A Dance of Fang and Claw: The Ranger Archives Volume 3, page 20
They are simple monsters, seeking flesh for sustenance. It would seem, however, that they seek to induce fear in their prey first. Some have theorised that it makes us taste better.
A Chronicle of Monsters: A Ranger’s Bestiary, 12th Edition, Page 86.
Callum Forgson, Ranger.
Though few words passed between The Ranch’s four occupants, its walls were filled with the thunderous sound of Danagarr’s work. For three days the dwarven smith had taken to the room in the basement as an angry Broxon might take to the markets in Lirian’s busy central square. Demolition was apparently step one.
After his first whole day scouring the city and making deals with numerous vendors, The Ranch saw delivery after delivery of raw materials and various tools. On the rare occasions he emerged from his work, the dwarf was coated in a sheen of sweat, his belt always laden with tools and rags.
He was always sure to give Russell a wide berth. Asher didn’t know what Doran had said to the smith to turn him around, but it had done little to change his mind about the danger Maybury posed. The ranger was just glad he had chosen to stay and help them. Besides his considerable skill, Asher wasn’t sure there were any he could trust to see the job done right.
Having briefly spoken with the Stormshield on his most recent sojourn into the light, Asher now stood alone in the private courtyard behind The Ranch, and under gathering clouds that promised fresh snow. He looked into the cart Danagarr had said they could borrow and scrutinised the heavy chains, hooks, and bolts that he had acquired. His doubts were creeping in, just as the end of the afternoon was and, with it, the first full moon to signal the approaching end of Dunfold.
“Is it goin’ to be enough?” the son of Dorain asked, appearing in the doorway.
“It’ll have to be,” the ranger said, before turning to the dwarf. “You don’t have to come.”
“I know,” Doran replied. “But I told ye I would help.”
“I know what you told me,” Asher intoned, recalling the dwarf’s promise to slay Russell should it come to that.
Doran tilted his head to spy from under the canopy. “We’d best be off soon, eh? We’ll want ’im secure long before the moon shows its face.”
Asher nodded absently, unable to picture the night to come. “Any word from Salim?” he asked, wondering if they might have another ally to call upon.
Doran shook his head. “I’ve been back to The Jolly every day. There’s every chance he’s too far away. Or he’s in the middle o’ a hunt. Or he jus’ doesn’ want to see yer ugly mug.”
Asher agreed with all the possibilities and even found an amused smile for the lattermost. “Let’s go then.”
Russell was found seated on the top step of The Ranch’s porch. Asher had believed he was simply watching the world go by, perhaps wistfully so as he observed the people going about their ordinary lives. But he was wrong. On Maybury’s lap rested a board and a single sheet of parchment atop that. Damned if the miner from Snowfell wasn’t sketching, and sketching well at that.
“Is that a tavern?” the ranger asked, recognising a bar and the placement of stools in the background of the picture.
Russell quickly scrunched the image up. “It’s nothing.”
“For a man who claims his only skill comes with a pick-axe in hand, that wasn’t half bad.” It wasn’t the best compliment he could have given, but it was the best he could manage given the lack of communication since their argument.
“Is it time?” the big man enquired, yet to look up at him.
“It is,” Asher confirmed. “Have you hidden it?”
Russell nodded his head. “No one will find the orb,” he confirmed.
Doran pushed through the faded green door and joined them in the brisk air. “I’ve told Danagarr we’re goin’ to be gone for a while. He’s happy to get on with it.”
“I’ll fetch the cart,” Russell offered, standing from the creaking steps. “Meet you round the back.”
Considering the transformation Maybury was to undergo, both Asher and Doran decided it was best to leave Hector and Pig where they were and make the short journey on foot. And so they met Russell outside the gates to the courtyard and began to weave their way through the streets, searching for that familiar gap in the eastern tree line.
“You’ve been here before?” Russell asked, and not for the first time.
“Yes,” the ranger answered, wondering if the man simply needed something to occupy his mind. “From here,” he said, indicating the pointed boulder that sat in the middle of a small clearing, “we head south for about two miles. There we’ll find the ruins.”
