Days Of Light And Shadow (2 page)

Chapter Two.

The sun was getting lower in the sky, its yellow rays scattering among the leaves of the tall trees to create a beautiful riot of colour and pattern above their heads.

Dura had always liked this time of the afternoon, especially since she’d joined the rangers and saw it most days from within the great forests instead of the floors of other people’s homes. It reminded her of the light from the stained glass windows in the Royal Chamber, save that there the light formed a picture. This was something different, a glorious madness that still somehow showed the great wonder of the Mother’s hand. She didn’t fully understand the intricate design of it, but then she was nought but a young maiden from a poor family with only a short time spent in the academies. The priests would surely understand it better. But even she knew that there was something in the pattern of green and yellow that was more than simple madness.

She could have stared at the glory shining above her head for hours, but she knew better. The captain would soon notice and the punishment for her inattention would likely be chores. More chores. And she already had so many. Some days she wondered if life as a ranger was really that different from that of a cleaning maid. The life she thought she had escaped when she took the cloak. She made certain to keep her eyes on the trail instead and only to glance at the sky from time to time. Still she guessed Captain Maydan noticed even that. He missed nothing.

The sound of a man screaming abruptly caught the attention of the patrol, and instinctively they all turned to it. Instead of setting up camp for the night as they’d been planning, the patrol pressed their heels into their horses’ flanks, and galloped for the sound as one. The captain didn’t need to give the order. Someone was in trouble and that was their bailiwick. Even the wolves knew it was their duty, and they ran ahead, howling.

It wasn’t far to the victim. But still as they rode they all had time enough to wonder what it was that could make a man scream so terribly. As if his very soul was being torn from him. Every heartbeat that passed they knew as they raced towards him, was another one too many.

Then they burst through the tree line into the clearing and saw the answer with their own eyes. Something, a man maybe, or maybe something else that simply walked as a man, had a trader down on the ground and was clawing him. Its fingernails, black like claws, were tearing at his flesh, and worse than that, there was blood around his mouth. Blood dripping down his chin from the pieces that he’d already bitten from his victim’s flesh.

“Otters!” The captain called out to his troop as he drew his longbow, and heartbeats later he had an arrow lodged deep in the creature’s shoulder. It wasn’t a lethal shot, but it was the best shot he could make as they galloped towards the enemy while the creature was facing them head down over his victim. But it still should have stopped the creature, should have made it look up to see his attackers bearing down on it, long enough for one of the others to bury an arrow in its head. It didn’t. It just kept tearing at the trader, trying to eat him alive. Heartbeats later another dozen arrows were sticking out of it like pins in a pin cushion, and none of them made any difference.

That was more than wrong. Even though none of them had found the creature’s head so many arrows lodged deep in its body should have killed it instantly, yet the creature didn’t seem bothered by them. It didn’t even seem to notice them as it went about its gruesome work. It just kept tearing savagely at its victim, biting him, tearing out chunks of blood red meat, hungry for the trader’s flesh. More than hungry. Ravenous.

“Swords.” The captain gave the command, and just as they had practiced so many times, the rangers drew their blades and slipped off their horses’ backs in a single fluid movement. Thirty men and women advanced on the creature, covering the last few paces between them at a run. It paid them no more attention than it had the arrows, interested only in the man on the ground, in its prey.

By chance Dura was the closest and she managed to put her spear straight through one of the creature’s arrow filled shoulders, lifting it up a little and driving it back from its victim. Suddenly she was unutterably glad to have been given the awkward weapon instead of a sword. Its length meant that she didn’t have to stand as close to it as the others.

Hers wasn’t a perfect strike, but it was all it needed to be. The pike lifted the creature up off its victim and held it upright leaving it exposed. Swiftly the others struck, letting their blades slice through its flesh, separating its arms and head from the rest of it. It was only that last blow that finally seemed to stop it. Nothing it seemed, survived without a head.

But even in death it didn’t die as it should.

It stopped moving as its head rolled away, but where was the spurt of blood? Where was the bright red stain that should have been spraying everywhere? Nowhere it seemed. The creature’s blood wasn’t bright red as it should have been, it was dark, almost black. And it didn’t spray, it oozed. And where was the scream? It should have screamed. But the thing it seemed had known nothing of fear or pain as it died, only hunger. Madness and hunger.

At least its intended victim was alive. He lay on the ground shaking and gasping for breath, his face white and his long red hair in disarray, and there was blood flowing from cuts and bites all over him, but he was alive.

“By the Mother my thanks.” His voice was filled with the sound of gratitude and relief, but also fear. And for some reason he couldn’t seem to stop shaking. The man at least seemed to be in one piece, all his parts still working, as he tried to roll on to his hands and knees and then get to his feet. It took him a few attempts as his body didn’t seem to obey him quite as it should. And when he finally made it to his feet and looked down at the creature, his face was filled with horror.

“It came out of nowhere.” The trader started telling his tale, though no one had asked him to. No one stopped him either.  “I was lighting the fire for the evening, and it just came from out of the trees. I couldn’t fight it off.”

“I tried, I had no weapon, but I smashed it in the face with a burning brand. It didn’t even notice. I ran and it shuffled faster. And then it just jumped on me, screaming that horrid shriek, and tried to eat me. Alive!” As he said it, he was putting his hands to his wounds, and staring at the blood on them.

