A horse, a dog,
and a good steel sword,
that's all a ranger needs.
Amon halted his horse with the barest touch of the rein and slipped soundlessly from the saddle. He led the black gelding from the road, pushing through the low boughs of the ghost-moss clad firs to a small clearing some distance from the narrow track. One of the giant trees had fallen in a storm several years before, leaving a roughly circular gap in the canopy that had let the sunlight stream down to the forest floor, and now the bracken and berries, sedges and grasses had grown up thick, taking advantage of the giant's demise. He loosened the saddle girth and patted Shade's proud neck and hobbled the horse in the clearing to graze.
"I'll be back, old friend," he told the horse with a final pat, then strung his bow, adjusted his quiver, and started back toward the road, where the ambush waited.
Not far down from the clearing, an outcropping of dark basalt rock pressed close over the road, while on the other side the ground fell steeply away to the creek several hundred feet below. It was a spot favored by highwaymen. Trade passed up and down this road, stormberry wine and iron ore from Ravenwood to the north, wool and wheat and ale from Stormgarde to the south. Such riches drew robbers and highwaymen as a corpse draws flies. This stretch of the Raven Road was the most dangerous; those merchants as could afford it hired guards of course, but caravan guards were often poorly trained, armed with bronze rather than steel, hired out of the taverns of Stormgarde, poor opponents for the robber gangs armed with steel swords and broadhead arrows, highwaymen that knew every fold and ripple of the land, every curve and climb of the narrow road, barely wide enough for the passage of a wagon.
They had built a trap here in the shadow of the basalt plug, simple but effective, a log-and-rope contraption to halt a wagon where there was no hope of turning back, where they could shoot down from the safety of the rocks onto their helpless victims. It was set to fall, Amon noted as he gained the top of the outcropping. A half-dozen caravans had fallen here in the past year. The wreckage of two wagons could still be seen, tangled in the trees halfway down the slope. Every so often, the lords of Stormgarde or Ravenwood might bestir themselves from their posturing and machinations long enough to send a squad of guardsmen to clear out the robbers. Without fail, they found only deserted camps and old traps, long unused. They burned what they found, patted themselves on the back, and rode back to whichever lord sent them to report their success. Occasionally, both Varic Raith of Stormgarde and Castien Celwyn of Ravenwood would send out guardsmen at the same time. When that happened, gaians and elves would clash. Such conflicts were rarely fatal, consisting mostly of hurled taunts and threats, skirmishes amid the trees, raids on camps, horselines cut and supplies stolen. This was contested territory, no-mans-land between the holdings of the gaians of House Stormgarde and the elves of Ravenwood, the border ill-defined in the rough mountains, advancing and retreating depending on the whims of the rival lords.
The games played by the high lords left the smallfolk of the mountains and river valleys all but unprotected, vulnerable to the depredations of bandits, highwaymen, and demons. Their absence provided opportunity for many.
Amon prowled into the low cave that served as shelter for Dagger Val's gang. They had been here a while, the cookfire well dug-in, blankets and bedrolls still laid out in one corner, crates of looted goods still stacked near the mouth. Some of the gang were even now bringing their spoils down to the smuggler's cove on the western coast of the isle. The rest would arrive shortly. A fat wagon train was even now lumbering down from Ravenwood, laden with black iron ore for the smithies of Stormgarde and Belfalas beyond. It was too rich a prize to pass up. Iron, even rough ore, was worth more than gold.
There was little to do but wait. Amon found a wheel of hard white cheese on a crooked shelf and cut a wedge for himself with his dagger. It was sharp and good. He cut a bit more from the wheel and stuffed it in his bag for later. It would go well with whatever he managed to shoot for supper. He added a skin of stormberry wine to the bag as well. The bandits ate and drank well from their stolen stores.
Dagger Val himself led the way up the hidden path to the outcropping. Four men came behind him. All were dressed similarly, in boiled leather and padded cloth, here and there bits of stolen steel. Dagger Val wore a scarred and dented steel breastplate, devoid of device or enamel. One of his henchmen wore a crooked steel helm with a narrow nasal. Another had lobstered vambraces, another bright steel greaves enameled blue. They moved without any thought to caution or silence, talking and laughing in voices that echoed off the towering trees.
