Chapter 26

Captain Danvall looked around the inside of the hut and didn’t like what he saw. The mud walls were covered with pictures of animals and strange cryptic symbols that even his Traveler born scout couldn’t decipher. Hanging on the wall above the bed, opposite the hut’s entrance, was a beautifully drawn picture of a comely naked woman reclining in bed. It was done in charcoal on a circular cross section of a tree trunk, its diameter as wide as his arm was long. The floor was completely covered in an intricate stone mosaic with flowing patterns in a style he found intrinsically unpleasant, especially when compared to the jagged geometric patterns favored by the Califondian nobility. The room had obviously had everything of value stripped from it as the bed was bare and most of the pegs lining the walls were empty. He turned from his examination and limped slowly and painfully up the small sloping exit.

He looked around the meadow with his remaining eye. He had a dozen men checking the area for clues. As he watched, one of them stepped in a pit trap and quickly withdrew his foot before it caught him. Four of his soldiers had been laid in a row next to the hut, dead. A series of short wooden spears stuck up from the ground where they surrounded the hut in a rough circle, each graced with the skull of a large predator. The two skulls beside the entryway belonged to giant bears, and most of the rest appeared to be huge wolves. It had the feel of a hunting cabin, but the single small bed would seem to indicate that there had been only one person living here. It didn’t seem possible. Only a fool would hunt the monster sized beasts that roamed these woods alone.

The captain had crossed the treacherous Dragon’s Spine mountain range with his men even despite the grievous losses they’d taken along the brutal route before making his way through the forest all the way from the eastern border. He’d seen countless beasts and lost nearly as many men to them as he had to the mountains. One had to use a group of men with spears to hold the monstrous beasts at bay while archers filled them with arrows until they dropped. They were certainly not hunted solo, but this hut would seem to indicate otherwise, and the small bed…surely it wasn’t that boy.

He grimaced, but then the boy did kill Crud in single combat. He wouldn’t believe it if he hadn’t seen it with his own two eyes while he still had them both. He had fought incredibly dishonorably, but he had fought to win and he had. If lieutenant Stilv hadn’t gotten there when he had to drive the boy away I would have joined him in death myself, he thought glumly. If the lieutenant survived the trek back to Califond he would have to reward him significantly with a prominent position within the Danvall house.

Lieutenant Stilv chose that moment to make his way over with a noticeable limp that he seemed to be striving to hide. The man saluted with a fist to his chest as he said, “Captain, we haven’t been able to determine where they went, but we found two more of our soldiers to the west of here dead in some of those cowardly leg catching traps like the one you found yourself in earlier. I’ve split the two scout squads and have them each combing the north, south, east, and west sides of the area. I recommend we head back to town. A messenger from lieutenant Davvers has informed us that they have taken the town and are in the process of looting while questioning the surviving townsfolk they’ve taken captive.” The captain nodded, and they began their slow limping way back to town along with a squad of soldiers that formed up around them protectively.

It took them the better part of an hour to make their way back to town as they had to go slowly enough to account for their limping and to check the ground they walked on carefully to avoid the dozens upon dozens of traps that riddled the area.

As they passed the wagons they’d set up as a roadblock to help catch any townsfolk fleeing north, they saw the two squads, one from each lieutenant, that had been sent to reinforce the captain only to find him gone. They had courageously held the blockade at the cost of only a single man and had sent runners back to their respective lieutenants to summon reinforcements to track down the captain in the woods. The captain gave them a proud nod as they saluted and he clapped one of them on the shoulder as he limped past. “Excellent work today men, keep it up.” They stood up a bit straighter, proudly.

Shortly thereafter they found themselves limping through the street between rustic houses of varying quality and size. He stopped briefly in front of the only stone building he had seen in town. It appeared to be magic from what he could tell with his limited experience with the forbidden arts. It was an inn, judging by the hanging sign that had turned to stone. The entire building seemed to be encased in solid dark gray rock, and there was no doorway that he could perceive. A couple of his soldiers were pounding away with hammers on one of the walls, but he couldn’t see a single scratch. At least they hadn’t had to fight a mage. That would have cost him more men than he was prepared to lose. If the mage wanted to hole up and let them sack the town that was fine with him. He dispatched one of his following men to tell those soldiers to keep an eye on the place but to cease trying to break in as it would ultimately prove futile, or worse they’d get in and the mage would start killing his people.

