A Dance of Fang and Claw: The Ranger Archives Volume 3, page 14
“This is what you wanted to show me?”
Asher entered the room and held up the candle to the wall on his right, where a thick iron loop had been fastened by bolts. Its twin was equally fixed in place on the adjacent wall. The ranger moved from one to the other, giving them both a strong tug. They would do, he thought, though the ropes would need replacing with chains instead.
“We’ve got less than three weeks to transform this room,” he said.
Maybury studied the three walls he could see from the doorway. “Transform it? Into what?”
Asher looked back at him and saw the amber in the man’s eyes. “A prison.”
Russell took a moment to absorb the word before looking at the room with a fresh perspective. “It’s not particularly big. Isn’t the wolf big?”
Having had the opportunity to compare the wolves of both Russell and Elias, Asher wanted to tell him that his own monster was on the larger side. “We need to contain it,” he said instead. “The less room for manoeuvring the better. What we need to work on is the structure.” Here, Asher rapped his knuckles against the boards that lined the walls. “Behind the wood,” he continued, “it’s solid enough, but it might not hold against an angry Werewolf.” The ranger couldn’t help but think back to The Mer Seed, one of Viktor Varga’s ships that had been outfitted with a monster hold. “We’re going to need to bar the walls with iron. The door too. In fact,” he said, having a second thought, “it’s likely going to need replacing altogether. Or reinforcing at the very least.”
Russell was staring at him intently. “You’re serious? You mean to let the beast out in here, in the heart of the city?”
“You’d be just as dangerous out there,” the ranger stated, cocking his head to the door. “A Werewolf would be drawn to somewhere as loud and chaotic as Lirian from miles away. At least in here I can keep an eye on you.”
Maybury was shaking his head. “Why bring me here at all?” he growled and walked out of the room. “I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near here! If I could make a life of this curse—if—then surely it could only be in the middle of nowhere, somewhere the beast can be let out and hunt no more than animals!”
Asher followed him out, his face lit from below by the candlelight. “I told you, Russell,” he said calmly, “the day you give any less will be the day I come for you. I meant that. You’re either going to make this work or I finish the job I was paid for. There’s no isolation. No cabin in the woods. No third option.”
Maybury looked over Asher’s shoulder, his sharp sight cutting through the gloom and shadows to see the details that lay hidden to ordinary eyes. “Three weeks isn’t a lot of time to get all that done,” he finally said.
“Less than three weeks,” the ranger corrected.
Beyond The Ranch, the city had awoken just before the late winter dawn and the sounds of coursing civilisation permeated the walls. The business of buying and selling, haggling and trading, was the life blood of anywhere humans put down roots and Lirian was no exception.
Using The Tower of Gadavance—a lesser-known school of magic—as a navigational point, Asher was sure to keep Russell close to his side as they moved through that hustle and bustle. The buzz of it all was clearly overwhelming for the man, his frown seemingly etched permanently into his brow, his eyes darting from face to face, and his hands clenched into knots. It reminded the ranger of his earlier years, a time when his younger self had suffered through the Nightseye elixir.
The wolf, however, was an animal that followed its nose and, right now, that nose was detecting everything. Asher caught Maybury licking his lips numerous times, sampling delicacies on the air that the ranger could neither see nor smell. That particular sense was going to get him in trouble.
“Over there,” Asher said, tapping the back of his hand against Russell’s arm. “The blacksmith’s. Go and talk to him, see if he can provide us with the materials we need—we can come back with the correct measurements later.”
Seeing the ranger move in the opposite direction, Maybury called out, “Where are you going?” Asher turned to face the man but continued moving as he thumbed at the shop wedged into the junction of two branching streets. “Apothecary?” Russell voiced over the general hubbub.
“Just speak to the blacksmith,” Asher instructed, turning his back.
The shrivelled old man who ran the apothecary’s made several enquiries as to the purpose of the ranger’s visit, only meaning to help no doubt, but Asher knew what he needed and found it soon enough. The old man held up the glass vial of safida and pinched his nose at just the memory of the smell. Again, he enquired as to why Asher sought to purchase it and, again, Asher gave no response but to slide the required coins across the counter.
The ranger paused on his way out, taking note of multiple ingredients that he already needed to restock. The bestiary called for every ranger to carry the equivalent stock of an apothecary—an impossible task for a natural nomad—and so Asher did his best to keep a healthy supply of those regularly used ingredients. His fingers danced over a handful of vials and he would have purchased them had he not heard the abrasive neighing of a horse and a subsequent kerfuffle outside. The fork in the road was a busy area, yet he just knew that Russell was somehow involved.
Striding out from the apothecary’s, Asher used his hands to gently navigate the passers-by that had stopped to gawp at the commotion. On the other side of the street, outside the blacksmith’s, a horse and cart had come to a stop, only the horse was far from still, rearing up on its back legs and kicking the air. A collection of sundries appeared to have spilled from the cart and littered the road. Worse still, the owner of the horse and cart—and his two large sons—were confronting Russell, who had been backed up to the wall of the blacksmith’s.
