The Mercenary Malefactor

There weren’t always dragons in the valley.

Well, not since some lunatic named Kormack went on a mad bender and decided to wipe them all out of existence some eight hundred years ago. Since then everything was quite quiet, relatively speaking. I mean, sure there was the war to determine which country would lay claim to the fertile soil and the extremely well positioned river that had been somewhat inaccessible until then and of course the border disputes that arose once a decade or so but that’s just the nature of things. All in all, everything was rather peaceful in the kingdom of Leigh.

That was until “five years ago!” my travelling companion, a young lad with a rural background and accent to reinforce it, probably a Farmboy, spoke, “when a dragon was spotted coming down from the Northern border, by the Kings first ranger sir Trevor Deaumonte himself nonetheless.”

“Mhmm” I mumbled in agreement.

He continued “Quite honestly the northern border is the perfect place for a dragon to hide. The moors, fens and caverns by the North Ridge Mountains are the perfect breeding grounds for all types of evil-doers in my opinion. Of course some scholars had suggested that the creation of those treacherous lands had in fact been the unforeseen side effect of human migration and deforestation, but those were the same scholars who suggested that the arrival of the dragon wasn’t to be feared at all and that it should be left to its own devices. Some even suggested that it wasn’t an actual dragon at all but a Wyvern, which was later explained to me that they are a different type of giant flying monster that resembles and behaves like a dragon in every aspect, but still isn’t one because they originally come from the western lands. Scholars are pedantic people indeed, who cares where a giant flying lizard comes from? They’re monsters that need killing and that’s all I need to know.”

There was a slight pause in which I was grateful for, but then he started again.

“That’s why I enlisted into the order of the Whitewood Rangers three years ago, I can’t think of no nobler task than to protect the people of Leigh from a random dragon attack, irregardless of the fact that there hasn’t been one in all this time, is besides the point, when it does happen I will endeavour to protect the victims or at least avenge them. In my personal opinion the best way to defend the people from a random dragon attack is with a pre-emptive strike, which is why I am currently making my way to the Northern territories. How about you?”

I refrained from informing him that irregardless wasn’t actually a word but in fact a double negative, mainly because people hated being corrected, especially when they were wrong. Instead –

“Pretty much the same.” Was my reply.

My involvement with the Whitewood Rangers had been a little bit shadier than that of the Farmboys I should say. To start with I never enlisted, I was conscripted by sir Trevor Deaumonte from my prison cell, probably at the behest of my father, so in truth, even the start of our tales are completely different.

Then there was our philosophy on the dragon, my companion believed that it needed to die purely for existing, I however disagreed. I mean bears are only a problem when you encroach on their territory and as someone who worked in the King’s kennels for a time when he was a youth, I can tell you that it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie. Also, on the point of the dragon being a wyvern I really couldn’t say to much, my time spent at the college allowed me to learn that dragons had been great majestic beings with magical properties who seemed to resemble giant colourful snakes with the manes of lions that would dance and swim across the sky and possessed an intellect to rival the gods, wyverns however were just large winged reptiles. Although in all honesty, I could not really be an authority on the subject as I had personally never met either, then again neither had the Farmboy so I believe that my scholarship gave me a better understanding of the topic than him, although I wouldn’t let him in on the fact that I had previously been a scholar before becoming a Ranger of the Whitewood. He seemed to possess a certain disdainful attitude towards them. It was a common trait amongst the regular folk, mostly due to the many rumours abound that the scholars of Leigh were secret sorcerers making pacts with eldritch horrors for unattainable power were rife within the kingdom. In truth I wouldn’t be surprised if certain scholars hadn’t tried it, there were many books upon the theory of magic within the college and to my knowledge one would only require a ‘catalyst’ in order to perform sorcerous feats, yet what a ‘catalyst’ was, or how to obtain one I did not know and neither did anyone else considering the fact that there were no wizards left in the world. I mean you had your spiritual leaders, medicine men and wise women but I highly doubt that any of these were witches, certainly nothing like the legendary sorcerer Kings of old.

