Most knew him as the Red Shadow—though, in truth, few knew him at all.
His story begins in a nameless forest in the land of Tressor . . .
Chapter 1
The deep south of Tressor was not a land known for its forests. Most of the kingdom was made up of vast plains. Those plains near to rivers and lakes were fruitful, some of the best farmland in the world. Those far from water were dry and barren, giving way to two vast deserts. Farther north was the Great Western Forest, and a quite a few respectable forests could be found toward the border with the northern kingdoms, but trees in the far south were scattered and sparse. Where a handful of them stood together in what could be charitably called a grove, hunting was usually poor.
Of course, that depended on what one was hunting for.
In the stifling heat of a night in the deep south, a pair of men moved with slow care, stepping lightly to keep the crunch of dry grass from betraying their approach.
“This way. I saw prints. He can’t be far,” hissed the first of the men. He was short and wiry, and whereas most of the people of Tressor shaded themselves from the searing burn of the sun by wearing broad-brimmed hats, this fellow had taken a much older route. Every inch of his exposed skin had been smeared with red-brown mud. It had since dried into a crust that blocked the sun nicely, but left him looking as though he'd staggered out of a swamp that morning. From between his teeth jutted a stem of a plant called sugar-stalk, a weed popular among the nomads for the sweet, syrupy pulp that it produced when chewed. His hair was cropped short, and he wore clothes of a billowy, sand-colored cloth. The sleeves of the shirt and legs of the trousers had been rolled up to provide relief against the heat.
“How do they always manage to make it this far south?” moaned the second man quietly. He was taller and stouter, with the same short hair and billowy clothes, though he'd allowed the sun to bake his exposed skin to a leathery hide. He was also weighed down with ropes and sacks, and was swatting irritably at a cloud of flies that seemed dedicated exploring his nose and ears.
“I don’t ask questions. I just bring them back. You do the same and maybe you won’t need me to come along with you next time,” replied the smaller man.
The many farms of Tressor needed workers. Most of the smaller ones were run by families and communities, with workers drawing a wage, selling their goods, or simply living off of what they grew. The larger plantations, however, tended to work their land on the strength of forced laborers. Slaves could come from any number of sources. Captured soldiers from the increasingly common skirmishes in the north and clashes with disloyal tribes to the south and east made up most of the workers. Others were brought back on ships from far-off lands. Some were simply slaves because their parents had been. The only thing they had in common was that, at some point in their lives, they would look beyond the walls and yearn for their freedom.
If they decided to act, to flee their enslavement, there were men who made their livings by hunting them down and bringing them back. One would be hard-pressed to find two more typical examples than the pair wading through the bushes that night.
They stalked toward a tight cluster of four trees, the ground between obscured by a clump of short, prickly bushes. Boot prints led into the stand of trees. A quick search revealed that there were no prints leaving it. The men communicated with short, sharp hand gestures, indicating what each should do and where each should be. When the thin man was satisfied that each was in position, he drew a short, curved blade from his belt, crouched, and launched himself with a bellow over the bushes. There was a bizarre, high-pitched squeal and a rustle of bushes, then silence. No shout of anger or fear, no fleeing fugitive, just the constant drone of flitting insects in the shaded moonlight. The thin man looked over the ground and grimaced in frustration.
“Never mind, Latak,” he grumbled. “He’s dead.”
“What? Dead? What do you mean he's dead, Dihsaad? How?” replied his heftier partner, Latak.
“You won’t believe it. See for yourself.”
Latak thumped toward the bushes, no longer worried about being heard and angry that he wouldn’t be earning his bounty. When he reached the point where his thin partner was standing, he grimaced. “Augh. Is that a malthrope?”
“Can you think of anything else that looks like that?” remarked Dihsaad.
On the ground, covered with wounds and dried blood, was a creature. It looked as though it was a cross between a human and a fox, with the beast’s head and fur applied to an otherwise human form. This one was a female. It was dressed in rags and, judging from the looks of the injuries, it had been dead for a few hours. The slave they had been hunting was a short distance away. His face, neck, and arms were striped with the slashes of claws and peppered with the punctures of teeth. In his hand was a crude club, little more than a branch.
“Looks like he stumbled onto a hiding place that was already taken and they did each other in,” Latak reasoned. “But what made that noise?”
His partner made a sound of disgust. “This is why I’m the one who ends up doing all of the tracking.”
He slowly crouched, one hand out, and when he came near enough, darted it into the shadow of the nearest bush. More earsplitting squeals rang out as he pulled free a struggling blur of red fur and tattered cloth.
“Enough! Quiet!” he growled, shaking the little creature until it lost the will to struggle.
It was a young malthrope, barely a toddler, dangling pathetically by its tail. The little beast was more animal in appearance than the adult, with spindly limbs and stubby, almost paw-like hands and feet. Its eyes were locked on the motionless form of the female on the ground. Quietly, it made a sound somewhere between weeping and whining.
“This is probably why our bounty got killed. The females are extra vicious when there's a fresh litter to protect,” he said.
“How do you know that?” Latak asked.
