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

by Jasper B. Hammer

  “Us?” Ranthos whispered.

  “I have enemies,” he said.

  “Like Erhardt?”

  The Stranger nodded.

  “Why’d you kill him?”

  “He was my enemy,” the Stranger seemed exasperated.

  “Why?” Ranthos was growing frustrated.

  The Stranger’s eyes went wide and his ears twitched out from underneath his hair. “Back!” he said, “Get away, they’re coming for me.” He shooed Ranthos away, back around a corner where he’d be hidden.

  Ranthos’ heart started pounding as he rounded the corner. Before Ranthos could say another word, the Stranger spun on his heels and rounded back toward the footsteps Ranthos heard approaching.

  Ranthos saw he held the brown river stone.

  “Here he is, Yannick,” Willem—or perhaps it was Wilbur—said with a wicked sneer.

  “If it isn’t the Hexencaster himself,” said Yannick, his grin audible, “You’ve been rather sneaky, hodge.”

  Ranthos couldn’t tell if the Stranger smelled scared or not because of the thick aroma of his hair oil, but assumed as much.

  “Easy now, gents,” said the Stranger confidently, “I am sure you’ve mistaken me for another.”

  Ranthos peeked his hooded head around the corner. They were far enough away, about a dozen feet, that he’d be difficult to see in the dark of night.

  “Your tricks won’t work on us, Hexencaster,” Yannick said, holding up the animal skull strung around his neck. Over his sheepskin vest. Wilbur wore one as well.

  “Charms,” Wilbur said, rubbing his own, “from the Lamb’s Head himself.”

  Sheepskin vests, Lamb’s Head? It must all be connected somehow.

  The Stranger grinned, “Very sorry, but those won’t be of much use,” he said with a commanding authority that put a fearful odor on the watchmen, “I’d much rather not have to use this, but you’re forcing my hand,” and he wiped his finger across the surface of the stone and watched the watchmen’s eyes widen.

  Ranthos saw Yannick’s hand dart to his belt.

  Knife.

  Probably.

  And the Stranger was about to get stabbed.

  Probably.

  He had no tangible proof of either of these theories, but Ranthos had his instincts, and often enough, that was all a hunter needed. He wanted to turn back and let the Stranger pay for what he’d done to him and Bell, but a pit formed in his stomach and his vision narrowed on Yannick. There was only one thing he could do, and it wasn’t behind this corner.

  Ranthos made a mad rush forward.

  The watchmen’s eyes filled with surprise as a cloaked figure rushed out from the darkness.

  Ranthos closed more distance, halfway there now. He vaulted a broken wagon, tucking his head into his shoulders and bracing for a tackle.

  The Stranger turned to look at him, and a shocked expression washed over his face.

  Ranthos pounced at Yannick, hoping for the best. His arms wrapped around Yannick’s waist, and Ranthos’ shoulder slammed into his side.

  The Stranger cringed as he watched the impact, “Ooph.”

  Yannick landed on the ground and Ranthos on top of him. Ranthos got onto his knees and his eyes searched for a weapon: Yannick had one hand empty, but the other was trapped beneath him.

  Knife was there.

  Probably.

  Wilbur snapped his gaze to Ranthos, then back to the Stranger “Another little hodge, come to save you, Hexencaster?”

  Something dawned on Yannick and his eyes went wide, “We’ve been chasing the wrong one!”

  Then Wilbur gave a rough kick to Ranthos' ribs, knocking him off Yannick and onto the ground, landing on his face. He was disoriented for a moment, but saw Yannick stand, and scurried backward with his elbows. As his eyes regained focus, Ranthos saw both of the watchmen looming towards him.

  Spitting blood onto the ground, Ranthos looked back at the watchmen, who stood angrily and stepped closer, “Alright, boys, let’s be civil here,” Ranthos said and smiled with red teeth.

  Yannick cracked his knuckles, “I’m going to rip those twangy ears off your head, pissbones.”

  Of course he wouldn’t consider slicing them off… because he didn’t have a knife. No knife meant the bull rush was based off a faulty hunch—they must have been off duty. And this meant that Ranthos was now going to die

  “Now let’s calm down,” the Stranger said firmly.

  “Quiet, Hexencaster!” Wilbur shouted.

