The mercenary finished his tankard of cheap grog and took another cursory glance at the bag of gold resting on the table. This was no payment pouch; this was a bag. An honest-to-gods bag of coin. It was the kind of bag one could haul wheat with or carry a full harvest of fresh potatoes in the farmlands.
This was retirement money. This was a promise of peace.
With only a moment’s hesitation, the mercenary signed the contract in front of him. The jobs were never easy, and this money had likely stacked up over time. Every good bounty and hunt started like that, never anywhere above fifty kingsmark, but only the gods knew where any hunt would end in terms of price tags. Nonetheless, the mercenary had a reputation and was deemed an expert in his craft. The art of war was a delicate and fickle mistress, but by all measure he had learned her ways.
His new employer, a noble who was too wealthy to arrive himself, sent servants in nicer clothes than even his highest bounty could have paid for. The mercenary watched as they counted out two hundred marks, the up-front cost of his travel expenses and ‘quality assurance.’ The mercenary gathered it with unmatched eagerness.
His usual customers looked for highwaymen that scorned them, or the heads of friends turned rivals - nothing this lucrative, let alone this exhilarating. This was a beast, wild and unchecked by the rules of man, and the “honor” of combat. It was going to be a long-sought challenge, much like the contract for the Lycan so long ago. Though he did not see it as a beast, more a misfortunate man who was given to the curse that is mortal anguish and rage.
All that wrath, all that pain, channeled into an inhuman form of power, and it could not save him from a silvered blade. The slow exchange of an anguished howl to a whimpering plea for forgiveness had haunted him for years afterwards. The memory merely flickered in the mercenary’s mind as he tossed a pouch of coin to the alchemical shops’ keeper, and he acquired all he needed for the long road out.
The contract claimed this unknown beast’s lair was in the swampland northeast of the keep. The mercenary assumed this meant no scouts had survived the return trip to spot its proper location, as was the usual case for ‘unknowns.’ It was a three-day walk, but feet didn’t cost any coin and it was kinder than dragging a horse out into the woods to be used as bait. Worse yet, if the poor skittish beast reared and whinnied, alerting danger to his presence before he was ready. He had learned his lesson with horses and settled on trusting his legwork.
Once this job was done though, he’d never need to worry about that kind of expense again. How many horses could that bag of coin buy? How large of a home could he build? How large of a family could he start? Perhaps he could find love, but the optimistic thoughts gave way to a haunting concern: who would love a man like him, so haunted by bloodshed? He bore these thoughts for a fleeting moment and dashed them to the winds as he signaled the gate guards to his passing.
As he passed the gates of the keep, the mercenary redirected his thoughts of love and leisure, and pondered on whether he was any different than the men and beasts he pursued. They were lost souls who had fallen victim to tax collection, evil men who found pleasure in causing pain, and grieving men whose minds never left the fields of battle. He too was a veteran of many of the King’s wars. Men he’d known had come and gone, more than he could count. Those who returned weren’t always intact. Sometimes they left limbs behind; sometimes the missing pieces weren’t visible to the naked eye. As the sun broke through the trees, he sent a silent prayer skywards for their losses, though he knew it did no good.
Somehow, he had left the battlefields mostly unscathed, and had taken the lessons of war and turned them into profit. Better men could be in his shoes, and he wouldn’t have minded that. Despite his hardships, the mercenary pitied those who were victims of the beast they knew as comfort. The burden of regular coin and civility claimed more lives than he had, he was certain. Unfortunately, starvation and corruption were not beasts that could be slain with a blade, though certainly it would provide you one to kill its competition. He too was a monster in his own way. He accepted the burdens of society in exchange for acts of savagery usually performed by that which he hunted. Then he would squander the coin on carnal pursuits, and ways to expand his arsenal of tricks to utilize when his blade couldn’t suffice. He was simply a more adapted killer, and he wondered if that made him better or worse than the others.
Before he realized it, the sun had gone from breaking through the dense canopies above to hide behind the mountains once more. With his thoughts interrupted by the darkness, the mercenary made camp. The campfire enveloped him in warmth and nostalgia for better times, of time spent with his parents long ago by the hearthside after harvest. He recalled his mother fondly; she had always been kind to him, even when the work didn’t get done around the homestead. His father was stern, but a fair man in recollection. Punishment was seldom dealt, but it was always with due cause. Life outside society was dangerous. Any mistake could be the last, so punishments served as a reminder that the other consequence could have been death. It was a lesson that remained true even in the mercenary’s current position.
Words from the past echoed in the mercenary’s head. Keep the fire small but warm, so that it wouldn’t burn down the woods. Keep the fire sheltered so that it was less likely to be seen. Smother it once it was time to rest, because an unwatched fire was gambling for a wildfire. Travel low and slow and avoid all hidden eyes. These were the lessons he received from his father, and from his mentor when the King’s men came to take him away from the farm. His eyes locked on the fire, and he realized how insignificant it was compared to a homestead set ablaze.
With effort, the mercenary pushed these thoughts to the wayside and found purchase in the woven canopies above, where he set up a long cloth with rope bindings to make sure he wouldn’t fall out and be injured or eaten. Though true monsters existed, sometimes the forces of nature and mundane beasts of the wild were more worrisome. After snuffing the fire out, the mercenary crawled into the hammock and slept deeply. He did not dream, for he seldom dreamed anymore. Eventually the morning sun broke the canopy and the mercenary’s slumber, so he packed his camp and marched onward.