With all three men shouting in Maybury’s face, Asher was none the wiser as to what had provoked the scene. He gave the irate horse a wide berth and approached the group from the side, again being forced to shove people aside to reach them. Closer now, he could see the veins bulging against the side of Russell’s face and up to his temple, his skin flushing. Though still at his sides, his hands were splayed and ridged, reminding the ranger quite specifically of the Werewolf. How long would it be before the monster reared its head?
Asher had barely considered the question when one of the burly sons thrust his palm into Maybury’s chest. It was hard to say whether he was moved or not, but the bold young man certainly moved when Russell grabbed him by the throat and spun him round to pin him against the wall. Naturally, his father and brother immediately grappled the man, though neither succeeded in freeing their kin.
The ranger threw himself into the fray, one hand clamping around Russell’s arm while the other fumbled for the vial he had recently secured in a pouch on his belt. “Russell!” he snapped, inches from his ear.
“Get off him!” the father yelled fiercely, one hand thumping Maybury’s broad back.
All the while, the young man pinned to the wall was turning an unhealthy colour. Asher finally had the safida spices in hand and he quickly removed the small bung with a flick of his thumb before placing the open tube beneath Maybury’s sensitive nose. Russell’s powerful sense of smell was blasted by the astringent vapours. He blinked once. Then twice. Then he took his first breath for some time. The moment his hand relaxed, Asher tore it from the young man’s throat and barrelled his way through the lot of them until he and Russell were further down the wall.
Dazed by his own temper, Maybury wiped his brow and looked about. “What… What happened?”
“Are you alright, lad?” the father was asking of his son, who had slumped down the wall.
“I’m getting the watch!” the other son declared.
Under the scrutiny of so many, Asher could feel his own rage rising to the surface. “What happened?” he demanded, grabbing Russell by the shirt.
Maybury scratched his head and licked his lips. “I was just… I was just saying hello to the horse.”
Asher regarded the restless mount, easily the loudest thing in the street. The ranger could picture the scene—Russell reaching out to pet the horse, which, in turn, could sense what he was. A predator. Asher had to wonder if the horse had a better idea of what Russell Maybury was than he did.
Russell was shaking his head. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean for…”
Asher growled, shoving him back while simultaneously turning to the father and son. “I’m sorry for the trouble,” he offered, his feet retreating to trail Maybury.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the father fumed, and rightly so. “The watch is going to deal with you!” The man abandoned his son to confront them, stop them even.
For the father’s sake and any who arrived to support him, Asher gripped his broadsword and freed the blade just enough to reveal the steel within. It had the desired effect, putting just enough fear in the man to subdue some of his fury and see him advance no further. Wasting no time, the ranger turned on Russell and forced him down the nearest alley, where they could cut through and get lost in the city.
A thick and heavy tension had permeated The Ranch’s basement. The crackling fire and Russell’s tapping foot filled Asher’s ears. In place of Maybury’s anger, the ranger’s had risen from the depths and threatened to rule him. It was in his silence that Asher fought for control of his emotions, lest he do something rash himself.
“I don’t know what happened,” Russell muttered, taking to his feet and pacing the room. “It was as if… It was as if I stepped back, beyond my own body. I had no control.” His voice was laden with shame and underscored with fear. “What was that, that thing you put under my nose?”
The ranger took one last steadying breath before conjuring words, his lips dry. “Safida spices,” he managed, to which Russell raised a grey eyebrow. “They’re from Karath. Down there they use it to flavour food.”
Now the man raised both eyebrows. “Damned strong stuff.”
“It’s temporary,” Asher corrected. “You’ll eventually get used to it and, in the heat of the moment, it won’t have the same effect. You need to learn control,” he implored, his own rage cooled somewhat now. “If you can’t tame the beast between moons you can’t…”
Maybury stopped pacing and turned to look at him. “Say it.”
“You can’t live among them,” the ranger finished, rather than telling him he couldn’t be allowed to live.
Russell’s hands came to rest on the top of a chair, its wood creaking between his fingers until it splintered. “Just do it,” he whispered. “Take me upstairs, out back, and cleave my head from my body. We both know that’s where this ends anyway. It was a fool’s hope to think I could make something of this. I’m cursed.”
Asher remained still where he sat, one hand wrapped around the hilt of his broadsword. Had he too not been cursed? The moment his lips first tasted the Nightseye elixir he was doomed to the darkness. Earlier still, he had been cursed to a life of murder from the moment Nasta Nal-Aket found him. For all the life Asher had known, he had been fated to die by the edge of a blade, be it in service to Nightfall or, as the Father himself, being overthrown by some younger, stronger Arakesh who sought his title.
The ranger sighed. Damn the ends thrust upon them, he thought. He was living proof that it was possible to forge a new future, to scratch out one’s fated end. Yet he knew of only one way to get there and he resented it so.
“Sit,” he instructed, the word brimming with all the authority he could muster.
Russell hesitated, perhaps wondering if the ranger meant to execute him right there and then. Still, he moved to sit opposite him, mimicking Asher’s folded legs.
