Jonathan Haymaker

by Sam Ferguson

  “The two of you came alone?” Ziegler pressed.

  Miranda was the first to respond. “There were two others with us,” she said.

  “Two?” Bull groused. “How in Hammenfein’s name did you make it this far with only four people?”

  Miranda pointed to Jonathan.

  Jonathan pulled his bow around and held it out. “This bow lets me see trolls from a distance,” he said.

  Ziegler reached out and took the bow in hand. He turned it over in his palms and then tossed it to Bear. Bear held it up close to his eyes and smiled.

  “It’s magic,” Bear said.

  “How did you get a magic bow?” Ziegler asked.

  Jonathan shrugged. “I got it from the Kigyo.”

  Bear offered the bow back to Jonathan. “Any man who could get Kigabané would be a welcome asset to our group,” Bear said.

  Ziegler then turned to Miranda. “And you are Raven’s daughter?” he asked.

  Miranda nodded. “I am.”

  “Have you the same talent for magic as your father?”

  Miranda sighed, stealing a quick glance at Jonathan before looking to the ground. “No. I can manipulate and create fire, but I am not much good otherwise.”

  “I thought you could control the weather,” Jonathan put in quickly.

  “I never actually said I could,” Miranda said sheepishly.

  Jonathan shook his head. Now that his words were working again he looked up to Ziegler. “Where is my brother?” he asked.

  Ziegler’s eyebrows shot up. “’Fraid you’ll have to be a bit more specific than that. I met a lot of brothers in my years in the swamp.”

  Moose reached out and turned Jonathan to him. The man’s massive right hand tilted Jonathan’s chin up and then turned his face right and then left. Moose reached up to his cigar and pulled it out as he exhaled a thick cloud of smoke.

  “He looks like Boar,” Moose said.

  “Your brother is Boar?” Bear asked with an anxious nod.

  Jonathan nodded and pulled away from the giant man. “My brother is Jason Haymaker, but you called him Boar.”

  Ziegler offered a faint hint of a smile. “Well then, in that case I am happy to report that I have good news for both of you. They are alive, though I don’t know how much longer they will stay that way.”

  “What do you mean?” Miranda cut in.

  “They were taken,” Bull cut in. “Our last encounter about a week ago. A pit opened up in the ground that we didn’t see and they snatched them both.”

  “Why would they take prisoners?” Jonathan asked.

  Ziegler shrugged. “Don’t know the answer to that. I have never seen it before.”

  “How do you know they are still alive?” Raven asked.

  Ziegler sighed. “Well, I don’t know exactly. It’s just a feeling I have.” He turned and put a hand out on Jonathan’s shoulder. “Your brother is a good soldier, one of the best I have ever seen. Are you anything like him?”

  Jonathan nodded. “Even without the magic, I am just as good with a bow.”

  Ziegler nodded and smiled. “Then come, eat. We have some food that we can offer. We’ll go over the plan and then we’ll head out before the sun rises.”

  “You’ll take us with you?” Miranda asked.

  Ziegler nodded. “Fireballs are incredibly useful against trolls. They can’t regenerate any part of their body that is burned. If I had to choose a mage who only knew one spell, it would be you.”

  “And Kigabané will allow us to sneak into the lair,” Bear put in from behind.

  Jonathan started to smile for the first time since entering the tunnel. “You know where it is?”

  Ziegler smiled wide. “Your brother found Shadowbore,” he said.

  “Cocky little Boar,” Bull spat. “He was always saying he would be the first to find it.”

  “And he was,” Ziegler added. “Now it falls to us to get him, and Raven, out alive.”

  Ziegler motioned for the others to follow him back to a long, stone table. There were no plates or bowls to eat with, but neither Jonathan nor Miranda cared about that once they saw the roasted meat set before them. They tore into the savory flesh with abandon, ripping off hunks nearly too large to chew before swallowing them down.

  “Easy now,” Bear said as the others began to eat as well. “It would be a shame to come all this way only to die choking on croc meat.”

  Jonathan chewed quickly and choked down another bite. “Where have you been all this time?”