Today he turned his mind away from the past, focusing on what could lay ahead. The “monster” he hunted could be anything. Perhaps one of the local villagers had mistaken a bear for something greater. Perhaps a murderer was covering his trail with some fable of a great beast. Often enough, the greatest monster was a man with something to hide - cowards who used guile to turn their friends into victims of illusion. Less often was the coward justified. It was one thing to inflict cruelty, it was another to exact retribution for cruelties unpunished. That was his line of work, after all, but he did it for pay under the badge of whatever lord had enough coin. It was what really set him apart from monstrosity in his own eyes, and the bastion that kept his spirit unbroken.
The mercenary remembered a contract not too long past. A man had left for war and returned to learn the local guard captain had dodged the war and ‘claimed the spoils’ of staying home. The man’s sister happened to be part of those spoils. In a rage, the man who came home severed the guard’s head from his shoulders with a work maul. From what the mercenary gathered from an observation offered by a mortician; it had been a truly an impressive blow. The logistics and strength required to remove another man’s head with a large hammer, let alone leaving the head basically intact once severed, were great enough to make the mercenary question how they’d fare in a fight together. He had prepared a dart with ghoul’s mucus coated on the blade as insurance for his survival, but such questions would have to remain a mystery, for the man took his own life after fleeing to the woods shortly afterwards. The mercenary had planned earnestly to let the man go, for he understood the wrath that guided him that day, but fate was not in favor of such mercy. Eventually, coin spoke more than admiration or pride, and a free payday with no consequence to him could not be passed idly.
The mercenary bore a sudden revelation that he had many memories, but so few good ones. Stripped of the safety of his home and thrust into a life of rigorous training and war. He has spent his young adulthood in war camp after war camp, forced to endure all the nobles willed him to, and knowing that no friend was promised to survive the next battle. Faces blurred into homogenous vaguely human shapes after a certain point, friend, and foe alike. It was miraculous when the enemy was human though, for more often than not, there were great beasts that lurked on the borders of the battlefields to ‘clean things up’ and claim victory over survivors if the odds seemed to favor them.
Reminded of beasts, the mercenary resolved himself and quickly accepted that now was not the time to dwell on this knowledge - the ‘beast’ he needed to hunt was in the present, after all, not the past - so he considered what might dwell in the swamp (if anything truly did). Harvest season often invited many unwelcome guests. Bukavac were not unheard of in these parts; those six-armed demons were a hell to fight on their own, and facing one and a hag together, which was more often the case, was a suicidal man’s errand.
Fortunately, as memory held, this would be impossible. The contract detailed victims that had been savaged by claws, three long slashes in perfect parallel scored into flesh. The list of potential foes grew shorter as memory found purchase in the history of beasts. Men could not tear each other apart quite so savagely, so it had to be a beast after all. A few victims were found punctured in odd places with singular wounds, so whatever this beast was had a means to pierce its prey from a distance. That was the golden nugget of memory, and it cut the list down to an afanc attack or the plausibility that there was a new tribe of swamp goblins. The idea of goblins was quickly dashed away, for those victims who were found intact had all their possessions untampered, and their bodies unsullied.
That left the damned afanc. Creatures beyond nature, some mutagenist’s hubris had gotten the best of him, and a family of the little monsters escaped his alchemical labs. The mercenary recalled they looked like some fucked up bastardized mixture of a beaver’s body and an alligator’s head and tail, with the ability to fling toxin barbs from the protrusions on their tails. These darts could paralyze a grown man in only a few seconds if they made a direct hit. Their escape was terrible luck for the mutagenist since he met the headsman’s ax shortly afterwards. It did however make wonderful profit for anyone willing to kill the things, since those barbs made for high grade poison reagents in the right markets. High prize kidnappers and agents of the crown were always looking to get their hands of the stuff, and paid hand over fist to secure it.
The mercenary regretted that he could have visited the victims before they were buried so he could know with certainty how large the afanc would be, but they had all been buried shortly after discovery. He’d hunted one once before, the creature was no bigger than a good-sized dog and had scurried through the riverbed so quickly that the tracker he had hired to come with him almost lost the damned thing. Fortune favored him that day as a wild arrow struck true, pinning the little abomination to the bottom of the river. It didn’t smile so kindly on the tracker’s assistant, who found herself paralyzed and headfirst in the river as a final volley of barbs struck true. Although that unfortunate accident made the trackers efforts cost double, the hunt had been well worth it. The head of the afanc alone was worth the price of the contract, and after he sold the remaining barbs, he had eaten like a noble and fucked like a whore for the following two months. Those were some happy memories, for what he could remember.
The mercenary refocused on the road, double checked his travel pack, and found his various elixirs, the most important being a vial of antitoxin that remained in the safety of the cloth he had wrapped it in. A wandering herbalist had gifted it to him for protective services rendered, and he was assured that it could cure any toxin a monstrosity could produce. Tomorrow may very well be the test of such a claim, and though he was not a religious sort, he whispered another half-hearted prayer to whichever gods would listen that he would have no need of this tonic.
As the sun rose higher over the oaken treetops once more, the mercenary stayed in the shade. Though he was not burdened by his brigandine armor, it offered protection from the daytime heat and a potential escape in the event highwaymen accosted him on his path. Though they wouldn’t be any trouble. He’d seen more than his fair share of would-be robberies on the road, and the equipment they offered in death was occasionally worth the coin he could carry off, this job was different. He was alone, after all, which was uncommon for his line of work. However, as the years went on, it became more evident that the only people more deceitful than the ones he hunted were his colleagues in the business. Greed preyed upon those in his craft, and he was no exception. However, he was also not the type to put a blade to a comrade’s back after a job was collected to try for a larger cut than was due. The last few ‘partners’ had been of colorful backgrounds, and the bloodshed made for an awkward explanation to the guards as to why one mercenary would slay another in broad daylight. He had spent a few nights behind bars and stockades over the years over the greed of others and deemed it wiser to venture alone.
