The Blackguards - The Huntress

The Blackguards

The Huntress

                “We have been trekking through this thrice-damned forest for two days and still we have not found your mysterious ranger, Wells.  How much more must my feet suffer before you will admit that this is a fool’s errand?”  Talbot took a lazy swipe at a fern that had the misfortune of being in his path, his stave snapping a handful of stems.

                “It’s not a fool’s errand and you complain too much, Marcus.  You’ve gotten soft in your age!” said Wells, grinning.  “Was a time you’d enjoy this sort of a jaunt.”

                “In those days,” said Talbot, his tone indignant, “I would at least have hopes of catching some fair maiden out collecting berries.”

                “Well, the lady we seek is by all accounts no maiden, and if she were collecting berries it would probably be so she could distil poison from them.  I believe she is at least fair of skin.”

                “I suppose I’ll have to settle for that,” replied the cleric, sighing.  “Why do we need her, anyway?”

                “There are three main ways of getting to Orthond, my dear friend.  By boat, by road, or by traversing the woods.  Unfortunately for us, Orthond has very good border controls, and they are excellent at documenting official visitors to their realm…”

                “Meaning we need to be unofficial visitors.”  He sighed again, and Wells nodded in confirmation.  “Arin save me, we’re going to spend weeks trekking through the bloody forests just so we can sneak in, aren’t we?”  He could tell from his companion’s grin that he had guessed correctly.  “Bugger and damnation,” muttered the priest, wearily.

                “Sounds like an accurate summary of your li-,” he paused and went very still.

                “Wh-?” started Talbot, before being shushed by his friend.  Silencing and stilling himself, his eyeballs swivelled madly as he tried to spot anything out of place.  Beside him, Wells nervously cleared his throat.

                “I um, I suppose it’s too much to hope any of you can speak but I presume you can understand what I’m saying, or at least that someone who is listening in can understand.”  There was silence in the forest, and Talbot fancied he saw a low, dark shape hidden in the undergrowth ahead of him.  “We’re looking for Keturah Romé,” continued Wells.  “We have need of her considerable skills,” he added, when only silence greeted his previous statement.  “We can also offer assurance that she will be extremely well paid for her services, and not just in money.”  A shadow moved, and Talbot fought the urge to void his bowels.  “I also have a royal pardon, signed by the royal fat shit himself.”  Added Wells, hoping that this last would be enough to catch Romé’s interest, even if the rest had not.

                “I’m listening,” said a low female voice, far, far too close behind Wells for his liking.  Beside him, he heard a squeak of gas escape from the nervous priest’s backside.

                “Ah, Keturah Romé, I presume?  Any chance that my friend and I could stand up properly without being ripped to shreds?”

                “I suppose,” came the reply, after an excruciatingly long pause.  Wells nodded in relief and straightened himself up, while Talbot dropped down to his knees to offer up a prayer of thanks to anyone who was listening.  When Wells turned around to face the ranger, he found himself rather surprised.  He knew of Romé only by reputation, and from the report that Bosanquet had passed to him.

Like many rangers, she preferred life out in the wilds to a civilized bed, but unlike most she had come to completely shun human contact.  As far as Wells knew, he was the first actual person to speak directly to her in several years.  He had been expecting a mud-covered hermit, ungroomed and unkempt, looking like they had not only slept in a hedgerow but had also brought most of the hedge with them.  What he saw before him was nothing like that mental image, however.  Keturah Romé was tall, slender, and with delicately defined features like a porcelain doll.  Her cheekbones and eyes awoke in Wells darkened soul a sense of poetry he probably never knew he’d possessed, and for the first time in his adult life he found himself completely at a loss for anything sensible to say.

                “Shut your mouth,” snapped the ranger, interrupting the choir of angels singing in Wells’ head, “Will attract flies.”

                “Sorry, I… I uh… Sorry,” managed Wells.  By his side, Talbot gave his friend a quizzical look.

                “My, oh my, the great Wells de Hanivel at a loss for words.  I never thought I would live to see the day.”  Turning to face the ranger, he offered his most winning smile as he delicately rubbed one of the golden rings on his fingers.  “I am Marcus Talbot, Almsman of…,” he hesitated; he had not studied Bosanquet’s report as thoroughly as Wells, but he had at least skimmed through it, “that is to say, devotee of Chailanri,” he admitted, seeing no reason to keep up the Arin façade.  “And this is my dear friend, Wells de Hanivel, a smuggler of some renown.  You must be Keturah Romé, the ranger of the wilds.  I am delighted to see that you are even more beautiful than the report suggested!”  He held his smile, even as Keturah glared at him in forbidding silence.

                “Friend talks a lot, Wells,” she said to the smuggler.  Wells smirked; his delight at seeing Talbot’s charm fall completely flat helped him to regain his own composure.

