A Dance of Fang and Claw: The Ranger Archives Volume 3, page 16
Asher didn’t take the bait. “There’s a very good chance,” he said instead, “that the Vorska detected our scent outside The Ranch and now know we’re here. Why they didn’t attack I cannot say, but we should assume they will try again come nightfall.”
Maybury had stopped eating. “Vorska? What in the hells is a Vorska?”
Asher had spent some of the night reading and re-reading the bestiary to confidently answer such a question. “They’re monsters,” he put it simply, laying the foundation of all else he might say. “They’ve been preying on humanity for…” The ranger considered Merith’s boast of eight hundred years. “Well, for as long as human history stretches.”
“You have dealt with them before?”
“No,” Asher admitted. “I met my first in your house in Kelp Town, then again last night, in Sable’s Tavern.”
“They attacked you in a tavern?”
The ranger wished they had. “No,” he said. “They were trying to keep me away from The Ranch, from you.”
Russell sat back, his attention set adrift for the moment. “The orb,” he voiced.
“They want it,” Asher reported, going on to inform his companion of the Vorska, Merith.
Maybury had let his food go cold, one hand cupping his bristled jaw. “He’s out of time… What do you think he meant by that?”
Asher had given the Vorska’s words more thought than he cared to admit, but he was yet to understand most of it—including the remarks concerning himself, specifically his age. And it had been most disturbing that the fiend could detect the presence of the Nightseye elixir in his blood without even tasting it.
“I have no idea,” the ranger told him honestly. “Can I see it?” he asked, deciding a question to be the better approach.
Russell swallowed, the veins on his neck making themselves known. “Yes.” The word broke away from his mouth, though it seemed he would have preferred to dwell longer before releasing his answer. The moment that stretched between them felt an eternity before he placed the bronze sphere on the table. It caught the morning sun that filtered through the windows, the light accentuating the three bands of ridged metal that circled the orb.
With deliberate caution, Asher slowly pushed his hand across the table until his fingers could clasp around the artefact. With equal caution he drew it towards him, never once breaking eye contact with Russell. He waited a further ten heartbeats before tearing his gaze from the man and pivoting his attention to the sphere in his hands. Examining it in the light now, he could see the intricate patterns etched into the surfaces on either side of the bands.
As he had upon first discovering the artefact, the ranger fiddled with the bands, twisting them one way then the other. Nothing happened of course. And, as much as he turned the whole thing over and over, he found nothing to suggest what purpose the orb served.
“This was hidden in the wall of your house,” Asher stated, his tone more delicate than usual. “Put there by you,” he added as a fact. “You said it’s important.” Here it became clear that Russell’s discomfort was reaching new heights. “Important to him,” Asher pressed all the same. “I’m going to assume you were talking about the one who bit you. Which leads me to believe he either gave it to you or you already had it. A poor miner from Snowfell doesn’t strike me as the kind of person to possess whatever this is. So he gave it to you…” He let his words go, waiting to see what Russell’s reaction might be. By his uncomfortable shifting, the ranger assumed the latter to be the truth.
Asher felt urged to question the man about the wolf who had made him, cursed him, but it seemed the subject was a volatile one. That didn’t mean there weren’t angles to exploit.
“Tell me about that night,” he said. “The night you were bitten.”
Russell visibly relaxed, fronted by no barrier where his human life had been concerned. “It was like any other,” he began, voice dry. “I had been working the mine all day. I was damned tired but I still made it to The Gauntlet. Had a few drinks. Played a game of Galant.” The larger man shrugged. “Nothing I hadn’t done a hundred times before.”
“And you walked home alone?” Asher asked, returning the bronze orb to the table.
Maybury watched the ranger’s hand until it was firmly on his side of the table again, leaving the sphere to be collected and concealed without a word of acknowledgment. “I walked home on my usual route,” he continued, one hand resting on the pouch that held the orb. “I would always cut through the alley between Hoburn and Kranik. Never had trouble in those parts before.”
Russell paused, his memories reaching the point at which he was forever cursed and, apparently, placed under some kind of thrall.
“I heard someone running,” he said at last. “I turned around but they were already half way down the alley. He was fast. I was off my feet and on the ground before I knew what was happening. I was powerless beneath him,” he uttered. “I’d never known strength like it. Without a word he…” Russell unconsciously rubbed his right arm, just beneath the shoulder. “He bit me. It wasn’t even for very long, or deep even. But it was enough.”
“It’s the saliva,” Asher interjected, voicing what he had read in the bestiary. He immediately felt like he had spoken out of turn and informed Russell of something he didn’t need to know right there and then. “Sorry,” he offered meekly. “Continue.”
Russell wiped a hand down his face, haunted by his own memories. “As he climbed off me,” he began again, having lost some of the timbre in his voice, “he stuffed something into my pocket.”
Their conversation came to a pause here, their private words interrupted by the owner who had brought Asher’s Velian tea. The ranger thanked him and dragged the tea a little closer so he might pour in the small pot of honey that had come with it. He stirred it gently while he waited for the man to find his way back to the bar, beyond earshot.
