Enter the Lamb's Head (The Adventures of Ranthos Book 1)

by Jasper B. Hammer

  Enter The Lamb’s Head

  Jasper B. Hammer

  For Bellelar, the prettiest uncle I have.

  For Nosgrim, who looks exactly as I described him.

  And for Hammermend, who is so good at naming MMORPG characters that I omitted him from the story entirely.

  Contents

  1. Hodgey Podgey

  2. Cold Winters

  3. A Normal & Completely Unextraordinary Encounter

  4. Strange Smells & Stranger Folk

  5. A Thoroughly Useless Butcher

  6. The Abode of Miss Cinnamon of the Third Eye

  7. Murder

  8. Ablaze

  9. Perhaps the Only Gold in Tatzelton

  10. The Rot in Its Wake

  11. In the Dirt

  12. The Scut

  13. Small Dots on a Large Map

  14. The Eyes of a Maiden

  15. Lost Sheep

  16. The Brave Girl

  17. A Scarred Face

  18. The Gate

  19. The Devil's Flock

  20. The Dappled Mare

  21. Westward

  22. Ever May He Reign

  23. The Standing Stone

  24. The Healer

  25. Two Idiots

  26. Her Brother and Her Butcher

  27. A Fungal Mummy

  28. Maple Seed

  29. Four Graves

  30. Into the Dark

  31. Predominantly Scavengers

  32. A Spider's Lullaby

  33. Pillars of Dusty Sunlight

  34. A Markedly Bad Dream

  35. "Twenty-Four"

  36. The Mountaintops

  37. The Eagle

  38. A Quest

  About the Author

  1

  Hodgey Podgey

  Ants never stopped marching, so Ranthos always kept himself busy when the sun was out.

  The birds didn’t sing at night, so Ranthos made sure he and his sister Bell were in bed by then.

  Cats never got in people’s way, so Ranthos kept his head down, and didn’t scream and shout like the other children.

  Dogs barked at intruders, so today Ranthos told Nosgrim to, “Leave Bell alone, she doesn’t poke fun at you.”

  Nosgrim, a boy likely thrice the size of Ranthos and two or three Winters older, was a new addition to the orphanage. His breath smelled like fish, and the rest of him smelled like an armpit. Instead of responding to Ranthos, Nosgrim opted to punch him in the eye. He smelled angry at first—which was a scent that stung Ranthos’ nose like smoke—and then he smelled satisfied once Ranthos stumbled backward weakly.

  “Nosgrim!” shouted Bell, with both her little fists clenched, “That’s not—”

  Ranthos shook his head at her as he reeled in pain. Ranthos brushed his red curls away from his eyes.

  Nosgrim smirked victoriously and marched off with the other altar boys.

  “Good Heavens, Ranthos!” said Bell, looking at his eye.

  “Good Heavens?” lisped Ranthos, still wincing and dizzy from the blow, “What does that mean?”

  Bell pointed at his eye, “Your eye is purple!”

  “I don’t think that’s what Good Heavens means—”

  “It’s not!” moaned Bell. “It means—”

  “I’m hungry,” said Ranthos, his mind immediately going elsewhere. He didn’t want to think about the pain too much. He saw a dog the other day with a bleeding leg. Instead of limping around, it just decided not to walk on it.

  “Oh!” jumped Bell, her skirts twirling about her short little body. “You should see what I maked.”

  “What did you maked?”

  Bell spun around with two wooden bowls full of haphazardly chopped apples, raspberries, and some bread rolls.

  “Did you maked the bread?”

  Bell handed him a bowl, “I finded it.”

  “Where?” asked Ranthos, trying to fit the entire roll in his mouth at once.

  “In the kitchen!” said Bell.

  “Is that stealing?”

  Bell’s face turned white, “Is it?” she smelled afraid.

  “No, I think it’s fine,” said Ranthos. He was fairly certain that it was stealing, but knew that little Bell could hardly bear to discover that she was a thief.

