Legends of the Lurker Box Set

by Richard H. Stephens

  Crunching gravel announced Jonas carrying a large warhammer, with Joram and Jaxon in tow. They ran up to the porch and bent over, covering their heads as a third series of multicoloured flashes illuminated the mystic shop and a deep rumble shook the ground.

  As soon as the light died away, Jonas shouted, “Move her away from there!”

  Jaxon met Reecah’s scared eyes and held out a hand to assist her. “You need to get away from the door.”

  Reecah shook her head. A new fear replaced her distress, dreading what the brute Jonas planned to do to Auntie Grim once he got through the door.

  She pulled her great-grandmother’s dagger from her belt and held it to Jaxon’s face. “Get away from me!”

  Jaxon’s eyes crossed as the blade hovered over his nose. He stumbled backward and fell off the porch.

  Reecah stood, threatening to chase him, but Joram thundered onto the porch, swatted aside the hand holding the dagger, and slammed her into the glass door.

  The husky man’s hand enveloped hers and squeezed hard, breaking her thumb.

  Crying out in pain, she was vaguely aware of her dagger clattering to the porch at her feet. Before she could fully appreciate what was happening, Joram spun her through the air and chucked her off the porch to land in a heap in front of the dragon statue.

  Jonas hefted his warhammer and smote the stained-glass door. Shock twisted his face as he flew backward through the air, propelled by the repulsion spell warding the door, and landed heavily in front of a scattering line of villagers. His wayward warhammer smashed the face of an unfortunate spectator.

  Tears streaming off her face, Reecah hugged the statue as if drawing a sense of security from the inanimate object.

  Jonas gained his feet and brushed himself off. His angry glare silenced anyone thinking his flight was comical. “Burn it down!” he commanded. “Being me torches!”

  Reecah stared at him. She shook her head quickly, unable to speak past her rising fear.

  Men scattered to various buildings and returned bearing torches and sconces.

  Jonas snatched the first one to arrive and walked up to the porch overhang. “Vex this town no longer, witch!”

  Leaning back, he tossed the torch high in the air, the flaming brand spinning lazy circles before landing near the roof’s peak. Oil from the wrapped cloth spread the flames around the torch as it rolled along the wooden shingles.

  Reecah couldn’t believe what was happening. She staggered backward from the corner of the porch, seeing the damage perpetrated by the villagers as torch after flaming torch whirled onto the roof.

  Watching on in helpless horror, the villagers set brands against the lavender walls, fanning the flames until they caught.

  It wasn’t long before the fiery wooden shingles fell into the interior and flames ripped through the shop, catching the various accelerants Auntie Grim kept on cluttered shelves. Small explosions rocked the night, turning Grimelda’s Clutch into a raging inferno.

  Reecah covered her face with her hands, stumbling away from the nightmare. She butted up against the side of the temple and slid to a sitting position, trembling uncontrollably. By the time the walls crumbled into the heart of the conflagration she was so numb it barely registered. The only person left to her in all the world was gone.

  It had become apparent to the villagers that they needed to get the fire under control lest it spread to the temple and buildings beyond.

  Reecah stared vacantly as a bucket brigade formed across the commons to the shoreline, their actions not registering through her grief-laden fog.

  As the buildings in Fishmonger Bay became visible in the first light of morning, Reecah tried to pull herself out of her emotionally draining stupor—her back still pressed against the temple wall. Nothing remained of Grimelda’s Clutch but blackened dragon statues poking through the charred remains.

  The villagers had returned to their homes during the night, abandoning her to her sorrow. She didn’t think they were even aware of her against the temple. If they were, they hadn’t bothered to show her any compassion.

  Bereft of feeling, she staggered to the skeletal remains of the porch awning fallen upon the numerous statues fronting the ruins. She swallowed hard. The stained-glass door had fallen outward, surprisingly still intact. She stepped over a charred timber and knelt in the embers, barely aware of the heat emanating from the ruins.