“When I got home,” Maybury continued, “I discovered the orb. I didn’t know what it was. I put it aside for the night. Hells, I think I passed out. The next day, when I saw it… I just knew I had to hide it. I knew it was important.
“Did he say anything?” Asher enquired, going back a step.
Russell shook his head. “He just ran. I remember looking up at him though, before he vanished. He was covered in blood. I think some of it was his.”
The ranger could see the pieces slotting together, even if he didn’t understand why they slotted together. “The Vorska wanted it,” he deduced, one finger tapping endlessly against the table top. “The wolf had it. They were chasing him when he ran into you.” Asher glanced at the pouch on Russell’s belt. “He needed to hide it. So he hid it in the most unlikely place.”
A hard edge was creeping over Russell’s features. “He cursed me,” he said quietly, deliberately, “just so I would hide it for him?”
Asher sipped his Velian tea as he circled that same question. “He didn’t say anything to you,” he pointed out, “yet you appear to possess some kind of built-in loyalty. You struggle to talk about him, about what’s important to him.” He could see his last line of dialogue had cost him the precious angle. Russell’s hands had come to grip the edge of the table, paling his hairy knuckles. “I’ve never seen two… species interact like this,” he said, pivoting slightly, and careful not to use the word monster while talking to his afflicted companion.
“Like what?” Russell asked, the words expelled as no more than a rasp.
“Like they’re at war,” the ranger replied.
Fingers more accustomed to wielding a pick-axe pressed into the pouch, feeling the curve of the metallic sphere within. “What could it be that they would fight over it?”
Asher sipped his tea some more, though he barely noted the honey or mint, his mind working furiously beneath his calm exterior. “I don’t know. But I’d bet it’s nothing good.”
Maybury nodded in agreement though his mind appeared elsewhere. “They went to the effort of keeping you out of the fight,” he said, his thoughts cast back to the beginning of their conversation, “yet they didn’t try again last night. Is it possible they haven’t tracked us.”
“If they can track us from Kelp Town to Lirian,” Asher asserted, “then they can track us the short distance from The Ranch.”
“So why not try to take the orb?”
The ranger gave something of a shrug. “Could be they felt they were too exposed here. Vorska are secretive creatures. It’s in their nature to go by unnoticed. Or,” he added, and ominously so, “something scared them off.”
“Like what?”
Asher eyed the man over the rim of his cup. “Nothing good,” he echoed.
Within the hour, both men were returned to The Ranch. With weapons in hand they searched every corner of the building, a scouring that eventually brought them to the largest room in the basement. Like everywhere else, it bore the marks of death, and a bloody one at that.
Asher could still envision Hanaghan, his small body sprawled across the sharp antlers of a Skalagat’s decapitated head. The stench was especially foul in that long chamber, the odour of death mixed with the plethora of potions and elixirs Hanaghan had once brewed and stored in there. There remained not a trace of his work now, save the vast table that occupied most of the space.
The ranger moved his torch out to the wall, stretching the shadows of the alcove that had been carved out of the stone. Russell’s eyes flared their exotic amber as the flames passed over his face, an abrupt reminder that he shared the room with a monster, even if it was hiding beneath his skin.
“I just can’t believe the size of this place,” Maybury announced, all thought of their ongoing predicament forgotten for the moment. “You could do so much with it.”
“Hmm.” The guttural response was all Asher had to offer on the subject. “Let’s put that strength of yours to good use,” he finally said, tapping the hard wood of the table with the tip of his silvyr blade. “Break it down into usable boards.”
“Boards?”
“We only have until nightfall,” the ranger reminded. “Before then we need to fortify this place. All the doors need boarding, and the windows you exposed.”
“We’re digging in?”
The ranger didn’t answer right away, fighting his own instincts that commanded he stay on the move. “When the moon comes you’re going to need containing. This is still the best place to do that. We just need to kill a few Vorska first.”
Russell chuckled. “Is that all?”
What followed was a long and arduous day, for Asher at least, who was working without sleep. Maybury broke down the table and hammered boards until dusk with not so much as a drop of sweat to show for it. The ranger had helped with the labour, including making the trip for the relevant supplies to see the job done. Besides that, he had spread small shards of glass from a broken bottle on each side of The Ranch’s front door. They would do nothing to prevent a Vorska from entering the premises, but it would alert them to the intrusion.
While Russell never complained about the dark, his supernatural eyes now sharp enough to pierce the abyss, Asher decided it better to ignite all the torches on both floors of The Ranch, lest the demons sneak through the shadows. More than once he considered the blindfold on his belt. Though it was no more than a strip of fabric, it was more akin to a reaching hand that clawed at him from his past. In the end, he had decided to leave it knotted around his belt. One less monster inside those walls could only be a good thing.
Then they waited.
Winter’s early veil blanketed the realm in darkness, hiding even the stars and the moon with rolling clouds that would deliver yet more snow. Sticking to Asher’s strategy, the companions had sealed themselves downstairs, where the fire could keep them warm and, more importantly, where the stairwell would funnel their enemies.
