The King's Ranger: The King's Ranger Book 1

by AC Cobble

  The moon was a slender crescent, and the stars sparkled sporadically, half of them covered by thin clouds, but Rew would avoid artificial light if he could. Whoever he was tracking, if he brought a lantern or a torch, he’d give himself away as soon as he was in sight of them.

  Besides, it seemed he didn’t need the additional light. They kept one hundred paces behind the ranger station clear of forest, but knee-high grass grew wild there. In the moonlight, he saw the narrow trail the rangers used leading from the station to the forest, and a wide, trampled path where someone had stomped through going the other direction. Careless footfalls and the telltale marks of something heavy being dragged. Rew winced. Not something, someone. Someone large and bleeding. In the silver light from above, he could see fat drops of blood, black at night, scattered across the broken blades of grass.

  Rew guessed the big youth had not gone peacefully. Whoever had broken into the station and killed Tate was no more a friend of the thieves than they were of Rew. Blessed Mother, what were those three running from?

  The ranger trotted along the trampled path, not pausing the study the tracks, knowing that for now, speed was more important than any information he could discern studying the marks that had been left. Rew had felt Tate’s body before he’d departed and estimated the man had been killed two hours prior. That meant whoever had attacked the station had close to a two-hour head start. Once Rew caught up, he would slow and proceed cautiously. He trusted his instincts and his own stealth to alert him when it was time. He would catch up and then figure out what he was facing.

  Midnight had come and passed when Rew finally sensed something ahead. He slowed, taking his time and pausing when he saw the flickering of a campfire. He waited, listening, then began to stalk in a wide circle around the site.

  His quarry had passed a league outside of Eastwatch before returning to the road. They made it two more leagues before settling down to rest. They weren’t taking pains to hide, though he admitted this far from the baronies, the chances of them seeing another traveler at night were near zero. That left him with little question this group was the one he pursued. They were camped off the road, halfway to the tree line.

  Getting low, moving cautiously on his hands and feet, Rew stayed below the height of the grasses and small bushes that lined the highway. He saw half a dozen figures standing and several more lying prone. The younglings, presumably.

  He circled to the opposite side of the road, staying hidden in the low foliage, and when he’d come around the camp, he moved into the trees, standing slightly to get a better angle to observe his prey. Glacially slow, he stepped in the dark beneath the branches, avoiding putting his boots down on anything that could make a sound, studying the people around the fire.

  There were half a dozen men with a motley of armaments, two more seated, and three figures lying down. Rew frowned. Eight opponents, all armed, and judging from the damage to the iron bars of the jail cell back at the ranger station, at least one of them was a spellcaster.

  Eight against one were terrible odds, but at least he would have the advantage of surprise. If he waited until daylight, not even his skills in the forest would get him close enough to ambush the party. Around their camp, he saw that no one had laid out a bedroll. They were not preparing to sleep there. They’d started the fire for a little warmth and to boil some water for coffee. He could smell the brew steeping. The group was eating cold food from their packs, and he guessed that as soon as they’d quaffed the coffee, they would continue on, making it several more leagues away from Eastwatch before dawn.

  Rew wasn’t going to get a better opportunity unless he followed them all of the way to Yarrow. Muttering under his breath, the ranger moved to the edge of the trees and drew the two daggers from his boots. He studied the group, trying to identify the spellcaster, but none of them were wearing any of the usual high-collared, flowing robes of the profession. To a man, they looked like common thugs. One of them had to be a spellcaster, though, because there was no other way they could have melted the iron bars of the jail cell.

  On the ground, Rew saw one of the youths stirring. The girl, the sister. She was craning her neck, checking on her brother.

  “This cut needs binding,” she called to her captors. Her plea was met with derisive laughter. Rew waited. She insisted, “If you do not help him, he will die.”

  A man broke away from the others and came to stand over the captives, gesturing at the prone trio with a bit of dried meat he’d been chewing on. “Aye, and what makes you think that would bother me?”

  “If you wanted to kill us, you already would have,” snapped the girl.

