by AC Cobble
Will Longaxe burst out of the shroud of fog with his axe raised above his head and took a mighty swing at the creature. Ben blinked in disbelief as the demon darted to the side and the axe whistled by catching nothing but cold air. Will stumbled off balance and the demon, which came barely waist high, surged forward and slashed across Will’s stomach sending a shower of gore slapping onto the wet ground.
Suddenly, an arrow sprouted on the thing’s back, right between it’s two tiny wings. It bellowed in rage and turned towards the new assailant. Ben saw Serrot standing on the far bank knock another arrow and take aim. Ben knew he had little time before the demon finished with Arthur and turned back on him. His quarterstaff was useless against the monster. He tossed the staff, ran to Brandon’s side and started dragging him back towards the stream and the rest of the men.
He could see Alistair Pinewood and the others standing wide eyed and stunned by the creek bank.
“Get back, get back! It won’t cross the water!” Ben shouted
Ben had a tight grip on Brandon’s jerkin and dragged his across the wet, bumpy ground in a stumbling half run. He couldn’t spare a glance behind him but knew the demon was coming because Serrot and the other archers were frantically launching arrows behind him and screaming for him to hurry.
Ahead of him, the rest of the terrified men drug a frozen in shock Alistair through the water. None of them stayed behind to help protect Ben’s retreat.
Ben knew he could not hope to pull Brandon through the rushing torrent and maintain his balance. If he tried crossing the shallow fjord with Brandon, he’d likely get them both killed if the demon pursued. In his panicked rush he saw the deep pool of water below the shallows and prayed that everything he heard in the stories was true.
Serrot winged another arrow a hand past Ben’s shoulder and he knew he had only seconds left. With all of his strength, he slung Brandon around in front of him and launched both of them head first off the creek bank into the water. The icy chill blasted the air out of his lungs as he plunged beneath the surface. He lost his grip on Brandon’s flailing body and pushed off the rocky creek bottom with both feet. He came up coughing and glanced at the far bank. Serrot and the other archers were still rapidly firing off arrows but the look of intense terror was gone from their faces. He was too afraid to look over his shoulder and see where the demon was.
Ben felt Brandon thrashing around under the water by his feet and pulled him to the surface. They started awkwardly swimming towards the safety of the far bank, Ben half pulling Brandon and both of them half drowning.
They’d been washed several hundred yards downstream by the time they made it to the other side and most of the men ran to meet them. Several strong hands reached down and dragged them from the water.
Ben lay on his stomach hacking up what felt like half the Callach River while the men gathered around Brandon. Through their legs Ben could see Edward Crust, Farview’s resident baker and doctor, kneeling beside Brandon and wrapping a makeshift tourniquet around his ruined leg.
Crust glanced up at Alistair, “I think he’ll make it boss. It will be awhile before he walks again, if he ever does, but he’ll make it.”
Ben’s head sunk down on the damp carpet of pine needles that covered the floor of the forest and breathed a sigh of relief. His heart was still hammering inside his ribcage but he would live, and he’d saved Brandon’s life.
Two weeks after the attack, the entire town was still on edge. In a community the size of Farview the loss of two people was felt by the entire town. And despite Ben’s heroic efforts, everyone was worried that there would be a third casualty. Brandon Pinewood survived the brutal gashes the demon left on his leg but a few days after the attack he came down with a fever that Edward Crust did not have the skill to cure.
If it wasn’t for the demon still roaming the forest, Brandon’s injury and Alistair Pinewood’s black grief would have been the talk of the town.
When the battered group returned there was an emergency Town Council meeting and Alistair demanded a new hunting party form to go avenge his son’s injury. Cooler heads prevailed though and Alistair instead offered to personally finance a contract with a Hunter. Since that meeting, he had barricaded himself in his estate and refused to speak with anyone other than his daughter Meghan and Edward Crust. The rumor was that he spent each day by Brandon’s bedside in an alcohol fueled haze – slowly working his way through his prodigious cellar.