There was a sudden shout from beside the tree line. As the mercenary turned towards the noise, a bolt buried itself deep into the wood of the birch wood tree in his path. Highwaymen had decided to ruin his day after all. It didn't matter that much. Men died easily, and highwaymen were often untrained in the art of warfare, just desperate hollow shells of humanity lost, and grasping to survive. As each of the five men stepped forward with daggers drawn, he discerned the fastest way to dispatch them with a master’s precision. The blade sang like a siren’s call as it left its scabbard, and danced with the intensity of a nymph’s prayers, wrought iron shining with metallic sheen in one moment, then with a crimson drenched flow in the next.
The first man fell with an anguished cry to a clean slash that carved a sanguine line from his upper hip as it sank deeper and split several of the frail souls’ ribs. His comrades stumbled back; they must not have expected such a fearsome blow from a traveler staying hidden. Poor planning on their part really. The mercenary kicked the dying man from his saber, and advanced upon the remainder. The second and third fell almost in unison, as the mercenary brought his blade forward, dashing the second man’s dagger to the dusty trail and into his left lung, then quickly exiting the wound and opening a new one across their neck of the third. Generally, it would not be so easy to sever men from their lives, but these poor souls were almost nothing but bone now and the cloth rags they adorned themselves with offered no real protection from his blade. He had slain zombies with more meat to them, and he pitied these poor would be thieves. The fourth man turned to flee, and was run through from behind, for his retreat was too slow and his attempted escape was not made outside of the range of a lunge and precise thrust. The silvered edge of the mercenary’s iron saber bit deep into the fourth brigands’ heart and sent him sprawling into the dust of the forest road. The dance of death was almost complete.
It was the fifth man who surprised him. As the last of the highwaymen watched his companions fall, he fell to his knees and threw the dagger to the woods and kicked the crossbow he had failed to reload aside. He was only a few more yards behind the fourth man, but he had drawn his blade too slowly to make use of it after the bolt had been loosed, and the attempt to reload had allowed him to live through the dance of death the mercenary had performed. He pleaded for kindness with a weak voice, and the mercenary noticed this was not a man, but a boy of no more than twelve years. Scrawny, built like the scarecrows from the farm, he had hidden his face under a hood a size too large for his shoulders to bare. He was almost old enough to be a conscript in the King’s army, and likely fled to the wilds to escape the fate the mercenary had born. The boy let his tears flow freely as he pleaded for his life and for mercy.
This gave the mercenary pause. When the King’s men came for him, he’d probably been around this boy's age, maybe younger. He knew this fear, this terror, of greedy men dragging the helpless to be haunted by the shadow of war and holding full control of their fates. He had returned to the farm after the wars had ended to remind himself that the land burned and the remains of any that were left had been picked clean of meat and possessions. Seeing the charred ruins of his old home cemented the memories of innocent days deep into his heart, and in his mind drew the line that defined him as the man he was today. The mercenary stayed his blade. He would not slay a child knowingly, and he would only slay a woman that threatened his life. With the opportunity of a brief respite for thought, he cleaned the blood of the four others from his sword, sheathed it, and deciding to offer the boy a chance at riches offered a hand of kindness instead. This was almost his last mistake, as the boy pulled a small cooking knife from his tunic and went for a wide armed stab rather than a forward plunge in a wild attempt to cut the mercenary’s throat. The mercenary caught the boy’s arm and offered a swift headbutt in lieu of the slow death such a gesture deserved, sending the boy reeling into a tree with a shattered nose.
As the crimson tide flowed from the boy’s nostrils, the mercenary took the knife from the dirt trail and scattered it to the woodlands to be reclaimed by oaken roots. He stepped to the boy, grasped this naïve child firmly by the throat, locked their eyes in an unspoken conversation, and squeezed just hard enough to seal the message. Anger masked fear in the boy’s eyes, much of the same rage the mercenary had seen in the Lycan’s eyes as it had attempted to sunder him. The mercenary understood that the fear of death and the rage of helplessness provoked this clever trick. It was likely that one of the men who lay dead on the ground had taught him this tactic as some kind of last-ditch effort. The mercenary stared with a burning malice that was eventually smothered with understanding. It wasn’t directed towards the boy, but towards the world at large; it was a damn shame that a young boy could not simply just be that in this world. However, only a fool would expect the world to act kindly. Left alone here, this boy would starve in the wilds. He would not dare set foot alone in the city, for if they learned of his banditry the kindest punishment would surely be a hanging. Likewise, he would find no kindness from the wilds surrounding civilization, for beasts only follow the rules of territory and strength. The stringy throat poking out from his threadbare tunic was evidence enough even the existence he’d been maintaining with the dead men wasn’t close to sufficient. Any other mercenary would just end his life here; to many, it would be considered a mercy, like executing a dying dog. A final act of kindness to a creature such as this, this almost feral instance of a human.
Against any other foe in the world, this boy would be dead. Today, fate smiled upon him.