  She ran fingers through the soot covering the multi-coloured glass door—tears dripping onto the ground as her shoulders shook. She lifted the charred remains of the dragon shingle that had hung in front of the door—the word, Grimelda’s, barely legible through the black soot coating it.

  A glint of metal caught her eye. She reached out and tried to grab at it only to realize there was something horribly wrong with her thumb. She didn’t care. Let it hurt. She used her other hand and discovered her discarded dagger.

  Attempting to walk amongst the destruction, the heat radiating from the centre of the ruins drove her back. She walked around the building’s exterior to where it abutted the cliff, hoping to access the stairs to the cellar. Examining the gaping hole from afar, the rumbling heard during the night had been the storage room’s stone ceiling collapsing, burying the cellar beneath tons of rock.

  She stared at where the stairwell had been, not knowing what to do. There was nothing left for her in Fishmonger Bay, but she had nowhere else to go. With hunched shoulders and a bowed head, she dragged her feet away from Grimelda’s Clutch.

  Rounding the rear corner of the temple, she stopped. A muted ‘caw’ sounded behind her. She shook it off as a distant memory until it sounded again.

  Goosebumps dimpled her skin.

  She scanned the ruins but saw no sign of the bird. “Raver?”

  Nothing moved.

  She was about to turn away when a flutter of black wings lifted the maimed bird from beneath a bush against the base of the cliff. It tried to fly toward her but it was obvious, even from where she stood, that its feathers had been singed. It landed on its crippled feet and fell to its side.

  “Raver?” Reecah ran to the bird and gently scooped him off the ground. Her tears flowed anew. Somehow, Raver had escaped the inferno. Judging by his poor condition, he wasn’t long for the world.

  Cradling him to her breast, she stumbled out of Fishmonger Bay and ascended the north hill, vowing never to set foot in the demented place again.

  First Encounter

  The intervening years between Grimelda’s death and the next dragon season passed Reecah in a blur. She had devoted the first few months after the inferno caring for Raver, hoping to ease him toward his eventual death, but the resilient bird had surprised her. Not only did he grow new feathers to replace most of the ones damaged in the fire, but he learned to stabilize himself on thin branches with his remaining toes. The raven struggled to walk across flat surfaces, falling to his side more often than not, but his antics proved to be the magical elixir that kept Reecah’s mind from sinking into the depths of despair.

  Late in the summer of her eighteenth year, she got back into running the trails and exploring the heights with Raver as a constant companion. Though her promise to Grimelda remained in the back of her mind, they never made it as far as Dragonfang Pass—her healing thumb had precluded any extensive climbing.

  A couple of times over the next few years she entertained searching out the temple, but with Auntie Grim dead, it didn’t make sense to put herself in harm’s way. Her archery skills had improved somewhat, but without someone to spar with, the extent of her sword skills came from building up her arm, shoulder and back muscles by mercilessly hacking at downed trees. She was no match for a dragon, let alone an entire colony of them.

  Recovering from the melancholy of Grimelda’s horrific death, she found joy exploring the mountains with Raver—deeper than she had ever been. On more than one occasion, he led her back home after she had gotten hopelessly lost. If she had to guess, she would say he’d been in the mountains bef
ore.

  Celebrating what she believed to be the date of her twenty-first birthday in the drafty cabin on the hill, Reecah took solace in the fact that she had kept her pledge to remain clear of the village at the bottom of the hill. Whenever she ventured south, she did so via the route she had taken to the hut below Peril’s Peak. Many were the times she stayed for a night or two in the dragon hunt training cabin, relying on Raver to inform her of anyone ascending from the village.

  The dragon hunt would likely commence within a fortnight if the weather held. The days were becoming increasingly warmer and that meant the mating season would be in full swing—much sooner than in past years.

  She planned to search out the new warrens on this side of the Fang. Those were the nesting grounds the villagers would concentrate on. According to Auntie Grim, Jonas and his band weren’t foolish enough to venture too far into Dragonfang Pass.