Despite the drama with the Pinewoods though, news and speculation about the demon was all that anyone was talking about.
After the initial attack, Serrot and the other archers peppered the creature with a quiver full of arrows but it disappeared back into the fog dragging the bodies of Arthur and William Longaxe with it. They knew the demon still lived because farmers continued to wake up to dead livestock. The farmers on the outskirts of town began keeping their animals in at night or moving them to farms south of town where attacks had been less frequent. Just two nights past though, the creature smashed in Nathan Rockfield’s barn door and slaughtered every one of his cows. Since then, everyone slept behind barricaded doors. No one was venturing out after twilight and even during the day people were moving about in groups and keeping their weapons nearby.
The story tellers had gone silent at the Buckhorn Tavern. They all knew what came next. As the demon continued to kill, it would grow in power and eventually the size of the town would no longer be a deterrent. At that time, it would kill or be killed and Ben was not sure how the town would survive. Even two weeks ago, the demon had been faster and stronger than any of them expected. It survived an attack on 60 men and left only injury and death in it’s wake.
After the emergency Town Council meeting, Serrot and another man were sent at first light to Murdoch’s Waystation to find a Hunter. They returned four days later with news that there was no one at the Waystation willing or able to take the contract. They left a plea with Murdoch himself to look for a suitable person and offered ten gold coins to anyone who could slay the demon.
While there was no one currently at Murdoch’s to take the contract, the Town Council had hope that someone would take it soon. Murdoch’s Waystation was not really a town so to speak and had few permanent residents. It sat at the intersection of the Callach River, the Fabrizo Road and the Kingdom Highway. Anyone travelling in this part of the continent of Alcott was likely to stop at Murdoch’s.
As long as anyone could remember there had been a Waystation there. Murdoch was just the most recent proprietor. Over the centuries it had turned from a small roadside inn into a bustling mercantile hub for traders who did not want to travel all the way to the coast at Fabrizo or up into the small mountain towns like Farview.
It was common for merchant trains to spend a few nights at the Waystation until they could work out a deal with another merchant who came from the other direction. That way, both parties saved a great deal of travel which directly padded their bottom line. It was also common for all manner of individuals and adventurers to stop by for supplies, news or work. In this part of the world, Murdoch’s was the central meeting point and Farview’s best hope for finding a skilled Hunter.
It was ten days since Serrot returned from Murdoch’s with the bad news and even with the impending threat of a demon attack, life moved on in Farview. Food had to be put on the tables, children had to be praised or scolded and shops had to be tended.
Ben was back to work following a few days of exhilarating fear and celebration. After word spread of his part in fending off the demon and saving Brandon Pinewood’s life, he spent several happy nights at the Buckhorn Tavern getting slapped on the back and accepting pints of lager in exchange for just one more description of what the demon looked like up close, how fast it moved or how he knew to dive into the water.
Of course, once he found out about Brandon’s fever, the joy leeched out of his celebration. Even though they were never tight like real brothers, Brandon was the closest thing he had to one an
d it felt wrong to celebrate while his life was hanging by a thread. Privately though, Ben was still intoxicated by the thrilling mix of fear and excitement that had coursed through his body during the attack. To his friends he adamantly proclaimed that he was done with adventures. However, in his heart, he felt like he had discovered something new about himself.
Ben shook his head to clear it of thoughts about the demon and pulled another bag of hops out of the storage cellar and tossed it next to a large kettle. He knew he should focus on his work and helping out however he could in town, but he couldn’t stop remembering how he felt during the attack.
The liquid in the kettle, called wort, was coming to a roiling, healthy boil. Ben expertly gauged the timing before dumping the bag of hops into the mix. Soon, Ben would take the kettle off the fire and cool it in the cellar. By evening, the cooled liquid would be poured into one of his copper fermenting tanks along with several other kettles worth of wort where it would sit for about a week. After the week was up, the tanks would be full of a strong, dark ale.