The mercenary loosened his hand, and tossed him to the ground softly, knelt beside him, and offered some travel rations from his pack. The boy stared at the dried jerky in quiet disbelief, eventually reaching a tentative hand towards the meal and claiming it as his own. He ate gluttonously, reaving chunks from the cured meat with his teeth, in quite a similar fashion as the Lycan tore through his victims. When the deed was done, the boy remained on the floor. He stared at the mercenary with a look of mixed admiration, hatred, and curiosity. This was likely the first taste of kindness the boy had known, as far as the mercenary could guess. He spoke softly so that the boy would not be panicked by orders and authoritative command. The boy replied tentatively, masking all that he could to appear stronger than the mercenary would assume. However, much like a bard without a song, it made for a poor act.
The mercenary concealed a smile. He saw much of himself in the boy, in the way he held firm despite the breaking voice, the tearful eyes, and the broken nose. The boy had maintained a skeptic’s distance, but in time he realized that the mercenary intended to take him under his employ for the time being. The mixed emotions merged into two: curiosity and confusion.
The mercenary drew a handful of coins from his hip bag and held them towards the boy. At the very least, the boy could carry some wares, and seemed handy with the crossbow. Upon the return to the city, he would be rewarded generously for all help he provided. The shimmer of gold in the sunlight brought hope to the boy's face. This was likely more money than the boy had ever seen in his life, and he agreed to the terms set by the man, the death of his ‘friends’ forgotten in an instant. The mercenary learned that these dead men were not in fact blood to the boy, but strangers who had picked him up after killing his family when he was but a small child. The brigand’s promise of coin was what spurred their encounter after all, and the mercenary had quite the pocket’s worth. Fate shifted in ever more fickle paths that day, and as the mercenary and the boy departed from the dead four, the mercenary felt macabre relief the boy had missed his first shot.
They pressed northward to the swamp. The mercenary had informed the boy of the dangers they would be facing: an Afanc was no trivial matter. Left unchecked, they could grow to the size of bears, and the barbs on their tail could be hurled at the range and double the speed of a longbow’s fire. But the mercenary reminded the boy, if he were smart and kept his head down, he would be kept out of harm’s way. In exchange, shouldering a pack of ‘essential supplies’ wasn’t much to ask, and the boy agreed readily. He even kept pace, despite the added bulk, and shared stories of his time on the road with the mercenary as they carried on their journey.
It wasn’t long before night once again pursued the horizon. A small fire was set in a roadside clearing, marking the night’s camp with heat and a skyward plume of smoke. With no good canopies to find purchase in, the boy nestled into the crook of some large roots to rest, bundled in the mercenary’s cloth hammock. Once he was asleep, the mercenary rifled through his many hip pouches and pulled out a small phial marked with the words Liquid Energy in dull blue ink. Initially, he intended to down this with the other elixirs he had acquired to give him an unchecked advantage in the fight. The merchant who’d sold it to him boasted it would provide wakefulness for three sunrises but making sure the boy was safe seemed to be the wise choice this night. The mercenary winced as he downed the foul-smelling liquid in one gulp, every hair in his body standing on end. He watched as a faint blue glow illuminated his veins from within and lingered for just a few moments before fading and assimilating into his system. The days’ long rest that would follow this hunt would be especially sweet.
The fire burned through the night. Though it removed all options to hide from the dangers of the woods, it also gave the mercenary unclouded vision around the camp and the comfort of warmth through the cold moonlight. He watched the fire dance in the swirling wind with an eagerness. If all went well tomorrow, this would be the last trip out into the wilds like this. Future expeditions would be for leisure, fishing trips or river swims there just hadn’t been time for before. He could experience the warmth of a different woman in every city the King’s land had to offer. Better yet, he could know the warmth of one, and she would tend to his children while he handled mundane nothings like paperwork or making sure the farmers on his land stayed working. The mercenary felt strange romanticizing a life he had always looked down upon, but the thought of being a loving husband and a good father always appealed to him in moments of peace like this.
He pictured this life for a moment before turning to the boy who lay slumbering in the roots at the edge of the fire’s light. Guilt and mild embarrassment rattled the mercenary’s heart. What would he do with his temporary ward once this job was done? Just sparing his life wouldn’t be enough. There wasn’t a home or family to return him to, and swindlers would make short work of his wealth. The boy was more animal than socialite, and it showed obviously in how he conducted himself. Sending him off with a fat pouch of coin was like setting him off with bloody steaks to a wolf’s den.
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The boy had nearly taken his life with that crossbow, the bolt had barely missed the side of his head. With some practice, the boy could be a crack shot, perhaps good enough to go on his own mercenary work someday. Maybe he could step into a father’s shoes, give him his bearings and some training, then set him upon the dark beasts that hide from the likes of man. He could pass down his arms and armor and have him carry on his lineage in spirit. The mercenary continued to ponder with a smile as the morning sun slowly found its place in the heavens once more.
The mercenary woke the boy, who lazily roused from slumber and was happy to see another meal had been presented. Travel rations go a long way for a long road, but to the starving youth it must have been like a delicacy. As they ate, the mercenary explained his plan: there needed to be several snares, trip wires, and pit spikes set around a fair-sized clearing. The beast was either the size of a dog and the snares would be sufficient, or the beast was the size of a bear, letting the spikes and trip wires do most of the work. There was no quick way to claim a beast's skull - their senses far surpassed that of humankind and being smart about the battle ahead was the only way either of them would live to see the gold promised. He showed the boy the paper he carried - the proof of contract - and instructed him to reclaim the paper from his body in the event he fell to the beast. Though the boy’s face soured at the thought of the mercenary dying, he seemed to take the words to heart. Death was an inevitable risk in this line of work, but it was why the gold flowed so freely.