Oafs, Amon thought. Flat on his belly, he watched them approach. Hooded and cloaked, he was all but invisible, even if they had bothered to look. He melted back into the shadows of the cave and waited. He silently slipped an arrow free of his quiver and nocked it to the bowstring. Only fools confident in their own stupidity would move about so noisily. They had ruled over this section of road so long that they no longer gave any thought to threats to their stronghold. They had not even bothered to leave a guard here.
"Wait." It was Dagger Val's voice, rough and gravelly. They had not quite gained the top of the outcrop. "Something's not right. Jeg, go up and make sure everything's aright." Amon half drew the bow and waited. He had left no sign of his passage, unlike the bandits, yet some survival instinct must have pricked Dagger Val's mind to the threat within.
"Why me?" the man who must have been Jeg protested.
"Because I said." The sound of a smack echoed off the trees. A moment later, footsteps crunched on the path. "Barr, you too. Go up."
They popped up over the edge one right after another. Jeg's bright blue steel greaves did little to stop the arrow that buried itself in his chest. He had been in the middle of drawing his shortsword. He fell with it half out of its scabbard, a strangled cry escaping him when he hit the rock. Amon nocked another arrow and drew as Burr gave a roar and ripped his sword free, charging in with abandon.
The arrow went wide, sinking into Burr's left arm, staggering him. Dagger Val and the other two bandits came boiling up over the edge, swords in hand. Amon dropped his bow and rose, throwing his hood back and drawing his sabers in one swift motion.
"You!" Dagger Val roared, halting in his tracks. The two henchmen behind him all but slammed into him. Burr had no such caution. He was big man, a good head taller than Amon and twice as broad in the shoulders. No doubt such a bull rush had worked for him in the past, overwhelming any opponent foolish enough to stand and receive it. Amon was not a fool. He easily sidestepped Burr, letting the man's own momentum trip him up. One saber plunged into Burr's kidney as he stumbled past. The man went tumbling down, blood pouring from his back. He did not rise.
"Me," Amon said. "You've got a price on your head." He let them come to him.
Amon turned to meet Dagger Val's rush. The bandit leader was better trained than his fellows. He attacked with a swift thrust and parry, then slipped easily into a defensive stance to meet Amon's response. Amon sent Dagger Val skittering backwards with a double slash as the bandit in the steel helm came up to serve as his second. A saber in each hand, Amon worked each opponent separately. Pressed by two foes, he adopted an easy defense, keeping Dagger Val, the more dangerous one in his estimation, on his left. His defense was to keep moving, to present an impenetrable wall of razor edges, dodging any thrust or slash that might slip through, a constant awareness of the field of battle. The world came into sharp detail, time seeming to slow. He stepped close to Dagger Val, forcing the man back. Helm came in with a slash aimed at Amon's neck. He stepped into the blow, moving slightly to the side just as the blow came angling down. Steel rang on steel as Amon deflected the slash with the flat of one saber, Helm's sword sending up sparks as it slid down the length of Amon's blade, driving his arms up high. Amon plunged his left-hand blade into Helm's armpit. The man staggered back. He was still falling as Amon spun away from Dagger Val's newest thrusting attack.
"Coward!" Dagger Val spat as he took a wild horizontal hack at Amon's retreating form. "Fight me, you goat-horned bastard!"
Instead, Amon let the man chase him. Dagger Val had both height and size on him. He had learned early that a bigger opponent could overwhelm him with size and strength. Use what you have to your advantage, that was what old Firick had taught him. He was small and he was quick, and he could avoid being hit easier than he could take a blow. Not only did retreating, forcing an opponent to chase him, tire them out, it infuriated them. An angry man was a stupid man.
The remaining bandit had hung back. He had not drawn his sword but instead took down his crossbow and fitted a quarrel. Amon saw the motion of the raised crossbow and whirled to meet Dagger Val's rush with an onslaught of his own as the crossbow clicked. The quarrel caught in the folds of Amon's swirling cloak. It would have taken him in the back if he had been careless.