In normal times, Ben brewed about four barrels a week for the Buckhorn Tavern and the few residents of Farview who preferred to drink their ale at home. This week, Ben was filling up every one of the copper tanks and wishing he had more. Sales at the Buckhorn had doubled since the demon attack and people who had never asked for a barrel of beer before wanted one now. He supposed that it was only natural. People had always turned to a pint of ale to spread some cheer or get through a difficult time.
A year before, shortly after his eighteenth birthday, Ben had taken over the brewery. The previous brewer passed away without an heir and like many of the businesses in Farview, he owed money to Alistair Pinewood.
After giving Ben a little seed money for supplies, Alistair let him run the brewery in exchange for half of the profit. Ben loved the work and because of his frugal lifestyle he was able to save a little money every week. He had competing visions of paying off Alistair and either owning the brewery or purchasing back his father’s old timberland. He was torn though. He didn’t want to give up on his heritage but when he was honest with himself, the prospect of spending the rest of his life chopping down trees had no allure.
Still, working in the brewery was bittersweet. It was located in the yard behind Farview’s timber mill. The same mill which Ben’s father had taken a loan to build and the one, along with their timberland, that Alistair took as collateral on the unpaid loans when Ben’s father passed.
Now, Ben lived in a small apartment on the second floor of the mill and crossed the yard every morning to the little shed that housed the brewery. It wasn’t a bad life though and he couldn’t complain.
Many people in the town blamed Alistair for their troubles and because of that Alistair led a secluded life. After getting to know him, Ben didn’t blame Alistair. It was unfortunate when it happened, but many of the people who lost businesses would not have had money to start them if it wasn’t for Alistair’s loans.
He sighed and got back to work. He was brewing as quickly as he could but he had to be patient and wait for the brew to mature. Then he would transfer it to the empty barrels he stacked up outside the brewery and deliver the final product to his customers.
Ben splashed his face with water from a trough outside of the timber mill and headed towards his second floor room. Climbing the steps to his door, he saw Serrot jogging towards him across the timber yard.
Before he came to a stop Serrot breathlessly blurted, “Ben, have you heard? I thought I’d see you down at the Buckhorn. Where have you been all afternoon?”
“Heard what? I’ve been working all day. I’ve got more orders than I can possibly fill right now. What’s going on?”
“The Hunters, they finally made it and they’ve just set off to find the demon.”
Ben could only gape in disbelief. Aside from the demon itself, this was the most exciting thing that had happened in Farview in years and he was missing it! Then it dawned on him. “Wait, he’s heading into the forest now!?”
It was early evening and already the shadows were growing longer in the timber yard. Out in the forest under the trees it would be nearly dark already. Hunting a demon in the dark was pure madness. “Is he crazy? It’s suicide going out there this late! This fool is going to get himself killed and we’re going to have to find another Hunter.”
Serrot grinned and said, “it’s not just one, there were two of them that went. One of them is a woman and the other is a Blademaster! They seemed pretty confident when they left. Barely took the time to drop the girls off at the Tavern.”
“Girls, what girls? And a Blademaster!” Ben’s head was spinning. Blademasters were stuff of legend and he was only half sure it was even a real thing. He was trying to process all of it but Serrot was already going on again, skipping from when the group arrived to what the girls were eating at the Tavern to the woman Hunter.
“Wait, wait. Tell me from the beginning. And don’t leave anything out!”
“Ok, I don’t know everything, but this is what I pieced together from what I saw and the talk at the Tavern. A few hours ago, five strangers walked right into the middle of town. There were two men, a woman and two girls. They walked up to the Buckhorn Tavern and asked Blevin Beerman if there was still a demon problem.”
Serrot continued breathlessly, “of course that sent everyone scrambling and it wasn’t but a few minutes before Alistair turned up and plunked ten gold coins on the table in front of them. The Blademaster and the woman said that they accepted the contract. They asked if the girls could stay in the Tavern then they had Alistair walk them to the edge of the forest and point them towards where the last attack happened. The two girls and the other man are at the Tavern now. The man doesn’t say much, but the two girls are dressed like high born ladies.”
