We Weary Nine

WE WEARY NINE

Prologue: The Hunter

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. There are now. And one of them is yours.

He ducked under a thick overhang as fire crept up behind him, the beast’s great belch warming his shirtless, mud-covered back and forcing him to take another angle. Fast and practiced, the hunter whirled on his heels, then darted sideways. The ground there sloped up, more advantageous against any foe, even one who owned the sky.

The dragon wheeled in the air just beyond him, so close he could feel it conducting the wind with its colossal wings, could feel the banging of its enormous heart sending tremors through the ground. The same tremors struck fear into the hearts of lesser men, men born different than he, but they filled the hunter with purpose, with courage, and with joy.

He remembered his grandmother’s words. And he delighted in them.

We Nine, we Ragged Nine, repurpose the ruin of men. We turn their armies’ blades with scale and drown their scheming leaders in lakes of fire. From the ashes of their wickedness, they may build again. But they will not forget their manners, and they will not forget their place. For it is we who breed their destruction. And it is we who decide their fate.

Those words echoed even now, as his muscled legs burned from exertion and his boots chewed up charred earth under each rapid footfall. Impossible heat chased him, carried in the belly of nature’s most perfect predator. It was concealed behind thick black scales, protected by razored claws and teeth as long as a man is tall.

Death, peerless and inevitable, rode the winds of carnage in pursuit of its prey.

The hunter continued his sprint up the slope, the vegetation around him thinning the higher he climbed. In one hand, he clutched a bow, a makeshift thing of wych elm and stag tendon. In the other, a single arrow with a brutal notched tip and feathered fletchings. On his hip rested a small, serrated dagger. It was a specialized, primitive way of hunting. The ancient way of hunting.

The dragon’s way of hunting.

A snarling, crashing, roaring sound came from just below him, so he chanced a look down as he continued to run. Now just a hulking blur thundering through the greenwood forest, his prey was a giant Ussuri brown bear. It fled not from him, but from the giant shadow in the sky. The dragon was getting closer again, but the hunter still didn’t have a shot.

Thirty paces from him, the slope came to an abrupt end, dropping off a vertical cliff face high above the bear. His aim would have to be perfect.

He leapt off the edge of the cliff, nocking his arrow and pulling back on the string as he turned his body sideways and took the bear into his sights. Focused, he drifted through the wind, time kept slowly by the metronome of the dragon’s heart.

It beat in unison with his.

The hunter found the point on the bear’s chest just above its shoulder, then he gave the animal space to run. Knowing his aim was true, he released his arrow just as the massive, hardened claws closed around his body in midair, stopping his freefall.

In the fist of a silent black dragon, the hunter floated safely to the ground. His only arrow was spent and the hard work of trailing the dying bear was done for him by the magnificent creature’s nose.

The dragon released him gently into a small patch of forest. Only her legs dipped beneath the green, and like leathered cyclones, her broad wings beat back the treetops when she returned to the blue above them. She was far too big to accompany him into the woodland.

Practiced, he rolled easily from her fingers onto the forest floor and unsheathed his dagger. In front of him, under the canopy of a tree, the Ussuri brown bear sighed its final, weary breath.

Grandson, you are both cursed and blessed. Cursed, you are the hunter of men and you are one of Nine. Blessed, she is yours and you are hers. Are you ready?

The hunter padded over to the downed animal, his footsteps silent. Then he kneeled and nodded in gratitude.

“Thank you for your life, great bear,” he whispered as he stroked its thick, bloodied fur across the red wound his arrow made. “And thank you for your gifts. You will clothe my family, feed my family, and spill my enemies’ blood.”

The hunter shut his eyes tight, so when they disappeared behind their lids, he became a muscled statue of mud, his concealed skin blending with the bear and the earth and the trees. Then he sniffed the air for his true prey, much deadlier even than the mighty, slain animal beneath him.

Five men, their scents muddled yet distinct, closed on him through the forest. Before he heard them, he smelled the sweat from under their armor, the stink of their unwashed asses made wet from the heat of the Valley, and their fear which soured it all.

Five men.

The hunter opened his eyes and took one of the bear’s huge paws into his lap. One by one, he cut the claws from the Ussuri. The first was as long as his palm and finger together, each one after that longer than the last. Sharp and slicing, strong and durable, curved and pointed, they were wicked spikes of war.

Five claws.

Five men.

It was a specialized, primitive way of hunting. The ancient way of hunting. The dragon’s way of hunting.

He sheathed his dagger and took the smallest bear claw into his right hand, transferring the other four into his left. Then he stood, still caked head to toe in mud, and put his back to a nearby tree.

The hunter listened as the footsteps of five warriors came ever closer. He could hear their leathers shifting now, could feel their uneasiness, and could sense their terror. For above them, the silent black dragon circled.

Which meant the hunter of men was nearby.

You are the Ragged Nine: Vanguard. Naturalist. Speaker. Cook. Bard. Treasurer. Physician. General. And there is you, Grandson.

You, Hunter.

He closed his eyes as the first two invaders passed by him unaware. They moved in a reverse pentagon formation, their two bowmen next to each other in front, and trailed on either side by spear carriers. The hunter waited for the fifth man, their leader, who followed behind, in the position best for issuing commands. It was necessary that his death was quickest.