“There are many paths to control,” he began, closing his eyes and releasing his hold of the broadsword. “I have spent years, decades, learning them all and mastering them, mastering my mind. You do not have that kind of time,” he pointed out, though Maybury was already shaking his head.
“Not this again. It doesn’t work. I’m a miner, not a priest.”
“You possess a brain,” Asher stated, his frustration seeping in. “That’s all you need.”
“I’m telling you—” Russell began to reply before Asher cut him off.
“Quiet.” The word came out short and sharp. “Begin your breathing exercises.” He gave the man a moment before opening his eyes to see that he was doing no such thing. “Master the mind, master the wolf,” the ranger explained as simply as he could. He closed his eyes a second after Russell did and dwelled on the mantra, replacing the wolf with the Assassin. He was preaching something he couldn’t even do himself.
“Now what?” Russell asked irritably, snapping Asher back to the problem before him.
“Quiet,” he ordered again, one hand grasping Maybury’s wrist, where he might monitor the man’s pulse. “Control your breathing. Listen to my voice. I’m going to guide you. Whatever happens,” he warned ominously, “you must not lose your focus.”
The moment stretched into seconds, then minutes, all to the sound of the fire beside them. Asher knew what must be done—the shortest route to that island. He had hoped to avoid it, that same technique Nasta had employed so long ago. But he could not argue with the results and, ultimately, Russell’s life depended upon total control.
“You exist before a darkness,” he finally voiced, echoing his own past. “You do not stand, you do not sit. You simply are. Beyond the confines of that darkness exists the body, but you cannot see it, you cannot feel it.” Here he paused, allowing Russell the time to fully envision such a thing, to believe it. “Inside that darkness there is something darker still, an abyss that sinks deep down into untold depths. You begin to sink with it.” Here came another pause except, this time, Asher snapped his free arm out and slapped Maybury’s face. The man grunted, pain and surprise gripping him, sparking that rage.
“Focus,” the ranger commanded, feeling Russell’s pulse rate increase. “Use the pain.”
As Maybury exhaled through his nose and closed his eyes again, Asher struck him once more across the face.
“Use it. Ride the pain down that well into the depths—take it with you. As you journey down it will lessen.”
Slap.
The man’s pulse was thundering beneath the ranger’s fingers now. “The pain incites anger,” Asher continued, “but where you’re going there is no anger. Keep clinging to the pain. Hold it tight. You try desperately not to let it go but the deeper you travel down that abyss the more distant the pain becomes.”
Slap.
Russell’s subsequent grunt turned into a rumble in his throat, the beginnings of a growl.
“Focus,” he said again. “You’re still dropping down that well, further from your body. Keep sinking.”
Slap.
“You’re so deep now there exists only conscious thought. You’re in a place that does not know pain or fear or anger. You’re on an island. Only you can exist there.”
It wasn’t much, but Russell’s pulse assuredly began to slow.
“This island will always be there. You must retreat to it in times of need.”
Slap.
Asher had expected, if not hoped, that this particular slap would have little to no effect on the man, his island fully realised. Unfortunately, Russell didn’t have years in Nightfall behind him and the pain that accompanied every day and night in its black halls. Pain was relatively new to him, though not nearly as new as meditation or the concept of separating his mind from body.
And so he leapt at the ranger.
Indeed, it seemed Russell’s mind had retreated, just as it had when confronted outside the blacksmith’s. Now, he was all wrath and violent retribution as he collided with Asher and the two wrestled across the floor. While the miner wasted time throwing punches—though the ranger certainly felt them all—Asher used their rolling tangle of limbs to find the right angles. With these angles, he was able to get behind Maybury and wrap his arms around the man’s throat, deducing that what both man and wolf equally needed was air.
Clenched in that vice-like grip, Russell lashed out with his thick arms, clawing at Asher’s face and head. A tug here and twist there, however, was all that was required to keep any retaliation at bay. He remained, however, exceptionally strong. The ranger was pushed and shoved across the floor in every direction, swept through chairs and tables alike. At one point, Maybury’s hand reached out and found Asher’s broadsword in its scabbard, the metal guard clattering against the fireplace. The ranger simply kicked out a foot and parted the two before the weapon could be brought to bear.
The conclusion to their brief yet explosive tussle was inevitable. Russell’s thrashing limbs slowed as the colour in his face transitioned from flushing red to damning purple. He had held on longer than most. But like all men and beasts, he faded without air.
Asher released the tension in his muscles and let his head fall back to the floor, his face glistening with sweat. He swore profusely. And loudly.
Chapter 12
A Monster Walks Into A Bar
Tilly Wig - These monsters are located in the north east, specifically Longdale. These are the only beasts known to have ever been domesticated. Where they used to be a danger, they are now used to plough fields and cart goods about.
You’ll easily spot them, being slightly larger than a bull. That and their horn, a protrusion that shapes most of their head.
It’s rare, but these can go wild. When they do, it’s guaranteed someone will die. Most of the time, the folk up there know how to deal with them but, just in case, see below for the best traps.
