A Dance of Fang and Claw: The Ranger Archives Volume 3, page 23
The conclusion was obvious to Asher. “They want to remain in their human form during the day.”
“Precisely,” Hadavad confirmed.
“And Creed?” Doran probed.
“To be unshackled from the moon of course,” the mage answered. “He desires the ability to shift forms at will.”
“Either outcome would be bad,” Asher reasoned.
Doran held up a hand before one stubby finger pointed at Hadavad. “What would ye do with it, wizard?”
“If anything I have learnt of the Obsidian Ruby is true, I would not dare wield it, nor even carry it on my person. I would bury it somewhere so deep and dark not even the combined power of every mage in Korkanath could find it.”
“Ye can’ jus’ destroy it?” Doran asked in a very dwarven manner.
“Were it so easy,” Hadavad said ominously. “Our focus should be opening the orb before Merith or Creed. Staying ahead of them long enough to conceal the stone is our only chance.”
“Our?” Asher echoed.
“Of course,” the mage replied, his pipe almost falling out of his mouth.
The ranger stood a little taller, cutting an imposing figure. “If you wish to ally yourself with us you will have to shift your focus, mage. Our plan is to help Russell. Ancient necromancers and magical stones come second.”
Hadavad removed the pipe from his mouth entirely. “You can’t be serious?”
“Oh, he is,” Doran chipped in unhelpfully.
“Did you not hear a word I said, Ranger? The spells they seek might not be inside that orb, but they could do far worse if they got their hands on a Skaramangian Stone!”
Asher folded his arms and said nothing.
Hadavad sat back after his heated response had pushed him forwards in his seat. It was impossible to say what his centuries-old consciousness was mulling over, though his features did soften. “’Tis foolish to put the one life before so many. But it is undoubtedly virtuous. A quality I have not practiced in some time,” he added quietly, and more to himself. “You said that Russell is the only one who knows where the orb is. Hmm. Then perhaps saving the one will save us all.”
Satisfied, Asher nodded just the once. “You’re welcome to rest here if you can. But we return to the ruins at dawn.”
Chapter 18
A Short Reprieve
Oligort - Sticky buggers—literally. I fought one only ten days ago in Whistle Town. It decided one of the outlying barns was its territory and it guarded it so.
In their natural position, they’re no taller than your waist. This is due to their six legs always being bent. When they spring for you, their length is considerably more.
These are the first monsters I’ve ever crossed that possess a mouth on both the upper and lower part of their bodies. Truth be told, I’m not sure they have a right way round. What they do have is an awful amount of sticky fluid across their entire body. They secrete all their life and this can often be used to track them.
Interestingly, and most fortunately, this same fluid is rather flammable.
A Chronicle of Monsters: A Ranger’s Bestiary, 12th Edition, Page 391.
Caleb Moore, Ranger.
The smell of the ruins found Asher long before he laid eyes on the carnage that littered them. Where there had been Lycan bodies, butchered and bloody, there now lay naked men and women. Here and there, the stone of faded grey was splattered with blood and raked with claw marks.
Looking down from his saddle, the ranger could see the hind paw print that Hector’s front hoof was standing in. It was enormous—easily twice that of an ordinary Werewolf.
“No Vorska,” Doran announced from atop Pig. “I saw more than one get their head ripped off though.”
“I told you,” Asher said, “they’re secretive in nature. They take the bodies with them.”
The muted hooves of Hadavad’s white mare pushed through to pass them. “We cannot linger,” the mage warned. “Somewhere out there, the wolves will be waking up in their human forms. Should they return they will still prove difficult to put down.”
Asher agreed and even thought of the Vorska, who could still attack them in their nightmarish forms in such seclusion. “Russell?” he called, edging Hector further into the ruins.
The ranger was already climbing down before the horse came to a stop. He rounded a broken wall and navigated the standing archways until he could see the lone pillar that had defied time. The makeshift spears that had surrounded it were broken and strewn across the ground, along with the chains.
