The Ranger's Sorrow: The King's Ranger Book 4

by AC Cobble

  “Worms hunting cattle?” asked Raif incredulously.

  “I told you they wouldn’t believe it,” said the nameless woman.

  “Big wyrms,” clarified Rew, holding up his hands to demonstrate. “Well, bigger than this. Big enough to eat cattle.”

  “If they’re no threat to us, why aren’t we walking across the plain?” questioned Zaine. “It looks like easy enough travel, and a straight line is bound to be quicker than the circuitous route we’re on now.”

  Rew snorted. “Circuitous route. I’m supposed to be the ranger here.”

  “I heard Cinda say it,” replied Zaine. “It seemed a pertinent description.”

  Rew grunted. “Did you hear her say pertinent, too?”

  Zaine grinned at him.

  “She’s got a good point,” remarked Raif. “Would it be quicker to cross the plains?”

  Rew sighed and told them, “I said there was little danger from the wyrms. That’s different than no danger.”

  “If a wyrm does detect someone, it can move a lot faster than us, and it’s a lot bigger,” added the nameless woman. “The ranger is right. It’s better to take the extra time and circle our way around.”

  Neither the fighter nor the thief believed them until a few days later when they crossed a broad expanse of churned-up turf. It was two dozen paces across, and it looked as if something massive had slithered below.

  “King’s Sake,” muttered Raif.

  “I told you,” reminded Rew. “Big wyrms.”

  Shaking his head, Raif mumbled, “I’ve never heard of these things. They’re just out here, in the grasslands?”

  Rew nodded. “As far as I know. Each piece of the world has its strange creatures and its own monsters. There aren’t any simians or primal sloths in this region, but in truth, I’d rather face one of those than a land wyrm. Fighting the wyrms is a particular skill, and there are those who make a career of it, but I’m afraid I never gave it much attention. Believe me, when the things find you, they can wreak havoc.”

  They walked on, but it wasn’t for two more days until they all realized how true those words were. They came across another disturbance in the soil and quickly found signs of what had happened. At the end of a long trough torn through the surface of the plain, they found the broken hilt of a sword, the blade missing, a travel pack, and a boot. There were no bodies, but it was pretty obvious where those had gone.

  “Can’t detect people, eh?” asked Zaine.

  “Not normally,” replied Rew. He looked around and saw a low rise. He climbed it and beyond found a settlement—or what had been one. It was the remains of a village, no more than fifteen low earthen buildings, but it’d been destroyed. Rew led the party down to get a better look.

  They circled the village, seeing where the wyrm had appeared, crashed through the center of the place, and then disappeared only to reemerge on the other side of the hill where they’d first found the signs of attack. A terrible bit of luck? Rew didn’t think the wyrms could sense the village, or it wouldn’t be there. He glanced around, wondering if something had drawn the creature.

  The wyrms were voracious hunters. They lived off the wild cattle on the plain but would consume a person just as readily. Those who lived on the plains knew that. They’d spent generations out there, hunting the cattle and hunting the wyrms as well. Their villages were always small to avoid notice.

  Wyrms had dull senses, but they could follow prey once they rose above the surface. The arcanists suspected it wasn’t sight or smell but some other sense that man did not have—a form of ancient magic, a connection.

  Perhaps it was simple bad luck in this case.

  Rew began searching in the village itself until, on the outskirts of the wyrm’s path, beneath a collapsed wall of sod, he found an intact body. Clearing the dirt away, he uncovered the form of a man. He was garbed in simple clothing and soft leather boots, all made from the hide of cattle. The man’s face was adorned with ceremonial piercings and dark swirls of tattoo. No doubt a resident of the village. His lips were dry, and he looked as shriveled as a rasin. Rew scratched his beard. The man smelled, but not bad enough.

  The ranger stood and glanced toward the center of the wyrm’s path where the crushed bodies of other victims lay. Their blood soaked the ground and had long since dried. Even from a score of paces away, Rew could smell their dead flesh. The warrior at his feet hadn’t died more than a day ago. The others, the ones crushed by the wyrm, died a week before.

