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

by Jasper B. Hammer

  Remy pawed away the moss that began to obstruct Ranthos’ vision, clearing the way for “Three,” and “Two.”

  Ranthos pulled an arrow from a flocker at his feet, and launched it into the gut of “One,” who retched blood.

  The final flocker slashed Ranthos across the chest, but Ranthos hardly felt it, and retaliated quickly with an arrow clean through the forehead, the sun glimmering for half a moment through the hole before he crashed onto the ground below.

  “Zero,” said Remy.

  36

  The Mountaintops

  Ranthos lay on his back, catching his breath atop the bleeding, warm bodies of the flockers strewn on the rock. He had gathered them all together with the last bits of his strength and then collapsed onto them. He feared that the blood would freeze and make him colder, but he couldn’t think of such things just yet. He needed to get warm.

  The fury in his blood had died away, and he replaced his mitten and scarf, even taking the white sheepskin cloak of a flocker. He also took a new pair of pants and boots. Anything he could.

  Exposed legs in this temperature were not pleasant, but soon he was wearing a small pair of white trousers that felt slightly more comfortable than his ripped Tatzelton pair.

  Remy curled up on Ranthos’ belly, and fell to sleep in quick order. It was hardly noon, but Ranthos felt he could do the same. Only a while longer, he decided. Then he would continue his hike up the mountain.

  He watched that eagle soar in the distant sky, pondering the meaning of its strangely long tail. It dipped in and out from the cloud cover every few moments, and Ranthos wondered what it could be doing. It obviously wasn’t hunting.

  Eventually, the bodies below him had lost their warmth, and the blood on his coat had dried, Ranthos roused Remy and slid down the side of the rock to continue their trek. Remy plodded alongside him, while Ranthos forced his own sore limbs to keep moving. He was fully healed from his injuries, and stashed as much moss into his pockets as he could carry, hoping that it wouldn’t wither before it could be of use.

  “Could you give me a stone atvyyrk to keep the moss alive?” asked Ranthos.

  “I cannot,” said Remy, “Though! I can help with something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Are you thirsty?” asked Remy.

  “I am,” said Ranthos.

  “If we can find some liquid water, you can easily purify it with theromancy! Your powers in the sleeping realm will be much greater than they are in the waking.”

  “Was my marksmanship better too?” asked Ranthos, thinking himself unable to have taken on that many flockers in real life.

  “Your endurance is increased,” said Remy, “But no. Physical manipulation skills are not affected by the dream.”

  “You mean to say that I could have done that while awake?”

  “Not exactly,” said Remy, “You would have been long dead weren’t it for my saving you, your new magical skills, and the added advantage of a herd of animals that feared you more than the humans who chased you.”

  “Oh,” Ranthos felt a bit deflated.

  “It was still a remarkable feat, Ranthos,” said Remy, “I certainly couldn’t have done it!”

  Ranthos chuckled, wrapping the wool cloak around his body tighter as the wind howled towards them, carrying with it a wash of white snow. Ranthos felt Remy crawl up his back and perch on his shoulders.

  “Nosgrim wouldn’t have managed such a feat either!” said Remy.

  “Damn right,” said Ranthos, counting what arrows he had scavenged from the corpses about the rock. “Thirteen. You couldn’t have made some more durable arrows?”

  “These are Tatzelton arrows,” said Remy, “and cheap ones at that. Blame Nosgrim for never paying you enough for good ones.”

  “I never needed good ones too badly,” said Ranthos, “and Nosgrim didn’t have the coin to spare.”

  “Are you defending him?” asked Remy.

  Ranthos grinned beneath his scarf, but didn’t answer.

  Remy took a more relaxed posture over Ranthos’ hunched shoulders, draping his legs lazily over him, and resting his head beside Ranthos’ neck, nestled between the fur hood and the bright scarf.

  Ranthos eventually heard him snoring, and decided to let him sleep again; he’d earned it. Ranthos marched up the gradual incline of the mountain towards its peak, growing steadily nearer.

  Eventually the winds died down and allowed Ranthos to look out upon the world below him: a vast expanse of taiga, the golden sunlight reflecting off the icy surfaces of the rivers that wound through the land, and the needles of the evergreen trees freckling the white expanse.

