He waited, crouched, as the bear bore down on him, then, at the last instant, the ranger went into a sidelong roll, down the hill.
The bear skidded to a stop and turned to follow. When Elbryan rolled to his knees, facing up the hill to the bear, the creature went up onto its hind legs, standing tall and imposing.
But leaving some vital areas exposed.
Elbryan pulled the bowstring back with all his strength; Hawkwing's three feathers were as wide apart as they could go. The ranger hated this business as he sighted the hollow on the bear's breast.
And then it was over, suddenly, the creature rolling, dead. Elbryan went to the corpse. He waited a while to make sure that it would not stir, then moved to its muzzle, lifting its upper lip. He feared that he would find foamy saliva there, an indication of the most wicked disease. If that was the case, then Elbryan would have his work cut out from him indeed, hunting almost day and night for other infected animals, everything from raccoons and weasels to bats.
No foam; the ranger breathed a sigh of relief. It was short-lived, though, as Elbryan tried to figure what, then, had caused this normally docile animal to go so bad. He continued his inspection of the mouth and face, noted that the eyes were clear and not runny, then moved along the bear's torso.
He found his answer in the form of four barbed darts, stuck deep into the bear's rump. He worked one out — not an easy task — and inspected its tip.
Elbryan recognized the black, sappy poison, a pain — inducing product of a rare black birch tree.
With a growl, the ranger threw the dart to the ground. This was no accident but a purposeful attack on the bear. The poor beast had been driven mad by' pain, and someone — some human, most likely, given the type of the darts — had done it.
Elbryan gathered his wits and began his dance of praise to the spirit of the bear, thanking it for its gift of food and warmth. Then he methodically went about skinning and cleaning it. To waste the creature's useful body, to leave the bear to rot or even to bury it whole in the ground would, by elven standards
— and by Elbryan's — be a complete insult to the bear, and thus to Nature.
His work was done late that afternoon, but the ranger did not rest, nor did he return to Dundalis to inform the townsfolk of the kill. Something, someone, had brought on this tragedy.
Nightbird went hunting again.
They were not much more difficult to find than the bear. Their hut, a mere shack of logs and old boards — Elbryan got the distinct impression that many of these had come from the ruins of Dundalis — was at the top of a hill. Branches had been tossed all about for camouflage, but many of these had already withered, their dry and brown leaves a telltale sign.
The ranger heard them long before he caught sight of them, laughing and singing terribly off-key, though the voices were surely human, as he had suspected.
Elbryan glided stealthily up the hill, tree to tree, shadow to shadow, though he doubted the men inside would have heard him had he been accompanied by a hundred villagers and a score of fomorian giants! He recognized the implements of the trapping trade hanging all about the shack, along with dozens of drying pelts. These men knew animals, Elbryan understood. In a vat not far from the back wall of the shack, the ranger found a thick concoction of black liquid, and quickly surmised it to be the same irritant poison that had been used on the bear.
The walls of the shack were in bad disrepair, with cracks between every board. Elbryan peeked in.
Three men lay about on piled skins, black bear mostly, drinking foamy beer from old mugs. Every so often, one would shift to the side and dip his mug into a barrel, first brushing away the many flies and bees drawn to the liquid.
Elbryan shook his head in disgust, but he reminded himself to keep a measure of respect. These were men of the Wilderlands, strong and heavily armed.
One had many daggers within easy grasp, hanging on a bandolier that crisscrossed his chest. Another sported a heavy axe, while the last earned a slender sword.
From his vantage point, the ranger noted, too, that a bar was in place across the one door.
He moved around to the front of the house and took the dagger from his pack. The door did not fit the opening well, leaving a wide crack on one side, wide enough to admit the dagger's blade. A flick of the wrist dislodged the bar and Elbryan kicked open the door, striding a single step into the shack.