The hours rolled on in much the same manner as the clouds; slowly, endlessly. Asher had paced, checked his weapons individually, meditated, paced some more, and, finally, checked his weapons again. At last he gave in to the day’s fatigue and allowed himself to lie on his roll, eyes fixed on the ceiling. He imagined the floorboards creaking above, alerting him to an intrusion. There was nothing. Even Russell’s keener senses detected nothing.
“Why are they not coming?” the miner asked, his words the first to pass between them in hours. “They hunted us across the country. For the love of Atilan, they even hunted the wolf!”
Asher heard every word despite his mind dwelling in the memory of meeting Merith in Sable’s Tavern. Russell was right—the Vorska were fervent in their hunt of the mysterious orb. That need had been clear to see in the ancient Blood Fiend.
“Are they hoping we will lower our defences if they wait?” Maybury questioned as he tried to peer between the edge of a board that covered the high and narrow windows.
“They don’t need us to lower our defences. They have the numbers.”
“Then where are they?”
The ranger didn’t have an answer to that, though he did lift his head enough to spy the man. “Do you sleep?” he asked abruptly.
Russell hesitated with his reply. “Yes,” he said, if unconvincingly so. “But not every night. I don’t get as tired as I used to, when I was… human.”
Asher could see that he was on the very edge of some existential crisis where his identity was concerned, but damned if he wasn’t exhausted. “You can keep watch then,” he told him. “I’m getting some sleep. Wake me if you see a monster,” he added casually, before his eyes closed and rest finally claimed him.
Chapter 14
Second Opinion
Xigerat - A reptilian beast to be sure. They stalk rivers, preferring fresh water, though some claim to have seen them in The Adean.
From head to tail you’re looking at a monster of ten feet. They aren’t a common threat, living mostly on a diet of river life, but they have been known to wander beyond the banks and attack humans.
They can do so on four limbs but be warned, when it comes to challenging them, they rear up like a bear on their back legs. That’s a wall of muscle, claws, and razored teeth in your face.
There are no known poisons or even traps that lure them in. I’m afraid this is a good old fight with an equally good length of steel.
A Chronicle of Monsters: A Ranger’s Bestiary, 12th Edition, Page 329 .
Sham-Vet, Ranger.
The next morning was spent undoing some of the previous day’s work, if only so they could leave The Ranch. Asher walked down the short steps and onto the road, where his gaze turned skyward, to the clear blue that had replaced the dark clouds. His hot breath spoiled the frigid air about him and he welcomed the cold as it filled his chest. At least it was fresh.
He looked back at the dreary building, glad to be walking away from its lingering malodour, for now at least. Hungry as they were—and somewhat fatigued by the anticipation of the uneventful night—their plan went no further than returning to The Jolly Rotten for breakfast. The ranger took solace in the fact that the Vorska posed no threat while the sun reigned, a small yet crucial reprieve when dealing with their kind.
“What’s all that about?” Russell asked, unnecessarily directing Asher’s attention to the mob that had gathered about the street ahead.
Skirting around the edges until they found a good viewing point, the companions looked upon the wreckage of what had once been a bookmaker’s shop. The city watch were urging people to stay back but Asher could still see the damage between them. It seemed the wooden pillar that had supported the corner of the first-floor building had been snapped—and by something powerful at that—causing a portion of the first floor to break away and crash into the street, taking with it much of the shop front.
“A storm,” the aged man beside the ranger was muttering. “Got to be a storm.”
“What storm?” another scoffed. “Weren’t naught but a drizzle of snow last night.”
The ranger returned his attention to the wreckage. He decided that both men were correct—there had been no storm and yet the damage could only have been wrought by such. A storm of what then? he pondered. It was too much of a coincidence that a whole nest of Vorska had infiltrated the city. Asher sighed, the pieces failing to go together.
Nudging Russell’s arm, the pair moved on and continued across the city. Only two streets away from The Jolly Rotten, however, and the duo had cause to halt their journey once more. Another mob had crowded the head of an alley, each person vying to see over the one in front. The billowing cloaks of the city watch could be seen amidst the people, their clipped orders commanding space be made.
“Now what?” Maybury voiced.
Asher had a bad feeling, as if a cold hand had reached into his gut and clenched. “Wait here,” he instructed.
Walking away from the mob, the ranger rounded the block, where the other end of the alleyway had been bricked up years earlier. He naturally garnered a look or two as he sprang from crate to ledge, his right leg rolling up to find purchase before his hands continued the short climb. Here the lowest of the roofs slanted, allowing Asher to crawl up the rest of the way and surreptitiously peer down on the alley floor.
The city watch crowded the other end, preventing the onlookers from getting a good view, though two of them stood over the body that had caused all the fuss to begin with. Asher tilted his head to see the dead woman face to face. She was partially covered in snow, her body frozen by both the cold and death. Still, she was paler than perhaps she should have been, as if the life had been drawn from her, leaving a figure of marble behind.
Not drawn, the ranger corrected himself. Drained. It was hard to see with the distance between them and his awkward angle atop the low roof, but he was sure he could see a dark purple mark on the woman’s neck.
