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

by Jasper B. Hammer

  “Are you cooking meat?” asked Ranthos.

  Alrys nodded, “Vulture. It’s not too good, but it’s not the worst.”

  Ranthos gratefully took it and the two of them finished it together very quickly. They packed up camp and began back to the others.

  “I need a way to stay asleep longer,” said Ranthos, “I keep waking up too soon.”

  Alrys raised his eyebrow, “I think Blossom may be able to help you with that.”

  Ranthos asked what it was, and was met with the usual response. ‘Wait and see.’ He’d heard that phrase too many times in the past few days. It was like they knew he wasn’t smart enough to understand everything at once.

  On the bright side, he wouldn’t have to tell them they were right.

  “Have you been drinking enough water?” asked Ranthos, “Has the seed sprouted yet?”

  “I have,” laughed Alrys, “and it has not.”

  Ranthos kept close at Alrys’ heel as they marched. He didn’t look forward at the monotonous hills, instead gazing dully at the hazy blue mountains in the distance to the North.

  Their jagged peaks were barely distinguishable from the sky, and long wispy clouds curled around them, blending with the snowy caps. He wondered if he could see where he stood now from the peak.

  Of course he could. That was only logical.

  Could he see Tatzelton?

  Unlikely, with the tree cover. Perhaps Chickenrock. Though that felt miniscule compared to the distant mountains, he doubted he could make much out from the peak. Perhaps Sortie-on-the-Hill. This was all assuming there were no clouds in the way.

  Clouds in the way.

  Ranthos had never seen the top of a cloud, he’d never been prevented from seeing something on the ground because a cloud was in the way. Or because it was hidden underneath the treetops. He had lived his whole life underneath the treetops, below the clouds.

  One day he would be up there, above—

  “Ranthos!” cried Bell. They were back, and he hadn’t even realized. “Catch!” she shouted, hurling a stone at him. It went wide. Very wide.

  “Bell!” said Ranthos, rushing down to meet her with his heavy pack.

  She veered past him to fetch the rock she threw, and then tackled him to the ground with a hug from behind. “Ouch…” said Bell rolling off his back, the hard iron pieces of armor he carried on his back clattering loose as she fell to the ground. Ranthos moaned underneath her and the pack.

  Vhurgus effortlessly lifted Ranthos to his feet by his heavy pack. He patted Ranthos on the head and marched off with his bag.

  “You were gone for so long!” said Bell, massaging her sore side, “I thought maybe you had died!”

  “Nope. I’m alive,” said Ranthos.

  “Look at this!” said Bell quickly, holding one of Ranthos’ stones in front of her in her hands.

  “That’s my rock—”

  Bell took a deep breath and transmuted it into glass, and then at the next pulse copper, “Ranthos I’m the greatest alchemist of all time.” She turned it to a green stone, then an orange. “Do you see any founts?” she asked, eyebrows raised, “I don’t. I don’t see any.”

  “Bellelar!” shouted Ranthos embracing her excitedly, “I can’t believe it, that’s amazing! I can’t even feel the pulse this far away.”

  “I know you can’t. Because I’m just such a better magician,” she said proudly.

  “Alright,” Ranthos rolled his eyes.

  “Ranthos,” growled Nosgrim, jogging up to meet him, absolutely drenched in sweat.

  “You look like Hell.”

  “Thanks,” said Nosgrim dryly, “Vhurgus has been running me through swordwork.”

  “Swordwork?” asked Ranthos.

  “Did you learn anything out there with Alrys?”

  “A little theromancy—” Ranthos was prepared to explain what that was, but he was interrupted by Bell and Nosgrim’s knowing “Ahhhhh!”

  Of course they already knew. He couldn’t impress them with anything, could he?

  “Ranthos!” called Sarky in a voice he hadn’t heard her use properly in a long while. She stood beside Alrys, who held her freckled shoulders in his hands, a large crooked smile on his face.

  “He wasn’t too cruel to you, was he?” Sarky asked Ranthos with a raised eyebrow.

  Ranthos’ eyes narrowed on him, “He pushed me into a pack of hungry hyenas!”

  Sarky slapped Alrys’ arm, and they laughed about something else. She was looking well—no moss at all.