Judging from the large number of his men lounging in front of the building across the intersection from the stone one, that was where lieutenant Davvers was making base. He slowly made his way over and the soldier closest to the door held it open for him while saluting with his fist over his heart.

The captain gave the gloomy interior a look and found it appeared to be a run down bar. A dozen or so of his men stood with drawn swords guarding about twice their number of captives, tied up and sitting on the floor against the wall opposite the hearth where he could see Davvers sitting at a shabby table, consulting with Lieutenant Shons. They stood as they saw him approaching and saluted, their eyebrows raised in surprise to see his battered appearance. He made his way over to them slowly before returning their salutes and sitting heavily in one of the vacant chairs. “Report,” he said simply, removing his helmet and setting it on the table.

“Sir, the town is ours. We slew all villagers attempting to flee east or west down The Forest Road, and the two squads we sent north to reinforce your position report that no one made it past them since they arrived. We estimate eighty to ninety percent casualties on the side of the villagers, but it’s difficult to determine how many were in the inn before it was sealed up, and we don’t know how many scattered into the forest,” said Lieutenant Davvers. “We each lost about a dozen men, and our total complement is down to ninety three including you and Stilv.” The captain raised an eyebrow in surprise at the number of men lost, this town had looked like easy pickings. The lieutenant hurriedly continued, “We lost a dozen men taking the smithy. The smith has to have been the largest man I’ve ever seen in my life. He just kept letting our soldiers into the smithy, and then he’d crush them with a hammer in each hand. We had to rush both entrances simultaneously and pin him down with spears so we could shoot him full of arrows like we do with the beasts in the forest. Most of the rest were lost to an old man wielding knives. Judging by the way he fought, he was an Ocean kingdom bred blademaster. I have no idea what he was doing here, but he tore his way through two squads before escaping into the woods south of town. He left two alive, but they’re pretty badly off.” Damn, thought the captain, that sounds like our primary target.

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Lieutenant Shons added, “We have begun looting the town and discovered a large quantity of high quality steel at the smithy.” He set a gleaming silver knife on the table in front of the captain. “It appears the smith had discovered a new method of forging, but we found no record of how it was done. Though he did have a sizable number of books, none of them pertained to smithing.” The captain picked up the blade and examined it. It was indeed the finest quality steel he’d ever seen, better even than the blades forged in the Ocean Kingdom. He slid it into the empty sheath on the back of his belt and found it fit quite nicely. It wasn’t anywhere near as valuable as the heirloom knife that boy had picked up after he’d been forced to throw it at him, but it would do. If they could get enough of this steel back over the mountains to the king he may even forgive the lack of the old man’s skull he’d requested.

“Good work men. I had myself a spot of trouble on the north road. We took out a couple of merchants and their guards without any difficulty. The problem came when three young men, boys really, came down into town from the north. The smallest and most dangerous one of them took out my archers with a sling, and then they led us into the forest which has apparently been rigged with a truly ludicrous number of traps.” He gestured to his bleeding foot and the ragged remains of his boot as an example. “That said, I watched that boy use an axe and a knife to take on Crud in single combat, and he won. He even took Crud’s sword as a trophy.” The lieutenants gaped at him and looked to Lieutenant Stilv where he stood stiffly behind the captain’s chair. Lieutenant Stilv simply nodded in confirmation. “He came at me while I was stuck in one of his damnable traps and managed to take my eye and two perfectly good fingers.” He gestured at the deep cut on his face with his mangled left hand. If it weren’t for Lieutenant Stilv here chasing him off I’d likely be dead myself.” He smiled a particularly mean smile that pulled at the ugly cut stretching down his face. “Although I did manage to take one of the boy’s eyes in return with a thrown knife.”

The lieutenants smiled proudly, “We’d expect nothing less, Captain,” said Lieutenant Davvers. Lieutenant Shorn motioned over one of the medics, but the captain held up a hand to bring the man to a halt near the table.

“Thank you Lieutenant Shon, but I think I’d first like to learn a bit about the one that gave me this little cut on my face. Bring over one of the captives, if you would please.”

“Yes, sir,” said the lieutenant, looking across the room. “Private Sholes! Bring me that one there with the large arms.” The private saluted with a fist to his chest, grabbed the indicated man, and dragged him unceremoniously over to kneel in front of the captain.

