CheapLit: Free ebook sample of "Demon Hunter: Saga" by Cynthia Vespia

“I’d been living a bleak life with a blackened soul tormenting a troubled mind. I cursed the Gods daily because of my fate, longing for someone or something to silence the cry of my restless heart. Often in life people cross our paths to help us on our journey. It was a hunter of demons who would answer my plea....”

Chapter One

Life Lessons

A hard swallow gulping down my throat is about as much noise as I could make at the moment, and even that proved too disturbing to my ears. The still of the morning air had been marred by the presence of another but the distinctive snap of dry twigs under weighted feet told me nail-down boots or sandals were coming in my direction. I dared not give him any advantage.

Life had always been a strange dichotomy of choice – peril or pleasure? I’d known the choices well before setting out into the depths of Muir Woods. These kinds of thoughts were an ingrained part of my being. Light and dark, good and evil, Heaven and Hell, I’d always merged both sides as one. So, in my mind, peril was my pleasure.

Squatting on my haunches, knee-deep in the flat of a blackberry bush, I’d come to realize an important fact: I hunted danger – anything making me feel alive. So, while my tense body gave rise to slick palms and a racing heart, I secretly embraced it. I longed for danger to face me and stare me down with its cold inkling of death.

I had reached my 16^th year. I already embodied a lifetime’s worth of adventure and excitement. Though the merits of those lives largely belonged to other men, recited through scriptures and barroom tales, I nonetheless soaked up every word and carried it as part of my own identity. So even if on the outside the world saw Costa Calabrese as a mere boy, I held within me the furtive knowledge of a man double my years.

Staying low, I crept through the thick of the bush, with my lucky sling in one hand, a good size stone in the other. I didn’t chamber the stone in the stirrup band until making certain where the faceless intruder would come from.

His clumsy footwork gave him away immediately as being dead North from me. I knocked the stone and drew back on the band. My arms were steady and I dimmed one eye before letting the stone fly on its own. It whizzed and whistled through the thicket in front of me and I waited until I heard the satisfying hollow “plink” as it found its mark. My satisfaction did not arrive. Instead, a mess of activity came from my direct right and before I knew what happened I hit the soft earth with my shoulder.

The fall momentarily knocked the wind out of me. My recovery was quick but before I could scramble to my feet my assailant mounted me at the waist and pinned my arms to the ground by both wrists.

I struggled and twitched under the weight. As I heard laughter it prompted more struggle until I came to recognize the nasal-filled whine of my close friend Tuck Goodall.

“Settle down, Costa. You’re turning all red in the face.”

“Then by the Gods get your fat arse off me!” I demanded.

As soon as Tuck moved I hurried to my feet, dusted the soil from my tunic, and then did my best to insist the moment hadn’t fazed me.

“Nice tackle, Goodall. I wonder if you’d be able to do it again if my back wasn’t to you.”

“Of course I could.” Tuck insisted on showcasing his full girth with a cinch of his belt. He shared my age but his stature was such, stalky and round in the belly, that he’d been mistaken for his own father many times over. Unfortunately, his mind still held wit only half a step up from a child.

Sometimes I wondered why I continued to remain as his companion, except that no others in the town of Gryphant held my interest – or rather I theirs. So as outcasts Tuck and I traveled together making daily jaunts into Muir Woods to flush out our own brand of trouble. Still, his jovial taunting grew tiresome and drew a red hue to my cheeks time and time again.

“Half the fun is surprising you,” Tuck continued, his round cheeks lighting up in his excitement as he mocked me with his words. “Some deadly tracker you are.”

He knew just what to say to entice me. I rounded my fists and moved forward causing his full retreat and surrender. For all his size and status Tuck was a gentle soul. Watching as he knocked both elbows up over his head and turned his back to me, I breathed a heavy sigh into the morning air and allowed him his small victory.

“Alright,” I told him. “You had me, but it won’t happen again.”

The words proved difficult to say. Competitive by nature, I hated giving an inch. To me it showcased weakness. Early on in life I learned weakness would not be acceptable to indulge, in any manner.

Still, as Tuck uncovered his head and flashed a warm smile at me I couldn’t help but return the favor. His smiles were infectious and reminded me there was a time and place to be serious and a time to laugh at myself.

“I nearly wet my shorts just then, Costa,” he told me. “You had that look of rage in your eyes again – like a man gone mad.”

The rage he spoke of had held close to me ever since the loss of my mother. Anger is what I’ve become. For the longest time that anger and dark fire has been my only companion. I embrace it, curl up with it, and allow the pain and depression to envelope me, threatening to swallow me whole if I let it. I hold the beast at bay most times, but I’d be a fool to think that I had control over my emotions.

