A poacher operating in the high country below Cloudhollow Pass was killed in a short, brutal encounter this week, according to goatherds who examined the scene afterward. The man, whose identity remains unconfirmed by Sandgate officials, was found dead among snare wire and charred pitch-wood, evidence that herders say matches years of unexplained losses among the region's ember goat herds.
The killing was carried out by a lone traveler identified by witnesses at Sandgate's well as Erdeth Greycloak, newly arrived in the frontier fort and known locally from bouts fought at the Cellar Pits. Goatherds Boril and Udo, who first brought word of the thinning herds to the fort, said Greycloak set out alone along the rear gate route through the wadi and switchbacks toward the pass, following rumors of the so-called Ember Circuit.
"We told him what we believed and what we doubted, and he went up anyway," said Udo, who had long suspected foul play behind the herd's decline. "Whatever he found up there, it wasn't natural."
According to accounts gathered from the scene, Greycloak tracked bootprints and a cold firepit reeking of pitch before discovering the poacher laying snares near a herd of eight goats, several bearing scorched hooves. A brief struggle followed in which the poacher was killed. Searchers later recovered snare wire, charred wood chips, a handful of coin, and a brass hoof-token bearing a cloven-hoof mark, an item herders say matches a wax seal seen on notices posted near the fort.
"That token means something," Boril said. "Someone back in Sandgate knows this man, or knew what he was doing up there. This isn't finished."
Sandgate's officials have not yet commented on the brass token or its possible connection to figures within the fort. In the meantime, Greycloak reportedly remained in the high country afterward, observed by herders coaxing a wild goat away from the spooked herd without rope or restraint, an act some in the fort are already calling stranger than the killing itself.