                “Part of why he’s joining me on this little jaunt.  Sometimes a sharp tongue is more useful than a sharp dagger.”  Keturah grunted in response, suggesting that she felt otherwise.

                “Other friend not talk so much.  Like her better.”  Wells and Talbot both turned to look in the direction the ranger nodded.  After some moments squinting, de Hanivel spotted Talija lurking in the shadows of a split tree.  He had known she was following them, of course, but he’d lost track of where she was almost as soon as they’d entered the woods.

                “Of course, it’s always good to have a dagger as an option,” said Wells, letting out a small laugh.  When he next looked at the tree the assassin had been in the shade of, she was gone.  He was not surprised.  “Anyway, that you have decided to grace us with a face-to-face suggests you are at least interested in hearing my proposition.  Am I correct?”  Keturah nodded curtly, and Wells found himself fervently hoping that the next and final person on their list would turn out to be a little friendlier than either Talija or the ranger.  If he was stuck with just Talbot for conversation for the duration of their little errand, he might end up killing him.

                “We’re heading to Orthond, and we need to get across the border without being noticed.  Our employer suggested you would be the perfect person for this task.”  The ranger said nothing, so Wells continued, “Once in Orthond, your talents would continue to come in handy; I understand that you’re a very capable tracker, hunter, and marksman as well as a forest guide.”  Keturah nodded again.  Wells was surprised to have actually found someone less talkative than Bosanquet’s pet assassin, though Keturah was at least better looking.  Quite a lot better looking, really.  Her almost total lack of discernible personality aside, Talija was so plain that even Talbot had professed her to be not worth fucking.  Although he may have just been trying to cover for his nervousness around her.  “Would it help if I barked or so-,” Wells blinked as a blade appeared in the ranger’s hand, “Okay, okay, bad joke, I apologise,” he added hurriedly.

                “Payment?” asked Keturah, slipping the dagger back into a sheath hidden under her thick cloak.

                “Our employer’s advisor suggests you have no interest in physical currency…,” he left the statement hanging in the air, then nodded when it seemed Keturah was not about to correct him, “but that you might be interested in not only a pardon for all the crimes-, for all the alleged crimes you’ve committed,” he corrected himself as the ranger’s eyes narrowed, “but also to be named official Warden for these forests.”  Keturah blinked, and her head tilted quizzically to one side.  “That is to say you would have full reign over these forests, officially, and be subject only to the King’s own word.  Which he would, of course, very decently ensure you never heard, on the understanding that you, ah, how can I put this?  Play nicely whenever you’re in a settlement.  You would also be free to deal as you see fit with any poachers in these lands.”

                “Already do,” replied Keturah.

                “Yes, well… now you’d be able to do it legally and officially.”  The ranger shrugged indifferently.  “You’re a hard woman to please, Keturah.”

                “That’s what the report said,” quipped Talbot with a smirk, which he regretted almost immediately as he came under the ranger’s dagger-like glare.  “Um, I meant that it said you had little interest in human, ah, currencies and customs.”  The glare abated, and Talbot let out a small sigh of relief.

                “You’ll get to go to Orthond and probably kill a lot of people, as well as meet plenty of new forest creatures,” said Wells, somewhat exasperated.  He hated trying to deal with hermits – they so rarely had the decency to be as greedy as regular people.

                “Think about it,” said Keturah at last.  “Answer at sunset.”  With that, she turned and left the pair where they stood, not saying another word.

                “Um, great!  Well, we ah… we’ll just make camp here and wait then, yes?”

                “But perhaps let’s not light a fire?”  Suggested Talbot, as Keturah moved out of sight amongst the trees.  Wells looked around – he could see no sign of the creatures, which he fervently hoped were wolves, that had been lurking in the undergrowth.

                “Good idea, Marcus.”  He looked up, trying to gauge what little he could see of the sky beyond the tree canopy.  “Should only be an hour or two at most.”

                “Splendid.  So, am I to assume that I am the only member of our little party who’ll be contributing anything by way of charm and warmth or do you have someone else with social skills lined up next?”

                “A necromancer,” replied Wells.  Talbot rolled his eyes and sighed.

                “Lovely.  A cut-throat, a beast-fucker, and next a corpse-lover.  Why, oh why did I agree to this, Wells?”

                “Because you crave adventure and excitement, even if you won’t admit it to yourself.”  The priest regarded him in stony silence.  “That and you’re excited by the prospect of violating a few Orthond women.”

                “Ah, now that sounds more likely a motive.”

                “Anyway, Greslet is by all accounts a very pleasant old man who wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

                “You said he was a necromancer…,”

                “I said he wouldn’t hurt a fly.  I never said he wouldn’t defile its corpse and use it for ungodly purposes.”

                “Wonderful,” muttered Talbot as he sat himself down on a fallen log.