A fourth smell intruded on the others. It clung to the breeze like a plague, filthy and rank. It was piss and dung, mould and the stink of wet canine fur. Once off the road, their spoor was not hard to find. It wasn’t as if they were trying to conceal their tracks.
A talisman hung around Furgil’s neck. It carried the rune of Valaya and he beseeched for her protection as he entered the wooded glade. The deep forest triggered a sense of disquiet in the ranger. East of Karak Norn was the Whispering Wood, the Fey Forest. He had never entered that place, nor would he unless his life or that of an ally depended on it, but he had seen what was bred within its arboreal borders. Such a beast now adorned Furgil’s wall, a many-antlered creature with too many eyes and reeking of musk, fever sweat clinging to its hide like a second skin…
It was no fell beast the ranger now tracked, though. The snuffling of canine muzzles and the shrieking, clipped speech of greenskins were proof of that. Nor were these the watchers he had felt earlier, for they were much subtler creatures.
The rest of his rangers had disbanded across the hills, searching for the watchers too. Furgil was alone.
He sneered, ‘Grobi…’ when he saw what was waiting for him in the wood.
Three greenskins and their mounts, mangy malnourished wolves, had dragged something off the road and were now worrying at it with tooth and claw.
Silently, Furgil unslung his crossbow and released the studs that looped his hand axes to his belt.
He didn’t kill the creatures straight away, but waited to ensure there were no scouts or any lagging behind. Only when he was certain he had all of his prey in his sight, did he bring the crossbow up to his eye and shoot.
A bolt through the head killed the goblin instantly. It collapsed off the back of its wolf, much to the amusement of its fellows who thought it was drunk. When they realised it was dead, they looked up from their feast and began to chatter nervously, drawing crude blades and cudgels. By then, Furgil had loaded another bolt and sent a second rider to meet the first. This time the bolt tore out the goblin’s throat and it died slowly but in agony.
A third bolt – and by now Furgil had given away his hiding place – killed a wolf. Its death howl sent a shrill of fear through its brethren, who reacted by snarling at the dwarf.
A flung hand axe killed a second wolf, as it sprang at the ranger without its rider.
The last died when his second thrown axe caved in its flank and sent spears of shattered ribcage into its soft organs.
Rider and mount parted in a fury of curses and flailing weapons. More or less unscathed, the goblin got to its feet, jabbing at the dwarf belligerently with its sword. When it realised its cousins were dead and so too their wolves, it shrieked and fled.
Furgil didn’t run after it. Calmly, he slipped a bolt into his crossbow and drew a bead on the goblin’s back. Obscured through thick woodland, scampering erratically and at pace. He counted the yards in his head. Nigh on two hundred by the time he had the stock to his cheek and sighted down the end of the bolt.
A difficult shot for most dwarfs.
Not for Furgil. Even the Eagle Watch was in awe of the ranger’s skill with a crossbow.
The goblin pitched forwards moments later, the barbed tip of a quarrel sticking out of its eye.
With all the prey dead, Furgil recovered his weapons and went over to see what they’d been gnawing on. He left the quarrel he used to kill the last goblin, resigned to picking it up later in favour of examining whatever carrion had nourished the wolf pack.
The meat was badly mauled, but he caught scraps of tunic, a piece of bent-out-of-shape mail and even a broken helm. Judging by the chewed-up boots, the amount of ragged limbs, he estimated three bodies. Snagged between the wolves’ jaws was some ruddy and blood-soaked hair. In the slack mouth of another, tough and leathern flesh.
Kneeling by one of the corpses, a scowl crawled across the ranger’s face. His fist clenched of its own volition.
They were once dwarfs.
Furgil was picking through the bodies, searching for talismans, rings or other icons that would identify the dead, when the crack of kindling behind him made his heart quicken. Cursing himself for a fool, his hand got as far as the crossbow’s stock when he felt the press of cold steel at his neck.
‘Twitch and this dirk will fill your flesh up to the hilt,’ uttered a deep voice in the ranger’s ear.
A smile creased Furgil’s lips as he recognised the speaker.
‘You’ve spent too long in the mountain, brother,’ said the voice again, as the blade was lifted from Furgil’s neck. ‘It’s made you rusty.’
‘Has it?’ Furgil turned around and looked down at the throwing axe in his other hand, poised at the ambusher’s crotch.
Rundin smiled broadly, revealing two rows of thick teeth like a rank of locked shields.
‘But I have more friends than you do,’ he said, sheathing his dirk as four hill dwarfs emerged out of the forest.
Furgil lowered his axe. ‘Never did like the deep wood,’ he said, and made Rundin laugh.
‘That is true enough. Up you get,’ he said, clasping the ranger’s forearm in the warrior’s grip and heaving him to his feet.
The two embraced at once, clapping one another on the back and shoulder like the old friends they were.
Rundin was a slab of a dwarf, broad and muscular like a bear but also lean enough that he had a light, almost lupine, gait. Tanned skin spoke of days