  Beyond the taiga was a distant plain, blue in the haze of the horizon, the sky above it empty of any mountains or clouds. The Eisenland. He imagined that Sortie-on-the-Hill lay somewhere within that plain, but could scarce make out a tree. It was so distant.

  The Tatzelwood was not even visible.

  Ranthos marvelled at the sight. He knew that it was but a dream, but it felt incredibly real. His eyes wandered to the peak, and his heart longed to discover what lay waiting for him there.

  Ahead of him, white-haired mountain goats scaled the vertical cliff faces of the mountain, craning their necks on precarious ledges to chew upon Wintertime grasses and leaves. As the sun lowered behind the mountain, half eclipsed by the jagged rock, Ranthos saw what he thought must have been a leopard, surveying its territory from a rocky outcropping. When the snow finally bathed in the red light of sunset, Ranthos spotted the herd crossing the frozen river under the long shadows of the trees.

  Ranthos found a small, cramped cave for him and Remy to rest in for the night. Remy summoned up firewood and a dinner of roasted tatzelvenison, leeks, and those branberries which Bell said would be warm when it was cold out.

  The instant Ranthos’ teeth broke the skin of the purple berries, their juices activated and became like the warm melted filling of one of Bell’s best pastries.

  “These are extraordinary!” said Ranthos, “Try one.”

  “I am a carnivore,” said Remy, turning down the berry with a raised paw.

  Ranthos melted a potful of snow, and cleansed it with theriac. He poured the dark oily liquid off the top of the pot. He and Remy then drank the purest, most delicious water that they had ever drank in their fictitious dream-lives. Dinner was delicious, and made Ranthos miss Bell.

  He ran the fluffy scut about his neck through his thawing fingers, longing for her and Nosgrim to be beside him.

  In time, Remy summoned a stack of warm blankets for himself and Ranthos to curl up beneath as they weathered the cold night. Ranthos had no dreams.

  Which was logical.

  “Or you just forgot them,” said Remy in the morning, as Ranthos pulled his boots on and rubbed his tired eyes.

  “I don’t want to think about any of that,” said Ranthos.

  “Or your other life is the dream you just had.”

  “I said stop,” said Ranthos as they resumed their march up to the peak in the cool of the morning with the sun to their back.

  “Or…”

  “Remy!”

  “Apologies.”

  The snow ahead of them reflected the bright yellow sunlight directly into Ranthos’ eyes, and made it difficult to know what to expect up ahead. They were also walking upwind, so Ranthos felt especially blind.

  “We could be ambushed and have no idea,” said Remy.

  “You're only ever helpful maybe half of the time.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” said Remy.

  Ranthos pulled himself up over an icy-slick rock, and heaved in a breath of the thin air. He felt light headed after all their travel, but knew that the peak was within reach. He and Remy scaled the side of the rock slowly, taking each step carefully, so as not to plummet to their doom.

  Ranthos struggled to grip the rock wall beside him as he balanced on the rocks below his feet. Remy guided his steps and found for him the safest route.<
br />
  “Easy now, dear cub,” said Remy encouragingly.

  Ranthos nodded and chose his steps carefully, until he reached a safer place to sit and rest for a moment. He panted for breath as he stroked Remy’s fur. Ahead of him lay a thick mist, a heavy fog that obscured the peak from his view.

  Ranthos could barely make out the world below them, the trees disappearing into a large sea of green, and the distant plains melded with the sky on the horizon.

  “Ready to continue?” asked Remy.

  Ranthos nodded, and pulled himself to his feet, stepping foot into the mist, “What is this, Remy?”

  “A cloud, dear cub.”

  Ranthos stopped dead in his tracks. He looked down at the valley below, further obscured by the wisps of cloud. He waved his hand through the mist, and couldn't contain his laughter as it swirled around his hand. “A cloud?!”

  Remy nodded, “Funny you didn’t realize.”

  “I suppose I simply,” Ranthos stared in wonder at the featureless white all around him, “I simply never thought it could be possible…”

  Remy smiled, and allowed him a few more moments to flail about in the mist—but not too long, “Best we keep moving, dear cub.”

