The Smiles of Sorrow
"Wake up. We've got some trouble." It was Roland, whispering quietly into Cuthbert's ear.
"Eh.. what?" Cuthbert sat up, Roland shushing him with the signal of his index finger over his lips.
"Seems that some wolves have picked up our scent." Roland nodded towards the north. Roland's eyes could easily see the dark figures approaching in a pack of seven, but Cuthbert couldn't.
"What kind of wolves?" Cuthbert asked dreemily.
".. Wolves." Roland stood up, drawing his guns with incredible speed, the kind of guns a genuine gunslinger owned and shot.
Alain was already awake, his .44 shortshooter already drawn. Cuthbert figured that Roland was on watch. Alain wouldn't have seen the Wolves.
Without asking any more questions, Cuthbert emerged from his blanket, tying his belt around his waist, and drew his gun subconsciously. While Cuthbert and Alain were not true gunslingers as Roland had become, they were instinctive enough to come pretty close.
The desert was beautiful when the moon shone. Unfortunately, the three did not have such luck, and this was by far one of the darkest nights they've been through. Their camp was in the center of a rough circle of juniper and joshua trees, the latter being a very spiky, very huge kind of tree. The camp fire was lit, but was barely kindling, only enough to keep it alive without going out into a mere cinder.
Cuthbert's gun was already loaded, his fingers working almost completely by instinct as he looked and listened for the oncoming stalkers. Cuthbert didn't think that Wolves would follow them this far into the desert.
Ever since they returned to Gilead in ruins, they decided to head eastward, hopefully finding the Royal Army, or at least what was left of it. They've been following traces of the army for three weeks. Nothing so far.
However, the following moment caught all three of the warriors off guard. In their lives of training for greatness and the Dark Tower, they had been taught to be alert and mindful, especially during combat and preparation for said combat.
A loud howl echoed from behind their camp, the opposite direction of where Roland had seen the Wolves.
"Don't. Move." Roland said. Nobody did.