“Well what are we waiting for, let’s go see them!”
At the Buckhorn Tavern they found they were not the only residents of Farview interested in these strangers. It seemed like the entire town was packed into the Tavern or milling around outside of it. Ben and Serrot pushed their way into the low building and weaved through the crowd trying to get closer to see the strangers. They were still enjoying a little respect and celebrity for their role in the fight with the demon so the crowd grudgingly parted until they were almost on top of the table where the strangers sat with Alistair and Blevin.
Ben had to agree with Serrot, the two girls were indeed dressed like fine ladies. Their clothing was simple but the quality far surpassed anything that Ben had ever seen. They wore dark trousers and dark vests over white blouses. Their hair was swept back in loose pony tails and it took a second for Ben to realize that while they were dressed nearly identical, they looked very different. One was fair haired and had a scattering of freckles while the other’s hair was a dark brown, nearly black, with a pale complexion and rose colored cheeks and lips. Both girls were stunningly beautiful.
They were nothing like the fine ladies in stories, always dressed in elegant dresses with reams of sparkling jewelry, but there was no doubt in Ben’s mind that these girls came from high bloodlines.
Ben was so enraptured with the two girls that he hardly noticed the man with them. When he did notice him, he was surprised. Serrot said two members of the group who were Hunters and one Hunter was a woman. Ben had assumed that the second man must be some sort of assistant. But this man looked deadly and disreputable. He could have stepped out of one of the grittier stories except instead of playing the hero he looked like the bandit. He was nothing like what Ben would expect to be accompanying two Ladies.
The man had shoulder length unkempt dark hair that he brushed back from his face with one hand. With his other hand he held a half empty pint. Judging by the empty pitcher in front of him, it was not his first. Next to the pitcher on the table was a wide leather belt with two heavy long knives resting in battered sheaths. Behind him leaned a longsword with a worn wire-wrapped pommel. Ben was no expert, but from what he could tell
these weapons had seen extensive use. The man wore a light leather and chainmail jerkin as comfortably as if he was born in it. Ben could see no badges of rank or sigils proclaiming an allegiance.
As Ben was studying the man, he started when he realized the man was returning the look. He took a step back under the man’s direct stare and glanced to his side to make sure Serrot was still with him. This was not the kind of man that you wanted to meet alone.
Blevin suddenly noticed Ben as well and effusively called out, “Ben my boy! Come, sit down! These kind folks were just complimenting you on your wonderful ale.”
The two girls turned to Ben and smiled. His knees went weak. He had never met even one girl this beautiful and graceful, much less two at the same time. The girls in Farview were like candles next these bonfires. Serrot had to give him a little push from behind to prompt him to move forward and take the remaining seat at the table. He was in between the man and Alistair and directly across from the two girls.
“I normally prefer wine but this really is a wonderful ale,” the dark haired girl stated. “Rhys tells me it is one of the best he’s had in this part of the continent. And Rhys is a man who knows his ales.”
Ben smiled at the girl and nodded his head at the man who must be Rhys. “Thank you sir. I appreciate the compliment.”
The man took a long pull on his pint and rumbled, “Ben. Would that be Benjamin Ashwood? The same one who fought off the demon and dragged this man’s son to safety?” He looked at Alistair who had his head bowed ignoring the conversation around him.
“Um, yes sir, my name is Benjamin Ashwood. I don’t know if you could say that I fought off the demon. I just acted on instinct and tried to get Brandon and I out of there.”
Both girls were now beaming at Ben and he felt a flush coming on.
“Getting away is one thing. Getting away dragging an injured man is worthy of respect. Fights a demon and brews this good an ale. I wouldn’t have thought to find it in a town like this. Barkeep, bring us another pitcher, this man drinks on me tonight.” Rhys leaned forward and stretched out his hand. Ben took it and winced as Rhys gave a crushing squeeze and shake. “I assume you do enjoy your own product,” Rhys added with a smirk.