  Ranthos agreed, but his smile didn’t fade as he marched along the snowy rocks with both arms outstretched, trailing cloud behind his arms like they were on fire.

  The climb then suddenly became dangerously vertical. Ranthos climbed up freezing cold rocks with no view ahead or behind him but the cloud. Remy, a few paces ahead of him out of sight, called back, “This way, dear cub. Follow my voice!”

  Ranthos did, and slowly moved his mittened hands from stone to stone, his eyes always darting between his grips and his footholds, knowing that a minor slip could mean certain death.

  Up and up Ranthos climbed, drawing nearer and ever nearer to the mountaintop, and eventually emerged through the cloud cover as if rising from a pool of water.

  Ranthos’ jaw dropped as he suddenly lost himself in the view. He clung to the rock face with both hands as his eyes wandered the vast white landscape around him. The tops of clouds. Huge mountains—taller than any of stone—littered the landscape, along with deep valleys and sun-blessed plumes and wisps of otherworldly wonder. The morning sun cast stark shadows and golden highlights, detailing every contour of the heavens.

  Ranthos felt his breath catch in his throat, and wiped cold tears out of his eyes with his shoulder. Remy smelled happy—joyful—like flowers in a field, or a Summer breeze through the trees. Ranthos couldn’t decipher his own exact scent, and decided to not limit his emotions with too precise a definition.

  He felt Good.

  He could have spent hours staring at it, and perhaps he would have—if Remy weren’t on such a schedule.

  “Didn’t realize we were in such a rush, catten,” Ranthos sniffled and rubbed his cold nose.

  “There’s no telling how long you’ll be asleep.”

  “Doesn’t feel like I’m asleep—” Ranthos cut himself off, looking up into the blue sky, even more clouds ahead of him.

  But that’s all there was—only clouds. He had reached the peak.

  Remy sat proudly upon it. “I thought perhaps this might be a better view.”

  Ranthos scrambled up onto it. The mountaintop was perhaps an area twenty paces wide, jagged gray rocks poked through glittering white snow.

  He rushed towards the peak, placed his hand atop the point, and lifted himself up over it. He placed one foot precariously on it.

  “Dear cub I don’t think—”

  Ranthos placed the other.

  “Dear cub!”

  He stood to his full height and lost his balance, quickly catching himself as his mind spun madly. Eventually he caught his breath as the reality of the sight settled on him.

  The sunlight reflecting off the snow shone brightly into Ranthos’ eyes, but he hardly restricted his view to the ground below him, preferring the vast realm of clouds, and below that, the colorful landscape, finally within view again.

  He saw the golden rivers, the pines.

  The yellow plains.

  The Tatzelwood.

  “Remy!” he pointed at a distant speck of green in the South—which was a bad idea, as he almost fell again, his foot slipping on the icy rock. He regained proper balance after a moment of scrambling.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Remy, resigned to his dear cub’s stupidity.

  At Ranthos’ right side he could see a distant peak, poking above the clouds, and at his left two more, all shorter than the one he stood upon, tiny islands in the white sea.

  As he haphazardly swivelled around the peak, Remy chided him, “You ought to stop that, dear cub.”

  Ranthos ignored him as his eyes settled upon a strange line, low in the sky, where it became suddenly a darker hue, and glimmered faintly in the sunlight. “What’s that?” asked Ranthos.

  “Why,” said Remy ponderously, “That must be the ocean.”

  Ranthos nodded. “Do you think I could see a whale? Alrys said that they were massive.”

  “I doubt it,” said Remy.

  “But maybe,” insisted Ranthos, looking for a whale—despite the fact he hadn’t a clue what one looked like.

  “Maybe.”

  In the distant horizon over the taiga, that eagle emerged from the clouds. “Have you noticed that eagle?” asked Ranthos, finally climbing down from the peak.

  “I have,” said Remy with a breath of relief.

  “What do you think it's doing?” Ranthos squinted to look at it, the bright snow in his eyes again.

  “I couldn’t tell you, dear cub,” said Remy.