  Ranthos, Bell, and Nosgrim walked back to the camp, where Blossom and Vhurgus sorted through the packs Alrys and Ranthos had brought back.

  Vhurgus tossed the bag of boots Bell’s way. “Try these on.”

  Bell smelled inside them and winced, “Do I have to?”

  Vhurgus glared.

  “Alriiiiiight fine,” said Bell, sorting through them. “What about stockings? Did you find any stockings out there?”

  “On flockers?”

  “These are flocker boots?” asked Nosgrim.

  “Where else would we find them?”

  “The Drake’s Tongue,” said Nosgrim.

  “Oh… We went there too. There might be some shoes from there.”

  Nosgrim rolled his eyes, before being called over by Vhurgus. The two of them sorted through the packs very methodically. Nosgrim seemed to expedite the process considerably.

  Bell pulled on a pair of small boots with long laces and floppy ankles. “These are a bit large, but they will do.” She stood and looked at Ranthos expectantly.

  He shook his head, and knelt down to tie her shoes. He had to relace them a considerable amount. Blossom tossed her a new yellow dress (Ranthos knew Bell would want it), and she pulled it on over her ratty smock as he finished. When Ranthos stood up again, she twirled in her brand new dress excitedly. It had belonged to Hilde, and had an elaborately sewn hem with little animals, ribbons about the waist, and puffy shoulders. It wasn’t a style common to Tatzelton, which surely only made Bell more excited to have it.

  The only flaw in the dress was the bloody stab wound in the back. They’d wash it out eventually.

  “Did you find a hairbrush?” asked Bell.

  “I didn’t think to look,” said Ranthos.

  “Useless boys,” she said, crossing her arms.

  Blossom shook her head at Ranthos.

  “Did he find a hairbrush?” asked Sarky.

  “Guess,” said Bell, raising an eyebrow.

  “Tsk tsk,” said Sarky to Ranthos. She and Alrys joined the others in unpacking their new supplies.

  Vhurgus tossed Ranthos a new pair of suspenders. They were nice enough—and green, which was Ranthos’ favorite color. How convenient that they had such appropriately colored clothing for both him and Bell.

  “Red pants!” shouted Nosgrim, “And they’re just my size!”

  Him, Bell, and Nosgrim apparently.

  Nosgrim dropped his pants immediately and switched them out. Vhurgus and Alrys laughed, and Bell covered her eyes and blushed.

  Ranthos grinned and tried to move her hands. It wasn’t an attractive sight—he didn’t look, himself, but thought it’d be funny if she had to.

  “Owowow!” yelped Ranthos, and Bell caught his arm in a certain hold she must have learned while he was away.

  She released him once Nosgrim was fully clothed again. “You like that? Vhurgus taught me.”

  “I don’t like it much, no.”

  Bell giggled and skipped away to show off her new dress to the rest of the group. Ranthos followed and entered the chattering group without much idea of who was talking to who, or what about, or if they were talking to him.

  “Oh… Yes,” said Ranthos in response to a question from Sarky, unaware of what the question was.

  “Oh really?” she said.

  Ranthos shrugged and looked away at Nosgrim, who showed him a rock from the area that he had found for him. “It’s small enough to fit in the bag. It’s part of a
leyline fount… Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Thank you, Nossy,” said Ranthos, stashing it away in his satchel.

  “Here,” said Vhurgus, placing a sword in Ranthos’ hands.

  “Oh… Thank you.”

  Sarky ruffled his hair and pulled a twig out of it with a small rip. “Ouch.”

  Ranthos certainly felt overfull of stimuli—like the crowded market at Tatzelton, but everyone was aware of him, looking at him. Talking to him. He began to breathe heavier and heavier, taking a step back from it all.

  They all chattered happily with each other, and Ranthos breathed in their scents slowly. There was Alrys’ hair oil, but stronger than that was the general happiness of everyone gathered together.

  Ranthos focused only on that happy scent and slowly found it matched in himself. Eventually, he opened his eyes and began to filter through the chatter and the laughter.

  Alrys was standing in front of him curiously, “Everything alright, cub?”

  Ranthos nodded.

  “It’s different, isn’t it?”

  Ranthos furrowed his brow.

  “It’s a large conversation, many people all at once.”

  Ranthos was a little embarrassed, and didn’t say anything.