  Rew tucked his thumbs behind his belt.

  “What?” asked Cinda.

  “These people were killed by the wyrm but not consumed. This man here seems to have been ignored entirely.”

  “So?”

  “Wyrms are predators. They only rise above the surface to eat. I haven’t heard of one ignoring a meal. There have to be, ah, a dozen people who died here. Why would it ignore them and consume the others? Why would it have been drawn here at all?”

  Cinda shrugged.

  “Can you feel their deaths?” asked Rew.

  “Of course.”

  “What’s different about this one?” he asked, pointing with a toe at the body in front of them.

  Cinda frowned then shrugged. “It’s more recent, from the looks of it, but that man’s passing was… weak? It’s hard to explain, but there is little energy remaining from his death. Why would that be?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Rew, staring down at the man. The dead man’s eyes were still open, his expression slack. “He didn’t die from violence.”

  Zaine, crouched atop what had been the wall of a hut, pointed down next to where Rew had excavated the body. “Is that a spear?”

  “A harpoon. They use them on hunts,” corrected Rew. “Strange, that broken hilt we found on the other side of the hill looked to be a scimitar. Not a common blade on this end of the kingdom.”

  Zaine leaned closer. “What’s that, on the end of the harpoon?”

  Rew knelt and saw what Zaine had seen. The end of the weapon’s barb was covered in dried blood. He examined the weapon closer. There was a strand of hair caught in the serrated edge near the point of it, and the iron had cracked. The break was fresh. Sitting on his haunches, Rew drummed his fingers on the bone hilt of his hunting knife. “This man fought someone and then… then, he just laid here and died. I don’t see any wounds. If I had to guess, I’d speculate he died of dehydration. Anne?”

  The empath joined them, and after a quick examination, she declared, “There are no recent wounds, and you’re right, it appears an advanced case of dehydration. Perhaps he was grieved about the loss of his village and family and gave up?”

  “That’s a pretty awful way to go if you have other means to end it,” remarked Rew, “and he fought someone. That hair didn’t come from cattle or a wyrm. I think maybe that’s what drew the creature here. There was a battle. Someone attacked the village. It must have been enough of a struggle the wyrm sensed it, but that’s not entirely right either. It’s like the wyrm sensed those on the other side of the hill but not the people in the village. Strange.”

  “This man’s body was healthy enough, except for the lack of water,” said Anne, standing and brushing her hands on her skirts. “I don’t know who he fought or why, but he survived whatever battle took place and the attack by the wyrm. Rew, this man could have walked away if he wanted to. You know, this is an intriguing mystery, but…”

  “But we need to go,” finished Rew. He waved the others on, and grimly, they left the ruined village behind.

  Another half day, and in the distance, they spotted wisps of smoke drifting up. An hour passed, and the drift had turned into a fat column of smoke that Rew guessed had to be another village, except this one was burning.

  “That’s more smoke than a campfire would put out. It’s hard to judge, but I’d guess it’s at least five leagues away,” surmised Rew, looking at the dark band of smoke. “Could be ten. Distances are deceiving out here.”

  “Is it r
elated, do you think, to the other village we saw?” asked Cinda.

  “It has to be,” concluded Rew. “You saw what remained of that last settlement. These huts are built from stacked turf. They don’t burn. They use manure from the cattle for fuel, but enough of it to make that fire…”

  “So someone is attacking the villages, but why?” asked Raif, sweeping his arms wide as if to encompass the expanse of the grasslands. “Why would anyone attack anything out here? There’s no strategic benefit, no resources valuable to an army.”

  “Wild cows?” speculated Zaine, “An army on the march may want them for food, but ah, I guess no one owns those cattle, do they? You could just herd them away if you wanted.”

  “It’s not just that someone is attacking these villages,” responded Rew. “They’re doing it with high magic. If something that big is burning out here, it was because of an invoker.”