“If you want to see a madman then watch what happens if I’m late returning to town.” As I spoke a chill ran up over my spine and its tingling spell lingered at the base of my skull.

“Right,” Tuck agreed with a nod knowing full well what, or rather whom, I was referring to. “Old man Benton.”

“Let’s make haste,” I told him, shaking off the discomfort that had suddenly clenched my shoulders up. “The day is already at our backs.”

I pointed past the large Birchwood trees towards the setting sun. A pool of its golden light broke over the tree tops touching the ground inviting us to stay and explore further into Muir Woods. As much as my heart begged me to do just that I knew where my responsibilities lay.

“We best go.”

Collecting my lucky sling from the ground Tuck and I started out towards our home of Gryphant Village, all the while making plans for what adventures we would seek out on the next morning’s travels.

“We could take the fork at El Sentro next time,” Tuck suggested. “I hear there is a year round spring.”

“That’s kids’ stuff,” I protested. “We should seek out Lake Chippewa. My guess is it’s frozen solid about now.”

“I don’t know, Costa, Lake Chippewa is pretty far north. What if we get lost?”

“Are you kidding? I know this area better than anyone in the village.”

In the middle of my convincing argument my words were bitten off when I heard a low howl stopping us in our tracks. My ears perked up to catch the sound again. When it did my blood ran cold.

Tuck’s voice was quaking. “If you know the area so well, my brother, then tell me what it is we heard just then.”

“Quiet!” I demanded. My own voice held steady but not without effort.

“Let me listen.”

The sound called out again. It carried with it a great wailing that grew more guttural with each call.

“Maybe it’s a wolf,” Tuck suggested, speaking in a shallow whisper now at my insistence.

“That was no simple wolf. It held human qualities to it.”

“Are you saying it was some sort of half-breed? Such things do not exist, you know that.”

I arched my eyebrow and crooked my mouth up to a half-smile. “One way to find out.”

Moving forward through the thick underbrush I paused only long enough to prod Tuck into following at my heels before shooting deeper into the foliage.

“What about old man Benton?” Tuck asked as he struggled to keep his stout body in pace with my lithe, quick frame.

“We’ll be quick,” I told him. “Besides, what if we find a carcass or something? Imagine the stories to tell.”

“I should know better than to argue with you when you get that look on your face. It’s a maniacal little smirk but it tells a thousand tales. You’re genuinely having fun aren’t you?”

“Of course, aren’t you?” I replied. “I mean how can you stand to toil in the self-same mundane activities day-in and day-out?”

Tuck didn’t have an answer for me and I didn’t bother waiting for one. I knew a part of him sometimes preferred staying in the village and helping his mother bake, which was something else I couldn’t understand about him, but something I accepted regardless. For all the faults he accepted about me I owed him at least that one.

We moved swift and steady into the deep underbrush. I kept low in a crouched position and was careful not to disturb the forest floor with my sandaled feet for fear the sound would carry to the ears of whatever was in the trees.

Through my readings I had always envisioned developing into a great hunter, a man of the land, one who lived off the earth and answered to no one. That is why the call to venture into Muir Woods day after day drew so strong. Until that day came when I held my fate in my own hands I would settle for seeking adventure wherever I could find it.

We’d moved only half a stone’s throw from the forest path when the sound cried out again. It echoed off the everlasting sky and came back down with a sharp jolt to our ears once again stopping us cold in our tracks. The cry was much closer than before. This time it held a mix of hatred and anguish that suddenly ceased as quickly as it had rung out.

I stood as still as a statue and strained my ears to mark the sound once more, but the only thing audible was the whine of Tuck Goodall.“I don’t like this,” he said. “I’m going to go back.”

Before Tuck made it two paces away, I caught the meaty part of his forearm and forced him still.

“Quiet!” I insisted in a dark whisper. “Something is coming.”

We waited for what seemed like an eternity. Sweat pasted my leather jerkin to my chest and dampened my hair. My heart was pounding and filling my ear with the pulsing sound of my own blood. No sound pierced the sky; no monster fled the thick of the trees.

Finally Tuck withdrew his arm and rounded about. “I’m turning back.”

I shook my head in disappointment. If only there had been something more. I lingered on for a moment before reluctantly turning to join Tuck on the trail back to town.

“Maybe next time,” I said, my voice had deflated and no longer held a spark of expectancy.

“You get yourself too worked up about such things, Costa,” Tuck told me. “And what have we ever come across except some broken arrow heads?”

“No one is forcing you to come. Next time I’ll journey alone and you’ll be sorry when I tell you what I found.”