As the duo marched onward, the ground became less and less prevalent, giving way to snaking pools of muddy green water. Their boots sank into the damp wetland terrain as they trekked deeper, keeping watchful eyes and open ears. The song of nature began to pause as they neared the main area of the wetlands, and the mercenary took notice of a nearby bald cypress. A long bone darts the length of the mercenary’s forearm jutted from its trunk, the bark around it desiccated and ashen This was no bear sized abomination, for their barbs would only go to about the size of the mercenary’s hand.
Though his face did not reveal his secrets, he felt an internal drive he had not felt in many a long moon: true fear. This was no mere beast, but a monster of legendary size. The challenge of the fight ahead was going to be worth double what he had been promised, easily. Yet was this not why he took the contract to begin with? The challenge, the exhilaration of a worthy combat, a final fight worthy of retirement? He would know peace until the end of his days. Why not add on a legendary tale of felling a great beast to boot? He had acquired a successor, it only seemed fitting to offer a tale befitting his lineage with it.
As the walkable land dwindled into the soft peatlands of the north, the mercenary tutored the boy on all he knew from prior hunts and talks with other mercenaries over the years. Their quarry was a nocturnal creature, only rising during the day if disturbed from slumber. They would need to watch for its lair: likely a wide clearing of water, scarred by the afanc’s distinct claw markings and walls made of fallen trees. Before any of that, they would smell the musk - distinct and overpowering, like unwashed asses in a mud pen. It was likely an older beast, based on its speculative size, which meant slower reflexes and a plethora of barbs to launch from its tail. Slow for an afanc wasn’t saying much - the younger ones regularly kept pace with horses - so the mercenary cautioned the boy to keep his wits about. The boy must be ready, he could very well die, or witness the mercenary’s death on this day. The boy understood, but the mercenary had no desire to have the boy see him die this day.
Halfway through a description of the afanc’s hunting methods, the boy caught wind of a notable musk. The mercenary motioned for silence and led them towards the source of the stench. Something was different. This was much more than a lair. Through the dense foliage the duo observed a small lake bordered by felled trees. Droves of bodies long rotted littered the ring of the small lake, more than any battle the mercenary had survived beneath the King’s banner. The stench of death alone would bring nightmares for many moons. Rusted iron armor pierced with bone darts and claw marks and moss sullied wood adorned every corpse. The earlier barb must have been one of the missed shots of a duel that ended months ago.
The sight sent the boy and the man staggering back towards the safety of the path behind them. They retreated down the path they had just taken to regroup and rethink Since the afanc was nocturnal, they would have time for the boy to have some practice He cut a wide X into the side of a thicker tree facing away from the lair, turned to the boy, and set him to work. With the dull thud of crossbow bolts sinking into the tree as his music, the mercenary began laying traps. This was going to be a test of endurance, the mercenary letting the afanc bleed itself to death as it chased him through obstacles of his own design. The boy was to keep his distance, fire with his crossbow when the opportunity presented itself, and run if the mercenary were to fall in combat. It would be senseless for both of them to die, after all. He could return the following morning to collect what remained. At this, the boy hesitated, but then agreed. The mercenary was unsure if his agreement would remain as such, but there was no time to lose.
With a small spade in hand, the mercenary set wide but tight circles of spikes every few yards along the path through the otherwise suffocating terrain. It must be a path often taken by the afanc, for it was easily as wide as he was tall with a few extra heads to spare in either direction, which made the mercenary nervous. Was this worth the money and possible honors? He could just leave, take the boy in, and build his reputation up under better conditions. He had felt similarly during his contract with the Lycan, but this felt different. There was no doubt in his trapping knowledge, in his bladework.
Suddenly, his heart pounded like the drums of war, its insistent rhythm thrumming through the mercenary’s entire body. The ethereal call of horns and pipes filled his ears as memories of war flooded his mind. Those few men worth fighting besides, left pierced or beheaded in the mud like tortured dogs. The anguished cries for help, for mercy, for release…
The mercenary found respite in the reeds beside the peat trail, tears flowing silently down his face. The ghosts of war haunted him, the only other monsters besides the corruption and sufferings of civilization that he could not slay. The Battle of the Burned Woods festered in his memory like an untreated wound, minutes stretching into hours as the faces of those long dead burned into his mind.
He survived the Burned Woods. He survived the Lycan, and countless beasts and bandits alike. He was a survivor of the King's wars, and of countless battles beyond. Though this beast would be a nightmare, he had slain many nightmares, and this time it would be worth it. This time he would claim his prize, and finally know rest. He swore a silent oath, not just to himself, but to his long-departed kin, countrymen, and to the boy he had spared. He would not falter, he would not waiver, he would prevail. He redoubled his efforts, and set about the intended pitfalls, snare traps, and other devious devices that would help turn the tide of this battle.
Thanks to the Liquid Energy the night prior, the mercenary watched unburdened as the sun began its descent towards the mountains as he finished what he hoped would be the coup de grace of his trappings: a stone roughly the size of his torso, bound by rope to a tree branch up high. The damned thing had taken an hour to roll over and hoisting the net had nearly thrown his back out, but it was worth it. The stone would easily kill any man it struck and hopefully cave the beast’s head in. Then he could take its tail, prove the creature was slain, and sell the barbs off to the Alchemical Guild for a fatter coin purse than the Crown was throwing his way. It was almost too easy...and his thought was proven right as he walked back to where the boy was. Rather, where the boy had been; the spot had been vacated, with only the bolts lodged in the tree and a discarded crossbow in the mud there to greet him. Something was amiss.