  Captain Ziegler answered. “We have been hunting trolls. The Warrens are a mess of tunnels and dens. We didn’t find the main lair until very recently. Up until then we were exploring and clearing every tunnel we found.”

  “And what of my father?” Miranda asked excitedly. “How has he been?”

  Ziegler smiled softly. “Both Raven and Boar have been very well. Two of our best, actually. Up until our last encounter, they were right there with us each step of the way.” Jonathan was about to jump in with another question but Ziegler raised his hand and cut them off. “Eat. There will be time for questions later. Eat now, regain your strength. We have some hard days ahead of us yet.”

  Jonathan and Miranda did as instructed, eating until they had to sit back for the ache in their stomachs. They hadn’t seen this much food since they left Wendyn. There was only a small amount of water to be shared, but it was fresh and clean, and helped wash down the last few bites of food.

  When all had finished their meal, Ziegler grabbed a large, white stone and began to draw an outline by carving it into the table. Jonathan watched intently, seeing a map of The Warrens taking shape.

  Bull nudged him in the side with his elbow and asked, “How many trolls did you kill this week?” Then he raised the canteen to his mouth and started to drink.

  Jonathan shrugged and looked at Miranda. “I don’t know, a hundred or so each.”

  Bull squirted water out his nose and choked on his drink.

  “Well that takes the wind out of your sails, doesn’t it Bull,” Bear said.

  “That’s not possible!” Bull said as he slammed the canteen down. He pointed at Moose while glaring at Jonathan. “That mountain over there has only killed twenty this week. I am in the lead by seven. How is it that you could kill one hundred trolls?”

  “Let it go Bull,” Bear said. “Just accept that you’ll never be in the lead for long.”

  Bull shook his reddening, bald head and swiveled his arm around to point at Jonathan. “Tell me the truth boy.”

  Jonathan stopped and tried to count the trolls. “I don’t know, maybe closer to eighty I guess. She might have more, we had a whole slew of them chasing us through a tunnel and she burned ‘em all up and collapsed the tunnel, but I took down at least eighty with my bow.”

  “Hogwash,” Bull growled. “Those numbers don’t count. They’re using magic. The numbers should be cut in half.”

  Half of eighty is still thirteen more than what you took this week, Bull,” Bear pointed out smugly.

  “Enough,” Ziegler said suddenly. The table grew quiet and turned to look at the drawing etched into the table top. “We are here. Shadowbore is a day’s march to the south.” Ziegler marked a large ‘X’ on the table, followed by a circle. Then he cut smaller dots near the circle. “These are the guard tunnels that we saw. Remember, the trolls have built trap doors here, so we have to be on our best.”

  “I can see the trolls from about eighty or ninety yards away,” Jonathan put in. “I can help locate the trap doors, because the bow will show me where the trolls are by making their hearts glow.”

  “Can you see them through stone?” Ziegler asked.

  “A bit,” Jonathan said. “I can’t see through solid rock that is more than a few feet thick, but I can see through boulders or trees.”

  “Kigabané is powerful magic,” Bear said. “It will come in handy.”

  “I still call it cheating,” Bull groused.

  Ziegler turned
to Bull. “You’ll be happy that we are cheating, given how many trolls there are in Shadowbore.”

  Bull arched a brow and then nodded in agreement. “I will,” he admitted.

  Ziegler turned to Jonathan. “The first order of business is to find Boar and Raven. We will try to find the tunnel they were trapped in. We find them alive, and they will not only bolster our numbers by an additional thirty percent, but they can maybe tell us something about the tunnels, or the trolls, that will be useful.”

  Jonathan raised his hand.

  “This isn’t school, boy, if you have something to say, just say it.”

  “The shamans are the key,” Jonathan said. “They are the ones using magic to expand the monsoons. If we kill the shamans, we can break their expansion.”

  Bear slapped his hand on the table and let out a whistle. “I like this one.”

  Ziegler smiled and offered a nod of respect. “How did you learn of this?”

  Jonathan told them about the Kigyo, and what the King Snake had said about the shamans. He then explained how the rains lessened after he had slain the shaman in another tunnel.

  “That fits with our experience as well,” Bear commented. “Every time we wiped a smaller tunnel clean of trolls, the rains did lessen.”