  The Stranger ignored the slurring thug, and held out the stone, “Leave him!” he demanded.

  “Nice try, sorcerer,” Yannick said.

  “We found him!” shouted Wilbur down the street, “He’s here! The murderer!”

  The Stranger shoved past the thugs, and yanked Ranthos to his feet and looked him in the eye, “Run.” His voice was cold as steel.

  Ranthos broke into a cold sweat as he found himself face down in a puddle a block away from the initial confrontation. He seemed to have blacked out again—like he did at Chickenrock—as his instincts overtook him.

  The two watchmen were close on his heels, and the Stranger was nowhere to be found. Ranthos could only faintly smell his hair.

  The watchmen had no weapons but were hurtling toward him almost as fast as their drunken odors.

  Ranthos crawled to his feet and took off running again, the hewn cobblestones hard against his thin boots, and the night air rank with fearful smells. Ranthos darted out toward the Tatzelgate, he’d only lose them in the wood.

  The watchmen shouted obscenities as they panted in pursuit.

  Ranthos almost slipped in another puddle as he rounded the final corner and came into view of the Tatzelgate.

  The watchmen seemed to realize that he was making for the woods, and picked up their pace.

  Ranthos didn’t look back, he kept his eyes on the wood and his head low. His feet finally hit the dirt road, and then soft grass. All Ranthos could listen to was his own heart pounding, everything else faded as he became suddenly introspective in this crisis. This was real, he was almost dead. They would not hesitate to kill him. He passed under the heavy beams of the gate, and took a heavier elbow to the neck.

  Ranthos lost his footing again and his temple slammed into the Tatzelgate, ringing his ears and bloodying the post.

  Ranthos searched for stable footing but found only a boot to the gut and a facefull of grass. He took a deep breath as they kicked him into the post. His ribs pounded with pain but his ears began to clear from the ringing.

  “He’s a damn animal,” sneered Yannick, seemingly in response to some sound Ranthos made.

  Wilbur spat on him.

  Ranthos heard them panting; they were very tired. They wouldn’t keep kicking him if he looked beaten. They’d take a breather before they killed him.

  Or that was his hope.

  After a few more kicks to the ribs, one to the throat that made him cough, and one to the groin, the watchmen doubled over to catch their breath, laughing with each other.

  Ranthos seized his opportunity and hefted himself to his feet, drawing Nosgrim’s cleaver, and arcing a wide swing at them. They jumped out of the way and laughed as Ranthos stumbled forward, almost losing his footing again. He only caught himself by bracing against the opposite post of the tatzelegate.

  Yannick cocked back a fist to strike Ranthos and drove his knuckles into the blade of the cleaver. Yannick wailed in pain and Ranthos smelled his blood in the air. Wilbur kicked Ranthos’ groin again, dropping him to his knees. Yannick brought a knee to Ranthos’ chin.

  He bit his tongue and spat blood onto the grass before catching Yannick’s knee with the cleaver.

  Yannick dropped to the ground before him.

  Ranthos crashed his forehead onto the bridge of Yannick’s nose, rocketing him backwards into the grass, while Wilbur wrapped his arm into a choke hold around Ranthos’ neck. He stomped on Ranthos’ hand, forcing him to drop the cleaver. Ranthos was immobil
ized, his throat pinned underneath Wilbur’s arms.

  Yannick picked himself up, blood running down his face. His knee was very unsteady and his three wounds filled the air with a coppery odor. It smelled like the butchery.

  They cursed at him as Ranthos gasped for breath and struggled against Wilbur’s grasp.

  Yannick doubled over, screaming for Wilbur to kill the damn beast. His eyes were bloodshot and his face manic with rage.

  Ranthos struggled for breath. His main hand was pinned under Wilbur’s foot, and he couldn’t push hard enough off the ground to stand against Wilbur’s weight. He reached across his body and fumbled with the string that held his arrows in his quiver, trying to get one free.

  Yannick tried to pick up the cleaver, but couldn’t move his hand quite right after Ranthos severed a few tendons. He cursed and picked it up with his left.

  Ranthos couldn’t undo the string. “Scut,” he coughed.

  Wilbur tightened his grip.

