A Dance of Fang and Claw: The Ranger Archives Volume 3, page 24
Chapter 19
Survive The Night
Wyvern - Said to be extinct, the rangers of old have continued to include Wyverns in every edition of the bestiary.
If you were to compare these creatures to anything it would be dragons. They looked exactly the same save for their number of legs. Wyverns have but two hind legs, using their wings in the manner of front legs, much like a bat.
It was also said that they were smaller than dragons though far more agile. And instead of breathing fire they were capable of spitting some kind of acid. If it is to be believed, they were made extinct by the dragons themselves.
A Chronicle of Monsters: A Ranger’s Bestiary, 12th Edition, Page 347.
Norm Bronson, Ranger.
Still glistening with sweat from the afternoon’s labour, Asher secured the second manacle around Russell’s left forearm, positioning it slightly higher than the wrist to accommodate for growth. On Maybury’s right side, Danagarr was yanking hard on the iron fastenings, trying his damnedest to rip them from the wall. They didn’t budge but the dwarf still didn’t look convinced, his brow furrowed in concern.
“It’ll hold,” Asher told the smith, even if he didn’t quite believe it himself.
“The ankles,” Russell cut in, his jaw so tight it seemed impossible he could speak at all.
Again, the iron was locked into a loose loop about him, securing the powerful legs he was soon to conjure from his own bones. The ranger himself pulled hard on those chains—a band of iron links so thick he couldn’t wrap his hands around them—and found it hard to believe that any but a Giant could break free.
“When I’m finished,” Danagarr said, wagging his finger from one side of the room to the other, “there’ll be a harness for yer waist—chained at the back. Could probably do with one for yer neck too, but without measurements it could choke an’ kill the wolf an’ er… I ain’ comin’ back in ’ere after I leave.”
Russell might have thanked him were he not so focused, his eyes piercing the open door and wall beyond. They were amber now, his natural colour swallowed whole by the emerging wolf.
“You’ve done good work, Danagarr,” Asher praised on his behalf.
“This ain’ the work o’ Danagarr Stormshield,” the smith protested. “Not yet anyway. I’ll not have ye thinkin’ this is the extent o’ me skills.” The dwarf gestured at the door they had recently reattached. “That needs some serious reinforcement. I’ve barely touched it.”
“You can work on it tomorrow,” Asher told him. “This will do for tonight.”
“You need to leave,” Russell blurted, those predatory eyes fixed firmly on the ranger now.
Danagarr didn’t need telling twice, departing with naught but a whispered prayer to Grarfath on his lips. Asher stalled for another moment, aware of what he needed to do before he could leave. The ranger closed the gap between them and pressed his closed fist to Maybury’s bare chest, both a gesture and a way of concealing his free hand.
“I’ll see you at dawn,” he promised.
There wasn’t enough of Russell left to acknowledge the words. When Asher stepped back he did so with the orb. Maybury realised all too late that it had been taken from his pocket and he advanced on the ranger with bared teeth. Loose as his manacles were, there was every chance he might have slipped free of them and reclaimed the relic by force.
But the power of his curse could not be denied.
Racked by a spasm, Russell doubled over as much as his chains would allow. He cried out in agony as his muscles and bones were reconfigured and his skin torn and shed for that which rose from beneath. So too did his voice change, dropping so low that it quickly became the roar of a beast.
“Asher!” Doran warned, his heavy steps approaching from the hall.
With the orb in hand, the ranger departed the room and locked the door before the transformation completed. Only seconds later and the chains ceased their rattling, each pulled taut by the monster. Asher closed his eyes at the dreadful howl that would freeze any man to the spot.
Quite naturally, the wolf began to thrash wildly. The walls creaked and the floor shuddered. Dust rained down on them as they watched the door with new intensity.
“It’ll hold,” Asher breathed into that silence, breaking the tension.