We scampered around a dense corner of forest and for the third time that day fear stood us in our tracks. A hulking shape loomed just paces ahead. From the short span of distance that separated us I could make out that it was a man of considerable stature.

He was adorned in the color of night from his tall leather boots to the dark hood fitting closely to his head. A heavy cloak about his shoulders was stained with a fresh, thick liquid indistinguishable in nature. But it was the manner in which he moved, striding with purpose and heavy feet that held no fear of capturing attention, that had me duck for cover in the thicket and pull Tuck down with me.

The stranger’s body was alive with movement in every fiber of his being. Ears perked, eyes roaming, his senses were lifted to the extreme. Finally he took a position of defense just behind one of the larger Birchwood trees. His back lay flat against the trunk. He withdrew a small hunting knife from a leather belt looped double about his waist and waited. Tuck and I waited as well, watching with baited breath as the stranger marked something unknown in the distance.

A shuffle-scrape of leaves signified the presence of another. A man looking worn and bedraggled, wearing nothing but coarse patches of hair up along his back and legs, staggered out of the thicket just west of us. His face seemed contorted in a snarl of unbearable anguish.

I wondered if this poor fellow had been the one we had heard shouting before, perhaps calling for help before one of the forest animals scented him and tore him down. But the four-footed inhabitants of Muir would be the least of this man’s worries.

As he stumbled, still trying to keep his balance on shaky legs, the stranger in black made his move. I marveled at his inhuman speed as he left his cover and confronted his hapless prey.

The drifter could not mount a defense. His best effort was an attempt to bite the man in black before the silver tipped blade plunged deep into his chest, severing his heart. Blue-black blood rushed out in torrential rivers signifying a gruesome end, but that didn’t stop the stranger in black from delivering several more sloping stabs down into the man’s throat, belly, and even his face. The shine of the blade was tarnished with blood as he fell to the forest floor, dead.

Using quick, hard strokes the man in black cut a swatch of fabric from the tattered jerkin. This he wadded in his left hand and began polishing the knife. It required much effort from the stranger and I could make out the sinew of muscle bulging from the man’s forearm with each hard stroke. He ran the cloth over the fine blade several times managing to transfer the dark stain from the knife to the cloth with little leaving the blade itself.

Whether from discomfort or just blind and foolish curiosity, Tuck shifted forwards from his position in the bushes. The leaves and twigs crunching under his weight sounded out like an alarm. The noise seemed to reverberate against the hard bark of the trees and return magnified tenfold against the forest floor where the three of us occupied space.

The stranger immediately halted. His eyes scanned across the forest on either side of him. He had heard.

I reached forward too late and grasped Tuck high upon the shoulder. We met eyes briefly and in that silent exchange I implored Tuck to cease any further movement. Even the breath in my body and the beat of my heart seemed to halt in my pursuit of unlimited silence.

When I looked back towards our dark suited friend I almost gasped. I saw nothing but an empty forest. In a blink the man, with blade in hand, had vanished.

The grip I held on Tuck’s shoulder increased in pressure until I could feel the tense muscle tissue deep beneath the meat. I knew from experience that my skittish friend would run like a scared rabbit if he believed he had even half a chance of escape.

Truth be told, I would lament that I had endured enough excursions for one day. I was just as eager to race home as Tuck was. I’d read enough adventures written of pen on parchment, and had heard enough tales told from many exotic travelers, to realize the stranger in black could be upon us within the first moment we lifted from the cover of the thicket.

It was now a waiting game—who would show themselves first? Unfortunately, Tuck saw matters his own way. He began squirming under my grip until he finally shook free.

“We need to go now!” His voice remained low but held enough emotion to carry on the still of the morning air.

I shook my head vigorously, setting a finger to my lips in demand of silence. Tuck persisted with his usual stubborn grimace until I mouthed the words “We’ll be killed.”

The proclamation of death was enough to halt Tuck in his decision. Only the Gods knew what our fate would’ve been had he proceeded forward at the last second. For in the next instance the stranger dropped from the open sky above and came down directly in front of the two of us.

His heavy boots made a sick-wet sound as they slapped the soft earth. Debris and chunks of dirt blew into our faces taunting us with the desire to cough aloud but we remained as still as statues. Our eyes kept trained on the man’s every move.

The knife was outstretched in his hands. Almost all of the blood had dried, giving its color a dark crimson masking rather than the brighter sheen of a fresh kill. The remaining liquid congealed at the tip pulling one solitary, fat droplet down off the knife. It plummeted fast and found its landing direct upon the back of my hand.

Warmth and cold both blanketed me in the same sensation as the blood sat soaking upon my skin. Both Tuck and I sat staring at the droplet in stark terror, daring not to move one single inch. That one small drop of blood marked what true danger we were exposed to.