The mercenary set eyes upon the muddy grounds and found several fresh prints leading back towards where he had set off. The boys were easy to spot, much smaller than the rest, but they were trailed by two sets of footprints, larger and pressed deeper into the mud with the weight of grown men. Had more come for the hunt? His initial anger morphed from concern to fear to malicious hatred. If these men had harmed the boy, the afanc was the least of their worries.
The mercenary followed the tracks through the dusky trails until he spotted them: two men in chainmail speaking in hushed voices. The man on the left seemed to have a shattered bolt wedged in the shield on his back, perhaps a stray shot from the boy that had caught them by surprise. A sprawled form, limp and unmoving, lay in the ground at their feet, and the mercenary’s blood ran hot as he recognized his charge. Fury consumed the mercenary. He drew his blade and charged with reckless abandon, and one of the warriors let out a startled cry as the mercenary ran his blade through the face of the other, rending the gray matter and bone shards asunder. He then pivoted his hips and, with an adrenal cleave, pulled the blade through the skull of the first man and buried the sword deep into the throat of the second. The man gurgled a final surprised plea, then his eyes grew glazed and empty as he collapsed into the mud.
With fresh blood shed and wrath quelled, the mercenary turned his attention to the boy and his heart grew heavier. The boy bore a scarlet mark across the side of his head, along with several bruises against pale skin. His hand was shattered; he must have raised his arms to defend himself from the soldiers’ maces and caught the following barrage of blows to the head. Shallow breath still stirred the boy’s chest, granting him some solace, but his chances of surviving the night would be naught if he didn’t receive medicinal healing immediately, afanc or otherwise.
Though the boy was frail and starved, he weighed a fair amount. The mercenary was surprised he had to heave the boy as much as he did, but it meant the difference between the child’s death in his eyes. They returned to the site of the crossbow training where the mercenary laid down his pack. From within it, he withdrew another curious vial labeled “Reinvigoration” in an almost golden ink. This elixir was his insurance for surviving any battle, but the boy needed it now more than he ever had. As the moon began to grace the dusky sky once more, the mercenary poured the vial down the boy’s throat, careful not to spill a drop. It took effect instantly, swirls of assorted colors coursing through the boy’s body. A golden glow restored the boy’s pale skin to its original peachy shade, while his hand began to reassemble itself. The mercenary lifted him again and nestled the boy under a thick canopy of roots to recover in vague safety. The hunt would have to go on.
It was then that the mercenary heard a familiar call; not the afanc, but soldiers. It was a common call amongst the King’s armies, summoning troops back to camp. Three men rose from hiding places along the far coast as a fourth ran to their side from somewhere near the recent bloodbath. These men were unfamiliar from a distance and well outside of hearing or lip-reading range, but it was clear this was no common mercenary group. One of the lakeside men was wearing a flawless set of plate armor and his tabard bore a familiar emblem: a white shield with four blue diamonds running from the top left to bottom right. The sigil in the center was of a golden stag’s head, the same crest from the contract he had signed for this hunt.
This did not bode well. Two of his employer’s men died by his hand. If the crested man retreated and the mercenary returned with the afanc tail, he would lose the bounty and possibly his life. Nobles were seldom forgiving about the deaths of their kin or loyal servants unless they were the ones to order it.
There was nothing he could do about it now. The mercenary’s thoughts returned to the hunt at hand. The afanc would make short work of the common footmen; nobles often relied more on their titles than combat training to survive their conflicts. Many young nobles from the war had led ill-fated charges, hoping their precious titles would lead to their capture rather than their demise. It only worked about half the time with the rebels, who often valued blood more than gold, costing many good men their lives in the process. There was no title lofty enough to be spared by the wrath of a wild beast. The mercenary had no issue with killing the noble himself either if it came to it, but he lamented for the three warriors who would perish to the beast they did not yet understand. They did not deserve to die this way, but unfortunately their deaths were advantageous to the mercenary’s new strategy, and in his eyes, it was better that they fall first so the boy would be safe.
The lone fourth man had the looks of a militia forward scout. He was frantically moving his arms, pointing towards the water and back the way he came. Unmoved, the crested man then waved his hand with a flippant demeanor and gestured towards the path where the mercenary had laid his traps. The fool was going to try and fight this beast in open combat, unintentionally walking directly into the traps laid out on the trail. The mercenary watched with a keen sense of excitement. It was not uncommon for nobles to open contracts to many different mercenaries, but it was a prized rarity to witness a young noble take up the bounty himself to claim the glory and honors for their own.
As the men got into some half-planned battle position, there was a clear breach in morale. The scout fidgeted in the back of their small combat circle as the two footmen seemed to be restlessly swaying their morning stars. The crested man was the only one standing firm, hunting spear lined over the top of his shield. Their eyes roved the terrain, searching for others to join in the fray that were not coming. Their hesitation and loss of nerve was their undoing.
While the soldiers remained distracted, the afanc laid paw onto the mud sullied grasses and rose to the marshland. There was no bear the mercenary had ever seen that could start to compare to the beast before him. The olive scales of its gargantuan maw shimmered under the full moon’s light; the thick black fur of its body towered over the men ahead. It was the eyes that caught the mercenary’s attention. They glowed with an unnatural, deep amber phosphorescence as if enchanted by some form of magic. The first afanc he had slain had eyes the same color as its scales and they did not shine in the moonlight. Was this monster of a mage’s design? It uttered a guttural droning growl, one the mercenary recognized from his first hunt, but with a far more sinister depth to back it. Challengers were in its land, and it was ready to fight.