Leading the way, he returned to the seating area, where the fire had been neglected, its flames reduced to embers. Hadavad casually tapped his staff twice into the floor and the fire was given new life, though its crackling did nothing to drown out the wolf.
“You have it?” the mage asked.
Asher presented the orb, its reflection burning in Hadavad’s eyes where it caught the light of the flames. The mage didn’t hesitate in taking it from the ranger, leaving his staff to stand perfectly still beside him.
“Get some sleep,” Doran was saying to Danagarr, one hand gesturing to the hammock the smith had set up in the corner of the room. “I’m settin’ meself up over ’ere, lads,” he said to Asher and Hadavad, indicating an area that would give him a view of Russell’s door.
The ranger merely nodded his understanding, his attention quick to return to the mage and the orb he held. Having claimed the same armchair in front of the fire, Hadavad sat with his hood already pulled back. Unlike the others, he wasn’t sweating from their laborious hours under Danagarr’s instruction—his magic having replaced the need for his muscles.
“What do you make of it?” Asher asked, the heat of the fire insufficient to keep his breath from the air.
The mage’s eyebrows fluffed up into his brow. “I am just as baffled as I was the first time I possessed it.”
Asher’s head twitched. “You’ve seen this before?”
“Oh yes,” Hadavad replied, his eyes yet to leave the orb. “How do you think Creed got hold of it in the first place?” The mage caught the look of revelation mixed with curiosity that crossed the ranger’s face. “I told you: you’re in an old war. The pieces have been moving on the board since before you were born.”
“How did you come by it the first time?”
A coy smile illuminated Hadavad’s creased features. “Merith and that mouth of his,” he informed. “Thanks to him, I knew roughly where Kargon Iskander had established his infamous laboratory, though Merith himself didn’t know its exact location.” Another grin cut through his beard. “He may have wielded some degree of magic once, but he was ever the assistant and no more, hardly an apprentice even. He was never a true mage. Merith should have been looking for the orb, if not the lab, as if he were looking through his master’s eyes. Where would a mage hide it?” Hadavad spun the orb around in one hand. “I found it in a pocket dimension. You’ve heard of such things?” he asked, eyes snapping to the ranger.
“I have.”
“Very good,” the mage replied evenly. “Chests, satchels, even drawers, I have seen, but never have I known a mage to use the hollow of a tree. Quite ingenious,” he commended, before his tone dipped to that of lamentation. “No sooner was it in my hands, however, than Creed and his band of beasts were upon me. Unlike Merith, he had had the good sense to track me, believing I was the more likely to discover the orb. I survived, of course, but he still claimed the orb. It was not long after that our paths began to entwine. From the pieces I’ve put together, Creed was soon in the sights of Merith and his Vorska.”
“Kelp Town,” Asher voiced, putting the timeline together. “This was recent.”
Hadavad’s mouth opened to respond but the mage paused, waiting for the wolf’s deafening roar to pass. “Indeed,” he eventually said. “He fled the Vorska and bit Russell and… Well, here we are.”
The ranger eyed the orb. “Can you open it?”
Taking the relic delicately between all of his fingers, the mage began to twist the rings one way then the next. Nothing happened. He continued to twist them, his speed and, perhaps, his irritation increasing. His efforts were to no avail. The orb remained intact, its secrets still its own.
“No,” he finally answered, and curtly so.
“A spell perhaps?” Asher cajoled.
If Hadavad heard him he made no acknowledgment. Instead, he raised the orb to his right ear and shook it vigorously. There came not a sound from inside.
“It’s spell-bound,” he reported. “I tried all manner of magic when first I held it. It seems Kargon placed a very specific locking spell over the orb. When I tried to unlock it with the wrong spell it changed the nature of Kargon’s original spell. Now it can never be opened by magic. You see these rings? You have to know the physical combination to open it.”
Asher frowned. “But there are no numbers.”
Hadavad nodded his agreement. “Nor letters or any markings to make sense of it.”
“Then how would anyone open it?” the ranger posed.