Finally I managed to pull my gaze away and regard the stranger before us. My blood ran cold as the man’s eyes rained down upon me, locked against my own. They were dark orbs, almost as dark as night, and they held within them just a touch of madness staring out from under his full brimmed hat.

Every ounce of my being wanted to turn and run away, but fear gripped me still until my joints ached and my muscles throbbed. I didn’t move, didn’t utter a sound, didn’t withdraw my gaze nor make a motion towards Tuck who remained transfixed with the blood spot on my hand.

The stare down lasted but a moment longer and then the man simply stepped away. Just as swiftly as he had appeared he now disappeared from sight through the thick of the trees. When he was no longer visible both Tuck and I leapt to our feet and made a mad scramble for the edge of the forest. With the last of the trees behind us, and the path back to town firmly under our feet once more, we stopped to catch our breath.

My heart pounded with rapid force, but it wasn’t the sprint to safety that caused such a rhythm. It was the firm realization that for the second time in my life I had narrowly escaped death.

Tuck and I spoke not a word on our return to the village. We merely walked in silence, every so often glancing over a shoulder to shake the indomitable feeling that we were being stalked like prey.

Stepping through the splintered wooden gates housing the perimeter of Gryphant Village the danger presented itself directly in front of me.

Mace Benton, tall and brooding with hard plumes of angered breath flaring out his flat nose, met me upon our return. He wasted no time in letting his big, leathery hands fly. His meaty hooks struck me alone, but they struck again and again with such force that I had no choice but to topple to my knees, arms raised in a feeble attempt to deflect the blows.

Tuck was spared the lashings merely through his position in life. He was the son of the blacksmith, a well-to-do and loving family. Benton held no claims to him as he did myself, which Benton reminded me of as each hard strike came thundering down.

“You vile miscreant, I should tan your hide for such disobedience! What lame ignorance would prompt you to return at your discretion rather than when I told you to be here?”

My arms grew weaker with each heavy strike until I could no longer hold them up to protect myself. They slid down just past my ears to expose the top of my head. Seizing the opening, Benton reeled back and dropped a clubbing blow downwards with the flat of his fist.

A loud, dull popping rang in my head and sparks of darkness filled my sight line. Before I knew it I was nose first in the dry dirt listening to the hate-filled tongue lashing from Benton, which had grown indistinguishable through the ringing in my ears.

I looked up with tear-filled eyes towards Benton only to see the man in black standing before me instead. The blood-stained knife pointed down towards my exposed throat and the dark eyes seemed to absorb my very soul. The situation seemed surreal and for a moment I wondered if it could possibly be that I had not yet left Muir Woods.

Somewhere in the distance Tuck’s voice called out for the beating to cease. In that self-same moment I blinked back my growing haze to realize the form in front of me remained that of my domineering master, Benton. The stranger in black was nowhere in sight.

“You rise to your feet like a man and get to work,” Benton demanded, “lest I drag you through town by your filthy long locks.”

As I lay on the ground, breathing in coarse dirt, I watched with a heavy heart as Benton took out his frustrations on my prize possession. He brought his heavy nail-down boot up to knee level and laid it down with full force upon my lucky sling. The snap-crackle resounded in my ears like a thunderclap in such a way that I felt as though my head were splitting.

Be it for exclamation on his statement or mere fun Benton lodged a single, swift kick to my side before he turned and went on his way. The blow brought a hacking cough up from deep within my throat and lungs and forced me to double over to absorb the pain.

Tuck dipped a knee and tended to me with all the care of a nursemaid rather than with the hands of a blacksmith’s son.

“I should’ve stopped him,” he said drawing me to my feet and dusting the crusted earth from my jerkin. “Maybe if you explained to him what had happened y’know, with the madman in the woods?”

I brushed him aside and had to make considerable effort to remain standing on my own volition. “It doesn’t matter, Tuck.”

“You don’t deserve to be treated like that, Costa.”

“I was late,” I repeated. On shaky legs, and still doubled over from the wailing pain in my gut, I started in the path left by Benton’s large boots. My head still swam with clutter making the world seem to spin before my eyes.

I managed to lean over and collect the remains of my sling. It was broken in two, shattered and destroyed. I’d never been able to afford any real kind of weaponry so I had fashioned the sling myself out of a large chunk of cedar wood. It had taken days of toiling work but the end result had made me hold my head a little higher with the pride of accomplishment. Now I held in my hands nothing but bent and twisted wood. I discarded it into the dirt without a second thought.

One final thought rang true and I wasted no time dispelling it to Tuck. “As far as the man in the woods goes...we never saw him.”