  Eleven days after her birthday feast of seeds and berries with her feathered friend, she awoke to an unusually warm cabin—the morning sun cutting through the grimy windows, heating the interior.

  She stretched on her pallet—Grammy and Poppa’s old bed—and scanned the hut. Raver was absent. During the warmer weather she left the hut’s east-facing window ajar. Protected from the winds blowing off the ocean, the window provided Raver a means to escape into the wilds whenever he liked.

  She stood up and looked at her simple, threadbare shift—stained and smelling of sweat. It was high time she washed it, but given the fact she had few remaining clothes to her name, she decided today wouldn’t be that day.

  Stepping through the cabin door, she embraced the glorious day—a slight morning chill raising goosebumps on her bare legs and arms. It promised to be one of Poppa’s ‘rare days’—a day not to be wasted on menial tasks. Rather, a perfect day to scout out the routes the hunt would follow on their way to the Fang.

  She emitted a shrill whistle to alert Raver she was up and about and ducked back inside to get dressed.

  By midmorning, with a healthy sweat dampening her brow, Reecah tossed her great-grandmother’s black quarterstaff above her and pulled herself up to a high ledge. The vantage point overlooked the path Jonas’ men would take any day now. Studying the soft ground earlier in the day, she knew they hadn’t passed this way yet.

  She sat on the ledge with her boots dangling above the trail and caught her breath, smiling and content with her solitary life. On the days she craved another person’s company, she recalled the night of Grimelda’s fire and any use she had for human companionship dashed itself against the wall of her grief.

  Raver sat high atop a pine, the tree jutting out from the top of a boulder north of her position. As far away as he seemed, she knew he saw her clearly. She didn’t bother whistling. Instead, she dug inside a leather pouch lashed to her sword belt and held a palm out.

  Sure enough, the distant bird ducked his head and launched into the air, covering the distance in a long graceful swoop to land on one of the leather vambraces she wore on her forearms. She steadied him on her arm until he gained the purchase required to keep from slipping.

  His beak and little tongue tickled her palm. Watching him eat, she appreciated how he had become the gift her soul had so desperately needed.

  She set off along the ridgeline paralleling the path below, searching for key locations. Whenever the trail narrowed to a pinch point between the ridge and a deadly drop, she set to work dislodging boulders and pitching fallen brush over the edge, congesting the route Jonas’ men would travel.

  Her efforts would only prove as temporary setbacks to the hunt but she didn’t care. Anything she did to impede their progress might give the dragonlings a chance to escape their fate.

  Caught up in congesting the hunt’s path, it wasn’t until Raver cried overhead that she realized the sun had dropped toward the ocean; the waves unseen beyond the heavy forested slopes. Dragonfang Pass still lay another solid day’s journey north of her present position.

  Without the sun’s direct rays, cooler air settled across the heights. Not prepared to weather nightfall on the mountain face, it was time to head home.

  Scanning the sky, she couldn’t locate Raver. She emitted a shrill whistle and started home. If she hurried, she would be past the more dangerous section before darkness encroached.

  On the days the torrential spring rains didn’t prevent her from going out, Reecah spent the next week and a half venturing deeper into the northern heights, continually adding to her previous trail blockages at strategic points, ones that would leave the hunt no option but to waste time clearing them away.

  Three weeks after the spring solstice, the day the dragonlings were expected to hatch, Raver landed on a small bush close to where she worked at uncovering a decent-sized boulder and cawed at her hysterically.

  “What is it?” she asked, laughing as the bird lost his grip on the twig he sat on and flapped furiously to adjust himself. “You see something?”

  “See something! See something!”

  The raven never ceased to amaze her. In her estimation, Raver was smarter than the entire population of Fishmonger Bay put together.

  She stretched her sore back, wiping her hands on her filthy green leggings, and stared back the way they had come. At first, she couldn’t see or hear anything other than the wind blowing in the treetops and the distant sound of running water. A bird calling out from far away and the buzzing of bees hovering over new blossoms were the only other indication of life on the mountainside, but she trusted Raver.