  “Hello, kittens,” whispered Ranthos into the wooden crate.

  The kittens within were only about the size of his hand, and crawled about their mother cat, helplessly squeaking for more milk. Their mother had a fluffy black coat, and her kittens all looked the same—except for one who was mottled black and white.

  “I don’t think their mother likes that we’re here,” said Bell, sniffing the cat’s scent.

  “That’s crazy,” said Ranthos with his lisp, carefully dropping a dead mouse into the box by the tail.

  The mother cat hissed, and Ranthos pulled back his hand suddenly. He and Bell locked eyes and giggled, before both glancing over their shoulders furtively.

  Father Gerald wasn’t coming. They were safe—or at least Ranthos thought so; Bell still smelled nervous.

  “What is it?” asked Ranthos.

  Bell didn’t say a word, her long, pointed ears twitching and swivelling as she listened to something far off that Ranthos couldn’t hear.

  “Bell?” he whispered again.

  She put her finger to her lips and shushed him harshly.

  Ranthos scooped up his bag and strung it over his shoulder. It was a little big and awkward, but he felt more grown-up with it on.

  “He’s coming,” said Bell, her ears dropping timidly.

  Ranthos sprang to his feet and rushed to the window above Father Gerald’s bed, threw it open, and began to clamber out—

  Bell wasn’t coming. “Bell!” said Ranthos, waving her over.

  She was frozen, smelling markedly afraid. Ranthos rubbed his irritated nose, the scent of her fear filling it. He could feel his nose flush as it grew stronger. She’d never gotten in trouble before. She was a good child, not a sneaky bad child like Ranthos.

  Ranthos bounced off the creaky bed and down to her, “We have to run!” he said, catching his balance.

  Bell nodded, and Ranthos followed her up the bed and to the window when the door opened.

  “Hello?” said Father Gerald’s surprised voice.

  Ranthos felt the hairs the back of his neck stand on end and gritted his teeth as he turned around.

  Bell was already sobbing, “We’re sorry!” she screamed.

  Ranthos winced as the friar rubbed the shaved hole in his hair. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

  “I know!” wept Bell, crumpling to her knees on the bed.

  “It was an accident,” Ranthos lied, pulling a poorly executed smile over his face.

  “An accident like your fight with poor little Nosgrim?” The friar smelled angry, but that scent also mixed with a hint of amusement, and just a splash of pity. “Get out of my room,” he said.

  Ranthos nodded, and dropped his eyes, helping Bell out the window—the friar protested the use of the window, but Ranthos wasn’t listening, and was running across the cobblestone street before he felt like he had to. He towed Bell behind him by the hand all the way around the building to their bedroom window.

  ‘Bedroom’ was a stretch. They slept on straw mats in a long room with about a dozen other orphans, taken in by the Church: Rudolf, and his little brothers Rudiger, Raldemar, and Kunz; Minna, Sigrid, and Herta, the girls; Engelbert, Helmut, Nosgrim and Oskar, the altar boys.

  Ranthos lifted Bell up to the window so she could crawl through and then followed quickly. The bedroom was dusty and
smelled like toes.

  Bell collapsed in a heap on her mat and curled her knees to her sniffling nose. She still smelled scared, and more than a little ashamed. Ranthos sat on his mat beside her, but didn’t know how he could console her, even though she was his sister.

  He patted her shoulder.

  She rolled around to face him. She was no longer weeping, but her eyes, nose, and ears were bright red against her pale face. “We shouldn’t have done that,” said Bell. She didn’t like being noticed, Bell hated when people looked at her, she was afraid of everyone, and did everything she could to be on her best behavior every day.

  Ranthos nodded, “I’m sorry.”

  Bell sniffled.

  “I’ll be right back,” said Ranthos, running out of the room and into the hallway where he was immediately surprised to see Father Gerald, walking out of his bedroom. Ranthos felt stiff as he tried to walk casually through the hallway, waving a too-elaborate hello to the friar as they squeezed past each other.