  Ranthos tried to knock the back of his head against Wilbur’s, but was too immobilized to move.

  Yannick lifted the cleaver over his head and brought it down toward Ranthos, who struggled and jerked underneath Wilbur’s grip. Ranthos clumsily kicked his own feet out from under him, slamming his rear onto the ground and letting Wilbur pin him even harder against the floor, but only after Yannick hammered the cleaver into Wilbur’s shoulder.

  Wilbur screamed bloody murder at him. His grip loosed ever so slightly.

  Ranthos bit his arm and scrambled away. He brought himself to his feet with great difficulty and spat blood out onto the grass.

  Yannick yanked the cleaver out from Wilbur’s shoulder and turned to Ranthos. Yannick’s wounded knee was so close to giving out beneath him.

  Wilbur howled and screamed.

  Ranthos heard more folk heading toward the Tatzelgate. He stooped over and retrieved his bow as Yannick sliced a line into Ranthos’ side. Ranthos’ legs were swept out from underneath him, but he managed to crack the limb of his bow into Yannick’s bad knee. He dropped, whimpering like Wilbur.

  Ranthos crawled to his feet again and darted for the woods, not looking back. He strayed from the trodden footpaths and game trails in the dark wood. Preferring the lashes of sharp stone and wood to the frenzied hands of the townsfolk. His foot slammed into something hard on the forest floor and he dropped to his elbow.

  “If I fall down one more damn time…” Ranthos muttered as his mind spun at the three drops of blood that fell from his face onto the ground. He could hardly feel the wounds himself with the rush of the battle in his veins, but he could feel the trickle of blood from his temple, nose, and tongue.

  He listened for the townsfolk. They’d already overshot him, searching further down the trail.

  He sighed in relief and picked himself up. As he trekked further into the black wood, his wounds slowly pained him. He recognized his limp and felt a sharp jolt run through his nerves with every step. His temple seemed to have scabbed over, but he was still spitting out blood every twenty seconds. The kicks to his ribs made it painful to breathe, and those to his groin made everything worse.

  “Scut,” he said to himself. Every creature in the wood could smell him now, and he was hardly in condition to do anything, much less hunt the buck. But he couldn’t take any time to rest, he knew. Tensions in the town would only escalate. He would have to kill the buck. Tonight. And then somehow send word to Bell that he had killed the thing, so she and Nosgrim could escape Tatzelton quietly.

  But it was never that easy.

  And there’s no telling if the Stranger was even alive now. He may not have gotten away from those that pursued him—if any did. Both Yannick and Wilbur chose to follow Ranthos rather than him.

  That struck him as odd. Perhaps they fled him and chose Ranthos because the Stranger was obviously some sort of warrior.

  However clumsy Nosgrim’s cleaver was compared to whatever weapon the Stranger wielded, Ranthos was lucky to have been armed, and to have been fighting two drunks who were not. He was only able to pull through and survive that scuffle because of their hampering intoxication, lack of armaments, and his own superior senses. He had an obvious edge on them, but he wouldn’t on anyone else, and certainly didn’t on the buck.

  Ranthos braced himself against a tree as a wave of pain filtered through his bones. He held his side and caught his breath after spitting the blood that kept pooling in his mouth.

  What was he to do now? There was no use in hunting the thing unless the Stranger himself had escaped the watchmen in town. And if he didn’t, Ranthos was out wounded in the dark wood hunting an immortal monster that would likely kill him, when he should be with Bell and Nosgrim. They’d know what to do better than he.

  Maybe.

  It was all so uncertain.

  Ranthos’ chest heaved up and down with worry, his heart quickened, and he became sweaty. The mountaintops were all but gone now. He could hardly remember that spirit which the prospect of a mountaintop brought him but weeks ago. Everything had gone to scut.

  If he was such a fool as to hope that he could still have but the sliver of a chance to see the mountaintops, then he had no choice but to hunt the buck. If he were that fool, he would keep walking. If he were that fool who believed that light could still exist in this dark, then he would fight this fear that overtook his senses. If he were that romantic fool to believe that hope was still worthwhile, then he would take heart and have good courage.