He was gone.
Marching through the snow, Asher crouched to inspect the chains, noting how so many of the links were warped and snapped. After feeling the edges of the severed links he let them fall back into the snow, his hopes dashed and heart gripped with unease.
“Asher!” Doran cried.
Hopping over the low wall to his left, the ranger hurried through the ruins, homing in on the dwarf. Hadavad too had dismounted and was now striding through the snow, with his staff keeping in step. Being closer, the mage arrived at Doran’s side a second before Asher, his ragged blue robe almost blocking the ranger’s view of the naked body that rested in the snow.
“He’s alive,” the son of Dorain reported, rolling the body over.
There was Russell Maybury, unconscious in the snow, his bare chest and every limb covered in smears of blood and patches of dirt. Indeed, his chest was rising and falling with steady breaths. Asher crouched to join Doran, his gaze captured by the grubby gash that tore through Russell’s hip. Before his very eyes, the wound was creeping closed, as if time itself was reversing.
“For all of Kargon’s failings,” Hadavad commented, “there are some advantages to the curse he created.”
“We need to get him back to The Ranch,” Asher instructed, moving to lift the man.
The sound of lightly crunching snow and a barely perceptible moan reached the trio, turning them east. Hadavad moved first, looking over what remained of a low wall. “’Tis a wolf,” he reported.
Asher rose to join him, quickly sighting the woman slowly crawling through the snow, her matted hair concealing much of her face. Like Russell’s, her naked body was smeared with blood and dirt. Her human mind was steadily rising from the depths of the Lycan slumber.
Without a word, Hadavad navigated the low wall and confidently approached the woman. Sharp as her senses were, her waking mind appeared too burdened by the transition to register his steps. Nor did she register the mage’s staff as its bulbous top was angled down over the back of her head.
Asher instinctively moved back a step at the low-level boom. The spell, invisible to the eyes, had ripped the air and caved in the wolf’s skull, dispersing blood, bone, and gore across the snow. The ranger looked from the dead woman to Doran, who had come to his side a moment before the spell had been enacted.
The dwarf glanced at the black gem on Asher’s finger. “If I were ye, lad,” he whispered, “I’d make sure that never comes off.”
Yet to be convinced of Hadavad, Asher certainly agreed. The power of mages was not to be trifled with.
“That’s one less for Creed to call upon,” Hadavad said upon his return. “He has nothing more than a band now, but I recall the days he commanded near on an army of wolves.” The mage turned his attention on Russell. “Allow me,” he offered, taking his staff in two hands.
Maybury was soon lifted effortlessly from the ground, his body tethered to the end of the mage’s staff by unseen magic. Quite carefully, he was placed over Asher’s saddle and then covered by the blanket the ranger kept strapped to it.
“Let us be gone from this place,” Hadavad declared, mounting his mare and leading the way back.
Asher looked from Doran to the bucket of icy cold water he held. “What’s that for?” he asked dubiously.
“To wake ’im up!” the dwarf replied honestly. “If he sleeps any longer he’ll be turnin’ back into a damned wolf!”
A scolding look in his eyes, the ranger firmly gripped the rim of the bucket and took it from Doran’s hands.
Hadavad walked into view, his attention cast down at Russell’s sleeping form beside the fire. “He is just a pup in their world,” he remarked. “The earliest transformations are quite taxing.” The mage sighed. “But I am inclined to agree with Master Heavybelly. We need him to retrieve the orb.”
“Russell is the priority,” Asher reminded, putting the bucket to one side.
“The branches of life are ever entwined,” the mage replied.
“Relatin’ everythin’ to a damned tree ain’ helpin’ yer cause,” Doran quipped.
“I only mean to say that retrieving the orb is integral to helping Russell. We must leave Lirian at once. There are other forces who would seek the orb if they knew of its existence, and those forces are right here in this very city.”
“The Black Hand,” Asher concluded.
