Days Of Light And Shadow

by Greg Curtis

  But even in death it didn’t die as it should.

  It stopped moving as its head rolled away, but where was the spurt of blood? Where was the bright red stain that should have been spraying everywhere? Nowhere it seemed. The creature’s blood wasn’t bright red as it should have been, it was dark, almost black. And it didn’t spray, it oozed. And where was the scream? It should have screamed. But the thing it seemed had known nothing of fear or pain as it died, only hunger. Madness and hunger.

  At least its intended victim was alive. He lay on the ground shaking and gasping for breath, his face white and his long red hair in disarray, and there was blood flowing from cuts and bites all over him, but he was alive.

  “By the Mother my thanks.” His voice was filled with the sound of gratitude and relief, but also fear. And for some reason he couldn’t seem to stop shaking. The man at least seemed to be in one piece, all his parts still working, as he tried to roll on to his hands and knees and then get to his feet. It took him a few attempts as his body didn’t seem to obey him quite as it should. And when he finally made it to his feet and looked down at the creature, his face was filled with horror.

  “It came out of nowhere.” The trader started telling his tale, though no one had asked him to. No one stopped him either. “I was lighting the fire for the evening, and it just came from out of the trees. I couldn’t fight it off.”

  “I tried, I had no weapon, but I smashed it in the face with a burning brand. It didn’t even notice. I ran and it shuffled faster. And then it just jumped on me, screaming that horrid shriek, and tried to eat me. Alive!” As he said it, he was putting his hands to his wounds, and staring at the blood on them.

  “It bit me. Again and again it bit me. Even trolls don’t do that. What sort of man does that?” No one had an answer for him, save that it wasn’t a man. Maybe it had been once, but no longer.

  “You should get those wounds tended to.” The captain at least seemed to know what to do and Dura was grateful for that. It was one thing she had learned to appreciate in him. His decisiveness.

  “Eilin!” He gave the command and instantly the patrol’s healer grabbed the trader by the arm and started leading him away to her horse and the saddlebags where she kept the salves and bandages. The man followed meekly enough. Still in shock, he didn’t seem to have the will to resist. Between the blood loss and the shock he barely looked to have the will to walk beside her.

  The rest of them, the entire patrol stood over the headless, very nearly limbless body, staring at it, thoughts that should never be spoken aloud running through all their heads. Terrible thoughts.

  It was a creature of dread, or it had been before they’d finally cut it down. But even dead it would give those of faint heart night terrors. Those of stauncher heart would still be given pause.

  Human once, or troll, or even elf, it wasn’t completely certain what it had been, or indeed if it had been any of them, for it was nothing like the man that had once worn its skin. Its leathery, wrinkled, mould covered skin. Its hair was gone, save for a few long threads hanging around its ears. And its teeth, they weren’t right. The gums had somehow receded until what remained of its teeth seemed to stick out too far like pegs. And they were broken, full of chips as if it had been chewing on rocks. Beneath that wrinkled hide its flesh too had withered away until all that remained was a body of loose sagging skin and bone and ropey knots of muscle. It was a walking corpse. A creature with black blood that didn’t spurt when it was cut, but rather oozed from the freshly cut stumps? That was a corpse.

  It was unnatural. Some foul creation of alchemy and the wizard’s art that should never have drawn breath let alone been set loose to attack someone. If it actually drew breath. And Dura wasn’t sure that it had. Not when half a dozen arrows had plunged deep into its lungs, many of the arrows causing what should have been mortal wounds.

  Rangers trained for years in the use of the longbow. The long recurved bow was a powerful weapon, deadly at great distances. More so than all other bows. And for that reason the rangers practiced the complicated art of using it from horseback where few others could. Most riders used shortbows and crossbows instead. Many of the arrows had buried themselves up to a foot in the flesh of the creature. Yet the creature hadn’t seemed to notice. That was wrong.

  Even the horses knew it was wrong. They snorted nervously in the cool air as they took in its scent, clouds of steam billowing from their nostrils. Horses were smarter than people commonly held. But rangers knew their wisdom. They knew that their lives might well depend on the quick wits of their animals. So to see them nervously snorting and looking to want to get as far away from the thing as they could was not a good sight.

  The wolves looked no happier as they paced around in circles, scenting the air and occasionally howling quietly. None of them approached the corpse. In fact none of them had even attacked it she realised. Was that because they had recognised the thing as a man and their training had kept them from it? Or because they had known that it wasn’t?

  But the rangers needed to know what it was. They had a duty. They had to protect the people from the dangers that lurked in the great forests. Dangerous beasts, brigands and even monsters. This thing she thought, was the very definition of the latter. Or maybe all three. So they needed to know what it was, where it had come from, and how to kill it if there were any more of them. Even if none of them wanted to go near it.

  “What is it?” Dura asked the captain even though she didn’t like to ask in truth. In part because she was new to the troop and the question made that painfully obvious. But mostly because she knew the answer, she just didn’t want to say it. Maybe that was why no one else had asked the question either.