I did agree with the Farmboy on the topic of the northern territories however, my brief adventure into them several years ago had taught me that they were, in fact, a breeding ground for all manner of evil-doers and monstrous things. If the fact that the terrain was a miserable, eerie and desolate place that possessed the capacity to murder you by itself, wasn’t bad enough, then there was also the knowledge that it was home to a collection of several different clans of barbaric tribesmen who warred with one another on a regular basis, who, as it so happened, despised foreigners more than each other. Then there were the terrifyingly tall, slender yet strong cannibalistic creatures that stalked the marshlands for human prey and possessed a rather odd sense of fashion believe it or not denoted by the conical crimson cap that they all seemed to wear. Then There were stories of the old dwarven mines under the mountains being infested by a diminutive verminous race of hostile beings, as well as being extremely haunted ever since the disappearance of the Dwarves some thousand years ago, although I could not confirm these tales, due to never being mad nor desperate enough to venture into them. Yes the Northern territories were an evil place indeed and yet, that’s exactly where we were going.

Sir Trevor Deaumonte and his men hadn’t returned from the Northern territories in over five months, not even a word of their whereabouts had been reported back, not one. Which is why the king requested volunteers for a search and rescue mission, the Farmboy probably volunteered before the edict was made public and it wouldn’t surprise me if the captain of the guard personally suggested that I should volunteer, she obviously realised that it was a suicide mission and saw it as her chance to finally resolve her vendetta against me. Women!

“How far is Peatersbridge village from here?” the Farmboy asked.

“Several leagues still,” I replied. “We’ll never reach there before nightfall, so keep your eyes peeled for a good spot to make camp for the night!”

In truth I already knew where we would make camp for the night due to me making this trek several times in the past, a couple of times as a ranger and a few times as an outlaw. There was a perfect spot on a small rise not five to ten minutes walk from where we were, yet he didn’t need to know that because the task of his ‘scouting’ kept him quiet and I had decided that that was more preferable than listening to another one of his stories about a lost sheep.

We walked for the next five to ten minutes in perfect silence which was cut short by –

“That might be a good place to camp!” he excitedly blurted out pointing to my usual spot.

“Shush! Do you wish for every vagabond in Leigh to know where we’re sleeping for the night! Keep quiet, your head down and follow me!” after giving my instruction I proceeded to make the climb up the steep hillock with the Farmboy close behind.

Upon reaching the top it was plain to see that something was amiss. There were signs of a camp having been made here, prior to our arrival, as well as a desperate struggle between two individuals no more than two nights ago, from my reckoning. My colleague also noticed this upon his arrival at the top of the hill, at which point he drew his long-knife from his sheath and adopted a fighters stance, at least the Farmboy was no coward.

“Kormacks bones! What happened here?” he asked in a hushed and cautious tone.

“I’m just trying to figure that out.” I quickly replied whilst surveying the area.

From what I could gather, by analysing the disturbances on the ground, a large man was asleep, at which point another man of considerable size had snuck upon the sleeper, unsuccessfully mind you, for there then appeared to be a struggle between two, grappling each other as opponents, trampling all over the campsite, even the campfire that was here had been trampled through, soon after this incident one member of the scuffle took a penetrative wound as indicated by the large blood stain and at which point one party fell to the ground and the other then dragged it away.

I relayed this information to the Farmboy, to which he replied –

“Should we see where the tracks lead?”

“I think it would be unwise of us to do otherwise.” Was my response.

We followed the drag marks and blood trail until they led into the forest and not two yards from the treeline there was the body of one of Deaumontes men, I had met him on several occasions in the past, although I couldn’t remember his name, I’m awful with names, although I do remember him being a big burly bastard standing half a foot taller than myself with his shoulders being broader than mine too, however he looked a little different now from then, mainly from the fact that he was missing his legs, one of his arms and probably a couple of internal organs.

“That’s sir Donall.” The Farmboy exclaimed in a state of shock. His voice had changed almost into a timid whimper, which was strange considering his stature.

“You knew him?” I asked.

“He was my teacher.” He stuttered.

“Huh, well what do you think could have done this?” I asked whilst kneeling down to inspect the corpse a little further.

“Wolves?” he asked.

“No. There was only one assailant.”

“Then a bear!”

“Unfortunately I don’t think so, if a bear had done this it wouldn’t have dragged the body here only to leave it, almost like it was trying to hide evidence from plain sight, it would have simply eaten him back in the clearing, besides what ever did this moved more like a man than anything else.”

“Men can’t do this!” he exclaimed.

“No, they can’t! And I don’t think that one did, all the injuries he’s sustained were made by claw strikes and a rather fatal bite to his neck.”

“So, what kind of animal did this then?

“I don’t think it was an animal either!”

“What?”

“You’ll notice that his weapon sheaths are empty, yet his long-knife and dagger are nowhere to be seen. Not only that but the fact that his missing limbs appear to have been severed rather than torn suggests that whoever or whatever did all this has the intelligence to use weapons, certainly enough to use them as a makeshift cutting tool.”