  Ziegler stroked his chin. “Could be,” he said. “Either way, it gives us a chain of command to try and disrupt. Perhaps if we find a leading shaman in Shadowbore, it would be the equivalent to slaying a king.”

  “That might only piss them all off,” Bull said gruffly. “I know if our king was killed by a group of assassins, I’d be out for blood.”

  Jonathan leaned in and spoke. “But, not if the king was the one with the most powerful magic.” Everyone turned to look at him. “I mean, if the lead shaman is the one responsible for expanding the swamps, the trolls won’t be able to attack when the monsoons weaken and the swamplands recede to their former state. If they come at us over dry land and valleys, then we will be able to use fire, and not just magical fire, but torches and catapults to send them back. If we kill their strongest shaman, and any other shamans we find, they will have no choice but to stay here in the swamps.”

  “But then what?” Bull asked. “We run away and let the trolls breed like an infestation of cockroaches until they are strong enough to march out from their holes again?”

  “We close the tunnels,” Miranda put in quickly. “Like I did with the other tunnel. None of the trolls were able to make it out. We set fire to the tunnels and then we collapse them.”

  “You can cave-in a dozen tunnels?” Bear asked.

  Miranda shrugged. “I can close at least one or two. If we find my father, he can do more. As long as the shamans are dead, we can halt the trolls by trapping them in their tunnels.”

  Bull shook his head. “No,” he said. “If you close an anthill by covering it, the ants always dig back out. It would only be a matter of time.”

  “The Kigyo,” Jonathan said as he slapped the table. “They can finish it!”

  Bull and the others all shot Jonathan a puzzled look. “The Kigyo don’t like the trolls any more than we do. The king told me that peace can exist between humans and Kigyo only if the trolls are gone. If we kill the shamans, then we can send the Kigyo into the Murkle Quags to finish the rest of the trolls.”

  “But the trolls ran the Kigyo out the first time,” Bear reminded him. “That’s what you said.”

  Jonathan nodded. “Because they had Kigabané. Without that, the Kigyo could sneak through the swamps better than even the trolls can. Some of them even spit acid. They would be a terrible force to reckon with.”

  Ziegler nodded and took in a deep breath. “Do you think the Kigyo would be willing to do it?”

  Jonathan nodded quickly. “If the shamans are dead, the Kigyo would prefer living in the swamps again. They could finish the fight. Then, they could have the Murkle Quags, and we can keep the dry parts of our kingdom.”

  Ziegler tapped a knuckle on the table and then pointed to Jonathan. “You are hereby inducted as a Ghost of the Quags. From this moment forward, your name shall be ‘Snake,’ and we will try this plan of yours, for the Gods know it is the best option we have been able to find.”

  The others wrapped their knuckles on the table and called his name enthusiastically.

  Jonathan smiled for a second, but then the smile faded and he looked down at the table. The cheers died down and Miranda nudged him under the table with her foot.

  “Something wrong?” she asked.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I am not a Ghost,” he said. “I mean, I always wanted to be one of you. I used to imagine fighting the trolls and conquering them, but now that I am here.” Jonathan shook his head. “Sami and Rourke died trying to bring me here, and after fighting real trolls, everything is so much different from what I imagined it would be.” Jonathan paused and then took in a deep breath. “I will fight alongside you, but I am here for my brother. I am no Ghost, and I don’t wish to become another tattoo in a forgotten war. My name is Jonathan Haymaker. My father died fighting the trolls. My brother, Jason Haymaker, was captured by the trolls. My Pa, Wilkin Haymaker, was the first to discover The Warrens’ existence.” He pointed across to Miranda. “That isn’t a younger Raven, this is Miranda, a loving daughter who has come to look for her father.”

  Miranda smiled and cut in. “His name is Gabriel,” she said.

  “So, while I know this might sound rude, I want to be called by my name. Whether I die or live, I want people to know me as Jonathan Haymaker. I am not an animal, and I am not a ghost.”

  Silence overtook the table as the men awkwardly exchanged glances. Captain Ziegler sat at the table and no one spoke for some time. Finally, Moose stood up and extinguished his cigar on the table.