  “Rew, do you think it’s related to us?” asked Anne. “Could it be the king?”

  Cringing, Rew wondered. The king knew they’d been at the Arcanum and knew they’d fled. They’d planted rumors they’d go north to Iyre, but would those seeds have already sprouted? Without portals or portal stones, not even gossip could fly so quickly. And if the king had somehow heard, would he bother destroying the villages on their way? Perhaps it was an effort to prevent them from resupplying, but Rew was the King’s Ranger. He could duck into the forest and forage indefinitely. Preventing them from restocking their packs in the villages was an inconvenience, but if anything, instead of slowing them, it would encourage them to move faster.

  The king wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter his own people, but he also wouldn’t do so without a reason. Days earlier, he’d spared the women’s colony and the fort, and he’d known they’d been through those places. Vaisius Morden was a cold-hearted tyrant, not a madman. Rew didn’t think the king would destroy the villages just to spite the ranger, but someone was killing these people, and it was a bold act of war if it wasn’t the king or the princes.

  Shaking his head, Rew encouraged them to keep moving before he answered Anne. “The king has the might to do something like this, and he’s never been restrained by moral concerns, but if he were out on this plain looking for us, I think he’d be… more effective. He could have tens of thousands of his black legion out here or armies of undead, but I haven’t seen a sign of either. Destroying a few small villages to irritate us isn’t his way.”

  “Who, then?”

  Rew had no answer except it must be the princes. He couldn’t fathom why. Raif had been right. The plain offered no strategic value to Valchon or Heindaw.

  They travelled two more days, the monotonous hiking from before now filled with nervous tension. In the open plains, they were unlikely to see anyone, but if they did, there would be little chance to hide. It rubbed Rew raw. His instinct as a ranger was to move with stealth, but on an open plain, there was nothing even he could do.

  Early one morning, they found a vast swath of earth that had been trampled through the grass. A herd of wild cattle, thousands of them, had trod northeast, the same direction the party was going. Rew judged it sensible to follow the trail while they could. It would be impossible for anyone to discern signs of their passing amongst the path the cows had worn, and without knowing who else was in the area, Rew would take what precautions he could.

  “Do you think we’ll catch up to the animals?” wondered Zaine. “It’d be something to see, wouldn’t it?”

  Raif laughed.

  Zaine scowled at the fighter. She shoved his shoulder and said, “I’ve seen cows before, but thousands of cattle in a herd? You haven’t seen that wandering through those keeps you’ve always lived in, have you? I think it would be interesting.”

  Rew grinned at them. The thief was right. Both her and Raif had spent their entire lives confined to the stone buildings and streets of cities. When they’d left, it’d been on the well-worn highways that had been there for centuries. The world, away from men, was a wild and beautiful place.

  Turning from the girl to glance down at the trail the cattle had worn, Rew realized it was still a beautiful place for him, too. There was a simplicity in the animals’ purpose. They wandered for food and water, for breeding and safety. They stayed in a herd for protection, just they and their fellows against the world. Cattle didn’t turn on each other, didn’t slaughter portions of the herd to achieve dominance. The animals were not weighed down by the concerns of men, like who would sit upon a throne.

  It would be better to be like that, he thought. He had been like that, once, out in the wildness, just him or maybe with some of the other rangers, scouting the land, looking for threats or just looking. For a time, he’d set aside his awareness of the rest of the world, and he’d simply existed. He missed that.

  “Ranger?”

  Rew coughed and shot Zaine an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I was thinking. I, ah, I think it unlikely we’ll catch them, lass. I’d guess they’re two days ahead of us, and before we find the tail of the herd, we’ll need to cut north and circle wide of Olsoth. With the attacks on the villages… I worry what we’ll find if we go there.”

  “You think someone would attack the city?”

  Rew shrugged.

  An hour later, they passed the site of a butchering. Several wild cattle had been brought down, skinned, drained of blood, and carved for meat.

  “Narjags?” asked Raif with a gasp.