  The friar hardly paid him any mind save a cold shake of the head.

  Ranthos rounded the corner, rushing past the chapel.

  His pointy ear was caught immediately by Sister Edmona—the oldest and most wrinkly nun in the whole of Tatzelton. She dragged him back to the doorway of the small chapel, bathed in red and purple hues of stained glass, and reeking of incense. “Am I mistaken?” wheezed the witch, “Or did you not pay respects to the Saints?”

  “I was just about to!” said Ranthos, wincing unconvincingly as she dragged him into the chapel to the Church’s new statuettes of three saints. He was released, and Sister Edmona folded her hands prayerfully as she watched him kiss the feet of Saint Corwyn, patron of the Tatzelton Church, Saint Remy, patron saint of orphans, and the Blessed Mother.

  “Now where are you headed?” demanded the ogre—erm—nun.

  “To outside,” said Ranthos.

  “Where?”

  “To…” Ranthos pursed his lips, “Play?”

  Sister Edmona huffed—to her, anything but prayer and service to the Church was some sort of crime—and walked off, her prayer beads in her gnarled hands.

  Ranthos zipped out the door and down the hall to the kitchens.

  The four orphaned brothers, each more buck toothed than the last, were running through the hall. The oldest, Rudolf, made a pig face and crossed his eyes, chanting “Hodgey hodgey hodgey podgey!” His brothers, following him in descending order like a train of ducklings, all made similar faces, and pointed at him and his ears, chanting “Hodgey hodgey hodgey podgey!”

  Ranthos scowled at them as they passed, powerless to stop them. He was bigger than Kunz, and could probably fight him, but knew he would be immediately beset by his brothers. Ranthos could add another black eye to his collection.

  Ranthos hoped that they would pass him by, but Rudolf led them in a circle around him. Rudiger was the first to shove him, and Rudolf the second.

  It looked like a fight had already begun—Ranthos welted Kunz across the nose.

  Rudolf kissed Saint Corwyn’s feet, then Saint Remy’s, and then the Blessed Mother’s, followed by Rudiger, Raldemar, Kunz, and Ranthos, with two black eyes. They each passed by Sister Edmona, who tossed each of them one by one into the confessional with Father Gerald.

  Kunz got off easy. He hadn’t had his first communion yet. He leered smugly at Ranthos from below the threshold of the age of accountability.

  Ranthos was sure that each of his brothers ahead of him in line did not include ‘hodgey podgey’ in their confessions. It wasn’t fair. It hurt Ranthos’ feelings. Why couldn’t it be a sin?

  Because he was a hodgey podgey. He supposed.

  “Bless me father for I have done sinning again,” said Ranthos in the dark cabinet—confessional.

  Father Gerald kissed his knuckle, and Ranthos did the same.

  “It has been four days since Sister Edmona got me in trouble,” said Ranthos.

  The friar groaned behind the screen.

  Ranthos shrugged. “I sneaked into your room to see the kittens and I hit Kunz,” he said.

  The friar nodded.

  Ranthos pondered for a moment for any other sins he had committed. He didn’t hit any of the other boys—no matter how much he wished he did, “I think Sister Edmona is ugly and mean,” confessed Ranthos.

  “That is not a sin,” said Father Gerald, “Saying it is.”

  “I said it,” groaned Ranthos, dropping his chin into his hands, elbows on his knees as he kicked his legs.

  The friar smelled a little happy—Ranthos didn’t know why. “Go in peace, your sins are forgiven in the name of the One an d the ligh tand theruglegum ph kna blah blah blah…”

  “Amen,” and Ranthos burst out of the confessional and rushed back to the kitchen. The brothers had left already, likely servicing the Church with Sister Edmona.

  Ranthos was sure that Bell thought he had forgotten about her by now, and a deep pit formed in his stomach. He had no time to waste and entered the kitchen immediately. It smelled like the terrible food they always ate, the tang of rusty metal, and charcoal. No one was inside.