The crossbowman bent to reset his weapon. That was the disadvantage of the crossbow. Quick to fire, easier to aim than a proper longbow, but it took so long to reload. The man was still looking down, struggling with the crank, when Amon came down on him.
Seeing his fellows dead or dying, Dagger Val took a step back. He goggled at Amon, the whites of his eyes flashing in the dim light of the shallow cave. No doubt the sight before him was a terrible one, Amon thought. A demon, yellow eyes and white hair and black horns, covered in blood, standing amidst the bodies of his companions. He smiled.
Dagger Val broke and ran. He scrambled down off the black basalt rock, running like the coward he was. Amon retrieved his bow before going after him. The forest was his domain; the man might elude him for a time, but it mattered little in the end.
The man had tried to hide. He broke cover like a flushed rabbit and ran as Amon approached. Amon paused to draw an arrow from his quiver and nock it to the string. He grimaced as the thought of shooting a running man in the back, but it was time for this to end.
A gray blur shot past Amon with a snarl and hit Dagger Val full in the back, taking the man clean off his feet. The man managed to turn enough to get his arm between the wolf's jaws and his own throat, but little more than that.
Hackles and tail up, Ferron savaged the man's arm. Dagger Val hammered at the wolf's head with his fist, but nothing he could do would break that grip.
"Stop fighting and he'll let go," Amon advised as he approached. He drew back the bow, but he had no clear shot at the man. He would not risk hitting his wolf.
"Fuck you, demon! Call off your fucking hellhound!" Dagger Val's free hand groped for his belt. He came up gripping a dagger. He slashed wildly, the blade opening a bright line of red in the silver-gray fur of the wolf's shoulder. Ferron yelped and leapt back. Dagger Val tried to sit up. Amon's arrow took him in the throat.
Amon slowly made his way back to the black basalt outcrop overlooking the road. Ferron ambled along at his side, all his former fearsomeness gone. He growled softly as Amon washed out the wound and dressed it with salve, but no more than that. He would have a scar there when it healed, but little more than that. It would be one of many the old wolf had.
"I thought you were chasing rabbits," Amon said, scratching Ferron behind the ears. The wolf leaned against him with a pleased groan. Not for the first time, Amon reflected on the wonder that was the old wolf. Ferron was nine years old, his coal-black coat long since faded to nearly white. A bit of black still clung to his muzzle and ears but the rest of him had gone to silver. "You're a terrible dog, you know that?" A ranger was supposed to have a dog, a loyal companion, not a half-wild wolf that came and went as he pleased. Well, a ranger was supposed to be a lot of things that Amon was not. This life suited him, though. Not that a demon like him had many other options.
***
Blood dripped slowly from the sack that swung from the ranger's saddle, trickling down the horse's side to spatter on the hardpan dirt road. The man shouldn't have tried to kill him, Amon thought. If he'd simply surrendered and given up his weapons, he'd still be alive. But no, the fool who had called himself Dagger Val had tried to stick a knife in Amon's ribs. Now he was a severed head in a sack.
The wooden palisade of the walled town of Mountain Gate came into view around a bend. Amon reined in his horse and paused. He pushed back the hood of his green-gray cloak, revealing a shock of ice-white hair and small black horns. It would not do to approach the town without doing so.
Amon was a demon, and while demons were legally allowed to live in Lath, they were not welcome in these frontier lands far from the king's laws. The guards on the scaffold above the gate wouldn't allow him into town, that was Lord Raith's order. No demon could walk in civilized places. But he was confident that they'd let him come up to the gate to claim his bounty.
It was a song and dance he'd played again and again. He made his living collecting bounties on predators, human and animal, and had done so for more than half a century on this backwater island in the North Sea. Tol Morad was relatively quiet, as long as Lord Raith and Lady Celwyn weren't at each other's throats, remote and rugged, with towns few and far between. A good place for one who did not want to be found.