  “I’ll be paid more if you’re all alive, but I get paid even if you’re dead,” said the man.

  “Who hired you, Worgon?” demanded the girl.

  The man smirked down at her but did not answer.

  Bandits, realized Rew, thugs hired by Baron Worgon of Yarrow and tasked with capturing the three younglings. At least he knew what they were running from now, but he still didn’t know why. Was the speaker the spellcaster or simply the leader of the bandits? It would be unusual for such a small group of bandits to be able to afford a competent spellcaster, but Rew was beginning to accept that unusual was becoming normal.

  “You’re throwing away good coin by not treating him,” said the girl. “Why accept less pay when you get it all? Unbind me, and I’ll tend to him myself.”

  “Lass, do you think I’m stupid?” asked the bandit. “We know what you’re capable of with free hands.”

  She was silent, but one of the seated men spoke. “She has a point about not letting the lad die.”

  “She’s the one the baron wants,” barked the leader. “Besides, you’re the one who warned me not to let her free. She’s an invoker, isn’t she? If we let her go—”

  The seated man shook his head and interrupted his companion. “I’m not saying let her go. Keep her tied, but we ought to bind the boy’s wounds. Dead or alive, we’ve got to cart the body to our employer, right? He’s paying for her, but he wanted to see them all. I’d rather the boy walk than me have to carry him. It’s a long way to Yarrow, mate.”

  The leader kicked at the grasses around his feet, evidently thinking it over.

  “Baron Fedgley will pay twice what Worgon’s offered you,” claimed the dark-haired girl.

  The leader snickered and took a bite of his strip of dried meat. He made no move to free the girl or to tend to the boy.

  “It’s true,” said the second girl, speaking up suddenly.

  Rew waited, listening, his daggers held loosely in his hands.

  The blonde continued, shifting on the ground so she faced the leader of the bandits, “I promise you. Whatever price Worgon offered, Fedgley will double. I’m granting assurances from the guild in Spinesend.”

  “Assurances of the guild, eh?” asked the leader. “And how is that?”

  The blonde was silent for a long moment. Then, she answered, “I’m a member in good standing. Take off my boot. You can see my marking.”

  “Thieves’ guild in Spinesend, is it?” asked the bandit leader, looking down at the girl’s feet. “Why didn’t you say so before, lass?”

  “I-I didn’t know if you were guild members as well,” she stammered, “or if you were simple thugs.”

  The seated man who’d spoken cackled, and the leader turned and grinned at him. The leader stuck his thumbs behind his belt and addressed the captives again. “We’re not simple thugs, no, but we ain’t beholden to the thieves’ guild, either. Not in Spinesend, not anywhere.”

  “I’m offering you more coin,” hissed the girl.

  The bandit leader shook his head. “Sorry, lass, in other times you may very well have appealed to my natural greed, but these aren’t other times. Thieves’ guild or not, promises of more coin or not, we’re taking you to our employer.”

  The girl hissed in frustration, but Rew could see the bandit leader wouldn’t budge. Was the seated speaker th
e spellcaster? Rew could only hope. He flipped the daggers in his hands and caught them by the blades. He raised both at once, one in each hand, and then flung them at the leader and the seated man who had been speaking.

  Before the daggers struck their targets, Rew snatched his longsword from the sheath on his back and his hunting knife from his belt. He charged. The sharp steel of the thrown dagger caught the bandit leader in the shoulder, spinning him, while the other blade thunked into the seated man’s throat. Rew was amongst them before any of the other bandits had time to react. He stabbed his hunting knife into one man’s back and thrust his longsword over his victim’s shoulder to take the next bandit in the eye.

  Startled cries exploded in the camp, but Rew was already spinning and slashing his longsword into the face of a third man. Then, he whipped around and parried the swing of an axe from another of the bandits with his knife.

  Four down, four to go, and one of those injured. Not great odds, but if he’d guessed correctly on the spellcaster, they were better than they had been.