  “An abomination.” He said it calmly, as if it was a word that he spoke every day. As if it wasn’t a word from a thousand year old nightmare. A word she didn’t want to hear. But she didn’t want to hear it because she knew he was right. They all did. The creature could be nothing else. Demon blood and demon magic flowed through its veins. And it could only be one demon. The Reaver. A demon that was never a part of this world. And a demon that they had to pray could not be back.

  The captain didn’t look at her. That was good. He was an intimidating man, half human, half elf and all ranger, and possessed of what was known by the people as a thousand pace stare. Captain Maydan never looked at a person, he looked straight through them at something far beyond. And the scars on his face didn’t help. Three vertical streaks that cut from the top of his head to his chin, just missing his right eye. They made him seem less than friendly. The others had told her that they were from a cave bear, given to him when he was just a child, but if so she had to wonder why they were still so prominent now that he was a man. The healers should have been able to smooth them away.

  But of course the low born, the people from lesser houses and those from no houses at all, didn’t have the silver for healers. And the captain was of mixed blood. He likely had no house at all to speak of. Though she hadn’t asked, it was likely that he had become a ranger because it was the only profession open to him. The same was true of many.

  Those who rode took the cloak usually for one of only three reasons. They had crimes to expunge and it was an accepted form of penance. They had issues of honour to repay, and the rangers were a means back to grace. Or they had no other choice. All other means of making a living could never be theirs. That was her reason for joining. It was this or becoming a cleaning woman like her mother.

  House Accora had fallen on hard times many years before, and all of its half dozen families were impoverished. Two disastrous years when the rain had not fallen as it should and the grass had not grown, had made raising horses across Elaris a difficult profession. Few of their normal clients, farmers mostly, had had the gold to pay for their horses. By the end of the second year the house had lost all of their half dozen studs and a thriving wheelwright concern as well.

  Riding with the rangers paid better than cleaning
and brought some much needed silver back to the house. It was one of the few respectable occupations that was open to women. And it let her ride, and if she could no longer raise horses, at least she could still be around them.

  Of course there was a fourth reason for taking the cloak. A very rare fourth reason for wearing it. Some believed it was their calling. Maybe, the captain was one of those. Behind his scars and inside his mixed blood skin, he was a man of honour. Cold, stark and harsh honour, but honour none the less. They might not be the Royal Watch, dressed in chain and tasked with the noble duty of serving the high lord, but they had pride and that which they served, the Grove, was to be honoured as greatly as the Heartwood Throne. Even if High Lord Finell seemed to disagree.

  “So what do we do?” Grun spoke up, his deep powerful voice booming so loud in the silence of the glade. But then anyone who had troll blood in him as he surely did, was never quiet. Which still made it hard to understand how he could have become a ranger, a force where the skills of sneaking and running silently were highly prized. But he could do that. Despite his immense size, Grun could move very quickly and quietly when he wanted to. He could even remain unnoticed in plain sight. As long as he didn’t speak.

  “We take it to the elder.”

  “The witch! By the Mother!” Dura only whispered the words, but she was heard.

  “Yes. By the Mother in sooth.” The captain fixed her with his piercing stare. “If anyone can tell us of this thing it is Trekor Aileth. And she is of the Mother. You would do well to remember that rider.”

  Dura didn’t answer him save to lower her gaze. He didn’t expect her to. The captain spoke and his riders listened. It was not for the riders to speak back. In her few short months among them she had learned that much at least. But still she knew who he meant, and it frightened her. This early into her life as a ranger she hadn’t expected to see the witch, and she didn’t know quite what to expect. Troll, hag, swamp witch, druid and elder. All titles by which she was known. And the tales of her were even more varied.

  Aellwy Te was home to the Black Otter’s second chapter house, and the witch lived a little way out in the fen beyond it. And as the only elder nearby she had the honour of acting as their connection to the Grove. She gave them their instructions. But Dura had only been to the town twice in her few months since taking the cloak, and neither time had she seen her. Naturally the other riders spent their free time telling her tall tales of the elder and her monstrous nature, having a little fun at her expense. And though she knew they were mostly just the tall tales of mist dreams, still they troubled her.

  But the captain was right. If anyone knew what this thing was, she would. And as mixed as her blood might be, the witch had the grace of the Mother flowing through her veins. Those of the great houses would not be so accepting, of her. Even those of the lesser houses that one day aspired to greatness, would look down on her. As she had once been. But a ranger served the Grove and they cared nothing for a woman’s house or blood.

  Abruptly Dura’s thoughts turned in a new direction as she realised the obvious. They would have to carry the creature’s remains to her. The question suddenly most prominent in her thoughts was that if they were to take it to the witch, who would carry its remains? And if there was one thing Dura was certain of, it was that she didn’t want any part of the foul creature near her. Even dead.

  Of course no one else did either. And she was the most junior.