“Now here’s a question,” Doran announced from the back of the group. “What would happen if we were to get ye drunk—good an’ proper like? Ye know, that kind o’ blindin’ drunk where ye can’ even recall ye own name. Would the wolf also be drunk? ’Cos that would make things a lot easier.”
Leading the way, Asher was shaking his head—smiling, but shaking his head all the same. “Only you, Heavybelly, could conjure such a question.”
“I’m more than happy to find out,” Russell chirped, his tone surprisingly cheerful.
Doran laughed. “Attaboy! If only we’d brought more than a ton o’ iron, eh?”
Asher glanced back. “I half expected you to bury the chains beneath a keg or two.”
“Had I any coin left I might,” the dwarf called out. “Soon, lads, we’re to find a monster that needs slayin’. It ain’ me wit that wets me lips with sweet ale an’ salted pork, ye know!”
Their light-hearted merriment continued for the remainder of their journey, ending only when they arrived at the ruins. The hewn slabs of stone sat upon the earth as ancient bones long forgotten, some of which were now leaning as the weight of time bore upon them. There were archways that led to nowhere and walls that no longer defined chambers, and all dotted around a hollow structure that rose three storeys.
Russell set down the cart he had so effortlessly pulled and moved to the nearest archway, one hand running over the weathered stone. “It’s ancient alright,” he surmised. “From the time of Gal Tion?”
“Earlier still,” Asher reported.
Maybury turned to see him, a sense of wonder in his voice. “The elves?” The ranger nodded, kindling that wonder into amazement. “I don’t believe it!” Maybury went on, looking at the site with new eyes. “I’ve never seen anything of their world. There’s nothing in The Ice Vales, nor Lirian for that matter. You could almost believe they were naught but myth.”
Asher thought back to Nightfall’s best kept secret: Alidyr Yalathanil. An elf of unknown years, though unmistakably ancient, his own dark talents were responsible for the Nightseye elixir that coursed through the ranger’s veins. He was no myth.
“They had their time,” Doran grumbled, ploughing through the snow to find the right spot. “An’ what did they leave o’ their great deeds? This,” he declared flatly, gesturing to the ruins.
Russell eyed the dwarf. “Have you ever met one?”
The son of Dorain stopped and turned to the man with a hint of offence, though Asher could see the mockery behind it. “How old do ye think I am, lad? O’ course I ain’ ever met an elf. They buggered off a thousand years ago. Me father weren’ even a pup.”
Cutting through it all, Asher pointed at the largest column to have survived the ages. “There,” he stated. “That will do.”
Doran made his way over to it, looking the stone up and down. “Ye never can tell with the elves, Asher. They hadn’ long got into stonework before they upped an’ left these shores.” The dwarf gave the stone a kick and rapped his knuckles against its freezing surface. “Hmm. Should do,” he reasoned, as if he, a prince among his kind, was any authority on masonry.
“I’m glad you approve,” the ranger said dryly. “Let’s get to work.”
Using what time they had, the three companions implemented the plan they had devised the previous day. Step one included the gathering of strong sticks or branches that could be whittled to sharp points and driven into the ground, creating a circle of makeshift spears around the stone column.
While the latter was being done, Russell put step two into motion, digging a shallow moat around the column and filling it with oil. The fire that would burn around him would be far enough away to see him unharmed but close enough to deter the wolf or, in the worst-case scenario, at least slow it down for a moment.
Step three required the chains and iron bolts. Stripped to his trousers, the miner from Snowfell pressed his back to the stone, seemingly immune to the temperature. Taking into account the size of the Werewolf that would emerge, they deliberately fastened the chains with some slack, lest the transformation simply snap the chains or disturb the bolts. Using one of Danagarr’s spare hammers, Doran secured the bolts to the column and the chains with them. By the time they were finished, there wasn’t much of Maybury’s body left to see.
“How does that feel?” Asher asked, wiping the sheen of sweat from his brow.