“But shouldn’t we tell someone what happened?” Tuck argued. “A man was murdered out there. Perhaps someone is looking for him.”

I shook my head. “No one would believe us.”

Tuck nodded agreement watching as his good friend staggered back towards a dwelling and a home life as broken and diminished as my pain inflicted body.

It had never been revealed to me why the marauders had swept over the village I’d called home for six years. Everyone had their ideas about it. Some of the more prominent reasons seemed to center on ritualistic acts of sacrifice. I myself held no real memories of my past. All I knew were facts that had been mentioned over the years. When the stench of dark smoke and death had cleared on that fateful morn, my birth town of Rhone had been subjected to ruin. I wound up wandering the streets half-starved and alone. My mother had been killed in the raid; my father was a stranger to me since birth. A small child at the time I’d no idea where to go or what to do.

When I came upon Gryphant the people there accepted me. I roomed with a kindly old woman who would tell me tales of her sea faring husband, Crassis, and the many adventures he’d recalled to her upon his return. One day he did not come back. The sea had claimed him. I remember envying Crassis. Even in death he’d been a man of adventure.

It was a good life for me, but short lived. After the old woman herself passed on, her foolish, drunken son bartered my services in a game of cards and lost. My fate wound up in the grisly hands of the local tavern owner, Mace Benton who’d won me. He’d weakened my spirit, breaking me down through a regimen of punishing physical work, inadequate food and clothing. It had been the same manner of torturous living spanning eight year’s time with no end in sight.

My only reprieve came from the curiosity and imagination of my mind. I sought out excitement close to home wherever I could find it, longing for the day when I would be a man of my own choosing who could travel the land in search of high adventure never to look back. Those thoughts seemed like distant dreams now. The jaunt through Muir Woods had brought nothing but trouble. A dull ache at the back of my skull and the stinging scrapes upon my cheek and lips reminding me as I returned home.

I could barely remain standing. Several times I had to bend over and stabilize myself as I felt I might retch. Just paces from the stables where my sleeping quarters were, I fell to my knees and had to crawl my way inside like a mongrel dog.

Every movement spread agony over my torso and limbs. In my days on the farm I had received worse beatings for less, but this time my throbbing head and the swelling of my lips reminded me that I was alive. Had fate carried any other message that afternoon I may not have left Muir Woods with my young life intact.

I could still feel the dark eyes of the stranger looking down upon me, could still make out the cold, dark orbs in my memory. There was no mistake...I knew he had seen me, but for whatever reason he had let Tuck and I go. There was something else behind the madness; a strong sense of power that shined through those eyes like a beacon in the night. The dark clad stranger would never have lain down at the foot of a swine like Benton. He would’ve risen up and taken back his control.

Something in that summation delivered strength to me, forcing me to get to my feet. I demanded that I lift myself up off the floor. I willed it. I did it. At first my legs were shaky beneath me as if I were relearning how to use them. Then they grew to strong supports; I knew that I would not fall...not now, not ever again.

Mace Benton’s tavern thrived with business from its regular patrons as well as a troop of traveling performers who had been passing through town. They were a lively bunch of minstrels, jugglers, jesters and the like. All manner of entertainers, whom Benton despised, but as long as they paid their fare he tolerated them.

For me the gentle chimes of the flute, combined with the steady rhythm of the drum were a fine distraction from my woes. I felt misplaced, used up. There was a hole inside me, some void needing to be filled. Living a life of servitude was certainly not going to fill it.

I looked out over the tavern dwellers all laughing, dancing, and enjoying their lives with carefree zest. The traveling performers especially caught my attention. They held no responsibility but their own, wandering from place to place on their own volition, answering to no one but themselves. I envied them.

As I let my mind linger on daydreams of a life far more fulfilling than that which I presently lived, Benton’s meaty paw crimped the back of my neck. His thick fingers bit into my tender flesh until he gripped the cords just underneath the surface and he moved me out from behind the bar.

“Make use of yourself and go service the stranger who just came in.”

With that Benton shoved me out into the thick of the crowd directed towards the small group of tables sitting at the back of the tavern. The tavern dwellers were up dancing, or more accurately staggering about on drunken legs. Some of the more inebriated tried in vain to get me to join them in their frolicking. I would’ve been happy to accept their invitation if it were not for the hard stare of Mace Benton holding heavy to the back of my head watching my every move. Instead, I carried on with business as usual, proceeding towards the new stranger who had entered the tavern.

The man sat deep in the corner, far from the crowd where the shadows cast over him like a cloak. His heavy boots were stacked one atop the other upon the table and a dark brimmed hat was cast down over his eyes.