  “Does it look a little big to you?”

  Remy nodded, “It casts quite a large shadow.”

  Ranthos watched its huge shadow pass over the mountainous clouds. “That’s strange.”

  “Think it would dance a jig if we asked it?”

  “I would prefer it never did that, thank you, Remy.”

  “Does it look like it's getting closer?” asked Remy.

  Ranthos craned his neck to see the eagle’s dark head turn down to face them, as the shape grew steadily nearer. The sun glittered off brown and white feathers that reflected its light. “I think it is getting closer,” said Ranthos, pulling off his right mitten and readying his bow.

  “Wise move,” said Remy. “Yes… It is certainly getting closer.”

  Ranthos then realized that the eagle was perhaps the size of a horse, “Remy!” he said.

  “It’s massive isn’t it? At least the size of one of those oxen.”

  Ranthos agreed. Drawing his bowstring back.

  The eagle neared, and Ranthos spied its dark eyes, and a wide mouth—rather than a beak—full of sharp teeth. Its maw opened wide, and it heaved in a breath before unleashing a loud, thunderous roar.

  37

  The Eagle

  The eagle’s roar sounded like a composite of multiple sounds. First a cry like a bird, a high screech, and beneath that was a snarling grumble like a bear, with all the resonance of the mighty barruses, and finally a beating, throbbing drum from the deep of its lungs, that pounded into Ranthos’ skull as he watched the creature swallow up the horizon with its massive wingspan.

  Perhaps each wing as long as a wagon, the creature splayed its feathers as it slowed its fall. Ranthos fired an arrow at it, but with a flap of its wings, the arrow was blown aside and lost in a swirl of cloud that obscured the monster further.

  Remy meowed timidly as the creature’s roar died down, in layers. First the screech crescendoed, and then the snarl faded away, and slowly after the pounding drums weakened.

  “Now would be your cue to run!” said Remy desperately, climbing up Ranthos’ back.

  Ranthos disregarded him. The eagle hadn't attacked him before. He had a hunch that it wasn’t here to kill him. He planted his feet firmly on the mountaintop.

  Perhaps it was foolhardiness, or perhaps it was instinct, but Ranthos felt that he shou
ld stay. He squinted as he looked upon the eagle, tall as an ox with a wingspan thrice as long. He could barely see it through the churning clouds, and could only distinguish its form beneath the blinding light of its radiant feathers.

  Ranthos took a few steps back as his fear began to overtake his instincts—but he did not look away, no matter how bright the light. He gritted his teeth and knocked another arrow—just in case—but almost lost his balance as the beast roared again, sending Ranthos’ mind spiraling, and his heart racing.

  He could hardly see the thing, but Ranthos pained himself to keep his eyes trained on it.

  It rushed over him like a whirlwind, trailing clouds with it, wrapping Ranthos’ vision in mist. He could barely make out the silhouette of the creature, wheeling round to make another pass.

  Half of Ranthos wanted to fire an arrow, but the better part of him told him to be patient—though that was difficult when scared scutless. Ranthos felt like his knees were knocking against each other.

  “Dear cub!” said Remy, “We ought to make our exit!”

  The creature splayed its wings again as it descended, this time leading with its massive curved talons, Ranthos winced—readying himself for his death—as they set with a scrape onto the snow rock of the mountainside.

  The monster perched skillfully on the vertical rock face, and its huge head lowered toward Ranthos through the whirling clouds. Its guttural drum beat continued menacingly, as the creature’s white-feathered neck brought its face within inches of Ranthos.

  It pulled away a filmy, transparent eyelid before blinking with a larger one. Its snout was covered in mottled ochre scales, and its large nostrils flared as it exhaled a breath that stung Ranthos’ skin like steam. He winced, and the ‘eagle’ (a wholly unfitting description) pulled its thick lips over gleaming hand-length teeth as it hissed a low growl, a forked tongue flicking out from between its jaws.

  The monster folded one of its wings into its side, and scratched its plumed head with two large, razor-sharp claws that tipped the other one, before dropping that limb into the snow with a heavy crash, and slowly dragging it backward to cling to the rocks with long black talons.