  Alrys clasped his shoulder, “Come, cub. You should give Poter’s belt to Nosgrim.”

  Ranthos nodded, and entered the conversation again, trying his best to respond to everyone and be personable as he searched through the neat piles of things for the sturdy, leather belt they found on Poter.

  “Oh!” said Nosgrim, “That sure is a nice belt,” said Nosgrim upon receiving it.

  “You could uhm wear it.”

  “I don’t know what else I would do with it.”

  Ranthos shook his head, “Me neither.”

  Nosgrim cocked his head, slightly confused, but then his attention was caught by Bell, showing off her new dress.

  “How’s the sword feel?” asked Vhurgus.

  “Heavy,” said Ranthos.

  Vhurgus chuckled, “Wait until you’ve been swinging it for a few hours.”

  Ranthos was not excited for that feeling.

  Sarky threw a shirt at his face. “There. Put that on. Those rags you’re wearing right now still have antler-holes in them.”

  “Oh thank you, Sarky,” said Ranthos, pulling it off his face, while trying to keep hold of his sword and his new suspenders. The new shirt was much nicer and more durable than any shirt Ranthos had even touched. It had only a cut in the side, nothing Bell couldn’t fix. That reminded him of something, “Bell,” said Ranthos, swapping his shirts and suspenders for the new ones. “I need you to patch up my trousers. The patches on the knees are ripping.”

  “See?” Ranthos reached down his pant and poked his finger through the hole. They were always markedly loose on his skeletal figure, so this was hardly a difficult task—though it made the whole group laugh.

  And so passed the remainder of the afternoon. Ranthos, Bell, Nosgrim, Alrys, Sarky, Vhurgus, and Blossom sat together under the sun making each other smile.

  Apparently, while Ranthos and Alrys were gone, Vhurgus had taken Bell and Nosgrim to the scene of the original ambush, where they buried the flockers who attacked them, and gathered their old supplies that they were forced to abandon before.

  Blossom and Sarky enjoyed the peace and quiet of the camp without anyone else to bother them. They missed it ‘more than any of you could imagine.’

  Sarky was a strange anomaly among the rest. Ranthos knew Alrys, Vhurgus, and Blossom well enough, but Sarky was still a mystery to him.

  Ranthos had hardly talked to her at all, but she seemed to be somewhat interested in him. When he was injured, she often checked in with him, to see what she could do to help him. There never was anything that Nosgrim or Bell left for her to do. His every whim was catered to back then—thank the One that was over now.

  When they’d first met, she seemed to have seen something very strange in him, and gave him a quizzical look. Since then, she hadn’t really talked to him.

  And strangest of all, she took that sword in the head for him. She rushed immediately to his aid in the ambush. Alrys didn’t. Neither did Vhurgus. There was something more to her he didn’t understand.

  After an awkward pause in the conversation that Ranthos was not mentally present for, Vhurgus decided to send the three youngsters on a run. Nosgrim protested, “I have been running since dawn.”

  “You also did swordwork,” said Vhurgus, “Now git!”

  They all three moaned and started running. Vhurgus then took them through a series of other exercises, squats, push ups, something where they had to sit up without their hands. It was all terrible.

  In the evening, Bell and Blossom prepared dinner, roasted holehogs with a sprinkling of some spice Ranthos forgot the name of. Alrys borrowed Ranthos’ bow to catch the hogs, and returned with five in a matter of an hour. He was perhaps the greatest tracker Ranthos had ever seen.

  By dark, Bell and Nosgrim were both practicing transmuting rocks through the different materials: stone, glass, copper, tin, lead.

  Ranthos was given a bucket of mud and told to make drinking water.

  Bell was the fastest learner, cycling her stone through the materials with ease, though she struggled with tin.

  Tin was Nosgrim’s easiest material. He could turn anything to tin. Ranthos supposed there was a reason for that, but didn’t care enough to know it. He wasn’t a transmuter.

  Bell explained it as such, “Most folk can only know one pursuit of alchemy.”

  “Pursuit?” asked Ranthos, trying to feel the pulse so far from the stone.

  “There are three alchemical pursuits, or spells.” said Nosgrim. They both seemed to be repeating the same lecture from Vhurgus.

  “Theromancy!” said Ranthos, trying to sound as smart as they.