  “My name is Lucas Oaks. My family lived in Falstead for generations, until the monsoons came and the trolls chased us out.” Moose sat back down and offered a nod to Jonathan. “I am pleased to fight beside you, Jonathan Haymaker.”

  Bear spoke next. “I am Winnifred Barrister, son of Harold Barrister, one of the most reputable lawyers in the capitol city. I come from Lehemat.”

  “Winnifred?” Bull teased. “Oh I am not going to let that one go. From now on I am going to call you ‘Winnie.’”

  Bear smiled back and offered a single nod. “My name is Winnifred.” He drew his knife and pointed it at Bull for emphasis. “Call me ‘Winnie’ and you will not long have a tongue to speak with.”

  “And you?” Moose asked in his booming voice. Bull tilted his head to the side and arched a brow.

  “Sure, why not?” Bull commented. He held his hands out and said, “I am Damon Meaks, son of Rutger Meaks, who like his father and grandfather before him fought and died in the swamps. I have a wife back home, and a young son I have not seen for many years. I fight for them.”

  The table then turned to Captain Ziegler. The man stood. He extended his tattooed arm and pointed to one of the skulls. “This is Mikel.” He moved on to each tattoo nearby and began introducing them. “This is Stephen, and this is Blane. This one is Gerald, and this is Frear. This one here is Niam, and this is Jerat.” He continued as the others sat there in silence. One by one he gave the names of each of his tattoos. When he finished with his arm he moved on to introduce the names of the skulls tattooed onto his chest and torso. He finished by sliding the left side of his trousers down enough to expose his hip while he named eighteen more people. By the time the last name fell from his lips, there was not a dry eye in the room.

  Captain Ziegler looked up at Jonathan then and took in a deep breath. “My name, is Tray Maloy. Thirty years ago, my wife and two daughters were killed by a troll raiding party in a small village that used to stand to the northeast of Battlegrym. I survived, but only after a spear tore through my shoulder and a troll gave me this.” He pointed up to the three scars on his cheek. “The soldiers came, but only after the village was burning. Some of the men had lit the blaze to chase away
the trolls. It worked, but nearly everyone had been killed before the flames grew big enough to send the monsters running.

  “I met a man called Captain Ziegler. He picked me out from the rubble and took me along with the other survivors back to Battlegrym. Most of the refugees left and went north. I stayed behind. When my arm was usable again, and my other wounds had healed, I trekked out into the forest and found Captain Ziegler, but he wouldn’t take me into the Ghosts. I joined the army and was stationed at Battlegrym for fifteen years from the time I was twenty-two until I turned thirty-seven. I saw three men take the title of Captain Ziegler before I realized that the name meant nothing more than the animal names given to those brave souls who fought as ghosts. I joined the Ghosts of the Quags when I was forty-two, after I left Battlegrym and found the Ghosts deep in the Murkle Quags. I took over command once I was the oldest member of the Ghosts, when I was forty-three. By that time, I had seen all of the Ghosts who had been serving before me die. When I took command, and Commander Kilgrave helped me choose the first men that I would command from a roster of hand-picked veterans, I vowed to remember each man who served as one of my Ghosts.

  “I kept with the tradition of naming people after animals. I also kept the group small, no more than thirty-five men at our largest numbers. We became even better at deep swamp scouting. I still lost more men then I would ever care to have done.” Ziegler’s hand went up to touch the tattoos on his chest. “As time went along, Bear, Moose, Bull, and Raven joined the group. We were the longest standing core the Ghosts had ever known. We have spent nearly eight years together. We have seen many comrades fall by disease or a troll’s spear. When I met Jason, he seemed no different than the many others before him. I named him Boar for his stubbornness, and for his ability to fight ferociously. Now I see that I dishonored him. His name is Jason Haymaker. He is a brother, a son, and a grandson, and I will do everything in my power to bring him out of Shadowbore.”

  Bull raised his hand in mock reverence. “Just a thought, but are we going to call each other by our real names now, or do we still use our Ghost names? I mean, I need to know if I should shout ‘Bear’ or ‘Winnie’ in a fight.”