“Then what did it?”

“Ogre probably, or an Abyxian devil.”

There was an uncomfortably long period of silence as the Farmboy was processing this information, at which point I noticed that the silence wasn’t just from him but all around. The forest that should have been bustling with noises from birds, bugs and little beasts, was quieter than the grave. I searched the corpse for anything of value and possibly more clues as to the mystery of his attacker but found nothing.

“What should we do?” the Farmboy asked in a whispered tone, still with his long-knife in hand and eyes darting around the area like a deer that was spooked.

“We return to the campsite, set up camp, get a fire going and take it in turns to keep watch.” I hissed whilst keeping my eyes open for any disturbances.

“You’re mad! We should get out of here now and make for the village right away!”

The Farmboy was starting to get hysterical and I knew if I didn’t quash his nonsense now that I would have his dissent to deal with along with everything else that was going on. So, I shot up, grabbed him by the scruff of his collar, pushing him up against a tree and barked –

“Listen to me Farmboy!” I started, “whatever did this is gone! However if it did decide to return, I would prefer to face it on high ground where I could see it coming and have the protection of fire on my side rather than having it strike at my back on the road in the pitch black of night. Do you understand!”

He took several seconds to assess his options, took a deep breath and then nodded his head in agreement so I released him from my grip and continued-

“Come now, let us be quick about it. We’ve already started to lose the light. I’ll take the first watch.”

We returned to the campsite and proceeded to make a fire, unroll our bed mats for the night and settle down. I waited for the Farmboy to fall asleep, which took a little longer than desired however wasn’t unexpected due to the situation we were in, and as soon as he did fall asleep I found an isolated tree to climb and ready my bow. If whatever was out there did decide to return, I realised that the Farmboy would be the perfect bait to lure it in whilst I shot it with several arrows.

My time in the canopy was somewhat uneventful, the moon had travelled half way through the night sky without any kind of incident taking place below me, and it was now my turn to rest, however I did not fancy trading places with the Farmboy in this particular moment of time due to the circumstances at hand, but my eyelids were getting heavy and I couldn’t afford to loose him as a companion either, despite his annoyances he was actually a half decent ranger and a good fighter at that, proven by the time we were caught up in a tavern brawl not two weeks ago. So, after several minutes of weighing up my options, I decided that I would wake him from his slumber.

As I reached the ground and came to the side of the Farmboy and started to rouse him, that’s when I heard it.

A rush of quickened footsteps hurrying towards me, footfalls beating across the grassland, getting quicker and quicker, coming closer, closer and ever closer.

Whatever it was, it had seen through my trap and decided to spring one of its own. Clever bastard!

I drew my sword and pivoted upon my toes and readied myself to meet my foe.

____________________________________

Drip-drip, drip-drip, drip, drip, drip.

That was all I could hear during my stay in the dungeons. Sometimes the monotonous tones were made bearable by the distant screaming coming from the torture chamber, which was located somewhere further down into the abyss which was the depths and bowels of the castle.

I had finally been caught upon the southern stretch of the Kings Road not half a mile from the river-town of Davett. If I had reached Davett, before the Guardsmen of Leigh had caught up to me, then I would have been on a barge sailing towards the sweet, sunny, southern state of Sannarakahnd and watching all my worries drift away with the horizon, however that was not to be the case.

My long-time acquaintance and self appointed adversary, one Merrida Huntsworth, High captain of the Guardsmen of Leigh and the second child of a somewhat insignificant house, had calculated that Davett Town is where I would be heading after I had evaded her attempts of ensnaring me within Greatwood. Maybe I was becoming predictable.

I first encountered her during my time at the college of Leigh, at one of its formal annual events that it hosts in order to draw in patronage from the nobles, basically a bunch of overdressed fops fawning over themselves whilst behaving like fools. We shared a dance together, or so I’m told, then spent the majority of the evening flirtatiously fawning over one another, but that wasn’t the reason for her obsession with me, unfortunately.

The Huntsworth family had been elevated to nobility within the last couple of decades or so and only gained notoriety, in my opinion, after the fact that I killed the heir of the household, who just so happened to be the brother of Merida, at that particular event in single combat .

Of course I did not have to kill him, the riposte that won me the duel could have been followed up with a pommel strike to the face, however a stab to the gut was just as good, if not better considering it had ridded the world of yet another pompous, perfumed peacock polluting the air with his opinions.