“Exactly. I have long suspected that they have assumed control over The Tower of Gadavance. It is not safe here so long as the orb remains with us. So we must flee and take it with us. We can use the light to put some distance between us and the Vorska. We cannot stop the wolves from tracking us but leaving swiftly might give us the edge we need.”
Asher was shaking his head. “We can’t leave. There are still two more full moons to come. We need somewhere secure to hold him.”
“It is folly to stay, Asher,” the mage insisted. “We must leave at once. Only after we are free of the orb can we return.”
The ranger raised a hand to halt the conversation. “We stay. For now.”
With that, he turned away from his companions and made for the sound of vigorous work. Danagarr was stripped down to his breaches, his bare chest protected by no more than a leather apron. His back glistened in the torchlight, his powerful muscles rising and falling with every hammer blow.
“How goes it?” Asher enquired. He then waited patiently for the smith to complete his stage of work.
“Has he woken up yet?” the Stormshield asked.
“Not yet,” the ranger told him, leaning against the doorframe that no longer had an actual door.
Danagarr wiped his brow with a near black cloth. “I still don’ think any o’ this is right,” he voiced. “I’m doin’ this for ye, I’d ’ave it known.”
“Your efforts are appreciated,” Asher assured, examining the iron lattice that covered most of the walls. “Your speed and precision puts every human smith to shame,” he complimented.
The dwarf eyed him suspiciously. “Ye’re not tellin’ me anythin’ I didn’ already know. Is there somethin’ ye need?”
“I need it tonight,” Asher announced evenly, as if he wasn’t asking for the impossible.
Danagarr guffawed, his grin spreading as one finger came up to wag at the ranger. That grin slowly faded when he realised the man before him was being serious. “Tonight?” he spat. The dwarf gestured at the room and tools and debris that crowded it. “Look around, Asher. It can’ be done. I’ve not even started on the ceiling and the door isn’ nearly finished!”
“We don’t have a choice,” Asher began before Danagarr spoke over him.
“The hells ye don’! Buy more chains an’ take ’im back to ’em ruins!”
The ranger moved to stand firmly on both feet, filling the doorway. “We cannot return to the ruins. The Vorska and the Werewolves surround the city. We wouldn’t survive another night out there. And there isn’t time to get Russell away from the city before the wolf in him returns. He needs to be secured.”
Danagarr groaned into his wild beard. “I hear ye, fella, I really do, but it doesn’ change the fact that it ain’ ready. I’ve got the chains, sure, but the bolts I need don’ arrive until tomorrow. An’ the door hasn’ got nearly enough layers added to it, not to mention the locks! Puttin’ ’im in ’ere right now is as good as takin’ ’im out into the woods an’ hopin’ for the best!”
Asher remained where he stood, intransigent as always.
Equally inflexible, Danagarr held his ground and folded his arms.
The tension rose for naught but seconds before the old smith gave in with a sigh. “Ye’ll be the death o’ me,” he said. “I’ll do all that I can. I’ll likely ’ave to cut a few corners,” he muttered to himself. “I can’ guarantee it’ll hold a wolf. Hells, I can’ guarantee that even after I’m done. I’ll remind ye this has never been done before, an’ for good reason.”
Asher was nodding his head sympathetically. “Do what you can.”
The morning soon slipped into the afternoon, a pale and grey affair that brought more snow to Lirian. Doran spent most of that time snoozing in the armchair, not far from Russell, while Hadavad used a piece of white chalk to scribe runes and glyphs into the floors—warning wards he called them. Asher didn’t understand them but he was glad of the mage’s spells. The ranger had, instead, spent his time retrieving more supplies and, where he could, encouraging vendors to expedite their deliveries. The latter had proven less fruitful.
When Maybury finally awoke, he did so with uncanny swiftness, as if he had never been asleep at all. He sat up, surprised it seemed, to be attired in a loose-fitting shirt and his breeches. He quickly put it all together, including his surroundings, and turned to spy Asher watching him from the corner.