  “No,” replied Rew, moving delicately amongst the slaughter. “Hunters. People like those who live in the village we saw. Cattle are a staple of their diet. They’ll send out men for days or weeks on hunts to bring back enough to feed the entire community for a month. This looks like their work.”

  “That must be some sort of hunter to take on an entire herd, eh?” asked Raif, looking over the corpses of the animals. “These things fully fleshed must be four times the size of a big man, and look at those horns. They’d rip you right in two if they got it into you. I don’t think my chainmail would do much to stop one of those. A thousand of these beasts turning on you, moving to protect their young? The cows in the east were slow and dumb, too stupid to even know when they were being slaughtered. To see someone hunting these wild ones would be interesting, wouldn’t it?”

  “What’s that?” barked Zaine with a snort.

  Raif offered her a sheepish smile.

  They moved on, but Raif’s comments stayed in the back of Rew’s head. The hunters who tracked these animals would have lived in villages like the one they’d seen destroyed. Was there something about those hunters that had garnered the interest of the princes? Who would bother to kill people living out in the middle of an empty plain? There was no strategic purpose to it that Rew could divine, and those people had no resources worth fighting for.

  The next day, they found another village and another clue. This village was not destroyed like the others, but it was empty. Rew called for a halt, to give him time to explore.

  “Don’t mess with anything you find, all right?” he asked the others. “If you see something, call out to me.”

  But it was quickly apparent there was nothing for the younglings to mess with. The hovels were empty of both people and many of the items Rew would have expected to find. There were no weapons, and no food had been left behind. There were no signs of struggle, either. It was as if everyone had quickly packed their lives and left. The flight looked abrupt but orderly. The buildings that had doors had them closed. The interiors of the homes were straightened, as if the occupants planned to come back, but there were some personal effects—bowls, eating utensils, tools, the sort of things that had value but would be impractical to gather quickly.

  “Someone warned them,” he murmured.

  He walked out to the northern edge of the village and studied the earth for tracks. The way was worn near the buildings then grew faint, and then, it disappeared. There was nothing else obvious or any more clues. He peered north toward Olsoth, guessing that’s where the p
eople must have gone. There were recent signs of passage that way, and the destination made sense.

  Looking back, he saw Zaine had climbed on top of one of the larger structures and was turning around with a hand over her eyes, gazing out at the empty grasslands around them.

  “See anything?”

  “I’m looking for the cattle.”

  The ranger grunted then started taking inventory of the buildings, making sure he’d checked them all.

  “Ranger,” called Zaine. “Toss me your spyglass, will you?”

  Smirking, he pulled the device from his pack and asked, “A thousand wild cattle ought to be pretty obvious, don’t you think?”

  He flipped her the spyglass, and she opened it and held it to her eye. Her lips were moving. She was mumbling under her breath.

  Rew ran his hand over his head. “Is it the cattle you’re looking at?”

  “No,” she said, her voice worried. “You should see this.”

  Rew scrambled up the turf wall of the hovel to stand beside her on its roof. In the distance, three leagues away, was a dark smear. He frowned and wordlessly accepted the spyglass from Zaine. She crossed her arms over her chest, and he saw the worry in her eyes. He peered through the glass and in front of him jumped a company of armored warriors, clad in gleaming copper.

  “King’s Sake,” he growled, gripping the spyglass tightly. “Those are Prince Valchon’s men.”

  “Close to one hundred of them by my count,” she said. “What would they be doing here?”

  “Burning villages, evidently. I think that’s… Yes, I believe they’ve a spellcaster leading them, though the robes look funny.” Rew paused then called out loudly to the others, “We need to move.”

  “May I see?” asked the nameless woman.

  Rew shrugged and handed her the spyglass before jumping down from the roof of the hut. Zaine followed, and he shouted for the others to hurry then led them northeast, heading perpendicular to the approaching soldiers and toward Olsoth.

  The nameless woman came trotting up after them and handed him his spyglass. Her face was a blank mask.