Ever since that day she decided that she hated me, which is extremely unfair considering the fact that she hardly ever knew me. Women!

It was also that particular debacle that caused my expulsion from the college which in turn led to my adventures and daring exploits, legal or otherwise, that resulted in the common folk naming me ‘The Blue Fox’.

Drip-drip, drip-drip, drip, drip, drip.

It wasn’t the first prison cell I had stayed in, it was however my first stint within the dungeons of Redford Castle and no one had ever left these cells alive. In most cases escaping jail was as simple as a well placed bribe to the right type of guard, this was usually an old ‘dog’ who’d been on the job for far too long without any future prospects or a young ‘buck’ with debts to settle. These types were easily spotted usually by the state of their uniform. If their uniform was clean and tidy then they were either dutiful or honourable and a waste of time to even speak to, however if their uniform was scruffy, unclean or needed mending, then they possessed a lack of care or a lack of coin and both could be exploited.

The one time I actually broke out of a cell was during my time in Westguard, my face had been recognised by the wanted posters and I didn’t have any jewellery to swallow, ere go, I had no bribe. The process of breaking out of prison is more like trial and error, try a method until it fails, then try a new method, repeat this process until you have found success, then escape. I once worked a ‘job’ with a locksmith turned rogue who claimed that he was so well versed in the art of lock-picking, that there was no lock he couldn’t pick. I had seen him work his craft and he was actually extremely talented however, when you’re arrested all of your belongings are removed from your person and without his tools, he was useless, which is why he’s still in prison today.

In my case what actually worked was kicking in the half rotten wooden slats which made the wall holding up the wrought iron bars of the door to my cell. Once they broke, the door fell down and I was out. I aggressively convinced the guard, who came to investigate the noise, to go to sleep. I then reclaimed my personal effects and hid myself in the loft of a barn that was situated next-door to the jailhouse believing that it would be the last place that anyone would look for me and as it turned out, I was right. I remained there for three days and whilst the town folk were scouring the wilderness for my charming nature, I was on the next horse drawn carriage passing through with my feet up and none of them the wiser.

I don’t think that that particular tactic would work in this scenario however, the dungeon walls of Redford Castle were made of stone, damp, moist ones at that. The dungeons probably ran under the castle moat which is where that dripping was coming from.

Drip-drip, drip-drip, drip, drip, drip.

That dripping sound was driving me mad and insanity was starting to drip from me.

Drip-drip, drip-drip, drip, drip, drip.

Oh stick someone on the rack and poke them with red hot iron for the love of the gods I need to hear something else!

Drip-drip, drip-drip, drip, drip, drip.

Drip-drip, drip-drip, drip, drip, drip.

Drip-drip, drip-drip, drip, drip, drip.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of metal scratching across stone and it was the most beautiful symphonic sound to my ears, like a burst of brass instruments played by holy fair maidens answering my prayers. I could hear footfalls hitting the cobbled stone floor like the steady rhythmic beating of a drum, shuffling of clothes upon armour were as the string section and the ringing of chain-mail like chimes, I heard a stern yet effeminate voice issue a command and to me it was the sublime singing of a soloist. I marveled in the music until the conductor of this orchestral piece was stood before my bars.

In truth, the Guard captain was actually a vision. Perfectly proportioned for a female warrior, strong yet supple. She was tall, for a woman, and at the top of her height was a crimson cascade of the deepest red locks like flowing wine that was parted by a pair of the purest perfect emeralds placed upon the boldest of beautiful bronze. If I believed in the stories of the ancient elves I would have considered it possible that she were descended from them, but as it turned out I didn’t and so surmised that she wasn’t.

“Enjoying your stay with us I hope.” She sarcastically remarked whilst smirking at my current state of affairs.

“Well,” I started “The bed’s a little stiff and the view, although much improved now, is quite dull most of the time.” She sneered at my comment referring to her arrival. “Also there seems to be a leak somewhere, you might have a problem with the plumbing.”

“You think you’re so clever, don’t you!” she barked, her sense of humour seemingly disappeared into thin air. “Men like you always think you’re smarter than those around you like you’re the protagonist in some romantic novel, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“And I suppose you’re aware of what the truth is?” I sighed.

“As a matter of fact I do!” she answered smugly.

“Then enlighten me, my sweet!”