“Loose,” Russell replied gravely.
“It won’t be when the time comes,” the ranger reassured, the only one among them to have seen Russell’s wolf.
Looking up at the night’s sky, framed by the edging of tall trees, Maybury remarked. “It won’t be long now. I can feel it.”
Turning his own gaze skyward, Asher searched for any flash of the moon through the clouds, though they refused to reveal so much as a glimpse. “We will stay with you until…”
Russell shook his head. “Don’t. Just leave me.”
The ranger nodded. “We’ll remain close by.”
“Good luck,” Maybury offered gravely, tarrying their departure.
“An’ to ye, lad.” Doran’s response relayed a notch of sympathy Asher hadn’t expected from him.
Together, the rangers ascended the large and uneven slab of wall that had fallen centuries past, creating a ramp up to the first floor of the hollowed ruins. Sheltered from the snow and the wind, Asher started a small fire while Doran plated up some food for them both. Not two bites into their meal, Russell’s screams filled the night and gave them pause.
Man and dwarf shared a look before getting on with it, finishing off their food and drinking from their skins, though the son of Dorain had decanted his into a tankard that had been hanging from his belt.
It didn’t take long for those screams to morph and devolve into something terrifying and bestial. The rattle of the chains diminished as they became taut around Russell’s enlarged body. Asher was specifically listening for the sound of them snapping, though such a thing never occurred. Had he anything resembling a faith he might have offered up a prayer of thanks to Atilan. He smoked his pipe instead.
Doran made to speak for the first time since walking away from Maybury when a piercing howl cut through the night as well as his words. The wolf was fully realised. Russell was gone.
“We’re both agreed, aye?” he eventually managed. “Should the chains fail to hold ’im…” The dwarf adjusted the axe he had laid to rest across his lap.
“If the wolf breaks free,” Asher explained, “we will never see Russell again.” His response might not have been as definitive as Doran would have liked, but they were the only words the ranger felt like giving on the matter.
There would have been several minutes of silence between them had the imprisoned Werewolf not dominated the quiet with its inhuman roars and furious growls.
Doran’s lips failed to find purchase on his pipe, his hand hesitating while he sighed instead. Asher responded with a slow and deliberate blink, aware that his dwarven companion was about to say something he didn’t want to hear.
“Don’ think, laddy, that I don’ see right through ye. I know what’s really goin’ on ’ere.” He emphasised his last statement by pointing the tip of his pipe at the ranger.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Asher replied with dry wit, “given how insightful you usually are.”
Now it was Doran’s turn to offer a slow blink. “I see the draw in all this for ye. It would be easy to think ye’ve a death wish given what ye’ve put yerself in the middle o’, but I know better. I know ye better.”
Asher didn’t particularly want to hear it, but their ongoing conversation was helping the wolf’s cries to withdraw in his mind. “But of course you do,” the ranger said, his words still barbed with sarcasm. “You’re Doran Heavybelly, sage to the common man.”
Doran let him say it all and gave no sign that the words had punctured his thick skin. Instead he eyed the ranger all the while, the flames flickering in the reflection of those dark orbs. “Ye’re not the same,” he began earnestly. “Yer monsters that is. They aren’ the same.”
“What are you talking about?” Asher asked him, his level of discomfort quickly rising. “I’m not convinced that’s water.”
“Ye think that if ye can save ’im from his monsters, ye can be saved from yer own.” Doran paused there, perhaps waiting for an argument that never came. “An’ I might only ’ave glimpsed the creature that hides behind that blindfold o’ yers, but we both know it’s there. Always there. Waitin’.”
Glimpsed indeed, Asher thought. Those who had come face to face with his monster, with the Assassin, never lived to talk of it.
“Yer own road to… redemption, or whatever it is ye strive for, is yer own. I don’ know what it’s goin’ to take for ye to feel that yer debt has been paid. But I know it has nothin’ to do with Russell Maybury an’ the curse that has befallen ’im. He can’ be saved, Asher. It’s not his fault. It’s jus’ his lot. Don’ throw yers in with his, lad. Keep puttin’ monsters down. Keep savin’ lives. Ye’ll get there.”
