The Campaign, part 3

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The sound of the posse grew louder.  Torch light splashed on the walls a couple streets over.  Zanth pierced the darkness with his elven eyes but couldn’t make out how many were coming yet.  There were too many buildings in the way.

“We’ve got nothing to fear,” Dorian growled.  “We were in the right here.”

“That’s never been a problem for us before, right?” Malland scoffed.

Dorian chuckled in response.  He’d been joking.  A Dragonborn, a Tiefling and a Half-Elf, the three friends rarely were given the benefit of the bout, even in their home town.  Now that they’d been away for a year and at least one powerful person didn’t want them around anymore, it was hard to see anyone taking their side in this mess.

Zanthalaso sighed and returned his attention to his friends, “Let’s search these fools for some sort of clue and then get the heck out of here.  I don’t like what I’m hearing.”

Dorian and Malland how learned to trust the half-elf’s hearing long ago.  The three companions quickly stopped and rifled through the pockets of the dead men at their feet.  Standing at nearly the same time they all produced the same results, 5 gold coins.  Malland was the only exception, not only did he have the gold coins, he also had a note.  Catching the light from the moon, he read aloud, “This contract is for the capture, dead or alive, of the Half-Elf known as Zanthalaso, the Dragonborn known as Dorian, and the Tiefling known as Malland.”

“Well, that’s cheery,” Dorian stated flatly.

“Indeed, and now let’s get out of here before we have to find out how many other people in town received the same payment,” Zanth replied.

“There’s a signature here at the bottom,” Malland said, squinting down at the paper in his hands.

“Fine, we’ll look at it later, but can we go?  Whether they’ve been paid or not, I have zero interest in spilling the blood of the people I’ve called neighbors.”

Zanth, not waiting for a reply and knowing his friends would follow, turned on his heel and headed away from the coming posse.  Dorian and Malland exchanged an amused glance.  Malland stashed the contract into a pocket and the two of them followed after their friend.

Dorian whispered, “I’m not sure what he was waiting for anyway.  I was waiting for him to take the lead.”

“Right,” Malland agreed.  “He doesn’t have to get so upset about it.”

Zanth had only gone a short distance before pausing in the shadow of a building for his friends to catch up.  Once the trio were together, Zanth quickly and quietly turned down a side street and began leading them from shadow to shadow until they had reached the outskirts of town.  Just as they were about to cross the open field and head into the forest beyond they heard an angry outburst from behind them.  “They’ve found the bodies,” Zanth confirmed grimly.

Malland pointed to the forest and said, “Lead on.  We’ll follow.”

The half-elf took long, graceful strides into the moonlit field.  He was across and had been swallowed by the darkness of the forest before Dorian and Malland were halfway.  They weren’t worried, though.  Zanth would scout ahead and find the best route and then come back to them and show them where he wanted them to go.  It was how they’d spent the last year and they quickly fell back into the routine. 

After travelling for an hour, sometimes along game trails and sometimes completely across wild country, they reached a part of the forest that was so dense none of the moon’s light filtered through the canopy.  Dorian and Malland stopped short, waiting for their eyes to adjust.  Zanth called quietly to them from a short distance ahead, “I’ve found a good place to rest for the night.”

“I bet it is a tree,” Dorian grumbled.

Malland sighed, “I was so looking forward to my bed.”

the campaign, part 2

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The three friends finished their next round and the round after that.  They said hello to some neighbors they hadn’t seen sense they left.  They made small talk with some others in the bar they weren’t as familiar with.  They ordered a bit of food and polished the course off with a final round of ale.  Mostly, though, they were biding their time.  They expected to be ambushed in some fashion leaving Fireside Inn and they were hoping by stalling the four men who wished to cause trouble would grow frustrated and either stalk off or make a mistake when they did try to spring their trap.

An hour or so before dawn, with the sky not yet showing signs of the sun’s approach, Malland, Zanthalaso, and Dorian said their goodbyes and made their exit.  They acted drunk, staggering and talking boisterously of their recent exploits, egging each other on, but all the while their swords were loose in their scabbards and their eyes darted here and there.  A decent array of stars and a bright moon provided some light but also created an abundance of shadows.  Zanth’s elven-vision gave him a slight advantage but none of three wanted to get caught off-guard.

It was Zanth, though, who gave the warning as he spotted the heat signatures of two of the men hiding in a darkened doorway.  As one, swords were drawn and the three friends created a circle so they wouldn’t be blindsided.  The other two men detached themselves from different doorways and the four advanced on the companions.

“This is a mistake,” Zanth called to them.

