by Paul G Mann
might have been collecting taxes but it was clear the judge didn’t know gold from garbage, broken stone knives, old and worn pelts and an assortment of half finished carvings made up over 90 percent of the carts contents. The only thing of note as far as he was concerned was a finely finished and well made leather knife scabbard ideal for the steel knife he had purloined off Billy Johnson last summer.
If what the Elders of East Harbour said were true and previous attempts to rid the village of this scum had failed because the judges would hide outside the village and kill people as they tried to go about the daily lives, he knew his small victory was a fleeting one.
Leaving the cart for the villagers to pick over, he returned to the village, quickly entered the tunnels and ran to an exit he knew would bring him out some fifty yards of the tree line on the opposite side of the village. Once in the trees he moved like a ghost soundlessly slipping from one tree to the next until he had an uninterrupted view of East Harbour and any cover the trees near the village could afford a judge with murderous intent against him or any of the residents.
The wait wasn’t a long one. Three judges, two with blood soaked coat sleeves crashed through the trees below him and took up stations overlooking a semi concealed tunnel entrance. All armed with wicked looking crossbows; they rested their weapons on convenient tree branches and waited for a victim to leave the safety of the tunnels. A crossbow is loaded easily enough with one arm and the use of a foot for leverage, a bad arm and a wounded leg however makes the use of these weapons near impossible. He slowly moved his position until he had all three of the judges in an uninterrupted field of vision. He placed his quiver of arrows upright against the trunk of a tree next to him, selected one, knocked it in the bowstring, took aim and let it fly at who he assumed was the head judge. As soon as it was in flight, another was fitted to the bow and fired at an assistant; both arrows were still in the air as he pulled back on the bowstring a third time and aimed at the remaining judge.
He waited until his first two arrows had found their mark; both imbedding themselves high in the thigh of each victim. His last target moved as soon as he heard the screams from his companions, Fred knew he would, the only uncertainty was in which direction would he go? Once he knew, he let the arrow loose to find its mark some ten seconds later piecing the skin and hitting the bone in the same place as his previous shots.
All three judges were now screaming and lay writhing on the ground trying to pull each other to safety, each of them with a yard long flint headed arrow buried in the muscle of their thighs. As a fighting force they were finished, without medical aid they would die as soon as a wandering Ripper caught the scent of their blood. Fred was a killer but not a murderer; the enemy here was the Hunki not each other and most people on Newth abided by the unwritten law never to let a man die without trying to give aid. No matter what these judges threatened or what they did, up to now they had given him no real reason to kill them out of hand. Stealth was no longer needed; he made his way down the small hillside to his three victims. Once there he quickly quietened them down, built a small fire and from his pack brought a small jug he had made years ago from a smooth rock he had found on the shore of the western ocean, half filled it with water and sat staring at his frightened victims while waiting for the water to boil.
He cleaned the wounds of his victims as best he could but not before carefully removing his arrows for future use. Once done and the wounds wrapped with the healing leaves of the native yellow berry bush he sat back and looked at his victims.
‘I told you to leave and not come back,’ he said quietly. ‘This is your last warning. Go back to where you came from and tell whoever is in charge back there that East Harbour is off limits. Come anywhere near here again and I will kill you, is that understood?’
‘Understood,’ the main judge replied, wincing as he moved his leg. ‘Although friend I think you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. The judges in Stonehaven are not going to be happy with today’s events. They’ll send others to kill you because they don’t allow anyone to go against their laws, and you, one man against the hundreds in Stonehaven, I’m sorry, I thank you for my life and your help, but your days are numbered.’
‘The warning is there,’ Fred replied. ‘Tell whoever you have to my name. Tell them for a living I hunt Rippers and tell them I’ve survived two Hunki hunts; the last one I had them running from my arrows, so tell me FRIEND what exactly is in Stonehaven that I should be frightened of?’
‘Numbers, sheer numbers will overpower you,’ he smiled.
‘Those numbers will have to find me first,’ Fred smiled in return. ‘The warning is there, ignore it by all means but if you do, tell whoever comes looking for me they won’t be returning home, they’ll be dead. That said I leave you to hobble back to Stonehaven, take your weapons with you, you will need them against the Rippers and to hunt. I hope I never see you again, for your sake.’
He packed up, stamped the fire out and watched as the three judges made their slow painful way towards Stonehaven. Satisfied they were well on their way he followed them down the hillside and turned to the tunnels of East Harbour.
It would be some time before the judges returned to test Freds warning. Stonehaven was over two hundred miles away from East Harbour; travelling overland meant a journey time of about four weeks and that providing the weather remained fair and no storms came in. Ill equipped as the judges were, wounded and having to hunt as they travelled and Fred thought the four weeks estimate would double. If he was right and given the time needed to travel back here it was going to be at least 3 months before he could expect some reprisal.
To pass the time he opened a small workshop in one of the disused tunnels. There he sat for hours on end carving wood, bone and flint into knives, arrowheads, spear shafts and arrows. It wasn’t long before word got around and he began making goods to order, needles, scissors and knife handles being the top priorities of his customers. Liz helped him of course whenever she could; she had learned a lot from Fred in the short time she had known him and realised very early in their relationship she needed teaching. The lady like skills she had learned before coming here were all well and good, but what use is the art of needlework if you haven’t got a needle?
The change in the judge’s behaviour worried him; until now they had moved from village to village arbitrating in disputes for no more reward than a bed during their stay and meals. Villagers looked forward to them coming; it was a chance to do a bit of trading and catch up on some gossip or news from other villages. Disputes had always been settled fairly and people abided by the decisions made; now it seems judges were no longer the arbitrators but the instigators of trouble; killing and stealing for their own ends, taking without giving anything back.
If he could believe his adversary, weight of numbers could overwhelm him. He needed a plan to counter them, something that would not only keep them away from him but leave the inhabitants of East Harbour alone. It was something he thought long and deep on while he whittled and carved in his small workshop. After two months of frustrated thought he put his whittling down and with a smile as wide as the Inland Sea set off with bow and arrow, steel knife, a cart borrowed off a villager and as much rope as he could carry.
As he left he gave instruction to the village head man to make a strong wooden cage approximately ten foot square, and assembled so that any ropes used in the construction could not be reached from the inside. Once made it was to be left topside of the East Harbour tunnels close to the main entrance. With that done he had one more stop to make before setting out to put his plan into action. Deep in the woods he searched for the blue mint tree, a plant native to Newth that had properties not a lot of people knew about. The root crushed and boiled and mixed with the juice from the plants leaves made a concoction that would lay a man unconscious for days. If he could get his quarry to drink it, once captured he would water it down to keep new pet docile.
It took two days to prepare the drink and ano
ther day to bring down a deer and lace the carcass with his knockout preparation. Once done he climbed a tree and let the smell of blood bring his quarry to him. It wasn’t long; by his estimate two hours had passed before he heard the crashing approach of the Rippers. Two of them came bounding out of the undergrowth, a male and a female, both young and inexperienced by the look of them, but dangerous never the less and not to be underestimated if you valued your life.
Fred watched with amused fascination as the pair began to rip the deer to pieces with their wicked claws before diving in and fighting over the iron rich liver. They made short work of the dead animal; teeth and claw ripping the flesh off bone before their voracious appetites almost inhaled the flesh. He began to wonder if the blue mint was going to work on the hated animals, had he made the mix strong enough. Had he laced the meat with enough of the mixture to render the animals unconscious? Two questions he needn’t have worried about, sated they stopped feeding, stood to leave and promptly began weaving as their legs refused to function under the influence of the drugged meat.
He hated these animals; they were nasty vicious killers