The scout was the first to break formation. The poor coward didn’t even have the fighting spirit to fire the arrow he had notched. He turned and ran straight down the trail, sinking half his leg into a muddy hole. A howl of pain cut through the night. Poor bastard. Following the cry of anguish, the afanc’s ascent from the waters turned into a horrifying descent of carnage. It bore its maw down, all but consuming the first of the two warriors. A pair of leather boots, all that remained of the soldier, fell to the ground without ceremony as its head lifted again. The noble seized this opportunity to leap upon the beast’s head to bury his spear into the soft neck where scale became fur. The beast reared back, whipped the noblemen into the grass with a wet thump and sent the other armored man into the edge of the trail and on his ass.
The mercenary continued to spectate the carnage as the beast bore down with its paws upon the other armored man, shredding armor with its long claws. The poor souls had not been prepared, and they were paying the toll of ignorance with their lives. The nobleman, brave foolish soul, returned from the reeds with his spear gripped in both hands. With a mighty lunge, the spear buried itself deep into the creature’s ribcage. The afanc cried with a deafening force, turned its head away from the source of its new pain, and lashed its tail at the nobleman. The cone of barbs was inescapable, and the nobleman was flung from the road and pinned to a tree by several puncturing darts. If he survived that torrent, it would be a true act of the gods. Satisfied with the cataclysmic spectacle, the mercenary decided it was time to take up the hunt. The conflict of interest was resolved. At most, he had to get the injured creature into one of his several snares and set death upon it. He felt a light hint of disappointment, all that headache and death due to a spoiled shit trying to cut the purse he hadn’t even collected. Nobles never changed.
The mercenary set his pack down with the boy and drew the remaining array of elixirs he’d procured: ‘Cat’s-Eye,’ ‘Strider,’ and ‘Frog-Hop.’ Cat’s-Eye granted a faint yellow luminosity to his eyes and illuminated the world, Strider sent enough energy to sprint for hours surging through his body, and Frog-Hop coursed to his legs and would allow him to spring upon his foe from above in a single bound. Each tasted worse than the last, but the mercenary was used to the bitterness of these draughts. He took a final glance at the boy recovering in the reeds and sprinted around the water’s edge towards the beast. This was what he had been waiting for, the rush of adrenal fear from a new challenge. The mercenary bellowed a battle cry that he felt was nigh as fearsome as the beasts and rushed to join the fray.
The afanc turned but was not prepared for the mercenary to spring several yards into the air. He stomped down on its head with cleated boots, sinking its jaw into the mud, then buried his blade down into its spinal ridges. The beast bellowed out another primal call and began to whip its body about to dislodge the new challenger upon it. Much to the mercenary’s dismay, the beast was unburdened by the blow dealt to its spine, and it flung him off into the road ahead.
The beast had a potentially punctured heart and two separate wounds on its spine. This would have been more than enough to take down even the largest foe the mercenary had seen before now, yet the afanc stood sturdy and filled with rage. Something was wrong. The mercenary bounded back down the trail where the wounded man lay. He was silent now, staring in shock at the man who was leaping about the marsh as a dancer would on a stage and at the abomination standing on its hindlegs and towering over them. As the beast brought its clawed paws back to the earth, the mercenary sprang back over his tripwires and watched as the wounded man ahead was buried under claw and mud. His suffering had ended, but the mercenary’s had just begun.
The afanc charged and took a swipe towards the mercenary, missing by mere inches thanks to the tripwire, and sent him staggering backward. He found his footing once more and prepared to leap back. The beast remained unphased and barreled forwards, opening its maw to bite down on its foe, but he bounded back with equivalent speed. Tripwires tore, iron pitons buried themselves in the afanc’s feet, and it stepped right into the next spike pit. Despite every bit of effort, it remained unphased. This concerned the mercenary deeper. What was all the roaring before this? Was it immune to the sting of iron? Regardless of the case, the mercenary knew two truths: this beast was not going to die to his blade, and he had a massive boulder hanging from a tree a brief sprint away. This ridiculous magic shit was the reason why he planned ahead. Once mages were involved, everything was up in the air.
The mercenary darted away the beast and down the perilous trail. The afanc charged after him, occasionally stumbling over well-set wires, and filling its paws with variable amounts of puncture wounds. As the metal spiked fell from its paws, a viscous black tar spewed from its wounds in lieu of blood. Necromancy. The mercenary felt his blood at the thought of some foul caster raising his corpse, tainting his soul, and using him as a fell plaything for gods knew how long. He had slain undead before and hated every job that sent him after their ilk. Slaying their kind offered a valuable lesson: removing the head or destroying the mind prevented the dark magics from persisting, ending their unlife at last.
If this boulder didn’t do the trick, he would have to run like the hells were after him. It was one thing to slay a great beast and retire. It was another to try killing something that could not die otherwise. If the hefty stone could not do the trick, he was properly fucked.
The mercenary got to the rope and prepared to strike when the beast got in range. The beast's unbroken charge led it straight into the path of the boulder, and the mercenary cleaved the rope holding it abound in a mighty swing. The boulder found its mark and caved the skull of the mighty beast, but the afanc was unwilling to yield to death. Though it could not roar, it growled and thrashed about, whipping its tail wildly and slinging poisoned barbs with unchecked abandon. The mercenary dodged, leapt, and parried all that he could. As he darted for the closest tree, one barb pierced his defenses and exited along the right side of his neck.