The men scrambled, spilling beer, one shouting aloud as he rolled across his sword, the hilt catching hard on his hip. They were up soon enough, Elbryan standing impassively by the door, Hawkwing, its feathered tip and string removed, in his hand like some unthreatening walking stick.
"Whad'ye want?" asked one of the men, a barrel-chested brute whose face was more scar than beard. Except for that hardened face with its wild, untended beard, this man could have passed as a brother of Tol Yuganick, Elbryan noted distastefully. Surely their bodies were cut from the same, rather large, mold.
The fellow had his huge axe out in front of him, and if Elbryan couldn't offer a reasonable answer, there was little doubt what he meant to do with it. The swordsman, tall and lean with not a hair anywhere on his head, shadowed the burly man, gaping at Elbryan from over his companion's shoulder; while the third, a skinny, nervous wretch, moved to the far corner, rubbing his fingers — which weren't so far from his many daggers.
"I have come to speak with you about a particular bear," Elbryan answered coolly.
"What bear?" the burly man replied. "We got skins."
"The bear you maddened with poisoned darts," Elbryan answered bluntly.
"The bear that destroyed a farm in Dundalis and nearly killed a family."
"Go on now." The man spat.
"The same poison you have brewing out back," Elbryan went an, "a rare concoction, known to few."
"That don't prove nothing," the man retorted, snapping his dirty fingers in the air. "Now get on out of here, else yell soon feel the edge of me axe!"
"I think not," the ranger answered. "There is the matter of compensation — to the farmers and to me for my efforts in hunting the bear."
"C-compen —?" the tall, bald man stuttered.
"Payment," said Elbryan. He saw the movement even as he spoke, the man from the corner drawing and throwing a dagger with practiced ease.
Elbryan planted the ball of his left foot and spun clockwise, the dagger flying harmlessly past to stick deep in the wall. The ranger came round as if he would launch a horizontal swipe, but he recognized the move was anticipated: the burly man's axe was up to block. As soon as he started around, then, Elbryan turned his right foot out and went around counterclockwise, pulling in his hip to avoid a swipe of that axe.
Now he launched his attack, dropping down to one knee, slapping his staff across to catch the inside of the overbalanced man's leg. A shift of the angle sent his staff poking straight up, smacking the man's groin. Faster than a cat, Elbryan retracted the staff a foot, shifted its angle, and poked ahead three times in rapid succession, prodding the burly man in the hollow of his chest.
He fell away and Elbryan came up hard, bringing Hawkwing horizontal above his head in both hands to catch the downward chop of the second man's sword. Up came the ranger's knee, slamming the man's belly, and as he started to double over, Elbryan turned his staff, deflecting the sword to the side. He twisted his staff around the man's arm, hooking him under the armpit, stepped with his left foot across his body behind the man's entangled side, then heaved with all his strength, launching the wretch into the air to land heavily on his back and the back of his head.
Elbryan immediately swung about, realizing he was vulnerable. Predictably, another dagger was on its way, and the ranger just got Hawkwing up in time to block its flight. He loosened his grip on his staff as the dagger connected so that it wouldn't bounce far away. As fortune would have it, the dagger went straight up, and Elbryan seized it, catching it by the tip.
In the blink of an eye, the ranger stood, staff in one hand out
before him, his other hand holding a dagger cocked behind his ear, ready to throw.
The skinny man, two daggers in hand, blanched and let his blades drop to the floor.
Elbryan fought hard to restrain the rage that called for him to put that dagger right into the foul man's chest, a rage that only intensified when the ranger thought of what these three had done to the bear and of the potentially devastating consequences of their foolhardy actions.
With a growl, he let fly, the dagger slamming hard into the wall right beside the man's head. Never taking his eyes from Elbryan, whimpering all the way, the skinny man slumped to a sitting position in the corner.
Elbryan looked about; the other two were staggering to their feet, neither holding a weapon.
"What are your names?" the ranger demanded.
The men looked curiously at one another.
"Your names!"
"Paulson," the burly man answered, "Cric, and Chipmunk," he finished, indicating first the tall man, then the dagger thrower.