As I moved closer, I felt the strangest sensation of danger all around me. It was as if my mind and body were setting off an internal alarm. My world seemed to move in slow motion. The dancing guests, the traveling performers, all of them flailed their arms and moved in simplistic rhythm like puppets on a string. Everyone of them grew dim, drawn away from the light as I focused only on the man in front of me.

The man in black. The boots, the hat, the bloody dagger that rested at his side. But how was it that I saw blood upon a blade that was clearly sheathed? My mind was not playing tricks, my memory was with me now. It was the memory of a blood stained dagger unleashing its fat drops down upon my hand while I crouched in the forest like a frightened doe while before me I surveyed a monster—a monster dressed in black. When his head tilted back, his eyes, still holding madness at the forefront, looked up at me, the nightmare memory and reality joined together as one in a loud thunderclap.

Not a word was spoken, the stranger’s eyes alone told the story. This was no mistaken meeting. The stranger in black had followed me from Muir Woods back into town, back to the place I called home. Though checkered with pain and discontent, Gryphant remained a sanctuary from the far greater evils of the world. But somewhere, somehow the gates of Hell had opened and allowed one of their demons to slip out and find its way into the tavern that very night.

Several thoughts entered my mind at that exact moment. All of them ended very poorly and disgracefully. Rather than chance an attack, a distraction, or all out begging, I instead made move to run but I turned too swiftly and caught my heel on the bottom edge of the chair the stranger sat upon. Both ankles felt the strain of the wood cut deep into the tender flesh. Before I knew what had happened I bounced my chin off the polished wood of the tavern floor.

I lay there going in and out of consciousness, taking in the lingering scent of soap from the floorboards that I had scrubbed earlier in the day. There was laughter ringing in my ears. The tavern dwellers in their drunken stupor were mocking me in my anguish. Their voices seemed a million miles away.

Benton’s voice boomed out demanding me to get to my feet. Try as I might none of my limbs seemed to be working at that moment. The last thing I saw as I tried in vain to force my way up was the cold, hard stare from the dark clad stranger.

For a moment I was back in Muir Woods, Tuck at my side, the drop of blood from the stained dagger pooling over my hand. The stranger’s eyes were set upon me as they had been that morning, only this time he did not vanish. He stayed to finish the job. Tuck was the first to fall victim as I looked on in horror. My body remained frozen, unwilling to move forward even as the stranger lifted Tuck from the underbrush and tore open his throat with the sharpest part of the blade.

Blood curled from Tuck’s lips running down his beefy jowls back into the hole which had once been his throat. The stranger discarded Tuck to the wayside like so much rotten meat, then he turned his attention on me. Fear gripped me still. I opened my mouth to scream but no sound would come out. Soon my fate would mirror that of my friend.

The madman reached out a blood soaked hand towards me. His fingertips came within inches of grasping my sand-colored locks. The eyes burned me to the core. The rough barking of Mace Benton echoing with stern demand brought me awake from this nightmare.

“Up boy pack your things. You’re no longer in my care.”

Benton’s face was nothing but shadows as it hovered over my own. I couldn’t remember how I’d returned home but there I was laying upon my sleeping roll with a massive headache. The words Benton spoke were those that I had only ever hoped to hear in the past. As Benton gave me such news this morning I imagined I must still be dreaming.

As I came awake my reply was jumbled, a mix of sleep and surprise. “What’re you talking about?”

“You’ve been sold for the season,” Benton said grabbing my sleeping roll and shaking it until I rolled out on the floor with a hard thud. “Now pack up and get moving. Your new lord expects you promptly.”

As soon as Benton left I wasted no time in procuring the meager provisions I called my own. I tucked my tattered clothing, old scrolls, and grooming brushes in my sleeping roll, binding it tight with a braided cord. Once settled I hefted the pack over my shoulder and hurried to the front.

The memory of the past night still held in my mind, but it was faint now. At first I thought it a dream, a horrible torturous dream, only it felt like reality, until I noted the small bruising on my chin from where I’d struck the bar floor.

I shifted my focus away from the blurred images of the previous evening focusing instead on the change at hand. Whomever my new keeper was mattered little, for anyone in town would be better suited than Mace Benton.

My heart felt like soaring for a moment as I dared to hope it would be Tuck’s own father who had come calling for me. Tuck was a solid friend, best as they came. He had been trying in vain to convince his father, the blacksmith, to take me on as an apprentice of sorts, but he had always been turned away with rejections. Perhaps now Tuck had finally been able to sway his father in my favor.

My improbable joy came crashing down around me the moment I laid eyes on the man holding court with Benton. Despite the warmth of the day he wore the same fitted leather boots and the dark, tattered cloak that fell loosely about his shoulders. The brim of his hat was tipped down over his brow casting a shadow over his face but the gleam from his wild eyes could still be seen as he noticed my hesitant entrance.