Amon touched Shade with his heel and started forward again. He hailed the gate guards as he drew nearer. It was never a good idea to approach men armed with crossbows and twitchy trigger fingers by surprise.
"What do you want, demon?" a man demanded from atop the gate. Amon recognized him. Darry. That was good. He was less hostile than some of the others.
"I've come to claim a bounty," Amon said. He paused several yards away from the gate. He was well aware that he was within crossbow range, and that three were presently trained on him. A coward's weapon, he thought. No finesse, not like a bow. Any fool that could work a crank could wield a crossbow.
"Anyone I know?" Darry asked, half in jest.
"Not unless you're friends with the likes of Dagger Val." Amon untied the sack from the saddle and held it up. Blood dripped from the bottom of the burlap sack. "Someone come and get this thing and give me my coin."
There was a bit of a commotion on the gate as the guards debated who would have to approach the demon. They usually made one of the younger ones do it. At last, the gate creaked open enough to allow one person to pass through. As expected, the guard was fresh-faced and unfamiliar, wearing the black surcoat that marked him as a Raith man, the crossed battleaxe sigil over his heart. He gripped the shaft of his spear until his knuckles went white as he approached. He hesitated, several feet away, plainly terrified.
"Well, hurry up," Amon said. "Get this nasty thing before I throw it at you."
The young man looked ready to piss himself in fear as he neared. Beneath the conical helm and straight nasal, his brown eyes were wide as saucers. Amon knew what scared the lad so badly. The sight of a demon, which brought up all the stories and legends about them, was never pleasant. With his white hair and yellow eyes, not to mention the black horns, he would never pass as Gaian or elf.
Finally fed up, Amon tossed the sack containing Dagger Val's head at the young guardsman. It hit the man in the chest, bounced off, and rolled across the dirt road. The guard scrambled after it, making his companions on the gate roar with laughter. Amon waited while the young guard ran back to the gate and disappeared inside the town.
"Any news from up north?" Darry asked.
One of a ranger's tasks was carrying information across the frontier. "The wolves have gotten into the sheep near Farshire, the bears are raiding the orchards near Ambermill, winter storms are blowing in summer, and the elves of Ravenwood still hate your Westerling guts." Fortunately, a place like Tol Morad had little in the way of important events. That was just the way Amon liked it. It was the reason he had chosen to stay here. It seemed a good place for a retirement.
The gate creaked again as the young guardsman reappeared, a small leather coin pouch in hand. He hurried over to Amon. The boy's hand shook as he lifted it to hand the sack over to Amon.
Amon leaned down to take it. "I don't bite, you know," he said to the young man, more of a boy really, now that he saw him up close. Less than twenty winters, Amon judged. Probably the son of a farmer, pressed into service.
Those words, meant to be a jest, didn't have the effect Amon hoped for. The boy handed over the coin and bolted back to the gate. Amon sighed. He shouldn't have bothered.
Amon hefted the coin pouch. It was lighter than it should have been. He opened it, fished out a silver crescent, and bit it to ensure it was real. The coin was real enough, but there was half of what there should have been. It wasn't unheard of for guards to do something like this to a ranger, especially to a demon.
"What's this?" he demanded of Darry. "You shorted me!"
"That's what you get, demon. Give it back if you don't like it," Darry said.
"I risk my life to do your jobs for you and keep your roads safe, and this is what I get?"
Darry raised his crossbow and took aim. "You're lucky you go that much," he said. "Now get out of here before I claim a bounty myself."
"Miserable, cheating, godsforsaken sheepfucker!" Amon wheeled Shade about and put his heels into him, sending the black gelding into a gallop up the road and away from the town of Mountain Gate, back the way he had come.
Amon slowed Shade to a walk once he was out of sight of the town. The horse was twelve years old, and it would not do to overtax him due to his rider's anger. Amon looked at the sorry coin pouch in his hand. Less than half of the 100-silver bounty on Dagger Val's head. He briefly considered flinging it into the woods in anger. Bad idea. He needed that coin. Liddy's wages paid most of his expenses, but with the odd weather, the necessities were growing more expensive.