When the group’s leader passed by the tree, the hunter stepped behind him and kicked out the back of his legs, slinging his left arm around his neck. He drove the first bear claw into the man’s ear, using a smack from his palm to seed it deep within his skull. By the time his prey thudded into the dirt, it was dead, and the mud-covered hunter had disappeared behind another tree.

Four invaders turned around simultaneously, their leader’s life stolen in silence and his killer nowhere in sight. The hunter shifted another Ussuri claw into his right hand.

The group began clicking and hissing at each other between worried grunts as they paced slowly back towards their fallen comrade. They spoke an exotic language unfamiliar to the hunter, but still he listened. And when the trembling hand of a spearman came within three paces of his position, he sprang from behind the tree.

The hunter made no sound as he closed the distance between himself and the invader. Save ferocity, he wore no emotion on his face and even when an arrow swooshed past his ear, lifting the hair from his shoulders, he never blinked. Backhanded, he pierced the man’s side three times, working his way up with each grisly penetration.

Liver. Lung. Neck.

With the final stab, he dragged the giant claw sideways and unsealed the warrior’s fleshy gullet, ducking under the spray of blood and sliding forward. His momentum carried him two spear lengths away from the bowman who had already fired once. Hands shaking, the archer struggled to nock his bow for another shot, and the hunter leapt into the air.

He maneuvered a third claw into his right hand, then plunged it down into his enemy’s left eye. Falling on top of him, the hunter pushed the claw in as deep as it would go. It was slow to travel, the matter behind the man’s eye thick. His quarry beneath him was still screaming, clawing weakly at the powerful predator upon him, when the hunter looked up. The other spearman charged towards him, his weapon lowered and rage etched across his face.

And there is you, Grandson.

You, Hunter.

A crash tore through the treetops and two behemoth, scaled legs slammed into the earth, one cracking a tree in half and the other flattening the charging warrior. Claws punched into dirt and bone and bark, then they were gone as quickly as they appeared, returned to the sky. Her speed and size, as well as her precision, were an impossibility to anyone but the hunter.

Two Ussuri claws remained in his hand, but only one would be necessary now. He glanced down at the squirming, struggling archer still pinned beneath him, then ended his suffering. The claw slid easily through leather armor and skin, until it punctured heart. The hunter ripped it free to hasten the rate of the bleed, then set it gently down on the man’s chest and let him die.

He regarded the final archer, just ten paces from him, whose terrified eyes traveled from bleeding body to bleeding body to ruined mound of bone and flesh within the imprint of a dragon’s foot.

One claw.

One man.

The invader and the hunter moved at the same time, one within an uncanny aura of predation and the other within the hapless trappings of fear.

Another arrow, tainted by inexperience and panic, sailed past him. The hunter reached his target. He drove the final bear claw up through the bottom of his enemy’s mouth. They locked eyes, the hunter taller, leaner, and stronger than the archer, who choked and gurgled on his own blood, steadying himself impulsively on his killer’s shoulders.

The hunter studied his face as he died, searching for any sign of expertise that might justify an incursion into the Valley. Surely, these men had to know what they might meet when entering the territory of the Ragged Nine. Today, they faced only the hunter, and even with a hundred more men behind them, every last one of them would have met their end.

The archer slumped against him and fell to the ground, where the hunter flipped him over and began his examination. He worked his way slowly down from the man’s head, tucking his fingers into the crevices of his leather armor and searching for any hidden parchment or weapons. When he reached his belt, he paused when his fingers brushed over a small, metal flask.

The hunter took it into his hands and uncorked it, watching a white and green vapor rise from the opening. Carefully, he splashed a small amount on the back of the archer’s hand. Some foul form of acid, it chewed immediately through the leather glove and then into flesh and bone, opening a festering, strawberry web of skin.

The acid bubbled and spread like liquid fire in the dead man’s cotton veins. Even without a beating heart to carry it, the substance flowed and burned and feasted on his network of blood. The hunter grimaced as the acid melted the man from the inside out, deflating him within an ugly suit of skin and leather. Deep red, tainted blood leaked from his ears and nose and mouth, carrying flecks of rendered organs with it.

The hunter glanced down at the flask in his hand, then his eyes traveled to the archer’s quiver, now lying in the dirt a sword’s length away. He walked to it and removed a single arrow, inspecting the broadhead and determining it was some unremarkable metal. Carefully, he poured a few more drops from the flask onto it.

Opposite of how it behaved on leather and flesh, the acid enveloped the metal and bonded to it, turning the silver of the metal to a pale green but keeping the arrow entirely intact. Continuing his experiment, the hunter pressed the coated broadhead to the dead archer’s cheek. A sizzling, popping noise came before it caved inwards, acid folding the cheekbone easily as children break apart tree bark in their hands.

These invaders possessed a potent weapon. Even still, they must have known these five stood no chance of success against the hunter of men. And it didn’t seem they had covered their weapons before facing him. So why had they even tried?

The hunter’s musings were interrupted when a terrible shriek of pain blared from the sky and the answers to his questions arrived.

These five men were bait. And the hunter of men had taken it.

Harder than a mailed fist, panic struck him as the dragon’s cry rang out and the wind above the trees shifted. A shrill whistle built from above and the hunter began to run. Like a winged comet, his once proud, unassailable black dragon plummeted to the ground.

When it crashed through the treeline in the distance, the hunter remembered his grandmother’s words, no longer a history lesson, but a cautionary tale.

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.