The dwarf had hit the nail so accurately on the head that the ringing truth of it pushed all thought from Asher’s mind. “I think I preferred you when you were drunk all the time,” he quipped in place of a serious reply.
“Aye, me too,” Doran replied with a light chuckle. “An’ I would be too if ye hadn’ got me involved in a hot bed o’ Vorska an’ Werewolves.”
For a time thereafter there was only the sound of an angry Werewolf, its howls and roars carried through the ruins as if on the currents of a ghost.
“Perhaps,” Asher said tentatively, “I have tied something of my fate to his own. His monster is… It feels a reflection of my own. He wants to be rid of it, but it’s inside of him. The two can never be parted. It’s naive, I suppose, to believe that one can find victory over the other.”
“Havin’ hope ain’ the same as bein’ naive,” Doran told him quietly. “It’s a fine thing what ye’re tryin’ to do for ’im. A second chance. Hells, a life even. Ye’re a good man, Asher. That’s how I know ye’re goin’ to beat yer demons some day. I’m afraid the same doesn’ apply to Russell. It don’ matter how good he is or how many good deeds he accomplishes. Every month that monster will devour ’im an’ all else besides. If ye tie yerself to ’im ye’ll never believe ye can defeat that which haunts ye.”
“I have to try,” Asher affirmed. “Russell’s life deserves that just as much as the next…” The ranger had more to say on the matter but his attention was pulled away, sharpening to a point.
The wolf had gone silent.
“Please don’t stop on our account,” came a familiar and melodic voice, the pitch cutting through the dark. “And here I was,” Merith continued, slinking out of the shadows, “thinking there were no good men left in the world. What honour! Even in the face of certain death…” Four pearly fangs caught the firelight as the Vorska offered the rangers his most menacing smile.
Like nightmares emerging from the subconscious abyss, Merith was soon accompanied by half a dozen of his wretched kin, each dropping from the floor above or crawling over the lip of stone. They stood as frozen shadows, silhouettes of men and women.
“So noble,” Merith commended, “believing you can help the little cub. He belongs to Creed now, even if he doesn’t know it yet.”
Asher logged the name and immediately put it to one side. “If you came for the orb it isn’t here,” he told the pale creature.
“I’ll tell ye what ye can ’ave though,” Doran threatened, hefting his axe in one hand and his sword in the other.
Merith’s dead eyes snapped to the son of Dorain. “A dwarf,” he drawled. “I haven’t seen one of your kind since…” The Vorska let out a short sharp bark of a laugh. “Since I was human!” he exclaimed. “I have to say, Ranger, you were intriguing before I knew of the company you kept.”
Asher twisted his sword around, bringing it up into a two-handed hold. “It isn’t here,” he reiterated.
“So you said,” Merith replied, hands clasped behind his back. “You wouldn’t happen to know where it is, would you?”
“If we did, laddy, ye can bet we’d be takin’ it to our graves.”
The Blood Fiend’s immaculate eyebrows rose up into his marble-like forehead, though there was a hint of mockery behind his expression. “Is that so? Hmm. Well that does make things simpler.” Merith glanced over his shoulder, taking in the monsters at his back. “We can question Mr Hobbs in the morning. Let’s spend the rest of the night having some fun.” Again, that minacious smile brought forth his fangs.
Stepping into the light, the other six were revealed in all their pale glory. So beautiful were they that it was hard to be threatened by them, yet any one of them could take a sword to the heart and still tear out a man’s throat in seconds.
“Come on then,” Doran grumbled, his legs braced and feet wide apart.
The Vorska that had taken Asher’s dagger to the skull advanced directly towards him, his tongue running across his top lip. “Take their heads,” the ranger breathed, though Merith grinned wildly when he caught the words.
A seizing howl penetrated the mounting tension, holding the Vorska fast. They shared a look between their group only a moment before another howl racked the night. Then another, and another. Then came the growls and deafening roars.