“What happened?” he asked, throat dry.
“It seems we’re caught in a war,” the ranger told him, stepping into the shaft of dusty light that filtered through the high and narrow windows. “And it’s a war far older than either of us.”
Asher poured them both a cup of water and brought the miner from Snowfell up to speed on recent events, divulging all that Hadavad had imparted as well as the mage’s identity and extraordinary origins.
“We can trust him?” Russell asked.
“For now,” Asher replied. “Given what we’re up against he is an ally we can’t afford to ignore.” The ranger then went on to inform Maybury of his plan for the evening and their eventual plan to leave Lirian altogether while they made sense of the bronze orb and its secret.
Upon his last word, Russell sat back in the same chair Hadavad had occupied the previous night. Considering his humble beginnings and honest life as a miner, he absorbed the unimaginable information with astonishing speed and understanding—even if he did look somewhat bewildered.
“Ancient mages, necromancers, magical gems.” Maybury shook his head. “What are we in the middle of?”
“It ain’ ranger business, that’s for sure,” Doran chipped in.
Asher refrained from rolling his eyes. He should have known the dwarf was awake since he had stopped snoring several minutes ago. “He’s not wrong,” he reluctantly agreed. “But we are in the middle of it, of a war. The Vorska and the Werewolves won’t stop hunting for the orb and they know we have it.”
“So we’re to what?” Maybury began. “Stay here until the full moons pass? And then what? If we survive the wolf in here we’re to just run, get away from the city?”
“It would help,” Hadavad announced from the bottom of the stairs, “if we could get inside that orb. Perhaps then we could more accurately determine our next move.”
Russell stood up. “You must be the mage.”
“And you are Creed’s latest recruit,” Hadavad replied, watching the man closely.
Maybury shifted on the spot, uncomfortable perhaps, having only recently heard his maker’s name from Asher.
“Forgive me,” Hadavad began again, his tone softened to that of an old man. “I was merely testing the limits of your bond. I wanted to see your reaction at the sound of his name. You show some resilience,” he complimented. “That’s good.”
“Do you recall where you hid it?” Asher asked him.
“I do,” Russell answered quietly.
“Well we’re to be needin’ it, laddy,” Doran told him, rising from his chair. “The sooner we crack it open the sooner we can be rid o’ it. Then the Vorska, the wolves, an’ the necromancers, or whatever, will leave us well alone.” The dwarf rubbed his hands together. “Then we can get back to earnin’ some real coin!”
Russell’s hesitation was easy to read, his bond with Creed making a mockery of his will power.
Hadavad walked a little further into the room. “Asher told you what’s inside the orb?” Russell nodded. “Then you know how dangerous it is. If the Obsidian Stone could be used to create fiends such as, well…” The mage swallowed his words before starting again. “It could be used for terrible things, evil things, that only creatures such as Merith and Creed might dream up. It must be dealt with.”
With slow but deliberate steps, Russell made his way past the mage and dropped into a crouch half way up the stairs. There he tackled one of the flat and creaky boards until it came free in his hands. Reaching into the step, he retrieved the orb, the sphere held steady by the tension in his fingers and thumb. Its bronze surface gleamed as it was moved into the shaft of light.
“It might be best,” Russell managed, his gaze tethered to the orb, “if you take it after I’m chained up. I’m not sure I can part with it.”
Asher agreed, seeing the man’s rage bubbling ever closer to the surface. That was still an aspect of his character that they would need to deal with, he knew, but one problem at a time was ample given that their immediate concern was only hours away from emerging.
“Keep it,” the ranger said, making no move to take it. “Get some food and drink.”
“Now ye’re talkin’,” Doran chimed in.
“Not you,” Asher said, halting the dwarf mid stand. “The three of us,” he continued, encompassing Hadavad with a gesture, “are going to aid Danagarr with all that we can before the moon rises.”
Doran groaned, completing his stand. “This should be fun.”