“I used to hunt these things with my father, back when there were enough of them to make a living at it. I still do, from time to time.” With the toe of his boot, he rolled the dead creature to its side, prompting another agonized squeal from the struggling beast in his hand. “Someone got to it already. No tail.”
“Well,” said Latak, “At least we won't leave empty handed. I hear they pay upwards of seventy entus for a baby malthrope.”
It was widely felt that malthropes were a menace. Stories told of them carrying off children and raiding livestock. The creatures were the villains of more than their share of bedtime stories, and were always a safe thing to blame for your problems if you weren't happy with your lot in life. One of the few things that the north and south halves of the continent could agree upon was that wiping the creatures out would be an improvement. Thus, a price had been put on their heads—or, more accurately, their tails. Slicing the tail off an adult and handing it in to the authorities would net you a small fortune in entus, the silver coins that lined the pockets of the more well-off Tressons.
For young malthropes, though, the rules were different.
Latak fetched a sack. “I just wish I knew why we have to turn the babies in alive.”
“Oh, you didn't hear? A fellow up in Delti was turning the things in, oh, two or three times a week? People got suspicious and took a closer look. Turns out he was just catching foxes and dressing 'em up a bit. Since then, they don't pay unless you can stand 'em up on their hind legs.”
“Figures some scoundrel would ruin it for honest folk,” he said, taking the struggling thing from his partner and shoving it in the sack.
#
Far north of Tressor, in the very northernmost city in the kingdom formerly known as Vulcrest, sat a cold and meticulous man. The city was known as Verril, and the man was known as Bagu. He was dressed as a noble—clothes exquisite and expensive, face as flawless and emotionless as a sculpture. In very short order, he had risen from a simple member of the Vulcrest military to one of the most powerful and influential of the king's advise
rs. He now held the rank of general, and already it was said that the vast armies of the newly formed Northern Alliance did not make a move without his direction. He was second only to the king.
In a room adjacent to the entry hall of Castle Verril, its walls littered with maps and its shelves heavy with parchment and books, he waited. His eyes drifted to a sand timer standing in the corner of the room. It was tall and narrow, framed in an ancient black wood carved with symbols that seemed to have no place in this world. Rather than a steady stream of cascading sand, the timer seemed almost frozen. Now and again, a single grain would tumble through the pinched glass and add to the thin dusting in the lower half. At such a rate, it would take decades, perhaps centuries for the timer to run its course.
The click of heels on polished stone echoed through the halls beyond his chamber; moments later, the heavy door was pushed open. In stepped a woman with features very much like his own. She was tall and slender, skin pale and milky, with dark lips and narrow, sharp features. She was beautiful, but in a disconcerting way, as though her beauty came not from nature but from careful study and dedicated attention to detail. Her face as immaculate as his own, but flavored by emotion that made her seem brittle of confidence and short of patience. Her clothes were heavy and layered, caked with fresh snow that was beginning to melt in the relative warmth of the castle.
“You needed me, General Bagu?” she asked.
“Shut the door,” he instructed, eyes not even turning to her.
She did as she was told and began to pull the leather gloves from her hands.
“Leave them, you will not be here long.”
“Have you a task for me?” Her voice had the restrained energy of someone bursting with eagerness but well aware that to show it would be undignified.
“Of sorts. Our associate Epidime has finished . . . consulting with the seers of this place. He has compiled what he believes to be the most accurate of their visions and prophecies. We are now confident in a number of things. Foremost, as we suspected, one of our targets is to be one of the malthrope creatures. Three of the five we seek appear to have already been born or created, and he is quite likely among them. To the best of our detection, he is somewhere south of the front.”
“Shall I kill him?” she offered. Her enthusiasm was somewhat more poorly disguised this time.
Bagu closed his eyes and breathed a slow, irritated breath through his nose. “I realize that you are the least experienced among us, Teht, but I am certain I have explained this on more than one occasion. The rules of discourse are quite clear. If we take no direct act of violence against them, they cannot unite against us. You must not—must not—kill him. Nor any of the others. If action must be taken, it must be taken through surrogates, and of their own volition. All that I require is for you to locate and secure him. Fortunately, he is a malthrope. They hunt them as vigorously in Tressor as they do here. You should have little difficulty finding him—or, at the very least, little difficulty in finding aid.”
“That is all? An errand? I am a mystic specialist, Bagu. I feel as though I should be doing more than acting as tutor for that blasted necromancer and dashing to Tressor whenever the need arises.”
“You are the least senior of the generals, Teht. You will do as you are instructed.”
“My skills are being wasted!” She was bordering on petulant now, a bratty scowl working its way into her expression.
“How your skills should be put to use is my decision alone. Do not question my orders any longer, Teht.”
Bagu's final words were delivered no more forcefully than any of the others, but as he spoke, there was a subtle shudder, and around him the papers and shelves rustled and creaked as though under great strain. Her brittle confidence shattered, the boldness and defiance dropping swiftly to subservience. It was as though he had pulled a knife from his desk and explained, in detail, how he intended to use it if she did not fall into line.