  Chapter Three.

  It was night and most of the city was asleep as it should be. A few guards kept a vigil at the entrances to Fernleaf, the light of the braziers easily spotted in the darkness, while more watchmen made their rounds, checking that all was well. In the distance the sounds of the traders in the market could just be made out. They liked to keep long hours in the city as they set up their stalls for the coming day. And the smell of wood smoke hung in the still night air.

  A dark figure stood on a footbridge overlooking the town, leaning gently against the hand rail. Though he looked like a boy as even among his people he was slight of build, to anyone close enough to see his face they would have known him for a man. A man perhaps even older than his forty years. Bitterness and anger aged a man, and the unusual black of his hair did not help. Some even said, behind his back, that he had the face of a sour prune. But he didn’t care about such matters. Not this night.

  To anyone watching he would have appeared to be simply taking in the view of the city by night. But in reality he was waiting. Waiting impatiently. And with every heartbeat that passed without his man showing up, he became more impatient.

  Y’aris cursed gently under his breath. It was a poor habit he’d acquired while serving as a watchman in the Royal Watch, but one that he’d retained even now that his tour was done and he was back in civilization. At least though, there was no one there to hear him, or to look upon him with disapproving eyes. Many of his people did just that. They didn’t care that he was the high lord’s right hand. The High Commander of the Royal Watch.

  To the rest of his people he would always be the low born boy from the broken family. The shameful offspring of a mother who had disgraced herself. A boy grown up in the Royal Watch and lucky enough that he had eventually made if not a good life, then at least a respectable one for himself. They didn’t realise that he was pure of blood, or that he could track his lineage back to the last great king himself, Turion of Doven. And even if they did, they wouldn’t have cared.

  His family had been broken after his father Verin of Doven had fled Elaris for reasons unknown. It was a shameful betrayal, and one that Y’aris was determined to avenge one day. If he could ever find his father. His betrayal had left them of few means and less honour. And that was before his mother had disgraced them further by wedding an outsider. In that shameful act she had cast aside her name and his, leaving him unnamed. His father’s house had been forgotten by time. And since her passing he had been a man completely alone, unable to even claim his name as Y’aris of Doven.

  Among the elves, the lack of a house, was a mark of terrible shame. Everyone should belong to a house no matter how lowly. But not him. Thanks to the disgraceful life and death of his mother he had no house. And so the last of the Doven line had become unnamed. He had simply become known as Y’aris. And that fed into the peoples’ dislike of him.

  Behind his back they called him riallin or black blood. A reference to the dark hearts of the fallen. He heard the whispers no matter how quiet. And one day they would pay for that. One day soon.

  By the Mother how he hated them for that. And he hated the Mother too. Their miserable goddess could suffer and burn as far as he was concerned, and her priests with her. They had after all not only not stopped his mother’s remarriage to an outsider, they had said to her that the disgrace was acceptable to the Mother. What a foul thing to say. To allow. If that hatred added a few wrinkles to his face, so be it. They were well earned, and he would have his vengeance upon them all.

  Which was why he’d been especially pleased with his latest plan. Whenever the priests suffered he knew a sense of satisfaction, even if they never knew that it was at his hands. And when they died, so much the better. This should be a good night.

  Assuming that things had gone right, and the longer he waited, the more he worried that they might not have gone so well. That would be a catastrophe. There were few opportunities he had to strike, limited chances to advance his cause, and this had been perfect. The high lord’s faith addled sister, finally away on a pilgrimage to the wild groves and shrines. Away from her brother’s ever watchful eye and the protection of her guards. Finally within his grasp. It had to happen before he wasted more years futilely planning her demise and his next step in his advance to the throne.

  One day he vowed, he, Y’aris of Doven, would sit upon the Heartwood Throne as a true king, and not a miserable high lord.

  And then, when the throne was his, he could begin his true mission. He would return his people to their rightful p
lace. He would rid the world of the lower races. The humans, dwarves, gnomes, sprites and trolls. And most especially the half casts and mixed bloods. Born of the debasement of elves, they were an insult to the elven race. An insult to the world. Why couldn’t the others see that? The true elves. Those of untainted blood, and family lineage going back thousands of years. Elves like him.

  But they didn’t. Not the high born. They just sat in their stupid little homes and gardens, drinking their elderberry wines and herbal teas, allowing themselves to be served by lesser creatures, and thinking all was right with the world. They were self satisfied and lazy. They barely held to any of the principles that made an elf what he was. First among them, purity.

  Sure their blood was clean. Certainly they would consider it a disgrace for any of their kin to intermarry. Or to wed a low born elf. They would decry it until the end of time. But that was as far as they went. They walked the market streets filled with low born and mixed bloods, as if it was completely normal. They allowed those same degenerates to live among them and to share the same freedoms as they did. After all their servants had to come from somewhere and what did it matter if they had a little human, gnomish or even troll blood in them? As long as they served them.