“You are a narcissist, unable to accept your own failures and take accountability of your actions made by a need to grab attention that you were never given as a child, you’ve never achieved anything sufficiently and had to scheme and cheat your way to succeed. Although things may come naturally to you, you’ve never applied yourself because that would be too much effort, instead you just flitted from one thing to the next. Given so many chances yet squandered each one! You started in the Kings kennels at the age of seven and could have achieved Royal Huntsman and kennel master at the age of fourteen which most people could only dream of but chose otherwise, then you were squire to the previous guard captain aged eleven but you were not prepared to serve as a guardsman so took your education and ran to the east and joined the Bladesingers monastery, so I’m told, and then returned and joined the college of Leigh after a decade or so after deciding that being a monk wasn’t exciting enough for you and bollocksed up bookkeeping too and have been taking advantage of others ever since. You might think that you’re some worldly adventurer but the truth is that you’re a self loathing little bastard whose angry at everything for not being born with more and so takes things he believes himself entitled to without considering the consequences and harm it may cause to those around him. Your schemes have led you here and you deserve to be here!”

I processed these biased and hateful lies for what they were and although she’d gotten the facts of my education correct, the essence of what she was saying was untrue and that annoyed me more than anything which is probably why my retort could have been a little more civil in hindsight.

“Well, Merrida my sweet, if I am such a disaster, just imagine how dreadful your brother must have been, considering how I bested him. What was his name again?”

She didn’t reply with any words, just a silent glare holding back tears before turning on the spot and marching off the way she came before hearing the metal scraping stone again as the dungeon door was slammed. Bugger! I had enjoyed her company and now I had to return once again to listening to the monotonous sounds of –

Drip-drip, drip-drip, drip, drip, drip.

Although I only had to suffer this torment for an hour or so due to receiving another visitor, though not as appealing to look at as my previous guest he was a better conversationalist.

“So you’re the notorious Blue Fox!” scoffed a somewhat older fellow with a voice like a bullfrog. He had wiry greying hair and a forked beard, leathery skin and the smallest pinpricks for eyes all adorned in black cloth, leather and chainmail covered in dirt from collar to bootstraps. “You’re the famously elegant, master swordsman who bested Muglurk the Mad!”

“Granted you’re not seeing me at my best!” I looked him up and down and realised that I was speaking to one of the Whitewood Rangers by the black tabard which bore a sigil of a white tree. “You seem to know who I am but you haven’t introduced yourself.”

“Elegant indeed,” he scoffed “my name is Trevor Deaumonte, I am the commander of the Whitewood Rangers. We are-“

“A motley crew defending the good people of Leigh from the beasts and bandits of the wilderness.” I mockingly replied, “I know what your order is and knight errant you are not! I swear the majority of you were probably the bandits you’re now sworn to fight!”

“You’re going to look down your nose at me?” he responded quicker than a pugilists punch, “You! A common criminal think you’re better than me! “

“Common! You knew who I was without an introduction. I am the notorious Blue Fox!”

“You were the Blue Fox! But now you ain’t shit!” he paused, no doubt to let that fact sink in “And I, well, I’m your only ticket out of your current predicament! So you might want to be a little more courteous with your words towards me or accept the fact that this, charming place, is your home now. That dripping sound must be driving you mad, I’ve only been here a couple of minutes and it’s already started to piss me off.”

For the first time in my life I didn’t have anything clever to say.

“That’s what I thought.” He knelt down to meet my eye level and continued after a brief moment of silence. “Now I won’t mix words, I’m looking to recruit you into the service of the Rangers and it’s either that, or this. And I don’t care who your father is, if you do dessert, you’ll die! But who knows, you might finally find what you were looking for after all this time.”

“What was I looking for?” I asked.

“Somewhere to belong.” He replied.

I nodded and he stood back up, brushed himself off and said “I’ll sort out your release, it might take an hour or so but it’ll happen.”

Before he walked off, my voice burst out with “My sword!”

“What about it?” he asked in a matter of fact tone.

“It’s a Bladesingers sword, that bitch can’t have it!”

“She bested you did she not?”

“I was arrested by twenty Guardsmen with crossbows. There was no combat.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” After he spoke he nodded to me and left the same way Merida had. The sound of metal scraping against stone informed me that he’d left the dungeons and I was alone in the silence.

Drip-drip, drip-drip, drip, drip, drip.

Well not complete silence.

____________________________________________________

The Farmboy was taking far to long to awaken and now whatever monstrosity had murdered the big burly bastard of a ranger was rushing towards my back.

“Wake up you bastard!” I yelled at the sleeping idiot, “I’m not dying on the account of your lazy arse! Now wake up!”