“I have had time to consider that. Two theories come to mind. The first is simple: Kargon Iskander didn’t want anyone but himself to open it—a theory that lends to the likelihood of a Skaramangian Stone being inside.”
“And the second?”
Hadavad’s lips twisted as he scrutinised the relic. “Kargon didn’t mean for it to be opened by a human.”
The ranger narrowed his vision on the mage until the answer clicked into place. “Merith,” he said simply.
“It’s a possibility,” Hadavad admitted. “By night, the Vorska have very sensitive… well, everything. There’s a chance that—in his hands—he could detect the subtleties within the shell and discern the combination by touch alone. But if that were true,” the mage posed, doubt in his voice, “what purpose would Kargon have in ensuring Merith came to possess the Obsidian Ruby?”
“To alter the curse he had put upon him,” Asher theorised.
Hadavad didn’t look convinced. “From the few accounts that still exist of the man I would say it seems unlikely. In the end, he used Merith as he would an animal—a thing to be experimented on.”
“To continue his work then,” Asher suggested.
“That is more likely,” the mage agreed. “Still, it doesn’t help us. And I hate to think what work Kargon would see finished in the hands of a Vorska.” Hadavad clenched the orb in one fist and looked at the ranger. “I would take some time, while we have it.”
Asher required another second to understand the mage’s meaning. “I will leave you to it.”
The night stretched on, and all to the sound of Russell’s torment. The wolf howled and roared and thrashed, fighting its restraints and protesting its imprisonment.
Inevitably, Doran fell asleep with his feet propped up on one of the wooden chairs, his snores added to Danagarr’s and the overall cacophony of noise. Hadavad alternated between sitting with the orb and pacing with the orb, though it continued to defy his efforts.
Asher passed the time by checking the doors and peering through the frosted windows, ensuring The Ranch’s security. He spent one of the hours laying out every weapon he had, inspecting them, cleaning them, even sharpening a knife or two. More often than not, he found himself drawn back to the basement, back to Russell’s door.
The irony hadn’t escaped him. How long had it been since he was the one who had been chained up in that room? After reminding himself that he wasn’t one of those rangers, he made to walk away. Perhaps, he thought, he would check on Hadavad’s progress.
But the distinct sound of metal snapping and bolts clattering against the floor gave him pause.
Slowly, he turned back to face the door.
The ranger took a sudden step back when a handful of claws raked down the other side, stressing the lock on the door. Then came another and another. He imagined one arm set free and reaching for the door. The remaining chains would be under more duress, testing the limits of the bolts and fastenings.
Asher swivelled on the spot, his mouth opening to yell Doran’s name, when a shadow passed over the light of the moon and ran across the high-set window. It was soon followed by another shadow. Then, a distant thud reverberated down from the roof.
The ranger couldn’t help but wince as a high-pitched wail tore through The Ranch. Darting into the larger room, he saw that Hadavad was already reaching for his staff, his touch enough to silence the alarm it emitted. On the other side of the room, Danagarr had twisted round in his hammock and fallen onto the floor. Doran’s chairs scraped across the boards as he jumped to his feet, hands gripping his axe and sword, teeth clenched and bared.
“We have visitors,” Hadavad reported gravely. “That was the back door—the courtyard.”
Asher turned his head back to Russell’s door. “One of the chains has snapped,” he informed, his hand going high for the silvyr blade on his back.
“Is it free?” the smith called out, a two-handed hammer in his grip now.
“Not yet,” Asher replied. “But I fear it is only time.”
“I told ye it weren’ ready!” Danagarr blasted.
“We can’t fight Russell down here and whatever’s up there,” the mage pointed out.
“He’s not getting out of that room,” the ranger stated, his words more command than anything else.
Doran groaned. “Come on, Asher! We tried! It jus’ ain’ natural to keep ’em locked up. We should take its head while it’s still chained up.”
“Watch the stairs!” Asher ordered, striding for the hallway once more. “Danagarr, with me!”