“Yes, General Bagu. Of course. It is an honor to serve!” she said hastily. She pulled open the door and marched out.
He leaned back in his chair, eyes turning to the timer once more as the tension faded from his mind. “If she does not learn her place, that woman will come to a very unpleasant end.”
Chapter 2
In the dusty fields of Tressor, a short night and a long day had passed. Dihsaad and Latak had trudged back into their camp, reaching it as the sun was setting. It was a typical camp for slavers, a cluster of low, lashed-down tents set up in a circle around a large bonfire. Every aspect was designed to be set up and taken down quickly, and to be easy to lock down and defend. In all, it had the feel of a prison combined with a traveling market. Carriages fortified with bars—little more than rolling cages—were crowded with their valuable cargo, recently acquired workers. Most were members of scattered nomadic tribes, but not all. Mixed among them was a pair of fair-skinned elves from the land across the sea to the east, a place called South Crescent. There was a short, stout dwarf from deep in the mountains as well. Each had been taken far from their home, and all but the newest of them had been stripped of their will to struggle by time and the lash of a whip. Now they sat with empty eyes, waiting.
“Latak! Dihsaad! You had better have a good reason for getting here so late!” growled a voice nearly as grizzled as the man it belonged to. He was the slave master, a man named Grahl, and his leathery skin was a veritable road map of scars from years of encounters with men and women unwilling to become his prize without a fight. “Where is the man I sent you after?”
“Jackal food, by now,” Dihsaad remarked.
“You killed him!” the head slaver roared.
“He got himself killed. Ran afoul of a malthrope vixen protecting her young,” he explained.
The slave master grumbled a few creative profanities under his breath as he wiped away the sweat beading on his brow. “Did you at least get its tail?”
“Someone got it first. But we got the kit,” he said, holding his hand out for Latak to supply the bag.
Grahl snatched it away, prompting a few weak growls of complaint. He untied the bag and glanced inside, grimacing slightly at the sight of the occupant. The little creature, barely conscious after the rough trip and intense heat, stared up through dry, red eyes.
“Gah. They really do look like drowned rats. And the smell,” he muttered, handing the bag away. “Someone dump some water on this thing. If we want the bounty for it, the ugly little monster is going to have to be alive. And we're probably going to need that money.”
“Something got you on edge, boss?”
“On edge? Do you want to know what's got me on edge?” he replied with a sneer. “Look over there. Do you see that dust cloud to the north? Do you know what that is? That's a plantation owner. He's coming to buy a dozen peak-condition slaves. Do you know what I have? Eleven. You were supposed to bring me the twelfth!”
“So they take the eleven and we pick up a spare in the next raid.”
“Our reputation is pitiful, idiot. This will be what? Eight, nine times we over-committed? He won't be back, and he'll spread the word that we can't fill our orders. We can’t take another stain on our record. We'll be finished!”
“Well, why do you keep selling more than we have?”
“Because people want more than I have on hand. When I found out this plantation was looking for my whole stock of single-stripe slaves, I foolishly trusted my best men to bring back the runaway alive!”
“Perhaps he will accept a discount.”
“He paid already. I convinced him we needed the money to pay for transport.”
“Well then perhaps he will take a refund.”
“I spent the money already, Dihsaad! Gods . . . this will ruin us!”
As the distant carriage trundled ever closer, Grahl alternated between berating anyone within earshot for their laziness and ineptitude and attempting to miraculously identify a twelfth slave that was worth selling. Most of his latter efforts went as far as rep
eatedly counting the occupants of the carriages, as though it was possible he'd merely overlooked someone during the previous twenty counts. Eventually, time ran out and the prospective customer was stepping out of the sturdy carriage.
The man who stomped his boots to the sandy earth of the slave camp was instantly recognizable as a lifelong farmer. He was getting on in years, but those years had tempered him like steel, leaving him with a shock of silver in his otherwise black hair and beard. He was every bit as sun-broiled as the slavers, as was the case for most everyone in the land of Tressor. His build was lined with dense, gristly muscle. It had been earned years ago, the product of decades of back-breaking labor, and even now that the hardest of the tasks fell to his workers, the wiry muscle was slow to fade.
Everything else one might need to know about the man could be gleaned from the expression on his face. The set of his jaw and the hardness of his gaze spoke volumes of the determination and effort he poured into every enterprise he put his hand to. A slight sneer of disgust twisted his mouth, the sights, sounds, and smells of his surroundings nearly turning his stomach. Nevertheless, this was a purchase important to his business, and thus important to him, and he would not leave it to underlings, no matter how trusted.
Out of his rugged and practical carriage stepped two servants, the sort of burly men one tended to bring along when doing business that might go wrong. A third servant remained in the carriage, reins in hand.
Grahl marched up to the newcomers, a practiced look of hospitality hastily locked onto his face in place of panicked anger. The seller and the buyer approached each other, and each slapped his left hand on the right shoulder of the other, a gesture which in another culture would have been a handshake.
The Book of Deacon Anthology Page 144