The weight of that stare felt far from comfortable. Instinctively I turned to run as I had the night before. I would run, and run until my legs gave out and my lungs could no longer sustain the pounding air being driven through them. But the moment I back-stepped Benton caught me under the arm in his heavy grip positioning me almost at the feet of the man in black.

“Show some respect to Cain Coleridge, your new keeper,” Benton told him. “Unless you want a stiff backhand for your troubles.”

Benton motioned back his thick, calloused hand and I cowered from the intent of the blow, but the strike was held off by words spoken from Coleridge himself.

“Leave the boy be,” he said. His voice was a dark whisper. Up until that moment I had only imagined what the man must sound like if indeed he could speak at all. I’d had it in my head that Coleridge’s voice held the same qualities of a hissing snake, forked tongue and all. “He is under my care now.” he continued. “I shall deal out his punishments accordingly.”

The low pitch in Coleridge’s voice made my skin crawl. It was as dark and sinister as the manner of wardrobe he was clad in or the spark of madness creeping over his eyes.

I’d heard Coleridge’s name mentioned before around town. He was something of a legend though none had ever really seen him. They’d spoken tales of a bounty hunter who wandered from town to town collecting wrong doers for profit. I’d always been enamored of such feats. He sounded like such a noble and courageous man.

Watching him butcher that wounded traveler out in Muir Woods like a fallen animal proved to me my original assessment had been wrong. Everyone’s assessment had been wrong. It seemed Coleridge was nothing more than a cold-blooded killer. Now I was in his care.

In the eight years I’d been under Benton’s watch, I never raised question or rebuttal to any of the demands sent my way. Fear alone made me speak my concerns at that moment.

“Sir,” I stuttered, stepping closer to Benton than I’d ever cared to be in my whole lifetime. “Shouldn’t I remain here and help with the harvest?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, boy. Cain here has paid good wages for you. Now you’ll go and you’ll work. I’ll hear no more of it. If I get one ill-word back, about you slacking off or not doing exactly as you’re told, you’ll wish you’d never emerged from the womb.”

Something told me I might soon be wishing for such things under the watchful eye of Cain Coleridge.

Chapter Two

End of Days

I carried my things behind Coleridge, head down, mouth shut, all the while awaiting the time when he would finally decide to viciously strike me down. After all I had seen too much. I knew his true purpose. The bounties he sought were never turned in to the towns that laid claim to them. He collected the money for his deeds and killed the unsuspecting men, or even women, he was dutifully paid to recapture. No wonder fear crossed the lips of those who dared mention his name.

We rounded the crest of a hill and continued down a long dirt path towards one of the oldest dwellings in Gryphant. It hadn’t been occupied in many years. The roof needed repair, the walls had fist-sized holes in them, and the cooking hearth was soiled with some of the thickest muck I’d ever seen. I sighed in disgust knowing that all these dirty little tasks would come to my hands alone.

Once we were settled, Coleridge put me to work doing exactly that. The day dragged on with more and more menial tasks handed out by Coleridge until the calluses on my hands began to bleed. I had been occupying my thoughts with the insipid task of scrubbing down the mixing pot when Coleridge took up a chair at my back.

He’d been busy himself that morning lacing the entry points of the house with a strange looking green plant, a curious task that I dared not question. Now that his work was complete he sat behind me burning a hole at the back of my head with his hard stare. The pressure ceased up on me, constricting my chest and pulling the muscles of my lips into a frown until I could no longer continue with the task at hand. That is when I finally spoke up.

“If you are to kill me sir, I tell you I will not run, but I shall fight to defend my life.”

A small sliver of wood jutted out from between Coleridge’s teeth as they were bared into what could almost be construed a smile. He rose from his seat at the table, slowly coming towards me. The air suddenly grew very thick. I could feel a strong tightening of my heart and stomach, both twisting in knots, as I instantly regretted ever speaking out of turn. Had I remained quiet Coleridge may have extended my life for at least another hour if not another day. Foolish as I was I had to act the part of the brave man.

“Funny,” he said. “You ran before.”

As Coleridge edged closer, I threw caution to the wind and took up the broom in my hands like a makeshift staff. It became my ally as I lunged at Coleridge. He returned the favor with quick, sharp actions. Before I knew what happened I was unarmed, pinned against the far wall with Coleridge’s hand holding tight to my throat. The mad eyes seemed to pierce my very soul.

“Only a fool chases death lest it serve some greater purpose.” His fingers slowly peeled off my throat and something of a smile spread his lips wide. “ButI salute your courage, ill-advised or not. Perhaps there is something in you after all.”