The smith soon caught him up, though he was sure to give the rattling door a wide berth. The dwarf entered what had once been the office, where Asher was hurling everything off the shelves of the large cabinet on the left-hand wall. Together, they manoeuvred it through the doorway and down the short corridor until it could be placed in front of Russell’s door.
“Watch out!” the smith called, seeing the cabinet pushed away from the door.
Asher caught the edges and pressed it flat again, but Lycan claws had penetrated the wood, preventing the cabinet from sitting flush. With a burst of strength, the ranger tipped the cabinet onto its side, bringing it lower than the piercing claws.
“Get more!” he barked at the dwarf, wedging himself between the cabinet and the adjacent wall.
Russell hammered the door from the inside, the fastenings having clearly strained enough to see him advance. Again and again his clawed hand beat the door, sending splinters of wood into the corridor.
“Danagarr!” he bellowed.
The dwarf came out of the office backwards, his thick arms dragging something heavy. Asher would have continued to watch his approach had the high window in the large room not shattered.
Standing only feet away was the same Vorska the ranger had fought in Russell’s home.
On the creature’s other side, Doran pivoted away from the stairs with a growl rumbling out of his chest. The dwarven warrior exploded with violent intent, his axe and sword swinging for the kill. The Vorska evaded the axe with a dashing sidestep, but the sword cut a neat line down its thigh, momentarily dropping the monster to one knee. Proving it was force and not pain that had brought it down, the Vorska immediately rose to its full height and launched that same leg into Doran. His cuirass took the brunt of the impact but he was still thrown back to the bottom of the stairs.
“Doran!” Asher yelled out of concern, seeing the Vorska advancing on the dwarf.
A blinding flash that would shame lightning filled the basement for half a second, almost concealing the spell that burst across the room and thrust the Vorska into the wall, cracking the brick. The creature was crumpled into a pile, its limbs at unnatural angles with bloody bones protruding through ripped clothing. Yet still it rose, those broken limbs snapping back into place.
Another of its wretched ilk curled and flipped its body through the narrow window, its fangs bared. So too did its thick tongue whip through the air and lick its top lip. What a hideous tongue it was, its surface dotted with suckers designed to draw out its victim’s blood.
By then, of course, Doran had recovered and leapt forward with his axe curving deftly round in a low arc. The new Vorska lost everything below the knee, its leg no match against dwarven strength, and fell flat on its face. Trained to give no quarter, it lay there for no more than a heartbeat before the dwarf came down with his sword, the blade chopping easily through its neck and biting into the boards beneath.
“Go!” Danagarr stressed in Asher’s ear, having reached the ranger with another cabinet in tow.
Asher scrambled to his feet as the smith replaced him and manoeuvred the new cabinet into place behind the other. The wolf had applied enough strain to the door now that the hinges were already loose. It wouldn’t be long before the top half of the door was gone entirely.
The ranger barrelled into the remaining Vorska, determined to end the creature this time. The two became entwined in a tangle of punching limbs, each taken off their feet, as they toppled over a table and impacted the floor.
“They’re on the stairs!” Doran yelled, pausing Hadavad from intervening on Asher’s behalf.
“Don’t let them down!” the ranger managed between the constant wrestling.
The mage took his magic to the stairs, from where a moment later the room was filled by flashes of colour and thunderous booms.
“The window!” Doran cried.
Asher saw none of it—he was pinned beneath the Vorska. As well as being free from pain, the ranger had deduced that they were a degree stronger than humans, though he knew it could be the illusion that accompanied their lack of pain, being able to push themselves beyond the limits of an ordinary person. Whether that was the case or not, he would have to rely on his key advantage.
Hard-earned skill.
There was an artistry and finesse to the teachings of Nightfall, a prowess that informed their technique. It was this training that made each Arakesh a professional killer; that is to say, Asher approached every opponent with cunning, deftness and, ultimately, an uncompromising command of his craft.