Captain Danvall looked down at the man. Judging by the man’s large arms, calloused hands, and cheap poorly patched clothing, he was probably a logger. He switched to the ludicrously named ‘common tongue’, as if there weren’t more people in this world speaking Califondian on the other side of the Dragon’s Spine. “Tell me about the hut to the northeast of the village,” he said simply.

The logger looked confused. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir,” said the man quizzically.

“Lieutenant Shons, if this man doesn’t answer my question in three seconds please cut off one of his ears,” said the captain without looking away from the captive.

“Yes, sir!” said the lieutenant helpfully as he drew his knife and stepped forward.

“N-now wait a minute, sir!” said the logger, shrinking back from Lieutenant Shons. “Don’t NOBODY know what’s up there, sir! That’s the Bloody Hunter’s territory! A-anybody goes up there disappears forever, or we find bits of them what was left for the beasts! Please, sir, not my ears!”

Captain Danvall held up a hand, halting lieutenant Shons. The lieutenant stopped as if it was all the same to him and took the opportunity to trim his nails with his knife, further intimidating the captive. Shons always was good at interrogations, the captain thought to himself. “Do tell me about this ‘Bloody Hunter’ you speak of, man,” purred the captain.

“H-he lives up in them woods by his self as far as I know. He comes into town at least once a week to sell his skins. The man is rich as a noble, they say. “ The logger was tripping over himself to tell everything he knew. This is why it’s nice to work with an experienced lieutenant like Shons. “Every so often someone gets it in their head to rob the man, and they just disappear forever. I once saw him kill six men just outside the brothel here in the middle of the street in the middle of the day. They say he won all their money playing liar’s folly, and when they tried to rob him he killed them easy as spittin’. I never saw him playin’ cards, but I seen him kill those men my own self.” The man stopped talking, looking back and forth between lieutenant Shons and the captain, trying to determine if they wanted more.

“Describe him,” demanded the captain.

“He-he’s young, maybe fifteen? Black hair. Little on the short side? Most awful scars on his face I ever seen on a living man.” The man’s face went red as he looked at the captain and then looked at the ground. Oh, not quite this bad huh? Thought the captain. He gestured for the man to continue.”Uh, he wears a black cloak all the time. They say he killed a death panther, and that’s its pelt. I don’t know if that’s true though. I never heard of no one else killin’ a death panther before.”

“And what kind of weapons does he carry?” asked the captain.

“Uh,” the man hesitated. “Um, an axe and knives I guess? I heard tell of him having a spear, but I never seen it myself.”

“That’ll do lieutenant, you can return him to the other captives.” He turned back to Lieutenant Davvers as Shons had the private drag him back across the room. “That is without a doubt the young man that took my eye.” He waved over the medic who had been patiently waiting. He gestured to his foot, and the soldier began carefully removing the tattered remains of his boot. The captain tried to ignore the searing pain in his foot as he continued to speak, but his strained tone belied his agony. “How many horses did we manage to take, Lieutenant?” He asked Davvers through gritted teeth.

Davvers winced, “Only six, sir. From what the captives say, that’s not unusual for this town. Most of the folk here are too poor to care for one.” Damn, too few to send any up the road to try to catch them running, thought the captain, and if I send a squad on foot I’ll simply never hear from them again. DAMNIT.

“Unfortunately, my vengeance will have to wait then. We can’t afford to tie up a squad chasing them when they’d likely be killed. I expect they’ll head north to the mountain, so we’ve likely seen the last of them. We’ll spend three days in town. Even if someone makes it to the next town and manages to gather enough men to be a threat we’ll be gone before they could get back here. I want every item of value that we can possibly carry loaded onto horses or carts and into packs. Gather enough food to last us the winter. We’ll be heading back to the mountains and making camp at their base until the pass clears. When we leave, we burn everything we can’t carry with us and leave nothing but ashes and that mage infested inn behind us.”

The lieutenants nodded. “I’ll dispatch three squads to the orchard on the west end of town,” said Lieutenant Davvers. “That alone will get us most of the way through winter, but as you say we’ll get everything of value and any other food stuffs that will keep.”

The captain nodded as he leaned back, watching the medic wrapping his foot with a bandage. Overall, a successful raid, he thought to himself, and if they got lucky they still might get the old man’s skull for the king before they left. The medic moved on to bandaging his face. I really wish the doctor hadn’t fallen off that cliff in the mountains, thought the captain. This could definitely use some stitches.