“That may be,” their leader replied, an edge to his voice, “but you aren’t wanted here and we’ve been paid to see to it that you leave.”

Dorian said, “There’s a tavern full of people behind us who feel differently, strangers.  It’s far more likely that you aren’t wanted in town.”

One of the other men scoffed, “Just look you.  Bunch of freaks.”

Dorian growled low in his throat again.  Malland closed his eyes long enough to concentrate on casting Darkness.  He wasn’t a magic user, but as part of his condition, part of his curse, he had the ability to cast two spells.  Zanth, trying one last time to not spill any blood in their hometown, raised his sword at the leader and said, “Whoever has paid you, has paid you only to die.  Tell us who it was and we’ll go see them ourselves.  You do not need to do this.”

“Yeah, we do,” was all he said before stepping forward with a long sword clutched in his hands.

Malland cast Darkness and a fog pushed away from his circled friends to envelop their attackers.  There was a call of surprise from within the fog.

“You obviously haven’t been well informed about us,” Zanth called out.

“They aren’t even wearing armor,” Dorian stated quietly so only his friends could hear him.

With a yellow, half of fear and half of battle rage, the leader burst out of the fog swinging his sword.  Dorian easily blocked the strike with his own sword and then turned the block into a strike of his own, slicing through the man’s exposed torso.  He went down with a grunt and did not get back up.

The remaining three came out of the fog more cautiously.  The last one through saw their leader had already fallen, and immediately turned tail and fled back into the fog.  The two who remained exchanged blows with Malland and Zanth.  The far more experienced friends easily out-matching the strangers.  One fell to Malland’s sword and the other fell to Zanth’s.

The fight over, Malland dispersed the fog with another moment of concentration and a wave of his hand.  Zanth and Dorian checked the men they’d fought and came up shaking their heads. All three had died. 

“Such a waste,” Zanth said with a heavy sigh.

The friends were just discussing what they should do next when they heard shouting and the sound of many more people headed their direction.  The one who’d fled had gone and fetched a posse. 

Ten Years Old

Time is a funny thing. I’m pretty sure we can all agree on that. I had no clue what I was getting into when I started this blog…

And here we are. Ten years of the kingdom, of silliness and stories, of seeing where my words could go. I’ve certainly had a blast. I hope you all have as well.

I’ve been trying to stick with themes this year, posting every Wednesday to stay in some sort of routine and have each month be it’s own story. Something like that. As I have nothing for this month I think starting next week we’ll take a stroll down memory lane and revisit some of my favorite posts from the last ten years.

the ranger

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She’d passed the old-timer on her way down river to check on a report of people swimming by the bridge.  He had somehow made it to a large boulder in the middle of the river and was casting lines towards the far bank.  Just from the split second she could see him, she saw his casts were smooth with practiced ease.  Then the sun glinted off the river spray, her eyes darted away and back to the road, which required attention at all times (because of rock falls and wildlife and tourists), and he was gone from view. 

“How in the world did he get out there?”

She made a mental note to check on him on her way back up. The report of people swimming in the more dangerous waters downstream took precedent.  Luckily, whoever it was had been smart enough to get out of the water and move on before she got there, for their sake and her own.  There were no cars matching the descriptions parked nearby and nobody in the water.  She tried her radio to call in an all-clear back to the station but received only static. 

The canyon walls played havoc with radio signals.  There were dead zones all up and down the river, and sometimes spots that worked one day wouldn’t the next.  Jumping back into her truck, she turned it around and headed back towards camp.  She’d make the report in person when she got there. 

As a Ranger, the safety of the visitors to her park was a huge priority.  It wasn’t her first priority as most guests seemed to assume, but it was a big part for sure.  Jumping into the river to save people getting swept through rapids wasn’t actually something she was tasked with.  She would be just as likely to get as injured or worse as the people she was trying to save, but she had some rope and a long pole (which was handy for all sorts of things around the park actually) and she’d do her best if called upon. 

So far, in her nearly ten summers of working the park, she’d never been called upon.  She was thankful for that.  The odds of her being able to save someone who legitimately needed saving were slim to none.  The water was too fast and too cold.  The rocks too slick and too unstable.

The old-timer hadn’t moved very far from where she’d seen him earlier and she pulled her truck into a pullout just beyond and walked back along the road to where he was fishing.  It wasn’t often she saw people of his age out on the river.  When she did, she didn’t often have to worry about them because they usually knew what they were doing.  Still, it didn’t hurt to be friendly and make sure.  Besides, they usually had good stories.  Old-timers almost always did.