"Chipmunk?" Elbryan inquired.
"Skittery type," Paulson explained.
The ranger shook his head. "Know this, Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk: you share the forest with me, and I will be watching your every move. Another prank, another cruelty, as with the bear, will bring you more harm than this, I promise. And I will be watching your trap lines — no longer shall you use the jaw traps —"
Paulson started to complain, but Elbryan glared so fiercely at him that he seemed to melt.
"Nor any other traps that inflict suffering on your prey."
"We've to earn our money," Chipmunk remarked in a shaky voice.
"There are better ways," Elbryan answered evenly. "And in the hopes that you will find those ways, I'll demand no coins from you for compensation . . .
this time." He looked at each of them, meeting their stares, his own showing clearly that he was not speaking empty threats.
"And who might ye be?" Paulson dared to ask.
Elbryan shifted back on his heels, considering the question. "I am Nightbird," he answered.
Cric snickered, but Paulson, locked with that intense gaze, held a hand up in his companion's face.
"A name you would do well to remember," Elbryan finished, and he headed for the door, boldly turning his back on the dangerous threesome.
They didn't begin to entertain any thoughts of attacking.
The ranger went around to the back and dumped out the cauldron of poison.
As he left, he took a few of the jaw traps, nasty pieces of toothy iron hinged and set with heavy springs so that they would clamp hard on the leg of any passing animal.
His next stop was the tavern, the Howling Sheila, in Dundalis. A dozen men and women were in the common room, boisterous until the stranger entered.
Elbryan went to the bar first, nodding to Belster O'Comely, the closest thing he had to a friend in the area.
"Just water," the ranger said, and Belster mouthed the predictable words right along with him, then pushed a glass out to him.
"Word of the bear?" the jolly innkeeper asked.
"The bear is dead," Elbryan replied grimly, and he walked to the far side of the room, taking a seat at the corner table, his back to the wall.
He noted that several other patrons shifted their seats, one woman even bluntly turning her back on him.
Elbryan brought the tip of his triangular cap down low and smiled. He understood that it would be like this. He was not much like these folk; no longer was he much like any human, except for those rare few who had ventured to the valley of the elves, who had spent years beside the likes of Belli'mar Juraviel and Tuntun. Elbryan missed those friends now — even Tuntun. It was true that he had been out of place in Caer'alfar, but in many ways the ranger felt even more out of place here among folk who looked so much like him but who saw the world through very different eyes.
Still, despite the prominent reminders of his position, Elbryan's smile was genuine. He had done well this day, though he regretted having to slay the bear. His solace came in duty, in his vow that this Dundalis and the two neighboring villages would not share the fate that had befallen his own village.
He remained in the Howling Sheila for nearly an hour, but not a person, save Belster on Elbryan's way out, offered him so much as a glance.
CHAPTER 24
The Mad Friar
"Tinson," Warder Miklos Barmine said to Jill as she walked her watch along the sea wall of Pireth Tulme.
Jill regarded the short, stout man curiously. She recognized the name Tinson as that of the small hamlet some dozen miles inland from the fortress.
The place was no more than a score of houses and a tavern, a place of rogues and whores servicing the soldiers of Pireth Tulme.
"The Waylaid Traveler," Barmine added in his typically curt manner.
"Another fight?" Jill asked.
"And something more," replied the warder, walking away. "Gather ten and go."
Jill watched the man depart. She didn't like Miklos Barmine, not at all.
He had replaced Constantine Presso only three months before, the previous warder sent north to command Pireth Danard. At first, Jill thought the new warder more her style, a stickler for detail and duty. But he was a letch, a drooling, grabby slob, who took it personally when Jill refused his advances. Even his strict rules for duty had relaxed within the week, Pireth Tulme reverting to its typical partying ways. Also, it had surprised Jill how much she missed Constantine Presso, a decent man — by Pireth Tulme's standards, at least. She had served under Presso for more than a year, and he had always been a gentleman to her, always respected her decision not to partake in the unending festivities. Now, with Presso gone and the brooding Miklos Barmine in command, Jill feared that the pressure on her would only increase.