  “Transmutation,” said Bell, twirling her lump of copper into lead theatrically.

  “And alkahestics,” said Nosgrim.

  “What’s that?” asked Ranthos.

  “That’s Sarky’s magic,” said Nosgrim. “She can make a crystal that can melt anything.”

  “I saw her melt the helmet of a flocker in the ambush,” said Ranthos.

  “Worm’s Heart could do it too. He melted Sarky’s sword when he attacked me,” said Bell.

  “How come you’re both transmuters?” asked Ranthos, “Wouldn’t it make more sense if Nosgrim was an alkahestic?”

  “Why would that make more sense?” asked Nosgrim.

  “You know,” Ranthos tried to explain, “Because three of us, three pursuits…” they didn’t seem convinced, “Nevermind.”

  “Bell and I both share the same traits to make us good transmuters,” boasted Nosgrim, “Like our cleverness, and our wisdom.”

  “That’s right,” said Bell with her chin in the air, “You don’t have those traits.”

  “Well…” Ranthos shook his head, “I can drink this mud.”

  “No,” said Nosgrim, “You can purify the mud, and then any of us can—”

  “Regardless!” shouted Ranthos. “You two don’t have the traits I do.”

  “Thank the One,” said Nosgrim.

  Bell chortled in a real ugly way.

  Ranthos splashed some mud onto Nosgrim’s face, interrupting his tin transformation.

  Bell laughed again. “You two are too much,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes.

  Ranthos and Nosgrim scowled at each other and decided to call it even. Vhurgus walked by to check in on them, “How’s progress?”

  “Wonderful!” said Bell excitedly.

  “Less so,” said Ranthos, staring hopelessly into his bucket.

  “You tell me,” said Nosgrim proudly, turning his tin lump into tin.

  Vhurgus shook his head, gravely disappointed, before turning to Bell, “Well done, Miss Bellelar. We’re moving out in the morning.”

  “To where?” asked Nosgrim.

  “To rendezvous with the
rest of the caravan,” said Vhurgus, “Due to… Recent developments in the little town of Sortie-on-the-Hill, we are forced to abandon the proper hunt of these sheep. There aren’t many left anyway—I would imagine.”

  “After we killed sixty of them,” said Bell.

  “That’s very right,” smiled Vhurgus, “Pack up tonight, and make sure that Bell doesn’t have to do too much work.”

  Ranthos and Nosgrim’s jaws dropped as he walked away.

  Bell sat much too contently after that.

  “This is blatant favoritism,” said Nosgrim.

  “So?” replied Bell. “We killed sixty sheep—”

  Ranthos interrupted her, “You didn’t kill sixty—”

  “Might as well have.”

  Ranthos and Nosgrim couldn’t believe it, but still packed Bell a bag for the morning, taking most of her heavy supplies and splitting it between their own. Nosgrim seemed to take a similar measure of responsibility for Bell as Ranthos did. It caught Ranthos by surprise, he had always been the only one who gave two scuts about her, and now here was Nosgrim, doing the same.

  Bell was their little sister.

  When all was packed and ready, Bell approached Ranthos and Nosgrim, who laid on their bedrolls and stared up at the sky, arguing over what star was part of what constellation. Bell took her place in their small circle of mats, and offered both the boys a handful of berries each, wrapped in a little leaf.

  “Where’d you get these?” asked Ranthos.

  “Blossom grew them for me,” said Bell, “I asked her if she had any seeds that I could feed you two with.”

  “What are these?” asked Nosgrim.

  “Branberries!” said Bell, “They’re from Bzo.” Remy crawled onto her belly and stretched his limbs, digging his claws into her stomach. “Ouch! Remy!”

  “Where?” asked Ranthos.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Bell, placing Remy back down gently and stroking his back, “They make you feel warm when it's cool, or cool when it's warm.”

  Ranthos and Nosgrim both ate their berries. They didn’t exactly do what she said they would, but certainly felt warmer on their tongue than they expected.

  “It’s only a little cold out,” said Bell, “So they’re only a little warm.” She yawned loudly, stretching her arms out into Ranthos’ and Nosgrim’s faces. Ranthos shoved it aside, but Nosgrim just flinched and tried to pretend it wasn’t there. “Well, boys,” said Bell after her yawn, “We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow! I need my beauty sleep”