She had to yell to be heard over the roaring water, “Catch anything?”

He either hadn’t heard or was ignoring her in the hope that she would go away.  Here she hesitated.  If she scrambled down the bank to river level and he wanted to be ignored she’d be bothering him and wasting her time.  Looking up river, she watched the water tumble and roll.  It growled as it crashed into rocks and screamed as it was sent skyward in beautiful arcs of spray.  The beauty was the problem.  How could something be so beautiful and so dangerous at the same time?

She hadn’t come up with an answer to that in her going on ten years.  She might need at least another ten to figure it out.

Turning back to the fisher, she called again, “Catch anything?”

His head moved just enough for him to glimpse her in his periphery and then shifted back to focusing on the tiny pool he was fishing.  She understood that it was his way of acknowledging her.  She carefully picked her way down to the water and, finding a likely enough rock, she sat and waited for him to finish.  Her guess from her half glimpse before had been correct.  He knew how to fish these waters and if it had been a little later in the day, closer to sunset, she likely would have seen him catch a trout.  As it was though, it was too early in the day for the fish to rise.  She knew he knew that just as surely as she knew he wouldn’t have been safe fishing in the semi-darkness later.  

He cast a few more times, hitting his spots each time, and then reeled in and carefully, slowly, made his way across the rocks back to the bank where she sat.  Each step seemed to take an eternity to her and she busied herself by seeming to be interested in something upstream.  She watched him all the way, though, tensed, ready to spring forward and lend a hand should he wobble too much.  He made it okay, though, and she stood to greet him.

Before she could speak, he was already talking, a broad smile on his face, and not waiting for her to answer any of his questions, which weren’t really questions at all.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?  Haven’t caught anything yet, not yet, but the day is still a bit young, right?  Seems a likely enough spot, though, maybe I’ll try my luck again here in a bit before the light gives out.  Certainly don’t want to be trapped down here in the dark.  But, while the light is still good, you just stop to chat or did you want to see my permit?  Lifetime fisherman, here, though it has been a few years, I’ll admit, since I’ve had the joy of fishing this here river.  Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

With that he turned away from her to gaze up stream as she had been doing moments before.  He seemed so content that she regretted interrupting his time on the river.  “It truly is a beautiful day.  I won’t keep you long just saw you down here by yourself and wanted to check on you.”

“Smart.  Very smart of you,” he replied, a chuckle in his voice.  “I’m not as young as I used to be.  Still, I thought I had at least one more trip in me and here I am, proving it true.”

He didn’t turn to look at her as he answered, his gaze stayed on the canyon walls, the towering pines and the river, the river, the river.

“Glad to hear it.  Have a fun and safe rest of your visit.” 

She turned, her eyes picking the route she would take back up to the road.

“Still, would do me good to rest.  There’s plenty of day left and my legs wouldn’t mind a break for a few minutes.  If you’d stick around, you could maybe help me back to my feet if I sit too long and my legs decide they don’t want to work anymore.”

With that he moved, slowly still, to the rock she’d been sitting and took it for his own.  She found one nearby and waited for him to get settled before asking, “So, you’re having a nice trip?  From the way you talk and the way you fish, I’m pretty sure this isn’t your first time here?”

He laughed.  Then he sighed, glanced at her briefly, and returned his gaze to the roaring waters.  Even then he didn’t answer for a long time, he just smiled. 

She nearly gave up on him replying and was getting ready to ask to another question to try and strike up a conversation when he said, “No, this isn’t my first time here.  My family has been fishing this river since the 40’s.  And, yes, I’m having a nice trip.  More than nice.  It’s exactly what I needed.”

She smiled in response, even though he wasn’t looking at her.  The stories would come now.  They always did.  The moments on the river he remembered best.  The times with his family.  The times by himself.  The beauty of it all.  The river.  The river.  The river.

She’d loved it for nearly ten summers now and she was sure she’d love it for at least ten more.

the old man

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Thinking back, years since his last trip, it was the river that he had loved the most.  He’d told people at various times that it was the smell on the way in or the tall trees or the way the canyon captured the light in the mornings and evenings or watching his kids eyes go wide with wonder the first time they saw the campground or the lazy afternoons reading a book in a hammock or the way the stars winked and whispered through the long nights.  And, while those were things he loved, it was the river that he had loved most of all.  It was the river that made all the stress and headaches of their yearly camping trips worthwhile.