It had been years since any beast or man had landed a decent blow on his flesh, but this was more than decent. As he hid, the mercenary checked the wound with his free hand. The amount of blood that was shed alone was worrisome, and the mercenary clasped his neck tightly. The barb had dragged a line of the beast's poison into the wound, and it stung like a flame had entered his blood. This pain left quickly, for he had only been grazed, but the bleeding granted a new fear. His pack of supplies was across the waters with the boy, and the beast was not yet done writhing. The mercenary felt an ironic sense of fortune. He had not met the same fate as the nobleman, yet perhaps the swift death would have been more of a mercy. He hoped that was not the case.
The mercenary scavenged a fallen stick and cut the end of his tunic off as a makeshift bandage. Coiling the cloth around his neck, he laced the stick within the cloth and began binding the wound down as quickly as his hands would allow. There was too much to live for now to let his life be cast away by one unlucky accident. This couldn’t be it. This was such a terrible place to die, and the boy would not be safe if there was no one to guard him.
The mercenary sat behind the tree with his makeshift tourniquet and waited for the sounds of thrashing to soften. A quick peak around the tree told him the beast was still moving, though its tail no longer bore any lethal barbs. He held his neck and walked towards the beast, watching it writhe only a few moments longer. As the amber glimmer began to dull, the beast’s movement began to wither in kind. Eventually, it lay still, dull olive eyes unshining.
The mercenary’s right leg waivered, and he sprawled back into the dirt. The beast was slain, but the flow of blood had not been finished. If he tightened the bindings anymore, he would be without breath, but he needed pressure to get the blood to stop. The ranger from his last hunt had called the poison some long word... anti-co something… though his mind felt fuzzy, but he remembered it made blood flow like no other wound. There had to be some kind of trick or potion to fix this. The mercenary mustered his strength, forced himself upright, then bounded back to the boy to check his pack for anything still nestled in the bottom. The antitoxin was the only draught he had left, and he drank it eagerly. He did not think to pack for basic medical goods, for the draughts usually sufficed, and he did not have the practice to treat his own wound meaningfully.
Though his blood thickened around the wound, the bleeding continued. Panic came, but only for a moment. The draught had bought him a few more precious moments. The mercenary knew this day would come sooner or later. He had hoped that it would have been with the Lycan, but alas. Here he was, standing helplessly as his life seeped out of him. He would not be buried with any honors or have any true heirs to carry on his line. He would lay here, and with any luck, he would remain here. Perhaps someone would find kindness in their heart and bury him in an unmarked peat grave. This foul bog was to be his place of rest, ceremoniously or otherwise.
All these thoughts ceased as he turned his head back down to the boy, who lay still but breathing in the reed bed. It was unfair to him too, to have been given hope and the promise of a better life. He would have to find his way back to town, and for what? The mercenary realized he could keep his word, if only partially. He took his receipt of the contract, wet his finger in blood, and scrawled the words ‘I’m sorry’ onto the back, then rested his money pouch on top of it. He had no use for the coin now. He only hoped the boy could read.
The mercenary withdrew the blanket and hammock from the bag. He tucked the boy in, doing his best to not get any blood on either his charge or his bedding. In that moment, he knew a fragment of what it would have been like to have been a father. Strange as it was, he wished he could have offered the boy more than a broken nose and a broken oath, yet the cold feeling of his flesh and the dulling of the mind reminded him of the truth at hand.
The mercenary struggled and fumbled as the elixirs began to fade from his blood, but he made his way back to the fallen beast. The man reclaimed his blade from behind the tree and began the task of chopping off a hunk of the afanc’s tail. If nothing else, the boy could take the piece to town and claim the reward on his own. Perhaps he would be okay. The mercenary prayed, this time with genuine desperation, to whatever gods may be watching. He willed them to guide the boy safely and see that he lived a long and peaceful life. Normally the mercenary would cast prayer off as nothing beyond hopeful thought, but an unnatural warmth grew in his breast and stood against the cold he felt from the blood loss. Perhaps this prayer was not in vain. There was not much he could do now beyond hope, but he would meet these gods soon if they did watch.
With a proper chunk severed, the mercenary stumbled to face the afanc one final time, plopping unceremoniously into the mud. He wanted his last sight to be of his greatest kill, the only beast in the King’s lands that could finally best him. The cold reptilian eyes gazed back with the glazed and morbid truth that he would soon join it, and his eyes too would lose their light. He entertained the thought of what bardic songs may come from this tale, with the fallen knight and the escaped child. Perhaps the boy would commission it with all the gold he would have. The thought made the man smile a little. As the blood continued to pool from his neck, the mercenary stared deeply into the graven eyes of the beast as he attempted to reconcile with his passing.
He had lived long, fought hard, and old age was unfitting to claim a man like him anyway. Loving wives were for civil folk and nobles that did not burden themselves with the combat arts or the ghosts that they bring. Fatherhood was the same; all children deserve to have a good father in their lives, and that wasn’t something a man who lived his life on the road could provide. He had lived well, his place in the world was clear, and the mercenary found contentment in that. The only thing he took issue with was the fact that his last contract had brought him to die in some shit scented swamp, but it was beautiful in its own strange way.
The song of the swamp calmed the man’s mind, and when he felt ready, he unclasped his hand, unwound the bandage, closed his eyes, and lay with his back in the mud. After a life dealing in mud strewn roads and the blood of man and beasts, it was a fitting resting place, and he only hoped to see his mother’s kind smile on whatever other side awaited him. The cold moonlit winds offered their final embrace, kissing his skin with a reassuring farewell. This would be the last time he would ever know the burden of battle, the memories of war, or the fear of uncertainty. This was his promise of peace.