“It bit me. Again and again it bit me. Even trolls don’t do that. What sort of man does that?” No one had an answer for him, save that it wasn’t a man. Maybe it had been once, but no longer.

“You should get those wounds tended to.” The captain at least seemed to know what to do and Dura was grateful for that. It was one thing she had learned to appreciate in him. His decisiveness.

“Eilin!” He gave the command and instantly the patrol’s healer grabbed the trader by the arm and started leading him away to her horse and the saddlebags where she kept the salves and bandages. The man followed meekly enough. Still in shock, he didn’t seem to have the will to resist. Between the blood loss and the shock he barely looked to have the will to walk beside her.

The rest of them, the entire patrol stood over the headless, very nearly limbless body, staring at it, thoughts that should never be spoken aloud running through all their heads. Terrible thoughts.

It was a creature of dread, or it had been before they’d finally cut it down. But even dead it would give those of faint heart night terrors. Those of stauncher heart would still be given pause.

Human once, or troll, or even elf, it wasn’t completely certain what it had been, or indeed if it had been any of them, for it was nothing like the man that had once worn its skin. Its leathery, wrinkled, mould covered skin. Its hair was gone, save for a few long threads hanging around its ears. And its teeth, they weren’t right. The gums had somehow receded until what remained of its teeth seemed to stick out too far like pegs. And they were broken, full of chips as if it had been chewing on rocks. Beneath that wrinkled hide its flesh too had withered away until all that remained was a body of loose sagging skin and bone and ropey knots of muscle. It was a walking corpse. A creature with black blood that didn’t spurt when it was cut, but rather oozed from the freshly cut stumps? That was a corpse.

It was unnatural. Some foul creation of alchemy and the wizard’s art that should never have drawn breath let alone been set loose to attack someone. If it actually drew breath. And Dura wasn’t sure that it had. Not when half a dozen arrows had plunged deep into its lungs, many of the arrows causing what should have been mortal wounds. 

Rangers trained for years in the use of the longbow. The long recurved bow was a powerful weapon, deadly at great distances. More so than all other bows. And for that reason the rangers practiced the complicated art of using it from horseback where few others could. Most riders used shortbows and crossbows instead. Many of the arrows had buried themselves up to a foot in the flesh of the creature. Yet the creature hadn’t seemed to notice. That was wrong.

Even the horses knew it was wrong. They snorted nervously in the cool air as they took in its scent, clouds of steam billowing from their nostrils. Horses were smarter than people commonly held. But rangers knew their wisdom. They knew that their lives might well depend on the quick wits of their animals. So to see them nervously snorting and looking to want to get as far away from the thing as they could was not a good sight.

The wolves looked no happier as they paced around in circles, scenting the air and occasionally howling quietly. None of them approached the corpse. In fact none of them had even attacked it she realised. Was that because they had recognised the thing as a man and their training had kept them from it? Or because they had known that it wasn’t?

But the rangers needed to know what it was. They had a duty. They had to protect the people from the dangers that lurked in the great forests. Dangerous beasts, brigands and even monsters. This thing she thought, was the very definition of the latter. Or maybe all three. So they needed to know what it was, where it had come from, and how to kill it if there were any more of them. Even if none of them wanted to go near it.

“What is it?” Dura asked the captain even though she didn’t like to ask in truth. In part because she was new to the troop and the question made that painfully obvious. But mostly because she knew the answer, she just didn’t want to say it. Maybe that was why no one else had asked the question either.

“An abomination.” He said it calmly, as if it was a word that he spoke every day. As if it wasn’t a word from a thousand year old nightmare. A word she didn’t want to hear. But she didn’t want to hear it because she knew he was right. They all did. The creature could be nothing else. Demon blood and demon magic flowed through its veins. And it could only be one demon. The Reaver. A demon that was never a part of this world. And a demon that they had to pray could not be back.

The captain didn’t look at her. That was good. He was an intimidating man, half human, half elf and all ranger, and possessed of what was known by the people as a thousand pace stare. Captain Maydan never looked at a person, he looked straight through them at something far beyond. And the scars on his face didn’t help. Three vertical streaks that cut from the top of his head to his chin, just missing his right eye. They made him seem less than friendly. The others had told her that they were from a cave bear, given to him when he was just a child, but if so she had to wonder why they were still so prominent now that he was a man. The healers should have been able to smooth them away. 

But of course the low born, the people from lesser houses and those from no houses at all, didn’t have the silver for healers. And the captain was of mixed blood. He likely had no house at all to speak of. Though she hadn’t asked, it was likely that he had become a ranger because it was the only profession open to him. The same was true of many.

Those who rode took the cloak usually for one of only three reasons. They had crimes to expunge and it was an accepted form of penance. They had issues of honour to repay, and the rangers were a means back to grace. Or they had no other choice. All other means of making a living could never be theirs. That was her reason for joining. It was this or becoming a cleaning woman like her mother.

House Accora had fallen on hard times many years before, and all of its half dozen families were impoverished. Two disastrous years when the rain had not fallen as it should and the grass had not grown, had made raising horses across Elaris a difficult profession. Few of their normal clients, farmers mostly, had had the gold to pay for their horses. By the end of the second year the house had lost all of their half dozen studs and a thriving wheelwright concern as well.