It came crashing down the canyon, ice cold, ferocious and wild.  There were misty waterfalls and hidden fishing holes.  There were wide open stretches for swimming and dangerous rapids.  There were countless memories tucked away along the stretches he knew best, and even more memories held dear from the stories handed down from his elders.  The river.  The river.  The river.

Now he was the elder and he missed it.  He missed it something fierce and his mind was made up to go.

The packing list came together quickly enough.  It took a couple extra trips into the attic to find all his gear.  It was tiring work getting some of the heavier stuff safely down the ladder.  But, worth it as he checked things off and moved closer to going.  Food was bought.  The car was packed.  It all happened slower than it would have in his youth but time was funny and it seemed fast to him.  His days weren’t as full as they used to be.  Wife passed on.  Kids moved out with families of their own.  His days could stretch to unseemly lengths and often did.  So, he did not mind the time it took to get ready.  He didn’t really notice it at all.

His mind was buzzing with the prospect of adventure.  His hands shook with excitement.  Well, they shook most of the time anyway but now they shook more.  Some of the times he had to stop weren’t to rest so much as they were to force himself to calm down.  He was going.  He was going to see the river, to walk its banks, to hear its roar. 

The drive went smoothly.  He had to make an extra stop on the way in.  One more in and out of the car than he used to.  Old age had done a number on his bladder.  But, other than that, he stopped for lunch in the same place the family had always eaten before, surprised to find how little the restaurant had changed over the years.  The little train that went in circles in the rafters was still there chugging along.  The menu seemed the same too.  The food didn’t taste the same but that was true of most things, wasn’t it?  It’s rare for food to taste the same from year to year.  It was good enough, though, and didn’t really matter.  The food wasn’t the reason for the trip.  Then he’d made the unscheduled stop.  Then he’d stopped to fill up the tank before the final climb into the mountains.  It was all so familiar.  He was happy about that.

Then the smell had hit him as he wound his way up the mountain.  That smell.  It was no wonder he’d often told people he loved that smell.  It meant he was nearly there.  He wasn’t just on his way.  He was on the doorstep.

Then the trees changed as he rose from the valley floor.  They grew greener and taller and thicker and then he was among the giants.  They truly were giants, some of the largest trees in the world.  The road carved through the forest as it went up and up and up.  It was no wonder he’d often said he loved the trees.  They were so unlike anything he had in his day to day.  He’d never lived near a forest like this.  It was special, enchanting.  The sun filtering through the pine needles held a certain magic he could not define.

Then the road crested and slipped down into the canyon that held his beloved river.  For a moment he had a glimpse of the sheer magnitude and magnificence of it all.  The steep canyon walls.  The cascading waterfalls.  The untamed wild where the only blemish was the narrow road that took him down to his hearts home.  His hands had started shaking again and he’d used a pull out to rest for a minute.  It wouldn’t do at all to lose control on this road.  It was too narrow.  The canyon too steep.  The river at the bottom too fierce.  That particular ending to his story wasn’t one he was interested in at all.

Then he was driving again and his hands fell into the familiar rhythm of turns, like they’d done this drive a thousand times before.  Maybe they hadn’t done it that many times.  But they’d done it enough to know it.  To really know it.  He easily handled the sharp turns.  He quickly and confidently fell back into the pattern of smoothing out the corners.  The worst of them, the nearly 180 degree left hand hairpin that had often made his tires sing when he was younger, came and went.  And then he was to the sharp right hand turn, where the mountain seemed to lean into the road and he had always wondered how the larger vehicles had managed to get by it without crashing. 

One final drop and he was level with the river.  It rolled and splashed to his left.  It was beautiful.  It was everything he’d remembered.  He lowered his window so he could hear it and the sound filled his car.  A high water year, the rapids were raging, the water swift, the sound deafening.  He’d known it would be, of course.  When he’d made up his mind to come, he had looked to see what the snowpack had been like over winter.

He had considered stopping as he crossed over the familiar bridge, one in a dozen landmarks he’d pass with a widening smile, but he continued on.  The campground was only twenty minutes ahead and his old bladder was telling him to make haste.  He listened to it as he’d learned to over the years.  He left the window down and enjoyed the feel of the air as he wound the final few miles to his camp. 

Today he would set up for the week.  He’d pitch his tent, gather wood, string up a hammock, set up the kitchen, and acclimate as best he could.  Tomorrow he’d put his old fishing pole together and find a likely enough spot to toss a line and be on the river.  He didn’t care if he caught anything.  Being on the river had never been about catching things.  Fishing was just an excuse to be on it.  He couldn’t wait. 

He smiled and nodded.

Tomorrow.  The river.  The river.  The river.