Red Young ride in and steal the corpses at knifepoint, Silence cuts a fraying rope on Chesterton's saddle before letting them go, then plans an ambush at the white span using the gunpowder trap.
Chapter 3
Silence detonates the gunpowder keg on the road, causing chaos among the fort bounty hunters and sending the enraged shades swarming upon them. In the confusion she and William Ann recover Chesterton's body, but two shades pursue Silence and grip her arm, beginning to wither her flesh before William Ann pours their emergency silver dust over the wound and reverses the damage. They are nearly home when Red Young - his face half-withered from a shade attack - seizes William Ann at knifepoint and demands the corpse, but an unseen crossbow bolt from the darkness makes him nick the girl's neck and draw blood, causing the shades to descend on him in a killing frenzy while William Ann's face begins to wither rapidly from a shade she is shoved through.
Chapter 4
A brief memory surfaces of Silence confronting her stern grandmother on a clifftop years ago, refusing to let the old woman interfere with her unborn child. Grandmother insists that hardship is the God Beyond's plan for Forescouts and walks away without comfort, while Silence privately vows that she will raise her own daughter differently.
Chapter 5
Silence wakes in the kitchen to find that Dob the stableman has saved her life with the silver dust jar kept on the windowsill, and that William Ann survived but has lost her left hand to withering and will bear permanent scarring. With no corpse to present and Theopolis's debt due within days, Silence sits in grim contemplation - until Theopolis himself walks in the following morning. She reveals that his mud-stained boots glow with the glowpaste from the Forests, proving he was there when Red attacked her, then lures him into striking her and drawing blood inside the waystop - which releases the shade of her grandmother, long trapped in the locked shrine, and it kills him instantly.
Chapter 6
Silence tracks down Theopolis's hidden cave in the hills near the Old Bridge and recovers Chesterton's corpse, which he had dragged there himself before the shades destroyed him. She also collects her grandmother's dagger from Red's withered remains on the road. With both bodies hidden in the cold cellar, Silence pauses beside the shrine door and smiles, already composing the story she will tell the fort authorities - that she stumbled upon Theopolis's lair and found him dead, the White Fox's true identity revealed at last.
Epilogue
Weeks later, Daggon is back at Silence's waystop, now telling a new travelling companion that the White Fox has been unmasked as the tax collector Theopolis, who apparently used his last strength to kill Chesterton before perishing from withering. Seven men have since proposed to Silence after the reward for finding Chesterton's body, though she gives no sign of noticing Daggon's admiring glances. The waystop hums on peacefully, its true guardian completely hidden in plain sight.