  Ducking behind the bush Raver sat on and waiting, it was quite a while before the sound of a twig snapping in the distance caught her attention.

  Raver jumped into the air and flew to the top of a nearby tree, cawing twice.

  Nobody would pay attention to a raven making noise, but to Reecah, it was his signal that whoever was coming was close.

  Crouched on a ridge immediately above the path, she didn’t dare move. The path below wasn’t visible. Hopefully, whoever travelled the heights wouldn’t see her either.

  It wasn’t long before voices rose above the breeze. Boots crunched on rocks and the chinking and creaking of leather and metal bespoke of armed men approaching. The hunt!

  Her eyes widened. Of course. Today was the day the dragonlings were supposed to begin hatching. According to what Poppa used to tell her, once hatched, the mothers abandoned the nests and foraged for food.

  “Not another one,” an angry voice snarled.

  “Damn!” That was Jonas’ voice. Reecah would recognize it anywhere. “Get that shit cleared out.”

  The sound of branches being hacked and rocks tumbling off the narrow ledge on the far side of the path to the brush below, echoed through the woods.

  Reecah enjoyed their plight but her fear of discovery kept her cowering behind the bush.

  Raver cawed several times.

  An arrow zipped through the branches he perched on, sending him winging away. Reecah restrained from crying out.

  “Damned bird. It’s like he’s following us,” a higher-pitched male voice growled.

  “Don’t be stupid. How can you tell one raven from another? The woods are infested with the blasted vermin,” Jonas said. “Put that thing away before you take out someone’s eye and concentrate on where we’re going. We’ve never encountered this many road blocks before. Someone’s purposely impeding us. Are you sure you know where we are?”

  “Yes, Father. This is the trail we always take.”

  “If you’ve led us astray, Jaxon, your days as a tracker will be short-lived.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Reecah breathed a huge sigh of relief when the troop moved on. Jonas was smarter than she gave him credit for. She would have to be careful.

  Waiting a while longer for the hunt to pass beyond the next ridge, she stretched her back, grinning. It wouldn’t be long before they encountered the next hazard.

  Not wanting to risk being caught, Reecah returned to her hut. It was ti
me to prepare herself to venture all the way to Dragonfang Pass.

  The hunt would experience half a dozen more road-blocks before their path cleared sometime tomorrow. If she left early in the morning, she was confident of reaching the Fang before Jonas and his men.

  Arriving home long before midnight, she lay in the darkness, recalling Poppa’s teaching. It never meant much to her all those years ago, but as she thought about it now, she marvelled at the miracle of a dragon’s birth.

  Poppa claimed dragons mated once every three years on the spring solstice. She loved the coincidence—her birthday. The female would burrow a hole into a cliff face and squeeze herself into it to lay a clutch of eggs. Poppa called the nesting holes, warrens.

  Three short weeks later, the first egg would hatch and the mother would pull herself free of the warren, leaving the dragonling to feed upon the unhatched eggs until she had sated her own hunger.

  Poppa claimed this was when the dragonlings were the most vulnerable—thus the timing of the hunt. Tomorrow would prove interesting, provided she remained unseen. She needed to figure out a way to divert the hunt from their task until the baby dragons were ready to leave their nests or their mothers returned. Poppa claimed that could take anywhere from a day to two weeks depending on the dragon.

  She thought about everything she should pack, making a point of locating the special journal Grammy had given her. It might be a long time before she returned home.

  In the middle of the afternoon, Raver’s cry alerted Reecah to the hunt. From his height, that could mean Jonas’ men were far ahead or had stopped around one of the crags along the way. At least she knew to be wary. Jogging along the high ridge above the trail, she slowed her pace to keep her gear from rattling.

  She hadn’t travelled this far north often. Over the years the mountainside changed with new growth, fires, avalanches and landslides. She suspected the hunt wouldn’t reach the Fang before morning. The monumental rock spur would be visible long before then.