  But the fear was so heavy, the black curtain so thick. He was blinded, bound, and gutted by the knife of some wicked fear which sought his corruption, the fear which sought to cover every window, cast every shadow, and snuff every flame so completely that Ranthos now believed that the sun had died out.

  Shee’mortem. Corruption.

  Ranthos arrived back at the Labyrinth, full of rancid scents and torn corpses on display. He hurried through, burying his fears beneath a stubborn resolution to kill the damn thing. Ranthos untied his arrows and readied his bow. He decided that if anything moved he would shoot it. If it was an animal, what’s one more dead thing? And if it was a person, he had nothing to lose.

  Ranthos heard a snap and a rustle, and fired an arrow at a limping hare. He missed. He retrieved the arrow but ignored the whimpering creature. He didn’t want to watch his own eyes die out in this beast like he did with the leopard last he was here.

  Ranthos hurried quickly past that leopard’s corpse. He couldn’t bear to be near it. He rushed for the Shortcut, where he believed that he’d find the buck. He knew it was still near, still gathering corpses; that hare had been stomped by a muddy hoof.

  Ranthos clambered down the sandstone slope and soon found himself at the bottom of a deep red-walled ravine cut through the earth. He stooped and searched for tracks, scat, or anything that could lead him to the buck. He wasn’t entirely sure that the buck left scat behind at all. It certainly didn’t seem to be a vegetarian, and if it ate meat, then there’d be fewer creatures in the Labyrinth. If it actually couldn’t die, then it wouldn’t need to eat or rest, meaning it could just kill and kill to no end.

  Ranthos shuddered at the cold, and breathed slowly onto his knuckles to warm them. Something in this dusty canyon seemed to siphon away all the warmth in the air.

  He didn’t know what he’d do if he found the buck. He left the cleaver in Wilbur’s shoulder, so dismembering it like Nosgrim suggested would be much more difficult with a bow. But at the same time, Ranthos didn’t have a better idea of how to kill the thing. He didn’t know if it was possible.

  Ranthos kept stalking round the sandstone corners of the Shortcut. He had a general idea of his heading, but if he was being honest with himself—which often was perhaps difficult—he was lost. He had kept eyes on the moon and kept moving towards it. But the higher the moon rose above him, the more difficult it became to judge his path against it.

  He couldn’t find any trail, no gore even. Nothing that could lead him to the buck. Last he w
as here, he’d seen tracks heading inside, but the wind had erased them. There was only one real option.

  He had to let the buck find him. Perhaps that was even wise, Ranthos could set snares for rabbits and holehogs, maybe he could fashion something that could harm the buck.

  The only issue was the obvious lack of wood, which is essential to any snare. Ranthos sniffed the air. He could smell trees above him, on the caps of the sandstone walls. He could even spot a few that crept over the edge against the sky.

  He’d have to climb up. There was no way that he’d find his way back to the Labyrinth, and watchmen were undoubtedly stalking the Taztelwood.

  Ranthos slung his bow over his shoulder and found a relatively rough wall. There were almost enough handholds to make him feel confident. He wrapped his cloak around his shoulders so that it wouldn’t blow around during the climb. He cut a small hole in the hem so he could fasten it to the buttons on the front.

  He set to his task and began to clamber up the slope, which was made difficult by the aches in his body, but he kept climbing higher with what strength he mustered. He wanted to conserve energy for the confrontation with the buck so he moved slowly, but soon his fingers were sore and sweaty; it was getting harder and harder to grip the wall. He was able to take it slow, but it was nonetheless difficult as he dragged his body up out of the Shortcut. His foot almost slipped a time or two and actually slipped a time or three. It set his heart to pound like a blacksmith’s hammer. Eventually, he crested the top and rolled over onto the flat stone.

  He was panting, and his wounds were sore. But he knew that he couldn’t waste any more time. He could hear faintly a doe in the distance hopping over the gaps in the Shortcut as she crossed from one side to the other. The tatzeldeer could bound the distance in a way that menfolk couldn’t.

  Ranthos quickly pulled himself to his feet. The area which he had discovered was perhaps thirty feet long and twenty wide. It was loosely covered in a handful of trees, and two saplings which he could turn into snares. The gaps in between his island and the ones around it ranged from three feet at its smallest and almost fifteen at the widest, which not even a rutting tatzelbuck could clear.