  He scraped his hunting knife along the wooden haft of the axe, taking off a few of the bandit’s fingers in the process. Then, he smashed his fist into the axe-wielder’s face, knocking the screaming man back. Sensing movement from behind, Rew ducked and felt the whistle of a blow sail overhead. He spun in a crouch, bringing his longsword around and disemboweling his assailant.

  “Spellcaster!” shouted one of the girls.

  Rew cursed and threw himself into a diving roll. A blaze of heat followed him from a glob of liquid fire. It splashed two-dozen yards past him and burst into a scattering of grape-sized puddles of searing flame. Rew rolled to his feet and was forced to dodge as a bandit came after him, swinging two heavy cleavers like a mad butcher. Wheeling back, Rew deflected a blow, slipped away from another, and almost ran into the bandit leader who’d attempted to circle him.

  The man, one arm hanging limply at his side, was using the other to slash at Rew with a wide-bladed broadsword.

  Rew scrambled away, the injured bandit leader, the butcher, and the fingerless axe man coming in a pack after him, forcing him back toward the camp.

  “Behind you!” cried the girl again.

  Rew flopped to the ground, and another melon-sized ball of liquid fire streaked overhead, catching the butcher square in the chest. The man screamed in agony as the fire consumed him, burning through his clothing, melting his flesh, and stripping him down to his rib bones. Rew jumped to his feet, turned from the wounded bandit leader and the fingerless axe man, and charged the spellcaster.

  It was the second seated man, now standing, his hands held in front of him as he built a third ball of bubbling, liquid fire. Without pause, Rew ran straight at him and then dodged at the last second as the caster threw up what fire he had available. It sputtered by the ranger, improperly formed, two hand-lengths from his face. Not slowing, Rew swung his longsword at the spellcaster as he ran by, catching the man in the neck, chopping through flesh to the bone. The spellcaster was thrown back, an arc of blood following him as he fell to the dirt, dead before he landed.

  Rew spun, finding the bandit leader and the axe man ten paces behind him. The two of them slowed, nervous eyes glancing at the carnage around their camp. Rew shifted, adjusting his grip on his longsword and hunting knife, and waited. Just the two of them now, both injured. The odds were getting considerably better.

  The axe man must have thought the same because he flung his axe aside and ran, pelting down the road away from Eastwatch, headed toward Yarrow. Instead of following, the bandit leader darted toward the bound captives, raising his broadsword.

  Rew leapt after the man. His hunting knife was heavy and curved, useless for throwing, so he dropped it. He lunged, thrusting his longsword out to the extent of his reach, diving at the bandit leader, stabbing into the man as he swung down with his broadsword.

  Rew’s longsword skewered the bandit, and the momentum from his jump brought him crashing into the other man’s side. He and the corpse of the bandit tumbled to the ground, landing on the blonde, while the bandit leader’s broadsword bounced to the turf next to her head.

  Rew rolled away. The girl shrieked, thrashing impotently with her bound hands and feet. After scrambling back up, Rew grabbed the dead bandit and hauled the body off of the girl. Using his bloody longsword, he sawed through the ropes that were tied around her limbs, mumbling assurances to her that she didn’t seem to hear.

  By the time he finished cutting the girl loose, Rew looked up and saw the axe man was well down the road, moving surprisingly quick for someone rapidly losing blood from several severed fingers. Briefly, Rew thought about chasing him, but the dark-haired girl demanded his attention.

  “No, not me, you oaf!” she protested when he knelt beside her. “My brother, Raif, he needs assistance. He was fighting as they dragged us from the jail, and one of those bars scored him deeply. They smashed him on the head after to keep him quiet. I can’t… He’s lost a lot of blood, and he hasn’t been conscious since they took us.”

  Rew gestured for the blonde to take his hunting knife to free her companion. He moved to the big youth and saw he was breathing still, but slow and weak. There was a sizable lump on the side of his head where they must have struck him. Rew pressed his fingers against the lump and breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t feel the bone shift beneath the pressure. He thought the boy’s skull was probably intact.