He started to stir but the footfalls were getting closer, closer and ever closer. I would have to face my foe alone. I placed one of my hands upon the hilt of my sword and the other upon it’s scabbard, drew its grained silver-blue blade out of the darkness of its solitary confinement and into the glistening glimmer of the moonlight, the swords edge cutting through the air with a song like a crystal chime in the wind. As the Bladesingers sword arced through the night sky I followed its momentum and danced to the song it sang with a pivot of my body followed by a lunge and then a pirouette, the sword my partner in the dance, we moved as one.

The heard of deer that had been cantering past us had suddenly brought themselves to a stop in order to watch my performance, assess what I had done and then proceed to continue on they’re journey. Embarrassed I sheathed my weapon and gave a sigh of relief that I wasn’t having to fight some nightmarish monstrosity, at least not tonight.

“What’s happened! What is it?” the Farmboy was finally awake, well half awake half asleep, also half naked and wielding his Rangers long-knife. “I heard something what is it?” he asked.

“It’s your turn to take watch, I’m going to sleep.” I replied.

The Farmboy mumbled something indicating that he understood as I lay down upon my bedroll and let the warm dark embrace of sleep take me.

Mornings always come around sooner than you expect them to and you’re never quite prepared for them regardless of how much preparation you made the night before. But as I awoke with the sun’s first light and made myself ready to travel, after sharing some rations of crisp and crumbly oat cakes with the Farmboy I decided that I needed one last examination of the corpse in the forest to see if I had missed anything. Though reluctant the Farmboy agreed that it would be wise to check on his old tutor one more time, however, when we reached the spot where the corpse had been it was no longer there, just a trail leading deeper into the forest from where it had been dragged.

There was a moment of silence between us as we scoured the area with our eyes as both of us drew our long-knives from their sheaths.

“What do you think we should do?” he whispered to me.

“I think we need to get to Peatersbridge as fast as we can! Whatever is out there is quite obviously aware of us and we should get somewhere else, preferably someplace where we have numbers on our side and walls to rest behind.”

The Farmboy nodded in agreement and we cautiously made our way out of the woods when I caught a glimpse of a sudden burst of movement from behind the trees and a momentary flash of red coupled with the sound of brushing leaves and snapping twigs.

“It’s here!” I shouted to the Farmboy in a whisper, “move!”

Like bolts released from a bow we darted out of the forest and ran at least thirty paces to turn upon our pursuer, I sheathed my long-knife and drew my whitewood bow notching an arrow on the string, readying my shot whilst the Farmboy drew his axe and raised it for a throw.

For five to ten minutes we waited for Hell itself to burst out from the treeline. It did not. In fact nothing did. We cautiously lowered our weapons and waited another couple of minutes for anything to happen, nothing did. Puzzled we looked at each other and shrugged then returned to our journey towards Peatersbridge.

“Out of curiosity,” the Farmboy started, “Why didn’t you draw that fancy sword of yours?”

“You try swinging a sword amongst the trees and you’ll soon realise why the issued melee weapon for all Whitewood Rangers is a long-knife. Why didn’t you reach for your bow when we gained our distance?”

“I’m from Westguard,” he replied, “every boy in Westguard is able to throw axes from the age of seven. I’m a better shot with an axe than a bow any day!”

“You’re from Westguard?” I was somewhat surprised I didn’t recognise the accent. “I’ve been to Westguard once before!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! It was quite a while ago mind you, I didn’t stay there too long though, is there anything of notice there?”

“Not really, mind you, I had a run in with the ‘Blue Fox’ couple years back.”

“You don’t say?” I replied in a queried tone.

“Aye,” he responded “I was a kid at the time and heard he’d escaped the jailhouse so I decided to get the best view of the town, which was the barn loft next door, but I caught him sleeping there amongst the hay-bales and decided tell the sheriff that I saw him running into the wilderness instead, it was like I was a member of the blue fox gang.”

“How did you know that it was him?” I asked.

“I studied those wanted posters night and day, I could never forget his face.”

We stared each other down intensely knowing the truth of one another but chose not to confirm it with words.

“Also, his blue cloak was a bit of a give away.”

“What’s your name Farmboy?” I asked after a minute or so of silent reflection and assessment.

“It’s Sam.” He replied with a squeak, like his voice was breaking from puberty all over again.

“Well Sam,” I said, “I think you and I are going to get along just fine.”

Sam and I started to make our way to Peatersbridge, if we made good time we’d reach our destination before days end, although I still kept my eye on the path behind us keeping a wary watch of the situation making sure that whatever was stalking us didn’t try and surprise us on the road.