I was befuddled. I dared not move from my placement against the back wall but somehow I found it within myself to lift my tongue to speak.

“Aren’t you going to kill me?”

“Think boy, had I wanted to extinguish your life I would’ve done it back out in the woods where none would be the wiser.”

Coleridge went on as he settled back into his chair setting his travel worn leather boots upon the table. “Besides, you are less significant than this chip of wood I hold between my teeth.” He paused to showcase the thin strip and then flick it in my direction. His aim was such that the stick almost struck me direct in the eye. “Why would I bother to kill you?” Coleridge continued, “I could just as soon let you languish in your insufferable life as a slave – a fate surely worse than any death I’ve known.”

I felt my cheeks flushing white hot with anger. Who was this man to castrate me with words of such malice? He knew nothing of my life yet he made these observations outright.

The real problem lay in the fact that Coleridge’s words rang true. I wasn’t a great warrior or poet by any right. As it stood I was just a lowly galley slave with no real memories of the past and no real prospects for the future. As much as I dared to dream it I would never travel the world in search of high adventure. I was doomed to live out my days in the same broken down village until the day I died an old workhorse.

This painful revelation drew the strength from my knees. I slumped against the back wall. My white hot anger was replaced with the stinging of tears. I dropped my head away from Coleridge’s gaze to spare myself the humiliation. Not since the day I stood over my mother’s murdered body had I shed tears. Crying held no purpose in day-to-day existence. But something in Coleridge’s words crushed and hurt me more than any of the multiple beatings Mace Benton had lashed out over the years.

“Those of us with no purpose in life are doomed to merely exist.”

Coleridge’s words were soft-spoken now as though he were retelling a tale of scripture long since forgotten. Then he rose up and came to me once more. Taking my chin in his fingers he forced me to look up at him. The spark of his eyes had dimmed now as though the madness had crept away for a time.

“Be wary of the purpose you choose, young Calabrese, for some are a cruel and wicked master indeed.”

The cryptic-note in his message left a chill running over my body long after Coleridge had left the room. It was doled out like a fireside ghost tale but with much more conviction.

I lay awake that night, trying to decipher the hidden meaning in the message, until the dark of sleep finally pulled me into worlds where the mundane mixed with the magical. All the while, the tune of the traveling performers played on.

The next morning when I awoke I felt very much out of sorts. My own skin was unfamiliar. Demons had plagued me during the night. The dreams had shifted to nightmares and the nightmares had brought with them warnings.

As I awoke I couldn’t recall the significance of those warnings, but I knew something unforeseen by my mortal eye was heading this way. My dreams often became some semblance of reality whether I wanted to embrace that as fact or not.

Now, sitting atop my sleeping roll, one hand shifting through my dusty-blonde locks, I desperately tried to remember the nightmare. Bits and pieces came back to me but nothing solid held. Soon I gave up trying and went on with the day’s chores.

Coleridge had left early that morning or late the prior evening. Whatever the case may be, he was nowhere in sight. I deemed it best to have a hot meal waiting for him upon his return. Better to sate the man’s hunger before his temper flared and he struck the first thing that lived and breathed.

As I took to the stove preparing small dumpling style potatoes in goat’s cream my curiosity got the better of me. Allowing the mix to simmer in the cast iron stove I proceeded to slip away towards the back of the sunken hut where Coleridge had his sleeping quarters.

Up to this point I hadn’t been allowed to enter the back room. Even in my cleaning rounds I had been forewarned to stay my distance from Coleridge’s quarters. Now, my interest grew too great for me to withstand. With Coleridge off for the morning I didn’t hesitate to take a hold of this opportunity.

I stood at the threshold momentarily taking long, deep breaths. Feeling as giddy as a child, I edged closer inside, using slow steps to savor my findings. In the simplest of forms this grew into somewhat of another adventure for me. My curious mind was ready to soak up whatever storied past this madman was holding back.

The initial survey of the room left me disheartened at best. It looked no more special than my own quarters out in the stables. There was a sleeping pallet covered in what looked to be a wolf’s hide, a handful of inch-thick wood sticks that had been sharpened at the tip, and the remnants of a used smoking pipe. Little else was in sight. There were no ritualistic engravings on the wall, no sacrifices (human or otherwise) chained to the floor, it was just as average as any of the other traveler’s rooms I’d cleaned up over the past few years.

I was backing out of the room, the weight of disappointment drawing my head down until my chin grazed my chest, when something caught my eye. Without hesitation I hurried back inside and located an object at the foot of the sleeping pallet.

It was a thick book of scripture bound in a sleeve of leather. A small but sturdy brass lock held the bindings together so that only the owner of the small brass key would be privy to the information held inside.