  But as he moved along the youth’s ribcage down to his hip, the ranger found a different situation. The skin had not just been torn but flesh and muscle as well, ripped in ragged tears down to the hipbone by the sharp iron bar of the broken cell door. Only the heat from the iron, apparently hot enough to cauterize some of the wound, had saved the youth. Still, blood soaked half the boy’s clothing, and distressingly, it was no longer pouring from the gaping wound.

  Working quickly, Rew cut the youth free of his bindings, then tore off his own tunic and pressed it against the deepest part of the laceration. He wadded it there and grabbed several lengths of the cut rope, using them to tie his shirt in place, cinching it tight onto the leaking gash. Rew sat back on his haunches, looking at the makeshift bandage. He shook his head. It was ugly. It would help but not for long. Unfortunately, three leagues from Eastwatch, without his pack with him, there wasn’t much he could do except staunch the bleeding. Searching the surrounding woods for herbs to make a poultice at night would take longer than they had. Rew stood, glaring down the road where the axe man had vanished.

  “Should we give him some stitches or something?” questioned the blonde, staring at the rough bandage bound across the boy’s grisly injury. Already, Rew’s shirt was turning bright crimson. “That doesn’t look good.”

  “You have a needle and some thread?” Rew asked her. “Besides, that wound is extensive. Even if we had an entire physician’s kit, I don’t have the skill to patch him up. With my pack, I keep some ointments. We could slow the… It doesn’t matter. If we’re to save his life, we need to move. Are you both able to travel?”

  “W-Will he…” stammered the boy’s sister.

  “Maybe,” said Rew. “The innkeeper, the one you stole from, if we can get him to her alive there’s a chance.”

  “I can run,” said the dark-haired girl, looking at her brother with dismay. “I can—“

  Not waiting for her to finish, Rew rolled the motionless boy over and wrapped his arms beneath the big body. The ranger stood, struggling to lift the twelve-stone, dead weight of the boy onto his shoulder.

  “Come on,” he grunted. “He’s heavier than he looks, and we don’t have much time.”

  Staggering under the weight of the youth, Rew trudged into Eastwatch in the pre-dawn gloom. Birds, just waking, trilled their happy songs, ignoring the tragedy playing out beneath them. Dim glows beckoned as a few early risers stirred their fires, but no one was yet on the street. It was eerily quiet except for Rew’s and the two girls’ heavy breathing. For the last league and a h
alf, Rew hadn’t been able to hear the boy’s.

  “Run ahead,” gasped Rew, forcing his legs to move, thinking of little other than putting one foot in front of the other. Silently, Rew cursed whatever sick turn of fate had sent the younglings to Eastwatch and whatever demented cook had been feeding the giant youth for the last several years. It was as if the lad’s trousers were lined with lead bars. Rew instructed, “Go to the inn. Tell Anne we’re coming.”

  Nodding, the two girls started ahead, barely moving faster than he was. Their steps were sluggish, but he reminded himself they’d been in stuck in a cell following whatever calamity had sent them to Eastwatch. Then they’d been taken captive, and now, they were hiking through the night. The two girls clearly weren’t used to such exertion, but to their credit, neither one had voiced a word of complaint.

  Watching the girls hurry down the street and then climb the steps to the inn, Rew hoped they’d been quick enough. The boy hadn’t stirred since Rew had hefted him onto his shoulder. The boy’s sister had walked beside them, constantly checking on her brother, but aside from confirming the youth still lived, she had little to offer.

  Rew could feel the blood leaking down his bare shoulder, his side, and soaking his trousers. A tremendous amount of blood had drained from the boy even before he’d gotten there. So much blood… Rew had been shocked every time the girl had claimed that her brother was still alive. The ranger had doubted it more than once, but the body was still warm. Somehow, the boy’s heart kept beating, kept fighting.

  The inn, one of the few buildings that was fully lit so early in the morning, shone like a beacon. Lights were on in the common room, and silhouetted in the doorway, Rew saw Anne flanked by the two girls. Her sleeves were rolled up and her hair was bound behind her head. She must have been up all night, waiting on him to return.