She shook that dark thought away, turning her attention to the task at hand. Bannine's punishment for her refusal to bed with him was always work — little did the fool understand that his punishment was more like a reward to Jill! There had been another fight, the fourth in less than two weeks, at the Waylaid Traveler, the apparently appropriately named tavern in Tinson. What this "something more," that Barmine had hinted at might be, Jill could not guess, though she suspected it to be nothing extraordinary. The woman shrugged; at least there was something to do now besides walking the wall.
She collected ten of Pireth Tulme's Coastpoint Guards, using their hangovers as a tool for rejecting more of the others, then set out, double-timing the march down the dirt path. They arrived in dirty Tinson late that afternoon. The town square was empty and quiet it was always quiet, Jill noted, for on the three previous occasions she had visited the place, she hadn't seen a single child. The majority of Tinson's residents slept the day through, preferring the revelry of the night.
A shout from the Waylaid Traveler caught Jill's attention.
"We must prepare!" came a bellow, a tremendous voice, clear even out here at a distance and with a wall between the speaker and Jill. "Oh, evil, what a foothold you have found! What fools are we to sleep as darkness rises!"
The group of soldiers entered the tavern openly through the front door, doubling the number of patrons. The first thing Jill noticed was a huge, fat man standing atop a table, waving an empty mug, sometimes in a threatening manner to keep at bay the closer patrons, all obviously intent on knocking him from his perch. Jill ordered her troop to filter about, then went to see the man behind the serving bar.
"The mad friar," the barkeep explained. "He was in all the night, then came back just a short while ago. Has no shortage of money, I can assure you!
They say he bartered jewels with merchants on the road, and though he didn't get a fair price — not even close — he left with pouches full of gold."
Jill regarded the fat friar curiously. He wore the thick brown robes of the Abellican Church, though they were old and threadbare in many places and weathered, as if he had been out on the open road for a long, long time. His black beard w
as thick and bushy, and he was tall, half a foot above six feet, and had to weigh near to three hundred pounds. His shoulders were wide, his bones thick and solid, but Jill got the feeling that the extra weight, most of which was centered about his belly, was something fairly recent.
What struck Jill most about him was his almost feverish intensity, his brown eyes showing a luster, a life, beyond anything she had seen in many years.
"Piety, dignity, poverty!" he yelled, and then he snorted derisively. "Ho, ho, what!"
Jill recognized the litany — piety, dignity, poverty — the same one Abbot Dobrinion Calislas had uttered on the fateful day of her wedding.
"Hah!" the huge man bellowed. "What piety is, there in whoring? What dignity in foolhardiness? And what poverty? Gold leaf and jewels — ah, the jewels!"
"His song is not for changing," the barkeep said dryly. Then he yelled out to the guards, "Will you get him down?"
Jill wasn't sure that they should move in so straightforward a manner against the friar. The man's remark about whoring, in particular, had seemed to, stir more than a few angry grumbles, and. she feared that any overt action, a physical assault rather than trying to calm the man, would bring about a general row. She could do little to stop her soldiers, though, given the lax chain of command and the barkeep's permission.
She started across the room to try and keep things calm, stopping, though, when she heard the barkeep add, too low for any others to hear, "And take care, for he has a bit of magic about him."
"Damn," Jill muttered, turning back to see two of her soldiers, one of them Gofflaw, reach up to grab the monk.
"Hah, preparedness training!" the fat man howled joyfully, and he grabbed Gofflaw by the wrist and hoisted the surprised man into the air: Before the soldier could begin to react, the powerful friar lifted him above his head, spun him twice, then tossed him across the room.
A third soldier drew sword and swiped out one of the table legs, bringing the friar tumbling down atop the poor second man who had been reaching for him.
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