  Ranthos rushed to the shelf, on which he found a ripe apple. He sniffed it. Worm. He returned it. He sniffed around some more… Carrots. Yuck. He sniffed again, closing his eyes so he could smell the scents of the room more clearly, and suddenly happened upon the beatific scent, the heavenly aroma, the sweet sweet gooey goodness of the blueberry pastries, safe in their newest hiding place, high on the pantry, nearest the ceiling.

  Though, nothing was safe from Ranthos’ sniffer, or his bestial limbs. Ranthos rolled up his sleeves, adjusted his suspenders, and began up the shelves of the pantry like a squirrel up a tree. He could climb better and faster than anyone.

  They called him a little monster. A hodgey podgey. Adults called them hodgepodges, or just hodges if they were angry or in a rush. Father Gerald explained once that Ranthos and Bell were half animal and half human. Ranthos didn’t have any way to disagree, but didn’t know of any animals that looked enough like him to be like him.

  And it hardly mattered, because with Ranthos’ nose, he could find the pastries, and with his climbing hands he could reach them. He removed two, dropped to the ground on his skinny little legs, and stuffed them into his huge bag before rushing back to the bedroom to meet Bell, kissing the feet of the Saints as he passed them by—just in case.

  Bell was still on her mat, with her back against the wall, braiding the yarn hair of her ugly doll. Ranthos pulled his mat next to hers and sat beside her and offered her a pastry. “I’m sorry for getting you in trouble.”

  “It’s alright,” said Bell, taking the stolen pastry, “I don’t want to ever do something like that ever again.”

  Ranthos nodded, and decided that he would try his best to keep her from trouble, from being noticed when she didn’t want to be. It seemed better that way.

  Ranthos had never been out this far before, and this part of the wood looked just the same as the others, so he didn’t see any issue. He marched along under the shades of the maples, sniffing the scents of the world outside the smelly town.

  There were birds in the trees, worms in the dirt, and some deer poops nearby; but none of those were his quarry. Ranthos was a predator, on the hunt for the most precious of prey.

  Rocks.

  They were so wonderful. Ranthos didn’t even know what they were made of. Dirt? No, dirt was made of tiny rocks. It boggled the mind. He had tried to explain his fascination once before to Bell, but she didn’t get it.

  “They’re just rocks…”

  “Yes,” said Ranthos, “But look at this one.”

  “That’s a rock.”

  “Yes, but it's different from this one.”

  Bell nodded, smelling confused.

  “Why are they different?!”

  They were so amazing. He loved rocks. He had twelve in his bag, and it was getting very heavy. So he stopped by the creek to remove all of his duplicates—but there
were no duplicates.

  “Woah…” said Ranthos, unable to find two rocks exactly the same.

  He decided that he would group them into broad categories, and keep one from each category, and toss the rest into the river.

  He enjoyed throwing rocks, too. It was only slightly worse than collecting rocks, because when he threw them, sometimes he couldn’t keep them.

  Ranthos narrowed his collection from twelve rocks to three rocks, and then realized he had initially miscounted them, but didn’t recount, opting instead to hurl them into the river.

  Ranthos had been practicing throwing rocks for many Winters—as long as he could remember. He could look at a spot and throw the rock to it with little deviation. He was very proud—Bell could not do that very well at all. He was sure to remind her of that whenever he had the chance.

  Though she was sure to remind him that she had learned her letters already, and Ranthos hadn’t even begun such a monumental task. He was happy for her, a tad jealous, but also completely unwilling to sit through one of Sister Edmona’s lessons.

  He also found another to add to his bag before he left. It was mottled three different colors: green, yellowish, and red—which Ranthos had never seen in a rock before.

  Passing up a rock of this superbity would be a crime.

  The sun was lowering in the sky, so Ranthos decided to head back into town. He hated it there, and was sure that upon his return, he would be greeted with either an angry nun or an orphan wanting to prove that he was bigger than Ranthos—again.